Practicing the Presence of God for Practical Purposes
by
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Preface
This book is in the tradition of a more-than-century-old something called New Thought. At the turn of the century, William James referred to it as "mind-cure" and "the religion of healthy-mindedness." Much of the theory of New Thought has remained largely unchanged decade after decade, crumbling or revealing gaps bit by bit in comparison with newer, more adequate thought unavailable to the founders of the movement. This book is part of a new wave in New Thought, reconsidering and to a considerable extent replacing its unsound underpinnings...providing a new conceptual foundation for a beautiful house in which many have lived happily and healthily. That house is big enough for you to move in, or, if you prefer, just to gain some inspiration and help from visiting for a while.
This book is for people who think that they ought to be getting more out of life and aren't sure of how to go about doing it...or who think that they do know how but are finding that it isn't working well.
This book is for people who are doing a great job of working with God, yet would like to have a better understanding of what they are doing.
This book is for people who believe in God, and for those who don't but are willing to think about it.
This book is about using God in your life. Lest "using God" seem irreligious or sneaky, we hasten to add that we believe that it is impossible not to use God. This is because God is so intimately involved with us that apart from God, we could not be at all.
This book is for people who are willing to consider that our lives are responses to offers made to us by God. We are concerned with using God better by more consistently saying yes to these divine offers.
This book does not say that God is all there is (as many of our friends believe). It is a book for people who are open to considering that God is real, here, everywhere, and indispensable without being everything. We see pantheism (the belief that God is all) as an early aberration within New Thought, departing from the essential insights of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who is generally recognized as the father of New Thought. It may have seemed reasonable at one time, but its usefulness is ended as one comes to recognize the panentheistic (all is in God) position of a process perspective.
God has one job and we have another, and not much gets done constructively in our lives if we don't (knowingly or unknowingly) work with God, rather than against God's loving, guiding wisdom. God never fails to do God's part in our lives, but we often fail to do ours. All creation is co-creation between God and someone or something else; that is a major theme of the book.
This is not a New Age book, at least in any narrow, conventional meaning of that term. It's a book written in a new age and supporting a particular vision for the new age, but it is not New Age in the sense associated with an amorphous movement revolving around pantheism, crystals, channeling, astrology, and almost anything else that used to seem strange but now is popular in many quarters.
As the title indicates, this is a book about the practice of the presence of God for practical purposes. We'll take up one by one the ideas contained in the title, and we'll show how they work together to bring us health, wealth, and happiness.
If you're interested, read on.
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About the Book
ANNOUNCING!
SOMETHING NEW IN NEW THOUGHT
Practicing the Presence of God for Practical Purposes
Here is a new book by Deb Whitehouse and Alan Anderson, co-authors of New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality, a primer about the more-than-century-old movement that William James referred to as "the religion of healthy-mindedness."
Building on an updated version of the approach of seventeenth-century mystic Brother Lawrence, this lighthearted book provides practical advice for living your daily life in the positive, upbeat New Thought style, which is to say, with habitual, God-aligned, mental self-discipline. Included is much discussion about how New Thought can be even better if its tried-and-true practices rest on an updated, space-age, quantum-physics-consistent metaphysical foundation of process thought. If you would like a sneak preview, the Table of Contents, Preface, and Chapter One can be found at:
About the Author
Drs. Deb Whitehouse and Alan Anderson are a husband-and-wife team of educators and scholars who have studied the history of the century-old New Thought movement and practiced its teachings for many years. Both of them are currently members of the Executive Board of the International New Thought Alliance (INTA), and Deb is editor of the INTA magazine, New Thought. Both have spoken and written extensively about New Thought, collaborating on an earlier book, New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality (Crossroad, 1995). Deb holds a doctorate in educational psychology from Northern Illinois University in addition to degrees in music from Northwestern University. Alan’s doctorate from Boston University is in philosophy; his doctoral dissertation is titled "Horatio W. Dresser and the Philosophy of New Thought," later published as Healing Hypotheses . He was part of a team of editors assisting Ervin Seale in publishing the complete works of the father of New Thought, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby: The Complete Writings (DeVorss). He also holds degrees in law, education, and political science. Alan is Professor of Philosophy and Religion (Emeritus) at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. The two of them have team-taught a course titled "Self Leadership Through Mind Management." Deb developed the course, which adds philosophical background in ethics and metaphysics to the work of Stephen Covey, author of the best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey’s work is based largely on American success literature, which is in turn based largely on New Thought principles. Alan was a pioneer in giving New Thought a presence on the World Wide Web, establishing the New Thought Movement Home Page in 1995. You can visit it at websyte.com/alan, where there are links to other New Thought materials and organizations. Alan and Deb’s own web page is at http://neweverymoment.com. Deb and Alan share a passion for Gilbert and Sullivan, for walks along the ocean, and for skewering sacred cows.