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Fenwicke
L. Holmes
Religious
Science Leader,
Lecturer and Writer
Regarded
by some as the dean of the metaphysical movements throughout the
world, Fenwicke L. Holmes, Ph.D., had a broad background of
scholarship,
creative writing and lecturing. He received his B.A. from Colby
College,
Maine, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa; attended Hartford
Theological
Seminary and was ordained in the Congregational ministry. He was
the editor of
Uplift
Magazine; co-owner and director of the Metaphysical
Sanitarium, Long
Beach; pastor of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ, New York;
and
former president of the International College of Mental Science.
He
wrote more than twenty books, lectured for fifty years in America
and abroad and was a
frequent radio and television speaker.
Fenwicke
Lindsay Holmes was born in 1883 on a farm in Maine, one of nine boys
including
his younger brother, Ernest (1887–1960), the founder of the Religious
Science
or Science of Mind movement. The family's financial hardship prevented
most of the boys from receiving a higher education. There was
no public high school in town, but much to their mother's satisfaction
the older boys
were admitted to a private school that was called Gould's Academy.
Now that it
is rich and famous it is known as Gould Academy. At that time there was
only
one weather-worn, two-story frame building while today there is a
college-sized
campus and million of dollars' worth of buildings. Meager as the
accommodations then were, the tuition cost seven dollars a term, with
three
terms a year, and Fenwicke was held back a couple of years because his
family had no money to
pay for it.
Fenwicke found a
letter from his Greek teacher at Gould's, urging him to go to Colby
College. He
could arrange Fenwicke's tuition on the basis of his scholarship and
find a job for him.
So Fenwicke decided to go. He worked
his way through the first two years of
college by cooking in a lunchroom, shoveling snow and carrying coal;
the last
two years, with some assistance from his father, he earned his living
by tutoring.
Fenwicke received
his B.A. at Colby and later attended
Hartford Theological Seminary,
but in 1910 was compelled by
ill health to leave. The doctor held out the hope
of recovery in a warm climate, and so Fenwicke secured a job on a ranch
through a
schoolmate whose father lived in Ventura, California.
Later he moved to
the
Los Angeles suburb of Venice where he established a small
Congregational
church and served as its minister. His brother Ernest joined him in
California
in 1912. While there the brothers were strongly influenced by the work
of
Thomas Troward, a New Thought practitioner whose revolutionary ideas
about
the mind diverged from mainstream New Thought ideas.
In
1913 Fenwick and Ernest began to get into local politics. It was a
campaign to prohibit prize-fighting in Venice, which, as a
Congregational
minister with a young flock in the area, Fenwicke supported; for
several weeks there
was a debate between the Holmes brothers and the promoters, which was
carried on in the daily
press. Fenwicke
wrote their arguments and
rebuttals for the Venice Daily
Vanguard, and the brothers took
the lead in the
campaign and eventually won, the vote being heavily their favor.
Late in
1915 Fenwicke and Ernest subscribed together to a course of studies by
mail with
New Thought leader Christian D. Larson, whose The Pathway of
Roses,was given Fenwicke by a deacon
of his church. The reading of that book had as much of an influence on
Fenwicke as The
Ideal Made Real had had on Ernest some 6 years before. In
Fenwicke's own words:
"I
was in
something of a quandary, now, with my ear becoming more and more
attuned to
this new truth, my eye on its great possibilities and my feet planted
in the
Congregational Church. The stirring new concepts began to creep
into my
sermons, some members of my flock hearing it gladly, others, including
our
mother, watching me with wary eyes. My heart was fully dedicated to God
and
service, but the way, for now, was not clear."
Fenwicke
had been minister of the church
for over five years and wished to undertake some greater enterprise. He
decided
to resign and either broaden his education at Harvard Theological
Seminary or
join Ernest's activities publicly. For some time Ernest had been eager
to have the two of them
work together as a team. Ernest thought that Fenwicke had already
passed the deadline of
orthodoxy and said, "You know you don't believe in it any more. Why try
to
preach it?" So on June 10, 1917, Fenwicke resigned.
Together they
began to lecture and teach classes in the Los Angeles area and also
founded Uplift, a magazine
somewhat critical of traditional New
Thought.
Ernest
and Fenwicke begun their public
appearances together at the Strand Theater in downtown Los Angeles
speaking on
Sunday mornings to a good-sized congregation. Ernest would speak one
Sunday and Fenwicke
the next. Within the next
two
years Ernest alone gained a national reputation as a speaker.
Meanwhile, Ernest
was writing his first book, Creative
Mind, and at the same
time Fenwicke was locked away in his
suite at home, writing his own first book as well. Fenwicke, the
acknowledged more intellectual
brother, published his first two books,
The Law Of
Mind In Action and How to
develop faith
that heals,
in 1919, the same year that Ernest's
Creative
Mind was published. Fenwicke went on to write many other
books including three of his own poety and The Voice Celestial:
Thou Art
That, An Epic Poem written with brother Ernest. Also included is
a
little-known work of fiction, Joan's Voices. His most
well-known book
is Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times
which was published in
1970, ten years after Ernest's passing.
Shortly after the publishing of these first books, Fenwicke
took the
step that was destined to alter the course of their
lives and eventually lead them into the national and international
field. When
Dr. Julia Seton, noted New Thought lecturer and author, had urged one
of the brothers to attend the International New Thought Alliance
in Boston, they had given it much thought. Ernest did not wish to leave
his
writing and lectures, and it was therefore decided for Fenwicke to go.
Him and his brother debated on
whether he should take his speech from the book he had just written or
write a new
one. It turned out that he wrote "The Passing Of Spirit Into Form,"
the basis for his second book, Being
And Becoming, which he
afterward
published in pamphlet form and sold at their first New York lectures.
It is interesting
to note here
that "publish or perish"
was more applicable in those days to the metaphysical lecturer and
teacher than
the academic professor. New Thought was still new and, after a
brief
talk or lecture, the seeker wanted something to take home and study.
The
audience was hungry and thirsty for truth, and these books were manna
in the
wilderness to them. Both Ernest and Fenwicke were eager to have their
teachings in
print, but it seemed equally important for one of them to attend the
congress and
take their place among those of like mind around the world. In Boston
Fenwicke was
received cordially, and so was his
speech; but he was new to the movement, and I did not linger long.
From
Boston he went to New York, and through the influence of Dr. Seton,
found himself a special lecturer at the League for the Larger Life, an
organization of New York and Brooklyn leaders and writers. He spoke
three times
a day, and the place was crowded at every meeting, people sitting on
the
platform and stairways. Here he met many notables in the field who
became
lifelong friends. It was here, too, that he met Katharine Eggleston
(Junkermann), a very successful fiction writer, who a year later became
Fenwicke's wife
and mother to an orphan boy named Louis that he had adoped some years
earlier. In spite of the fact that Katharine had long ago determined
not to
marry a small man, a blond or a minister. She got all three in Fenwicke!
In 1927 Fenwicke helped Ernest
found the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy as a
means
of spreading their teachings. This was a very important milestone in
both their careers. He later went on to become pastor
of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ, New York.
After a number of most
rewarding years as pastor of the Church of the Healing Christ, in
1934 Fenwicke
resigned his pastorate to return to his greater love, the lecture
platform. Later that year him and his wife Katharine bought a
home in Santa Monica as a headquarters to meet increasingly
heavy demand
for his correspondence courses. He became president
of the International College of Mental Science, and continued
lecturing for a great many years.
Fenwicke Holmes
was
an influential figure in the development of the Japanese New Thought
organization Seicho-No-Ie during the 1950s. He collaborated
with Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi in writing the book The Science of Faith. There
is in the book no indication of which author was responsible for any
specific
section, though internal evidence will sometimes indicate rather
clearly
the authorship. Curiously enough, Fenwicke Holmes had never been in
Japan
and had never met Dr. Taniguchi in person, but Seicho-No-Ie had
published
Holmes' Law of Mind in Action and others of his books, so it
was
natural enough that they should have joined in writing The Science
of
Faith. Holmes' Calm Yourself has had a wide distribution
in
Japan also.
Although much overshadowed by his more charismatic
brother Ernest, who
he considered to be a spiritual genius, Fenwicke was nonetheless a very
important figure in the development of the Religious Science and
Science of Mind organizations that his brother founded, and in the
development of the New Thought/Mental Science movement in Japan in
particular.
Fenwicke Holmes' published works include:
Healing at a distance (1917,
w/ Ernest Holmes); The law of mind in action: daily lessons and
treatments in mental and spiritual science (1919); How to develop faith
that heals (1919);
The unfailing formula (191?); Being and becoming; a book of lessons in
the
science of mind showing how to find the personal spirit (1920);
Practical
healing (1921); Songs of the silence and other poems (1925); Text book
in
the science of mind : psychology and metaphysics applied to everyday
living
(1925); Religion and mental science Lyrics of life and love (1930);
Joan's
voices (1934); How to solve your personal problem: the God-law and the
key
to power (1938); Text book of practical healing : the "Just how course"
in
healing the mental science way (1943); Healing treatments in verse
(1943);
Tiny textbook of meditation and the Lord's prayer (1951); Tiny textbook
of
mental healing (195?); The science of faith: how to make yourself
believe (1953, w/
Masaharu
Taniguchi); Ernest Holmes: his
life and
times (1970); Philip's
cousin Jesus:
the untold story (1981, ed. Margaret McEathron); Portrait in poetry of
Fenwicke
Holmes (compiled and arranged by Margaret McEathron, 1990)
The following books by Fenwicke Holmes are available to
purchase in eBook form for immediate
download. They may then be read on your computer and printed out. The
eBooks are in Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf) format.
Excerpts from the following books can
be read online:
The Law of Mind
in Action
The Twenty
Secrets of Success
How to Develop
the Faith That Heals
Ernest
Holmes: His Life and Times
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The Law of Mind in Action
Being and Becoming
Visualization & Concentration
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