“We have a president capable of standing in the rain and saying it was a sunny day,” John Oliver recently observed on Last Week Tonight, as he called Donald Trump a “pathological liar”. But what if he isn’t lying? What if his press secretary, Sean Spicer, is correct when saying that Trump really believes that what he says is true?

It should be clear by now that Trump doesn’t subscribe to a conventional notion of truth, related to verifiable facts and an independently existing reality. For Trump, truth is subordinate to attitude, an attitude that can be modified at will. This whimsical notion comes straight from Norman Vincent Peale, an American minister and motivational speaker who was close to the Trump family, even officiating at Trump’s first marriage, with Ivana. In his 1952 bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking, Peale presents a simple and “workable philosophy” to help people live more effective and successful lives. The technique is simple: “prayerise, visualise, actualise”. By using this technique you can overcome defeat and take control over the circumstances of your life.

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Peale’s influence on Trump has been well documented, but, in light of his recent statements – “winning the most electoral college votes since Reagan” and that “thousands of people were bussed across state lines to vote” – I’ve studied Peale’s bestseller, hoping to understand Trump’s eccentric orientation to truth. And here in Peale’s book we find the moral foundation of what John Oliver calls “Trump’s lies”, or what Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s adviser, prefers to call “alternative facts”.

Trump’s alternative facts fall into two basic categories: “facts” about himself, and “facts” about other stuff.

Trump has famously exaggerated his business acumen. When the New York Times analysed 61 of Trump’s business ventures between 2002 and 2012, it was found that 40% had failed. This did not deter Trump from campaigning as a successful business leader, promising to bring the same wealth to the country as he claimed to have brought to himself. His net worth remains disputed. On his campaign website, Trump claimed his fortune to be in excess of $10bn; Forbes estimated it at $4.5bn.

If Trump says his fortune is more than twice as large as it actually is, does that mean he is lying? You might say yes. But Peale would disagree, because, if you want to be successful, you should “always picture ‘success’ no matter how badly things seem to be going”. So a little exaggeration here and there is nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it is morally endorsed. “Make a true estimate of your own ability,” Peale writes, “then raise it 10%.”

Then there are the “facts” about other stuff, such as the weather on his inauguration and the size of his audiences. Saying that the sun is shining when surrounded by people in rain ponchos may appear strange. But not to Peale, and most certainly not for Trump. If you want sun, you prayerise sun, picturise sun, actualise sun. Peale instructs us to repeat the following words 10 times a day: “If God be for me, who can be against me.” Sound familiar? After his speech, Trump said: “God looked down and he said, ‘We’re not going to let it rain on your speech.’”

Like Trump, Peale showers his audience in anecdotes, often casting himself as the hero. We hear about a woman who was able to bring back her husband by visualising him at home; a recovering alcoholic who Peale telepathically saves from a relapse; and a man who fixes his toe by asking the Lord to send it “right back to the plant”. For Peale, these stories illustrate a profound truth, first expressed by the psychiatrist Karl Menninger – “attitudes are more important than facts”. This insight, Peale continues, “is worth repeating until its truth grips you”.

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So when Trump denies climate change and refers to terrorist attacks that never took place and claims false murder rates, he isn’t really lying. He is just expressing an “attitude”, a “picture”, as it appears in his head, at that particular time, possibly after watching Fox News, Breitbart or Infowars.

There is one Peale anecdote I cannot stop thinking of. He is in a car, next to a drunk and rude man, who is “talking in an overbearing manner and generally making himself obnoxious”. Everyone in the car dislikes him. Then Peale starts to pray for the man, visualising “his better self”. Soon enough, the boorish man has changed attitude and become nice and quiet. So what a pity it is that these techniques don’t work. If they did, we could all come together in one big prayer, visualising Trump’s “better self”, helping him leave behind the rude and boorish version we currently know.