07 - History of New Thought. Podcast By cover art

07 - History of New Thought.

07 - History of New Thought.

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History of New Thought.
The history of New Thought started in the 1830s, with roots in the United States and England. As a spiritual movement with roots in metaphysical beliefs, New Thought has helped guide a variety of social changes throughout the 19th, 20th, and into the 21st centuries. Psychologist and philosopher William James labelled New Thought "the religion of healthy-mindedness" in his study on religion and science, The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Roots.
Rooted in universal science, early New Thought leaders shared a Romantic interest between metaphysics and American Christianity. In addition to New Thought, Christian Science, transcendental movement, theosophy, and other movements were born from similar interests, all in the early long nineteenth century. John Locke's definition of ideas as anything that existed in the mind that could be expressed through words;[4] and the transcendentalist belief that ideal spirituality "transcends" the physical and is realized only through individual intuition, instead of through religion.
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. J. Gordon Melton notes that while "references to P. P. Quimby, whom many see as the founder of New Thought, are almost impossible to find in the early New Thought writers, references to Emerson are numerous." 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. Dresser had started the controversy around the same time that a number of people who would become important figures in the New Thought movement were leaving Christian Science, and so even though they had not read Quimby's writings, they adopted him as a figurehead leader. After Horatio Dresser published his book on the history of the movement which repeated the claim, it was rarely challenged within New Thought.
A forme r Methodist turned 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.
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.


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