- 1749–1756: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) publishes his eight-volume Arcana Cœlestia, an allegorical interpretation of Genesis and Exodus offering a hidden meaning within biblical texts,[1] and introducing his theory of correspondence.[2]
- c. 1800–1830: Second Great Awakening of Protestant Christian revival[3]
- 1836: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) publishes his essay "Nature," marking the beginning of transcendentalism.
- 1837: Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866) begins practicing mesmerism/hypnosis in Maine, New England, after attending a lecture by French mesmerist Charles Poyen; by 1856 Quimby has 500 patients a year.
- 1860: Julius Dresser (1838–1893), later associated with New Thought, becomes a patient of Quimby's.[4]
- 1862: Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), later founder of Christian Science, becomes a patient of Quimby's.
- 1863: Warren Felt Evans (1817–1889), later associated with New Thought, becomes a patient of Quimby's.
- 1866: Quimby dies on January 16. On February 1 Eddy hurts her back after falling in Lynn, Massachusetts. Years later she writes that she was miraculously healed, three days after the fall, by reading a Bible passage. Christian Scientists call this the Fall in Lynn and see it as the birth of Christian Science.
- 1868: Eddy starts teaching a healing method based on one of Quimby's manuscripts.[5]
- 1875: Eddy founds Mary B. Glover's Christian Scientists' Home in Lynn, Massachusetts.[6]
- 1875: Eddy publishes Science and Health, describing her healing method and interpretation of Christian theology.
- 1879: Eddy founds the Church of Christ, Scientist.
- 1881: Eddy founds the Massachusetts Metaphysical College.[6]
- 1883: Julius Dresser accuses Eddy in February in the Boston Post of having stolen Quimby's ideas; Eddy wins a court case in September in which she was accused of having plagiarized Quimby. First issue of Eddy's Christian Science Journal is published.
- 1886: Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849–1925), former editor of the Christian Science Journal, regarded as a founder of New Thought, and Mary H. Plunkett (both students of Eddy's), open the Emma Hopkins College of Christian Science in Chicago, later named the Christian Science Theological Seminary, and the Hopkins Metaphysical Association. They begin teaching their healing method.[7]
- 1887: Julius Dresser publishes True History of Mental Healing; the phrase New Thought appears in William Henry Holcombe's Condensed Thoughts about Christian Science.[8]
- 1888: Hopkins publishes Scientific Christian Mental Practice.
- 1888: Malinda Cramer (1844–1906), a student of Hopkins, opens the Home College of Divine Science, later the International Divine Science Association, in San Francisco; Annie Rix Militz (1856–1924), another student of Hopkins, founds the Home of Truth, also in San Francisco.
- 1889: Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) and Myrtle Page Fillmore (1845–1931), students of Hopkins, found the Unity School of Christianity, later the Unity Church, in Kansas City, Missouri.
- c. 1890–1920: Third Great Awakening[3]
- 1894: Orison Swett Marden (1950–1924) publishes Pushing to the Front, advocating prosperity consciousness.
- 1894: New Thought becomes the title of a magazine about mental healing, published in Melrose, MA.[8]
- 1895: The Boston Metaphysical Club uses the term New Thought;[8] Annetta G. Dresser's The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby is published (Quimby's manuscripts are published in 1921).
- 1897: Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) publishes In Tune with the Infinite; Henry Ford (1863–1947) orders bulk copies.[9]
- 1898: Elizabeth Towne (1865–1960) founds Nautilus, a New Thought magazine.
- 1903: The first international New Thought convention is held; William Walker Atkinson (1862–1932) begins publishing New Thought books under several pen names, including Yogi Ramacharaka.
- 1914: The International New Thought Alliance is founded.
- 1921: Quimby's work is published posthumously as The Quimby Manuscripts.[10]
- 1926: Ernest Holmes (1887–1960), a student of Hopkins, publishes The Science of Mind, and the following year founds Religious Science.
- 1929: Frank B. Robinson (1886–1948) founds Psychiana in Moscow, Idaho.
- 1930: Masaharu Taniguchi (1893–1985) founds Seicho-no-Ie in Tokyo, Japan.
- 1937: Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) publishes Think and Grow Rich.
- 1947: Joel S. Goldsmith 1892–1964), a Christian Science practitioner, publishes The Infinite Way and founds The Infinite Way movement.
- 1952: Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) publishes The Power of Positive Thinking, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 weeks.
- 1955: The International Metaphysical Association is founded for independent Christian Scientists.
- 1974: Johnnie Colemon founds the Universal Foundation for Better Living.
- 1975: Helen Schucman (1909–1981) and William Thetford (1923–1988) publish A Course in Miracles.
- 1987: A court rules that Eddy's Science and Health is in the public domain, after a dispute about its copyright.
- 1988: Society for the Study of Metaphysical Religion is founded in Chicago.
- 1995: The Unity Church holds its first Unity World Conference in England.
- 2000: The United Church of Religious Science becomes the United Centers for Spiritual Living.
- 2006: Rhonda Byrne (born 1945) publishes The Secret, based on the New Thought idea of prosperity consciousness.
- Notes
- ^ a b J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, Gale Research International, 2009 (8th edition), p. 868. Entries without a footnote derive from Melton's timeline; anything taken from another source is referenced separately.
- ^ John K. Simmons, "Christian Science," in Eugene V. Gallagher, W. Michael Ashcraft (eds.), Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, p. 94.
- ^ a b William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 10–11, 16–17.
- ^ Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966, p. 341.
- ^ Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy, Doubleday, 1909, p. 118.
- ^ a b Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine, McClure's, July 1907, p. 333, September 1907, p. 567.
- ^ Gail M. Harley, Emma Curtis Hopkins: Forgotten Founder of New Thought, Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 38–39.
- ^ a b c Horatio Dresser, A History of the New Thought Movement, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1919, pp. vii, 153.
- ^ Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, p. 118.
- ^ Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, The Quimby Manuscripts, edited by Horatio W. Dresser, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1921.
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