The New Thought movement is based on the teachings of a 19th-century thinker by the name of Phineas Quimby. Quimby was a self-proclaimed healer and a follower of Mesmer, the hypnotist. Quimby believed that illness in the body originated in the mind and that bodily illnesses could therefore be overcome with the “Truth.” His idea was that, if the mind was corrected of wrong thinking, the body would be cured of its diseases and problems.