Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849/53 - 1925) was a New Thought Movement teacher, writer and theologian, and feminist who actively recruited women for ecclesiastical positions and trained them through the seminary she established in 1888. She became known as a 'teacher of teachers' because a number of her students, men and women, went on to become prominent leaders in the New Thought Movement which she may have founded.

Life[edit]

Emma Curtis Hopkins was born Josephine Emma Curtis, the daughter of Rufus Curtis and Lydia Phillips Curtis, in Killingly, Connecticut, in either 1849 or 1853.

Theology[edit]

In the Lords house is much treasure. -Drops of Gold.

Looking, mentally, on Jesus Christ as present, (cures just about anything.)- Scientific Christian Mental Practice.

He, never having gone way from out side, we can look upon Him now, and be cured of whatever ailment we are crying about.

' If God will support a man who spends all his time in spiritual devotions, why not devote your life to the Spirit? If God has all wisdom, why not make God your Counselor, your Guide, your Friend?'

Vision often Godward and live anew. be like the tree standing by the water, whose leaf fadeth not. - Studies in High Mysticism.

Great believers in miracles draw them.' -p. 151

'By the subtle touch of grace descending, diseases unformulate.'

'Let us never flinch at what is happening around us. What is transpiring above us is our concern. And this wins all battles, for the kingdom across the bar is the Ruling Kingdom.' - p. 321

1. It is the wisdom of Jesus that He urges us to be wide-awake and easily letting go , and wide awake and easily catching on, to the sprinkling Alkahests, all soundless nepenthe (ancient drug inducing forgetfulness of pain or sorrow, "no + pathos") ever falling on all our heads. “Hurt not the oil of letting go; nor the wine of healing inspiration.”(Rev 6:6) Repent, for remission, receiving the Holy Spirit that alone makes whole.

2. 'To the true Mystic the upward looking and the inbreath of heavenly atmospheres are volitional and scientific. He knows whence the energising breaths come wafting their newness, and the healing elixirs come streaming with enlivening vigours, and he knows that if he is not rounded up with unkillable Omnipotence it is because he has neglected his science.' - p. 141

3. 'Mystical Science lays large stress on noticing the surrounding ether's soft healing flakes. It teaches to practice inbreathing the waiting Christ breath with its vivific stimulus. It urges to bide the tithe of the kindling elixir's healing all our flesh with the freshness of all our own eternal fires. " For is he not Atman, the breath and the life of the universe ?" -p. 329

4. ' Vision often Godward and live anew. "So shall the body be like a tree planted by the rivers of water" - whose leaf fadeth not. Vision often Godward so that affairs may also go well. Gaze often toward our Father, and all thoughts shall be like morning music. Lift up an inward looking now and then to a country whose ether winds ever raying forth their healing aura, are fleet remedials for the world's unhappiness. ' - p. 136

5. It was easy for Aristides wise Archon of Athens to let go his earthly helpers for they all forsook him and fled, and it was easy for him to receive healings from his gods for he was half asleep when they dropped their sweetly worded balsams upon his head. It is the wisdom of Jesus that he enjoins being wide awake and easily letting go, and wide awake and easily catching on, to the sprinkling alkahests, all soundless nepenthe ever falling on our heads. "Hurt not the oil of letting go; nor the wine of healing inspiration."'- p. 44

6. '. . .the body may renew with the subtle elixirs that wait to mill within it to strengthen and uplift. The hills open in the daytime and at night pinch into themselves the circumambient vitalizings with which the daytime airs are charged. Then they bring forth grass and herbs and grains for cattle. The brain can open and close with in itself the wisdom elixirs that hug it down like Sybill's hoods. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates. . and the King of Glory shall come in..." There is no part of the body that may not open and indraw the subtler-than-air stimulants that would soon burst forth as strength. This is physical invocation.' - p. 136

7. 'There is a miracle working presence. It is man's privilege and obligation to make identification with the miracle working presence til he himself is a miracle working presence, spilling over with new radiations as the opening flower spills over with new perfumes. All miracle workings are angelic ministerings. -p. 167

8. 'Let men but volitionally lift up their eyes to the Sender of the mystic cure currents ever hailing hitherward, and make all their drafts on these immortal streams, and the mysteries of health, and prosperity, and incessant renewal shall be experienced. Jesus having demonstrated this, his name as the vanquisher of death, and the abode of all gifts of God, made him able to declare, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that shall I do."' - p. 147

9. 'The breath of Brahma was what Job was volitionally inhaling till it healed his mind of grieving and his bones of soreness. Inspiration, or inbreathing of the air-encompassed Ghost, or heavenly Breath, is sure healing of the mind of man; sure transforming of his thinkings; sure healing of his body throughout all his flesh and bones; sure healing of his affairs also; but who is found indrawing winds his nostrils take no note of, gazing towards a hither-wafting white breath his outer eyes see not ? But truly, such only are those revivingly healthy among us who have learned that the healing breath never faileth, changeth never, abideth forever in miracle-working competence exactly as Job reported: " The breath of the Almighty giveth me life." ' p. 47

10. 'Why, O mankind, so decrepit, having power to partake of mystical renewal by quickening inspiration? "ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost cometh upon you" - quickening inspiration that waketh the hidden God-seed; inspiration that cureth the mind of thinking; inspiration that draweth hitherward that Mind which no man as yet knoweth, the instantaneously working Ain Soph above thinking and above being: forgiving the mind of the world; hurrying along the promised speech that distills new health like morning dews.' - p. 47

11. 'The more we look to Ain Soph, the great Countenance of the Absolute, the origin of knowing, the more we know of the influence of the close-swinging miracle-working world and its beneficence. "Listen O isles unto me and harken ye people from far - I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not." Solomon got him to the Myrrh mountains of wisdom for the mystical daybreak, and to the hills of frankincense with the streams of healing hailing from above the sunrise. Beyond the margins of the mind supernal wisdom waits. Over the dayspring of a glory from above, the heavens mysterious healings are distilling for those who obey the mandate, "Lift up your eyes: Look unto me: I am the Lord that healeth thee." - p. 134.

'Call to the trees that lean and whisper against the far horizons and they shall tell thee all their secrets, from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth on the wall. Call to the stars that lie on their black beds on the long north nights, and they shall tell thee what the schools have not discovered. Call to the Lord of Life and Glory beyond the bars of human sense and all the living fountains lying deep in thee, shall quicken into stirring streams, and all the pent up wisdoms that inhabit thee, shall leap to meet the universal wisdom shining forth as the sun with the glory of their Father. - p. 154

' Vision often Godward and live anew. "So shall the body be like a tree planted by the rivers of water" - whose leaf fadeth not. Vision often Godward so that affairs may also go well. Gaze often toward our Father, and all thoughts shall be like morning music. Lift up an inward looking now and then to a country whose ether winds ever raying forth their healing aura, are fleet remedials for the world's unhappiness. ' - p. 136

'Let men but volitionally lift up their eyes to the Sender of the mystic cure currents ever hailing hitherward, and make all their drafts on these immortal streams, and the mysteries of health, and prosperity, and incessant renewal shall be experienced. Jesus having demonstrated this, his name as the vanquisher of death, and the abode of all gifts of God, made him able to declare, " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that shall I do."' - p. 147

'. . .the body may renew with the subtle elixirs that wait to mill within it to strengthen and uplift. The hills open in the daytime and at night pinch into themselves the circumambient vitalizings with which the daytime airs are charged. Then they bring forth grass and herbs and grains for cattle. The brain can open and close with in itself the wisdom elixirs that hug it down like Sybill's hoods. "Lift up your heads, O ye gates. . and the King of Glory shall come in..." There is no part of the body that may not open and indraw the subtler-than-air stimulants that would soon burst forth as strength. This is physical invocation.' - p. 136

'The breath of Brahma was what Job was volitionally inhaling till it healed his mind of grieving and his bones of soreness. Inspiration, or inbreathing of the air-encompassed Ghost, or heavenly Breath, is sure healing of the mind of man; sure transforming of his thinkings; sure healing of his body throughout all his flesh and bones; sure healing of his affairs also; but who is found indrawing winds his nostrils take no note of, gazing towards a hither-wafting white breath his outer eyes see not ? But truly, such only are those revivingly healthy among us who have learned that the healing breath never faileth, changeth never, abideth forever in miracle-working competence exactly as Job reported: " The breath of the Almighty giveth me life." ' p. 47

'Why, O mankind, so decrepit, having power to partake of mystical renewal by quickening inspiration? "ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost cometh upon you" - quickening inspiration that waketh the hidden God-seed; inspiration that cureth the mind of thinking; inspiration that draweth hitherward that Mind which no man as yet knoweth, the instantaneously working Ain Soph above thinking and above being: forgiving the mind of the world; hurrying along the promised speech that distills new health like morning dews.' - p. 47

'. . .These are the two olive branches whose golden pipes send forth the golden oil of healing all unseen but resistless as the sky stones called healing hail; the golden oil of enwisdoming til kings know that which they have never read, and understand that which they have not been told; the golden oil of prospering til the poor lift up their heads with comfortings, wooed to comrade with those angels who minister cure to poverty. So shall the nations seek and find Ain Soph, the Great Countenance above thinking and above being. - p. 49

' . . .Job finds his swollen flesh dissolving, when he sets his witness in the heavens: "Thou dissolvest my substance, " he cries. Then the strong man of him springs up under the remitting but energising light, and his last days are more triumphant than his youth and his prime. . .Only by the study of the Uncontaminated One inhabiting Eternity shall unspoilable wholesomeness laugh in the substance of living creatures. Only His way upon the earth is the saving health of the nations." - p.34

'The One served by inward beholding gives for our former nature Its own nature. Milton wrote that converse with angelic spirits etherealises the body and turns it, by degrees, into soul's divine essence. Xavier of Navarre, the celebrated missionary, often seemed to be on fire in his prayers before the Supernal Presence. Today there are those who by contemplating the healing god rather than their own pains, have had given for their diseased bodies, vigorously healthy ones, for their depressed minds, bouyancy of heart, thus bodily preaching for-giveness. - p. 59

' It was easy for Aristides wise Archon of Athens to let go his earthly helpers for they all forsook him and fled, and it was easy for him to receive healings from his gods for he was half asleep when they dropped their sweetly worded balsams upon his head. It is the wisdom of Jesus that he enjoins being wide awake and easily letting go, and wide awake and easily catching on, to the sprinkling alkahests, all soundless nepenthe ever falling on our heads. "Hurt not the oil of letting go; nor the wine of healing inspiration."'- p. 44

'It is ours to let ourselves go bathe in the Siloam waters of yielding under scriptural orders as meekly as the blind man bathed in Siloam of old. Declaring the scriptural doctrine of Christ Jesus as the first divinity awakened laborer in the vineyard, redeeming the world from sin, sickness, and death, that we might perceive with open eyes that we are walking in a finished kingdom, the arm of the Lord revealed. This is fasting from our sense of obligation to heal the sick, cast out demonic tempers, and raise the dead since in Christ Jesus these works are finished, awaiting only acknowledgment to be plainly visible. - p. 124

'The more we look to Ain Soph, the great Countenance of the Absolute, the origin of knowing, the more we know of the influence of the close-swinging miracle-working world and its beneficence. "Listen O isles unto me and harken ye people from far - I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not." Solomon got him to the Myrrh mountains of wisdom for the mystical daybreak, and to the hills of frankincense with the streams of healing hailing from above the sunrise. Beyond the margins of the mind supernal wisdom waits. Over the dayspring of a glory from above, the heavens mysterious healings are distilling for those who obey the mandate, "Lift up your eyes: Look unto me: I am the Lord that healeth thee." - p. 134.

'Job knew that to regard the breath he breathed as the healing spirit instead of common atmospheric air, and never to speak of the outcome as anything but transforming, would fetch him out onto some upland that men who breathed such air, and called it air, would never reach. And he was right. His witness in the heavens and his breath always known by him while inbreathing it as the God breath, brought him to where he was blessed beyond his calculations. And with mysterious wisdom, he knew himself well pleasing to the High Eternal. - p. 149

'Give attention to the effulgent one like Parmenides and radiate effulgence. Gaze toward the glory of the Highest and ray forth some new aspiration. Seek Him that turneth the shadow of death into morning and ray forth reviving ethers that spiritualize even injured backbones. Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might and ray forth peace and confidence in the midst of life's hardships. Be in love with some Truth of the Self-Existent til the scent of its rose-garden reaching thee, thy garments carry Balm of Gilead for pain. Is it not written, "I clothe My priests with salvation"? There is healing victory for everyone in love with the Uplifting, Awakening Highest. His influence is irresistable. "Listen O isles unto me, and hearken ye people from afar. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth." - pp. 166-7

'"Canst thou draw out Leviathan ?" asked the great Voice addressing Job. Leviathan is the strongest beast of the sea. the strongest constituent of man's constitution is his joy-chord. Canst thou make thy neighbor joyous ? He is surely cured of all his maladies if thou canst wake the joy that slumbers unstirred in his being. Jeremiah had three diseases from grieving "Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured out." No heart was ever stirred to healing joyousness in Jeremiah's atmosphere. But a man in the Himalaya mountains felt the smile of God so ardently that people went from miles around to get kindled into health by the mysterious influence of the far extending radioactivity of his smile. - p. 250

'Looking downward, we weep at loss and lack, yet the offer has ever been that there shall be no lack for the beholders of the Ain Soph. - p. 36

'There is a miracle working presence. It is man's privilege and obligation to make identification with the miracle working presence til he himself is a miracle working presence, spilling over with new radiations as the opening flower spills over with new perfumes. All miracle workings are angelic ministerings. -p. 167

'To the true Mystic the upward looking and the inbreath of heavenly atmospheres are volitional and scientific. He knows whence the energising breaths come wafting their newness, and the healing elixirs come streaming with enlivening vigours, and he knows that if he is not rounded up with unkillable Omnipotence it is because he has neglected his science.' - p. 141

'If the vision be on high, where the illimitable skies in untrammeled bouyancy shine chastely down, purity of moral tone and flawlessness of body are manifest. Vanity, dissembling, cowardice, are remitted, dissolved; sickness, weakness, disease, are removed. The original Self, denuded of its crass teguments, forgets its history in matter. The former earth is forgotten. It does not come to mind anymore.' - p. 30

'He of highest vision risest highest even among sons of earth.'

'Only one objective is worth our one-pointed, undivided attention. Only one objective has healing on its returning beam. That objective is the Watcher hitherward, whose soundless call is, " Look unto me" - "Behold I bring thee health and cure."' - p. 226

Comparisons with Mary Baker Eddy[edit]

Feminism[edit]

Writings[edit]

Influence[edit]

References[edit]

Gail M. Harley, Emma Curtis Hopkins: Forgotten Founder of New Thought. ISBN: 0815629338, 2002.