[citation needed] New Thought spirituality originated during the 1880s and has emphasized affirmative prayer as an essential part of its philosophy.
"[2] Within New Thought organizations, centers, and churches, the foundational logic of this form of prayer is based on the belief that God is unlimited and plays no favorites, that God has created spiritual laws that are both as mysterious and as constant as scientific principles like gravity, and thus if one's prayer is correctly and diligently focused, it will be answered consistently.
[5] The well-known Theosophist, Spiritualist, and New Thought poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox popularized the power of affirmative prayer.
In this folk magic application of the technique, the prayer of removal may be said during a waning moon or at sunset or at ebb tide ("As the sun goes down, this disease is removed from my body") and the affirmative prayer may be said during a waxing moon, at dawn, or at high tide ("As the sun rises, this day brings me perfect health").
[8] William James described affirmative prayer as an element of the American metaphysical healing movement that he called the "mind-cure"; he described it as America's "only decidedly original contribution to the systemic philosophy of life.