New Religious Movements of NineteenthCentury America Volume 3

New Religious Movements of Nineteenth-Century America Volume 3: New Thought Movements Christian Science Unity School of Christianity Religious Science

New Thought Movements • Social dislocation in mid-to-late 19 th century • Metaphysical correspondence – As it is above, so it is below • Mind over matter – faith-healing by power of mind – Mind greater than matter • Women centrally involved in these movements and the start of new denominations related to New Thought

Swedenborgianism • Emmanuel Swedenborg (16881772) • Articulates a Christian interpretation of matter as a spiritual essence • Received a series of visions and revelations, including witnessing what he claimed was the second coming of Christ in the spiritual realm in 1757

Swedenborgianism • There is a famous Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. • John Muir attended it! • San Francisco's Swedenborgian Church

Johnny Appleseed (1774 -1845) • Swedenborgian thinker • Distributed Swedenborgian literature along with apple seeds, throughout his travels!

Andrew Jackson Davis (1826 -1910) • Leading American spiritualist writer • Practiced mesmerism, magnetic healing, and claimed to write his books in a trance • Influenced Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Cayce

• Featured conversations with the dead, through seances • Spirit Mediums were people with the talent to make these contacts • Cora L. V. Hatch, shown here, a star of the medium circuit in the 1850 s • Spiritualism was attractive to many social activists, including Angelina Grimké, William Lloyd Garrison, Prudence Crandall • Banner of Light newpaper Spiritualism

Mary Baker Eddy (1821 -1910) • Born in New Hampshire • Always sickly as a child and young woman • Father a strict and judgmental Calvinist Puritan; Mother a fount of loving warmth. Eddy would later famously refer to the Divine as Father/Mother God, suggesting that both qualities – judgment and nurturing – are present in God

Mary Baker Eddy • Tried to find faith cures that would work for her • When she discovered Phineas P. Quimby, she became his most dedicated disciple, and even compared him once to Jesus (to his embarrassment)

Phineas P. Quimby (1802 -1866) • Spiritual healer, based in Portland, Maine • Used techniques of mesmerism, animal magnetism, and mental healing • Became teacher and mentor to Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy • After Quimby’s death, she was distraught • She fell on the ice in February 1866 • Doctors gave her up for dead • She picked up the Bible, and opened it to the passage where Jesus heals a paralytic, and was entirely healed. (Matt 9: 1 -8) • Discovers that Jesus did not heal by physical means, because matter does not exist

Christian Science: Formal Organization Eddy publishes her book in 1875: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 1879 -church founded, in Boston 1889 - church reorganization, with Eddy as head 1892 - concept of the "Mother" church - 1 st Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston • 1908 - founds Christian Science Monitor • • •

Basics of Christian Science • Only God, God’s manifestations, and the synonyms that express the completeness of God’s nature exist • The seven synonyms are Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love • This means that body, matter, error, evil, disease, and death are merely illusions, because logically they cannot exist

Basics of Christian Science The four basic principles (113): 1. God is All-in-all. 2. God is good. Good is Mind. 3. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. (note the careful diction here) • 4. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. — Disease, sin, evil, death, deny good, omnipotent God, Life. • Which of the denials in Proposition four is true? Both are not, cannot be, true. According to the Scripture, I find that God is true, "but every [mortal] man a liar. " • •

Science and Health Chapter 10 • CHAPTER X - SCIENCE OF BEING • That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, . . . That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 
- JOHN, First Epistle. 
Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen! MARTIN LUTHER.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • • • • Materialistic challenge 1 In the material world, thought has brought to light with great rapidity many useful wonders. With 3 like activity have thought's swift pinions been rising towards the realm of the real, to the spiritual cause of those lower things which give im 6 pulse to inquiry. Belief in a material basis, from which may be deduced all rationality, is slowly yielding to the idea of a metaphysical basis, looking away from 9 matter to Mind as the cause of every effect. Materialistic hypotheses challenge metaphysics to meet in final combat. In this revolutionary period, like the shep 12 herd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with Goliath.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • Confusion confounded
In this final struggle for supremacy, semimetaphysi • 15 cal systems afford no substantial aid to scientific meta • physics, for their arguments are based on • the false testimony of the material senses as • 18 well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical (page 269) • 1 systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pan • demonium, a house divided against itself. • • 3 From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind • and matter and the mingling of good and evil have re • sulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demon • 6 strations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the • unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothing • ness, of evil.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • • • • Divine metaphysics 9 Human philosophy has made God manlike. Christian Science makes man Godlike. The first is error; the latter is truth. Metaphysics is above physics, and 12 matter does not enter into metaphysical premises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves 15 things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul. These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual 18 consciousness, and they have this, advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense, - they are good and eternal.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • Biblical foundations • 21 The testimony of the material senses is neither abso • lute nor divine. I therefore plant myself unreservedly • on the teachings of Jesus, of his apostles, of • 24 the prophets, and on the testimony of the • Science of Mind. Other foundations there are none. • All other systems - systems based wholly or partly on • 27 knowledge gained through the material senses are reeds • shaken by the wind, not houses built on the rock.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • Rejected theories
The theories I combat are these: (1) that all is matter; • 30 (2) that matter originates in Mind, and is as • real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life. • The first theory, that matter is everything, is quite as (page 270) • 1 reasonable as the second, that Mind and matter coexist • and cooperate. One only of the following statements can • 3 be true: (1) that everything is matter; (2) that every • thing is Mind. Which one is it? • Matter and Mind are opposites. One is contrary to • 6 the other in its very nature and essence; hence both can • not be real. If one is real, the other must be unreal. Only • by understanding that there is but one power, - not two • 9 powers, matter and Mind, - are scientific and logical • conclusions reached. Few deny the hypothesis that in • telligence, apart from man and matter, governs the uni • 12 verse; and it is generally admitted that this intelligence • is the eternal Mind or divine principle, Love.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • Prophetic ignorance
The prophets of old looked for something higher than • 15 the systems of their times; hence their fore • sight of the new dispensation of Truth. But • they knew not what would be the precise nature of the • 18 teaching and demonstration of God, divine Mind, in His • more infinite meanings, - the demonstration which was • to destroy sin, sickness, and death, establish the definition • 21 of omnipotence, and maintain the Science of Spirit. • The pride of priesthood is the prince of this world. It
has nothing in Christ. Meekness and charity have divine • 24 authority. Mortals think wickedly; consequently they • are wicked. They think sickly thoughts, and so become • sick. If sin makes sinners, Truth and Love alone can • 27 unmake them. If a sense of disease produces suffering • and a sense of ease antidotes suffering, disease is mental, • not material. Hence the fact that the human mind alone • 30 suffers, is sick, and that the divine Mind alone heals.

Science and Health Chapter 10 • The life of Christ Jesus was not miraculous, but it was
indigenous to his spirituality, - the good soil wherein the (PAGE 271) • 1 seed of Truth springs up and bears much fruit. Christ's • Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing • 3 in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with • the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of • God. Neither emasculation, illusion, nor insubordination • 6 exists in divine Science. • Jesus instructed his disciples whereby to heal the sick
through Mind instead of matter. He knew that the phi • 9 losophy, Science, and proof of Christianity were in

Christian Science Reading Rooms • Small store fronts (every Christian Science church is required to maintain one) where the literature of Christian Science is available for leisurely reading and discussion

Christian Science Reading Rooms • Do you know why America is a great country?

Christian Science Reading Rooms • Because in nearly every city, and many airports, you can go to a Christian Science Reading Room and debate the nonexistence of matter with a pleasant person, often a senior citizen.

Christian Science Churches • No icons (they distract the mind with matter) • Influenced by Calvinism • Quotes from Bible and Science and Health on sides of altar

The Mother Church, Boston • Architectural marvel • Headquarters of the highly centralized church Eddy organized • Mother Church regulates readings, themes for services, and The Christian Science Monitor newspaper

Christian Science and Health Care • Christian Scientists pray for Divine Mind to clarify that the body is an illusion, rather than seeking medical care. • This decision to eschew medical care can be made by each individual Christian Scientist, but to seek medical care is to question the cosmology; it can be perceived as a sign of weakness. Matthew Swan, d. 1977 of bacterial meningitis

Christian Science and Health Care • The Christian Science church has sparked controversy over the issue of medical treatment of children • Because the Christian Science church has fought for the right of people to choose their own medical care, they refuse to insist on child health care, while they do recommend it Matthew Swan, d. 1977 of bacterial meningitis

Two Testimonials • Every Christian Science church has testimonials on Wednesday night • I took a class to one of these once; I will not do that again • BUT these gems resulted: – The belief in the illusion called “the flu” & – The hand burned by oil while preparing a nice dinner for guests

Absolute Metaphysical Dualism + Bourgeois Middle-class Sentiment • Christian Science connects metaphysical idealism to everyday experience, making it a practical idealism • What is around us everyday cannot be dismissed, and yet neither is it given the status of Reality • Mary Baker Eddy’s sense of the practical, of the everyday, is very genteel and bourgeois

Unity School of Christianity • Charles (1854 -1948) and Myrtle (18451931)Fillmor e, cofounders of the Unity School movement

Unity School of Christianity • This is a text from their website: • Unity grew out of teachings based on the conviction that God is readily accessible to all people on the planet at all times. No matter what anyone's personal circumstances are -location, age, language, culture, religion, history -- he or she can communicate with God directly and receive guidance from that personal connection.

Unity School of Christianity • two basic propositions: • One, God is good. 
Two, God is available; in fact God is in you. • If God is good, God's will is good. It is impossible to believe that a good God -- a God who is love and intelligence -- could have made you in any other way except to be healthy, happy, prosperous, loved and loving, courageous and strong. If you are not healthy and happy, it can only be because you have separated yourself from God in mind -- the only place you can separate yourself from God and God's good. You have only to reunite in mind with God, and your life is certain to be full and fulfilling. You do this best by getting still and realizing your oneness with God. Every thought, negative or positive, comes one at time to the door of your conscious mind; there you let it in or turn it away. To have a good life, you have to learn to say no to the negative thoughts which deny your oneness with god's good and say yes to the positive thoughts which affirm your oneness with God's good.

Unity School of Christianity • Unity is not a proselytizing religion. We are happy to have you call yourself a Unity student and join a Unity group. But we are also happy when we can help you be a better Methodist, a better Catholic, a better whatever you are. • Unity began as an open-ended religion, and we pray it always will be. May we always be seekers after Truth rather than people who feel that they have found all the Truth and must form an exclusive little circle to preserve it.

Unity Village • Charles Fillmore had a vision that God was calling them to Kansas City • Here they established Unity Village, a center for the study of religion and a place for retreats • The centerpiece of Unity Village is Silent Unity, an unbroken prayer circle that has been performing silent prayer without pause (tag prayerteams) for over 100 years

Unity as a way of Affirmation • “The Daily Word covers such topics as Prosperity, Joy, Grace, Serenity, Security, Healing, Forgiveness, Harmony, Faith, Divine Order, Inner Peace and Balance. ”

Unity as a way of Affirmation • “Affirmations are positive statements of Truth. By affirming Truth we are lifted out of false thinking into the consciousness of Spirit. Each time we pray positively and faithfully, we are calling forth the divine activity that is always within us. ”

Official December 2011 Affirmations • December 2011 • Inner Peace
I abide in deep peace, and Christ is born in me. • Guidance
As I quiet my mind, I access inner wisdom. • Healing
I radiate health in my mind, body and spirit. • Prosperity
I live in an abundant universe, and I am prosperous. • World Peace
I embrace all people in my prayers for peace.

Theosophy/Theos ophical Society • Syncretic movement attempting to combine the esoteric religious wisdom of the world • Co-founded by Helena Blavatsky (1831 -1891) and Colonel Henry Olcott (1832 -1907) • Founded 1875 in New York City

Religious Science • Ernest Holmes (18871960) founder • Syncretic New Thought movement that attempts to synthesize science, comparative religion, and comparative philosophy • Also known as Science of the Mind • Founded 1927