Positive thinking was simply a repackaging of earlier metaphysical mind-power, remembered for its psychological cast and emphasis on a cheerful and well-ordered mind.

The historian of metaphysics Catherine Albanese christened it mental magic (as opposed to material magic) for its use of vision, imagination, affirmative prayer, and an interiority that focused on self-mastery.

Soon a flurry of “Prove God” campaigns encouraged believers to test their financial faith and earn their own proof. Gene Ewing, known as a financial troubleshooter for fellow evangelists, published Prove God testimonies like that of M. M. Baker, photographed beside his late model Lincoln:

For the first half of the century, many American Protestants, like the broader American culture, sought religious solutions to their economic troubles. Some wanted Christian sanction for what they already owned, while others searched for tools to attain more.

Kenyon wholeheartedly agreed that Christians must live out their faith in contradiction to their senses. As Kenyon argued, humans, bombarded by “sense knowledge,” must be trained to see the spiritual truths (“revelation knowledge”) buried beneath.

He urged believers to use spoken words, called positive confessions, to tap into this spiritual power. “Faith never rises above its confession,” he often repeated.33 Though Kenyon lambasted New Thought adherents for their proclamations of “I am well, I am well, I am happy, I am happy,” he chided their content, not their method. Kenyon advised them

Good Americans were good consumers and (so it seemed) good Christians. This nascent culture of acquisitiveness fixed in people’s minds the connection between America’s fortunes and their own spending power.

Sweeping generalities buried the specifics, allowing New Thought to move beyond its sectarian heritage and into a blurry—but powerful—collection of religious beliefs inextricable from American culture itself.

New Thought taught that the world should be reimagined as thought rather than substance. The spiritual world formed absolute reality, while the material world was the mind’s projection.