Thoughts Are Things is one of the foundational works of New Thought, a concise and powerful classic on the creative force of thought, mental discipline, personal magnetism, and spiritual self-development.
Prentice Mulford was among the earliest and most influential voices in the American New Thought movement, and Thoughts Are Things remains one of his best-known works. Written with directness, confidence, and unusual psychological insight, these essays argue that thought is not idle or abstract, but active, formative, and deeply connected to health, character, opportunity, courage, and success. Mulford’s central idea—that sustained mental habits shape the life one experiences—anticipated much of the later literature of positive thinking, manifestation, prosperity consciousness, and the Law of Attraction.
This classic work explores the power of the mind, the influence of belief, the cultivation of courage, the need to guard one’s mental atmosphere, and the importance of directing attention toward strength rather than weakness. Readers of Ralph Waldo Trine, Florence Scovel Shinn, Charles F. Haanel, Wallace D. Wattles, Ernest Holmes, and Joseph Murphy will find in Mulford an earlier and essential source: a writer who helped give form to the modern language of thought power, self-mastery, and spiritual success.
About the Author
Prentice Mulford (1834–1891) was an American author, humorist, essayist, and one of the formative figures of the New Thought movement. Born in Sag Harbor, New York, he lived a varied life before becoming known for his writings on thought power, mental influence, spiritual development, and the creative force of the mind. Mulford’s essays helped establish many of the ideas that later became central to New Thought, positive thinking, prosperity literature, manifestation, and the Law of Attraction. His works, including Thoughts Are Things and Your Forces and How to Use Them, continue to be read by those interested in self-help classics, metaphysical writing, mind-power literature, and the spiritual roots of modern personal development.
Prentice Mulford was born in Sag Harbor New York in 1834, and at the age of 22, traveled west to the California gold fields to seek his fortune. He found no fortune in gold, but found fame writing under the pseudonym of Dogberry for many of the newspapers and magazines of Northern California. He was a fixture of the early San Francisco Bohemian literary scene of the 1860s, along with Mark Twain and Brett Harte. Always described as rather odd and other worldly, Prentice Mulford believed in, and practiced the arts of mental telepathy and prophesy; he predicted the airplane, and his holistic views of nature and ecology, and his appreciation and respect for women and those of other races are now a part of the fabric of our culture. In 1865, Mulfords interest in spirituality became the center of his life, and he moved onto an old whaling vessel sailing about the San Francisco bay, undoubtedly to find peace on the water, under the sun and stars, away from the maddening crowds of the city. After a trip abroad, he sailed and settled in the swamps around Passaic NJ, where he lived the life of a hermit, writing some of his finest and most influential works. At age 57, he decided to return to Sag Harbor. He died en route, peacefully leaving his body without any apparent illness or pain. He left behind him the legacy of the New Thought movement, and although few are familiar with his work today, his ideas, ideals and prophesies have profoundly influenced our society spiritually and morally, lifting our minds, and our laws, to become more humane and enlightened.
