thought reading: see parapsychology; telepathy.

New Thought, popular philosophical movement with religious implications; it affirms "the creative power of constructive thinking." A successor of New England transcendentalism, New Thought grew out of the healing practices of P. P. Quimby and the "mental science" of W. F. Evans, a Swedenborgian minister. From its initial emphasis on the healing of disease it developed into an intensely individualistic and optimistic philosophy of life and conduct. The name was adopted in the 1890s to indicate this broader interest. Annual national conventions were held from 1894, and in 1914 the International New Thought Alliance was formed, with branches in England, Australia, and elsewhere. Composed of many smaller groups, such as Divine Science, Unity (until 1922), and Home of Truth, the alliance is held together by one central teaching, namely, that people through the constructive use of their minds can attain freedom, power, health, prosperity, and all good, molding their bodies as well as the circumstances of their lives. The doctrine was widely popularized by such writers as O. S. Marden and Ralph Waldo Trine, especially in the latter's In Tune with the Infinite (1897). Beyond this unifying principle of the constructive power of the mind and the prevailing optimism of the movement, there are a great variety of diverse and often mutually contradictory ideas in New Thought. Individual New Thought leaders have employed concepts from every variety of idealistic, spiritualistic, pantheistic, kabbalistic, and theosophical thought, as well as from Christianity. There are also frequent overtones of the mystical and occult in New Thought literature.

Traditionally, the three fundamental laws of logic: (1) the law of contradiction, (2) the law of excluded middle (or third), and (3) the principle of identity. That is, (1) for all propositions p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be true (symbolically, ¬(p ∧ ¬p)); (2) either p or not p must be true, there being no third or middle true proposition between them (symbolically p ∨ ¬p); and (3) if a propositional function F is true of an individual variable x, then F is true of x (symbolically, (∀x) [F(x) ⊃ F(x)]). Another formulation of the principle of identity asserts that a thing is identical with itself, or (∀x) (x = x).

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or thought

Action of using one's mind to produce thoughts, or covert symbolic responses to stimuli. Theories of thought and thought processes have concentrated largely on directed thinking, including problem solving. At the beginning of the 20th century, researchers focused on studying mental associations. Theorists of Gestalt psychology in the 1920s and '30s believed the elements of thought to be in the nature of patterns elicited from experience. Today these elements are often regarded as bits of information undergoing processing. Seealso cognitive psychology, information processing.

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Mind-healing movement that originated in the U.S. in the 19th century. Its earliest proponent, Phineas P. Quimby (1802–66), was a mesmerist who taught that illness is mental. New Thought was influenced by philosophers ranging from Plato to Emanuel Swedenborg, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Ralph Waldo Emerson and in turn influenced Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science. The International New Thought Alliance (formed 1914) asserts that sin and illness stem from incorrect thinking. New Thought groups emphasize Jesus as a teacher and healer and proclaim his kingdom as being within each person.

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