The first New Thought philanthropist, Henry Wood.

Henry Wood was one of the very first New Thought authors. His books were widely read both in New Thought circles and far beyond them.

Henry Wood had been a successful businessman before his retirement and, was well-to-do. He began his writing career in 1887 with a book entitled Natural Law in the Business World, which brought him into prominence. This book, recast as The Political Economy of Humanism, sold well, going through a number of editions.

At the age of fifty-four, he was in a mental and physical condition where life seemed a burden to him and an overwhelming depression prevailed, having suffered a long period of chronic neurasthenia, insomnia and dyspepsia, to which he felt there was no promise of recovery or even of partial relief. Medicine and the usual methods brought no relief, so a plunge was made from a supposedly correct moral and ethical life into the practice and philosophy of the "higher thought" with its new ideals.
"I have found something which the world needs and I must give it out.”
He began to write in the field of religion, interpreting the New Thought that had led to his healing. His books included: God's Image in Man, Studies in the New Thought World, The New Old Healing, New Thought Simplified: How to Gain Harmony and Health, and Ideal Suggestion Through Mental Photography. A pamphlet, Has Mental Healing a Valid Scientific and Religious Basis? had sold more than thirty thousand copies prior to 1902. His books appeared in many editions, some reaching seventh, eighth, twelfth, and one going into fourteen editions.

Henry Wood was active in the Important Metaphysical Club of Boston and a frequent speaker and counselor in the formation of larger units of New Thought organization which began to take form in the early decades of the twentieth century, but his great and lasting contribution was made through his books. His New Thought Simplified: How to Gain Harmony and Health presents an excellent and simple formulation of what the New Thought had come to mean during that period.


Horatio Dresser wrote of him as the first to seek to spread the new ideas through publicity. He thinks him representative of "the more rational expression of New Thought" (History of the New Thought Movement, p. 167), and at the same time the first New Thought philanthropist.



"Among New Thought writers he stands as a distinctly representative man, whose reasoning is always characterized by fairness, and comes from a heart of integrity. Like a true philosopher, he is always dealing with principles . . . I have before me his book entitled, The New Old Healing. Here he is dealing only with principles, which underlie all spiritual healing, showing that health, happiness and prosperity are the fruit of a well-balanced scientific mentality. He would have men understand that healing is merely the adjustment of the mentality to principles of truth. This is what constitutes a man a prophet.
"Most truly we live at the dawning of a philosophic age, and Henry Wood is a prophet heralding its coming. . . . He makes it clear that the teachings of Jesus Christ and his wonderful healings rest on the fundamental basis of a spiritual philosophy. The clear province of the New Thought school of writers and teachers is not the abrogation of any Christian principles, but rather to give a better interpretation of those principles, consonant with truth, righteousness and health. . . That man is a noble spiritual being may be set down as Mr. Wood's major premise." ~ Mr. R. C. Douglass [see Master Mind Magazine1, April 1918 to September 1918 (by Annie Rix Militz) page 226]
1 [It has 3 references to Miss Eleanor Mel]