ABC of Spiritualism 77 & 78/100

77. What relation is there, if any, between the New Thought Movement and Spiritualism?

Spiritualists regard the New Thought Movement favorably and look upon it as one of the many indirect results of the great tide of thought and sentiment that sprang out of the origin and spread of Modern Spiritualism. The Optimism of New Thought; the high concept it has of human powers and possibilities; the Metaphysical Healing it practices; the wide departure it has made from Orthodoxy in abandoning the Old Theology and accepting the New Theology—and many other good features of the New Thought—were all found in Spiritualistic literature before the New Thought Movement was born. Granted that in the New Thought Movement these teachings are amplified and carried out in greater detail. Spiritualists generally have little criticism of so-called New Thought Teaching but as a philosophy of life or a system of religion they regard it as radically defective. No philosophy of life can be complete without the demonstration and certainty of the Unending Life. No Religion that is devoid of a true philosophy of Death and some positive teaching of the inter-communion of the two realms, and some information about the “Great Beyond” can be regarded as complete or satisfactory.

78. What will be the character of the Religion of the Future?

Religion will be looked upon as natural—not supernatural. It will be the spontaneous outflow of love and gratitude of the awakened soul toward the Giver of all good, and the cultivation of humane and generous views of one’s fellowmen, resulting in a life of service for humanity.