New Thought  

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The New Thought movement (also Higher Thought) is a spiritual movement which coalesced in the United States in the early 19th century. New Thought was preceded by "ancient thought", accumulated wisdom and philosophy from a variety of origins, such as Ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, Taoist, Vedic, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures and their related belief systems, primarily regarding the interaction between thought, belief, consciousness in the human mind, and the effects of these within and beyond the human mind. Though no direct line of transmission is traceable, many adherents to New Thought in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed to be direct descendants from those systems.

Although there have been many leaders and various offshoots of the New Thought philosophy, the origins of New Thought have often been traced back to Phineas Quimby, or even as far back as Franz Mesmer. The contemporary New Thought movement is a loosely allied group of religious denominations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of beliefs concerning metaphysics, positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization, and personal power.

New Thought holds that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect. Although New Thought is neither monolithic nor doctrinaire, in general, modern-day adherents of New Thought share some core beliefs:

1. God or Infinite Intelligence is "supreme, universal, and everlasting";
2. divinity dwells within each person, that all people are spiritual beings;
3. "the highest spiritual principle [is] loving one another unconditionally... and teaching and healing one another"; and
4. "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living".

William James used the term "New Thought" as synonymous with the "Mind cure movement", in which he included many sects with diverse origins, such as idealism and Hinduism.

Overview

William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), described New Thought as follows:

[F]or the sake of having a brief designation, I will give the title of the "Mind-cure movement." There are various sects of this "New Thought," to use another of the names by which it calls itself; but their agreements are so profound that their differences may be neglected for my present purpose, and I will treat the movement, without apology, as if it were a simple thing.

It is an optimistic scheme of life, with both a speculative and a practical side. In its gradual development during the last quarter of a century, it has taken up into itself a number of contributory elements, and it must now be reckoned with as a genuine religious power. It has reached the stage, for example, when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff, mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent supplied by publishers – a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until a religion has got well past its earliest insecure beginnings.

One of the doctrinal sources of Mind-cure is the four Gospels; another is Emersonianism or New England transcendentalism; another is Berkeleyan idealism; another is spiritism, with its messages of "law" and "progress" and "development"; another the optimistic popular science evolutionism of which I have recently spoken; and, finally, Hinduism has contributed a strain. But the most characteristic feature of the mind-cure movement is an inspiration much more direct. The leaders in this faith have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes as such, in the conquering efficacy of courage, hope, and trust, and a correlative contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously precautionary states of mind. Their belief has in a general way been corroborated by the practical experience of their disciples; and this experience forms to-day a mass imposing in amount.

Founding figures

Before anyone practiced New Thought as a set of beliefs there were a few influential figures whose teaching later contributed to the movement. The founder of the 18th century New Church, Emanuel Swedenborg, extended clear influence on many authors' New Thought writings on the Bible. Ralph Waldo Emerson was also influential, as his philosophical movement of transcendentalism is incorporated throughout New Thought. Franz Mesmer's work on hypnosis drove the work of Phineas Quimby, who was influenced in part by hearing a lecture by Charles Poyen.

Phineas P. Quimby is widely recognized as the founder of the New Thought movement. Born in Lebanon, New Hampshire but raised in Belfast, Maine, Quimby learned about the power of the mind to heal through hypnosis when he observed Charles Poyen's work.About 1840, Quimby began to practice hypnotism, or mesmerism as it was called. Through this practice and further study, he developed the view that illness is a matter of the mind. He opened an office for mental healing in Portland in 1859.

Calvinistic Baptist ministerial candidate Julius Dresser and his future wife Annetta Seabury Dresser came from Waterville, Maine to be healed by Quimby in 1860. They were healed in a short time. In 1882, Dresser and Annetta (his wife by then) began promoting what they called the "Quimby System of Mental Treatment of Diseases" in Boston. Their son Horatio figures importantly as New Thought's first historian. Horatio, a popular lecturer, edited The Quimby Manuscripts, which Quimby wrote between 1846 and 1865.

In 1862 Mary Baker Eddy, originally a Congregational Church member, came to Quimby hoping to be healed from lifelong ill-health. In later years Eddy went on to found Christian Science. Because of this, while not seen as a New Thought denomination, Christian Science is largely regarded by New Thought followers to be heavily driven by New Thought beliefs. Christian Scientists disagree, frequently stating that Eddy was not influenced by Quimby. In 1875 Eddy published Science and Health, thus establishing Christian Science as a denomination.

A former Methodist minister and Swedenborgian minister named Warren Evans came to Quimby for healing in 1863. When he was healed shortly after, he started writing New Thought literature immediately. One source names him as the first person to publish a clear philosophy based on Quimby's practices. ref>Also see Albanese, Catherine (2016). The Spiritual Journals of Warren Felt Evans: from Methodism to Mind Cure, Indiana University Press.</ref>

Prentice Mulford was pivotal in the development of New Thought thinking. From his writings in the White Cross Library, including Your Forces and How to Use Them, the terms "New Thought" and the "Law of Attraction" first came to fruition.

See also

• Apotheosis
• Christian Science
• Divinization (Christian)
• Hinduism
• Idealism
• Law of attraction
• New religious movement
• Panentheism
• Prosperity theology
• Religious Science
• The Secret: 2006 film and book
• Theosophy
• Transcendentalism
• Universalism

Persons

• James Allen
• Uell Stanley Andersen
• Grace Mann Brown
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Emmet Fox
• Neville Goddard
• Charles F. Haanel
• Napoleon Hill
• Ernest Holmes
• Christian D. Larson
• Joseph Murphy
• Florence Scovel Shinn
• Martha Jean Steinberg
• Ralph Waldo Trine
• Iyanla Vanzant
• Wallace Wattles
• William Walker Atkinson
• Rhonda Byrne