First Lessons in the New Thought

Introductory

THERE is an earnest desire on the part of most people to-day to know about the new Mental Healing, and especially to know how to apply it with benefit to themselves.

If it is good and worth having, they want it. They want to know the truth about it and to know how to use it if it is useful.

This is in accord with the good, plain common sense of Americans.

But there are many who have not yet become familiar with it. Others have learned somewhat of it, yet not enough to grasp its principles. Still less are they able successfully to use the same.

'These First Lessons are designed to meet the wants of such persons, and of beginners generally in their study of the subject. The lessons are elementary, and the endeavor has been to present the plain, simple facts and principles of the Mental Cure in the simplest, plainest English, — in un-technical language easily understood by everyone. The subject is many sided. We may look at it on its therapeutical side, as a cure, or we may consider its moral side — for it surely has a moral side. And it has a religious or spiritual side, as can readily be seen.

And yet the main truths and basic principles of it are simple, easy to learn and easy to understand.

The Power of the Mind

TO show plainly the truth of Mental Cure, and to make clear how naturally and easily it is done, we will start from the simple, well - known facts which everybody knows and will readily acknowledge. The first of such facts is that the mind has an influence, a power, over the body. The mind, its activities, its states or conditions, has an influence on the body. That is, the thoughts and feelings, emotions and passions, exert a power, have an effect, upon the body. The doctors had long known and testified that this is true, though they took little advantage of it for good.

A noted physician years ago stated the truth in this excellent way : " The mind has a powerful influence over the body for health or disease." No Christian Scientist ever voiced the fact more tersely or truthfully. There is nothing surer, nothing more thoroughly established, than the fact of the power of the mind to affect the body, — to produce illness or to restore health. Those who have known nothing about mental cure see plainly that this is true, for continually, right before their eyes, they have proofs of it. Indeed, they probably know it well from personal experience — to some extent. They have seen first or last how undue excitement, severe depression, intense anxiety, have affected their appetite and digestion. Perhaps from the strain of business troubles, dread of failure and loss, or from some terrible affliction, they have been thrown suddenly into a dangerous fever or a complete break-down of health.

On the other hand, everybody knows, after these many years of prevalent mental cure, as also by their own experience, how the mind when cheerful, happy, joyous, acts ever powerfully to preserve and to restore the health. All this seems simple and true to everybody, now that attention has been called thereto and all have observed or experienced it.

Here we have the primary fact, the obvious truth, acknowledged by everybody, of mental cure. It is singular that this should not always have been seen and known by everybody, or that it should ever have been doubted. If anyone is asked, even a child, what gives life to the body, he would answer : the soul or spirit. The common belief is that when the mind or spirit goes out of the body the life is gone and dissolution takes place. If the spirit is the life of the body it surely is also its health, the lesser being included in the greater. Now let us see what follows from this.

Step by step we wish to lead our readers who are unfamiliar with this Cure to see the truth about it and the way in which it can be made available for manifold and inestimable benefit. One must notice well the statement that the mind can act, and in fact always does act, as asserted by the doctors, and as we have all experienced, " for the health or for the disease 'of the body." The mind can act in two ways, one way for disease, the other way for health.

What more natural or important, when we understand this fact, than that we should ask, in the first place, what states or conditions the mind is in when it works to produce illness, when it works to throw the body into disease. The answer is so simple and easy that it states itself. We have seen, by the illustrations already given, that it is such states as fear, dread, anxiety, disappointment, despair. These states of mind are the disturbed, depressed, distressed thoughts and feelings.

On the other hand, we have seen, by the examples already presented, that the states of mind which are favorable to health and which work for recovery are those that are equable, tranquil, that are exhilarating instead of depressing, cheerful instead of sad, joyous instead of grievous.

The general law seems to be that all the tranquil, orderly, undisturbed states of mind, of every kind and in any degree, always tend to health, — are healthful ; while, oppositely, all the disturbed, distressful states, of every sort and to any extent, tend always to produce bodily disorders, — are diseaseful.

How simple all this is, and how true I Did anyone ever have any experience not in accord with it ? We do not say that a little fear, a slight worry, a small degree of distress of mind, will make one seriously ill immediately. But all these have, even if in small measure, their disordering effects, and, if long continued, bring serious consequences.

Here, to repeat it, we have, simple and self evident, the first important fact or fundamental truth in Mental or Spiritual Therapeutics, namely : that the tranquil, calm, poised, peaceful (what we may call the natural) states of mind always tend to health — are healthful ; and, oppositely, that the disturbed, disquieted, distressed states of mind ever tend to disorder the body — are diseaseful.

And all this is by a natural law which is of transcendent scope and which has far-reaching consequences. Knowledge of it and conformity to it promise to be of immense practical value to mankind.

Excerpts from: First Lessons In The New Thought: Or The Way To The Ideal Life (1904) by Jonathan Wingate Winkley

J.W. Winkley was the editor of The New Thought Magazine “Practical Ideals” and one of the first New Thought MD's. Dr. Winkley, began his ministerial journey as a Unitarian minister(1876-1882), studied Christian Science, then became an enthusiastic participant in the Mental Science Movement, which later became known as New Thought, Winkley established the Church of the Divine Unity in 1886.

New Thought was "the fine art of recognizing, realizing and manifesting the God in the individual."
The first organizations were established to teach this fine art as applied to mental healing.
Therefore, the recognition of "the Christ within" was the cardinal principle.
The later organizations sought to make this fine art known in its relation not merely to mental healing but to the whole of life.
Did New Thought become a recognized phase of liberal Christianity throughout the world?