End Notes
"The Vision of Peace," by John Dear. Common Dreams, Nov. 14, 2004.
Experience, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published in an 1844 collection called, Essays: Second Series. It also appeared in other Emerson collections.
The term "New Age" came into popular use in the 1920s, not the 1970s as some people think. Some scholars say Alice A Bailey of the Theosophical Society coined the term, while others say it was Carl Jung. Jung was also the first to use "Age of Aquarius" to describe the New Thought Movement.
The following new religions took the power of thought into consideration:
The Association of Unity Churches - Co-founded in 1889 by a husband and wife, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Unity churches teach oneness with all life, including god, nature, and all humankind. They believe in the Law of Mind Action, where prayer and affirmation can change outward reality.
The Theosophical Society - Founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and Col. Henry S. Olcott, Theosophy draws from all ancient and modern world faiths with a special emphasis on metaphysical aspects of the Hindu religion. Theosophists believe that thought forms hold special power to create reality.
The Church of Christian Science - Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) healed herself in 1866 using insights from the Bible. She began teaching her method of faith to others and founded her first church in Boston in 1879. She wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and founded the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Scientists believe that thoughts may cause or cure disease.
The Church of Divine Science - Founded by Ernest Holmes, Divine Science is based on the principle that thoughts are things that create reality. He started Science of Mind magazine and hosted a radio and TV show, This Thing Called Life. Holmes began each broadcast with the words, "There is a power for good in the Universe, and you can use it."
Dr. Robert Ellwood (1933 - ), professor at the University of Southern California, has written more than twenty-five books on world religions, spirituality, mysticism, theosophy, meditation, and new American religion movements of the 1950s and the 1960s. In a 1997 lecture at the Philosophical Research Society entitled "New Religious Movements," he identified the following differences between new thought religion and traditional religion:
New thought accepts the oneness of all souls, god, and the universe.
Traditional religion says there is a difference between the creator and the creation.
New thought attributes consciousness to all aspects of the creation, including animals, the earth, and higher realms.
Traditional religion says only human beings have consciousness.
New thought believes in the law of correspondences, where (for example) the position of the planets and stars correspond to the actions of humans on earth.
Traditional religion does not acknowledge correspondences.
New thought promotes an intuitive way of knowing truth, such as mystical experiences and personal exploration.
Traditional religion says truth must come through a hierarchy of priests who discourage followers from having mystical experiences.
New thought accepts the existence of little-known laws of nature, such as the Infinite Intelligence that Napoleon Hill explained.
Traditional religion only acknowledges the powers described in a fundamentalist interpretation of their own scriptures.
Publisher Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) started Success magazine in 1891.
Kessinger Publishing Company reprinted Emile Coué's books in 1997. See: http://kessinger-publishing.com
My Method, pp. 92, 93, and 96.
Think and Grow Rich, p. 32.
Think and Grow Rich, p. 184.
Napoleon Hill's ideas about sex are similar to Kundalini yoga, which holds that through breathing, practitioners may raise their sexual energy from the base chakra (instinctual center) to the crown chakra (enlightenment center). Hill may have learned about Kundalini yoga through the New Thought Movement and used the theories in his own writings.
Think and Grow Rich, p. 188.
Earl Nightingale died in 1989, but his wife Diana reissued the original 1956 recording of The Strangest Secret in 1996. To find The Strangest Secret and other audio recordings by Earl Nightingale, go to the Nightingale-Conant Corporation of Chicago at http://earlnightingale.com
The Maxwell Maltz Foundation published a revised version of Psycho-cybernetics in 1993 called Psycho-Cybernetics 2000 and received mixed reviews. Many people still prefer the original (ISBN 0671700758). Maltz also wrote Zero Resistance Selling.
The most famous Behaviorists following Pavlov were John B. Watson (1878 to 1958), Edward Thorndike (1874-1949), and B.F. Skinner (1904 - 1990).
American mathematician Norbert Wiener introduced the word cybernetics in 1940. He founded the study of cybernetics, the theory of communication processes.
I have summarized the history of autosuggestion by focusing on these authors: Emile Coué, Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, and Maxwell Maltz. However, there were other notable authors in the first sixty years of the twentieth century who played important roles, including Dale Carnegie, Robert Collier, George S. Clason, Bertrand Russell, Dorothea Brande, Joseph Murphy, Dr. David J. Schwartz, and publishers Orison Swett Marden, W. Clement Stone, Melvin Powers. Authors who studied the religious basis of positive thinking include: Dr. Ernest Holmes, Manly P. Hall, Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda, Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Russell H. Conwell, Augustine "Og" Mandino, Vernon Linwood Howard, and the founders of the Unity Church, Theosophical Society, and other new age churches. Positive thinking and new religious thought continue to evolve through contemporary writers like Stephen R. Covey, Wayne Dyer, Dr. Deepak Chopra, James Redfield, H.H. The Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hahn, Fr. Matthew Fox, and hundreds more. It would be difficult to name everyone who has written on this subject, but I have compiled a timeline of positive thinking history that includes more than 300 authors. See: http://steamboats.com/positivethinking/index.html
My Method, p. 9.
Note: If you have emotional problems due to unresolved grief, guilt, or victimization issues, you may wish to talk these things over with a trusted friend or professional counselor. Positive thinking is not a substitute for psychotherapy.
The San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 18, 2004.
Charles van Doren, The History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future. Ballantine Books (1991), p. 282.
"Thoughts for the Times of War and Death," Sigmund Freud, 1915.
Jung published his findings about alchemy in The Psychology of the Transference (1946), The Idea of Redemption in Alchemy (1936), Psychology of Alchemy (1953), and Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (1953).
This quote comes from Emerson's essay, Experience.
This quote is drawn from a short story called, "At The Appetite-Cure," First published in Cosmopolitan magazine, August 1898.
Psycho-cybernetics, p. 10.
Psycho-cybernetics, p. 114.
Nightingale attributed this information to Rollo May, author of Man's Search for Himself. May was one of the founders of the Humanist Movement.
In the early twentieth century, Dale Carnegie taught at Andrew Carnegie's Institute in New York. He later established his own school of communications and human relations, which he called the Dale Carnegie Institute of New York. They now call the organization Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., or Dale Carnegie Training, see: http://dalecarnegie.com
DSM-IV codes that describe abusive individuals include: Antisocial Personality Disorder (code number 301.7), Conduct Disorder (code number 312.8). Other variations are Adult Antisocial Behavior (code number V71.01), Adjustment Disorder With Disturbance of Conduct (code number 309.3), and Adjustment Disorder With Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct (code number 309.4). Abusers might also suffer from a dual diagnosis, such as antisocial behavior with one of the following: schizophrenia, mood disorders, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, etc.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was published in 1990 and remains a best selling business manual.
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 91.
Ibid. p. 172.
This quote is drawn from a March 21, 2004 editorial by Fenton Johnson, published in the Los Angeles Times.
Steps toward Inner Peace, by Peace Pilgrim.
The Essential Ernest Holmes, p. 174.
The Magic of Thinking Big, p. 2.
Psycho-cybernetics, p. 66.
Read the Book - click here
Other Materials:
The Dreaming Peace Workbook - Try using the techniques described in the book.
Workbook: Autosuggestion
Workbook: Positive Mental Attitude
Workbook: Cooperation
Appendix I: The History of Positive Thinking
Appendix II: The Positive Thinking Timeline
Appendix III: Positive Thinking Quotations
