The Church of the Higher Life

was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1894 by Helen Van-Anderson(1859 - ). It was the first New Thought Movement with a regular leader and organization. 1

Rev.Helen Van-Anderson
Church of the Higher Life

Helen Van-Anderson (1859-? ) was an American woman and member of the New Thought Movement. Born Helen Van Metre, she married L. J. Anderson and for a while went under the name Nellie V. Anderson, later renaming herself Helen Van-Anderson.

In 1885, 26 year old Helen, now married and using the name Nellie V. Anderson was treated for a “severe affection of the eyes.” She then went onto study with Emma Curtis Hopkins. She was among the Hopkin’s first ordained class of twenty-two students.2

Before moving to Boston Van-Anderson offered classes in Chicago. She and her husband L. J. Anderson engaged in numerous entrepreneurial activities related to their metaphysical beliefs. They sold items such as “Every Day Helps,” a calendar with a “choice collection of metaphysical thoughts from the world’s great authors,” and started the New Era Publishing Company to sell metaphysical tracts. 2

In 1891, Nellie V. Anderson renamed herself Helen Van-Anderson. She moved to Boston in 1894. Within a year she was ordained by Reverends Minot J. Savage, Florence Kollack, and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, weel known figures in the Unitarian and Universalist churches. It was in Boston she started the “Church of the Higher Life,” which attracted overflow crowds and twice outgrew it’s headquarters. She remained in close contact with Malinda Cramer’s Divine Science group through the 1890’s, and worked with Sarah Farmer to establish “Greenacre” in 1894. 2

While she published numerous works, her most influential novels were: The Right Knock (1889) and The Journal of a Live Woman (1895). Her other works include: It is Possible(1897), The Story of Teddy(1893), Carrol's Conversion(1904), Temple Teachings(1894), Heart Talks, The Mystic Scroll: A Book of Revelation (1906) and Radiant Star: A Poem (1911).

The law of attraction: If your thought is loving, you cannot help giving. If you give, you will receive, but if your thought is selfish, keeping what you have and enjoy, shut up within yourself, you will shut the door against the gifts which otherwise might flow your way. You see again this is the law of attraction. The Mystic Scroll~A Book of Revelation By HELEN VAN-ANDERSON 1906

1Source: Dresser, Horatio. A History of the New Thought Movement. Thomas Y. Crowell. 1919. THE first New Thought society with a regular leader and organization, in Boston, was the Church of the Higher Life, which was the outgrowth of a small beginning in Sunday services started by Mrs. Helen Van-Anderson in February, 1894. The object of these services, in Mrs. Van-Anderson's words, was "to form a centre where words of cheer and friendly fellowship might be given and exchanged; also to make definite statements concerning Life Principles and their application to character and health building."

2 Source: Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920
Beryl Satte 2001