Definition
The New Thought thread treats directed attention, moral thought-habit, and mental imagery as trainable levers on conduct — later reframed in experimental psychology as self-regulation and motor simulation.
Origin
Between roughly 1880 and 1920, American and British mental science writers argued that inner speech, autosuggestion, and disciplined attention shape character and circumstance before outer conditions change. The prose is moral and metaphysical; the durable coaching move is narrower: repeated inner rehearsal and thought-habit engineering — ideas that reappear in sport psychology, habit science, and motor-imagery labs a century later.
Lineage
| Era | Thinker | Artefact | Mechanism introduced | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | William Walker Atkinson | Thought Force in Business and Everyday Life | Directed thought as interpersonal and commercial force | primary · folk |
| 1901 | James Allen | From Poverty to Power | Inner governance precedes outer condition | primary · folk |
| 1916 | Charles F. Haanel | The Master Key System | Mental architecture and correspondence — serial inner-system installs | primary · folk |
| 1995 | Marc Jeannerod | Motor-imagery paper (see Sources) | Imagined movement recruits motor-control circuits | lab |
| 1996 | Baumeister & Heatherton | Baumeister 1996 | Self-regulation as standards, monitoring, capacity | review · lab |
Mechanism
Pre-1900 essays are primary moral literature, not controlled trials — read them for vocabulary and historical placement, not as clinical proof. Modern bridges are clearer: Jeannerod’s motor-imagery frame shows simulated movement sharing timing and neural recruitment with executed movement; Baumeister and Heatherton’s overview separates self-regulation failure modes (unclear standards, poor monitoring, depleted capacity) from prosperity slogans. Do not equate Allen’s circumstance claims with laboratory self-regulation — use the lineage to honour the rep language (thought-habit, rehearsal) while grounding weekly moves in Self-regulation and Body chemistry.
Applications
- Open when a one meets prosperity/mindset writing and you want the classical essay lineage without treating it as neuroscience.
- Pair with mental rehearsal doctrine or sport-performance reps — bridge folk autosuggestion to motor imagery.
- Sort shelf trail chronologically: Atkinson (1900) → Allen (1901 reprint 2010 on shelf) → modern regulation science.
- Primary translation chain: Identity (MoC) § Prosperity fight.
Sources
Cite
- Jeannerod, M. (1995). Mental imagery in the motor context. Neuropsychologia, 33(11), 1419–1432
- Baumeister, R. F., & Heatherton, T. F. (1996). Self-regulation failure: An overview. Psychological Inquiry, 7(1), 1–15.
- Allen, J. (1901). From poverty to power. Thomas Y. Crowell
- Atkinson, W. W. (1900). Thought force in business and everyday life. Watchmaker Publishing
Related doctrine
- Morning Voice — when daily inner rehearsal is the operational move