"The ideal never comes. Today is ideal for him who makes it so" --Horatio W. Dresser
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[Audio/Video not available] [Read Plain-Text Version] [Find at Local Library] [Purchase This Book] >> More by Horatio W. Dresser-------PREFACE-------
For several years there has been a demand for
a history of the liberal wing of the mental-healing
movement known as the "New Thought." This
demand is partly due to the fact that the movement is now well organized, with international
headquarters in Washington, D. C, hence there
is a desire to bring its leading principles together
and see them in their unity ; and in part to interest in the pioneers out of whose practice the
present methods and teachings have grown.
The latter interest is particularly promising since
the pioneers still have a message for us. Then,
too, we are more interested in these days in tracing the connection between the ideas which con-
cern us most and the new age out of which they
have sprung. We realize more and more clearly
that this is indeed a new age. Hence wq are increasingly eager to interpret the tendencies of
thought which express the age at its best.
In order to meet this desire for a history of
the New Thought, Mr. James A. Edgerton,
president of the International New Thought
Alliance, decided in 1916 to undertake the work. For it seemed well that some one should write
it who has not been identified with any particular
phase of the movement, either as teacher or healer.
As Mr. Edgerton was not directly acquainted
with the early history and the mental-healing
pioneers, he asked me to write the chapters about
Mr. Quimby and his followers. This I agreed
to do. But then came interruptions due to the
war, and the work was not begun. It has since
seemed advisable that I should undertake the
work as a whole, making use of such material as
Mr. Edgerton had gathered. I have responded
in the spirit in which the work was originally
planned. This History is in fact the kind of
book I had in mind in preparing and editing the
companion volume, The Spirit of the New
Thought, New York, 1917, in which were published various representative essays by different
writers, with historical notes and a bibliography
indicating the successive periods of the movement. The introduction to the latter volume
defines the term "New Thought," and traces its
use since it was adopted in 1895 as the name of
the liberal wing of the therapeutic movement.
The essays give expression to divergent opinions
concerning the movement, while also indicating
the development of the cardinal principles. In
the present volume I have taken the definition
for granted, and have assumed that the reader is interested to turn directly to the early history.
This History might disappoint some readers,
if they had made up their minds that it is necessary to look into the far past and discover ideas
in India, in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages,
which resemble the therapeutic ideas of today.
But this venture has been tried by several writers
in recent years and has led to merely general
results. This interest in the past could be developed endlessly. The objection would be that
there is no actual historical connection, no explanation of the modern movement.
Still others have undertaken to explain the
New Thought by interpreting it as an expression
of the liberalism of the nineteenth century from
a point of view so general that all the distinctive
characteristics of the movement have been lost
in the effort to claim too much for it. The
tendency is to attribute to the New Thought far
more than can with historical accuracy be claimed
for it. The New Thought as matter of fact is
only one of many liberalizing tendencies. It
may be regarded by itself, just as in other connections one might follow the history of Unita-
rianism, the philosophy of evolution, or the rise
of spiritism. All these studies would be inter-esting and valuable in their proper place. Only
in recent years has the New Thought become
distinctively a liberalizing movement, with
churches and other organizations devoted to this
work. The mental healing movement was
purely special at first. It had to be to attract
attention to principles and methods which needed
to be recognized. The movement grew up with
little connection with any other of the special
movements of the age.
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