Healing Religious Abuse and this Fraught World
New Thought to the Rescue?
So, I have become an ordained minister. That fact proves that Creator/Source/God/Universe (whatever you choose to call it) has a sense of humor.
I was raised in a fear-based, hell-fire and brimstone form of Christianity that was in fact quite damaging. As I noted in my first book:
I still vividly remember being a little girl, sitting next to my mom on the crushed red velvet pew in the tiny white church as the pastor blasted out a sermon having something to do with Revelation. With gray, stringy hair flopping, Adam’s apple bobbing and spit flying, he thumped the podium and told us that when we get to heaven there would be streets paved with gold and when the angels sing we would fall on our faces in awe. He said that, “One of the rewards of the ‘saved’ would be watching the ‘unsaved’ gnash their teeth in hell for eternity.” I looked up at my mom and whispered, “Mom, if that’s heaven, I don’t want to go.” And pretty soon I stopped going, to church. In my late teens I rebelled against those teachings and preachings.
My early experience, and what I’ve witnessed in the world since, left me with a deep suspicion of organized religion. So much of the religions of the past has been toxic, based in and breeding fear and division. It has been structured on the twin errors of absolutism and authoritarianism. Absolutism is the “our way or the highway” approach, proclaiming that there is only one valid or correct way to get close to “God” or discover ourselves as spiritual beings. Authoritarianism is about having a controlling, dogmatic church telling people how to live, what to think and what is right and wrong. This has led to conflict, division, othering, even sanctioned violence and racism.
Though I rejected traditional Christianity and organized religion, I’ve always had a sense of myself as a spiritual being beyond just this one human experience, and, so, I’ve always been something of a spiritual seeker. I’ve studied and utilized the teachings and techniques in Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies, numerous indigenous paths, pagan, Druidic, Wiccan traditions. Eventually, about twenty-five years ago, I landed in a Unity center and everything began to coalesce into an eclectic yet cohesive overall spiritual approach, which is best described as New Thought.
I followed the multi-year journey of becoming a New Thought minister (through Unity Worldwide Ministries) because I think this movement has something profound and important to offer my country, and our world, right now in this fraught and sometimes frightening time.
The New Thought movement sprang up in America in the late 1800s/early 1900s. At that time, though the technology would seem quite primitive to us now, there was actually something of a renaissance taking place with incredible breakthroughs in science and technology.
· Telegraph invented in 1837
· Telephone unveiled in 1876
· 1859 Charles Darwin published some of his revolutionary works on biology and evolution.
· Gasoline-powered combustion engines and the first automobiles were created
· Industrial Revolution in America took hold in 1876.
· Electricity in American homes began in the 1890s
· First transcontinental radio transmission occurred in 1901.
At the same time all those incredible, miraculous-seeming developments were coming forth, medicine and medical care in America was still largely quackery. Anyone could proclaim themselves a physician and the treatments could be downright barbaric and dangerous. Most people had a deep fear of hospitals because the death and complications rates were so high.
Add to this, that by this time, Christianity, originally introduced by the Spanish colonizers and then bolstered by Puritan immigrants, had become the predominant mainstream religion. The 1800s saw rapid growth in the Baptist, Methodist and Protestant denominations as well as the emergence of Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Then, in 1865, Congress passed the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. It is hard to adequately imagine the scale and depth of societal system change that followed this pivotal, moral, existential development.
All of this led to a unique and profound evolution of consciousness that bubbled up in pockets across the nation. Wary of medical establishments, people began experimenting with self-healing, particularly applying the power of thought and mind in support of physical health. Meanwhile, more and more people were learning about the new scientific findings and questioning the dogma of mainstream religion. These were the main factors that gave rise to the New Thought or New Thought Ancient Wisdom movement.
I believe New Thought is important as much for what it is not as for what it is. It is not dogmatic, fear-based, or traditional. It does not try to tell people how to think but rather, to help us learn to think more clearly and gain agency over our own thoughts and feelings. New Thought does not adhere to the concept of “original sin” or the need to have someone die so that we can be redeemed. Original sin and the idea that God would allow/require the horrific torture and murder of its child are surely among the most psychologically damaging religious constructs ever espoused.
In stark contrast with the religion of my childhood, New Thought does not put forward that God is an “out-there” entity, busy with judging, and sometimes punishing us, but rather as the Creator, the life force behind, in and through all things. And that means each one of us is inextricably one with Creator/God/Source. We are part of Creation and therefore extensions of the Creator. Jesus, rather than being an unobtainable exception, is viewed as a master teacher, an exceptional example of the transformative spiritual awakening that we all can achieve.
Not surprisingly, New Thought is very much about our own personal power to take charge of our thoughts. Limiting stories and ideas that we create can seem to block us from the Divine but we have agency to release these and develop more empowered thinking. New Thought teaches that heaven is a state of consciousness and we can achieve right here right now.
To claim that New Thought has changed my life for the better is a gross understatement. On top of that, when I consider all that is going in our world right now I think the number one thing needed is new thinking. It gives me hope to consider that the New Thought movement was birthed in a time of upheaval, change, distrust in institutions, rapid technological breakthrough, and huge social shift in our country. The combination of pressures led to the emergence of an entirely new synthesis and application of spiritual understanding.
America is in a similar time of social upheaval right now. In addition, we are facing ecological destabilization. Game changing technologies are emerging (think AI) while the seeming-miracles of quantum science reveal that there is far more to reality than what’s right before our eyes and ears.
Ernest Holmes, one of the early new thought pioneers, said, “The religion of the future will appear when religion gets over its superstition, science gets over its materialism, and philosophy gets over its duality.”
It is clear that civilizations across the globe are facing significant challenges, and social upheaval is widespread. Governmental institutions are failing to solve the pressing problems before us from climate change to drug addiction to war. There is every reason to believe this high-pressure, high-tension period will bring about new ways of thinking and that gives me hope.
P.S. I’ll be delivering a talk titled a Positive Path to Spiritual Living this Sunday. It’ll be up on my YouTube channel sometime next week.
Upcoming Spiritual Education and Enrichment Classes.
Info on my Spring online classes offerings is provided below. I always love having TRANSCEND readers join in these fun and thought-provoking classes.
Foundations of Unity – Online 5 Day intensive class: Feb. 26 -- March 1, 1-2:30pm Pacific time.
This is a fun class that delves into many New Thought life transforming concepts and practices. It pulls mostly on the teachings of H. Emilie Cady's, Lessons in Truth, and Eric Butterworth's, Discover the Power Within You. You’ll need to have those two books to participate.
More info and registration link can be found here.
Metaphysics 4 Spiritual Education and Enrichment Class. Six-week class Mondays, 4pm - 5:30pm Pacific beginning March 25th. Online via Zoom. More info and registration link can be found here.
12 Spiritual Powers Empowerment Class. Six-week online class Tuesdays, 11am --12:30pm Pacific beginning March 26th. Online via Zoom.
This class delves into how faculties such as Imagination, Faith, Strength, Release can be developed as spiritual powers. In a very cool twist this will be the first time the new 12 Powers for the Planet materials will be used. This was a year-long effort to create fresh, eco-centric materials around the 12 spiritual powers teachings.
More info and registration info can be found here.
Life with Livvy – Progressing Together
In agility, the “premier” level events are a bit trickier and often require the dog to do “backsides” in which they have to go past the obvious entry to the jump, loop around and jump it from behind. In recent weeks, Olive seems to have gotten to the place where she really understands the verbal cue, “push”. This vid is our smoothest Standard Premier run yet. I used a new (to me) handling technique at the start line to let Livvy know she was going to need to collect as she came over the first jump in order to do a backside on the second jump. The trickiest part of this course (a little hard to see in this vid) was coming out of the weave poles, taking the next jump, then doing a backside on the jump beyond that. Because Livvy is getting so good about hitting all 12 weave poles even with me at a distance, I was able to extend my stride as she was in the weaves, get well ahead and angle my body toward the right side of the second jump to help Livvy understand we were doing a backside there. We won! She is such an awesome partner.
We leave for the National Agility Championships in under three weeks. I am so excited I’d leave tomorrow if I could!
"One of the rewards of the ‘saved’ would be watching the ‘unsaved’ gnash their teeth in hell for eternity." -- I call that a "Calvinist schadenfreude." Pretty sick, when you really think about it.
congratulations! 🎆👏💐