Over 80 years ago, a Midwesterner by the name of Douglas Kimball DeVorss set up in Los Angeles as a publisher of what today we would call Body/Mind/Spirit books. At that time, the term was New Thought, and Los Angeles was already home to many centers, institutes, and churches that taught a new, “metaphysical,” brand of philosophy and spirituality.

It all had very much to do with health (maintenance and healing) in terms of the mind/body relationship; human empowerment from inner resources; prosperity (emphasis on hard cash); and the emergence of a new era fashioned by a new consciousness. To this end, the millennia-old Eastern teaching of Karma was dusted off, rehabbed, and Westernized: a “universal law” that fashions our experiences of every kind out of our habitual thoughts and feelings. Change these thoughts and feelings, and life changes with them: it’s the Law; and we can use it now.

For those who felt that this was muscling in on God’s business, it was neatly explained that God is to be found within, and that the individual is God “in person.” Waking up to this God within was part of what it was all about – and rather Eastern. To do something with it was the rest of what it was about – all very Western.
One of the outposts of this new way of thinking and doing was (and still is) Unity School in Kansas City. It was up and running more than a century ago, with a spreading network of centers and its own publishing operation that included books and magazines. One of Unity’s monthlies, Wee Wisdom, was in fact the first children’s magazine in America. Sidney Sheldon (Bloodline; The Doomsday Conspiracy; Morning, Noon & Night) is just one of many writers who got their start in those little pages