I'm the wrong person to ask, since I don't study any of the teachings... not one little bit. We have the Science of Mind book here at home, and I've read a page or two and didn't care for it at all, so I refused to read any of it.
My wife was into it for a while, but not any more.
But as David pointed out, there are many places to learn about it. It's been around for a long time.
Wikipedia: Religious Science
The particular place we go (my wife goes more than I, but I was playing in the band for a while) has actually distanced themselves from the Religious Science organization. The main message is more or less that you have a certain amount of control over things in your life, based on your intent and positive thoughts.
I have issues with a lot of the teachings, but it is nice to see people into metaphysics as a whole. In general I dislike organized movements of this kind. They seem too much like religions.
I sometimes go because there are nice open minded people there, a positive message, and free food.
But one person to check out who is very good is Michael Beckwith. He's pretty well known after the Secret came out. He started out as a Science of Mind practitioner. He still uses some of the jargon, but in a generic kind of way.
So to summarize... the Universe is everything. You are part of the Universe. Your thoughts help define the Universe.
Will that stuff help some staving person in Africa? Probably not he way you would think, but maybe on a day-to-day basis. As an example, I'm in the process of getting my driver's license restored after not having it for a few years. I paid a bunch of tickets, and now had to go and pay the restoration fee. So I had to wait until next week.
We went to a picnic hosted by the center we go to.... it was the first time I was there in over a year. Someone asked me if I wanted to sit in on bass (there was a singer/guitarist performing), so I said sure... they had a bass there.
At the end of the day the singer came up and handed me $100, which was from a hat people were putting money into. I had no idea money was involved, I was plying for the fun of it, and there was my restoration fee.
Plus I got to eat and drink all day. More free food!
In the beginning I didn't want to go... Sunday is my day to go to my workshop and build guitars. But it turned out great.
This kind of stuff happens to me all the time.
I've done a number of these "self improvement" metaphysical courses over the years.
Many years ago, when I had just graduated High School, I took a course called
Silva Mind Control. It's now known as the Silva Method. It was a lot of the same teachings... and some of the interesting stuff they taught was how Edgar Cayce diagnosed medical conditions, and it was sort of like remote viewing. You sat facing a person that had an index card in thair hand with a person's name on it, and their condition.
You would close your eyes and do a sort of self-hypnosis/meditation thing they called "going into level". Then you would visualize a person's body and zero into a part of the body and keep going smaller and smaller until you found the problem.
I got every single one right.. and some of it was quite spooky! Like I saw a beating heart, beating very steady and strong, and in the middle was a small pink plastic looking square. I found that puzzling, and said the person's heart is beating perfectly. Turns out they had a pace maker!
There was a lot of other things... like I had the choice of taking the money from a graduation gift from my brother, and either take the course, or get a new pickup for my Rickenbacker bass. My brother said "if you take the course, the money will come to you". Ummmmm OK... so I took the course. A week later my aunt, who I hadn't talked to in years, sent me $100 out of nowhere... then I bought the pickup.
Another more recent course was the controversial Landmark Forum. My wife always wanted to take it, so she paid for it. I had never heard of it, but then I realized it was started by Werner Erhard, who did EST, and that had some connection to Silva. We all know about EST... It was actually fairly interesting, but got annoying when they kept wanting you to sign up for advanced courses. But it was more about not looking to the future for things.. like "if only I had this, I could do this, and then finally be this"
The reason I mention these other things, is they are all sort of based on the same ideas, and it was something I experienced first hand. In Silva, they said since thoughts are energy, and energy can not be destroyed, they get projected forward into time. The more you concentrate on the thoughts, the closer to your time frame they get projected, until you have a manifestation of that reality.
It goes back to the proper way to pray. You don't ask for things, or wish you had something
someday. You tell yourself you have it now. You hear stories about yogis that could just materialize things out of thin air. You want an ice cream cone.... *poof*... no problem!
From my own experience, there certainly seems to be something to it, but it's all up to you. Like with other things such as meditation, the more you put into it, the more you get in return.
