New Thought

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The New Thought Movement or New Thought is comprised of a loosely allied group of denominations, organizations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of metaphysical beliefs concerning healing, life force, visualization, and personal power. The New Thought Movement developed in the United States during the late 19th century and continues to the present time. It promotes the ideas that God is all powerful and ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human self-hood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, all sickness originates in the mind, and 'right thinking' has a healing effect.

History

19th century origins

The earliest identifiable proponent of New Thought was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby[1](1802-66) of Belfast, Maine, an American mental healer, student of mesmerism, and practitioner of hypnosis, who claimed he could heal by mere suggestion. Quimby developed a belief system that included the tenet that illness originated in the mind as a consequence of erroneous beliefs and that a mind open to God's wisdom could overcome any illness.

During the late 19th century the metaphysical healing practices of Quimby mingled with the "Mental Science" of Warren Felt Evans, a Swedenborgian minister [2] and the ideas of the American transcendental philosophers Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson's writings in particular were a great source of inspiration to the nascent New Thought movement.

Quimby did not support any religion or denomination and he eschewed hierarchical organizations and thus, in the wake of his teachings, the New Thought Movement was never subjected to a centralized authority. By the 1890s, many organizations were calling themselves "New Thought", but due to the absence of centralization, they presented a multiplicity of diverse and sometimes contradictory ideas. Among the concepts found in New Thought in its beginning expressed of a myriad of pantheistic, idealistic, Spiritualistic, kabbalistic, Theosophical, mystical, occult, orientalist traditions, as well as a strong and pervasive Christian influence.

The major denominations that emerged from the New Thought Movement included the Unity Church, Religious Science, and Divine Science. Some branches of the movement resembled the mystical doctrines of Platonism[3]; others self-described as a form of Practical Christianity or embraced Asian philosophies (especially Hinduism). The Pacific Coast Metaphysical Bureau (later known as the Home of Truth denomination), which was founded in the 1880s by the sisters Annie and Harriet Rix, was conceived from the start as an interfaith organization that gave equal emphasis to Christianity and Hinduism.

Some groups promoted 19th century semi-scientific theories such as animal magnetism, others taught the cultivation of memory or the affirmation and self-help techniques of Emile Coue. Some advocated meditation and quietism, while others used the positivism of New Thought as a springboard for teaching students about what they called the "law of attraction" or how to develop personal and financial success and courage. Some advocated a vegetarian diet; others taught the importance of will power and directed thought-force. Some focussed attention on metaphysical healing and affirmative prayer; others encouraged the development of the gift of divination and seership through crystal gazing.

Despite the disparate trends named above, the New Thought Movement of the late 19th and early 20th century was held together by the dissemination of its underlying ideas through a number of national magazines, courses of study offered in book form, and via membership in New Thought organizations and denominational churches. There were also New Thought retreat centers and New Thought lecture bureaus, and by 1914, an International New Thought Alliance comprised of individuals and groups who shared a common interest in the movement. [1]

By the end of the 19th century, the chief tenets of New Thought had become stabilized: From its initial emphasis on the healing of disease, New Thought had developed into an intensely individualistic and optimistic philosophy of life and conduct.

20th century diversity

The early 20th century was perhaps the high point for New Thought in terms of church membership, magazine circulation, book sales, and lecture attendance.

From 1900 through the 1920s, New Thought were popular in all regions of the United States, and spread to other nations as well. New Thought churches and centers began to form, as did New Thought clubs and other organizations. It was during this period that many classics of New Thought movement were published, including the financial success and will-training books of Wallace Wattles, Frank Channing Haddock, and Thomas Troward. [2]

In 1914, the International New Thought Alliance was formed, encompassing many smaller groups around the world. The alliance is held together by one central teaching: that people, through the constructive use of their minds, can attain freedom, power, health, prosperity, and all good, molding their bodies as well as the circumstances of their lives. The 1915 INTA conference, held in conjunction with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition -- a world's fair that took place in San Francisco -- featured New Thought speakers from far and wide. The PPIE organizers were so favorably impressed by the INTA convention that they declared a special "New Thought Day" at the fair and struck a commemorative bronze medal for the occasion, which was presenting to the INTA delegates, led by Annie Rix Militz. [3]

Elizabeth Towne, Orison Swett Marden, William Walker Atkinson, and Ralph Waldo Trine contributed to the doctrines associated with the INTA movement. Towne and Atkinson both edited influential New Thought Magazines (The Nautilus, New Thought, and Advanced Thought), and Trine’s book In Tune with the Infinite (1897) provided a religious underpinning to what had earlier been a movement focussed on heath and healing.

From the denominational wing of the New Thought movement emerged several organizations that are active today, including Religious Science founded by Ernest Holmes, Divine Science founded by Malinda Cramer and the Brooks sisters, Home of Truth, and Unity. The largest of the New Thought denominations is the Unity Church founded by Charles Fillmore and Myrtle Fillmore which claims a membership of more than two million people worldwide.

The economic Great Depression of the 1930s, and the aging and deaths of many of the movement's founders during the 1930s through the 1940s, ushered in a slow decline in memberships among philosophical and non-denominational New Thought groups. One of the oldest of the New Thought publications, Elizabeth Towne's Nautilus magazine, which had been founded in 1898, ended its run in 1953, when Towne declared herself too old to continue publishing it. But philosophical New Thought did not die out, and it continues to be practiced by adherents throughout the United States to this day.

Meanwhile, Ernest Holmes, who in October 1927 had opened the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy in October 1927, found himself with more study groups than he had anticipated. He had not intended to create a church, but when adherents asked for the Institute and School to expand to a church organization in the late 1950s, he agreed to do so, and thus the denominational era of Religious Science came about.

Due to the variety teachings that co-exist under the New Thought umbrella, New Thought adherents are not always recognized as such by the general public. Rev. Della Reese, a singer and actor who starred in the TV series Touched by an Angel from 1994 through 2003, is a New Thought minister leading the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles. Author Louise Hay was trained as a Religious Science practitioner.

21st century and beyond

In 1906, William Walker Atkinson, the editor of New Thought magazine, wrote and published a book called Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World. The principles set forth in this work are associated with the thinking behind the 2006 hit movie, The Secret. According to Rhonda Byrne, who created The Secret, she was also largely inspired by the New Thought author Wallace Wattles who published a book called The Science of Getting Rich in 1910. Furthermore, in the film's opening sequence there is a quick-cut image of the title page of one of Elizabeth Towne's books, The Life Force and How to Use it.

Most of the older New Thought books, as well as many magazine articles and sermons, are now in the public domain and can be found online for free downloading. The internet has made New Thought widely available to the public, and thus New Thought beliefs and techniques continue to influence the way people think about themselves, their health, and their relationship to the material world and to the Divine.

Belief systems

Evolution of thought

New Thought emphasizes the idea of growing or developing thought. The word New stresses the movement's interest in what is innovative and progressive. New Thought practitioners hold that as ideas form and spread, they become part of the fabric of human consciousness and human thought is transformed; adherents accept and even embrace this endless transformation, while simultaneously acknowledging the thread of history and the unfoldment of creative thought.

A central teaching of New Thought is that as thought evolves and unfolds, thinking itself creates one's experience of the world. In line with its Philosophical Idealism, New Thought professes the primacy of mind in relation to the experience of the physical world, and places great emphasis on techniques such as positive thinking, affirmations, meditation, and affirmative prayer. Among and New Thought adherents, these techniques are typically taught in the form of books or courses; among the denominations they are transmitted within the congregation, with supplementary printed materials made available if desired.

New Thought denomitional teaching asserts some distinction from traditional religious movements in that the adherent's personal experience and understanding of God, Presence, or Truth is expected to evolve during the course of his or her life, and not remain static. Life is seen to consist of evolving beings, capable of change physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Adherents also generally believe that as humankind gains greater understanding of the world, New Thought itself will evolve to assimilate new knowledge. Alan Anderson and Deb Whitehouse have described New Thought as a "process" in which each individual and even the New Thought Movement itself is "new every moment." Thomas McFaul has hypothesized "continuous revelation," with new insights being received by individuals continuously over time. Jean Houston has spoken of the "possible human," or what we are capable of becoming.

Presence of God

New Thought denominations are panentheistic belief systems, although many adherents consider their beliefs to be a philosophy.

New Thought holds that an immanent presence, often referred to as Mind, Universal Intelligence, Universal Presence, Life, or "God" is the primary basis of all interconnected reality, personal and transcendent. Other names for this presence found in the texts of new Thought authors are Divine Mind, Creative Intelligence, Creative Energy, and Mother-Father God. Some take literally the Christian teaching that "the kingdom of heaven is within."

Theological Inclusionism

New Thought churches often avoid dogmatic pronouncements about theological questions. They vary significantly in the degree to which they associate themselves with Christianity Hinduism, or other major world religions. Those most closely associated with Christian culture may express a belief in some form of Heaven or unity with God after death; those that have incorporated elements of Asian philosophies, teachings, and techniques may express a belief in reincarnation.

Unity is perhaps the most explicit of the New Thought denominations in identifying itself with Christianity, although it too has been influenced by non-Christian ideas.

Home of Truth, which, from its inception as the Pacific Coast Metaphysical Bureau in the 1880s, has disseminated the teachings of the Hindu teacher Swami Vivekananda, is one of the more outspokenly interfaith of New Thought denominations, stating adherence to "the principle that Truth is Truth where ever it is found and who ever is sharing it." [4]

The majority of New Thought churches display, discuss, and sell a wide variety of religious and self-help literature.

Philosophical New Thought

Because Phineas Quimby, the first identifiable proponent of New Thought healing practices, did not advocate any religion or denomination, not all New Thought adherents belong to denominational New Thought Churches or Centers.

New Thought's philosophical adherents have been instrumental in the development of a variety of self-improvement, self-empowerment, and self-help philosophies, such as those advocated by the authors Napolean Hill and Charles F. Haanel, with their emphasis on training the will for personal success. In particular, the New Thought writer and former Methodist minister Frank Channing Haddock exemplified the close links that have always existed between the New Thought and self-help movements.

One New Thought author who demonstrated the wide range of beliefs embraced by the movement was William Walker Atkinson. The editor of New Thought magazine and Advanced Thought magazine, and the author of more than 100 books, most of them written between 1900 and 1920, he covered topics as far ranging as mystical Christianity, seership, gnani yoga, hatha yoga, raja yoga, successful salesmanship, mental magnetism, mental therapeutics, health and healing, mind-reading and telepathy, life after death, reincarnation, karma, psychology, spiritual evolution, crystal gazing, the power of faith, mediumship, and memory culture, all from a solidly New Thought perspective.

Therapeutic Theories

Because New Thought grew out of the faith-healing ministry of Phineas Quimby, healing services and affirmations have been important among many New Thought groups, especially those which are organized as churches or denominations. Agreement on how such healing comes about is not a hard-and-fast tenet of New Thought theology, however. Theories vary, and with them so do healing practices.

John Bovee Dods (1795-1862), an early practitioner of New Thought, wrote several books on the theory that disease originates in the electrical impulses of the nervous system and is therefore curable by a change of belief. Later New Thought teachers, such as the early 20th century author, editor, and publisher William Walker Atkinson, delved into this theory as well. Atkinson wrote a number of books on healing and he also developed a theory of personal magnetism and success that outlined a linkage between general electromagnetic phenomena, neural processes, and mental states of being.

Divine Science, Unity and Religious Science are denominations which developed from the New Thought movement, which teach that that Infinite Intelligence or God is the sole reality, sickness is the result of the failure to realize this truth, and healing is accomplished by the affirmation of the oneness of the human race with the Infinite Intelligence or God.[4][5][6][7]

Distinguishing New Thought from other belief systems

Because New Thought embraces a wide range of small denomonations as well as a group of unaffiliated practitioners and adherents, it is often confused with other groups. In particular, because some New Thought authors wrote about Hinduism, New Thought may be conflated with the chronologically contemporary development of Theosophy, which relied heavily on orientalism for its foundation. Similarly, because one of the New Thought denominations, Religious Science -- also known as Science of Mind -- has the word science in its name, this New Though denomination, and, by extension, several others, are often confused with the similarly health-oriented religion Christian Science. And finally, because New Thought has the word "New" in its name, it has lately been mistaken for a form of New Age or Neopagan thought or belief. A brief elucidation of the differences between New Thought and each of these movements will put an end to any confusion.

New Thought / Theosophy

Because some early New Thought authors, including William Walker Atkinson and Charles F. Haanel, wrote books on yoga, Hinduism, and other allied orientalist concepts, New Thought has sometimes been mistakenly described as a more practical or down-to-earth variation on Theosophy. However, whereas Theosophy predicates individual spiritual progress on the adherent's ability to understand the wisdom teachings of an advanced group of "masters" who are guiding humanity through a reincarnational system of evolution involving seven "races" of human beings, New Thought preaches that there is a direct connection between any given individual and Godhead. Thus, historically, New Thought groups have allied themselves with politically progressive ideas such as female suffrage and human rights, in contradistinction to the more reactionary and racist politics of the similarly popular Theosophy movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

New Thought / Christian Science

Both New Thought and Christian Science do place an emphasis on direct healing of the body, but Christian Science developed in a different direction from New Thought and is not considered a New Thought denomination. Mary Baker Eddy[8], the founder of Christian Science[9], was a and patient of New Thought pioneer Phineas Quimby, but she rejected his healing methods, citing her belief that healing came from the power of the Christian God, not the mind. Emma Curtis Hopkins, another pioneer of New Thought, was at one time associated with Christian Science, but she was eventually excommunicated from that denomination. As a New Thought advocate, she came to be considered the "teacher of teachers", that is, the mentor of several key New Thought leaders, but her influence on them was theoretical rather than theological and it took place only after her departure from Christian Science.

New Thought / New Age / Neopaganism

At the close of the 20th century, New Thought churches and organizations began to be misidentified by non-adherents with the New Age movement or with Neopaganism, but in fact New Thought beliefs predate New Age thinking by nearly a century, and New Thought churches and organizations typically do not share major tenets of the New Age movement. For instance, although some New Thought authors have promoted occult techniques such as crystal gazing, Asian religious practices such as hatha yoga, and the adoption of a vegetarian diet, and some have also endorsed the concept of a bi-gendered or dual Godhead (Father-Mother God), the New Thought movement as a whole neither endorses nor condemns such New Age and Neopagan staples as shamanism, crystal healing, channeling, goddess worship, astrology, and tarot reading.

See also

References

Literature

  • Anderson, Alan and Deb Whitehouse. New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality. 2003.
  • Braden, Charles. Spirits in Rebellion.
  • Gold, August and Joel Fortinos. The Prayer Chest. Doubleday. 2007) ISBN 0-385-52349-1
  • Houston, Jean. The Possible Human. 1997.
  • Judah, J. Stillson. The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. 1967. Review by Neil Duddy.
  • McFaul, Thomas R. Religion in the Future Global Civilization printed in The Futurist magazine. September-October 2006.
  • White, Ronald M. New Thought Influences on Father Divine (Masters Thesis, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. 1980. Abstract

External links

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (February 16, 1802 – January 16, 1866), was a New England philosopher, magnetizer, mesmerist, healer, and scientist, who resided in Belfast, Maine, and had an office in Portland, Maine.

As a professional healer, he was known as "Dr.
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Faith healing is the use of supernatural or spiritual intervention to cure disease. Proponents claim their techniques or special spiritual insights can summon supernatural interventions on behalf of the ill.
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Animal magnetism (French: magnétisme animal) is also known eponymously as mesmerism after Franz Mesmer who postulated the existence of a magnetic fluid or ethereal medium as a therapeutic agent.
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Hypnosis is a trance-like state that resembles sleep but which is induced by a hypnotist whose suggestions are readily accepted by their subject. [1] Some supposed hypnotic indicators and subjective changes in mental state can be achieved without relaxation or a lengthy
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Suggestion is the name given to the psychological process by which one person may guide the thoughts, feelings or behaviour of another.

For nineteenth century writers on psychology such as William James the words "suggest" and "suggestion"
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Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is convinced of the truth or validity of a proposition or premise (argument). Belief does not necessarily confer the ability to adequately prove one's main contention to other people, who may disagree.
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Illness (sometimes referred to as ill-health) can be defined as a state of poor health.

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Swedenborgianism is the ecclesiastical organization of beliefs developed from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688 – 1772).
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Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29, 1799 - March 4, 1888) was an American teacher and writer. He is remembered for founding a short-lived and unconventional school as well as a utopian community known as "Fruitlands", and for his association with Transcendentalism.
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Religious Science, also known as Science of Mind, was founded in 1927 by Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) and is a religious movement within the New Thought movement.
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The Church of Divine Science is a religious group co-founded in the late 19th century by the ''Brooks sisters Malinda (Brooks) Cramer, Nona L. Brooks (1861-1945) and there sister Fannie James in Denver, Colorado during the dramatic growth of the New Thought Movement in the United
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