People, Ideas, and Movements That Shaped New Thought
Thomas Troward, a retired British judge and author of Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science, served as president of the International New Thought Alliance during its formative years. His philosophical writings and leadership helped shape the institutional direction of the New Thought movement in the early 20th century.
Explore the core theology of the New Thought movement—its idealistic pantheism, the concept of the Divine Mind, and how these ideas shaped a diverse spiritual tradition that continues to influence modern self-help culture.
Explore how 19th-century mesmerism, with its trance states and magnetic healing, laid the groundwork for the mental healing movements that became New Thought. From Phineas Quimby to Unity, discover the hidden influence.
This article traces the development of concentration and visualization as core techniques in New Thought, from their metaphysical roots in the 19th century to their institutionalization in the early 20th century, highlighting key figures, publications, and the movement’s enduring legacy.
From the spiritualist journals of the 1880s to the long-running Nautilus, New Thought periodicals shaped a movement through print. This article traces the evolution of the New Thought magazine, its editors, ideas, and enduring influence.
Divine Science emerged from the healing experiences of Malinda Cramer and Nona Brooks in the late 1880s, becoming a formal New Thought movement with churches, colleges, and a global reach. This article traces its origins, key figures, institutional development, and lasting influence.
William Walker Atkinson, writing as Yogi Ramacharaka, merged Eastern yoga and Hindu philosophy with New Thought metaphysics, shaping modern self-help and the Law of Attraction.
William James’s concept of healthy-mindedness, developed in The Varieties of Religious Experience, both described and legitimized the New Thought movement’s optimism and focus on happiness. This article explores James’s engagement with mind-cure, his psychological analysis, and the lasting impact on New Thought and positive psychology.
Explore how the New Thought movement transformed American ideas of wealth and poverty, teaching that financial success is a matter of mental alignment with divine abundance. From Quimby to Holmes, this article traces the evolution of prosperity theology and its lasting impact on self-help culture.
Explore how Malinda Cramer’s Harmony Magazine became the foundational periodical of the Divine Science movement, spreading New Thought teachings on healing and spiritual oneness from the 1890s onward.