Book Description
The theme of this scarce book is How to Think Yourself into Better Health, Greater Happiness, and More Success as proved by thirty-six leading exponents of New Thought, throughout the United Statesand Canada. This book comprises of a compilation of inspiring essays and articles by many of the prominent New Thought writers and leaders of the time (1949), including Emmet Fox, Ralph Waldo Trine, Ernest Holmes, Lillian De Waters, Raymond Charles Barker, Christian D. Larson, Elizibeth Towne, Brown Landone, etc.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION                                                                                  

THAT FOR WHICH WE STAND—

V. Manley Ayers                                                                           

THE CREATIVE PRINCIPLE AT WORK—

Frederick W. Bailes                                                                        

THE NEW TEACHING FOR THE NEW AGE—

Raymond Charles Barker                                                                 

DIVINE SCIENCE—

          Nona L. Brooks                                                                                 

THE UNASSAILABLE POWER—

          Edgar White Burrill                                                                       

THE AWAKENING POWER OF CHRIST—

          Mary L. S. Butterworth                                                                      

MASTERY OF LIFE THROUGH DIVINE POWER—

          Myrtle E. Cate                                                                                   

WHAT IS IT THAT WE HAVE?—

          Ruth E. Chew                                                                                    

THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOOD—

          Florrie Beal Clark                                                                    

WHAT IS ABSOLUTE SCIENCE?—

          Carrick-Cook                                                                                 

ONTOLOGY—

          Lillian DeWaters                                                                               

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH—

          James E. Dodds                                                                                

WHAT OUGHT TO BE, IS—

          Murrel Powell Douglas                                                                     

A TRIBUTE TO JAMES A. EDGERTON                                    

THE SCIENCE OF BEING—

          Ida B. Elliot                                                                                 

GO FORWARD—

          William Farwell                                                                                

PRACTICAL RECIPES FOR MEETING TODAY’S PROBLEM—

          Emmet Fox                                                                                         

OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD’S THOUGHT—

          John Seaman Garns                                                                      

SEVEN STEPS TO SELF-FULFILLMENT—

          J. B. Goldstone                                                                                 

MY VISION OF THE TRUTH—

          Albert C. Grier                                                                                  

MY PATHWAY OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS—

          Agnes Barton Haskell                                                                   

NEW THOUGHT THE MODERN ACTION OF THE

INDWELLING CHRIST—

          Daniel Boone Herring                                                                     

AS I SEE IT—

          Harry Granison Hill                                                                        

SCIENCE OF MIND—

          Ernest Holmes                                                                                 

THE PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE OF METAPHYSICS—

          E. V. Ingraham                                                                                 

THE SCIENCE OF PRAYER—

          W. Frederick Keeler                                                                         

THE TRUTH WHICH WE CAN LIVE—

          Brown Landone                                                                              

WHAT COMES FIRST IN NEW THOUGHT—

          Christian D. Larson                                                                         

JESUS CHRIST IN HIS KINGDOM—

          Eleanor Mel                                                                                      

IDENTIFICATION WITH THE POWER OF GOD—

          Henry Victor Morgan                                                                        

THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF MIND—

          Villa Faulkner Page                                                                          

THE LAW OF LOVE APPLIED TO BODY AND AFFAIRS—

          Blanche Marie Peters                                                                      

THE HEALING POWER OF TRUE SPIRITUAL VALUES—

          Herbert E. Rodwell                                                                          

THE OMNIPRESENCE OF CREATIVE ENERGY—

          Ervin Seale                                                                                        

THE SCIENCE OF MAN—

          Sheldon Shepard                                                                              

WHO IS GOD?

          Elizabeth Towne                                                                               

THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL LIVING—

          Ralph Waldo Trine                                                                           

UNITY—

          Ernest C. Wilson                                                                               

INTRODUCTION

THE New Thought Movement is essentially spiritual. Dealing with the laws of Mind, it is also scientific. It assumes that God is not only the final Reality, He is the only present Reality. Ev­erything that is real is of Him. Our own being is God manifest as personality.

The New Thought Movement has been likened to applied Christianity. It is both unique and practical, since it seeks to make definite use of spiritual power in everyday living. This attempt to re-evaluate the philosophy of Christianity in terms of practical application definitely originated in the New Thought Movement, and became its chief impulsion, its outstanding char­acteristic. It is this practical application of spiritual causation to human needs which has drawn the attention of millions of people in America and other millions throughout the world to a new out­look on life, and to new hope.

Whatever the New Thought Movement may owe to other sys­tems, and it owes much, it is unique in this, it has placed a new and dynamic meaning to the relationship between God and man, between the invisible and the visible. With Jesus, it has insisted that faith shall be made manifest in works; that the Creative Power of God is individualized in every soul. Spiritual faith, be­lief and conviction, are not merely terms used to designate the devotional life, they are dynamic and creative instruments to be used in everyday living.

While there is a wide range of opinion among the New Thought leaders, teachers, practitioners and laymen, this one underlying purpose runs through the entire Movement: the immediate avail­ability of Good; conscious and practical application of spiritual thought force to the solution of human problems; the inevitable necessity that good shall come to every soul; the belief in immor­tality and the continuity of the individual stream of conscious­ness, and eternal expansion of the individual life; the awakening, not to an absorption of man’s identity in Deity, but to his com­plete unity with the Whole. Thus every man becomes an indi­vidualized center of God Consciousness, eternally expanding.

The International New Thought Alliance Congress, held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California, July 1940, by a unani­mous vote of its members, instructed Erma W. Wells, president of the organization, to appoint a Publication Committee with full authority to act in the publishing of a book representing, as nearly as possible, a true cross-section of the spiritual philosophy and methods for practice which are today being taught by leading teachers, authors, and lecturers in the New Thought field. The Committee subsequently appointed consisted of Ernest Holmes, Chairman, Maude Allison Lathem, Vice-Chairman, Reverend Elizabeth Towne, Reverend James E. Dodds, Reverend Nona L. Brooks, Dr. Emmet Fox, Wallace Kibbee, Ervin E. Scale, Carrick-Cook, Reverend Murrell Powell-Douglas and Reverend Mary L. Butterworth.

Executive members of this committee, after having carefully considered all the material sent in, because of its fine quality have seen fit to incorporate in this book practically all view­points submitted, since each throws a unique light on the subject. The committee feels deeply indebted to all those who have made contributions to this book, for the beautiful spirit of cooperation which has been made manifest.

The following articles may be considered a true, if not entirely complete, presentation of the teachings and practice of the New Thought Movement in America today. Those represented in this book are not, necessarily, better than other teachers in this field, but they are representative.

It did not seem at all necessary to write an exhaustive history of the New Thought Movement. This has already been ade­quately done. It is well however to explain just what is meant by New Thought, and what the leaders of this Movement in America today, teach and practice.

The New Thought Movement is metaphysical, but not in a strict philosophical sense. Metaphysics in terms of New Thought means a practical idealism, which emphasizes spiritual causation and the accessibility of spiritual mind power, acting in accord with law and available to all people. From this standpoint, “Christian Metaphysics” means the philosophy of the New Tes­tament, practiced as a science.

It is the purpose of the New Thought Movement to prove the teachings of Jesus relative to the spiritual universe and man’s re­lationship to it. The New Thought Movement in many ways is unlike most of the Oriental teachings, for in following the phi­losophy of Jesus more closely than that of other teachers of antiquity, it emphasizes the importance of individualism. In this it is quite American, which is natural, since the Movement started here. Yet it would be a mistake to deny the heritage which this Movement has received from many sources. It is an outgrowth of all that has gone before. It has borrowed much from the idealistic philosophies of the ages, particularly Plato, Socrates and the Neo-Platonist. It has been profoundly influ­enced by the teachings of the Old Testament, the precepts of Buddha and the Sacred Writings of the East. It owes an enor­mous debt of gratitude to many of the spiritual philosophies of the Middle Ages, and in our own country is particularly indebted to Emerson and many others with whose writings we are all familiar.

But as much as it owes to other systems of thought, it is still a unique American Institution, in that it started in this country, and, although it has spread over the world, it has flourished and grown here more than elsewhere. It probably would be safe to estimate that from fifteen to twenty million people in America today are influenced by its teachings.

The Movement itself is the outcome of a number of contem­poraneous systems of thought which have emphasized the inner life. As Dresser stated in his History of New Thought Move­ment, “The last century witnessed the rediscovery of the inner life. . . . The new age bids us go to the sources for ourselves.”

Probably more than on the work of any other one person, the New Thought Movement of America has been built upon the teachings of Phineas Quimby, who was born in New Hampshire in 1802 and who passed from this plane in the state of Maine in 1866. This man was one of the few original thinkers of the ages. He had a deep intuition as well as an unusually pronounced psychic development. He believed that we are living in a spiritual universe now, but that the freedom of our choice, backed by the law of Mind, makes possible the experience of discord and limi­tation. He said: “Can a theory be found capable of practice which can separate Truth from error? I undertake to say there is a method of reasoning which, being understood, can separate one from the other. . . . Man is made up of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that he has, or is liable to have, a disease, the belief is catching, and the effect follows it.”

Quimby laid his chief emphasis on spiritual mind healing, rather than on the control of conditions through the creative power of thought. He claimed that disease is but a dream from which one may be awakened. His method, according to his son, George Quimby, was to “change the mind of a patient, and dis­abuse it of its error and establish the truth in its place, which, if done, was the cure.”

He was completely convinced that the Creative Spirit within us is God, and that we have an immediate relationship to the Divine. This relationship is creative. Quimby never sought to control others; he made no suggestions to them. That is, he did not practice suggestive therapeutics. His whole method of pro­cedure was spiritual explanation. His idea was that symptoms would disappear with the changed viewpoint. In this he antici­pated the discoveries of modern psychology, except that his was a more spiritual method.

He spoke of mind as spiritual substance, and often referred to what he called the real or the spiritual man who needed to be summoned to the aid of the man who is mentally and physically sick.

Quimby believed in a spiritual body. He taught that there is no disease independent of mind. Thus he said, “Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change the belief and it will cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole.”

The New Thought Movement in America today, owes much to this man’s life, teaching and practice. Most of its early teach­ers were instructed by him. Thus we find most of them empha­sizing the Divine Spark in man, which, despite all appearances to the contrary, is always there.

Shortly after Quimby passed in 1866, several of his devout students, most of whom he had healed, began to teach and write. Each branched out freely and naturally, each added his own ideas to what he had received from Quimby. Among those early teach­ers were people who had already been theologically trained, sev­eral of them in the Swedenborgian Church, and it was not diffi­cult for them to follow Quimby since they had already been taught to believe in a law of spiritual correspondences. Whatever the difference of opinion among these earlier teachers may have been, they all seem unanimous in emphasizing mental and spir­itual causation and the thought that the material universe pos­sesses no independent life and intelligence. Of course, this was before the day of the new physics. They all taught that spiritual mind healing of the physical body is a result of touching the springs of life in the soul of the patient. Naturally the different teachers chose different names, such as Divine Science, Metaphysical Clubs, Applied Christianity, Practical Christianity and innumerable other names, and in England the term Higher Thought was used, all of which have a common meaning. The New Thought Movement has always been very individualistic and in many respects has stood for a protest against ecclesiastical or spiritual authority. Finally, an attempt was made to weld the whole movement into a national alliance for the purpose of clarity of thought and the dissemination of its teaching.

The following declaration of purpose is taken from one of its earliest records: “Organized to promote an active interest in a more spiritual philosophy and its practical application to human life. Its spirit is broad, tolerant and constructive, and its object an impartial search for truth. All who sympathize with these pur­poses, without regard to past or present affiliations of sect, party or system, are cordially invited to cooperate.”

In another statement drawn at an early date we read: “. . . It seeks the spark of infinitude in the seemingly finite, and seeks to fan it into a blaze that shall be the light of the world. It is therefore striving to bring into hearty cooperation all the indi­vidual potencies that have tended toward the high end which it has in view, believing that thus a resistless impulse might be given to the development of life on the highest attainable plane.”

It was the purpose of the New Thought Movement not only to stand for a method of spiritual healing, but for a positive and affirmative philosophic idealism of religion, of applied Christi­anity, and to emphasize the rediscovery of the Gospel teachings relative to healing and everyday life.

In 1900 The International Metaphysical League held its second convention in New York City. In its revised Constitution, the following “purposes” were adopted: “The Purpose of the League is: To establish unity and cooperation of thought and action among individuals and organizations throughout the world de­voted to the Science of Mind and of Being, and to bring them, so far as possible, under one name and organization; to promote interest in, and the practice of a true spiritual philosophy of life; to develop the highest self-culture through right thinking, as a means of bringing one’s loftiest ideals into present realization; to stimulate faith in, and the study of, the highest nature of man, in its relation to health, happiness, and progress; to teach the universal Fatherhood and Motherhood of God and the all-inclu­sive Brotherhood of Man; that One Life is immanent in the uni­verse, and is both Center and Circumference of all things visible and invisible, and that this Intelligence is above all and in all; and that from this Infinite Life and Intelligence proceed all Light, Love and Truth.”

The following statement of purpose is taken from the Alliance meeting in 1916: “To teach the infinitude of the Supreme One; the Divinity of Man and his infinite possibilities through the cre­ative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of the Indwelling Presence, which is our source of Inspiration, Power, Health and Prosperity.” And in St. Louis in 1917 the fol­lowing declaration of principles of the International New Thought Alliance was adopted, and is now in use:

We affirm the freedom of each soul as to choice and as to belief, and would not, by the adoption of any declaration of principles, limit such freedom. The essence of the New Thought is Truth, and each individual must be loyal to the Truth he sees. The windows of his soul must be kept open at each moment for the higher light, and his mind must be always hospitable to each new inspiration.

We affirm the Good. This is supreme, universal and everlasting. Man is made in the image of the Good, and evil and pain are but the tests and correctives that appear when his thought does not reflect the full glory of this image.

We affirm health, which is man’s divine inheritance. Man’s body is his holy temple. Every function of it, every cell of it, is intelligent, and is shaped, ruled, repaired, and controlled by mind. He whose body is full of light is full of health. Spiritual healing has existed among all races in all times. It has now become a part of the higher science and art of living the life more abundant.

We affirm the divine supply. He who serves God and man in the full understanding of the law of compensation shall not lack. Within us are unused resources of energy and power. He who lives with his whole be­ing, and thus expresses fullness, shall reap fullness in return. He who gives himself, he who knows and acts in his highest knowledge, he who trusts in the divine return, has learned the law of success.

We affirm the teaching of Christ that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we are one with the Father, that we should not judge, that we should love one another, that we should heal the sick, that we should return good for evil, that we should minister to others, and that we should be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. These are not only ideals, but practical, everyday working principles.

We affirm the new thought of God as Universal Love, Life, Truth and Joy, in whom we live, move, and have our being, and by whom we are held, together; that His mind is our mind now, that realizing our one­ness with Him means love, truth, peace, health and plenty, not only in our own lives but in the giving out of these fruits of the Spirit to others.

We affirm these things, not as a profession, but practice, not on one day of the week, but in every hour and minute of every day, sleeping and waking, not in the ministry of a few, but in a service that includes the democracy of all, not in words alone, but in the innermost thoughts of the heart expressed in living the life. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

We affirm Heaven here and now, the life everlasting that becomes con­scious immortality, the communion of mind with mind throughout the universe of thoughts, the nothingness of all error and negation, includ­ing death, the variety in unity that produces the individual expressions of the One-Life, and the quickened realization of the indwelling God in each soul that is making a new heaven and a new earth.

We affirm that the universe is spiritual and we are spiritual beings. This is the Christ message to the twentieth century, and it is a message not so much of words as of works. To attain this, however, we must be clean, honest and trustworthy and uphold the Jesus Christ standards as taught in the Four Gospels. We now have the golden opportunity to form a real Christ movement. Let us build our house upon this rock, and nothing can prevail against it. This is the vision and mission of the ALLIANCE.