The Development of the “Mind Cure”

The Development of the “Mind Cure”

Introduction

In the late 19th century, a chain of religious movements came into view that turned out to be acknowledged as “mind cure” religions. The “mind cure” movements i.e. Unity, Theosophy, Christian Science, New Thought among others preserved that people could just, by an act of conviction and will, cure their own infirmities and build paradise on earth. These “mind cure” movements were phrased by as William Leach as sunny, optimistic, “wish-oriented, the epitome of self-confidence and cheer, and totally lacking in anything similar to a disastrous view of life (Leach, 1993). There was no darkness, no sin, no evil, like, as somebody who is a mind curer would say, “the sunlight of health” (Leach, 1993).

Discussion

The “Mind Cure” movements seize that salvation would take place in this life and not in the next world. Mind cure discharged the ideas of guilt and sin. God turned out to be a heavenly force, a curative power. Proponents discussed that Americans ought to drive out ideas of self-denial and duty. These latest and innovative religions made trendy the thought that, in the world of men, women and goods could discover a heaven free from suffering and pain.

All through the same era, organized religion offers its support to the innovative consumerism culture. Conventional Protestant religions fragmented into fundamentalist and modern divisions in the 1870s as well as 1880s, heading for the rise of mind-cure groups and cults. A French cleric called Charles Wagner was a prominent, well-known and interesting figure of the era. Wagner in 1901 wrote a tract known as “The Simple Life” which was a breakdown in France and an on the spot victory in the United States; numerous copies were sold alone in the area of New York. Wagner, in The Simple Life protests on the subject of material, and the corrupting effect of commercial culture. Wagner was also disturbed on the absence of bindings to the past. Wagner's answer was less radical or influential than his analysis. He was no supporter of welfare or communitarian enterprises, and he did not advice a revisit to 'the golden old days': instead, he asked the readers to be straightforward in their individual stations. They could perform this by passing up "self analysis" and "pessimism" instead making an effort to be "hopeful" and "confident."

John Wanamaker, one of the tycoons of department stores was one of the most passionate American devotees of Wagener. Wanamaker purchased numerous of Wagner's book for his friends and workers and he commanded the building of a small bungalow adjacent to his unrestrained homeland in Pennsylvania in order that he could run away towards a simple life when he had the push for. Therefore, the message of Wagner turned out to be incorporated into the consumer culture of America in much the similar manner that graham crackers, Post and Kellogg cereals, and the Battle Creek's therapeautic sanatariums, Michigan changed the millennialism point of the Seventh Day Adventists.

Wagner's conviction in the power of optimistic ...