[.ca] Practicing the Presence of God for Practical Purposes (ISBN 158820264X)

NEW THOUGHT AFTER WHITEHEAD:
This wonderful book finally brings something new to New Thought theology. New Thought, called "the religion of healthy-mindedness" by William James, had remained fairly static in a pantheistic mould after its beginnings in the 19th century. This book provides a new conceptual foundation for the movement, based on the process theology of the great Alfred North Whitehead. It is very refreshing, in that the authors see pantheism (God is All) as an early aberration within New Thought, replacing it with panentheism (All is in God) of a process perspective. The book takes up the words of the title one by one to demonstrate how they work together to bring us health, wealth and a more fulfilling life. The journey starts out with the Christian mystic Brother Lawrence Of The Resurrection and as it proceeds, it discusses an impressive variety of writers like e.g. Stephen Covey, Marianne Williamson, C S Lewis, Emmett Fox, Robert Dilts, Marjorie Suchocki, W R Inge, Aldous Huxley, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Krause, John Cobb, David Griffin, Ernest Holmes, Andrew Weil, Catherine Ponder, Phil Laut, Robert Anthony, Wallace Wattles, Leo Booth and Whitehead. Chapter One: Our Story Begins, looks at the ancient roots of New Thought, its founder Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, some of its great proponents in the 19th century like Emma Curtis Hopkins and Malinda Cramer and also discusses Steven Covey's by now famous Seven Habits. Part Two: Practicing, revisits Covey's seven principles and habits in more detail and then provides practical ways to alter one's beliefs and to attain a state of constant communication with God. Part Three: The Presence Of God, explains the word metaphysics and considers the bursts of energy that quantum physicists call quanta and that Whitehead calls "occasions of experience." One of the most illuminating parts of the book explains why God must be a person and how the individual functions with God as a cocreative team. This may be expressed as the formula: Past + Divine Possibilities + Choice = Cocreation. Part Four: Practical Purposes, provides the ways in which we can apply our practice of the presence to the task of building health, wealth and happiness. These include affirmative prayer, diet, exercise, visualization, holding positive thoughts and cultivating one's intuition for messages from God. Part Five: The Black Hole, discusses sin, evil, grief, illness, financial challenges, relationship difficulties, feelings, cults and toxic religion, and adulthood. It emphasizes the importance of blending the head and heart (intellectual agreement and emotional resonance). Finally, the book explains the difference between New Age and New Thought by reiterating that the good news of New Thought was not an attempt to replace Christianity but instead to heighten the understanding of Christians by restoring the heart of the East to the mind of the West. The book is a delightful read, full of humour and common sense. The application of Whitehead's ideas of life and consciousness (new every moment) makes perfect sense to me. It also finally lays the pantheistic idea of an impersonal deity to rest, a concept which has been a stumbling block for those of us who practiced faithfully but desired a closer relationship with God. Practicing The Presence Of God is not a practical guide with ready-made affirmations and visualizations, but rather an explanatory text that covers the ideas behind all of the aforementioned and more. Its greatest benefit for me exists in its convincing argument for God as a limitless person rather than a set of laws. As such, I found it to be highly enlightening and inspirational.