This Thing Called Life

Ernest Shurtleff Holmes (1887-1960) was an American New Thought writer, teacher, and leader. He was the founder of a Spiritual movement known as Religious Science, part of the greater New Thought movement, whose spiritual philosophy is known as “The Science of Mind.” In 1942, he was bestowed with the Cross of the Commander of the Grand Humanitarian Prize of Belgium, named an honorary member of the Eugene Field Society in 19447, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Philosophy by Andhra University in India in 1945, as well as a Doctor of Letters by The California College of Medicine and the Foundation Academic University of Spiritual Understanding in Venice, Italy. Born into a poor family in Lincoln, Maine, on January 21, 1887, the son of Anna Columbia (Heath) and William Nelson Holmes, Holmes left school and his family in Maine for Boston at the age of 15. From 1908-1910 he attended Leland Powers School of Expression in Boston, where he was introduced to Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, as well as Christian Science. In 1912 Holmes joined his brother Fenwicke, a Congregationalist minister, in Venice, California, to study the writings of many New Thought Movement authors. In 1919 he published his first book, The Creative Mind, and after almost a decade of touring Holmes committed to remaining in the L.A. area to complete his major work, The Science of Mind, published in 1926. The principles he taught went on to inspire and influence many generations of metaphysical students and teachers. In February 1927, Holmes incorporated the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy, Inc., and later that year he began publishing the Science of Mind magazine. In 1935 he reincorporated his organization as the Institute of Religious Science and Philosophy, and in 1954 it was re-established again as a religious organization called the Church of Religious Science. Holmes died in L.A. on April 7, 1960 at the age of 73.