When Quimby died there was no succession. No one to carry on. New Thought became more of a religion than a healing science which was never Quimby’s intention.
Dresser states:
The so-called prosperity treatment had not yet been heard of. Nothing had as yet been said about "the cause and cure of old age*." [* This type of thought was made popular by Eleanor Kirk, author of Perpetual Youth, Brooklyn, 1895.]
Chapter 6 - THE MENTAL SCIENCE PERIOD
The implication is this. Quimby taught healing. People became anal-ytical , they started looked at other theologies and philosophies then adding bells and whistles to the teachings. If you don’t have health, then what good is prosperity. Nothing can affect you but what importance you place upon it. You are Spirit, not a body, so what use is Perceptual Youth in that context.
I took a prosperity course and it specified doing this, this, this and this. The reality is there are no conditions on matter, only the significance you place upon material things. Someone designed the course and inadvertently put limitations on it. As Neville often said “goals are merely realizing the future NOW.”
"What we believe, that we create," so Quimby had taught. It was essential to believe that all causality was in the realm of mind. Meanwhile, the natural universe could take care of itself. It was not destroyed by the proposition that "there is no matter."Some of the beliefs passing current in the mental-science period would indeed seem absurd to those of us who try to think matters out to the end, as well as to believers in natural facts and the ability of men of science to state facts apart from theoretical prejudice. But we must remember the bondages out of which the people had come who exclaimed in their enthusiasm that they could "eat mince-pie at midnight," or anything else they liked at any time, and suffer no inconvenience; since "there is no quality in food save what the mind gives it, in the unconscious beliefs of the race." What people were trying to do was to eliminate the "false beliefs," "the errors of mind," which had held them in subjection. They did this with enthusiasm and the results were on the whole good. It was natural, having concluded that medicines and drugs have no qualities save those attributable to the suggestions which people have associated with them, that all material things and conditions should be regarded as affecting man according to his belief. The point was that, whether agreeing with [MEB’s Eddyisms] in full or not, one should at least go as far as Quimby and Evans went, showing that matter contains "no intelligence or power in itself." To take this stand was to be prepared to overcome all adversaries.
Chapter 6 - THE MENTAL SCIENCE PERIOD
Quimby was all about healing disease and said it was fear that caused a chemicalization that created the dis-ease.
Many of the devotees left the churches to which they belonged as disciples of the old theology, passed through a reaction against that theology, and found their religion in healing the sick. Thus in time the meeting devoted to an exposition of the new therapeutism took the place of the service in the churches. The silent treatment was akin to prayer or worship, on Its religious side, and so "the silence" as it has since been called became a part of the meeting. Such meetings used to be held Sunday evenings, so as to avoid a conflict of hours in the case of followers who still wished to attend the morning service in the established churches. The Wednesday evening experience meeting early came into vogue, everybody was invited to take part, and so the meetings became democratic. One of the early leaders in these meetings in Boston, J. W. Winkley, had been a Unitarian minister. Others had contemplated entering the ministry or were teachers. Hence there were devotees capable of directing the meetings and introducing the element of worship, or leading in regular instruction. The name given to the first of these independent societies in Boston, "Church of the Divine Unity," suggests the point of emphasis in such worship. The aim was to throw off the old theology and substitute the idea of the immanence of God in His wisdom, as the omnipresent help "in times of trouble." ~
Chapter 6 - THE MENTAL SCIENCE PERIOD
Establishing a church new theology was the furthest thing from his mind.
Now destroy man's belief and introduce God's truth and then we are set free from this world of error and introduced into the world of light or science where there is no death but the living God or science. This science will lead us along to that happy state where there is no sickness or sorrow or grief, where all tears are wiped away from our eyes, there to be in the presence of this great truth that will watch us and hold us in the hollow of its hand and will be to us a light that will open our eyes. We shall not then be deceived by the blind guides who say, "Peace, peace," where there is no peace. Then we shall call no one master or leader for there is only one that leads us and that is God. He puts no restrictions upon us for our lives are in His hands or science, but our happiness or misery is in our belief. For our belief is what follows a direction. So if we are misdirected and disease or misery is the result, blame not God, or the result, but blame the cause or false direction.
June 1860
A Science of Truth, maybe.
Man's belief is all matter. His religion and ideas of disease are all false beliefs, and the effects produced on his body are caused by them. Man's creator is in him, and governs him, yet he is recognized only as a principle without wisdom.
. . .
This world is man's belief. The truth is the science or true shepherd. This truth put in practice is that which takes away the sins or errors of man, and the end of error is the end of the world. The introduction of religion based on science is the commencement of the new world. The science which shall devour our errors is the teaching of this great truth. . . . To preach Christ is to put heaven in practice, to liberate the poor and sick who have been bound by the false ideas of the world. I know of no other world than that which Jesus set up in man's heart, which meant the mind. He never had any reference to this globe as a world. His two worlds were science and error. He made but one for himself, and that was science. But man has made another world from his beliefs and that was the world that he came into, in order to cast out the children of the kingdom of error into a lake of fire. That is, he enters man's belief and destroying all error, he establishes his kingdom of science so that men shall come from the east and west, north and south and sit down with wisdom. It is then that the children of error are cast out and that was the end of the world. Then a new world begins and a new religion springs up based on science. Under this religion, no man will say to another, Do what is right, for all will do right because he will feel right in so doing.
1865
Bear in mind.
When we are ill, we merely think or imagine we are sick. Disease is simply a myth. It can be banished with a thought.
That doesn’t mean you march into a hospital and tell someone lying in bed that. It’s real enough to them. (it’s happened with ACIM students) It means you do what feels right in that situation. Quimby didn’t treat advanced stages of illnesses. As David Bush said:
One person gets his healing from a Christian Scientist. Another gets his healing from a Psychologist and someone else gets his healing from another mental practitioner, but if you are healed, there can be nothing but TRUTH in that particular mental science which you have taken hold of--for you!
He didn’t mention that THAT TRUTH is Divinty/God in relation to your beliefs.
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
His great strength was in his Clairvoyance, from which he determined what his patients thought was the problem, their belief that really first caused the problem and to the patient he explained this; thus establishing his credibility. This state he entered was in the Light, emanating from the silence within. No angels, spirit guides. Someone at church once talked about their coming out of the closet.
But you, when you pray, enter into your closet and lock your door, and pray to your father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you in public. Matthew 6:6
The Silence is from within, not from without. One begins to realize something of the experiences of the saints and mystics down the ages, in that they found they had to become still, to meditate, which really means to become still in God’s Presence and let God do what He wants to do. To become still, in a recognition that you have become still in the Almighty Presence of the Great Father, and that because you are not preventing Him by resistance, by lack of faith, by worries and fears and tensions, He now naturally manifests His Will, His Peace, and His Perfection throughout your being, as you allow Him to take charge of your mind and soul and body.
This meditation, this being still in God, is a fundamental. And yet, even amongst Christians, there isn’t one in ten thousand who seriously practices meditation as a fundamental need of the Christian Way of Life. We talk our way to God - yes - in many prayers. We try to understand the infinite by definition. We listen to dogma and creed, and often great philosophies concerning God. But very seldom do we close down our thinking and say, "Here Lord. Here am I. Take me as I am. You know what to do with me, Father. Do it. I am here." And to be still, receptive and listening to all that God will pour forth. It can only happen when we become absolutely convinced that the Great Father will do these things in the Silence. It can only happen when we are absolutely sure that the greatest activity that can ever happen in a human being comes when we become still and stop doing ourselves.
Excerpted from "The Healing Silence by Brother Mandus
Eric Butterworth taught
“God isn't up there. He exists inside each one of us, and it's up to us to seek the divine within."
For a long time I looked outside of myself.
The Truth is within.
As I continue to study the New Thought authors I realize each one wrote of the Truth in their terms, their “map of the territory”, their frame of reference, their experience. But their experience may not be your experience. In “Lessons in Truth” Cady reduced ECH’s “five universal affirmations” to “four comprehensive affirmations”. They both were right.
As Emmet Fox said
“seek the Presence of God in your own heart, and to use books, lectures, and churches only as a means to that one end “.
My journey continues.
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