We hear a great deal about getting one’s self into harmony with certain forces that are supposed to be moving through this universe.

We hear a great deal about getting one’s self into harmony with certain forces that are supposed to be moving through this universe.

We are told that there is a secret “flame” in our atmospheric ether which we can extract after a little practice and it will have an astonishing effect upon us.
We are told of elixirs that float and crackle all about us,
which only a few on this round ball have ever caught any of,
but they have been filled with extraordinary powers.
Those powers really all start from the soul principle in each of us,
and it is what we ourselves have generated that we finally inhale as “flame,” “elixir vitae,” or “forces.”Emma Curtis Hopkins
December 23, 1894

Emma Curtis Hopkins: Cynicism, Criticism, Prejudice and Judgment

The ancient Bible taught that it is good to tame the mind,
which is difficult to hold in and very flighty,
rushing whither it listeth, but once tamed it will bring you great happiness.

We must truly not see the faults of our neighbors as reality.
We must not see ignorance or foolishness hiding the intelligence and freedom of our neighbors.
This is called taming the mind.

We cannot crush out criticism. It will not be crushed.
We can deny it, and this erases it from our mind.
Being free from criticism, the mind runs only to recognition of Good.
It is then perfectly tamed.
The unity of mind is a great fact to recognize.
There is but one Good Mind.
All the good and the wise render this same verdict as to what is just and right, when their accusation is laid aside.

No voice from the Spirit ever accuses a mind of foolishness or ignorance.

Buddha taught that all deeds wrought our by mind, and carried into the life as far as we can exercise our thoughts, bring happiness. "All forms are unreal." He said, "He who knows this becomes passive in pain; this is the way to purity."


Accusations are prejudices against people, which keep the highly efficient judgment from speaking. They do not emanate from the One Mind.
Prejudice against a religion will act against your business judgment just as possibly as your health. Prejudice against people will very likely hit your business affairs.
It does not always strike at your bodily health the first thing.
The feeling we have against alcohol, tobacco, opium, is a prejudice against an imaginary substance. That prejudice held on to is foolishness.
That prejudice taken hold of, as a principle, because appearances teach us to fight the poor little ideas, is simply ignorance.
So on the same plane every prejudice is found to be a tacit accusation of others or ourselves as to foolishness and ignorance.
We could not possibly hold out intolerance to anything if we were not accusers of that which brings about feebleness and failure.

Cynicism is a species of ingratitude that brings the most extraordinary people around us.
Give thanks to the universe,
to your ancestors,
to your neighbors,
to yourself,
to animals,
to everything that you have dealings with.
Its spirit is your good, loving provider.

“Scientific Christian Mental Practice”
Emma Curtis Hopkins
1888

The Forer effect

Is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, and some types of personality tests.

A related and more generic phenomenon effect is that of subjective validation. Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands a relationship. Thus people seek a correspondence between their perception of their personality and the contents of a horoscope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect


http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2010/09/if-you-can-make-reader-believe-anything.html

http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2010/07/true-believer-syndrome.html

http://pvrguymale.blogspot.com/2010/01/cognitive-dissonance.html

2012

(MMXII) will be a leap year starting on a Sunday. In the Gregorian calendar, it will be the 2012th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 12th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 3rd of the 2010s decade.

It has been designated Alan Turing Year, commemorating the mathematician, computer pioneer, and code-breaker on the centennial of Turing's birth.

There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic, and center upon various interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Contemporary scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012

New Thought, High Watch Farm and Alcoholics Anonymous

In 1939 the farm was bought and was operated by a philanthropist and heiress from the Winthrop and Stuyvesant families, Etheldred F. Folsom, who was a devotee of Emma Curtis Hopkins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Watch_Recovery_Center
 

Marty Mann, Bill and Lois Wilson made their first visit to Joy Farm on November 4, 1939 at the encouragement of Nona Wyman. Joy Farm, was then run by Ethelred Folsom who like to call herself Sister Francis. She was a remarkable woman whose generosity provided a home to all in need of healing and spiritual sustenance. Because her own beliefs aligned with the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, she offered the farm to Bill Wilson to carry out the work of AA. Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, established High Watch Farm in 1940 as the first 12 Step treatment center in the world.

Marty Mann would later describe their arrival, "There was something there, something that was really palpable that you could feel and every one of us felt it. To say that we fell in love with it, is not to use the right terminology at all. We were engulfed...What is at the Farm was already at the Farm before we ever found it. It found us, in my opinion." Bill W. is famously known for describing the spiritual atmosphere upon their arrival as being so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Sister Francis was born into a well educated, affluent family with the given name of Ethelred Frances Folsom. She was most often called Sister Francis because of her affinity for the life and prayer of St. Francis. Sister Francis identified herself as a book illustrator and a landscape artist. Today, she is better known as a visionary and healer.

Sister Frances was born Etheldred Frances Folsom (1872 -1963) to

George Winthrop Folsom (1846-1915) and Frances Elizabeth Fuller (1848 – 1928).

Her siblings were       

Helen Stuyvesant ( 1868-1942)
George Winthrop (1869-1875)
William Fuller (1871-1875)
George (1875-1876)
Margaret Winthrop (1876-1946)
Maud Christine(1880-1947)
 Winifred (1882-????)
Georgette (1883-1972)
Frances Constance (1885-1967)

https://www.ourfamtree.org/browse.php/George-Winthrop-Folsom/p568114

Two interrelated themes stand out in Sister Francis’s life and writings:
practical service to those in need of healing, and,
the desire to let ’the real Christ self shine through’.

As she practiced healing, Sister Francis disagreed with the revivalist tenet of a man as a sinner. She wrote that it wasn't easy for good “to manifest when they all think themselves sinners. It makes me realize more than ever the necessity of getting away from the teaching of evil and sin and fastening our minds on being sons of God.” She chose to live day to day and express all the joy she could.

With a vision of creating a place of retreat for anyone in need of healing, Sister Francis purchased farmland in Kent, CT in 1926. She named it Joy Farm. Joy Farm’s oldest building, an 18th century farmhouse, was called the Mother House. Sister Francis designated one room for a chapel, providing both healing and worship services. The Mother House offered "love, companionship, comforting, pity and tenderness" to all who came. Today, this building remains the spiritual center of High Watch housing the Chapel and offering comfort to all in need of healing.

Sister Francis was a disciple of Emma Curtis Hopkins, the “teacher of Teachers”. Like Hopkins, Sister Francis believed the Highest to be found in the teachings of all religions. Her reading ranged from The Fellowship of Silence, to Cosmic Consciousness, to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Her books on Catholicism, meditation, yoga, mysticism, and spiritualism remain at High Watch today.

When Emma Curtis Hopkins died in 1925, her sister Estelle Carpenter, nee Estelle Curtis, inherited the rights to her writings. To ensure that Hopkins writings remained available to others, Estelle Carpenter along with New Thought disciples, Sister Francis and Morrison P. Helling, signed papers incorporating the Ministry of the High Watch at Joy Farm in 1928. The role of the Ministry was to preserve the writings of Emma Curtis Hopkins and provide a simple and rustic retreat for body and soul of those in need of spiritual sustenance. http://highwatchrecovery.com/

2012 and Eschatology

The term Eschaton refers to the end of the present world and is addressed in the study of eschatology.

Eschatology (from the Greek eschatos meaning "last" and -logy meaning "the study of", first used in English around 1550. is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’".

While in mysticism the phrase refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and reunion with the Divine, in many traditional religions it is taught as an actual future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, and the end of days.

History is often seen as being divided into "ages", an age being a period of time when certain realities are present. An age may come to an end and be replaced by a new age where different realities are present. This transition from one age to another is often the subject of eschatological discussion. So, instead of "the end of the world" we may speak of "the end of the age" and be referring to the end of "life as we know it" and the beginning of a new reality. Indeed, most apocalyptic literature (and movies) do not deal with the "end of time" but rather with the end of a certain period of time, the end of life as it is now, and the beginning of a new period of time. It is usually a crisis that brings an end to current reality and ushers in a new way of living / thinking / being. This crisis may take the form of the intervention of a deity in history, a war, a change in the environment or the reaching of a new level of consciousness. If a better world results, we say it is "utopian". If a worse, it is "dystopian."

Eschatologies vary as to their degree of optimism or pessimism about the future (indeed, the same future may be utopian for some and dystopic for others - "heaven and hell" for example).

Most modern eschatology and apocalypticism, both religious and secular, involves the violent disruption or destruction of the world, whereas Christian and Jewish eschatologies view the end times as the consummation or perfection of God's creation of the world. For example, according to ancient Hebrew belief, life takes a linear (and not cyclical) path; the world began with God and is constantly headed toward God’s final goal for creation.

Empirical and Rationalist based
More recently, many involved in futures studies and transhumanism have noted the accelerating rate of scientific progress and anticipate a technological singularity in the 21st century that would profoundly and unpredictably change the course of human history, and resulting in Homo sapiens no longer being the dominant life form on earth, if the species survives at all. The time estimate for the occurrence of the technological singularity has been approximated to be about the year 2030.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

Bahá'í eschatology In Bahá'í belief, creation does not have a beginning nor end. Instead the eschatology of other religions is viewed as symbolic. In Bahá'í belief, human time is marked by a series of progressive revelations in which successive messengers or prophets come from God.

Brahma Kumari eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Kumaris_Beliefs
Buddhist eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_eschatology
Christian eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatological_views
Hindu eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_eschatology
Islamic eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_eschatology
Jewish eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_eschatology
Zoroastrian eschatology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian_eschatology

In other words 2012 belongs under the realm of New Age which is influenced by Theosophy, spiritualism, occult, tarot, astrology etc. External influences. "Eye of Horus", Christ grids, Spirals, planetary alignments, Ancient Prophecies and Hopi Prophecies etc. are sensationalistic in nature and New Age in context.

New Thought, on the other hand, teaches that we draw strength and wisdom from God by looking within ourselves. The Christ within, father within.

2011 and 2012 are looking better and better.

“Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death. "
~Horace

Emma Curtis Hopkins: The "teacher of teachers".

All your affairs, as you now look at them, represent your former way of thinking.
They are held together by the glue of your former ideas.
Now if you withdraw that glue, what can you expect, but that your affairs will all fall to pieces to let new affairs, representing your new way of thinking establish themselves. -Emma Curtis Hopkins

Ernest S. Holmes: "Reading Emerson is like drinking water to me".

Ernest Shurtleff Holmes (1887–1960) was an American writer and spiritual teacher. He was the founder of a Spiritual movement known as Religious Science, a part of the New Thought movement, whose spiritual philosophy is known as "The Science of Mind." Founder of Science of Mind magazine. Holmes had previously studied another New Thought teaching, Divine Science. Holmes was an ordained Divine Science Minister.Ernest Holmes was a spiritual seeker. Born in 1887, he was primarily "home schooled" by his mother, who was an ardent reader. In his teens, Ernest began a search for the similarities in all the worlds' religions. He read extensively about all of them. He was deeply moved by the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Holmes said, "Reading Emerson is like drinking water to me".

Holmes discovered Thomas Troward's work in 1914, two years before Troward died. He said "This is as near to my own thoughts as I shall ever come". He began speaking on Troward's writing to growing groups when he was 25 without realizing his lifetime ministry had begun. He totally absorbed Troward's ideas and deeply linked them with his own thinking. He was one of the main channels through which Troward's ideas reached American circles.Ernest Holmes studied with Emma Curtis Hopkins in her later years(1924) when she was teaching only individuals. He felt she was among the greatest of the mystics.“Just what Mrs. Hopkins taught him (Ernest Holmes), just how the voice of spirit spoke through her, is hard to delineate. It is difficult to put the intangible into words, to open the door to reality so as to give at least a glimpse of its unspeakable beauty. Mysticism is perhaps the most difficult of all metaphysical themes, for it involves an experience rarely realized and never adequately expressed in words – the realization of identity with absolute being, or the here and now experience of “union with God.” The value of the teaching of Emma Curtis Hopkins, Ernest felt, was the fact that she had not only experienced the consciousness of the mystic herself but imparted spiritual conviction in such a way as to awaken a corresponding consciousness in her students.” Fenwicke L. Holmes, Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times (NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970): 199
Religious Science International: http://www.rsintl.org/

Unity

Mary Caroline "Myrtle" Page Fillmore (1845 - 1931) was co-founder of Unity, a church within the New Thought movement, along with her husband Charles Fillmore (1854 – 1948).
Born on a Chippewa Indian reservation in northern Minnesota, Fillmore grew up in an Indian territory in conflict, with Chippewa, Sioux, and whites all contesting for the land. Besides being a farmer, his father worked as an Indian agent, and from early on that fact must have translated into as much intimacy with Indian culture as a white in a frontier locale could normally expect to acquire. Still more, according to Fillmore's report, when he was six and alone with his mother at the trading post his family operated, a roaming band of Sioux came and spirited him away. The kidnapping did not last a day, for a few hours later the child was returned unharmed.(Some websites report some kind of ceremony was done with him which could be either real or fantasy to him at the time but evidently no one has ever asked the Sioux if their ancestors rode around kidnapping children and doing ceremonies with them.) By 1889 and to beginning years of the Unity movement, Fillmore could confide to readers of his new journal Modem Thought that he had spent twenty years in the ranks of "progressive Spiritualists.

Early in 1890 Emma Curtis Hopkins went to Kansa City to personally teach a class. Myrtle and Charles Fillmore were in attendance. They had both been studying Christian Science since Myrtle’s encounter with Dr. E.B. Weeks four years earlier, in 1886, and her remarkable recovery from TB. She had left the lecture remembering and frequently repeating a phrase used by Weeks, "I am a child of God and therefore do not inherit sickness."As Myrtle Fillmore improved her skeptical husband began to study New Thought occult subjects. Her health improved by 1888.

By now Charles Fillmore was editor of the metaphysical/esoterical newsletter “Modern Thought”. As he wrote: “Since listening to Mrs. Hopkins’ exposition...we now see that the basic statements of Christian Science form the epitome of the basic statements of Christian religious teachings of the past.” It was through Hopkins that the Filllmores were introduced to Annie Militz and H. Emile Cady. A close bond formed between the Fillmores and Hopkins. And Hopkins made frequent trips to Kansas during the 1890’s.By the time the Charles and Myrtle attended Hopkins classes in Chicago Charles had discarded all forms of the occult – spiritualism,, palmistry, astrology, and others – embracing the singularity of Christian Healing.[ Self-help and popular religion in early American culture: an interpretive guide By Roy M. Anker[1999]

The Fillmore's became students of Emma Curtis Hopkins and were ordained in 1891 along with Annie Rix Militz.

Of Emma Curtis Hopkins, Charles Fillmore said:

"She is undoubtedly the most successful teacher in the world.
In many instances those who enter her classes confirmed invalids come out at the end of the course perfectly well.

Her very presence heals and those who listen are filled with new life.
Never before on this planet have such words of burning Truth been so eloquently spoken through a women."

Unity: http://www.unity.org/

In 1923 the first annual Unity convention was held. Attended by most Unity teachers and healers, it led to a growing awareness that all manners of teachings were occurring in the field. Concerned about occult and spiritualist ideas being offered in Unity's name, at the third annual meeting in 1925, a Unity Annual Conference was formed to govern teaching and regulate leaders of local Unity groups.

"Let no sleep fall upon thy eyes till thou hast thrice reviewed the transactions of the past day.
Where have I turned aside from rectitude?
What have I been doing?
What have I left undone, which I ought to have done?
Begin thus from the first act, and proceed; and, in conclusion, at the ill which thou hast done, be troubled, and rejoice for the good."
~Buddha

Dedication and Covenant.

We, Charles Fillmore and Myrtle Fillmore, husband and wife, hereby dedicate ourselves, our time, our money, all we have and all we expect to have, to the Spirit of Truth, and through it, to the Society of Silent Unity.

It being understood and agreed that the Said Spirit of Truth shall render unto us an equivalent for this dedication, in peace of mind, health of body, wisdom, understanding, love, life, and an abundant supply of all things necessary to meet every want without making any of these things the object of our existence.

In the presence of the Conscious Mind of Christ Jesus, this 7th day of December A.D. 1892.

    (signed)

    Charles Fillmore

    Myrtle Fillmore

As Charles Braden goes on to explained in his book, Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought, .”Unity has never put a price upon its services other than a nominal one, because of legal necessity, on its publications.Unity has given freely, and yet there seems always to be money available to meet any obvious need.. 

Malinda Cramer: “Is there a Power in the Universe that can heal me?"

Malinda Elliott Cramer (1844 – 1906) was a co-founder of the Church of Divine Science, a healer, and an important figure in the early New Thought movement.

Hoping to alleviate a persistent health problem, she moved to San Francisco in 1870, where she met Charles Lake Cramer[1], a photographer, whom she married in 1872 and bore three sons, only one of which reached adulthood. Despite the move, health problems continued to plague her, making her an effective invalid.

  Malinda's story is one of the more remarkable stories in New Thought. After 25 years of suffering through a painful malady, she awoke one morning in 1885, glanced out the window and began her prayers. This morning she asked a simple question: "Is there a way out of my condition? Is there a Power in the Universe that can heal me?"
At this moment, she was filled with a sense of joy and deep gratitude knowing she was healed. The answer was within and illuminated her consciousness like the rising sun. The Omnipresence of God and God's perfection transformed her beliefs and brought her to Health.
Malinda then sought out Emma Curtis Hopkins, in 1887, to strengthen her understanding of this Divine experience. This led to classes and then to Malinda development of her own system of New Thought. She felt the name Divine Science which had been used in India and Europe to describe the mystic arts was the best description for her form of New Thought.
Divine Science: http://www.divinesciencefederation.org/

[1]Charles Lake Cramer (1835 - 1911) was an ambrotypist, melainotypist photographer. Cramer was born in Canada. His father, simply Cramer, was American. His mother Margaret Lake was Candian.He grew up in Michigan and went west in 1854 or 1855 with the Gibson wagon train. In 1855 he had an ambrotype and melainotype business in Santa Barbara, CA. In 1858 he had a gallery in San Andreas, CA and was in Suisun City, CA same year. From 1863 to 1906 he was in San Francisco. 1863 the census reported his personal assets worth $300, or about $5000 today.