New Thought, Unity, Divine Science, Religious Science

Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements · Charles Fillmore, Myrtle Fillmore, Malinda Cramer · 1888 · United States

What it is

This is a family of religious and healing movements, not a therapy. It grew out of nineteenth-century American mental healing ("mind-cure"). The guide first describes the movements' own healing practices as they publish them. It then gives the psychotherapist's procedures for clients who belong to,…

Format

• Entry: Sunday services, introductory classes (CSL centres list courses such as Foundations of Science of Mind), the Daily Word devotional, and Unity books.
• Divine Science. In Mark Hicks' TruthUnity course history, Malinda Cramer moved to San Francisco for her health in 1870. After years of unsuccessful medical treatment she stopped seeing doctors and recovered. By 1888 she was healing and teaching full time under the name Divine Science. In Denver,…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• There is no session protocol. The movements offer a set of open practices: classes, Sunday services, daily devotionals, a prayer line, and one-to-one sessions with licensed practitioners or ministers. The psychotherapist works in their own modality and treats New Thought as part of the client's cultural and spiritual context. No session counts come from sources; the phases below are a for clinical use.
• Deepening: further courses on consciousness, meditation, treatment and "prosperity consciousness". At CSL, a two-year Practitioner Studies programme leads to licensing as a practitioner, and practitioner status is required before ministry.
• Support: free prayer from the Unity Prayer Ministry (Silent Unity) by phone, app, online form or post, around the clock. After the first prayer, a request is held in a 30-day prayer vigil. At CSL, a person may book a session with a licensed practitioner.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Core idea of change (as the movements hold it): God, or Mind, is wholly good and present everywhere. A person's thinking shapes their experience. So recognising one's unity with the divine, and affirming the good as already true, changes inner states and outer conditions, health among them.…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• refusal of urgent care. Act promptly.
• the client feeling handed off. Keep continuity.
• clients asking you to "hold the high watch" or treat for them. Decline warmly.
• debt, secrecy, or a teacher promising healing or wealth in exchange for payment.
• more emotional range in session, and the client describing problems more concretely.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.