Definition: New Thought Movement

New Thought Movement

The New Thought Movement or New Thought is a loosely allied group of denominations, organizations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of metaphysical beliefs concerning healing, life force, visualization, and personal power. The New Thought Movement developed in the United States during the mid to late 19th century and continues to the present time. It promotes the ideas that God is all powerful and ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human self-hood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, all sickness originates in the mind, and 'right thinking' has a healing effect.

Evolution of thought

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New Thought emphasizes the idea of growing or developing thought. The word New stresses the movement's interest in what is innovative and progressive. New Thought practitioners hold that as ideas form and spread, they become part of the fabric of human consciousness and human thought is transformed; adherents accept and even embrace this endless transformation, while simultaneously acknowledging the thread of history and the unfoldment of creative thought.

A central teaching of New Thought is that as thought evolves and unfolds, thinking itself creates one's experience of the world. In line with its Philosophical Idealism, New Thought professes the primacy of mind in relation to the experience of the physical world, and places great emphasis on techniques such as positive thinking, affirmations, meditation, and affirmative prayer. Among New Thought adherents, these techniques are typically taught in the form of books or courses; among the denominations they are transmitted within the congregation, with supplementary printed materials made available if desired.

New Thought denominational teaching asserts some distinction from traditional religious movements in that the adherent's personal experience and understanding of God, Presence, or Truth is expected to evolve during the course of his or her life, and not remain static. Life is seen to consist of evolving beings, capable of change physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Adherents also generally believe that as humankind gains greater understanding of the world, New Thought itself will evolve to assimilate new knowledge. Alan Anderson and Deb Whitehouse have described New Thought as a "process" in which each individual and even the New Thought Movement itself is "new every moment." Thomas McFaul has hypothesized "continuous revelation," with new insights being received by individuals continuously over time. Jean Houston has spoken of the "possible human," or what we are capable of becoming.

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