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New Thought Movement - Anyone know anything about it?

17:42 / 16.02.07

A couple of weeks ago, I heard someone reading from a book called Around the Year with Emmet Fox. I liked what I heard, so I ordered the book and am really digging it - daily readings that take a careful & close look at how prayer works & what it means to believe.

I've looked around Wikipedia and found out that Emmet Fox was a member of something called the New Thought Movement, apparently a big deal back in the 30s and 40s.

"New Thought describes a set of religious ideas that developed in the United States during the late 19th century, originating with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Followers of New Thought also find inspiration in the Transcendentalist philosophy, as it was developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other 19th-century American thinkers."

I don't know... I really like what I've read of Emmet Fox's, and wanted to know if anyone else has come across him, or any other members of this movement.

Here's the kind of stuff he writes:

"There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer, no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem...it makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world."

18:12 / 16.02.07

I have a friend -- let's call him "Bob," since that's his name -- who's gotten me to attend a service (or maybe two) at the local Science of Mind Center.

They seem very nice, non-dogmatic folks with surprisingly little flake in their pastry.

You can read more from Ernest Holmes, the movement's founder, at sacred-texts.com.

The summary puts it all pretty much right there:

Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) founded Religous Science, part of the New Thought movement. Schooled in Christian Science, he moved to Los Angeles in 1912. Holmes published his first book, Creative Mind in 1919, and followed it up with The Science of Mind in 1926. Holmes had an immense influence on New Age beliefs, particularly his core philosophy that we create our own reality.

For a while, Bob was really into The Power of Now and other Eckhart Tolle-type things. It all seems to be the same sort of thing. Mindfulness. Meditation. Allowing the world to become what you want it to become by letting it happen.

19:53 / 14.09.07

Thanks, grant.

Anyway, here's yesterday's reading from the Emmet Fox book ...

When a person realizes that a particular action,
or a certain line of conduct, or perhaps the whole
direction of his life, has been wrong, and honestly
resolves to change his conduct, he has repented.
The Bible makes true repentance an essential
condition for any spiritual progress, and for the
forgiveness of sin. Jesus said, "Except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish." (Luke 13:3)

Repentance does not mean grieving for past
mistakes, because this is dwelling in the past,
and our duty is dwell in the present and make
this moment right. Worrying over past mistakes
is remorse, and remorse is a sin, for it is a refusal
to accept God's forgiveness.

Emmet Fox (1886-1951)
Irish spiritual leader, instrumental in the
founding of Alcoholics Anonymous
From "Around the Year With Emmet Fox

I'm really struck by the distinction between remorse and repentance that he's making here. I've been trying to kind of suss out what this means, and I'm kind of drawing a blank. I think I agree, or want to, but the goal he's giving us - to wholly forgive ourselves our past mistakes, while at the same time not repeating them - feels pretty lofty.