WHO WAS THOMAS PARKER BOYD? Thomas
Parker Boyd was born in Manfordville, Kentucky in 1864 and grew up
working with his two brothers in the
tobacco fields during the summer months and attended school during the
winter. His parents, Thomas and Mary, decided to relocate the family to
Texas while Thomas was in his early teens, and they later relocated
again, this time to Oregon where they owned and operated a flower mill.
In his late teens Thomas decided to move to California in order to
study theology as he wished to become a minister. He attended the
University of California and earned a Doctorate in Divinity in the
Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Dr. Boyd later studied
psychology at Berkeley, earning himself another Doctorate. He was
particularly interested in healing and studied and practiced hypnosis
along with other professors at Berkeley, and later became what would
now be termed a hypnotherapist.
For a period of fifteen years Dr. Boyd had been a student and
practitioner of mental and spiritual medicine, generally cooperating
with the physician, but often proceeding without one in cases
where the cause appeared to be of a nervous character, in which
the physician had seemingly exhausted his skill. In the earlier
years of practice, his method was simply that of religious
conversation, inspiring the patient with hope of recovery through
his faith in the goodness of God, whose love could only provide the
best things for his children. This was accompanied with prayer and the
laying on of hands in the name of the Lord. After some years of
practice, Dr. Boyd's reading and experience brought to him the
conviction that the law of suggestion lay at the basis of this and
every method of mental and spiritual healing. Following this up he
found that purely mental methods were insufficient, and that the
spiritual factor must enter in for decisive and permanent results. Then
it became clear that mental and spiritual forces could not reach, or at
least did not affect to any extent, certain classes of cases, and his
practice had been in accordance therewith.
In around 1905-1906, The Emmanuel Movement arose at the Emmanuel (Episcopal) Church, Boston, Massachusetts, which
recognized the value of body, mind and spirit in the treatment and
healing of illnesses, including alcoholism. The Emmanuel Movement was
an attempt to combine spirituality with a
kind of simple lay psychotherapy. But it began simply as a medical
mission carried out by two clergymen, both trained psychologists, the
Rev. Elwood Worcester and Dr.
Samuel McComb, which focused on the treatment of tuberculosis in
Boston's slums. Out of their collaboration emerged the Emmanuel Movement, one of
the early spiritual healing movements in mainline Protestantism (later
superseded by the Order of St. Luke). A weekly gathering allowed for fellowship among the
people who came to them. When they added a "Class for the Treatment of
Mental Disorders" with the help of Dr. Isador H. Coriat, a
psychiatrist, they began moving into new areas of work. They soon
discovered that a substantial number of these impoverished men were
alcoholics, and began to develop special techniques for working with
them. It was found that it was the combination of spirituality, very
simple psychological treatment, and fellowship all three which got
people sober and kept them off the bottle. The similarities to the
later Alcoholic Anonymous movement were substantial.
In 1906 Dr. Boyd formed the Society of the Healing Christ and
later became involved in the Emmanuel Healing Movement, holding his own
Wednesday evening study class in the Ascension Church, Vallejo,
California from 1908. The Emmanuel
Healing Movement was the subject of Dr. Boyd's first book The How and Why of the Emmanuel Movement, published in 1909. In his book , Dr.
Boyd showed the art of healing had been practiced from earliest times,
from the witch doctor of old driving out the devil, to the modern
therapist. “Between these extremes of development are all the pathies,
shrine cures, bones of the saints, holy waters, quackery, charlatanism,
allopath, homeopath, isopath, osteopath, electric, botanic, magnetic,
Christian Science, mind cure, divine healing and what not.”
As late as 1907 Americans knew little of psychotherapy. The word itself
was virtually nowhere to be found in either professional or popular
literature. Talking cures were not talked about. Despite growing
medical and cultural awareness of mental suffering, few physicians made
any effort to treat such states by appealing to mind. Indeed, for more
than three decades, American physicians--particularly those who
specialized in the treatment of nervous and mental disorders--had
scoffed at anything even remotely resembling mental therapeutics. By
1910 this situation changed dramatically. Whereas decades of vigorous
internal professional debates had failed to generate a consensus among
American physicians and academic psychologists regarding the scientific
legitimacy and clinical efficacy of mental therapeuitcs, in two short
years the Emmanuel Church Healing Movement had forced both physicians
and psychologists to confront squarely and publicly a subject that they
had long avoided. Lasting from 1906 to 1910, this popular movement was
the primary agent responsibile for the efflorescence of psychotherapy
in the United States.
Dr.
Boyd lectured widely for more
than twenty years, visiting most of the cities and larger towns in the
USA. as well as England and Scotland and various cities in Canada. He
also founded the London Truth Forum. He
became involved in the International New Thought Alliance, including
serving as its president between 1930-32. Dr. Boyd retired In 1934,
naming his student and loyal follower Dr. Edna Lister his successor as head of the Society of the
Healing Christ.
He published many books.including The
Emmanuel Movement, The How and Why of The Emmanuel Movement, Hypnotism,
The
Finger of God, The Principia of Spiritual Life, The Evolution of Human
thought, The Law of Suggestion and Its Practical Uses, The Voice
Eternal,
Prospectus of Life in the University of Hard Knocks, The Mental
Highway, Borderland
experiences, The
Law and the Testimony, The Christ Science of Being, Doing and being: The
A.B.C's and X.Y.Z's of Spiritual Healing, and
an autobiography, "Te-Pe-Be."
Thomas Parker Boyd passed on in 1936.
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Excerpts from the following books can
be read online:
The
Finger of God
The
Voice Eternal
The
Mental Highway
The
Evolution of Human Thought
The
Principia of Spiritual Life
Prospectus
of Life in the University of Hard Knocks
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Hypnotism
How and Why of the Emmanuel Movement
The Law of Suggestion and Its Practical Uses