A History of the New Thought Movement

The devotee of Christian Science and the partisans of the New Thought patterning their views after Christian Science would of course maintain that the above-quoted ideal suggestions are true now of man’s real self, and that one can cure oneself of any ill by holding to such affirmations and denying the reality of the illnesses. Mr. Rawson, as quoted above in Chapter XII, gives the gist of this method in a very clear way when he counsels a person in need to “turn in thought to God,” denying the reality of any material condition. This has been the prevailingly successful method. But the crucial question is, Does it contain the whole truth? What then becomes of material conditions? How did they originate? Why do even Christian Scientists and the partisans of the New Thought emulating them depart from the position after a while, in quest of further truth? How long can therapeutists maintain the fiction of “malicious animal magnetism” or the hypothesis of a “revelation” which has to be so strictly guarded that no member of the Christian Science church is allowed to read any books or magazines on the New Thought? If the history of the New Thought teaches anything during the past twenty-five years it is this, that the abstract principles have been dropped for the concrete till now there is a disposition to look at things as they are with eyes unafraid.

We have only to recall the state of mind our country was in before the great war to note how radically we have changed. We had theoretical lovers of peace without limit who deplored war and ignored the forces that had been so long gathering in Germany, to disrupt the world. These idealists affirmed peace and denied the possibility of war. They expected to be triumphant by virtue of their mere programs for peace. But they were greatly excelled by the most successful imitators of Christian Scientists— the Kaiser and the war-party in Germany, who, during the war, carried on the most effective psychological propagandism the world has seen: every defeat was affirmed to be a success; every threatening fact on the side of the Allies was denied; “inspired news” was given to the press to pacify the people; air-raids were indulged in for mental effect; in short, affirmation was made the victorious tool of the super-man.

What happened? Steadily the American world was shaken out of its pacifist slumbers. We were compelled to face the facts, and we did so with tremendous execution. After a certain day in 1918 it was no longer possible to keep the truth from the people in Germany. With the discovery of the truth, the Teutonic morale immediately weakened, the psychological war came to an end, and Germany went to pieces: the greatest instance of failure of mere affirmationism the world has seen.

What lessons does the war teach in this respect? That there is a stronger philosophy in the Christian faith which does not have to be bolstered up, a more true, courageous affirmation which counsels man to look straight through the facts to the end, ignoring nothing, denying nothing, but learning the great spiritual lessons of the ages. In the long run it is the truth that sets men free. As Mr. Quimby put it, “the explanation is the cure.” To explain we must look at things fairly and squarely, just as the war compelled us to look straight at the enemy and analyze the conflict down to its foundation, in the motives from which it sprang. Then to triumph we must beat the enemy at his own game, even if we have to employ his own fiendish devices. We succeed in the end because the right is on our side, because we fight with the moral law. The great lesson of the war is spiritual. It shows the true road to salvation— if we care to walk in it, the straight and narrow way of the Gospel, which many see but few find attractive, inasmuch as we do not like to face ourselves. To walk in the way is to “live the life” in its fulness, to realize that there is no short cut or royal road, however many the psychological devices by which we camouflage its scenery.

To what extent does this widespread use of applied psychology represent the New Thought? In so far as it expresses what has been called “The Victorious Faith,” the well-grounded faith that wins. Mere affirmation without truth or righteousness to support it leads to no good result. The New Thought aims to be constructive. From the days of Quimby the pioneer it has reacted against all bondages, particularly against servitude to priests and doctors. It has vigorously reacted against materialism. But it has tried to make these protests effective in behalf of the inner life. Its methods are not discounted by the fact that affirmations can be used with evil intentions, as in the case of the war-party in Germany.

In short, the New Thought is an “influence,” not an institution. Its influence has been felt on the stage, for example, in dramas which express the power of thought in contrast with the power of mere things. It has found expression in recent fiction to some extent. It has fostered the type of optimism for which America stands. It has helped in productive enterprises, in stimulating the constructive attitude. Its influence is seen in what may be called “the psychology of success,” wherever the value of expectant suggestion is seen.

It is a new point of view or consciousness. Its leaders do not try to persuade people to leave their occupations, their social surroundings, their churches; but to show them how every element in their daily life and in their environment may be bettered or uplifted if regarded in a different spirit. Its leaders call attention to that other environment with which most of us are little acquainted, that is, our inner or mental environment. They direct attention to the soul. They show the power of the spirit over circumstance, over the flesh, over adversity. Thus the clue which originally was found through a study of health and disease regarded from within, has been extended in all directions until for its devotees it has become universal.

The New Thought stands for the affirmative attitude in all things. This attitude is not new in the world. It has always been implied in successful undertakings. But the New Thought has developed and supplied its psychology, given the reasons for it. Those reasons it has expressed in terms of a direct appeal to the individual to look to himself, change his own thoughts, remedy his attitude, cease to find fault and to condemn, before looking to the world. Not all its disciples have made this change in the same way. But the fact that its methods have appealed to all classes of people is evidence of its widespread influence. What its leaders ask is that people shall judge by the best the New Thought has to offer, the best teachings which its history discloses during the fifty years since the publication of the first book on the subject.

Everything will depend in its further application and influence in the world upon the type of “science” from which its activities spring. Shall it be the science of this or that leader who has imitated Mrs. Eddy, a science more or less sharply cut off from the realities, the law, order and system of the world? Or shall it be a science, not in the speculative or assertive sense, but in accord with the larger spirit of Christianity in its original form, the spiritual science of the Christ regarded universally? If the latter, then it should pass beyond individual vagaries and fanciful interpretations. If the latter, then it need ignore nothing, need not deny anything existent in God’s universe. It may overcome all fear and look with open eye upon the world, learning the lessons of sorrow and suffering as well as those which easily inspire optimism. If the latter, then it need not be a science of the subjective alone, it need not be limited to the inner life, but may come out into the open, into the full light of the new age.

Doubtless there was a meaning in the relative isolation with which Mr. Quimby lived and worked during the twenty-five years in which he was developing the silent method, learning the influence of suggestion, the power of mental atmospheres and the other elements of our inmost attitudes. By a vigorous act of faith we may perhaps see meaning, too, in the fact that it was Mrs. Eddy’s “science,” not Mr. Evans’s books, which first caught the world and became influential. For that “science,” like the self-assertiveness of the war-party in Germany, was radical enough to arouse a dormant world. But it is not a question either of origins or of developments along the way but of the results or fruits. Mr. Quimby pointed back to Christianity, he did not take credit to himself. He saw that for hundreds of years the world had been deprived of an important portion of the gospel of Christ. Hence the teachings which have grown out of Quimby’s pioneer work have been said to be nothing less than “a new revelation of Christianity.”

This statement is surely true of the new age in which we live. The New Thought is at least one of several contributing activities, however we may interpret the new age in its fulness. We live in the social century, now. We have passed out of the subjectivism and the mere idealism of the nineteenth century. We have discovered the inner life anew. The central question is, What use shall we make of our discoveries? Shall we analyze matters to the foundation and learn the whole cause of human misery, dissatisfaction and the social unrest which is besetting the classes, acknowledging whatever is before us, seeing life whole? Shall we pass beyond all psychological devices needed to support our courage for the moment? Shall we acquire a philosophy greater than idealism and realism? Shall we pass beyond both pessimism and optimism?

Whatever else the new age asks of us, it surely demands that we shall live by what we believe, proving for ourselves, verifying the everlasting realities of religion. As an expression of the essentially practical spirit of America, the New Thought has been doing its part to direct attention to this the central consideration. Ideals and affirmations are aids along the way. Eventually we hope to arrive where the larger truth which shall be in our power will bring spiritual freedom as its great consequence. Life according to the divine law will then be the test of our spirituality. We will be doing much more than simply to strive against our errors, our sins or diseases; we will be living a life which makes for truth, righteousness and health such that it will no longer be necessary to think of their opposites. Good health should become a habit founded in a life of integrity. We ought then to be able to labor and to serve as if mankind had never by its ignorance and its waywardness brought suffering upon the world. That, in brief, is the ideal of the New Thought: to abolish suffering altogether, to bring man to his true estate as a spirit living even now in the spiritual world.

Quimby’s radical proposition was that disease was “the invention of man,” a sheer “error” in contrast with divine truth; whereas the old theology had taught that suffering was “an infliction of wise providence” to be patiently endured. Quimby maintained that it was the right of man to be well, and that by profound searching man could press through his errors to “the explanation” which should be “the cure.” The New Thought has taken up this radical proposition and Quimby’s method and endeavored to prove them both. It has encouraged every man to be his own physician and seek his own health by spiritual wisdom. This constructive effort is its special contribution. This much attained, the New Thought is ready to join with other activities which are meeting the great social issues of our time, in a far larger program than that with which it began. For in very truth the new age is a return to the original gospel, whose mission was to make man every whit whole, to bring society into the fulness of life. Or, shall we say, that ours is the age which is coming to understand Christianity for the first time? Christianity was thought to be for the sake of individual piety, a scheme of salvation through right doctrine. Our age teaches the inseparability of the individual and society. The war has made the races and nations intimately akin. We do not want the mere “healing of the nations.” We want cooperation and brotherhood. We want true service and social justice. It is the love which Christ taught which will overcome the class hatreds which have organized themselves to bar the way.

All our problems are inseparably connected. All activities making for social betterment must be seen as intimately one. What we are witnessing in our day is a fruition of that power of the Holy Spirit which went forth into the world at the time of the incarnation to bring all men unto the Christ.