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Era
13 figures
Phineas Quimby
1802 – 1866Clockmaker turned mental healer whose notebooks seeded the entire New Thought movement.
Warren Felt Evans
1817 – 1889Swedenborgian minister who wrote the first systematic books of mental-cure philosophy.
Prentice Mulford
1834 – 1891Essayist who popularised 'thoughts are things' and the idea of mental forces.
Myrtle Fillmore
1845 – 1931Her recovery from tuberculosis through affirmative prayer began the Unity movement.
Emma Curtis Hopkins
1849 – 1925The 'teacher of teachers' who trained the founders of Unity, Divine Science and Religious Science.
Charles Fillmore
1854 – 1948Co-founded Unity with Myrtle Fillmore in 1889; built its prayer ministry and publishing house.
Wallace Wattles
1860 – 1911The Science of Getting Rich turned New Thought toward prosperity and later inspired The Secret.
Nona Brooks
1861 – 1945Co-founded Divine Science and its Denver college of practitioners.
William Walker Atkinson
1862 – 1932Prolific author who named the law of attraction and wrote as Yogi Ramacharaka.
Florence Scovel Shinn
1871 – 1940Illustrator turned teacher whose parables made affirmation practice everyday.
Napoleon Hill
1883 – 1970Think and Grow Rich carried New Thought into business self-help; his sourcing remains disputed.
Ernest Holmes
1887 – 1960Founded Religious Science and wrote The Science of Mind, its systematic textbook.
Norman Vincent Peale
1898 – 1993The Power of Positive Thinking sold tens of millions and mainstreamed the movement.