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Sacred Texts: New Thought

Creative Mind and Success: Part II: Presence of Activity

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*Creative Mind and Success* (1919) is a practical guide to New Thought philosophy by Ernest Shurtleff Holmes, who would later found the Religious Science movement. Using the concrete example of a failing business with no customers, Holmes argues that material reality can be transformed by mentally visualizing and verbally declaring the desired outcome — in this case, a shop full of customers — regardless of what the senses currently show. The core claim is that a universal "Parent Mind" or Spirit actively responds when a person turns toward it with belief, making mental declaration a literal causal force rather than mere positive thinking. Holmes draws on Christian imagery (the Prodigal Son parable, Longfellow's verse) while framing the mechanism in quasi-scientific terms as a "law of life" and "spiritual thought force," blending Protestant spirituality with early 20th-century metaphysical self-help. Distinctively, he insists that even God cannot override a person's receptivity — the individual must inwardly accept the gift before it manifests outwardly. The text is aimed at readers wanting immediate, practical results from metaphysical principles, and its tone is instructional and reassuring rather than theological.