People, Ideas, and Movements That Shaped New Thought
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.
This article traces the transatlantic journey of the New Thought movement, focusing on its institutional consolidation through the International New Thought Alliance and the vibrant London scene that became a hub for its teachings, publications, and international congresses in the early twentieth century.
This article examines how early 20th-century dictionaries and encyclopedias defined the New Thought movement, revealing its core principles, its relationship to Christian Science and mental healing, and its place in American religious history.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby’s ‘Science of Health’ challenged 19th-century medicine by asserting that disease originates in false beliefs and that healing comes through correcting the mind. This article traces its origins, key teachings, and profound influence on the New Thought movement.
Warren Felt Evans’s 1873 treatise Mental Medicine stands as a pivotal yet often overlooked text in the New Thought movement, bridging earlier metaphysical traditions and the later mental healing schools. This article explores its historical context, core ideas, and enduring influence.
Explore how German Idealism, mediated through Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and Swedenborgianism, profoundly shaped the mental healing philosophy of the New Thought movement, especially through the writings of Warren Felt Evans.
This article explores how homeopathy and other alternative medical practices shaped the New Thought movement, from Phineas Quimby’s mental healing to Warren Felt Evans’s published works, and traces the evolution of the movement’s core belief in the mind’s power to heal.
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866) developed a system of mental healing that, though he never published or founded a church, was carried forward by his patients and students—including Warren Felt Evans, the Dresser family, and Mary Baker Eddy—into the New Thought and Christian Science movements. This article traces the network that spread Quimby’s ideas and shaped the mind-cure tradition.
Phineas Quimby’s revolutionary idea that false beliefs cause disease laid the foundation for New Thought metaphysics, shaping a movement that would transform American spirituality.