Annie Rix Militz
Founder of the Home of Truth
Annie Rix Militz (1856-1924) will always be regarded as one of the "greats" of New Thought. Her editing and publishing of Master Mind, one of the earlier and more outstanding New Thought magazines, from its beginning in 1911 until her death in 1924, would ensure that. She was also a key figure in the early days of the Unity movement.
She was a magnetic speaker, a leader of far vision, a valued counselor in organizational matters in the International New Thought Alliance, and an inspiring teacher. She founded one of the early New Thought groups, Home of Truth, which, beginning as a local institution, came to have centers in a number of places, chiefly on the West Coast, but also elsewhere in the United States. Like a number of other groups it was the result of influences set at work by that remarkable New Thought "teacher of teachers," Emma Curtis Hopkins. It was in one of her classes in San Francisco in 1887 that Mrs. Annie Rix became one of her students and found her life work, as she told her sister, Harriet Rix, after the third lesson.
A fellow-member of the class, a Mrs. Gorey, had a small metaphysical bookshop, and when this woman asked Annie Rix to give up her teaching -- she was a public school teacher -- and join her in the bookstore, she did so, and began soon to conduct classes there in what was essentially the teachings of Mrs. Hopkins.
Her work in the bookstore gave her opportunity to read widely in the metaphysical field, and she absorbed a great deal from her reading. It was perhaps this experience which accounted, in part at least, for her broad tolerence and sympathy for the thought of others who differed from her. She was never creedily bound by any one teaching, though she herself held profound views as to the nature of the universe, of God, and of man. Her one basic belief she said, was in "The Allness of God," no matter where or how she found it.
On June 1, 1891, a group of leading New Thought students, including the Fillmores (who later co-founded Unity), Annie Rix, and Paul Militz, were ordained as Christian Science ministers by Hopkins. Shortly after their ordination, Annie Rix married Paul Militz and became Annie Rix Militz.
Mrs. Militz and Mrs. Gorey quickly outgrew the bookshop and secured a new place of several rooms over a store. Growth of their work soon led them to take over the store also and convert it into a hall where they could hold their meetings. They called their Center "Christian Science Home," but later abandoned the use of that name most likely due to the fact that Christian Science had come to be associated with Mary Baker Eddy's denomination. In any event, the name Home of Truth was substituted for that of Chrtistian Science Home.
Mrs. Militz worked in the Home for several years, then she was called to teach as a member of the faculty of Mrs. Hopkins' Christian Science Theological Seminary, in Chicago. She left the San Francisco Home in charge of her sister, Harriet Rix, and Miss Eva Fulton. When, in 1893, Mrs. Militz returned to the West Coast, she found the Home of Truth ministry in excellent shape. Harriet Rix and Miss Fulton had not only purchased a handsome residence at 1232 Pine St. -- where the main San Francisco Home of Truth would be located for years -- but Harriet had organized a second Home across the bay in Alameda. Annie Militz could see that the work was proceeding well in San Francisco, and, in early 1894, she decided to move to Los Angeles to start a new center. The movement spread to other cities. Soon there were Homes of Truth all up and down the coast from San Diego, California, to Victoria, British Columbia.
In August 1893, the long and important professional association between Annie Rix Militz and the Fillmores, founders of Unity School of Christianity, began with the publication of her first article in Unity magazine entitled "Manifestation of God Through Judas Iscariot." Mrs. Militz was to have much involvement within the Unity movement in the years to come.
Between the latter years of the 1890s and the early 1900s, Militz’s "Bible Lessons" were the major teaching articles in Unity magazine. These lessons were extremely important to the Unity movement and formed a basis for many of its teachings. The Fillmores openly acknowledged their appreciation of Militz as a writer, teacher and healer. She continued her association with Unity right up until 1911.
Mrs. Militz was much in demand as a lecturer and teacher. She taught the monthly class at Unity headquarters in Kansas City in 1900, and travelled widely both at home and abroad. She became very active in the National (later International) New Thought Alliance also, and founded the University of Christ in Los Angeles (along with a major metaphysical library) to train New Thought teachers. She traveled the globe as an officer of the New Thought Alliance spreading the metaphysical gospel; and served as president of the New Thought Exposition Committee which organized the New Thought Day (August 28, 1915). She wrote numerous books and articles applying metaphysical precepts to a wide variety of local, national, and international social concerns.
In the Spring of 1911, an announcement in Unity signaled the end of the intermediate years in the career of Annie Rix Militz and her separation, physically and creatively, from the Unity movement. Though the parting was obviously amicable, Militz had cut her ties with Unity and was prepared to fully develop her Home of Truth movement in Los Angeles, and concentrate on her Master Mind magazine which comprised of articles, poetry, lessons and other discussions on theology, study of the bible, prosperity, immortality, soul communion, planet healing, healing circles, the home ministry and other various spiritual topics, which she continued to do until her passing on June 22, 1924