[ This post is a part of Jenny Mannion's Heroes of Healing Group Writing Project. ]

Hero Of Healing - Ernest Holmes

Ernest Holmes (image courtesy of Amazon.com)

The teachings of Dr. Ernest Shurtleff Holmes (1887-1960) can be summed up by the following quote:

“There is a power greater than you in the universe, and you can use it.”

He was a leader in the New Thought movement, codified the “Science of Mind” philosophy, and founded The Church of Religious Science.

Dr. Holmes referred to his “Science of Mind” philosophy as being “open at the top” - in other words, it wasn’t a hard coded, unchanging doctrine, but a living thing that could be added to as new information came to light, or taken away from if evidence was presented that contradicted it.

There were three major influences on Dr. Holmes:

  1. Christian Science - When Holmes lived in Boston, he studied public speaking, and his teacher was a reader at the Christian Science Mother Church.  He attended one Sunday in order to see his instructor in action, and ended up being fascinated by Mary Baker Eddy’s philosophy.
  2. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Holmes said that “Reading Emerson is like drinking water to me.”  I remember reading somewhere that The Over-Soul was one of his favorites.
  3. Thomas Troward - Troward’s Doré Lectures and Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science brought the above ideas together in Holmes mind, and helped him to finally put together The Science of Mind.

Holmes was a true independent thinker.  He called his philosophy a science because he believed it could be proved experientially, and was more interested in results than in the philosophy itself.  Another interesting fact is that he never planned on starting a church - he originally wanted to set them up as teaching centers, but was influenced otherwise.  It seems that currently, many Religious Science churches have gone the way of calling themselves “centers.”

[ Disclaimer for those who need it: the above is *not* intended to be a scholarly examination of Holmes' life, just a few interesting facts that I've picked up from the internet, books, sermons, and lectures.  Just picture a big old Wikipedia style *citation needed* after every statement :) ]

Video

I couldn’t find any publicly available video (or even audio) of Dr. Holmes.  There are quite a few Religious Science churches who make their sermons and teachings available, but none of Ernest Holmes himself.  If you have a link to freely available audio or video, please feel free to let us know about it in the comments section.

Resources

What I (Lyman Reed) learned From Ernest Holmes

Like the quote way up there says - I learned that there truly is a power greater than me in the universe, and that I can use it.

Holmes’ core concepts were a very radical departure from my previous beliefs (I used to be a fundamentalist Christian), and one of the reasons that his work was so fascinating to me is it’s openness and practicality.  If it works, use it.  If not, toss it.

I also remember finding out that he considered himself more of a collector and synthesizer of information than a creator.  He understood that there really is nothing new under the sun, and that all we do is put concepts that already exist together in new ways.  The truth is already out there - we just need to discover (and use) it!

When I was early in my sobriety, attending The DuPage Church of Religious Science (now the DuPage Center for Spiritual Living) was vital to my survival.  I regularly saw one of their practitioners who charged me next to nothing (and often nothing).  It’s not an exaggeration to say that Rev. Kathy Mertes was one of the major players in saving my life.

I no longer attend a Religious Science church on a regular basis, but the teachings still guide my life.  It really was an honor for me to be able to do a little writing about Ernest Holmes for the Heroes of Healing Project, and I hope that if his work sounds interesting you’ll take some time and explore his ideas further.

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