Mind Cure and Meditation at Greenacre and Beyond
Mind Cure March 28, 2019 Wakoh Shannon Hickey
New Thought, often seen as a purely American metaphysical movement, was in fact shaped by transnational exchanges with Asian religions. Leaders of New Thought encountered Buddhist meditation and Raja yoga through European Orientalist writings and the Theosophical Society, and later through direct contact with Asian missionaries. Key figures included D. T. Suzuki, who popularized Japanese Zen; Anagarika Dharmapāla, a Sri Lankan Buddhist and Theosophist; and Swami Vivekenanda, who founded the Vedanta Society in North America. These interactions were fostered at events like the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions and the Greenacre conferences in Maine, revealing the movement's global roots.