The Role of Mesmerism and Hypnotism in Early New Thought

The role of mesmerism and hypnotism in early New Thought is a foundational yet often overlooked chapter in American religious history. Long before New Thought coalesced into a formal movement with its own institutions and publications, the pre-scientific theories of animal magnetism and hypnotic suggestion supplied the raw material for its central conviction: that the mind holds the power to heal the body and shape reality. This article traces that lineage, from Franz Mesmer’s eighteenth-century experiments to the itinerant mesmerists of antebellum America, and ultimately to Phineas Quimby’s development of mental healing—the direct precursor to New Thought. It examines how different New Thought groups understood mesmerism, how hypnotism gave way to the language of suggestion and affirmation, and why this legacy matters for anyone studying the movement’s evolution.

Historical Context

New Thought emerged in the mid-nineteenth century within a broader cultural ferment of metaphysical spirituality, religious revivalism, and scientific curiosity. The United States in the 1830s and 1840s was a hotbed of transcendentalism, which emphasized individual intuition and the inherent goodness of humanity, and of Swedenborgianism, which posited a correspondence between the spiritual and material worlds. Into this environment came mesmerism—a theory popularized by Austrian physician Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) that an invisible universal fluid, or “animal magnetism,” could be harnessed to heal disease. By the 1840s, mesmerism had become a popular American phenomenon, with itinerant lecturers and practitioners demonstrating its effects in parlors and lecture halls across the country (Fuller, 1982).

This cultural landscape also witnessed the rise of Christian Science, which would share a common ancestor with New Thought in Quimby’s mental healing. Both movements grew from the same metaphysical roots, but they diverged sharply in theology and practice. As historian Horatio W. Dresser noted in his 1919 history, New Thought represented the “liberal wing” of the mental-healing movement, distinct from the more dogmatic Christian Science (Dresser, 1919). The broader intellectual climate—one that blended Romantic idealism with a practical, democratic optimism—provided fertile ground for the idea that the mind, properly directed, could overcome physical limitations and achieve health, prosperity, and spiritual insight.

Main Narrative

Origins: Franz Mesmer and Animal Magnetism

Franz Mesmer’s theory of animal magnetism proposed that all living things were permeated by a subtle magnetic fluid, and that blockages or imbalances in this fluid caused illness. His dramatic cures in Vienna and Paris, which often involved trance-like states and dramatic physical reactions, attracted both followers and critics. Mesmerism arrived in the United States in the 1830s, where it was taken up by showmen, physicians, and religious seekers. Its emphasis on the power of the practitioner’s will and the patient’s susceptibility foreshadowed later New Thought ideas about the influence of thought and belief on health.

Phineas Quimby: From Mesmerism to Mental Healing

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), a clockmaker and inventor from Belfast, Maine, became one of the most influential figures in this transition. In the late 1830s, Quimby attended a mesmerism lecture and was so impressed that he began experimenting with the technique. He soon discovered that he could induce trance states and effect apparent cures, but he grew skeptical of the magnetic-fluid explanation. Instead, Quimby concluded that the real power lay in the patient’s own mind—specifically, in their beliefs and expectations. He developed a method he called “the Science of Health and Happiness,” which used verbal suggestion and reasoning to correct false beliefs and thereby heal disease (Dresser, 1919).

Quimby’s practice in Portland, Maine, attracted many patients, including Mary Baker Eddy, who visited him in 1862. Although Eddy later repudiated Quimby’s influence and founded Christian Science, her early engagement with his ideas underscores the interconnectedness of the mental-healing movements. Quimby himself never established a formal organization, but his manuscripts and teachings circulated among a network of students and patients who would carry his ideas forward.

How Different New Thought Groups Understood Mesmerism

As New Thought began to crystallize in the 1880s and 1890s, its leaders had varied relationships with mesmerism and hypnotism. Some, like Quimby’s direct successors, embraced the idea that suggestion—whether from a practitioner or from one’s own affirmations—could produce healing. Others were wary of the association with stage hypnotism and sought to distance the movement from anything that smacked of occultism or manipulation.

Emma Curtis Hopkins, often called the “teacher of teachers,” studied with Eddy but broke away to develop her own more liberal theology. Hopkins’s teachings emphasized the power of spoken words and affirmations, a practice that owed much to the hypnotic suggestion of earlier decades. In contrast, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, founders of Unity (founded in 1889), were more explicit in their debt to the mind-cure tradition, incorporating elements of both Quimby’s mental healing and the practical optimism of the New Thought movement. Nona Brooks and Malinda Cramer, who independently founded Divine Science in the 1880s, also emphasized the power of affirmative prayer and the idea that God’s presence within the individual could heal and prosper.

Historical Development: From Hypnotism to Suggestion and Affirmation

By the turn of the twentieth century, the term “hypnotism” had largely given way to “suggestion” and “autosuggestion” in New Thought literature. The movement’s practitioners increasingly focused on the conscious and subconscious mind, drawing on the work of French psychologists like Émile Coué, whose method of “optimistic autosuggestion” (“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better”) resonated with New Thought’s emphasis on positive thinking. This shift from external mesmerist to internal self-mastery marked a significant evolution in the movement’s methodology.

Publications such as The Christian Science Journal (founded in 1883, later the official organ of Christian Science) and Unity Magazine (founded in 1890) disseminated these ideas to a wide audience. William Walker Atkinson, a prolific New Thought author, wrote extensively on the power of thought and the subconscious mind, blending elements of hypnotism, yoga, and mental science. Ralph Waldo Trine’s In Tune with the Infinite (1897) became a bestseller and popularized the idea that aligning one’s thoughts with the divine could bring health and success—a direct descendant of Quimby’s mental healing.

Related Concepts: Transcendentalism and the Mind-Cure Movement

New Thought’s debt to transcendentalism is evident in its emphasis on individual intuition and the immanence of the divine. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays on self-reliance and the oversoul provided a philosophical foundation for New Thought’s belief that each person could directly access spiritual truth. The mind-cure movement, of which New Thought was a part, also drew on Swedenborgianism, which posited a direct correspondence between the inner spiritual state and outer physical experience. These intellectual antecedents, combined with the practical techniques of mesmerism and hypnotism, created a unique synthesis that would define New Thought.

Modern Legacy: From New Thought to the Human Potential Movement

The influence of mesmerism and hypnotism on New Thought extended far beyond the movement’s early years. As New Thought evolved into the International New Thought Alliance (founded in 1914) and spawned groups like Religious Science (founded by Ernest Holmes in 1927), the core principle of mental causation remained central. The human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s, with its emphasis on self-actualization and the power of the mind, drew directly on New Thought’s legacy. Today, the practice of affirmations, visualization, and positive thinking—ubiquitous in self-help culture—owes a clear debt to the mesmerists and hypnotists who first demonstrated the mind’s power over the body.

Why It Matters in New Thought History

The story of mesmerism and hypnotism in early New Thought is not a mere footnote; it is the very foundation upon which the movement was built. Without the experimental practices of animal magnetism, Phineas Quimby might never have developed his system of mental healing, and without Quimby, the diverse streams of New Thought—Divine Science, Unity, Religious Science, and others—might never have found their common ground. Understanding this lineage helps students of New Thought see that the movement was not a sudden revelation but a gradual, often messy evolution of ideas and practices. It also illuminates the movement’s persistent tension between the desire for scientific credibility and its roots in the occult and the pre-rational. By grappling with this history, we gain a deeper appreciation for the complexity and resilience of New Thought as a spiritual and intellectual force.

Primary Sources

• Phineas Quimby’s Manuscripts (ca. 1840s–1860s): Unpublished notes and essays by Quimby, now held in the Library of Congress and other archives, documenting his transition from mesmerism to mental healing.
• Horatio W. Dresser, A History of the New Thought Movement (1919): A first-hand account by a close associate of Quimby’s son, providing a detailed narrative of the movement’s origins and development.
• Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875): While critical of Quimby, this work shows the direct influence of mental healing on Christian Science and the broader mind-cure milieu.
• Emma Curtis Hopkins, High Mysticism (1918): A collection of Hopkins’s teachings, demonstrating her use of affirmations and the power of the word.
• Charles Fillmore, Christian Healing (1909): A Unity classic that explicitly connects New Thought practice to the mental science tradition.
• William Walker Atkinson, The Power of Concentration (1902): A popular New Thought text that applies principles of suggestion and focus, drawing on hypnotic techniques.