Free Republic

Golden, CO -- In an era when religious denominations are splitting into smaller and smaller sects, one just reunited after being split since 1954. Science of Mind®, also known as Religious Science, founded in the 1920s by philosopher Ernest Holmes, functioned as two competing organizations for more than 50 years. This week, delegates at their joint annual conference in San Diego approved reunification, called “integration,” with 98% of the vote. In preparation for their integration, the two organizations, originally called Religious Science International and United Church of Religious Science, changed their names to International Centers for Spiritual Living and United...

An AIDS patient writes a letter to the HIV virus, forgiving it for the harm it’s done him and thanking it for inspiring him to live a fuller life. A recovering alcoholic reminds herself to “let go and let God.” Parents pray to see their son as “the perfect child of God” rather than call a doctor to prescribe medication for his earache. A collective of incorporeal beings sends this message to a best-selling author: “There is nothing you cannot be, do, or have.” What do these people have in common? All of them are heirs of the religious philosophy...

When I was a boy, my parents used to enjoy a comedian named Ronnie Graham. One of his jokes was, "The other day a cat came up to me and said, 'How do I get to Carnegie Hall?' and I said 'Practice, man, practice.' This other cat came up to me and said, 'Meow.' He was a real cat." We talk a lot in our movement about spiritual practices. I am a Religious Science Practitioner; the root word of Practitioner is practice. But why do we practice? Ernest Holmes said that a central concept of our movement is "Perfect God,...

Vienna, Va., July 23--(RNS) Leaders of the New Thought movement used their annual conference as an opportunity to encourage a nontraditional spiritual quest. At a morning session of the 89th Annual Congress of the International New Thought Alliance, held July 18-23, speakers suggested new ways to approach the metaphysical path on which they walk. In a speech titled "Thinking With NewER Thought," the Rev. Noel McInnis of Wilsonville, Ore., supported the congregational singing of a revamped version of "Let There Be Peace on Earth." "We just need to make over the old song," said McInnis, an ordained minister of Religious...

Today is Good Friday, the commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus. To me, the emphasis on the crucifixion misses the point. The real emphasis, to me, ought to be on the resurrection, to which the crucifixion was a prelude. In Religious Science, we teach that Jesus was not the Great Exception, some kind of special person doing things that were beyond ordinary people like us, but the Great Example, showing us what we can do and what we can be. Jesus himself says, “The things that I have done, ye also shall do and greater than these shall ye do.”...

In his final "Sermon By the Sea" given in 1959 at Asilomar, California, Ernest Holmes shared with us his vision of the outcome of global well-being, the human species and Earth transformed by the consciousness that he had articulated as Science of Mind. His Sermon is a prescription for planetary resurrection, a prophetic, millennial assertion of the role of Religious Science in bringing about the world's rebirth: [Science of Mind] is the most direct impartation of Divine Wisdom that has ever come to the world, because it incorporates the precepts of Jesus, and Emerson, and Buddha, and all the rest...

I live in wonder, with the senses of my soul open and perceiving. I see the beautiful colors of my world. I hear the harmonies of the heart in each sound. I feel the Presence everywhere in my life.

Daily Affirmation Sunday, September 14, 2003 First, my prayer allows my good today. Then, my mind rests in prayer over time. Ultimately, I gently build my awareness of the glory of God as me, one simple prayer at a time. -- Connee Chandler, RScP

What We Believe - A Declaration of Principles The following Declaration of Principles was written in the 1930s by Dr. Ernest Holmes in the Science of Mind magazine. We believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; One indestructible, absolute, and self-existent Cause. This One manifests Itself in and through all creation but is not absorbed by Its creation. The manifest universe is the body of God, it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God. We believe in the incarnation of the Spirit in everyone and that all people are incarnations of the One Spirit. We...

We shall not cease exploring And the end of our exploration Shall be to return to the place where we started And know it for the first time. -- T.S. Eliot The story of the Prodigal Son is the story of each of us. It is your story and mine. The prodigal son is heir to a great estate, along with his brother. He asks for his share, gets it, and goes wandering off from his father’s rich estate. Eventually, the prodigal son runs out of money and returns home. His father throws a banquet for him, much to the...

We shall not cease exploring And the end of our exploration Shall be to return to the place where we started And know it for the first time. -- T.S. Eliot The story of the Prodigal Son is the story of each of us. It is your story and mine. The prodigal son is heir to a great estate, along with his brother. He asks for his share, gets it, and goes wandering off from his father’s rich estate. Eventually, the prodigal son runs out of money and returns home. His father throws a banquet for him, much to the...

"God as me, in me, is me." -- Dr. Ernest Holmes.