Post by rectitudo on Apr 4, 2014 2:55:49 GMT -5
Oprah Winfrey, New Thought, "The Secret" and the "New Alchemy"
Page 3 of 5
New Thought Chronology
The New Age Movement is generally traced back to the teachings of Theosophy and Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891). In a similar manner, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) laid the foundation for what became known as the New Thought Movement. Though less well-known, yet equally as diverse, New Thought has just as many branches and competing systems. In order to get an idea of where the latter came from - where it has been and where it is now - it is necessary to establish a timeline.
1838 - Phineas P. Quimby takes up the practice of mesmerism (mesmeric sleep or hypnotism), after attending a lecture in Belfast, Maine by a traveling French physician/mesmerist, Dr. Collyer.
After a few experiments on willing subjects, Quimby happens upon a most suggestive young man, one Lucius Burkmar. Quimby soon realized that Burkmar, while in a trance, could diagnose disease and prescribe remedies. They traveled throughout New England and gave their own exhibitions - the mesmeric faith-healer and his talented clairvoyant.
Looking for an explanation to Burkmar's success - and not content with the standard mesmeric theory that magnetic fluid was the causative agent - Quimby theorized that healing occurred through the sheer power of the mind. Quimby would say, "Some believe in various remedies, and others believe that the spirits of the dead prescribe. I have no confidence in the virtue of either. I know that cures have been made in these ways. I do not deny them. But the principle on which they are done is the question to solve; for the disease can be cured, with or without medicine, on but one principle."
According to James Webb, "between 1852 and 1855," Quimby wrote, "I then became a medium myself." His own method of healing entailed retaining his own consciousness. "Now when I sit down by a diseased person I see the spiritual form of a vapor surrounding their bodies," Quimby had said. After inducing the patient to tell him where their trouble began, the cure was realized by Quimby's spirit governing their own; consisting "in bringing the spirit of his patient away from the place where the cause of illness occurred." (The Occult Underground, p. 122)
Thus, the Quimby system of mental healing of illness was born.
1862 - After suffering chronic illness and dabbling in homeopathy and alternative healing, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) turns to Phineas Quimby for treatment. Julius A. Dresser said that when Eddy "became a patient of Quimby, she at once took an interest in his theory, and imbibed his explanations of truth rapidly."
A few months after feeling relief, in the Portland Evening Courier, Eddy's testimony on Quimby is recorded:
[...] is it by animal magnetism that he heals the sick? Let us examine. I have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for a brief interval have felt relief, from the equilibrium which I fancied was restored to an exhausted system or by a diffusion of concentrated action. But in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments, because I had not been helped out of the error in which opinions involved us. My operator believed in disease independent of the mind; hence, I could not be wiser than my teacher. But now I can see dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and, just in proportion to my light, perception, is my recovery. This truth which he opposes to the error of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where it never placed itself, if received understandingly, changes the currents of the system to their normal action; and the mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a science capable of demonstration becomes clear to the minds of those patients who reason upon the process of their cure. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him (although he may be wholly unconscious thereof); and the body, which is full of light, is no longer in disease. At present I am too much in error to elucidate the truth, and can touch only the key-note for the master-hand to wake the harmony.
1863 - New Thought pioneer, Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889), is healed by Quimby:
His health, which had never been good, began to worsen. In 1863 he decided to visit Quimby in Portland, Maine. Quimby's fame had been spreading throughout New England. In two visits, Evans was healed of dyspepsia, which had afflicted him for years. He was thrilled at what he found in Quimby: someone he felt put into practice Swedenborg's approach to healing. Evans felt that because of his Swedenborgian background he understood Quimby's healing secrets, and could employ them himself. Quimby agreed as Evans began the life of a healer.
Evans joined the Swedenborgian Church, and he and his family moved to Boston and then Salisbury, where he became a highly-effective healer. For the rest of his life, he gave healings in the Quimby-Swedenborg approach. He never charged. He wrote many books combining the theology of Swedenborg with the healing techniques of Quimby.
Evans was the first author to proselytize to the masses the techniques of Quimby, marking the beginning of the movement known as New Thought. His books include The New Age and its Messenger (1864), The Mental Cure (1869), Mental Medicine (1872), Soul and Body (1875), The Divine Law of Cure (1881), The Primitive Mind Cure (1885) and Esoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics (1886).
1866 - After a fall on the sidewalk caused her to seek her own cure, Mary Baker Eddy says she "discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterward named Christian Science." In reality, this "scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon," was based upon her own understanding of the healing principles of Quimby.
1875 - The foundational doctrine of the Christian Science movement, Eddy's Science and Health is published.
1879 - Eddy founds The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
1883 - The Christian Science Journal is created by Eddy.
1885 - Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925) becomes an independent Christian Science practitioner after a falling out with Eddy's organization. Dubbed the teacher of teachers, Hopkins would go on to influence and indoctrinate most of the early influential purveyors of New Thought. Her students included Emma Fox, Myrtle and Charles Fillmore, Ernest Holmes and Francis Lord. By 1887, Hopkins had "taught six hundred students" and had in operation seventeen branches of the Hopkins Metaphysical Association. (See Deidre Michell, "New Thinking, New Thought, New Age: The Theology and Influence of Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925)", Counterpoints, Vol. 2, no. 1, July 2002)
Hopkins' own inspiration ran the gamut from Plotinus, Porphyry, and Spinoza, to the Zend-Avesta and alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. She promulgated aphorisms and affirmations such as "there is no evil"; "there is no matter"; "there is no sin, sickness or death"; and "my Good is my God." Combining 19th century feminism with New Thought Christian Science, Hopkins ordained ministers (mostly woman) as "special messengers of 'the new era of the Holy Mother Spirit' " (Michell, op. cit.).
1889 - The Unity Church (Unity, or Unity School of Christianity) is founded by Charles Fillmore (1854-1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845-1931) in Kansas City, Missouri.
The basic tenets of Unity can be summarized briefly:
God: Divine Mind, absolute good, and therefore the concept of evil is merely ignorance.
Man: "We are spiritual beings, ideas in the Mind of God."
Jesus: "a special person"; "a Teacher."
The Bible: "a body of history"; "a great literary work"; any deep significance to be found is only due to a "metaphysical interpretation."
The virgin birth: "spiritually interpreted as the birth of the Christ consciousness."
The Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interpreted metaphysically as "mind, idea, and expression."
Salvation: "the death of Jesus ... did not relieve us of the necessity of working out our own salvation."
Sin and the Devil: "Heaven and hell are states of consciousness"; "Sin is our separation from God in consciousness, caused by our [mistaken] belief in the 'devil'."
- Unity Center For Spiritual Living
Besides New Thought and a metaphysical interpretation of the Bible, "Unity drew on Hinduism, Buddhism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism," declares Arthur Goldwag. Confirming Unity's syncretism, Charles Fillmore had said, "We have studied many isms, many cults … We have borrowed the best from all religions ... Unity is the Truth that is taught in all religions, simplified ... so that anyone can understand and apply it."
Unity as whole is the most powerful conduit for the dissemination of New Thought metaphysics, representing hundreds of affiliate churches, organizations, offshoots and perhaps millions of followers. Purportedly, Oprah Winfrey is a member. (At the very least, she is, and has been, the promoter of many prominent members - most recently those involved with The Secret.)
1895 - In Boston, the Metaphysical Club is formed. Up until that time this represented the "chief event in the history of New Thought"; bringing together "some of the leaders of the mental-science period" and those "active in the Church of the Divine Unity and The Mental Healing Monthly."
1898 - Nautilus, the most widely read New Thought periodical, is created by Elizabeth Towne. It was published for over 50 years, "sold extensively on the newsstands, has taken the place of many of the earlier magazines, and is typical of the New Thought in its most popular and prosperous form."
1899 - The Metaphysical Club organizes a conference in Boston for those with a "deep interest in the new movement to establish a world-wide unity and cooperation along the lines of the so-called 'New Thought'." In turn, an International Metaphysical League was organized at this conference. During its second session in 1900 a revised constitution was adopted, the purpose of which was
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 Centre and Circumference of all things visible and invisible, and that the Intelligence is above all and in all; and that from this Infinite Life and Intelligence proceed all Light, Love and Truth. These simple statements are in their nature tentative, and imply no limitations or boundaries to future progress and growth, as larger measures of light and truth shall be revealed.
1908 - The Christian Science Monitor is founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
1912 - Businessman, "thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner", Charles F. Haanel (1866-1949) wrote his mind-power prosperity classic, The Master Key System. It sold over 200,000 copies with the next twenty years.
1914 - The International New Thought Alliance is formed. Its purpose:
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 (emphasis added).
Since its inception, the International New Thought Alliance has organized annual conferences, bringing together "the great leaders of New Thought in the world, including representatives from Unity School, United Religious Science, Religious Science International, Divine Science, Association of Unity Churches, Universal Foundation for Better Living, Center for Spiritual Awareness, Unity Progressive Council, Association of Global New Thought, New Thought Network, University of Healing, as well as noted individuals ..."
Its headquarters acts as a research institute. The Addington INTA Archives consists of books and booklets, magazines, pamphlets, correspondences, lectures, sermons, lessons and published articles dealing with all aspects relating to New Thought, the New Age and occultism. In addition to recognized New Thought authors, the Addington INTA Archives allows one to delve into the major writings of New Age pioneers Alice A. Bailey and Annie Besant; occultist William Wynn Westcott; Gurdjieff disciples J.G. Bennett, P.D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll and G. I. Gurdjieff himself; Sri Aurobindo; Francis Bacon; Emanuel Swedenborg; Theosophists C. W. Leadbeater, J. Krishnamurti and H.P. Blavatsky; Edgar Cayce; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; some of the Seth material channeled by Jane Roberts; a book by the Findhorn Community, The Findhorn Garden (on how they contacted and cooperated with "nature spirits and devas"); Freemason/occult philosopher Manly P. Hall; the Rosicrucian writings of Max Heindel; H.S. Lewis, the founder of the Rosicrucian Order AMORC; New Agers Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ruth Montgomery, and Luciferians John Randolph Price and David Spangler; Swedenborgian Helen Keller's My Religion; spirit medium J.Z. Knight (Ramtha's School of Enlightenment); and the Book of Urantia - among others. (See Books and Booklets, Authors A-F, G-M and N-Z)
(pyramid image)
1921 - On the 100th anniversary of Mary Baker Eddy's birth, an exact replica of the Great Pyramid, made from a single piece of granite and weighing over 100 tons and 11 feet on each side, was carved and placed near the house where Eddy had been born, in New Hampshire. It was a gift from Freemasons. In the "Mary Baker Eddy Letter," December 25, 1997, we learn that when "the Board of Directors noted that too many Christian Scientists were visiting the grand granite marker at Bow ... that marked Mary Baker Eddy's birthplace, they had it destroyed, dynamited to bits!"
Eddy's first husband, George Washington Glover, was a Mason, and "thereafter membership in the Masonic Order was the one single 'outside' affiliation that was allowed to church members by Mrs. Eddy."
Christian Science and Freemasonry have maintained a symbiotic relationship. Many of the first churches established around the United States had gathered in Masonic Temples. To this day one can find the headquarters for many Christian Science associations having an address corresponding to the local Masonic lodge.
1927 - Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) founds a metaphysical movement called Religious Science, later known as the United Church of Religious Science. A year earlier, Holmes had published his most influential book, The Science of Mind. Holmes' main influences were Christian Science, Phineas Quimby, Thomas Troward (1847-1916) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Religious Science, "like many New Thought faiths, emphasizes positive thinking, influence of circumstances through mental processes, recognition of a creative energy source and natural law (referred to as God, First Principle, Universal Intelligence, and other terms) that manifests as the physical universe, and the rejection of a good/evil duality."
1937 - Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), a practitioner of Haanel's The Master Key System, publishes Think and Grow Rich. Hill's "Science of Success" was sometimes dubbed the "Carnegie Secret" or the "Carnegie Formula". He had had a longtime relationship with Andrew Carnegie, beginning with the latter commissioning him to interview the most successful, wealthy and famous people in the world.
Hill would later claim that he had been contacted by a visitor from another dimension. "I come from the Great School of Masters," the being had said. "I am one of the Council of Thirty-Three who serve the Great School and its initiates on the physical plane." According to Hill, his greatest secrets came from spirit guides known "as the Venerable Brotherhood of Ancient India, it is the great central reservoir of religious, philosophical, moral, physical, spiritual and psychical knowledge. Patiently this school strives to lift mankind from spiritual infancy to maturity of soul and final illumination." (See Dave Hunt, "The Classic Case of Napoleon Hill")
1952 - Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) publishes The Power of Positive Thinking. The book became an instant best-seller, was "on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks," and has sold over 7 million copies. A Christian preacher and a 33rd degree Freemason, Peale "and his chief disciple, Robert Schuller, kept New Thought alive within mainstream Christianity."
1974 - A black female minister from the Unity School of Christianity, Dr. Johnnie Coleman, founds the Universal Foundation for Better Living, and in 1985, the Christ Universal Temple in Chicago. Oprah regular Della Reese, the star of TV's Touched by an Angel, was ordained a minister by Universal Foundation for Better Living. Reese and Cole together founded the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church.
1975 - A Course in Miracles (ACIM), by Dr. Helen Schucman (1910-1981), is published. ACIM represents "the most successful channeled work of the late twentieth century." It has been embraced by New Thought and New Age teachers alike. Workshops and seminars espousing the principles of ACIM have become a staple of Unity and Religious Science.
Oprah Winfrey has been an ardent promoter of ACIM, mainly through the teachings of New Age/Unity feel-good guru Marianne Williamson, who's been a frequent guest.
www.culthelp.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2406&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=2
Page 3 of 5
New Thought Chronology
The New Age Movement is generally traced back to the teachings of Theosophy and Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891). In a similar manner, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) laid the foundation for what became known as the New Thought Movement. Though less well-known, yet equally as diverse, New Thought has just as many branches and competing systems. In order to get an idea of where the latter came from - where it has been and where it is now - it is necessary to establish a timeline.
1838 - Phineas P. Quimby takes up the practice of mesmerism (mesmeric sleep or hypnotism), after attending a lecture in Belfast, Maine by a traveling French physician/mesmerist, Dr. Collyer.
After a few experiments on willing subjects, Quimby happens upon a most suggestive young man, one Lucius Burkmar. Quimby soon realized that Burkmar, while in a trance, could diagnose disease and prescribe remedies. They traveled throughout New England and gave their own exhibitions - the mesmeric faith-healer and his talented clairvoyant.
Looking for an explanation to Burkmar's success - and not content with the standard mesmeric theory that magnetic fluid was the causative agent - Quimby theorized that healing occurred through the sheer power of the mind. Quimby would say, "Some believe in various remedies, and others believe that the spirits of the dead prescribe. I have no confidence in the virtue of either. I know that cures have been made in these ways. I do not deny them. But the principle on which they are done is the question to solve; for the disease can be cured, with or without medicine, on but one principle."
According to James Webb, "between 1852 and 1855," Quimby wrote, "I then became a medium myself." His own method of healing entailed retaining his own consciousness. "Now when I sit down by a diseased person I see the spiritual form of a vapor surrounding their bodies," Quimby had said. After inducing the patient to tell him where their trouble began, the cure was realized by Quimby's spirit governing their own; consisting "in bringing the spirit of his patient away from the place where the cause of illness occurred." (The Occult Underground, p. 122)
Thus, the Quimby system of mental healing of illness was born.
1862 - After suffering chronic illness and dabbling in homeopathy and alternative healing, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) turns to Phineas Quimby for treatment. Julius A. Dresser said that when Eddy "became a patient of Quimby, she at once took an interest in his theory, and imbibed his explanations of truth rapidly."
A few months after feeling relief, in the Portland Evening Courier, Eddy's testimony on Quimby is recorded:
[...] is it by animal magnetism that he heals the sick? Let us examine. I have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for a brief interval have felt relief, from the equilibrium which I fancied was restored to an exhausted system or by a diffusion of concentrated action. But in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments, because I had not been helped out of the error in which opinions involved us. My operator believed in disease independent of the mind; hence, I could not be wiser than my teacher. But now I can see dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and, just in proportion to my light, perception, is my recovery. This truth which he opposes to the error of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where it never placed itself, if received understandingly, changes the currents of the system to their normal action; and the mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a science capable of demonstration becomes clear to the minds of those patients who reason upon the process of their cure. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him (although he may be wholly unconscious thereof); and the body, which is full of light, is no longer in disease. At present I am too much in error to elucidate the truth, and can touch only the key-note for the master-hand to wake the harmony.
1863 - New Thought pioneer, Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889), is healed by Quimby:
His health, which had never been good, began to worsen. In 1863 he decided to visit Quimby in Portland, Maine. Quimby's fame had been spreading throughout New England. In two visits, Evans was healed of dyspepsia, which had afflicted him for years. He was thrilled at what he found in Quimby: someone he felt put into practice Swedenborg's approach to healing. Evans felt that because of his Swedenborgian background he understood Quimby's healing secrets, and could employ them himself. Quimby agreed as Evans began the life of a healer.
Evans joined the Swedenborgian Church, and he and his family moved to Boston and then Salisbury, where he became a highly-effective healer. For the rest of his life, he gave healings in the Quimby-Swedenborg approach. He never charged. He wrote many books combining the theology of Swedenborg with the healing techniques of Quimby.
Evans was the first author to proselytize to the masses the techniques of Quimby, marking the beginning of the movement known as New Thought. His books include The New Age and its Messenger (1864), The Mental Cure (1869), Mental Medicine (1872), Soul and Body (1875), The Divine Law of Cure (1881), The Primitive Mind Cure (1885) and Esoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics (1886).
1866 - After a fall on the sidewalk caused her to seek her own cure, Mary Baker Eddy says she "discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterward named Christian Science." In reality, this "scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon," was based upon her own understanding of the healing principles of Quimby.
1875 - The foundational doctrine of the Christian Science movement, Eddy's Science and Health is published.
1879 - Eddy founds The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
1883 - The Christian Science Journal is created by Eddy.
1885 - Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925) becomes an independent Christian Science practitioner after a falling out with Eddy's organization. Dubbed the teacher of teachers, Hopkins would go on to influence and indoctrinate most of the early influential purveyors of New Thought. Her students included Emma Fox, Myrtle and Charles Fillmore, Ernest Holmes and Francis Lord. By 1887, Hopkins had "taught six hundred students" and had in operation seventeen branches of the Hopkins Metaphysical Association. (See Deidre Michell, "New Thinking, New Thought, New Age: The Theology and Influence of Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925)", Counterpoints, Vol. 2, no. 1, July 2002)
Hopkins' own inspiration ran the gamut from Plotinus, Porphyry, and Spinoza, to the Zend-Avesta and alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. She promulgated aphorisms and affirmations such as "there is no evil"; "there is no matter"; "there is no sin, sickness or death"; and "my Good is my God." Combining 19th century feminism with New Thought Christian Science, Hopkins ordained ministers (mostly woman) as "special messengers of 'the new era of the Holy Mother Spirit' " (Michell, op. cit.).
1889 - The Unity Church (Unity, or Unity School of Christianity) is founded by Charles Fillmore (1854-1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845-1931) in Kansas City, Missouri.
The basic tenets of Unity can be summarized briefly:
God: Divine Mind, absolute good, and therefore the concept of evil is merely ignorance.
Man: "We are spiritual beings, ideas in the Mind of God."
Jesus: "a special person"; "a Teacher."
The Bible: "a body of history"; "a great literary work"; any deep significance to be found is only due to a "metaphysical interpretation."
The virgin birth: "spiritually interpreted as the birth of the Christ consciousness."
The Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interpreted metaphysically as "mind, idea, and expression."
Salvation: "the death of Jesus ... did not relieve us of the necessity of working out our own salvation."
Sin and the Devil: "Heaven and hell are states of consciousness"; "Sin is our separation from God in consciousness, caused by our [mistaken] belief in the 'devil'."
- Unity Center For Spiritual Living
Besides New Thought and a metaphysical interpretation of the Bible, "Unity drew on Hinduism, Buddhism, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism," declares Arthur Goldwag. Confirming Unity's syncretism, Charles Fillmore had said, "We have studied many isms, many cults … We have borrowed the best from all religions ... Unity is the Truth that is taught in all religions, simplified ... so that anyone can understand and apply it."
Unity as whole is the most powerful conduit for the dissemination of New Thought metaphysics, representing hundreds of affiliate churches, organizations, offshoots and perhaps millions of followers. Purportedly, Oprah Winfrey is a member. (At the very least, she is, and has been, the promoter of many prominent members - most recently those involved with The Secret.)
1895 - In Boston, the Metaphysical Club is formed. Up until that time this represented the "chief event in the history of New Thought"; bringing together "some of the leaders of the mental-science period" and those "active in the Church of the Divine Unity and The Mental Healing Monthly."
1898 - Nautilus, the most widely read New Thought periodical, is created by Elizabeth Towne. It was published for over 50 years, "sold extensively on the newsstands, has taken the place of many of the earlier magazines, and is typical of the New Thought in its most popular and prosperous form."
1899 - The Metaphysical Club organizes a conference in Boston for those with a "deep interest in the new movement to establish a world-wide unity and cooperation along the lines of the so-called 'New Thought'." In turn, an International Metaphysical League was organized at this conference. During its second session in 1900 a revised constitution was adopted, the purpose of which was
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 Centre and Circumference of all things visible and invisible, and that the Intelligence is above all and in all; and that from this Infinite Life and Intelligence proceed all Light, Love and Truth. These simple statements are in their nature tentative, and imply no limitations or boundaries to future progress and growth, as larger measures of light and truth shall be revealed.
1908 - The Christian Science Monitor is founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
1912 - Businessman, "thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner", Charles F. Haanel (1866-1949) wrote his mind-power prosperity classic, The Master Key System. It sold over 200,000 copies with the next twenty years.
1914 - The International New Thought Alliance is formed. Its purpose:
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 (emphasis added).
Since its inception, the International New Thought Alliance has organized annual conferences, bringing together "the great leaders of New Thought in the world, including representatives from Unity School, United Religious Science, Religious Science International, Divine Science, Association of Unity Churches, Universal Foundation for Better Living, Center for Spiritual Awareness, Unity Progressive Council, Association of Global New Thought, New Thought Network, University of Healing, as well as noted individuals ..."
Its headquarters acts as a research institute. The Addington INTA Archives consists of books and booklets, magazines, pamphlets, correspondences, lectures, sermons, lessons and published articles dealing with all aspects relating to New Thought, the New Age and occultism. In addition to recognized New Thought authors, the Addington INTA Archives allows one to delve into the major writings of New Age pioneers Alice A. Bailey and Annie Besant; occultist William Wynn Westcott; Gurdjieff disciples J.G. Bennett, P.D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll and G. I. Gurdjieff himself; Sri Aurobindo; Francis Bacon; Emanuel Swedenborg; Theosophists C. W. Leadbeater, J. Krishnamurti and H.P. Blavatsky; Edgar Cayce; Pierre Teilhard de Chardin; some of the Seth material channeled by Jane Roberts; a book by the Findhorn Community, The Findhorn Garden (on how they contacted and cooperated with "nature spirits and devas"); Freemason/occult philosopher Manly P. Hall; the Rosicrucian writings of Max Heindel; H.S. Lewis, the founder of the Rosicrucian Order AMORC; New Agers Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ruth Montgomery, and Luciferians John Randolph Price and David Spangler; Swedenborgian Helen Keller's My Religion; spirit medium J.Z. Knight (Ramtha's School of Enlightenment); and the Book of Urantia - among others. (See Books and Booklets, Authors A-F, G-M and N-Z)
(pyramid image)
1921 - On the 100th anniversary of Mary Baker Eddy's birth, an exact replica of the Great Pyramid, made from a single piece of granite and weighing over 100 tons and 11 feet on each side, was carved and placed near the house where Eddy had been born, in New Hampshire. It was a gift from Freemasons. In the "Mary Baker Eddy Letter," December 25, 1997, we learn that when "the Board of Directors noted that too many Christian Scientists were visiting the grand granite marker at Bow ... that marked Mary Baker Eddy's birthplace, they had it destroyed, dynamited to bits!"
Eddy's first husband, George Washington Glover, was a Mason, and "thereafter membership in the Masonic Order was the one single 'outside' affiliation that was allowed to church members by Mrs. Eddy."
Christian Science and Freemasonry have maintained a symbiotic relationship. Many of the first churches established around the United States had gathered in Masonic Temples. To this day one can find the headquarters for many Christian Science associations having an address corresponding to the local Masonic lodge.
1927 - Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) founds a metaphysical movement called Religious Science, later known as the United Church of Religious Science. A year earlier, Holmes had published his most influential book, The Science of Mind. Holmes' main influences were Christian Science, Phineas Quimby, Thomas Troward (1847-1916) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Religious Science, "like many New Thought faiths, emphasizes positive thinking, influence of circumstances through mental processes, recognition of a creative energy source and natural law (referred to as God, First Principle, Universal Intelligence, and other terms) that manifests as the physical universe, and the rejection of a good/evil duality."
1937 - Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), a practitioner of Haanel's The Master Key System, publishes Think and Grow Rich. Hill's "Science of Success" was sometimes dubbed the "Carnegie Secret" or the "Carnegie Formula". He had had a longtime relationship with Andrew Carnegie, beginning with the latter commissioning him to interview the most successful, wealthy and famous people in the world.
Hill would later claim that he had been contacted by a visitor from another dimension. "I come from the Great School of Masters," the being had said. "I am one of the Council of Thirty-Three who serve the Great School and its initiates on the physical plane." According to Hill, his greatest secrets came from spirit guides known "as the Venerable Brotherhood of Ancient India, it is the great central reservoir of religious, philosophical, moral, physical, spiritual and psychical knowledge. Patiently this school strives to lift mankind from spiritual infancy to maturity of soul and final illumination." (See Dave Hunt, "The Classic Case of Napoleon Hill")
1952 - Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) publishes The Power of Positive Thinking. The book became an instant best-seller, was "on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks," and has sold over 7 million copies. A Christian preacher and a 33rd degree Freemason, Peale "and his chief disciple, Robert Schuller, kept New Thought alive within mainstream Christianity."
1974 - A black female minister from the Unity School of Christianity, Dr. Johnnie Coleman, founds the Universal Foundation for Better Living, and in 1985, the Christ Universal Temple in Chicago. Oprah regular Della Reese, the star of TV's Touched by an Angel, was ordained a minister by Universal Foundation for Better Living. Reese and Cole together founded the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church.
1975 - A Course in Miracles (ACIM), by Dr. Helen Schucman (1910-1981), is published. ACIM represents "the most successful channeled work of the late twentieth century." It has been embraced by New Thought and New Age teachers alike. Workshops and seminars espousing the principles of ACIM have become a staple of Unity and Religious Science.
Oprah Winfrey has been an ardent promoter of ACIM, mainly through the teachings of New Age/Unity feel-good guru Marianne Williamson, who's been a frequent guest.
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