Overview

The New Thought Movement was an enormously popular late nineteenth-century spiritual movement led largely by and for women. Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science is but one example of the fascinating range of these groups, which advocated a belief in mind over matter and espoused women's spiritual ability to purify the world. This work is the first to uncover the cultural implications of New Thought, embedding it in the intellectual traditions of nineteenth-century America, and illuminating its connections with the self-help and New Age enthusiasms of our own fin-de-siècle. Beryl Satter examines New Thought in all its complexity, presenting along the way a captivating cast of characters. In lively and accessible prose, she introduces the people, the institutions, the texts, and the ideas that comprised the New Thought movement. This fascinating social and intellectual history explores the complex relationships among social reform, alternative religion, medicine, and psychology which persist to this day.

Full Product Details

Author:   Beryl Satter
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.680kg
ISBN:  

9780520229273

ISBN 10:   0520229274
Pages:   394
Publication Date:   14 May 2001
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

List of Charts and Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: New Thought in Late-Victorian America 1. The Era of Woman and the Problem of Desire 2. The Mother or the Warrior: Mind, Matter, Selfhood, and Desire in the Writings of Mary Baker Eddy and Warren Felt Evans 3* Emma Curtis Hopkins and the Spread of New Thought, 1885-1905 4* Sex and Desirelessness: the New Thought Novels of Helen Van-Anderson, Ursula Gestefeld, and Alice Bunker Stockham 5* Money and Desire: Helen Wilmans and the Reorientation of New Thought 6. New Thought and Early Progressivism 7* New Thought and Popular Psychology, 1905-1920 Conclusion: New Thought in American Culture after 1920 Notes Select Bibliography Index 359

Reviews

Ambitious, engaging and beautifully written, this study of late-19th-century American women's psychological and intellectual relationship to progressive social movements and quasi-religious self-improvement cults is a groundbreaking investigation that overturns established paradigms in which women are buffeted by history rather than agents of it. - Publishers Weekly

"""Ambitious, engaging and beautifully written, this study of late-19th-century American women's psychological and intellectual relationship to progressive social movements and quasi-religious self-improvement cults is a groundbreaking investigation that overturns established paradigms in which women are buffeted by history rather than agents of it."" - Publishers Weekly"""

Author Information

Beryl Satter is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey.

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