One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life
Horowitz, Mitch. One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. New York: Crown, 2014.
The simple idea is that positive thinking works, and the author assigns Christian Science a prominent place in the development of American affirmative-thinking (his term) philosophical systems. Although the author’s claims could be better documented, he provides a useful guide to dozens of mind-healing and positive thinking schemes that have attracted Americans from the mid-19th century to today. He acknowledges Mary Baker Eddy’s interest in Phineas P. Quimby (19th-century mesmerist) and her debt to him during a prolonged time of illness, but it is Horowitz’s viewpoint that “Quimby was not the covert founder of Christian Science” (45). Horowitz describes Eddy as founder of a ‘strict church,’ which caused some independent-minded followers to branch off from Christian Science. Consequently, Eddy “unintentionally created a cohort of ardent curious, dedicated—and churchless—experimenters … a brigade of spiritual freethinkers” (52) who became New Thought leaders who in turn gave rise to a dizzying sequence of self-improvement, healing, and prosperity and success movements. Horowitz argues that even if these systems and methods are suspect, “something has to only be a little bit true to change everything” (275). His final claim is that New Thought and positive thinking schemes are at least a little bit true.
ISBN-10: 1510707905
ISBN-13 (Softcover): 978-1510707900
See also annotations:
“Christian Science and the Puritan Tradition” by Thomas C. Johnsen
“Christian Science and its Christian Origin” by Shirley Paulson
Related Annotations:
Annotations related by category:
- Availability: Library or Purchase
- Controversy: Theological Controversies
- Official Christian Science Publication: No
- People: Gestefeld, Ursula
- People: Hopkins, Emma Curtis
- People: Quimby, Phineas
- Publication Date: 2011-2020
- Resource Types: Book
- Subjects: Healing and Health
- Subjects: Independent Christian Scientists
- Subjects: Metaphysical