© 2012 Patrick Baumann
© 2012 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
L’Illustré, Wednesday December 14, 2011: Testimony of Joseph Stutz, The millionaire of happiness.
Some 100,000 French-speaking households received a small book in their mailbox. A gift that surprised or delighted, offered by a mysterious wealthy retiree. “L’illustré” went to meet Joseph Stutz, a funny Santa Claus.
This book gives you valuable and useful tools to free yourself from your psychological suffering and lead you towards a fulfilling life. When you read this book, you will discover how to control your stress and feel good, even if sometimes everything seems to be going wrong.
In search of his own well-being and that of his loved ones, the author has explored, throughout his life, the origins, causes and consequences of psychological discomfort, as well as possible natural antidotes. Through his experiences, observations and analyses, he affirms that discomfort and most illnesses are generated by man himself. He explains, in a simple and methodical way, how to free oneself from it and find the joy of living.
In general, Santa Claus works on December 24 and leaves his gifts in the chimney. So, obviously, when you receive in your mailbox in November a book entitled Être Bien that you never ordered, you ask yourself questions. Jehovah’s Witnesses, a guru who is going to sell you a well-being course in Pétaouchnok? You open the letter that accompanies this strange present: “Dear fellow citizen, allow me to offer you this book. It is the fruit of a lifetime of experiences, trials, observations and discoveries. I sincerely hope that its content can be beneficial to you… ” Signed: Joseph Stutz.
One hundred thousand copies of this literary UFO have been distributed to all households, 75,000 in the districts of La Côte, the rest in French-speaking Switzerland. Unheard of! So much so that we wonder at the Café du Commerce who this man is capable of spending several hundred thousand francs to buy readers. “Please do not return this book to me, or throw it away, instead offer it to someone you know”, adds the author, inviting those who found it useful to make a donation to a charity that cares for autistic children.
Intrigued, we ring the doorbell of this Patron (or should we say Messiah?). Beautiful stylish residence in Givrins. Lunar and smiling face, tanned complexion, athletic figure, this 68-year-old retired millionaire, formerly the boss of a trust company in Geneva, is visibly comfortable in his own skin. “I am not a new Christ, rest assured, my approach has nothing religious or sectarian about it. I needed to pass on to people the ingredients that have helped me live better.”
Moses brought back the ten commandments, Joseph offers seven keys to access happiness. He cured himself of a stubborn back pain due to stress by applying his recipes. Through meditation, a change of mental attitude. The idea is to question the origins and causes of the malaise, to correct what can be modified, or otherwise to accept reality and move on. Emotional detachment required.
Nothing revolutionary, the Coué method and Buddhism have already been there, but the work has the merit of being synthetic. Joseph the accountant tried to make an active/passive assessment with happiness. “That’s normal, it’s my job! I don’t claim to be a great sage; I have read a few books, of course, but unlike the Dalai Lama I live in everyday life and I know what difficult ends of the month are, economic bankruptcies. Following unfortunate stock market transactions, in the 90s, I lost all my fortune, the bailiffs were at my door. With my wife, we traveled door to door across Switzerland to sell 50,000 video cassettes. That got me back on my feet! Ever since I was little, I have been passionate about the secret of success!”
“I know what it’s like to make ends meet” Joseph Stutz
The precepts of his book, like this one, taken at random: “the importance of a problem is that which we attribute to it”, helped him to live, to raise four children, two of whom were adopted, to cope with the Alzheimer’s disease of his wife, who died in 2008. “When she woke up at night and asked me who I was, threatening to call the police, it was hard”. The portrait of this beautiful blonde woman is everywhere in the house. “Without her, I would not be who I am, he says, moved. I would not have written this book where I explain that it is in the most difficult moments that it is imperative to continue to believe in oneself, in life”. He has, he says, “duck skin”: permeable to good things, impermeable to the negative.
Isn’t it a little easier, Mr. Stutz, when you live in a vast interior of 380 m2 with a swimming pool and a breathtaking view of Lake Geneva? What would the recently laid-off worker at Bobst think? “I could lose everything tomorrow and be happy with it. I would rather live on an alpine pasture than in a studio in Renens! I’m the son of a gardener, I love nature!”
Don’t think, however, that reading the book is enough to be instantly happy. That would be too good to be true. He gets up at dawn every day to practice meditation. His credo is about love and sharing. Honestly, he nevertheless admits that his children have not always understood this notion of detachment, especially after the death of their mother, and the fact that he rebuilt his life with another. The sixty-year-old fell in love with a cause and a woman who embodies it: autism. He made available to the woman who runs the Le Cube de Verre foundation, herself the mother of an autistic child, the rent from a building he owns. And financed the acquisition of a large house in Arzier, which takes in sick children. “She taught me, as did my wife, true generosity. That of the heart. I am rich, it’s true, but in the end everyone leaves empty-handed”.
His greatest satisfaction? That no doctor or psychologist has accused him of stepping on their toes. On the contrary, if you go to the site www.livre-etre-bien.com, the abundance of praise is impressive. “Thank you for this gift that put me back on track.” “I feared the worst, a sect, a moralizing work, it was quite the opposite.” A socialist from Neuchâtel, a member of her party’s health commission, would like to have it distributed in schools. Another says that it should be reimbursed by health insurance. “We record 250 donations per day, between 5 and 400 francs, for the Glass Cube”, he says, delighted.
He is teased about the evils of the ego that he denounces in his book. Doesn’t he risk seeing his own swell more than is reasonable? Especially when he dreams of himself as a new modern-day pastor, capable of defeating the virus of negativity throughout Switzerland and “of stopping the epidemic of psychological malaise”?
Response from a gentleman who keeps this little Zen distance from the irritating questions: “I just want people to feel better!”
“Être bien”, Éditions Spirit Way. The book is no longer free today, but offered at the price of 30 Swiss francs donated to the Le Cube de verre foundation.
Patrick Baumann