With all the hubbub about Oprah and her latest guru, Eckhart Tolle (personally, I prefer, “Tolle Lege“), I’ve been doing a little digging about “spirituality.” If you’ve read Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff, then you’ve heard of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He is likely the ultimate source of the errors and heresies of the Word of Faith theology of T. L. Osborn, Kenneths Hagin & Copeland, Oral Roberts, John Avanzini, Robert Tilton, Creflo Dollar, T. D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and John Hagee.
He’s also the ultimate source of the theologies of the New Thought Movement. Wikipedia summarizes New Thoughts basic beliefs as follows:
By the end of the 19th century, the chief tenets of New Thought had become stabilized:
- Infinite Intelligence or God is omnipotent and omnipresent.
- Spirit is the ultimate reality.
- True human self-hood is divine. (Christ Consciousness)
- Divinely attuned thought is a positive force for good.
- Most disease is mental in origin.
- Right thinking has a healing effect.
From its initial emphasis on the healing of disease, New Thought had developed into an intensely individualistic and optimistic philosophy of life and conduct.
Can you see the ties between New Thought and Word of Faith?
Had Oprah been around back in the nineteenth century, she’d’ve had Phineas Parkhurst Quimby on her show. . .
The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge 
Capt.,
Maybe the ultimate source of this foollishness preceeds Quimby. Perhpas it goes back to the one who first said, “Has God not said. . .,” and then proceeded to misstate and change, tweak and twist. . .
Christian
In a broad sense, of course, since it’s the source of all human self-centeredness, pride, lust and idolatry.