Fenwicke Holmes
Religious Science Leader, Lecturer and Writer
Regarded by some as the dean of the metaphysical movements throughout the world, Fenwicke Lindsay Holmes, Ph.D. (1883–1973) , had a broad background of scholarship, creative writing and lecturing. He received his B.A. from Colby College, Maine, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa; attended Hartford Theological Seminary and was ordained in the Congregational ministry. He was the editor of Uplift Magazine; co-owner and director of the Metaphysical Sanitarium, Long Beach; pastor of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ, New York; and former president of the International College of Mental Science. He wrote more than twenty books, lectured for fifty years in America and abroad and was a frequent radio and television speaker.
Late in 1915 Fenwicke and his brother Ernest subscribed together to a course of studies by mail with New Thought leader Christian D. Larson, whose The Pathway of Roses, was given Fenwicke by a deacon of his church. The reading of that book had as much of an influence on Fenwicke as The Ideal Made Real had had on Ernest some 6 years before.
Fenwicke Holmes was an influential figure in the development of the Japanese New Thought organization Seicho-No-Ie during the 1950s. He collaborated with Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi in writing the book The Science of Faith. There is in the book no indication of which author was responsible for any specific section, though internal evidence will sometimes indicate rather clearly the authorship. Curiously enough, Fenwicke Holmes had never been in Japan and had never met Dr. Taniguchi in person, but Seicho-No-Ie had published Holmes' Law of Mind in Action and others of his books, so it was natural enough that they should have joined in writing The Science of Faith. Holmes' Calm Yourself has had a wide distribution in Japan also.
Although much overshadowed by his more charismatic brother Ernest, who he considered to be a spiritual genius, Fenwicke was nonetheless a very important figure in the development of the Religious Science and Science of Mind organizations that his brother founded, and in the development of the New Thought/Mental Science movement in Japan in particular.