Individualist and Community-Oriented Mind Cure

Abstract

This chapter surveys the rise of the Mind Cure movements that spread outward from the teachings of Quimby, including Christian Science and New Thought. Like most histories of these movements, it discusses the contributions of Warren Felt Evans, Mary Baker Eddy, the Dresser family, and Emma Curtis Hopkins, as well as the major religious organizations inspired by Hopkins’s teaching. Unlike most histories of New Thought, however, it distinguishes between two forms, community-oriented and individualist, which had different trajectories. Community-oriented New Thought was led largely by white women and centered in religious communities. Individualist New Thought stressed personal prosperity and business success. This chapter also devotes attention to community-oriented African American movements inspired by New Thought, particularly the Peace Mission Movement of Father Divine but also Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Moorish Science, the Nation of Islam, and Black Hebrew Israelism.