New Thought at the Crossroads

Editor’s note: The following is Mitch Horowitz’s foreword to the anthology New Thought (R)evolution now available from Amazon. 

BY MITCH HOROWITZ

This book comes at an extraordinarily important moment: we are at a crossroads of New Thought’s survival as a serious and ongoing force in American life.

Of course, the basic premise of New Thought—that thoughts are causative—will always survive. This ideal echoes in perennial philosophy, and, thanks to the influence of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century New Thought writers and ideas, it has effectively become the American creed, our idealized version of how we want to see ourselves: as self-reliant actors capable of using our minds to realize capacities higher than what we are told is possible.

But New Thought as an identifiably intellectual and spiritual movement, born out of the transcendental yearnings of the mid-tolate nineteenth century, has a less certain future.

New Thought, in its churches, books, and internal dialogues, has failed to mature. Since the death of its most eloquent interlocutor, critic, and experimenter, William James, in 1910, New Thought has failed to develop a theology of suffering, a response to the issues of mental illness, or a perspective on a world whose utopian ideologies have often devolved into anti-philosophies of mass murder.

New Thought has posited the existence of a self-devised world but not grappled with the actualities of a modern world—including on an intimate scale—that chronically suffers.

Is the New Thought thesis wrong? Are we set adrift in an ocean of vagaries, which our minds can do little to navigate? No, I think we’ve seen enough evidence—in psychology, placebo studies, quantum theory, and the testimonials of seeking people—to conclude that New Thought’s thesis of mental causation is correct, though it may be (as I believe) only one part of the human puzzle.

Does New Thought need “new” ideas? Again, in my view, no. The general quest for “new” ideas is often an expression of failure to grapple with and apply existing ideas.

What New Thought needs, I believe, and what the essays in this anthology attempt, is a refined, broadened, and matured intellectual culture, which takes into account developments in politics, science, psychology, and the overall human crisis in living, and then turns back on itself to ask: what can we offer?

We must ask that question only—or not at all—in an earnest and searching way. Such questions must never be a trigger for catechism, sloganeering, or a recitation of theology. And, most of all, we as New Thoughters must never speak or write of experiences we have not had. If you haven’t survived war or catastrophe, I don’t want to hear from you about the mental causations of war or catastrophe. I do want to hear from you about what you have experienced, about what you have personally survived and witnessed, about how you shined a light in your life or in that of another. We need concrete, sensitive, eyewitness testimonies, which we, as a spiritual movement, can use to expand our catalog of ideas to respond to the needs and complexities of current life.

This book is a step in the right direction of New Thought’s growth —and the possibility of its continued relevance in a world in which uncertainties abound. New Thought is still only about 150 years old in its modern expression; this makes it an extremely young movement. But we have been young long enough. Now, let us mature and grow—together.

Mitch Horowitz is a lecturer-in-residence at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, and the PEN Award-winning author of books including One Simple Idea, Occult America and The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality. Visit him @MitchHorowitz.

For more from New Though (R)evolution see Confessions of a New Thought Fundamentalist.  

For more by Mitch Horowitz see Can ESP Explain How Thoughts Make Things Happen?