1845. Like Quimby, Charles suffered from tuberculosis, and as a result of his disease, set out on a quest for healing. Together the Fillmores roamed the West seeking a cure for Charles’ illness, until they came across Christian Scientists and Emma Curtis Hopkins. Charles started a prayer group called “Silent Unity.” (He had originally wanted to call it Christian Science, after Quimby, but was forced to change the name due to a legal conflict with Mary Baker Eddy.) Around 1891, the prayer group grew into what is known today as the Unity School of Christianity. Christianity here was used in a loose sense of Christ-consciousness; the teachings of the Fillmores were mostly metaphysical and even included reincarnation. In the Unity Church, salvation is attained by “atonement with God,” a reuniting of human consciousness with God-consciousness. They taught that if Jesus had attained this, all men could.
Prentice Mulford (1834–1891) wrote humorous pieces for various journals in California before he helped found the New Thought movement. Mulford was also an avid prospector for many years, jumping claims all over California in his search for gold. Much of his writing career focused on the unimportance of money and material things. He often wrote that those who suffered from lack of money were forced to become more intelligent that those that had it: “Poverty argued for us [in] possession of more brains”29 Mulford played a fairly large role at the beginning of the New Thought Movement with the publication of his popular book, Thoughts Are Things. The writing in this book offers New Thought ideals combined with humor.
The surest way for a young woman to become ugly is to be discontented, peevish, cross, complaining and envious of others. Because in these states of mind she is drawing to her the invisible substance of thought, which acts on and injures her body. It ruins the complexion, makes lines and creases in the face, sharpens the nose and transforms the face of youth into that of the shrew in very quick time.
The more you get into the thought current coming from the Infinite Mind, making yourself more and more a part of that mind (exactly as you may become a part of any vein of low, morbid, unhealthy mind in opening yourself to that current), the quicker are you freshened, and renewed physically and mentally. You become continually a newer being. Changes for the better come quicker and quicker. Your power increases to bring results. You lose gradually all fear as it is proven more and more to you that when you are in the thought current of Infinite Good there is nothing to fear. You realize more and more clearly that there is a great power and force which cares for you. You are wonderstruck at the fact that when your mind is set in the right direction all material things come to you with very little physical or external effort. You wonder then at man’s toiling and striving, fagging himself literally to death, when through such excess of effort he actually drives from him the rounded-out good of health, happiness and material prosperity all combined.30
Though the laws of the universe can never be broken, they can be made to work under special conditions which will produce results that could not be produced under the conditions spontaneously provided by nature.
—Thomas Troward
Thomas Troward (1847–1916) is said to be the second father of the New Thought movement, after Quimby. He served as a Divisional Judge in Punjab for twenty-five years. A devout churchman and a student of all religions, he formulated a philosophy that explained a creative mental process. Troward, like most New Thought adherents, believed that all people mentally create the world in which they live. He called his philosophy “Mental Science,” and lectured on it all over the world. Troward spoke several languages, studied biblical scripture written in Hebrew, read the Koran, and researched the writings of Raja Yoga.
Troward was the author of many highly influential books in the New Thought world, including The Edinburgh Lectures (1904) and The Dore Lectures (1909). Troward’s writings influenced many later New Thought authors, such as Emmet Fox, Ernest Holmes, Paul Foster Case, Joseph Murphy and Bob Proctor (who is prominently featured in Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret).
Troward considered himself a Rosicrucian, and focused much of his teachings and inspiration on this source. He ends his final published writing with the following quote:
We are as yet only at the commencement of the path which leads to the realization of this unity in the full development of all its powers, but others have trodden the way before us, from whose experiences we may learn; and not least among these was the illustrious founder of the Most Christian Fraternity of the Rosicrucians. This master-mind, setting out in his youth with the intention of going to Jerusalem, changed the order of his journey and first sojourned for three years in the symbolical city of Damcar, in the mystical country of Arabia, then for about a year in the mystical country of Egypt, and then for two years in the mystical country of Fez. Then, having during these six years learned all that was to be acquired in those countries, he returned to his native land of Germany, where, on the basis of the knowledge he had thus gained, he founded the Fraternity R.C., for whose instruction he wrote the mystical books M. and T. Then, when he realized that his work in its present stage was accomplished, he of his own free will laid aside the physical body, not, it is recorded, by decay, or disease, or ordinary death, but by the express direction of the Spirit of Life, summing up all his knowledge in the words, “Jesus mihi omnia.”31
Troward voraciously studied Rosicrucian teachings, According to Claude Brodeur:
Troward has based his philosophy on the principle of a “Universal Subconscious Mind,” and that man’s subconscious is no more nor less than universal and infinite God-consciousness . . . . This kind of thinking puts a Rosicrucian stamp on the new religious thinking called New Thought.32
THE ROSICRUCIAN AND HERMETIC BROTHERHOODS
Several New Thought authors considered themselves to be Rosicrucians. Most people have a hazy idea that Rosicrucians inhabit secret conspiracy-type organizations, but few realize Rosicrucianism’s Hermetic basis, which evolved in Europe in the seventeenth century. Myriad fraternities have formed throughout time (and many still exist today) that have studied and practiced the Hermetic arts. These groups tend to be secretive, often to avoid persecution from larger religious organizations such as the Catholic Church, but occasionally they expand, sharing their information with a wider audience. The Rosicrucians are one group that shared much of its information with the public. Also known as “The Brethren of the Rose Cross,” Rosicrucians are traditionally Christian organizations, but to be certain, they are Christian Hermeticists.
In his Apology, Fludd described the Rosy Cross Brothers as true Christians and the spiritual descendants of Hermes Trismegistus. He declared himself a disciple without being a member, and he thought it possible that there was no formal Rosicrucian organization; a community of minds sharing the same spiritual and philosophic goals was quite enough to constitute a movement, in his opinion. “I affirm that every Theologus of the Church Mystical is a real Brother of the Rosy Cross.”33
The history of Christian Hermeticists goes back to the dawn of Christianity itself, and there have been schools of thought that combine these two philosophies. The Rosicrucians claim their origins date back to the time of Christ, but there is no written evidence of their existence until the early 1600s in Germany. At that time, three Rosicrucian manifestos were anonymously published one year after the other: Fama Fraternitatis (1614), Confessio Fraternitatis (1615), and the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616). This last work is entirely alchemical and Hermetic in its contents,
