EMMET FOX

Definition of Emmet Fox:
A New Thought spiritual leader of the early 20th century,

Synonyms of Emmet Fox:
Spiritual leader, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs.
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We hope you find them helpful.

Love in fellowship.

The Law of Life

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  (Matthew 7)

It is the Law of Life, the Law of Consciousness, that as we think and speak and act towards others, so will others think, and speak and act towards us. It’s the Law of Life, the Law of Consciousness, that as we think and speak and act towards others, so will others think, and speak and act towards us.

Whatever sort of conduct we give out, that we are inevitably bound to get back. –Sermon on the Mount/Emmet Fox, Chapter 6/p.94-96 | More…

AA History: Emmet Fox, AA, and ‘The Sermon On The Mount’

Emmet Fox was born in Ireland on July 30, 1886, Emmet Fox was primarily educated in England yet pursued his spiritual career largely in the United States, before dying in France on August 13, 1951. Emmet Fox was a popular lecturer in New York on New Thought philosophy.

The New Thought movement is a spiritual movement which developed in the United States in the 19th century. The concept of New Thought (sometimes known as “Higher Thought”) promotes the ideas that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and “right thinking” has a healing effect.

Emmet Fox’s secretary was the mother of one of the men who worked with Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, and partly as a result of this connection, early AA groups often went to hear Fox. His writing, especially “The Sermon on the Mount,” became popular in AA. The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is one of the most influential texts for AA literature.  How did this book become the basis for the Big Book? | More…

An extreme answer to the problem of pain and suffering was given in the New Thought movement,  which had a great influence on many in early AAs. The New Thought authors taught that pain and suffering were fundamentally produced, not by external conditions, but by WRONG thinking. If we changed the way we thought, the external world would change to match our new ideas. Emmet Fox believed that sin is merely incorrect thinking. That is why, he asserts, we need the “change in consciousness.” | More…

AS they say in AA Rooms; The real problem is how you deal with the original problem.

If we want to change our lives, then we must change our thoughts first. One of the cornerstones of Fox’s philosophy was to live but one day at a time, to be responsible for one’s own thoughts and to clear up resentments, just as AA was to teach that “resentments are our number one cause of slips.” Setting others free means setting yourself free, because resentment in really a form of attachment. When you hold a resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a cosmic link, a real, though mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. Unresolved blame also means holding ourselves to a standard of perfectionism, the same level of mistakenness and confusion we demand of others. Remember you belong to the thing with which you are linked in thought, and at some time or other, if that tie endures, the object of your resentment will be drawn again into your life, perhaps to work further havoc. So the way is clear; you must cut all such ties, by a clear and spiritual act of forgiveness. You must loose him and let him go. By forgiveness you set yourself free; you save your soul. —Sermon on the Mount p.140

The greater obstacle to your Higher Power or God is resentment. When you don’t forgive you completely cut yourself off from God. In recovery we can’t afford resentments because as they say it’s like drinking poison expecting the other person to die. –Anon