Modern Religious Cults and Movements

appraise it because it is an attitude of mind. Attitudes of mind are as elusive as the play of light on running water. We can estimate their force and direction only as we

to Define; "An Attitud

every direction, but has, on the other hand, given it a pervasive quality which Christian Science does not possess. It has a vast and diffuse litera

e present trend of science and philosophy, a reaction against old theologies and perhaps a kind of nebula out of which future theologies will be organized. For a great theology is

hallenge of schisms and heresies, the sanctifying power of blind custom and the mystical authority of the Church itself all combine to make a theology. Once a great theology is so constituted

nd yet the very strength of a great theology is always its weakness. It is never really anything else than a crystallization of past forces. The experiences which voice th

orms. Currents of thought are always, as it were, running past the great formul? since thought is free and formul? are rigid, and then returning upon them. From time to time this movement gathers great force. The old has been rigid so long, the new is s

indicate, none the less the great theological centralities do possess an immense power of resistance. We have already seen how little Protestantism had changed since the Reformation until it met the full impact of modern science and philosophy. We have had really until our own time and still largely continue a

terweaving of such understandings as those who shaped our creeds had, of law and history and truth. Any far-reaching change, then, in phil

n said, is loosely organized and its varying parts have in common only a common drift. Yet that drift is significant for it has beneath it the immense force of a philosophy which has been gathering head fo

overy of th

has always been the setting forth of the inner life in terms of its relationship to God and the proofs of the reality of religion have always been found in the experiences of the soul. The mystic particularly made everything of the inne

rature. To turn from St. Augustine to Dresser, or from St. Theresa to Trine is to change spiritual and intellectual climates. There is in the modern literature little reflection of such spiritual struggle as fills the great Confessions with the agony of embattled souls, nor any resolution of such struggle into t

losophies or else trying to make a philosophy of their own. Mysticism made everything of God and nothing of itself. It plotted its mystic way but knew nothing of psychology. New Thought seeks to discover in psychology a road to God. The centers of mysticism were emotion

za's

, with Spinoza rather than Quimby. Here the deeper currents, upon the surface of which New Thought moves, take their rise and here also we r

. "After experience had taught me," he says (and this is quoted from Royce's "Spirit of Modern Philosophy"), "that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile, seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad except in so far as the

exactly what Mary Baker Eddy and all the other perplexed and bodily broken "seekers" who gathered about Quimby were really wanting and this is what, for one reason or another, the proffered religious experiences of their time failed to secure them. "This was, then," to quote Royce, "the beginning o

gh. He is a mystic who reasons his way through where the elder mystic has felt his way through, and the goal which he finally reaches, though it be the goa

s the Creativ

s of its realities the supreme task of philosophy. Those who continued his work began far enough, apparently, from the point where he left off and went a road strangely remote from his. Having taken the inner life for their study they sough

te paper of the mind] with an almost endless variety." We have nothing with which to begin but sensation; we have nothing to go on with but reflection. "These two, namely external, material things as the objects of sensation, and the operations of our own minds within as the objects of reflection, are the only originals fro

Concerning the Hu

efine experience in terms of ideas as of sensation; they discovered finally that by no possible process even of the most ingenious reasoning can you get the full wealth of life out of a mind which w

and faith, that is, where conscience has become the guide and the necessities of the soul the law, we do possess the power in enfranchising obediences and splendid adventures of faith to make a world rich in goodness, power and peace. And here, once more, there is a strangely modern note. Life is a pilgrim's progress. We are set out to discover "whether there might be some real good, the discovery and attainment of

ndividualism the Practical

philosophy of the Enlightenment, that its influences had no small part in shaping the popular point of view concerning the moral, religious and political convictions of that age."[61] Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism were, says Hibben, the popular and practical outcome of the whole movement,-Utilitarianism in Ethics, Deism in Religion, Individualism in Politics. These three growths-and they have borne a deal of bitter fruit in the last one hundred years-grow out of one soil. In general they are due to Locke's sensationalism, Hume's skepticism, a new emphasis upon rea

hilosophy of the En

r Fruit: the Reac

inst old despotisms of Church and State-and a Declaration of Independence. It was in part a pride of accomplishment and a new affirmation of the self-sufficiency of the questing reason. There was in it also a sound recognition of the worth of personality of which the world then stood in need and which has since supplied a foundation for a saving passion fo

conceptions. No need to say how utterly they have broken down. They have made for the deepening strife of classes and of nations, they h

d out of the wealth of their imagination characters and situations in which love and human worth had their way in spite of a thousand obstacles. They were challenged by prophets of a better world, the Ruskins and Carlyles who soundly rated the ethics of selfishness and the political economies of competition and the politics of self-assertion and who stirred deeply the mor

ive and masterful; they are by no means free; they are conditioned by the vaster order of which they are a part, none the less our human world is plastic to their touch and our material world as well. Carlyle has chanted all this gustily enough but there is kindling truth in his stormy music. "Thus, like some wild flaming

dentalism. Quimby Ag

rder, anticipated trained students in their return upon the higher and more positive side of an older philosophy. They made much of the inner life, its powers and its possibilities; they affirmed the creative power of the soul; they conceived life to lie plastic to the touch of vision and desire; they thought themselve

hich Christian Science and New Thought (I use New Thought here in the technical sense) find their source. And finally, Quimby, who is a rather unexpectedly important link in a long chain,-important, that is, to the student of modern cults-reacted against mesmerism, felt a

it into a church; she imposed upon it a distinctive discipline. No little of the power of Christian Science is due to this narrow rigidity which is itself the projection of the personality of Mary Baker Eddy. But Christian Science did not

in resemblance, both of them beginning about the same time, both of them reactions against accepted religious forc

oston through the organization of the Metaphysical Club in 1895. About the same time it was used by Mr. C.P. Patterson in his magazine Mind and in the title of two of his books." Other names were suggested-in England, Higher Thought; in Boston, Higher Life; i

ught Ta

a regular leader and organization in Boston was the Church of the Higher Life established in 1894."[62] The Metaphysical Club was an outgrowth of the New Thought group in Boston. Dresser gives a list of the original members, chiefly significa

are from Dresser's "History of New

d on the New York program one Swami Abhedananda, lecturer on the Vedanta philosophy. Here is an early indication of the return of Eastern religions upon the West which is also one of the marked characteristics of the religious development of our time. We do not need to follow through in detail the list of successive

s typical organizations, but they seem on the whole to be exceptional rather than typical. The strength of the New Thought movement is not in its organization but in its influence. "In England as in America interest was aroused by Christian Science, then came a gradual reaction and the establishment of independent branches of the movement." "It is difficult," says Dresser, "to obtain information pertaining to t

f Man and his Infinite possibilities through the creative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of the Indwelling Presence which is our source of I

Cr

eedom of each soul as to choice and as to belief, and would not, by the adoption of any declaration of principles, limit such freedom. The essence of the New Thought is Truth, and each in

in the image of the Good, and evil and pain are but the tests and correctiv

elligent, and is shaped, ruled, repaired, and controlled by mind. He whose body is full of light is full of health. Spiritual heali

re unused resources of energy and power. He who lives with his whole being, and thus expresses fullness, shall reap fullness in return.

t we should love one another, that we should heal the sick, that we should return good for evil, that we should minister to others, and t

and by whom we are held together; that His mind is our mind now, that realizing our oneness with Him means love, trut

ery day, sleeping and waking, not in the ministry of the few, but in a service that includes the democracy of all, not in

universe of thought, the nothingness of all error and negation, including death, the variety of unity that produces the individual exp

p for the mere sake of the institution. We do not ask anybody to leave the church. We ask them to become better members of their churches than before. New Thought is designed to make people better and more efficient in whatever relation of life they may find themselves. In other words: 'New Thought teaches men and women only the old common-sense doctrine of self-reliance and belief in the integrity of the universe and of one's o

of the Nazarene, but of every other great religious teacher since the world began; for in their essence these teachings are fundamentally alike; an

e of the

of its reach and influence. The literature in general falls into three classes: (1) books concerned mostly about healing; (2) books which instruct as to character, spiritual states and fullness of life; (3) what one may call success books which ap

t which quite corresponds to the "demonstration" of Christian Science. It would seem to an impartial observer that Christian Science asks of its disciples an intensity of positive effort which New Thought does not demand. Dresser, for example, believes all suffering to be the result of struggle. Directly we cease to struggle we cease to suffer, provided, of course, that our cessation is in the direction of relaxation and a trust in a higher power. In some regions, however, Christia

knowledge, to secure health, happiness and prosperity. It makes much, of course, of the centrality of mind both in well-being and pain. It hardly goes so far as to say that pain is an error in belief, but it does say that pain is a matter of consciousness and that a

ords of N

le in trying to account for the relation of mind to body and in its explanation of the physical phenomena of disease. Fatigue, for example, "is evidently due to the calling of power into a new direction. It [evidently the power] comes into contact with dense matter, with an uncultivated portion of the being, physical as well

if we are not to study the causes of disease but to take as our guide the serene generalizations of a speculative mind we are shutting in our faces one of the doors by which we enter into that knowledge of the

it brings us to a knowledge of the law. It is certainly, therefore, just and it may be kind. Indeed, New Thought occasionally goes so far as to say that suffering is also a revelation o

ent God, is ever ready to do her utmost for us" he is speaking with a wise and direct helpfulness, though here as generally New Thought errs on the side of too great a simplification. There is a way out of every trouble but it is not always simple, it is often laborious and challenging. We have accomplished marvels in the matter of tropical sanitation but the way out has been anything but simple. It has involved experimentations wh

of Real

there never have been and never will be any short-cuts in life. None the less, trust and quietness of mind and soul and utter openness to healing, saving forces are immense healing agents and in its emphasis thereupon New Thought has recalled us to that which in

rry of their own weight into other regions. It is important enough to get well-that goes without saying-but it is more important to keep well. Good health on the whole is a kind of by-product. We suffer as distinctly from spiritual and mental maladjustments as from physical. We suffer also from the sense of inadequacy, the sense, that is, of a burdening disproportion between our own powers and the challenge of life. New Thought has

el of Ge

f his books are suggestive-"Keeping Fit," "Selling Things," "The Victorious Attitude," "Training for Efficiency," "Getting On," "Self-Investment," "Be Good to Yourself," "He Can Who Thinks He Can," "Character," "Opportunity," "An Iron Will." Something like this has, of course, been done before but the modern efficiency literature moves along a wider front t

the "Sermon on the Mount" and the "Beatitudes" of this gospel of personal efficiency. Keep fit, keep at it, assert yourself, never admit the possibility of failure, study your own strength and weakness and the st

on the whole the ideal character so defined is a buoyant optimist who sells his goods, succeeds in his plans and has his own way with the world. It is the apotheosis of what James called "The Religion of

at an extent all sorts of short-cuts to success of every sort are being offered, and how generally all these advertisements lock up upon two or three principles which revolve around self-assertion as a center and getting-on as a creed. It would be idle to

s and Dangers

ation upon which real power can possibly be established. There is everywhere here an invitation to the superficial and, above all, there is everywhere here a tendency toward the creation of a type of character by no means so admirable in the actual outcome of it as it seems to be in the glowing pages of these prophets of success. Self-a

forms of religious faith. New Thought is an interweaving of such psychological tendencies as we have already traced with the implications and analogies of modern science. The God of New Thought is an immanent God, never clearly defined; indeed it is possible to argue from many representative

through obedience to such laws, into a triumphant partnership with such a master force-a kind of conquering self-surrender to a power not ourselves and yet which we may not know

odifies Orth

our own powers of apprehension and we seem to be in the grip of impersonal law and at the mercy of forces which have no concern for our own personal values. New Thought naturally reflects all this and adds thereto uncertainties of its own. There are passages enough in New Thought literature which recognize the personality of God just as there are passages enough which seem to reduce Him to power and principle and the secret of such discrepancies is not perhaps in the creeds of New Thought, but in the varying attitudes of its priest

e optimistic evolutionary philosophy in which New Thought roots itself is on the whole justified neither by history nor the insight of those who have been most rich in spiritual understanding, nor, indeed, by the outcome of that philosophy in our own time. The happy confidence that we d

thoughtful short article on New Thought in Hastings' "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics," "New Thought excludes such doctrines as the duality of man and God, miracles in the accepted sense, the forgiveness of sins and priestly mediation. It seeks to interpret the world and nature as science has recorded them, but also to convey their finer and esoteric meanings to the human understanding. The fundamental purpose of religion and science is the same-namely, the discovery of truth." "New Thought does not teach the moral de

Universal and Loos

conception of prayer would need to be altered. Naturally, then, on its more distinctly religious side New Thought is at once fluctuating and incomplete. It is the proclamation, to quote one of its spokesmen, of a robust individualism and, in the individual, mind is supreme. Right thinking i

ous movement, it is becoming more and more markedly a kind of syncretism, a putting together of religious elements drawn from widely universal sources and it patently seeks nothing less than a universal religious fellowship in which the values of all true faith are recognized and which is to be under the control of what science has to say a

struction which is loosely known as the New Theology. We are generally under a compulsion to reconstruct our creeds and adapt our religious thinking to whatever is true about us in our understanding of our world and its history and its mec

religious meanings in new facts and forces, are really serving us all. There is the danger, however, that in the very freedom of their speculation they may be too impatient of old experiences a