02 - History.

History.  The New Thought movement grew out of the teachings of Phineas Quimby in the early 19th century. Early in his life, Quimby was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Early 19th century medicine had no reliable cure for tuberculosis. Quimby took to horse riding and noted that intense excitement temporarily relieved him from his affliction. This method for relieving his pain and seemingly subsequent recovery prompted Quimby to pursue a study of mind over body.  Although he never used the words law of attraction, he explained this in a statement that captured the concept in the field of health:  the trouble is in the mind, for the body is only the house for the mind to dwell in, and we put a value on it according to its worth. Therefore if your mind has been deceived by some invisible enemy into a belief, you have put it into the form of a disease, with or without your knowledge. By my theory or truth, I come in contact with your enemy and restore you to your health and happiness. This I do partly mentally and partly by talking till I correct the wrong impressions and establish the Truth, and the Truth is the cure.  Historian Mitch Horowitz noted that the term law of attraction first appeared in 1855 in The Great Harmonia, vol. IV, by American Spiritualist Andrew Jackson Davis, in a context alluding to the human soul and spheres of the afterlife.  The first articulator of the law of attraction as general principle was Prentice Mulford. Mulford, a pivotal figure in the development of New Thought thinking, discusses the law at length in his essay "The Law of Success", published 1886–1887. In this, Mulford was followed by other New Thought authors, such as Henry Wood (starting with his God's Image in Man, 1892), and Ralph Waldo Trine (starting with his first book, What All the World's A-Seeking, 1896). For these authors, the law of attraction is concerned not only about health but every aspect of life.  The 20th century saw a surge in interest in the subject with many books being written about it, amongst which are two of the best-selling books of all time; Think and Grow Rich (1937) by Napoleon Hill, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) by Norman Vincent Peale, and You Can Heal Your Life (1984) by Louise Hay.  Beginning in 1993, the best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen—motivational speakers and proponents of the law of attraction—used inspirational stories as examples of the law of attraction.  In 2006, the concept of the law of attraction gained renewed exposure with the release of the film The Secret (2006) which was then developed into a book of the same title in the same year. The movie and book gained widespread media coverage. This was followed by a sequel, The Power in 2010 that talks about the law of attraction being the law of love. The Abraham–Hicks material is based primarily around the law of attraction.  A modernized version of the law of attraction is known as manifestation, which refers to various self-help strategies that can purportedly make an individual's wishes come true by mentally visualizing them. Manifestation techniques involve positive thinking or directing requests to "the universe" as well as actions on the part of the individual.  Wikipedia: Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.This episode includes AI-generated content.