Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875–1920

Satter, Beryl. Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Satter examines the relationship between Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science movement and the New Thought Movement both flourishing at the end of the 19^th-and early 20^th-century. Satter sees the two movements agreeing that one’s mental fears foster illness and distress. Yet unlike the New Thought Movement which believed in the creative human mind’s ability to control the world around it, Eddy strove mightily to differentiate herself, feeling strongly that “a reliance on the mortal mind’s power distracted from one’s reliance on God” (5). Satter concludes the New Thought Movement would be the wave of the future with its faith in the creative power of human thought as predictive of America’s own ‘cult of success.’ The rest of the book takes a deep dive into the social context for the New Thought Movement as illustrated in the public discussion over what kind of leadership can save (or threaten) a civilization. The ‘social Darwinist perspective’ claimed human progress relies on the competitive, desirous, rational male sex. But the ‘reformed Darwinist perspective’ claimed humankind will be saved by the desireless, pure female sex, representative of the truly scientific laws of love. This debate is played out in chapter two where Satter contrasts the opposing views of Mary Baker Eddy and Warren Felt Evans—foundational figures initially influenced by Phineas P. Quimby.

ISBN-10: 0520229274
ISBN-13 (Softcover): 978-0520229273