Joseph Lumpkin: Florence Shinn, New Thought, and the Age of the Personal God

Joseph Lumpkin, author, researcher, publisher and founder/CEO of Fifth Estate Publishing, joins me for an extensive discussion on the early roots of the New Thought Movement.

New Thought is not a religion. It does not use prayer in the same way religions do. Yet, in it's attention to the underlying biblical principles it has uncovered the universal mechanism by which all prayer works. In this discussion we unpack the idea of the underlying construct of prayer. Prayer works equally with various gods, through various theologies, doctrines, and approaches. Overcoming the limited ideas of God. How we limit the universe by having an idea of how our wishes should come about. The fact that the universe is conscious since it has sentient beings as part it contemplating the universe. In the early 20th century, Florence Scovel Shinn (September 24, 1871 in Camden, New Jersey – October 17, 1940) would become a driving force within the New Thought philosophy. Shinn was an American artist and book illustrator who became a New Thought spiritual teacher and metaphysical writer. With these preceding visionaries and the later generation of "positive thought" teachers such as Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale; and the "word faith" teachers including Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, and Kenneth Hagin that can be seen to draw directly upon the New Thought teachings. Today, these pervasive ideas ripple through the modern "new age" culture as the manifestation movement of Abraham Hicks and other proponents.