Ideas
Philosophies that shaped the world Twenty-two traditions, from the Analects to AI ethics, each with the thinkers who carried it, the writings that fixed it in print, and the ways it still governs how we argue, heal, legislate and sell. The New Thought movement is treated in full, including its founders, its bestsellers and the claims that remain contested.
Practicum
Want to use New Thought rather than only read it? The eight-step practicum teaches the definite aim, autosuggestion, visualisation, action, gratitude, persistence and service — with drills a coach marks and an honest account of what the evidence supports.
Begin the New Thought practicum → Confucianism c. 500 BCE – present · China Moral cultivation through ritual, filial duty and reciprocity: govern by virtue and example rather than by punishment. + Daoism c. 400 BCE – present · China Align with the Dao, the spontaneous order of nature; act by wu wei, effortless non-forcing. + Buddhist philosophy c. 500 BCE – present · India, then pan-Asian Suffering arises from craving and the illusion of a fixed self; liberation comes through ethical discipline, meditation and insight. + Vedanta and Indian classical philosophy c. 800 BCE – present · India Inquiry into Brahman, atman and the nature of reality across six darshanas, from non-dual Advaita to Samkhya dualism and Yoga practice. + Classical Greek philosophy c. 470–320 BCE · Greece Reasoned inquiry into knowledge, virtue, the good life and the structure of reality — the birth of systematic argument. + Stoicism c. 300 BCE – 180 CE; revived 20th c. · Greece and Rome Virtue is the only good; distinguish what is up to us from what is not, and live according to nature and reason. + Scholasticism and natural law 11th–17th centuries · Medieval Europe and the Islamic world Reconcile revelation with Aristotelian reason; derive binding moral and legal order from human nature itself. + Rationalism and empiricism 17th–18th centuries · Europe Where does knowledge come from — innate reason or the evidence of the senses? The quarrel that produced modern epistemology. + Enlightenment liberalism and social contract 17th–18th centuries · England, France, Scotland, America Legitimate authority rests on the consent of the governed; individuals hold rights prior to the state. + German idealism and critical philosophy 1781–1870 · Germany The mind actively structures experience; history and spirit unfold dialectically toward freedom. + Utilitarianism and reform 1780s – present · Britain The right act is the one producing the greatest happiness for the greatest number; suffering counts regardless of who bears it. + Marxism and critical theory 1848 – present · Germany, then global Material conditions and class relations shape consciousness; philosophy should change the world, not only interpret it. + Transcendentalism 1836–1860s · New England, United States Divinity is immanent in nature and in each person; trust intuition over inherited authority and live deliberately. + New Thought 1860s – present · United States, with British and global branches Mind is causative: thought, belief and spoken affirmation shape health, circumstance and prosperity, because a single divine Intelligence is present in each person. − How it shapes today The direct ancestor of the self-help and personal-development industry, positive thinking, visualisation coaching, the prosperity gospel and much of the language of modern motivational culture — claims that psychologists continue to test and often contest.
Key writings The Quimby Manuscripts (written 1846–1865, pub. 1921)
Phineas Quimby
The mental-healing notebooks from which the whole movement descends.
The Mental Cure (1869)
Warren Felt Evans
First book-length New Thought system, blending Swedenborg with Quimby.
Scientific Christian Mental Practice (1888)
Emma Curtis Hopkins
The 'teacher of teachers' who trained the founders of Unity and Religious Science.
Thoughts Are Things (1889)
Prentice Mulford
Popularised the phrase and the premise.
As a Man Thinketh (1903)
James Allen
Short, endlessly reprinted meditation on character as the product of thought.
The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science (1904)
Thomas Troward
Gave the movement its quasi-philosophical spine; a key influence on Ernest Holmes.
Thought Vibration, or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World (1906)
William Walker Atkinson
Named the 'law of attraction' for a mass readership.
The Science of Getting Rich (1910)
Wallace Wattles
The prosperity text later adapted into The Secret.
Christian Healing (1909)
Charles Fillmore
Doctrine of Unity, the church he founded with Myrtle Fillmore in 1889.
The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925)
Florence Scovel Shinn
Affirmation practice written as everyday parable.
The Science of Mind (1926)
Ernest Holmes
Systematic textbook of Religious Science and its spiritual mind treatment.
Think and Grow Rich (1937)
Napoleon Hill
Definite chief aim and the mastermind — the bridge from New Thought to business self-help.
The Power of Awareness (1952)
Neville Goddard
Imagination as the creative faculty; 'assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled'.
The Power of Positive Thinking (1952)
Norman Vincent Peale
Sold tens of millions and carried New Thought into mainstream American religion.
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963)
Joseph Murphy
Recast affirmation as subconscious programming.
You Can Heal Your Life (1984)
Louise Hay
Founded Hay House and took affirmation practice global; its illness–belief claims remain disputed.
Pragmatism 1870s – present · United States The meaning and truth of an idea lie in its practical consequences; inquiry is experimental and revisable. + Existentialism and phenomenology 1840s – 1970s · Denmark, Germany, France Begin from lived experience: existence precedes essence, and each person is condemned to make meaning through choice. + Analytic philosophy and logic 1879 – present · Britain, Austria, United States Clarify thought by analysing language and logical form; philosophy as rigour rather than system-building. + Political and moral philosophy since 1945 1945 – present · Global What does justice require of institutions, and who counts as a member of the moral community? + Non-violence and liberation philosophy 1900 – present · India, Africa, the Americas Truth-force and dignity as political method; the colonised and oppressed as authors of their own theory. + African, Islamic and indigenous philosophies Antiquity – present · Africa, the Islamic world, the Americas, Oceania Personhood as relational — ubuntu, ummah, kinship with land — against the isolated individual of European modernity. + Environmental and technology ethics 1949 – present · Global Extend moral consideration to ecosystems, future generations and the systems we build — and ask who bears the risk. + Looking for a single life rather than a tradition? Search the index or browse by era and region .