The International New Thought Alliance (INTA) is an umbrella organization for New Thought adherents "dedicated to serving the New Thought Movement’s various branches, organizations and individuals." As a democratic alliance, the INTA emphasizes mutual respect and cooperation across diverse spiritual paths to foster global happiness, health, and success.

The INTA sponsors the Annual New Thought World Congress as well as regional programs. Their quarterly periodical, The New Thought Magazine, promotes dialogue and education among its members. Through these activities, it seeks to refine and advance the principles of New Thought while fostering an international fellowship that crosses religious and political boundaries.

The New Thought community of publishers, editors, writers, and practitioners had long aspired to create an official organization that could represent the movement as a whole and convene annual conventions where ideas might be exchanged and alliances forged.

The first serious attempt to realize this ambition emerged in 1895 when the Metaphysical Club was formed in Boston, led by prominent East Coast figures such as Horatio W. Dresser, Charles Brodie Patterson, Henry Wood, Julia Ward Howe, L. B. Macdonald, J. W. Lindy, and Frederick Reed. By 1899, they had successfully launched the first large-scale convention under the banner of the International Metaphysical League, held in Boston, followed by another in New York in 1900. Following the New York convention, the League resolved to stage the next convention in Chicago in 1901.

While the league included some well known Western figures like Ursula N. Gestefeld and Annie Rix Militz, the New Thought movement in the Midwest and West was largely shaped by dynamic innovators with a strong sense of individualism. Uniting them into a collective organization to promote a shared message proved to be a significant challenge for the East Coast Metaphysical League and ultimately led to the cancellation of the planned conventions for both 1901 and 1902.

By 1903, Chicago and the surrounding Midwest had become the center of the movement’s publishing, teaching, and organizational activity. Leaders such as Herbert A. Parkyn, founder of the Chicago School of Psychology and Sidney A. Weltmer, founder of the Weltmer Institute, had established the most prominent institutions devoted to both teaching and healing through suggestive therapeutics, while the region was also producing many of the movement’s most widely read and influential magazines and books.

In June 1903, Parkyn, working with his manager Elmer Ellsworth Carey, initiated a coordinated effort to organize Chicago’s New Thought community. The effort began with the creation of a regular citywide gathering that became known as the Union New Thought. Its catalyst was a large banquet held in May 1903 to welcome Elizabeth Towne, editor of The Nautilus, during her visit to Chicago. Organized by Parkyn and his close associates, Carey, Sydney B. Flower, and William Walker Atkinson, the event brought together more than a thousand members of the local New Thought community at the Masonic Temple and demonstrated the strength of interest in collective organization.

Building on momentum, Elmer Ellsworth Carey circulated notices throughout the city, and on 28 June 1903, the first formal Union New Thought Meeting was held in the rooftop grand hall of the Masonic Temple. Approximately 1,200 people attended, representing about twenty organizations along with numerous independent participants. At these meetings, Carey, acting under the guidance of Dr. Parkyn, proposed holding an International New Thought Convention in Chicago, with the goal of "giving the world a great New Thought revival meeting." The proposal was unanimously approved, and plans were made for a convention in November 1903.