There is no need for temples; no need
for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart
is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
The Dalai
Lama
A Summary of
THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT: A LINK BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
Introduction
New Thought is a popular application of philosophical idealism, optimistic mental discipline, and the practice of the presence of God in healing and in daily living. The movement originated in 19th Century New England, and is now worldwide. New Thought includes Divine Science, Religious Science (Science of Mind), Seicho-No-Ie, Unity, and other groups. From its early writings to its current use of process philosophy, it consciously has incorporated Eastern and Western insights.
Definitions and distinctions
As used here, East primarily refers to Hindu and Buddhist thought, and West to Christian and other thought largely of European and North American origins. New Thought is to be distinguished from magic and New Age. New Thought had various designations before receiving its present name in the 1890's.
New Thought origins
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby generally is recognized as the "Father of New Thought." He transmitted his views to patients Warren Felt Evans, Mary Baker Eddy, and Julius and Annetta Dresser. Evans wrote the first books in the field. The Dressers wrote about Quimby. The most important immediately-effective propagation of applied idealism came through the teaching of former Eddy associate Emma Curtis Hopkins. Hopkins taught founders of Unity, Divine Science, and Religious Science.
New Thought around the world
There are New Thought organizations around the world, with impressive influence in the East through the Japanese New Thought group, Seicho-No-Ie, founded by Masaharu Taniguchi, who was influenced partly by Fenwicke Holmes, brother of Religious Science founder Ernest Holmes.
Traditional New Thought
Although Quimby apparently was unfamiliar with Transcendentalism, since the 1880's New Thought has recognized its similarity to Ralph Waldo Emerson's views. New Thought absorbed Hindu thought through Emerson's writings and through the influence of Swami Vivekananda at and after the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions. New Thought considered Hinduism to be essentially the same as primitive Christianity. Many New Thoughters, including about 74 percent of its leaders, believe in reincarnation, according to my recent survey.
New Thought metaphysics in its various forms combines (1) Hindu-like, world-denying pantheism (the belief that God and the material world are one and the same thing and that God is present in everything) and (2) Western, largely Christian, recognition of the reality of the world as divine creation, with matter a name for certain mental experiences.
There are differences within New Thought about the degrees to which God is personal and is one with everything. As influenced by Thomas Troward and others, New Thought embraced a belief in a pantheistic (the belief that God and the material world are one and the same thing and that God is present in everything) ultimate that is impersonal substance, although often what is intended by the term impersonal is impartial. Horatio W. Dresser, whose parents were healed by Quimby, urged New Thought to interpret oneness of life in a more conventional way, but he had little
or no success in this.
Process New Thought
The latest New Thought blending of Eastern and Western tendencies is Process New Thought. In interpreting the creative process, Process New Thought draws on the Western process philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and others; yet these philosophies partly resemble Buddhism.
Influenced by quantum physics as well as philosophy, Process New Thought:
(1) replaces the idea of enduring thing-like substance with process, understood as living energy, activity, feeling;
(2) maintains that there is only one type of reality, called mental or spiritual, but
(3) recognizes that there are many units of it.
(4) Each unit is an experience that develops for only a fraction of a second. Then it becomes a changeless part of the past, exerting influence on future experiences.
(5) Each experience co-creates itself with God by blending the influence of the past with individually-tailored divine guidance: PAST + DIVINE PROPOSAL (God's offer of perfection as expressible in that situation) + CHOICE = NEW CREATION.
(6) This pattern or law (an abstraction summarizing how reality works) is changeless, since it is a description of the essence of reality; but laws of nature are habits of interaction that may change over vast periods of time. Laws do not act. They are only descriptions. Like Buddhism, process thought believes in process rather than substance, but
(7) Process thought agrees with Christian and other Western emphasis on God as the ultimate person.
(8) In order to be fully impartial, God has to be fully personal, i.e., self-conscious, rational, and powerfully, alluringly, purposeful. God is not human, but is the infinite person; we are finite persons.
(9) God plays an essential role in creativity, which could not occur without God's offer of the best that is possible for each experience.
(10) All creating is co-creating; there was no original creation.
(11) Process New Thought's panentheism considers everything to be in God; as the INTA Declaration of Principles says, the universe is God's body.
(12) In serial selfhood, a human body is a vast collection of many-at-a-time servant-experiences that are subordinate to the one-at-a-time selves that make up one's soul (mind, spirit, whatever of oneself is not body).
A process understanding of healing
Healing is enrichment of what will be the past of future experiences. To the extent that one reduces the contrast between the past and the divine possibilities for healing, one promotes healing, whether by mental or material means. In other words, healing is facilitating an experience's accepting of God's desires for it; the less the contrast between past and perfect possible, the easier is acceptance of perfection.
New Thought's past influence and future
New Thought has influenced much of popular religion and success literature. It is a significant element in the blending of complementary influences of East and West. New Thought is, as William James called it, a "religion of healthy-mindedness." It remains open to new understandings, to new thought of any origin.
The Practice of the Presence of God for Practical Purposes
Using the title of a famous book by Brother Lawrence, New Thought is "the practice of the presence of God," but unlike conventional mysticism, which emphasizes contact or union with God for its own sake, New Thought adds to this most important side of mysticism,, the practice of the presence of God for practical purposes,. To those who object that one should not use God, New Thought replies that there is nothing but God to use, and/or that God wants us to have the best in all aspects of living, that God constantly offers this to us, and that in accepting it we are living as God wants us to live.
Culturally and organizationally, New Thought is a philosophical-spiritual-religious movement begun in the nineteenth century and continuing today. It is the outgrowth of the healing theory and practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, whose influence was spread by his former patients, the most prominent of whom were: Warren Felt Evans, who wrote the first books in what would be called New Thought; Mary Baker Eddy, who established Christian Science; and Julius and Annetta Dresser, who, with their son Horatio, spread the word about Quimby. Former Eddy associate Emma Curtis Hopkins taught her own version of healing idealism, indebted indirectly to Quimby and directly to her own explorations and to Eddy. Hopkins, the "teacher of teachers," taught founders of Divine Science, Unity, and Religious Science. These groups, along with Religious Science-influenced Seich-No-Ie, are the best-known groups in the New Thought movement.
The name New Thought was taken in the 1890s, generally replacing such names as Mind Cure and Mental Science. William James dealt with the movement in Lectures IV and V of The Varieties of Religious Experience under the name "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness." (The link to a summary of that book also leads to some other important writings.) Some studies of the New Thought movement by Charles S. Braden, Horatio W. Dresser, Stillson J. Judah, and others are given in the bibliography of the most recent survey of the field, New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality.
Created Oct. 9, 1995by Alan Anderson
