Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern clothing - Part Five

Thomas Troward: The Influencer

Far and away the ablest statement of philosophy I have met, beautiful in its sustained clearness of thought and style, a really classic statement.[1]

The final nineteen years of Thomas Troward[2] – Late Divisional Judge of the North Indian Punjab, Honorary Member of the Medico-Legal Society of New York, First Vice-President International New Thought Alliance, lecturer, painter, author, and father of six – was dedicated to writing and painting. His writings were a major influence on Ernest Holmes,[3] Frederick Bailes,[4] Joseph Murphy,[5] Emmet Fox,[6] and the Alcoholics Anonymous organization. Ernest Holmes said of Troward’s writing: “This is as near to my own thoughts as I shall ever come.” The two most famous of his writings were the “Edinburgh & Dore Lectures on Mental Science,”[7] and The Creative Process in the Individual.[8] Multi-lingual in English, Hindi and Hebrew, Troward was able to read many of the holy texts of the world in their original languages, especially the Bible[9] and Hindu scriptures. He was raised in Church of England and was a daily Bible reader from boyhood. Though his writings have a clear Christian bent at times and tend towards the scientific jargon of his time, the clear judicial weighing of evidence and logical manner he composes his words about the matters of Man’s Divinity and the Law of Cause and Effect, delivered through a Western-filtered intuitive oriental mysticism, accomplishes what he had envisioned he would do: develop a system of philosophy that gave peace of mind and the practical results of physical health and happiness to the individual.

His books quote Plato, Swedenborg and the Bible, illustrating his judicial logic from sources Buddhist, Hindu, of the Koran and Raja Yoga.[10] Like Emerson before him and many others after him, notably Ernest Holmes in The Science of Mind, Troward combined the Ancient Wisdom of the Orient and India with a Christian mysticism. He then placed a judicial robe around it and brought the concepts of The Unity of Spirit, The Subjective and Objective Mind, and The Law of Growth;[11] Principle is not bound by precedent[12]; The Divine Ideal,[13] The Personal Factor (Nature unaided fails), The Denouement of the Creative Process,[14] and The Hidden Power (the Power for Good in the Universe which is in each and every one of us)[15] to all. It is a life-affirming treatise on Love and Law, head and heart, the Divinity of Man and The Law of Cause and Effect – the very essence of New Thought.

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[1] Troward, Thomas. The Edinburgh and Dore Lectures on Mental Science. 1904 & 1909, DeVorss & Co. edition, 1989. Back cover. From William James (1842-1910) who was a pioneering American Psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the science of psychology and pragmatism.

[2] Born in Punjab, India of British parents who, at the age of 18, graduated from college with gold medal honors in literature and then decided to study Law. At age 22, he returned to India and took the difficult Indian Civil Service Examination. One of the subjects was metaphysics, and Troward surprised everyone with his answers because of their originality. He became an assistant commissioner and was quickly promoted to Divisional Judge in the Punjab, where he served for the next 25 years.

[3] He claimed that twenty five percent of The Science of Mind came from his studies of Troward.

[4] Dr. Bailes (1889-1970) served with Ernest Holmes as the Assistant Dean of the Science of Mind Institute, wrote five books, broadcast twice-weekly on the radio, and lead the largest Science of Mind church of his day.

[5] 1898-1981, Divine Science minister in Los Angeles (to 1300-1500 attendees), daily radio broadcaster and author of over two dozen books including the multi-million sellers The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.

[6] 1886-1951, popular Divine Science minister in New York, author of ten books, healer, mystic, knew Troward, became an important resource to those in the AA organization.

[7] Edinburgh Lectures given at Queen Street in 1904. Dore Lectures given at London’s Dore Art Gallery in 1909

[8] Originally published in 1915, DeVorss & Co. Edition, 1991

[9] His studies in the original Hebrew provided the foundation for his book, Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning.

[10] Primarily concerned with the mind and its relationship with the body. Swami Vivekananda described the process as follows: “When the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point. This state is called dhyana. When one has so intensified the power of dhyana as to be able to reject the external part of perception and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning, that state is called Samadhi.”

[11] Troward, Thomas. The Edinburgh and Dore Lectures on Mental Science, 1904 & 1909

[12] Defined as “the working out of an idea to its logical conclusions in spite of the accumulated testimony of all past experience to the contrary ... “, Troward, Thomas. Creative Process in the Individual, “The Starting Point,” pg.1-2

[13] An Individuality which recognizes its Source...to open up itself a channel by which that Source can flow in uninterruptedly

[14] The Creative Process in the Individual, 1915

[15] The Hidden Power and Other Papers on Mental Science, 1921

Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern clothing - Part Four

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby:

The Pioneer

He had a very inventive mind, and was always interested in mechanics, philosophy and scientific subjects. During his middle life, he invented several devices on which he obtained letters patent. He was very argumentative, and always wanted proof of anything, rather than an accepted opinion. Anything which could be demonstrated he was ready to accept; but he would combat what could not be proved with all his energy, rather than admit it as a truth.[1]

In order to study Dr. Quimby[2], considered either the father or founder of New Thought[3], we first must review a bit of the history of his prominent influence – Franz Mesmer.

Born in 1734, Mesmer was an Austrian physician practicing in Paris. He believed that when the ebb and flow of the fluid within a human organism was disturbed through being out of harmony with the universal rhythm, a mental or nervous illness could result.[4] Using conventional methods along with the placing of magnets and lodestones onto the affected area of the patient’s body, Mesmer was able to effect remarkable symptomatic relief. He called it magnetism.[5] He later discovered that the same effect occurred when using any other object during the sessions, changing his views and calling it “animal magnetism,” a force that comes from the healer[6]. For many years, he continued curing patients to fame and fortune and quite a bit of ire from the more orthodox medical practitioners.

In 1777, during his military adventures in the U. S. Revolutionary War, The Marquis de Lafayette,[7] one of Mesmer’s fans, mentioned this healing method to George Washington. In 1784 Louis XVI established a committee of some the most famous doctors and naturalists of the time, including Antoine Lavoisier[8] and Benjamin Franklin, to investigate the feasibility of magnetic phenomena. Despite the fact that the committee conducted its research with a disciple of Mesmer’s, and not Mesmer himself, they reached the conclusion that the magnetic rays were nonexistent and any beneficial results from such treatment was due to self-suggestion. They also concluded that magnetic treatment was especially dangerous for women since it might destroy their inhibitions. With his reputation destroyed, Mesmer left Paris for London to start up his practice again. Failing there too, he moved to Switzerland, where he died in obscurity in 1815.

Returning to early 19^th century America, we find the young Phineas Parkhurst Quimby had cured his own pulmonary tuberculosis by filling his days with intense excitement that “took possession of my senses” and outdoor physical activity, such as carriage rides and running. This event prompted his interest in the mind’s ability to affect the body.

Though not schooled formally, Quimby was a successful watch- and clock-maker, and holder of several mechanical patents. An avid reader with an extraordinarily inquisitive, perceptive, and inventive mind, this interest in self-healing led him, years later in 1836, to a public demonstration of mesmerism by Charles Poyen St. Sauveur, a French disciple of Mesmer. According to Quimby’s son, “it is not strange that … Quimby should feel deeply interested in the subject. Here was a new, to him at least, phenomenon; and he at once began to investigate the subject; and on every occasion when he could find a person who would allow him to try, he would endeavor to put him into a mesmeric sleep.”[9] Soon the future philosopher and Healing Physician began studying mesmerism, reading everything he could. While experimenting with two of his friends, Quimby discovered he too, could mesmerize. Of this first experiment he writes:

So we sat the subject in the chair, the gentleman stood in front of him and I behind him, and the gentleman tried to draw him out of the chair; but he could not start him. Then we reversed positions, and I drew the subject out of the chair. This showed that I had the greater power or will. This ended the first experiment.

Particularly receptive to Quimby's mesmeric influence was Lucius Burkmar, an uneducated 19-year-old who was particularly susceptible to being in the mesmeric sleep. In it, he reportedly could clairvoyantly travel through time and space, see objects at a distance, read other minds, and diagnose and prescribe simple herbal remedies for treating diseases. Lucius even diagnosed and cured Quimby of a horrible kidney condition, in two days. However, their work was being called “a deception, a fraud, and a humbug; Mr. Quimby was vilified and frequently threatened with mob violence, as the exhibitions smacked too strongly of witchcraft to suit the people.”[10] They traveled throughout Maine and New Brunswick giving public demonstrations in the early to middle 1840s. It wasn’t long before Quimby discovered that many of the no-nos that he read about mesmerizing, such as not working during a lightning storm or in the vicinity of a woman wearing a silk dress, were “humbug.” In addition, he realized that he too possessed this independent sight Lucius had, and did not need to go into a trance. He felt he no longer needed Lucius nor the limitations of mesmerism, and that there was a deeper spiritual science at work.

He was absorbed in developing his theory, or “the Truth” as he termed it, so that all could understand and practice it. He told his son: “Wait till I get my theory reduced to a science, so that I can teach the Truth to others, and then I can make money fast enough.”[11] Over the next almost two decades, while ridiculed by the whole medical profession, each step in opposition to all the established ideas of the day, he experimented with his healing ideas. “In the sick and suffering he always found staunch friends, who loved him and believed in him, and stood by him; but they were but a handful compared with those on the other side.”[12] He soon concluded that disease is what follows the disturbance of the mind or spiritual matter, what follows an incorrect opinion or when mind was diverted by error. He realized that Truth is the destruction of this opinion whether the disease is something made by belief or forced upon us by our parents or public opinion. And finally, he knew what he had was a science because he could teach it.

Quimby never claimed to be the founder of this science of healing; that he credited to “Jesus Christ.” Though he used that name, he also distinguished between Jesus and the Christ: “Jesus was as any other man, but Christ was the Science which Jesus tried to teach.” He also said “Christ is the God in us all,”[13] and that “Man’s belief is his heaven and hell.”[14] Those identifications led Quimby to coin the term “Christian Science” in an article:

The leaders of the medical schools, through the hypocrisy of their profession, deceive the people into submission to their opinions, while democracy forges the fetters which are to bind them to disease. Science, which would destroy this bondage, is looked upon as blasphemy when it dares oppose the faculty, and religion has no place in medical science. So in the church the religion of Jesus’ Science is never heard; for it would drive aristocracy out of the pulpit, and scatter seeds of freedom among the people. Nevertheless, the religion of Christ is shown in the progress of Christian Science, while the religion of society decays as the liberal principles are developed.[15]

Though an avid Bible reader and with “a deeply religious nature,”[16] he wasn’t too keen on religion or conventional men of medicine: “It is necessary to say that I have no religious belief. My religion is my life, and my life is the life of any wisdom that I have. The two most dangerous to the happiness of man are those of the medical science and priests.”[17]

Working in person or through letters, he described his method of treatment in this way:

A patient comes to see Dr. Quimby. He renders himself absent to everything but the impression of the person’s feelings. These are quickly daguerreotyped on him. They contain no intelligence, but shadow forth a reflection of themselves which he looks at. This [mental picture] contains the disease as it appears to the patient. Being confident that it is the shadow of a false idea, he is not afraid of it. Then his feelings in regard to health and strength, are daguerreotyped on the receptive plate of the patient … The patient sees … the disease in a new light, gains confidence. This change is daguerreotyped on the doctor again … and he sees the change and continues … the shadow changes and grows dim, and finally disappears, the light takes its place, and there is nothing left of the disease.[18]

From 1847 until his passing in 1866, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby devoted his life to healing the sick, treating over 12,000 patients during those years. Most notable of his patients were Warren Felt Evans, a practitioner and author of mental healing;[19] Julius and Annetta (Seabury) Dresser,[20] early organizers of New Thought; and Mary M. Patterson (Mary Baker Eddy), founder of Christian Science.

The last five years of his life were exceptionally hard. He was overcrowded with patients, greatly overworked, and could not seem to find an opportunity for relaxation. At last, nature could no longer bear up under the strain; completely tired out, he took to his bed, from which he never rose again. While strong, he had always been able to ward off any disease that would have affected another person; but, when tired and weak, he no longer had the strength of will or the reasoning powers to combat the sickness that terminated his life.

It is clear that, although his practice was originally based in mesmerism, his final methods came from the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth, and through intuition versus through academia. An hour before he breathed his last, he said to his son:

I am more than ever convinced of the truth of my theory. I am perfectly willing for the change myself, but I know you all will feel badly, and think I am dead; but I know that I shall be right here with you, just as I always have been. I do not dread the change any more than if I were going on a trip to Philadelphia.[21]

His death occurred January 16, 1866, at his residence in Belfast. He was sixty-four. George Quimby felt his father’s epitaph should have been:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. For if ever a man did lay down his life for others - that man was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.

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[1] George Quimby (Dr. Quimby’s youngest son and later his assistant), from New England Magazine

[2] Not an academically trained or licensed physician, his patients called him this.

[3] Many scholars regard him as the “Father of the New Thought Movement” because of his connecting the powers of the mind and physical healing. Braden, in Spirits in Rebellion, called him the “Founder.”

[4] Successful Hypnotherapy Diploma Course, Copyright © 1984-2009 International Association of Pure Hypnoanalysts (IAPH).

[5] In 1766 his thesis, “De influxu planetarum in corpus humanum,” revived (possibly plagiarized) the Newtonian idea that the planets exude invisible rays that affect the human body and disease. He had earned two doctorates: medicine and philosophy.

[6] It was later described as a mental suggestion. In the later 19^th century, Scottish surgeon James Braid coined the term “hypnosis” or “sleep of the nerves,” to avoid the stigma of Mesmer’s reputation.

[7] Marie-Jean Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, 1757 – 1834, a French aristocrat and military officer who famously befriended and served under George Washington during the American Revolution.

[8] 18^th century French chemist, called the father of modern chemistry, found and named oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783), who helped construct the metric system and put together the first extensive list of elements.

[9] George Quimby, New England Magazine, 1888

[10] George Quimby, New England Magazine, 1888

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] The Quimby Manuscripts. “The World of the Senses”

[14] The Quimby Manuscripts. “God and Man”

[15] P.P. Quimby. “Aristocracy and Democracy,” February 1863

[16] George Quimby, New England Magazine, 1888

[17] The Quimby Manuscripts: God and Man

[18] George Quimby, New England Magazine, 1888

[19] Wrote six books, two of which, The Mental Cure and Mental Medicine, came out before Mrs. Eddy’s Science and Health.

[20] Their son, Horatio, wrote extensively on Quimby and edited and compiled his manuscripts and journals.

[21] George Quimby, New England Magazine, 1888

Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern dress - Part Three

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

The Transcendentalist

[In Emerson’s Essays] We are lifted out of the provincialisms of time as well as of space … often by the sheer magic of a paragraph come to feel that we live, move, and have our being in the wide universe of spirit, all radiance, all beauty, all good.[1]

Most famous for his lectures and essays, a leading figure in the Transcendentalist movement,[2] and considered the Father of the New Thought Movement,[3] Ralph Waldo Emerson was born to Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson[4] in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; three died in childhood. Just before his eighth birthday, Emerson’s father died of tuberculosis. Raised by his mother and the other women in the family, he was greatly influenced by his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, of whom he exclaimed:

Nobody can read in her manuscript, or recall the conversation of old-school people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a religious authority in their mind, and nowise the slight, merely entertaining quality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus — how venerable and organic as Nature they are in her mind![5]

Aunt Mary “introduced young Emerson to Oriental literature and classical philosophy, speculated with him about John Donne, and laughed at his riddles and puns in Greek.”[6] Her profound effect on Emerson, inspiring him with her love for reading and Nature,[7] continued until her death in 1863. At 14, Emerson went to Harvard College where, by his senior year, he began a lifelong love of poetry while serving as Class Poet.

“In the morning, solitude,” said Pythagoras. By all means give the youth solitude, that Nature may speak to his imagination, as it does never in company; and for the like reason give him a chamber alone; – and that was the best thing I found in college. (Emerson’s Journal, 1859)

After a few years of making his living as a schoolmaster, Emerson attended Harvard Divinity School and, at the age of 26, became the junior pastor of Boston’s Second Church. Three years later, after the death of his wife Ellen Luisa Tucker, he wrote in his journal, “I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers.”

His disagreements with church officials over the administration of the Communion service and misgivings about public prayer eventually led to his resignation in 1832: “This mode of commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I should abandon it.”

That year he took off for Europe, meeting William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle (who had a particularly strong influence on him). During that journey, in France, “Emerson's moment of insight into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that pointed him away from theology and toward science."[8]

Returning to America in late 1833, Emerson began his career as a lecturer. His first presentation, “The Uses of Natural History in Boston” developed into his first book, Nature (not to be confused with the essay of the same title written in 1844). In its introduction, he wrote on how the ideas of old do not have to be a part of the philosophy of the new:

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? …. The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

And yet, in the chapter “Language,” he keeps a connection to the old:

This relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poet, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all men …. It is the standing problem which has exercised the wonder and the study of every fine genius since the world began … There sits the Sphinx at the road-side, and from age to age, as each prophet comes by, he tries his fortune at reading her riddle.

He wants us to be self reliant, to have the freedom to think on our own, using what serves us from those before, ancient and not so ancient, incorporating that wisdom with the evolution of new thoughts and philosophies.

In 1835, Emerson married Lydia Jackson.[9] On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature,[10] Emerson met with Henry Hedge, George Putnam and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals.[11] This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement with which he is well known. A year later he brought women in to join the club,[12] including Margaret Fuller, who was an important figure in Transcendentalism. It was at this time that he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address “The American Scholar,”[13] his ‘Declaration of Independence’:

The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature …. The next great influence … is the mind of the Past … whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. …. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man … Inaction is cowardice … there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action.

1837 also marked the beginning of his life-long friendship with Henry David Thoreau; of whom he once inquired, “Do you keep a journal?”

In July 1838, Emerson was invited to give the graduation address at Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School. “[It was there that] Emerson discounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity had turned Jesus into a ‘demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo.’”[14] Outraged, the establishment and the general Protestant community denounced him as “an atheist and a poisoner of young men's minds.” He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years.

In 1840, he and fellow Transcendentalists Bronson Alcott and George Ripley decided to begin a magazine, The Dial, with Margaret Fuller editing (Emerson would edit the final two years until 1844). His Essays (first series) were published in 1841. These writings were most influential to the New Thought Movement; we explore three of them here.

Essay: Self Reliance[15]

It is fair to say, as many do, that this is not only excellent prose, but also a definitive statement of Emerson's philosophy of individualism. The first of three epigraphs well describes the 50-paragraph tome: Ne te quaesiveris extra, “Do not seek outside yourself” (Persius).

In this essay, Emerson brings in much of his influences from Kant[16], Carlyle, and Goethe. Seizing on Carlyle’s 1827 claim “Reason discerns Truth itself, the absolutely and primitive True,”[17] Emerson teaches one to “detect and watch the gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within” and to “trust thyself” and be a “nonconformist,” as we are “redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort.” He tells us that “no law can be sacred … but that of my own nature;” and that we “do not need … any secondary testimony.” One must “trust your emotion” for “there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor moving wherever moves a man; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things … where he is, there is nature … a cause, a country, and an age.” He references the lives of Jesus, Luther, Wesley, Milton, and Caesar, whose histories, words and actions informed and educated him in formulating his philosophy. In the second third of the essay, Emerson talks about how “we lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its activity and receivers of its truth,” describing a connection to God that is natural and internal. Continuing, he talks about the ancient wisdom becoming the new when he writes, “whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away, – means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour.” He does not condone casting it all away as much as listening to that voice of the Universe which separates the man-made from the divinely inspired: “That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him …. Every great man is an unique [sic].” With this he extols the need to listen to one’s self, not rehash others: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

Essay: Compensation[18]

In this work, Emerson delves into what is known today as the Law of Cause and Effect; a spiritual law principal to the philosophies of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other spiritual movements.[19] He begins:

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the preachers taught. …. It seemed to me, also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must be, because it really is now.

In this essay, he speaks of a dualism, though not in reference to an outside Power. You might say he speaks of two sides of a single coin. He describes this duality as “the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe … the entire system of things gets represented in every particle.” He tells us “[the] soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law.” He continues later with a paragraph of Biblical and literary sayings that was and still remains in the vernacular such as: “Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love for love …. Give and it shall be given you …. What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and take it …. It is thus written, because it is thus in life.” And he goes on to prove the point that the Universe works the same way: “Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.”

Essay: Over-Soul[20]

Emerson reveals his pantheistic colors and distaste of duality (as in a God or Power separate from mankind). His journals show he was reading the Bhagavad-Gita[21] and Henry Thomas Colebrooke's essays on the Vedas at this time, once stating: “The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged monotheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanisadic absolute …. I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita.” Charles Braden said that evidence of Emerson’s reading of the philosophies of the Orient occurred when he wrote, “There is no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God.”[22]

In short, evidence of Emerson’s influences from Ancient Wisdom and beyond is plentiful. In Studies in New England Transcendentalism, Harold Clarke Goddard made an accounting of the number of times Emerson quoted many of these thinkers and writers:

Shakespeare, 112; Napoleon, 84; Plato, 81; Plutarch, 70; Goethe, 62; Jesus, 54; Swift, 49; Bacon, 47; Milton, 46; Newton, 43; Homer, 42; Socrates, 42; Swedenborg, 40; Saadi, 30; Luther, 30; Webster, 27; Aristotle, 25; Hafiz, 25; Wordsworth, 25; Saint Paul, 24; Dante, 22; Chaucer, 20; Coleridge, 20; Michelangelo, 20.

Though he died in 1882, his influences continue through not only the New Thought Movement and other metaphysical liturgy, but with the likes of Nietzsche: “Behold, it saith, I am born into the great, the universal mind. I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect … the soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth” – a truth born in the before, learned from the past, and projected into the future through the present form of Ralph Waldo Emerson

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[1] From Andrew George’s Introduction to Emerson’s Essays

[2] A movement in literature and philosophy that emerged in New England in the 1830s and 40s, protesting the general state of culture and society and, in particular, that of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Its core beliefs included an ideal spiritual state that "transcends" the physical or observed and is realized only through an individual's intuition; a knowledge that is a priori rather than a posteriori (i.e. religion). Other major figures in the movement were Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody.

[3] Spirits in Rebellion, Braden, p. 35

[4] A Unitarian Minister. Considered Liberal Christians, a non-Trinitarian theology. Per Rev. Samuel J. May of the American Unitarian Association, Boston, 1867: “[They] have no formula of faith; no system of doctrines; no list of articles prescribed by...human authority...believe...that each and every rational and moral being, male and female, is under the highest obligation to form his or her own opinions about religion [free will]...believe with the Apostle Paul (Rom. viii. 14), that, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”...that Jesus of Nazareth was led by the Spirit of God...was the most excellent person who has ever lived upon earth...the best teacher of true religion...the character of God and his purposes respecting man and that the moral precepts he gave were more nearly identical with perfect righteousness...”seek first the kingdom of God.” Prayer is a universal practice and they reject predestination, eternal damnation or the need for salvation...human nature is neither inherently corrupt nor depraved (original sin), but capable of both good and evil, as God intended.

[5] Mary Moody Emerson, from a paper read before the Woman's Club, Boston1869, under the title “Amita.”

[6] “The Simple Life: Plain Living And High Thinking In American Culture,” David E. Shi, 2007, University of Georgia Press

[7] The “Amita” paper: “...she was driven to find Nature her companion and solace. She speaks of "her attempts in Malden, to wake up the soul amid the dreary scenes of monotonous Sabbaths, when Nature looked like a pulpit."

[8] Emerson: The Mind on Fire, Robert D. Richardson, Jr., 1995, University of California Press. The Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, is the main botanical garden in France.

[9] They had four children: Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson.

[10] Included one of the tenets of Transcendentalism and New Thought, the Divinity of Man, when he wrote, “A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world.” In the chapter “Spirit,” he writes, “Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man … we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite.”

[11] Emerson: The Mind on Fire Berkeley, Robert D. Richardson, Jr., 1995, University of California Press

[12] “The Transcendentalists championed the enfranchisement of women. The beginnings of this reform can be traced to them more definitely than any source...Men and women were all alike human beings...and should enjoy equal rights” - Braden, Spirits in Rebellion, 1963

[13] An Oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837

[14] Buell, Lawrence (2003) Emerson Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

[15] Emerson’s Essays: First & Second Series Complete in One Volume. Edwin Irwin, ed.

[16] Immanuel Kant was an 18^th century German philosopher and geographer who believed one ought to think autonomously, free of the dictates of external authority. He introduced the terms transcendent and transcendental meaning to that which goes beyond (transcends) any possible knowledge of a human being. These concepts were important to Coleridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle; who exchanged ideas with Emerson.

[17] Multiple secondary sources

[18] Emerson’s Essays: First & Second Series Complete in One Volume. Edwin Irwin, ed.

[19] Hinduism calls it Karma. Buddhism describes it in the second Noble Truth as Paticca-samuppada (dependent arising). In Galatians 6:7, Paul wrote, "For whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Many metaphysicians call it the Law of Attraction. It is also found in Newton’s third law, which states that for every action there is an equal, and opposite reaction.

[20] Emerson’s Essays: First & Second Series Complete in One Volume. Edwin Irwin, ed.

[21] Hindu texts stressing the relationship of The Brahman (the universal spirit) and the Atman (the individual Self). These had a large influence on Schopenhauer, Descarte and Spinoza.

[22] Spirits in Rebellion, Braden, 1963, pg. 37

Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern clothing - Part Two

A Short History of New Thought: Focus on 1820 – 1920

The higher criticism will have conferred its greatest benefit, when those who, under the impetus of an unfolding soul, have thrown off limitations of authority and use the Bible, and all literature as means of expressing the faith of a common humanity, and of one God in that humanity.[1]

The New Thought Movement holds its roots in mid 19^th Century America. Deep into their work at that time were the two fathers of the movement: Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882), the essayist, poet, lecturer and best known leader of the Transcendentalist movement; and Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (February 16, 1802 – January 16, 1866), the New England philosopher, mesmerist, healer, and inventor.

Quimby influenced many of his patients, including Mary Baker Eddy (1821 –1910), the founder of Christian Science[2]; Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889) a writer, Swedenborgian minister[3], and early practitioner of mental science healing[4]; and Julius & Anetta Dresser[5]. Emerson’s influence comes through in the works of William James (1842 – 1910), his godson and a pioneering psychologist, philosopher, and medical doctor; and Thomas Troward (1847–1916), a jurist, English author and lecturer whose avocation was the study of comparative religion, including the teachings of Christ, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism[6]. In turn, Troward greatly influenced the works of Emmet Fox and Ernest Holmes (author of The Science of Mind) whose books continue to advance the New Thought Movement. Perhaps the greatest influence on 20^th Century New Thought was Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849–1925), a theologian, teacher, writer, feminist, mystic and prophet who began her studies with Mrs. Eddy but left to found the first modern day religious organization to ordain women. She became a major influence on the founders of Religious Science (Ernest Homes), Divine Science (Nona L. Brooks and Malinda Cramer), and the Unity School of Christianity (Myrtle & Charles Fillmore)[7] – some of the largest organized denominations in the Movement in existence today.

But what influenced Quimby, Emerson, Hopkins and Troward? What led them to the revelations in their writing that created this growing and spreading movement of Self Divinity, personal empowerment, and Mental Healing? To understand the life and influence of a person, it is essential to have some knowledge of not only their acknowledged mentors, but also what was happening around them in the familial, historical, and cultural arenas.

The Calvinist ideologies set forth by the Puritan settlers were rampant. Calvinist doctrine included the idea of the inherent corruption of human nature and the concept of salvation coming only by the discretion of God himself.[8] It is important to note here that the Calvinist belief was that the individual had absolutely no control over their ultimate spiritual fate through their actions in life. This orthodox belief asserts the Holy Trinity, through which God presents himself, elects those men chosen for salvation or condemnation – a fate decided before the creation of the world. In the mid eighteenth century, there arose a desire to reform these Calvinist beliefs in order to create a more positive and liberal view of human nature. A number of ministers in Boston wished to bring about a fresh New England theology that stressed the ethical and pious behavior of the individual in the self-determination of their own salvation. This group of liberals, in the early nineteenth century, began to criticize the Congregational Church and its Calvinist ideals, stating that they hindered the individual’s moral growth.[9]

In the spring of 1837, a great depression afflicted the northeastern United States. All the banks in New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore suspended cash payments, as did many in Boston. Of the 850 banks in the United States, nearly half closed or partly failed. The bank failures of 1837 were followed by high unemployment that lasted into 1843. Foreign over-investment (chiefly British) had augmented the bubble, which burst when the wily English pulled their money out. President Martin Van Buren, a Jacksonian Democrat, refused any government involvement in a bailout, and so was widely blamed for the panic.[10]

Additionally, the War Between the States, Lincoln, the Abolitionist movement, Henry Wilkes Booth, World War I … all of this was occurring around the nascent New Thought Movement, profoundly influencing the way those thinkers viewed the age old questions of God and Man, Why and How, When and Where, Life and Death, and a better world.

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[1] Henry Harrison Brown

[2] Christian Science is not always admired or included as a part of the New Thought Movement.

[3] A version of Christianity where loving works count as much as faith, Heaven and Hell are not rewards or punishments distributed on judgment day but the present inner experience we freely choose, and that the trinity existed in Jesus

[4] In 1869 Evans also published his first book, The Mental Cure, which introduced Quimby's ideas to the rest of world

[5] Their son, Horatio, was the most extensive writer and collector of Quimby’s theories and papers

[6] See The Edinburgh and Dore Lectures on Mental Science, The Creative Process in the Individual, and many other titles in Troward’s lexicon

[7] And Harriet Emilie Cady, author of Unity's cornerstone text Lessons in Truth.

[8] “Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism,” Robinson, 1998

[9] “Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Transcendentalism,” Robinson, pp. 14-15

[10] “Out of Panic, Self-Reliance,” Harold Bloom, The New York Times, October 11, 2008

Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern dress....Part One

Preface

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.[1]

Through a curiosity about Life and how to enjoy a most fulfilled and prosperous one, Humankind has pursued and explored many philosophies and approaches on how the Universe works, why Its various forms of spawn were created, and how to exist, survive, thrive, evolve, and ultimately transition within its realm. Both the learned and unschooled, the inspired and the power-hungry have used their varying degrees of intellect to hypothesize, question, query, and express their feelings and beliefs on the usual questions on how Life works, where do we come from, who or what is in charge, where do we go afterward, and what is Humankind’s role in it all. Whether found in a Judeo-Christian faith, an Eastern tradition, the Sciences, Psychologies, Philosophies, or any of the approximately 4,200 religious and/or spiritual movements of our time, it is through these interrogatives and ponderings that many approaches to Life are developed and personal decisions are made.

One such religious/spiritual belief is the New Thought Movement. It is a philosophy with two basic tenets: the Divinity of Mankind, and the Law of Cause and Effect. In the tradition of the freedom-loving spirit of a liberated America, inspired by a need to break away from the religious suppression of the Calvinist Christians, and fathered by the Emersonian Transcendentalists and Mental Healing proponents of what now might be called hypnotism and Scientific or Mystic Christianity, this movement began less than 140 years ago and has already branched out into the zeitgeist of the planet. These thoughts have influenced many who were once conservative and orthodox, stuck in the moralistic fear-based beliefs of the last couple millennia. With its early proponents steeped in the study of Nature, the mystics, an apolitically based interpretation of the sacred text classics, and a deep sense of personal responsibility and spiritual involvement of what Life has to offer, it begs the question: Is it a New Thought or just Ancient Wisdom in modern dress?

This thesis explores that query through the lives and works of four prominent influences on what is called New Thought: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Troward, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby and Emma Curtis Hopkins. Did any of them come up with a new thought or concept, or did they costume the Ancient Wisdoms to make them palatable for the modern age?

End of Part One

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[1] Alfred North Whitehead

The Mastery of the Self

The Mastery of the Self lies in the connection that is inevitable. That of my mind to Spirit; to the Universal Power that individualizes Itself in me, as me, for me, and with me.

I now claim for myself and the all forces involved that the Law hears my will and does its work from my thought, my belief that Self Mastery is a given. That all that is discussed, inspired, worked, heard, instilled, shared, and taken is embedded in me as much as the Divine is at birth. That I daily and continuously live only in the practice and of and the dedication to a life of Self Mastery; thinking, being, believing, and experiencing life and demonstrations that are deep rooted in the Divine. Divine Intelligence, Creativity, Perfect Continuous Health, Abundant Money, Healthy and Loving Relationships, Serenity and Peace of Mind carry through, along with any other facets of my life; engaged in perfect demonstration by my Self Mastery training and know how. I live it, I breath it, I demonstrate through it and experience the greatest life possible as It.

Gratefully, I release these words of belief, these thoughts rooted in faith and knowing into that Law. The Cause and Effect are done. The mental equivalent is solid and I am at ease with it all.

And so it is.