Positive Thinking: From New Thought Religion to Norman Vincent Peale

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The phrase positive thinking works as a disambiguation, one term pointing to several very different ideas. Its earliest meaning comes from New Thought, an early 19th century American religious movement that treated thoughts as real forces able to act on physical reality and divine energy, so that illness or poverty reflected incorrect thinking. The hosts contrast this with plain optimism, the passive hope that things will turn out well, comparing optimism to hoping for good weather and New Thought to building a machine to control the clouds. They argue that the movement offered people of that era a sense of control over disease, economic crashes and early death.

In the 20th century the idea shed its religious framing and became the positive mental attitude, a practical tool for personal success. The landmark was Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking. The concept then entered science as positive psychology, which studies the optimal functioning of people, groups and institutions, measuring things like resilience, psychological safety and recovery after failure. The phrase also spread through culture, from an American magazine called Positive Thinking to songs and albums across four decades, which the hosts read as a mix of sincerity and irony aimed at the corporate version of the idea.

• Comedy duo Morecambe and Wise released a song called Positive Thinking in 1976.
• Canadian punk band Nomeansno released a 1990 EP titled The Power of Positive Thinking, borrowing Peale's title.
• Acoustic Alchemy released an album called Positive Thinking in 1998.
• Indie rock duo The Pack A.D. released an album called Positive Thinking in 2016.
• Positive psychology reversed the field's long focus on pathology by asking what an optimally functioning mind looks like.