This is the essential theme of New Thought, the non-denominational spiritual movement that began just over a hundred years ago. It started with the American Transcendentalist movement of spiritual thinkers, philosophers and writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Later a small prayer group that began in a rural parlor in Missouri grew into the Unity movement. Other similar schools of thought developed and eventually have come to be called the New Thought movement. Even though more than a hundred years old, New thought is still very new, and unknown to a large number of people.

The essays of "The Horse's Mouth" share thoughts and experiences of New Thought with whoever is guided to these pages. The writers and contributors of the essays make no claims to special wisdom, and have no special powers, visions, or relationship to God except the same ones available to you and me.

The basic premise of all New Thought faiths is that every person is an extension of God expressing though us, and that God communicates with all of us, to each in the way that we can personally understand. Nothing that is sacred is really hidden - we need only to ask and listen, and everyone who asks, receives. No one is more spiritual than another; all have the same unlimited choices and all create the life we choose for ourselves with the thoughts we hold and believe, and we all have the power to change this life the same way.

In this age of worldwide turmoil when the contrast between the light and the darkness is so great, each and every one of us is now being called and challenged by the spiritual evolution of the entire human race. It is time to recognize and to choose and commit to the Truth of our Being: That we are not physical beings having occasional spiritual breakthroughs and experiences - We are spiritual beings having a physical experience on this earth for a while, in order to learn our souls' lessons, to perform our souls' work., and to help and heal each other.

The denial of this truth has been the cause of great suffering and conflict in the world. But while we are here, we are given free choice by God and allowed to choose every kind of experiences, every kind of terrible mistake, and every great or small act of love or compassion, in order to truly know the meaning and immense scope of this human life.Then we can knowingly choose.

There is before all of us a vast ocean of What-We-Do-Not-Understand, yet instinctively we know, somewhere in the deepest places of our consciousness. Truly we see "through a glass darkly" even as we are gathering The Light. The most important requirements for this journey may prove to be forgiveness, compassion, and trust in God and each other.

When we discover that God is the only true reality - and all the rest we fabricate out of our desires or fears, then manifest in our own lives and play out in our world- in that moment – then we can claim our own power to create a better life and a better world. God is irrevocably within us, moving through us in a personal way at all times, and we are here both to teach and to learn from, and to share with, each other.

Please take what you find here that rings true for you, and use it. You will find that it "works." Leave the rest to whoever it was meant for. I ask you to listen to the still small voice of God within you. I invite you to open up the windows of your soul and see how your life changes. And I urge you to become aware of your habits of thought, and take command of the life-creating instrument that your thought is.