VideosJon Atack, Family and Friends: If Scientology Ruled - Chapter Four: The Empress – Hubbard’s Holy Guardian Angel
Written by Jon Atack, author of the bestselling expose, Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky, this book is a frightening look into an alarming possible
future – and a fascinating deep dive into the
history that could lead us there.
Newsxlive: Deepak Chopra Named In Newly Seen Epstein Emails | Will There Be Any Other American-Indians?
"New congressional records detailing Jeffrey Epstein’s communications reveal ongoing contact with Deepak Chopra long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. The emails, ranging from lawsuit discussions to exchanges about public figures, have prompted widespread debate over ethical responsibility and the consequences for influencers who
BBC: Religious group members deny charges over raids
Twenty-four members of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, based in Crewe, appeared at South Cheshire Magistrates Court yesterday [6/15/26] charged with a range of offenses, including obstructing police officers, failing to comply with police directions, and assaulting an officer. The cases follow a police raid on three addresses linked to the group in April this year, which the police said was part of an investigation into reports of sexual abuse, forced marriage, and modern slavery. All defendants pleaded not guilty and were granted unconditional bail until trial next April.
Newsweek: I Married a Photograph. Then I Met My Husband For the First Time
In this personal essay for *Newsweek*, Kiyomi Hawley recounts her experience growing up within the Unification Church and the traumatic reality of participating in one of the organization’s infamous mass weddings. Raised in the church, Hawley accepted the requirement to marry a stranger arranged by the faith, eventually finding herself standing in Madison Square Garden at age 20, holding a photograph of a man she had never met because he could not attend the ceremony.
The reality of the union proved devastating. While traveling to South Korea to meet her "husband," Hawley felt neither physical attraction nor emotional connection. Despite her deep-seated fear that leaving the church would mean losing her family and her community, the pressure of the artificial marriage—which included her husband threatening suicide when she tried to end the union—led her into a cycle of depression and despair.
Ultimately, Hawley chose to prioritize her own well-being over the church's dictates. By breaking the "blessing" and leaving the organization, she faced the terrifying possibility of being cast out by her family, though they ultimately supported her pursuit of happiness. Years later, after leaving the church and focusing on her passion for music, Hawley found genuine love on her own.
New Thought
The New Thought movement is an American spiritual and philosophical movement that emerged in the mid-to-late 19th century. Rather than developing into a single church with centralized authority, it grew into a loose network of thinkers, authors, and religious groups sharing a core conviction: the mind has direct creative power over physical reality, health, and circumstances.
It serves as the missing link between 19th-century metaphysics and today's multi-billion-dollar self-help industry.
1. The Historical Origins of New Thought
The roots of New Thought lie in a reaction against the harsh, Calvinist theology of early America (which emphasized human depravity and an angry God) and a simultaneous fascination with early psychology and alternative medicine.
Phineas Quimby: The Father of the Movement
The foundational figure of New Thought was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), a New England clockmaker and mesmerist. Quimby noticed that when he "magnetized" patients, their physical symptoms often vanished based entirely on what they believed about their cure.
Quimby concluded that all disease is a mental construct—an error of the mind—and that the true teaching of Jesus was a science of mental healing. He called his philosophy "The Science of Health" or the "New Thought."
The Early Splinters and Foundations
Quimby never founded a church, but his patients and students took his ideas in radically different directions:
Mary Baker Eddy: One of Quimby’s most famous patients, she used his ideas as a launchpad to found Christian Science in 1879. However, Eddy fiercely broke away from the mainstream New Thought trajectory by claiming absolute divine revelation, establishing a strict hierarchy, and entirely rejecting the physical world and medical science.
The Mainstream New Thought Pioneers: Other students, such as Warren Felt Evans and Julius Dresser, advocated a more open, ecumenical approach. They blended Quimby's mental healing with Emersonian Transcendentalism (the belief in an immanent divine energy in nature) and Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism, which were just beginning to be translated into English.
By the late 1880s, independent ministries had begun to crystallize into formal denominations. The most prominent among these were Unity Church (founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889), Divine Science (1888), and later, Religious Science / Science of Mind (founded by Ernest Holmes in 1927).
2. Core Philosophy: The Metaphysical Framework
While denominations differ, the historical New Thought movement is defined by a few unwavering philosophical tenets:
Pantheism/Panentheism: God is not a king on a throne, but "Divine Mind," "Infinite Intelligence," or "Source"—an omnipresent energy flowing through everything.
The Law of Attraction: Thoughts are literal things. They possess a magnetic frequency that attracts corresponding physical realities. Positive thoughts attract health and wealth; negative thoughts attract disease and poverty.
The Metaphysical Jesus: Jesus is viewed as a human who figured out the "spiritual laws" of the universe. The "Christ" is not a person, but a state of divine consciousness that anyone can achieve.
3. Influence on Modern Self-Help and Secular Spirituality
It is difficult to overstate how deeply New Thought has saturated modern secular culture. When people use terms like "manifesting," "vibrational frequency," "mindset shift," or "daily affirmations," they are speaking fluent, 19th-century New Thought.
The movement crossed over from a religious philosophy into secular self-help through three major historical waves:
Wave 1: The "Success Literature" of the Early 20th Century
In the early 1900s, authors stripped away the explicitly Christian terminology of Unity and Divine Science to market these principles directly to people in business and those seeking financial wealth.
[Phineas Quimby's Mental Healing]
▼
[William Walker Atkinson (Thought Vibration, 1906)]
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[Wallace Wattles (The Science of Getting Rich, 1910)]
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[Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich, 1937)]
Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich became one of the best-selling books of all time, arguing that "thoughts are things" and outlining a formula to transmute desire into gold.
Wave 2: Mid-Century Norman Vincent Peale
In 1952, minister Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking. Peale combined New Thought metaphysics with traditional Christian psychology. Despite heavy criticism from theologians and psychiatrists who called it simplistic and dangerous, the book spent 186 consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It normalized the idea that optimism is a practical tool for worldly success.
Wave 3: The New Age Movement and "The Secret"
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, New Thought underwent a massive rebranding under the umbrella of New Age spirituality.
Louise Hay: In 1984, she published You Can Heal Your Life, which directly mirrored Phineas Quimby’s 150-year-old premise: physical illnesses are caused by specific mental patterns and emotional blockages. Her company, Hay House, became the premier publisher of modern spiritual self-help.
Rhonda Byrne: In 2006, the book and film The Secret became a global phenomenon. It marketed the "Law of Attraction" as a forgotten esoteric mystery, though it drew heavily on Wallace Wattles' 1910 New Thought text, sometimes word-for-word.
Oprah Winfrey: By consistently platforming New Thought-aligned teachers like Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and Eckhart Tolle, Oprah mainstreamed the language of intentional living and manifestation for tens of millions of viewers.
The Core Critique: A Double-Edged Sword
The primary legacy of the New Thought movement is the democratization of agency—it taught individuals that they were not passive victims of a capricious God or random fate, but active co-creators of their lives.
However, sociologists and philosophers note that its dark side has also deeply shaped modern Western culture. By telling people they have absolute control over their reality, New Thought implicitly suggests that structural poverty, systemic inequality, racism, or genetic illnesses are merely "failures of imagination" or "poor mindset alignment," fostering a hyper-individualistic culture that often struggles with systemic empathy.
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The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not imply that Patrick Ryan, Joseph Kelly, or Ashlen Hilliard endorse the content. We provide information from multiple perspectives to foster dialogue.
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