Phineas T. Quimby -  Mary Baker Eddy  - Emma Curtis Hopkins  -  Ernest Holmes

Started  Mind Healing -Christian Science- Teacher of Teachers - Founder of  Religious  Science

"The true religion of the future will be the fulfillment of all the religions of the past."Max Muller, author of THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST

Science of Mind , By Ernest Holmes

The thought of the ages has looked to the day when science and religion shall walk hand in hand through the visible to the invisible. A movement that endeavors to unify the great conclusions of human experience must be kept free from personal ambitions and interpretation. If science recognizes only a government of law whose principles are universal, and religion becomes dogmatic and often superstitious when based on any one personality, for “Religious Science” to exist, the focus must insistently be on God; ever present, ever available. In essence, this was the primal message of the enlightened prophets of all the ages, and this is the message or Religious Science.

WHAT RELIGIOUS SCIENCE TEACHES is a summation of the Science of Mind theory that proclaims there is One Infinite Mind which of necessity includes all that is, whether it be the intelligence in man, the life in the animal, or the invisible Presence which is God. In it we learn to have a spiritual sense of things.

New Thought Pioneers

 EMMA CURTIS HOPKINS

Life and Accomplishments

By Lorene H. OByrne

Emma Curtis Hopkins has been called "The Forgotten Founder of New Thought" by author Gail M. Harley in her book, Emma Curtis Hopkins. Quoting Harley, "Hopkins was an ardent feminist who believed in the goodness and innate spirituality of women.  Assuming the function of a bishop, Hopkins ordained 111 and possibly even more of her advanced graduates (both male and female) to the independent New Thought (Christian Science) ministryHopkins created the first national network of New Thought organizations while establishing the first seminary to ordain women in large numbers.  Her support of feminist values in religion during the turbulent era of nineteenth-century social justice causes was clearly counter cultural to main stream religious thought and practice.  Hopkinss life and work illustrate a monumental paradigm shift for her and her followers as she challenged the dominant patriarchal mores of the time".

"Emma", so respectfully and sympathetically called in this paper, was born September 2^nd, 1849. Some confusion of dates has existed within several accounts, however this is the correct date of   her birth. Having been in diminishing health for two years, she died on April 8^th, l925 of chronic myocarditis. Emma was born to her parents Rufus Curtis and Lydia Phillips Curtis in Killingly, Connecticut. Her father was a part-time realtor and owned a dairy farm.

Some sources say that Emma attended school at the Woodstock Academy and was retained as a teacher because she was so accomplished in her learning. It seems more probable that she went to school at the Killingly High School which was closer to her home.  This school closed during the Civil War, which dates the era in which Emma lived as a young woman.

Emma married George Irving Hopkins on July 19, 1874, when Emma would have been 25 years old, an old maid in those times, but she had been a teacher.  Emma and George had a son, born June 8^th, 1875, the product of her first year of marriage. The son, John Carver, died in l905, at thirty years, his death probably caused by a flu epidemic of that time.

The 1880 Census reports of Nantucket, Massachusetts, counted Emma as a housewife; this was five years after her son was born, and George Hopkins was listed as a High School Teacher.  Emma and George separated in the middle 1880s, and each followed their own careers, although George did go to Chicago, and attended several meetings of the Hopkins Association there in the late 1880s.

The Census Report of 1900 shows Emma in Manhattan, saying she had been married for 26 years but was separated from her husband.  In November of 1900 George Hopkins sued for divorce on the grounds of "abandonment".  At that time they had not lived together for the 15 years of Emmas meteoric career as the real genius of New Thought. Their son died five years later.  It is conjectured that he had lived with Emmas mother or some of the extended family, since they were very close.  There is no evidence of letters between Emma and her son which means the letters were probably not saved.  Emma would not have wanted others to have access to her private life.

Emma was a solitary, private kind of person although she was constantly with her students, her school, the ministers she had ordained, and her private practice.  Before she turned her school over to her trainees, she complained once that, "if she could just have a full day alone", and again, when in her private practice, that her time between clients was a wonderful time alone when she stretched out on her couch and rested.

In October 1883, Emma was at the home of a mutual friend with Mary Baker Eddy.  Emma wrote to Emma on December 12^th, 1883, "I want to tell you that the beautiful theory you advanced has taken.so firm a hold on my heart that in a late serious illness I had no other medical advisor but your friend Mrs. Berry.I am now anxious to learn more of the science.directly from your own lips".  After Emmas healing sometime between October 23^rd and December 12, 1883, she asked Eddy for more information about her mode of healing. 

She told Eddy of her plan to build a hospital for sick and ailing children in Killingly, Connecticut where she had grown up.  She wrote, " What if my dream shall come to pass and the little onesshall be restored by the healing thoughts of your God imbued disciples!"  She told Eddy that she had not even a dollar for instruction because of her husbands debts, but then in her next letter, asks whether there is some way she can help Eddy in her work for payment, saying she could "catch ideas fairly wellhaving been a teacher."  Emma immediately embarked for Boston and enrolled with four women and four men in the December 27^th, 1883 class. Emma was 34 years old and definitely in her prime when she started with Mary Baker Eddy who was one generation older than Emma.

Emma wrote for the Journal of Christian Science, Eddys monthly publication on February 2, 1884, just a year after first starting classes with Eddy and advertised herself as a Christian Science Practitioner in that and the next two issues. She and Mary Berry healed Emmas husband George of a serious fever and sore throat.  She said, "I soothed the fever in a few minutes, and completely annihilate the head ache.  When summoned back to New York by Eddy, she wrote: "Shall I stay to conquer or come to you at once? If it is work on the journal you want, I can write right here in my husbands room."  Toward the end of her letter, she stated, "I give myself

and all my time to the Masters work wherever it lies, here, there, or yonder".  This was very plainly Emmas creed.  Later in life, when asked why she didnt re-marry, she replied, "I am married to God".  Emma was definitely a New Thought  "nun".

She was sent to Eddys Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and at this point found someone to take her son in her absence.  This was the training period that was to lead to her formal assignment from Eddy, as editor of the Journal.

Emma became editor of Eddys Journal of Christian Science, enlarged the readership and made it a monthly publication. She wrote articles outside the belief system of Eddy.  One was "Gods Omnipresence", which referred to almost all the Eastern and Western religious beliefs. She was thinking for herself.

Emma defended Eddy in well-stated articles as a writer for the Christian Science Journal. She reproached other former students of Eddys, one named Swarts, a former Methodist minister who, after five of Eddys lectures began using Mind-Cure, blending it with Spiritualism and other modalities.  It was a time when Eddy was striking out at those she thought were stealing her techniques. She believed in "animal magnetism" and that her detractors and defectors were using it against her.

Much to her surprise after vigorously defending Eddie in the Journal, Emma received a letter of immediate dismissal.  It is sometimes thought that the eclectic thought evidenced by Emma in the Journal was the cause of the split, but other biographers of Eddy and Hopkins say that it was the alliance formed between Hopkins and Mary Plunkett that caused Eddy to see them as competitors.  Emma was hurt by her summary discharge, but never responded to Eddys subsequent attacks in any way.

In late 1885, Emma stated her support of Eddys position relative to the Quimby controversy.  This after her abrupt dismissal by Eddy;  Emma found Eddy "true to her original.inspiration".

On November 4^th, l885, Emma left the Christian Science Association. Eddy did not have Emmas compunctions and maligned her former student and Editor, and said of Emma, (that), she was one of the unprincipled claimants" who took her (Eddys) thought, and said of Emma, "dishonestyyes, fraudis conspicuous" in her teachings. Eddy continued to attack Emma but Emma, in true New Thought consciousness, did not respond or defend herself and gave no energy to Eddys charges.

To go back to the history of New Thought, Quimby had started mesmerism in the 1860s, Eddy had added to it in the 1870s and Emma Curtis Hopkins further expanded the Principles of New Thought in the 1880s. Of course, all this activity was called "Christian Science" which really confused the situation. This was the evolution that sparked controversy and growth in the New

Thought movement. The "piracy" of ideas was not really the important issue.  Progress in human thought was the important issue. Mind-Cure by-passed the medical profession which was still bleeding its patients and postulating about germs.  As a result of Mind-Cure successes and the teaching of New Thought Principles, people were thinking of healing themselves.  Women could become Practitioners and cure illnesses.

Emma Curtis Hopkins thinking was at the very leading edge of the development of New Thought and in the spring of 1886 founded the Emma Curtis Hopkins College of Christian Science in central Chicago. Mary Plunckett was the administrative president, handling promotion, general management and organization. Emma focused on teaching, which was her forte.

Emma graduated her first class in 1886 and a student association was formed called the Hopkins Metaphysical Association, Mary Plunkett, president.  Metaphysicians, including spiritualists and theosophists were entered into the membership.  It became a model for metaphysical schools and branch associations throughout the New Thought movement.  The graduates of this first class established churches and were extremely influential in New Thought. From this first successful class, Emma evolved a national network that was the foundation of her ministry.

While Mary Baker Eddie was calling her defectors "Mind Quacks" in an all-out effort to preserve her control of "Christian Science", Emma earned her accolade as "Minister of ministers" because her students were eminently successful and energetic in the expansion of New Thought throughout the USA, Canada, and then finally exported New Thought to Britain, although Eddy was probably already there.

Quoting Catherine Wessinger in the introduction to Womens Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream, states, "Contemporary feminist spirituality and theology have strong roots in the metaphysical movements.  Mary Farrell Gednarowski, in "Widening the banks of the Mainstream: Women Constructing Theologies," notes that these women, who were in some cases theological mavericks, and applied their creativity "as artists whose medium is the theology of their own particular tradition".

In October of 1887 Emma relocated to Chicago and attended a meeting in Boston where all the independent healers, (those not affiliated with Eddy), were heard.  Emma was introduced by the prominent physician Luther Marston as the star that rose in the East and has spread its glory throughout the West."  Melton say this.proved Hopkins "emerging role as the dominant voice among the independents."  In April of 1887 Emma made a trip to San Francisco to teach 250 students.  This was a teaching record that held for many years in New Thought circles.  Emma went to Milwaukee to teach in October and in November taught a big class in New York. 

One of her notable students was Harriet Emilie Cady, the homeopathic doctor who later wrote Lessons in Truth, the text for the Unity School of Christianity, still in current use.  At the end of that notable year Emma had seventeen branches of the Hopkins Metaphysical Association that ranged from Maine to California. 

It was Emmas gift in teaching and public speaking that brought her to the top and the "Teacher of teachers" status as stated by one of her students, Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity. 

1988 brought dissention and the end of the Hopkins-Plunkett relationship.  Plunkett had attracted some of Emmas students to her and dissociated herself from Emma, taking the subscription list for the "Truth" which was Emmas vehicle of communication with her far-flung ministries.  At this low point Emma brought order out of chaos and reorganized and redesigned her ministry. 

Meanwhile, misadventure caused the downfall of Plunkett when it was discovered that, although already married, she had professed a "spiritual marriage" with a man named A. Bently Worthington.  Ultimately Worthington was exposed as an embezzler and a bigamist with a child and several wives in other states. However, Emma had disassociated herself from Plunkett emphatically with the abdication of Plunket with the mailing list for the magazine "Truth", and with Plunkets appropriation of many of Emmas students and ministries.  Emma abhorred the "spiritual marriage" of Plunket as well as the other betrayals.

Emma was at a low ebb in l888.  Students and supporters fell away; she had financial debt for her house which existed to house the school. Emma assumed the Presidency of the college and association and gave it new direction.  Melton said, "She concluded that her work must stand out and become more than merely the training alternative for healing practitioners"  He quoted her as saying, "Christian Science is not a business or a profession, it is a ministry."  She then proceeded to create a curriculum of "Theology and Practical Ministry" on a one-on-one basis with the senior students.  Emma went from a classroom college to the "Theological Seminary for the Preparation of Students for the Christian Science Ministry.  She instituted a weekly Bible lessons in Christian Science immediately following this transition.  She replaced her magazine, "Truth", with the help of a student named Ida Nichols, who founded and funded a magazine called Christian Science.  The initial press run was 10,000 copies; Emma was not unheard of at that time.

By the fall of 1888 Emma was well experienced in organizing and administering church business, and concluded that "we ought to send missionaries out.Other cities need us." Missionaries went and there was regained interest in the Hopkins Association so that after a year the out-reach program was well focused and organized.  In Sex and Power, Meyer says, "Old churches opened few doors to women, the new ones many."  Says Harley, "Hopkins, with others of her time, had created a viable avenue for American women who wished to be not only an integral part of a religion, but also the controlling forces within it."  Melton said that by the

time the first class graduated from the seminary, the "work again assumed national proportions."  Dayton, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Denver, Colorado, Kansas City, Pueblo, Colorado, Sedalia, Missouri, Madison, Wisconsin and Olney, Illinois all showed activity.  Emmas establishment of the sacredness of her mission had succeeded.

To examine some of the contending ideas about the emergence of the New Thought movement, one must see that Phineas Parkhurst Quimby died in 1886 fully 20 years before Emma

developed her ideas and contributed her organizational models to the New Thought movement.  Perhaps it is fair to say that Quimbys  pivotal ideas, only dealing with healing, and with a small following, was the father of New Thought ideas.  Quimby treated Mary Baker Eddy, who was a generation older than Emma, and Emma Curtis Hopkins came on the scene just as Eddys organization was splintering.

According to Gail M. Harley, " Hopkins focus was the dissemination of Christian Science Truth as a catalyst for spiritual, social, and economic change."  Rosemary Radford Ruether and Rosemary Keller observe that after the Civil War, there was "the beginning of a massive effort to win rights for women in politics, in the legal system, in church hierarchies, and in professional employment." Harley says, "Hopkins, through her New Thought ministry, vigorously supported these efforts.  Women at that time were attempting to achieve parity in the mainstream (religious) denominations."

Emma is distinguished as the leader in New Thought; she had twenty-one branches of the Hopkins Metaphysical Association, coast to coast in l887.  This was the first coast-to-coast network in New Thought.  Ward says, "Either Hopkins or her pupils taught the founders of virtually every major surviving New Thought group today-Unity School of Christianity, Homes of Truth, Divine Science Church, and the Church of Religious Science. 

Emma was an active feminist and promoted a feminist consciousness.  Womens movements for prohibition of alcohol, for unions, for unprotected children and women in the workplace, the right to vote, i.e., suffrage for women, the ordaining of women as ministers, the acknowledgement of the Feminine in the Godhead, and all alleviation of misery wherever she saw it, were her emphatic concerns.  Her friends were the intelligentsias of her time, the socially and financially able, such as Mable Dodge Luhan of Taos, New Mexico, who started the artistic community there. 

Other brilliant names float in and out of Emmas observances showing the artistic, the theatre, the literati, i.e. all the avante gard of the late 19^th century.  True to herself and her own dignity, Emma was utterly feminine in her appearance and voice, as recalled by Mrs. Mabel Luhan. Mabel says she went to her (Emma) three times a week, when she was in New York, and "clothed in an exquisite gown all soft black lace and silk, a large brimmed lace hat on her soft

white hair, ..she smoothed and relaxed one so that at the end of ones hour one was renewed and reassured."her violet eyes  held mine as she inspiredthe effortless way to .."Be still and know that I am God"At the end of the hourshe would go to the door and , smiling a little coldly, grown remote..showed us out, appearing loath to shake the grateful hand or to continue the intimacywe grew to understand that the love did notextend to the personit was for the hidden self.

Bobby Jones, who Mabel saw as a genius of stage productions, and Elizabeth Duncan, sister to the famous originator of modern dance, Isadora Duncan, were seen by Emma. Mabel refers to these new tendencies in social, artistic and religious interactions as "New Age."  Emma certainly expressed a sympathy for the vanguard of new, influential, thought, treating the artistic and intelligentsia of her time---and being stylish and articulate and loving in her own way about it!

Quoting Harley, "Mabels entourage were also students of Hopkins, and were people who supported suffrage, equal rights for Native Americans, (Mabel was married to a Native American), and African Americans, and the emancipation of women and minority groups.  Mabels radical ways of thinking and living supported positive changes in the status quo and underwrote an acceptance of progressive thought that would move culture forward.  It was fortunate that Mabel was preserved through the eyes of people who knew her well, persons such as Hutchins Hapgood and Hopkins." The exchange of letters between Mabel and Emma are a revealing insight into what Emma thought and what others thought of her.

Ernest Holmes relates vignettes about his meeting with Emma Curtis Hopkins, who by then was an old woman, near the end of her last twenty-five years doing  one-on-one treatments. Ernest said she was witty, cheerful and lovable. Ernest considered it rare that she combined mysticism with metaphysical healing.  He believed that Emma experienced Being and had "the consciousness of the mystic," which she could awaken in her students.  Hopkins taught Ernest to turn away from all events and persons in order to develop the consciousness of a mystic and become "God-consciousas an inner identity."  She stressed "realization of the Perfect Presence, the ONLY Life, in which the elevated consciousnessdoes the work. God is all there is, there is no other Life."  Hopkins said, "The undifferentiated unity between the person and the world is the essence of the introversive mystical experience."

Emma Curtis Hopkins is pure inspiration to all her followers, as much now as when she first organized her work.  And so it is.

  Phineas Quimby   Mary Baker Eddy    Emma Curtis Hopkins       Ernest Holmes

Mental healing     Christian Science  New Thought Founder    Religious Science

The Religious Science Teaching