Emma Curtis Hopkins

According to Charles S. Braden, Hopkins influenced the development of New Thought "more than any other single teacher", and modern scholars have identified Hopkins as the founder of New Thought.

• Name — Emma Curtis Hopkins • Birth Name — Josephine Emma Curtis • Born — 2 September 1849 • Birthplace — Killingly, Connecticut • Died — 8 April 1925 • Place of death — Killingly, Connecticut • Occupation — New Thought teacher • Known for — Founder of New Thought

Emma Curtis Hopkins was born Josephine Emma Curtis on September 2, 1849 in Killingly, Connecticut, to Rufus and Lydia (Phillips) Curtis, and was the oldest of nine children. She attended the local Congregationalist church and graduated from the local high school, before going on to teach secondary-school as a math, science, and language teacher. She married George Irving Hopkins, another teacher, on July 19, 1874. The couple had one son, John Carver, who was born June 8, 1875, graduated from the merchant marine academy, and died in 1905. Hopkins and her husband were separated in the mid-1880s and divorced in 1900. Little else is known of Hopkins' early life.

• Illustration — Christian Scientist Association in 1885. Hopkins is in the front row, third from left. Hopkins first encountered Christian Science in 1881 and, according to J. Gordon Melton, experienced healing of some sort at that time although the details are not known. In 1883, Hopkins heard Mary Baker Eddy speak, and her ideas on spiritual healing interested her, so in December of that year Hopkins joined one of Eddy's classes at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston for a one-week basic course. Hopkins' name appeared in The Christian Science Journal as a practitioner in February 1884, where it would remain listed until August of that year, when she apparently became too busy with other duties. Her first article in the Journal appeared around the same time. Notably, Eddy never made Hopkins a teacher, nor did Hopkins take the normal class at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College to become one. According to Eddy, Hopkins was not permitted to go farther than the primary class. In September 1884, Hopkins was invited to become editor of The Christian Science Journal, which around the same time moved from a bi-monthly publication to a monthly one. According to Robert Peel, an article by Hopkins even before her editorship began suggested a trend away from Christian Science and towards a more "indiscriminate eclecticism", drawing from such sources as Buddhism, Upanishads, Islam, Avesta, and Baruch Spinoza. Some writers have claimed that it was only Hopkins' interest in other writers than Eddy, which was expressed in this article, that caused the split between them, but Peel notes that it was after Hopkins had published this article that Eddy made her editor. Hopkins was good at editing according to Peel, and notably opposed former students of Eddy who thought they could teach metaphysics better than she could, writing September 1885: • "No student (I speak from knowledge of facts) has ever yet been qualified to teach Christian Science, except rudimentarily... To me... the words of my teacher on the theme of Spiritual Being were first as the gentle touch of a mother lifting the world-weary form of her wayward child to her bosom.... I was made to know Him face to face of whom I had heard by the hearing of the ear as a name only.... I know that every single student that has ever studied under "this teacher sent from God" has realized it all. How great, then, the folly of falling back to earthly ambitions and earthly ends by claiming to work the same miracle — for the pottage reward of a little publicity and a few hundred dollars." Peel notes that there was a "wry coincidence in the fact that the very month in which these words were published brought to Mrs. Hopkins the irresistible temptation to set herself up in rivalry to the teacher she had so eulogized." Eddy taught a class that September which among its students included Mary H. Plunkett, who had already studied with A. J. Swarts of Chicago, an opponent of Eddy. Upon joining the class, Plunkett began looking for someone to help her set up a rival movement to Eddy, at first trying and failing to win over fellow student Laura Lathrop before moving on to Hopkins. Plunkett and Hopkins quickly became friends, but according to Plunkett it took some time to fully bring Hopkins over to her side and turn her against Eddy. Eddy was apparently aware of the influence Plunkett was having on Hopkins, and removed Hopkins from the editorial position, replacing her with Sarah H. Crosse. She was also asked by Eddy's assistant Calvin Frye to vacate her room at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College; and on November 4 she resigned from the Christian Science Association, although she said she was still devoted to Christian Science. According to Melton, Hopkins broke with Eddy on "ideological and financial grounds." Hopkins wrote to Eddy: "Oh, if you could only have been mental enough to see what I might be and do — and given me time to work past and out of the era through which I was passing when Mrs. Crosse suddenly ordered me to leave."

• Illustration — Mary H. Plunkett By early 1886, Hopkins had moved with Plunkett to Chicago to set up their headquarters and begin teaching. Hopkins' husband, who she later described as having occasional psychotic episodes which could turn violent, also moved to Chicago with her, but she separated from him soon afterwards. At first Hopkins joined up with Plunkett's teacher A. J. Swarts in Chicago (whom she had previously attacked as editor of The Christian Science Journal for plagiarizing Eddy and perverting her writings) and became editor for his magazine, the Mind Cure Journal, until she started work with Plunkett full time. The two women set up their own journal called Truth: A Magazine of Christian Science. They founded the Emma Curtis Hopkins College of Christian Science, with Hopkins acting as teacher and Plunkett as president and business administer. Her College was modeled after Eddy's Massachusetts Metaphysical College; and the first class of thirty-seven students, which included journalist Helen Wilmans, publisher Ida Nichols, and teachers Mabel McCoy and Kate Bingham who would influence the founding of Divine Science, graduated in June 1886 and formed the Hopkins Metaphysical Association. As word spread, students began traveling to Chicago for classes with Hopkins, and Hopkins traveled with Plunkett to cities such as Milwaukee, San Francisco, Kansas City, New York, and Boston to teach and lecture. These classes would often be large, such as a class in San Francisco with around 250 students, or in Boston, where she apparently had around one thousand students. In 1887, there were already twenty-one Hopkins Associations stretched across America. The same year a building was purchased in Chicago's South Side to serve as their headquarters. In addition to the interest in Chicago for Hopkins' metaphysical ideas, the city also offered a vibrant women's movement dating back to the mid-1800s for her to be involved with. Eddy was a supporter of women's rights, and Hopkins had experienced the predominantly female environment of the Christian Science movement, and found this trend repeating itself with her own students and patients in Chicago. She did not want her movement to be dominated by men like the medical profession was, so she took steps to align herself with the women's movement in Chicago. Hopkins and Plunkett also joined forces for a time with Ursula Newell Gestefeld, another former Christian Scientist and student of Eddy. Hopkins, Plunkett, Swarts, Gestefeld, and others all wanted to set up their own healing methods without so much of a focus on Christianity as Eddy had, either wanting to combine it with eastern religions, or reject it all together. According to Gillian Gill, these groups both opposed Eddy and copied her: "They set up institutes in imitation of her Massachusetts Metaphysical College, founded periodicals comparable to the Christian Science Journal, gave lecture courses modelled on her own, plagiarized shamelessly from her written work, and prominently featured Science and Health in their reading lists. The term Christian Science was used constantly by them." In 1887, Luther Marston organized a convention of these groups in Eddy's home turf of Boston, which in addition to Hopkins and the others in her circle included Julius Dresser, an important figure in the early history of New Thought, and although the participants often disagreed and were in many ways in competition with each other, they were all united by their opposition to Eddy. Reporting on the event in the Truth magazine, a supporter of Hopkins called her "the star that rose in the East and has spread its glory through the West," and Plunkett referred to her as "our beloved leader." Since at this point so many individuals and groups were claiming to represent Christian Science, some of whom had never even read Eddy's work, she was becoming increasingly concerned over what she saw as false teachers, of which Hopkins was one of the most notable and successful. Eddy had begun teaching Normal classes in 1884 to train her students to teach Christian Science to others, and in 1885 taught four Chicago-based students to teach where Hopkins was. These authorized teachers were encouraged to start their own Christian Science "institutes" and form student associations, and by 1887 there were twenty-three small authorized Christian Science institutes around the country. In the April 1887 issue of The Christian Science Journal, Eddy responded to a question from a reader regarding Hopkins' teaching: • "If one half of what I hear of Mrs. Hopkins teaching on the subject of Christian Science is correct she is deluding the minds she claims to instruct. She took a Primary Course at my College but was not permitted to go farther. She never entered my Normal Class, is not qualified to teach Christian Science and is incapable of teaching it."

Hopkins' organization began experiencing internal problems around 1888, which cost Hopkins the support of many of her students and institutes around the country, and led Hopkins to rethink her strategy and reorder her organization. Plunkett left Hopkins to go to New York and set up a rival organization. When she left, she also took with her the mailing list and other files associated with their work in Chicago. Plunkett renamed their Truth magazine to the International Magazine of Christian Science, setting up the headquarters in New York and absorbing the magazines of two other New Thought publishers at the same time. While in New York, Plunkett, who by this point already had two children outside of her marriage, met Arthur Bentley Worthington, with whom she had a very public affair. Worthington was a bigamist and embezzler and had several other wives around the country, and the resulting scandal led Hopkins to sever ties completely with her former ally, effectively ending Plunkett's career in the United States New Thought community. Plunkett and Worthington traveled to New Zealand with their children where they established a movement known as Students of Truth, later renamed Temple of Truth, but Worthington later expelled her from the movement and she committed suicide in 1901. • Illustration — Advertisement for Emma Hopkins' Christian Science Theological Seminary in The Arena c. 1892 Meanwhile, in 1888, Hopkins restructured the Emma Curtis Hopkins College of Christian Science using the Protestant seminary model into the Christian Science Theological Seminary, and taking on the role of bishop she ordained her students for the ministry, becoming, according to J. Gordon Melton, the first woman to ordain others as ministers in modern times. Twenty of the twenty-two students in the first graduating class were also women, and speakers at the ceremony pointed out the significance of the event for women in the religious sphere. Suffragists were in attendance at the ceremony, and Louise Southworth, an officer in the National Woman Suffrage Association, gave a speech saying that Christian Science "has come at last to give woman her proper status in the world." Melton writes that Hopkins' College and Seminary were "the seed organizations from which New Thought emerged." Hopkins served as president of the seminary, which by 1893 had trained more than 350 students in the basic course, with over one hundred ordained to the ministry. A course catalogue from that year lists Annie Rix Militz, George Edward Burnell, and Mary Lamereaux Burnell as professors. Basic classes such as hermeneutics were taught by professors other than Hopkins, and the more advanced class such as Theology and Practical Ministry, were taught by Hopkins herself. In 1890s, Hopkins began dispensing with the term "Christian Science", renaming her Christian Science magazine which she had founded a few years earlier the Universal Truth magazine, and renaming her student association the "Truth Students Association". As Hopkins' student established their own organizations, they too would generally try to differentiate themselves from Christian Science, and just as Hopkins had made theological alterations to Eddy teachings, many of her students would make their own variations on Hopkins' original theology.

In 1895, Hopkins decided her work in Chicago was done successfully and closed the seminary, moving to New York City and leaving trusted students to carry on work in Chicago. She mostly retired from teaching, taking only a few students to teach individually, most notably Ernest Holmes. However she continued to give public lectures, travel, and write. Another notable student was the wealthy socialite and art patron Mabel Dodge Luhan, who would see her for metaphysical treatment three times a week, and referred her artist friends such as Maurice Sterne, Andrew Dasburg, Robert Edmond Jones, and Elizabeth Duncan for treatment as well. In 1918 she was voted the honorary president of the International New Thought Alliance, which had formed a few years earlier in 1914 after a number of failed attempts. Hopkins moved from New York to her childhood home in Killingly, Connecticut in 1923, where she died two years later at the age of seventy-five. After her death, her sister Estelle Carpenter took over the organization with assistance from a teacher named Eleanor Mel. A wealthy student of Hopkins' set up an organization to perpetuate Hopkins' teachings, buying a large farm in Connecticut called Joy Farm.

Although originally teaching under the label of Christian Science, which caused a good deal of confusion, Hopkins' theology increasingly differed from that of Eddy, and she eventually abandoned even the term Christian Science in favor of the name New Thought. In her 1888 book Scientific Christian Mental Practice, Hopkins used a number of philosophies and religions to support her arguments, including Plotinus, Plato, Baruch Spinoza, Augustine of Hippo, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Buddha, Thomas Carlyle, and the Avesta, but notably did not acknowledge Eddy as a source for her ideas. Hopkins told students that if they read Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, some parts could be skipped, such as a chapter on atonement. Hopkins and New Thought as a whole (with some exceptions such as John Gaynor Banks) moved increasingly away from an emphasis on Christianity, seeing universal truth in all religions; and Robert Peel writes that Hopkins herself was "more at home with the Hindu Upanishads than with the Christian Gospels." However, Hopkins was not as antagonistic towards Christianity as her partners Plunkett and Swarts were, who privately disparaged Christianity while at the same time giving lip service to it in public. Hopkins did share some theological points with Eddy, for instance teaching that God was not anthropomorphic. Both Eddy and Hopkins protested against the doctrine of the fall of man, they believed that the only reality was spiritual, that there was no power apart from God, that sickness did not originate with God, and that healing comes in understanding this. Like Eddy, Hopkins used capitalized synonyms to explain the nature of God such as Mind, Truth, Principle, and Love; but added additional synonyms such as Health, Support, Defense, and Protection. She followed Eddy's lead in calling God both Father and Mother, but developed the concept in ways Eddy did not. J. Gordon Melton writes that the "clearest presentation" of her new theological framework is seen in her writings on the Trinity, which replaced the Holy Spirit with the Mother. Hopkins adopted a form of the Trinity similar to that of Joachim of Fiore, and posited that God manifested differently through different periods of history, as God the Father first, then as Jesus, and finally as Mother Spirit which correlated with a rise of women. Hopkins also saw the Holy Spirit / Mother Comforter in terms of the Shekinah. She saw women's increasing involvement in the world as proof of her ideas, and saw herself, and the women she ordained, as messengers of the new era of the holy Mother Spirit. It is likely because of this theology that Hopkins was a strong supporter of secular women's issues, and encouraged her association members to join women's groups such as the Woman's Federal Labor Union. Beryl Satter calls Hopkins' writings "convoluted and ambiguous", but acknowledges that her theology was still able to elevate women through development of traditionally "masculine" qualities such as strength and power. Hopkins, and New Thought as a whole, developed an emphasis on prosperity theology which was absent from Christian Science. Hopkins often referred to prosperity, and believed Jesus taught it as an acknowledgement "of the presence of God."

Modern scholars assert that Hopkins is the founder of the New Thought movement, which by 1902 had over one million adherents. According to J. Gordon Melton, "Hopkins laid the foundations of the New Thought metaphysical tradition in American religion" and "the most significant New Thought organizations, the Unity School of Christianity, Divine Science, and Religious Science, can be traced directly to her". According to Charles S. Braden, Hopkins influenced New Thought "more than any other single teacher". She also became an important feminist figure for ordaining female ministers, a rarity for the time; as well as a proponent of the idea of a female Divine, although she did not originate the idea. Despite her influence, by the 1990s Hopkins had largely been forgotten even within the New Thought movement according to modern scholars. Gail Harley identified a number of reasons for this, including controversies surrounding her life, disputes with former students, lack of self reflection in the New Thought movement, dismissal by the mainstream religious community, and her exclusion from the only history of the movement produced in the early 20th century.