"The
Science of Mind is the study of Life and the nature
of the laws of thought;
the conception that we live in a spiritual Universe;
that God is in, through, around and for us."
~ Dr. Ernest Holmes
Pacific Coast Church is a Religious Science-based organization. Our foundational philosophy
was developed by an extraordinary man called Dr. Ernest Holmes and falls under the umbrella of New Thought. New Thought sprang up in the Boston area in the mid 1800s, and most people agree its roots go back to the work of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, one of the earliest in this country to recognize and make use of the power of thought in healing. Dr. Holmes was very influenced by Quimby, the Transcendentalists (most importantly Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau), English philosopher Thomas Troward, Sri Aurobindo and Emma Curtis Hopkins, founder of Christian Science. All of these great thinkers had undoubtedly been influenced by the teachings of the East and certainly by Hinduism. One might call New Thought, Eastern teaching for the Western Mind.
To quote Dr. Holmes: “The philosophy of Religious Science is nothing new to the world. It is rather a synthesis of the greatest concepts which have ever come to the mind of man. The law of Moses, the love of Christ, the ethics of Buddha, the morals of Confucius, the deep spiritual realization of the Hindus, the mystical revelations of the saints of the Middle Ages, the laws of parallels and compensation of Emerson, the logic of Kant, the spirituality of Swedenborg, the beauty of Browning, and the wide, universal sweep of Walt Whitman all find an exalted place in the philosophy of Religious Science.”
Dr. Holmes was once asked in a radio interview, “Do you believe in God?” And he said, “We believe in nothing but God!” Dr. Holmes asked us to make one quantum leap in thought and faith and only one. He asked people to think from the universal principle found in all religious teachings: Can you accept that the Universe is an Infinite Mind, working perfectly everywhere and that this Mind is your mind now?
We believe then, that there is nothing but God, call it what you will--Universal Intelligence, The Thing-Itself, Spirit, Divine Mind-- it’s the Ultimate Stuff from which everything is created. The core teaching is that this Universal Intelligence is good, works by a demonstrable law (this is where the "science" in Religious Science comes into play) and is governed by thought. This Universal Intelligence is the essence of who we are.
So in Religious Science we believe that there is a power for good in the universe greater than we are, and we can use it. We will have as much of this good in our experience as we can accept. In order for that goodness to show up in our lives, we have only to say yes to it.
"Humankind does not face an eternal struggle against
some external force that desires our downfall. The only
struggle, the only battle, the only thing that needs
to be overcome is our own ignorance, our own lack of
awareness and recognition of the beneficent Power and
creativity that is the source of all things. And we
should never doubt the validity of our own considered
judgment in such matters. There are no prophets other
than the wise. Amidst the din and uproar of our lives,
the accumulated fear, doubt, and confusion of the ages,
there has always been and always will be a still, small,
voice within that seeks to proclaim itself through us.
Life has given us all we could ever desire. It is up
to us to decide and discover for ourselves what the
nature of life is, and accept it."
~ Dr. Ernest Holmes
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