“New Thinking, New Thought, New Age: The Theology and Influence of Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925)”

Michell, Deidre. “New Thinking, New Thought, New Age: The Theology and Influence of Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925).” Counterpoints: The Flinders University Online Journal of Interdisciplinary Conference Papers 2, no. 1. (2002): 6-18. 

Michell examines the influences, and theological connections and differences, between the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, Emma Curtis Hopkins, the 19^th-century Woman’s movement, and the New Thought and New Age movements. Hopkins’s journey began with a Christian Science healing in 1883, then being taught by Eddy and becoming an active Christian Science practitioner, then moving to Chicago in 1885 away from “Eddy’s too restrictive leadership” (8) where she continued in the name of Christian Science, and finally dispensing in the 1890s with the name of Christian Science altogether from her teaching and practice. Hopkins’s core values were similar to Eddy’s: protesting against the inevitability of poverty and sickness, embracing the Motherhood of God, and teaching the only reality as spiritual. But unlike Eddy, Hopkins would see Truth in all religions, not limited to Christianity, reformulate the Trinity to equate the Holy Spirit with Mother-God, and speak often of prosperity. For Eddy, inspiration was key to healing, whereas Hopkins formulated specific healing arguments or affirmations and denials to be used by her students. Both Eddy and Hopkins would institutionalize female leadership in the church, but Hopkins also intentionally aligned herself with the suffragist movement—many of her students becoming active in the movement.

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