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The History of New Thought: From Mind Cure to Positive Thinking and the Prosperity Gospel (SWEDENBORG STUDIES Book 21) Kindle Edition
by John S. Haller (Author), Robert C. Fuller (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
Part of: SWEDENBORG STUDIES (11 books)
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Anything is yours, if you only want it hard enough. Just think of it. ANYTHING. Try it. Try it in earnest and you will succeed. It is the operation of a mighty Law.
Does that sound like something from the latest spin-off of The Secret? In fact, those words were written in 1900 by William Walter Atkinson, the man who authored the first book on the “Law of Attraction.”
Atkinson was only one of the many and varied personalities that make up the movement known as New Thought. Composed of healers, priests, psychologists, and ordinary people from all levels of society, the proponents of New Thought have one thing in common: a belief in the power of the mind. In The History of New Thought, Haller examines the very beginnings of the movement, its early influences (including Swedish seer Emanuel Swedenborg), and how its initial emphasis on healing disease morphed into a vision of the mind’s ability to bring us whatever we desire.
While most histories of New Thought tend to focus on churches and other formal organizations, Haller reveals that New Thought has had a much broader impact on American culture. Bestselling authors from the late nineteenth century and onward sold books in the millions of copies that were eagerly read and quoted by powerful politicians and wealthy industrialists. The idea that thoughts could become reality is so embedded in American culture that we tell each other to “be positive” without ever questioning why. New Thought has become our thought.
Anyone interested in psychology, popular culture, or history will be fascinated by this exploration of a little-known facet of modern culture.
403 pages
Product description
About the Author
John S. Haller Jr. is an emeritus professor of history and medical humanities at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from race to sexuality and the history of medicine. His most recent books include The History of American Homeopathy and Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the Mind/Body Connection. He is former editor of Caduceus: A Humanities Journal for Medicine and the Health Sciences and, until his retirement in 2008, served for eighteen years as vice president for academic affairs for Southern Illinois University. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Product details
ASIN : B00BA9STIK
Publisher : Swedenborg Foundation Publishers; 1st edition (1 December 2012)
Language : English
File size : 1480 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 403 pages
4.7 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
Richmonde
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I wanted to know
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 August 2022
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I am interested in the history of ideas, and wondered when and why we started thinking that the human mind creates the world.
I am only 30% through, but I can report that this is a well-researched historical overview of a movement that began in the early to middle 19th century, and became very widespread through churches and clinics and healers. As the century tried to accommodate the success of science, invention and industry, as well as Darwin, this was an alternative that centred the spirit while discarding the guilt and hellfire of earlier Protestant viewpoints.
America always had a DIY attitude to religion since my ancestors turned up shortly after the Mayflower. A direct ancestor was kicked out of Massachusetts for antinomianism.
I look forward to finding out more about the way this movement, which continued into the 20th century, morphed and changed with the times, sweeping Freud and psychotherapy into its embrace - in fact, wasn't Freud just another practitioner who peddled his own brand of spiritual healing, complete with acolytes and a school of thought? For "subconscious" read "spirit"!
Of course it would be nice to get what we want by wishing for it, but I prefer a more practical approach! And the trouble with this line of thought is that it can stop people looking for real-life solutions: like joining a union, striking, voting in a different candidate, starting a political movement, holding a demonstration - or a revolution. And if the Powers That Be offer me "mindfulness" instead of drugs and "cognitive behavioural therapy" instead of a means to get what I want, I shall politely turn down their kind advice.
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L. Cooperman
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is written by a secular humanist. It ...Reviewed in the United States on 19 June 2018
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This book is written by a secular humanist. It is balanced in so far as the history is concerned. He explains the usurpation of Quimby's findings by Mary Baker Eddy which was one of my main areas of interest along with not saying it but implying (probably unconsciously) the march towards spiritual narcissism that has been very evident in New Thought.
5 people found this helpfulReport abuse
bgandl
2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Swedenborg-centric perspective
Verified Purchase
I am interested in the history of ideas, and wondered when and why we started thinking that the human mind creates the world.
I am only 30% through, but I can report that this is a well-researched historical overview of a movement that began in the early to middle 19th century, and became very widespread through churches and clinics and healers. As the century tried to accommodate the success of science, invention and industry, as well as Darwin, this was an alternative that centred the spirit while discarding the guilt and hellfire of earlier Protestant viewpoints.
America always had a DIY attitude to religion since my ancestors turned up shortly after the Mayflower. A direct ancestor was kicked out of Massachusetts for antinomianism.
I look forward to finding out more about the way this movement, which continued into the 20th century, morphed and changed with the times, sweeping Freud and psychotherapy into its embrace - in fact, wasn't Freud just another practitioner who peddled his own brand of spiritual healing, complete with acolytes and a school of thought? For "subconscious" read "spirit"!
Of course it would be nice to get what we want by wishing for it, but I prefer a more practical approach! And the trouble with this line of thought is that it can stop people looking for real-life solutions: like joining a union, striking, voting in a different candidate, starting a political movement, holding a demonstration - or a revolution. And if the Powers That Be offer me "mindfulness" instead of drugs and "cognitive behavioural therapy" instead of a means to get what I want, I shall politely turn down their kind advice.
Report abuse
L. Cooperman
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is written by a secular humanist. It ...Reviewed in the United States on 19 June 2018
Verified Purchase
This book is written by a secular humanist. It is balanced in so far as the history is concerned. He explains the usurpation of Quimby's findings by Mary Baker Eddy which was one of my main areas of interest along with not saying it but implying (probably unconsciously) the march towards spiritual narcissism that has been very evident in New Thought.
5 people found this helpfulReport abuse
bgandl
2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading Swedenborg-centric perspective
Reviewed in the United States on 27 February 2013
Verified Purchase
This book contains good historical data, but is a bit dry and professorial in tone. More importantly, it suffers (perhaps predictably, given its publisher) from the peculiar point of view that the greater part of New Thought has its origin in Swedenborg. The author even accuses Quimby and others of lifting Swedenborg's teaching without attribution (going so far as to suggest outright plagiarism), instead of recognizing that Quimby probably was not exposed to him and that these are universal, not proprietary, truths.
While there may be some overlap, Swedenborgianism had less influence on New Thought than it did on Spiritualism. New Thought may be rooted more in George Fox and Hegel. I was born and raised in New Thought and have ministered in Unity for decades but have never heard Swedenborg's name come up in a single conversation with anyone in Unity or New Thought. He never was mentioned once at Unity's ministerial training school. I can recall only one reference to Swedenborg in all my Unity studies, and that is found in "Friends in High Places," and that is limited to one line.
Swedenborg was not the source of his own ideas. He discerned them, by his own admission, from an higher source. Why can't this author see that he was not the only one capable of this feat?
Charles Fillmore, Unity's co-founder, wrote metaphysical Bible interpretations that perfectly reflected those of Philo of Alexandria, from 1900 years before. No one has suggested that Fillmore's work was unoriginal. He was merely tuned in to the same wavelength as Philo, and most likely had never read him. I remember a Unity friend who received a scathing letter from another author who mistakenly castigated her for appropriating his ideas for her book. She had never read his writings, but discovered upon examination that their ideas were almost identical, which she saw as evidence of the universality of mind. Another friend of mine came to me with an idea for a class, whose outline and exact title were identical to a book that had just come out that week. She had never heard of it. She taught the class without reading it. After reading it, she joined forces with the author and became certified by him to teach his method, which she herself had discerned from universal mind independently from him.
Yes, Warren Felt Evans and Horatio Dresser were well influenced by Swedenborg, but the author gives that correspondence much greater weight than anyone I have read, and otherwise finds Swedenborg lurking in unlikely places.
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23 people found this helpfulReport abuse
Verified Purchase
This book contains good historical data, but is a bit dry and professorial in tone. More importantly, it suffers (perhaps predictably, given its publisher) from the peculiar point of view that the greater part of New Thought has its origin in Swedenborg. The author even accuses Quimby and others of lifting Swedenborg's teaching without attribution (going so far as to suggest outright plagiarism), instead of recognizing that Quimby probably was not exposed to him and that these are universal, not proprietary, truths.
While there may be some overlap, Swedenborgianism had less influence on New Thought than it did on Spiritualism. New Thought may be rooted more in George Fox and Hegel. I was born and raised in New Thought and have ministered in Unity for decades but have never heard Swedenborg's name come up in a single conversation with anyone in Unity or New Thought. He never was mentioned once at Unity's ministerial training school. I can recall only one reference to Swedenborg in all my Unity studies, and that is found in "Friends in High Places," and that is limited to one line.
Swedenborg was not the source of his own ideas. He discerned them, by his own admission, from an higher source. Why can't this author see that he was not the only one capable of this feat?
Charles Fillmore, Unity's co-founder, wrote metaphysical Bible interpretations that perfectly reflected those of Philo of Alexandria, from 1900 years before. No one has suggested that Fillmore's work was unoriginal. He was merely tuned in to the same wavelength as Philo, and most likely had never read him. I remember a Unity friend who received a scathing letter from another author who mistakenly castigated her for appropriating his ideas for her book. She had never read his writings, but discovered upon examination that their ideas were almost identical, which she saw as evidence of the universality of mind. Another friend of mine came to me with an idea for a class, whose outline and exact title were identical to a book that had just come out that week. She had never heard of it. She taught the class without reading it. After reading it, she joined forces with the author and became certified by him to teach his method, which she herself had discerned from universal mind independently from him.
Yes, Warren Felt Evans and Horatio Dresser were well influenced by Swedenborg, but the author gives that correspondence much greater weight than anyone I have read, and otherwise finds Swedenborg lurking in unlikely places.
Read less
23 people found this helpfulReport abuse
Damian Baker
4.0 out of 5 stars Great overview of the movementReviewed in the United States on 17 April 2018
A little dry at times but a otherwise a great overview of the New Thought movement and its history. I enjoyed it.
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Jeremy Garber rated it it was amazing
Shelves: history, religion, religion-in-culture, postmodernism
John S. Haller Jr., professor emeritus of history and medical humanities at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, provides an excellent, readable, and appropriately critical history of the strands of the uniquely American religious movement collectively known as New Thought. Haller, who describes himself as a secular humanist in his introduction, does an excellent job of being sympathetic to the movement’s ideas and creative richness while also not shying away from its intellectual contradictions and potentially dangerous ethical shortcomings. His history is a history of ideas, tracing the movement of New Thought from its beginning marriage between mesmerism and phrenology and liberal Christianity to its current manifestations in an exploding megamillion dollar pop culture industry.
Haller traces New Thought’s beginning with Emerson and Swedenborg, through nascent science’s impact on Protestant America and New Thought’s increasing affirmation of corporate capitalism and individual wealth, to its current emphasis on pragmatism, individualism and capitalism, religious experience without gods, and emphasis on “forces” rather than religious personalities. He observes that New Thought blends the best of American pragmatism and optimism with a distressing tendency toward self-contradictory, shallow thought and a tendency to ignore or even demonize complex social problems. Finally, the book ends with a helpful listing of New Thought-affiliated organizations and another list of writers (including, interestingly, Matthew Fox, who Haller places in the church-affiliated New Thought category of contemporary thinkers). This volume is highly recommended introduction for anyone wanting to know more about Christian Science, the Unity School of Christianity, or what the Secret is that Oprah is talking about all the time.
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Erik
Aug 09, 2013Erik rated it really liked it
Shelves: new-thought
Haller does an okay job giving a overview of the New Thought Movement, however his tendency to compare much of it to the teachings of Swedenborg seems a bit over done. For a better review of the movement without sometimes over reaching for comparisons is One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life by Mitch Horowitz. Haller glosses over the liberal and social conciseness of many of the early New Thought teachers, where Horowitz encourages and promotes this knowledge. (less)
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J K Hoffman
Feb 20, 2019J K Hoffman rated it liked it
Wow was this a difficult book to like. There’s a good amount of fascinating information, but it’s so hard to wade through so much of the other stuff to get to it that I’d have a hard time recommending this book to anyone else.
Also I found that the author’s general lack of criticism of the movement and several problematic writers in it (ie Napoleon Hill who was little more than a con man, as it turns out) that I questioned a lot of the rest of the book.
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Toni Lamotta
Nov 30, 2019Toni Lamotta rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Is it over
Speaks of New Thought as a thing of the past. Some inaccurate facts and some great research. A good read
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