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21 figures

Phineas Quimby

1802 – 1866

Clockmaker turned mental healer whose notebooks seeded the entire New Thought movement.

United States·New Thought · Philosophy

Warren Felt Evans

1817 – 1889

Swedenborgian minister who wrote the first systematic books of mental-cure philosophy.

United States·New Thought · Philosophy

Prentice Mulford

1834 – 1891

Essayist who popularised 'thoughts are things' and the idea of mental forces.

United States·New Thought · Literature

Myrtle Fillmore

1845 – 1931

Her recovery from tuberculosis through affirmative prayer began the Unity movement.

United States·New Thought · Theology

Thomas Troward

1847 – 1916

Indian-service judge whose Edinburgh Lectures gave New Thought a systematic metaphysics.

United Kingdom·New Thought · Philosophy

Emma Curtis Hopkins

1849 – 1925

The 'teacher of teachers' who trained the founders of Unity, Divine Science and Religious Science.

United States·New Thought · Education

Charles Fillmore

1854 – 1948

Co-founded Unity with Myrtle Fillmore in 1889; built its prayer ministry and publishing house.

United States·New Thought · Theology

Wallace Wattles

1860 – 1911

The Science of Getting Rich turned New Thought toward prosperity and later inspired The Secret.

United States·New Thought · Economics

Nona Brooks

1861 – 1945

Co-founded Divine Science and its Denver college of practitioners.

United States·New Thought · Theology

William Walker Atkinson

1862 – 1932

Prolific author who named the law of attraction and wrote as Yogi Ramacharaka.

United States·New Thought · Literature

James Allen

1864 – 1912

Wrote As a Man Thinketh, the movement's most reprinted book.

United Kingdom·New Thought · Literature

Florence Scovel Shinn

1871 – 1940

Illustrator turned teacher whose parables made affirmation practice everyday.

United States·New Thought · Literature

Napoleon Hill

1883 – 1970

Think and Grow Rich carried New Thought into business self-help; his sourcing remains disputed.

United States·New Thought · Economics

Emmet Fox

1886 – 1951

Filled New York auditoriums in the Depression; his writing shaped early Alcoholics Anonymous.

Ireland·New Thought · Theology

Ernest Holmes

1887 – 1960

Founded Religious Science and wrote The Science of Mind, its systematic textbook.

United States·New Thought · Philosophy

Norman Vincent Peale

1898 – 1993

The Power of Positive Thinking sold tens of millions and mainstreamed the movement.

United States·New Thought · Theology

Joseph Murphy

1898 – 1981

Recast affirmation as subconscious programming for a postwar readership.

Ireland·New Thought · Psychology

Neville Goddard

1905 – 1972

Taught imagination as the sole creative power; 'assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled'.

Barbados·New Thought · Philosophy

Louise Hay

1926 – 2017

You Can Heal Your Life and Hay House globalised affirmation culture; its health claims are contested.

United States·New Thought · Psychology

Catherine Ponder

b. 1927

Unity minister whose prosperity books shaped late-century abundance teaching.

United States·New Thought · Economics

Michael Beckwith

b. 1956

Founded Agape International and carried New Thought to a global multiracial audience.

United States·New Thought · Theology