A Back-to-Jesus Movement.

"A life, the life of Christ, that is the one thing needful—the only revelation required is there.... We have but to live it." Alfred Deakin

 "Oh God, grant me that judgment & forsight which will enable me to serve my country—guide me and strengthen me, so that I may follow & persuade others to follow the path which shall lead to the elevation of national life & thought & permanence of well earned prosperity—give me light & truth & influence for the highest & the highest only." 1888 - Alfred Deakin  (1856 – 1919), second Prime Minister of Australia.

If we wish to see the world a finer, greater place, we must affirm the reality of a finer, greater being within ourselves. It is the ultimate purpose of my teaching to point the road to this consummation. I am trying to show you how the inner man must readjust himself – what must be the new premise of his life, in order that he may lose his soul on the level he now knows and find it again on the high level he seeks.  ~ Neville Goddard

"New Thought is a product of the twentieth century thought and need; it had its birth in human experiences and human unfoldment; it is God’s answer to the now." - Julia Seton MD.

"You have the Majesty of God's life, and the creation of your own thoughts.‟ – Grace M Aguilar

Grace M Aguilar [1881-1964] was an influential Australian New Thought leader, writer and self-publisher …"her work has claimed the attention of the world‟ (The Brisbane Courier, 15 July 1926)

Introduced Unity literature to Australia, advocated female empowerment.

Attended one of Dr James P Mills’ Brisbane public addresses on metaphysics and later experienced a dramatic healing (from rheumatic fever).

Books

New Thoughts, Or, Light in Our Darkness[1917] New Thought Centre of Australia

Woman's Power: A Children's Play in 2 Acts and an Adult Play in 3 Acts[1917] New Thought Centre of Australia

The Great Untouched Future: Illust [1938] New Thought Centre of Australia

Who is Our Fairy Godmother?: A Story for Young and Old[1932] New Thought Centre of Australia

Thoughts: Affirmations for Health, Wealth and Happiness, a House Blessing[1932]

Her father was Henry Elias Aguilar.

New Thought. This was introduced into Adelaide in the 1890s; in 1895 Agnes Benham published a pamphlet titled First Steps in Mental Science. In the early 1900s, followers of New Thought founded the Christian Metaphysical Society and several other groups, which solidified into the New Thought Centre. Register (Adelaide). 11 August 1923: 10.

Agnes Nesbit Benham ( 1850 – 1932 ) ~ First Steps in Mental Science (1895)

Agnes Nesbit Benham ( 1850 – 1932 ) ~ Love's Way to Perfect Humanhood (1904)

Agnes Benham was a socialist and radical. She came of a family who read widely about new thoughts in religion, sexuality and philosophy, and was a sister to the brilliant but unbalanced lawyer, Paris Nesbit. Agnes contributed to her brother's religious newspaper Morning (later re-named Century) in which many of their beliefs were disseminated. She was very interested in theosophy, believing that there must be a progression from the physical plane of the natural world to the non-physical plane of the world of the spirit. The task for human beings was to ascend to this spiritual plane, which was possible through the natural (and therefore good) phenomenon of love - the binding principle of nature. This was related to the 'New Thought' movement of the 1890s, which had much in common with theosophy, but believed in the mental potential of each individual. Benham wrote 'Our souls are individualised portions of Spirit - rays (from the Great Sun of Spirit we call God) projected far into matter' (Morning 17 October 1900).

Geddes, Anne and Hammond, Margaret. 'Agnes Nesbit Benham: sexual reform and socialism in Adelaide,' Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, no. 15 (1987) pp. 110-123

‘What we call New Thought is, of course, only the primitive New Testament teaching restated in modern form. It is essentially a Back-to-Jesus movement.’– Emmet Fox