"When everybody thinks alike, Everyone is likely to be wrong."

The ten words quoted above are, according to Humphrey B. Neill, a potent factor behind the economic booms and busts that blight our civilization. "The Mississippi Bubble," Hollands incredible "Tulipmania," and the New York stock market crash in 1929 are historic examples of disasters magnified and hastened by the pressure of mass opinion.

In exactly the opposite direction, in the years immediately following the close of World War II, ominous popular forecasts of business recession turned out to be wrong. What actually happened was-a business boom, not a business bust!

The reason is no mystery to anyone versed in the contrary way of thought-the practical application of the Neill Theory of Contrary Opinion. Today, this Theory-which began as one man's quest for a way to solve the puzzles of economic trends-has expanded enormously in both scope and significance.

In THE ART OF CONTRARY THINKING you will find the answer to a question increasingly asked by persons of affairs and influence: Contrary Opinion-what is it?. . .What will it do for me?

Years of observation and analysis of economic trends from the vantage point of Wall Street did not rub his Vermont heritage out of his face, or speech, or heart. Since 1828, generations of Neills have occupied their homestead in Saxtons River, Vermont. A book-lined room off the kitchen of the venerable house served Humphrey Neill as his editorial workshop, while the former harness room in the big barn housed his research library and his newspaper and bulletin files. From these sanctums he wrote his well-known Letters of Contrary Opinion.

After a decade of apprenticeship with such organizations as the Brookmire Economic Service, Humphrey Neill established himself as a business writer whose lively, human approach to a "dusty" facts-and-figures science brought him nationwide attention. His many published books include Tape Reading and Market Tactics (1931), Understanding American Business (1939), and The Inside Story of the Stock Exchange (1950).

Throughout his active business life Humphrey B. Neill observed, researched, and recorded data from which he developed the theory of Contrary Opinion.