Brown Landone
Influential New Thought Leader
Brown Landone (1847-1945) was born before the days of the "Gold Rush," on March 6, 1847, and lived to see all of our Modern Day inventions come into fruition - including the atomic bomb! He was born on the High Seas, on an American ship, of British parents. He passed peaceably and in apparent good health, in Winter Park, Florida on October 10, 1945, age 98 years.Brown Landone had been a medical doctor before he came to the New Thought work, and he was a prominent writer and lecturer for many years. He was born into a wealthy family in Philadelphia, and was always known as a sickly child who had to be nursed through one illness after another.
When he was about thirteen, something happened that started the boy thinking in a new way. Prior to this time he had had nurses around the clock. They got him up, dressed him, and led him to a chair. He sat there while he ate a simple meal and as soon as it was finished a nurse got him back into bed for a nap. Young Brown lived the usual routine of an invalid.
One day, when he and a nurse were alone in the house, the nurse discovered that a bottle of the boy's special medicine was empty. She asked him if he would be all right while she went to the drugstore some distance away. He assured her that he would.
When the nurse had been gone less than five minutes, Brown began to smell smoke and knew that something was on fire. He remembered that his father had instructed the servants concerning one important thing they must do if ever the house caught fire. He had told them that a metal chest in the attic contained every valuable paper he possessed. They were to get that metal chest out.
The boy, with the smell of smoke in his nostrils, could think of nothing but the metal chest. He was not aware of the events that followed his concerned thoughts until he found himself standing on the sidewalk beside the precious box. He suddenly realized that he, the supposed invalid, had gone to the attic, two floors above his bedroom and five floors from the street. There he had picked up the heavy chest and carried it to the sidewalk. When he came to the realization of what his subconscious mind had caused him to do, he fainted dead away.
The fire was extinguished without any great harm and the nurse prepared to put the young patient back in bed. He refused to go. "I want to sit in this chair and think," he told her.
In later years, he told that at the time of the fire he had awakened to the fact that he had performed an extraordinary feat without any conscious awareness of it. If he could do that subconsciously when he was ill, he reasoned, he certainly could do it consciously. He decided that he was not going back to bed except to sleep at night, and he never did. Brown Landone, the mature man, was perfectly well and happy until the end of his days.
Dr. Landone compressed into his century of living an unbelievable career of discoveries, services and teachings. He was educated by private tutors in America, England and France. He studied for the ministry at Episcopal High Church in England and received a Doctor of Divinity degree. However his interests changed. He studied medicine and received a degree in medicine. In his medical practice he learned that suggestion did more for his patients than did medicine. He became known as one of the first neurologists, later called psychiatrists, through his work in localization of brain centers.
Dr. Landone had a most fruitful lifetime. In 1895 he organized the first boys' activities in the Y.M.C.A. He was an international historian, educator, author and writer of many books and courses. His work in art was so outstanding that leaders in five capitals in Europe made him President of the International Institute of Science of The Arts in Paris. He was scientifically trained but always spiritually minded. He was President of the International Committee on New Education in 1905, which included 100 of the greatest educators in 17 countries. In 1911 he and others tried to form a United States of Europe. He was Editor-in-Chief of a "History of Civilization" with associate editors Lorado Taft, William Hubbard, Edmund James and other noted educators.
In 1913 he lectured at Oxford University in England. He lectured at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1913-1914. He was sent to Germany to make an economic survey of the then German Empire which he completed early in 1914. In a public lecture at the Sorbonne he told the French people that Germany would wage war in six months and was ridiculed. He repeated this statement in a lecture at Queen's Hall in London in May of 1914 and was hissed. The First World War started in July, 1914.
During World War One the President of France appointed Dr. Landone special ambassador for France to the United States. Around the same period of time he was also consultant to sales managers of Ford Motor Company, U. S. Steel, and Metropolitan Life, and after a study of economic socialism in Germany, exposed method by which the German Imperial Government made state socialism appear profitable. He also discovered hidden items in reports of the Japanese government, which showed they were then using school funds to build submarines secretly.Dr. Landone had three sons, all of whom were war casualties. This experience turned his interest to the promotion of Peace. He was instrumental in forming a European Peace Foundation. This quotation tells much about the philosophy of Dr. Brown Landone. "There will never be continuing peace on earth until a transformation is wrought by LOVE in the heart of man."
He was known affectionately as "BL" by his friends and co-workers. For many years he lectured regularly in New York City, maintaining his office and publishing quarters at Newton, New Jersey. He later relocated to Winter Park, Florida, where he maintained a large office staff and issued his publications from his extensive home there. His interests were wide spread. In 1930 when silent movies were changing to talking movies he was called to Hollywood to help fit the voice to microphone and the microphone to the voice. He carried on many experiments with an Asian shrub, Ramie, a fiber used in textiles. His demonstrations held in his Winter Park home, were attended by prominent people from all over the United States. The Landone Foundation, founded by Dr. Landone, conducted an experimental farm in Zellwood and successfully grew Ramie in large quantities.
He had a unique quality of always being able to synthesize Truth with the latest developments in the scientific fields. He was almost as well known for his scientific research work as for his metaphysical career. Through the years he had been a close friend of many of the great artists, writers, and international celebrities and spoke before almost all the Civic Groups and clubs of America, such as Rotary, Kiwanas, and scientific bodies. His capacity for work was endless and he devoted his entire time to it, keeping a staff of secretaries both night and day to keep up with his rapid expression of new ideas. Through the years his one major theme of teaching has been to be ever conscious of new ideas, and to express them in love for the good of all.
Dr. Landone was a prolific writer, authoring more than 100 books, covering such subjects as Leadership, Civilization, Peace and Religion. Among them are such titles as "Your Path Direct to Your Goal," "The Methods of Truth Which I Use," "Transforming Your Life in 24 Hours," "The A B C of Truth," and "Spiritual Revelations of the Bible."
In June 1940 he started a column in the Winter Park Herald called "The Voice of the World," later changed to "This Changing World." The last printed article of this column appeared on October 19, nine days after his death.
Brown Landone was one of the truly great and interesting characters and early leaders of the New Thought Movement. An active worker in the New Thought Alliance since its beginning, almost every international Congress program bears his name, and always he attracted huge audiences to his Congress lectures. Even though he was in his nineties Dr. Landone came to the INTA Congress in Louisville in 1944, and gave another of his vital messages imploring his listeners to make Divine Love the keynote of the Truth message for the post-war era. He served several terms on the Executive Board of the INTA, and also as District President for the States of New York, New Jersey and Florida.
Dr. Landone was an outstanding Truth teacher for over sixty years. His writings have helped millions, and he undoubtedly had the largest personal following of any teacher that has ever been a part of The New Thought Movement. Thousands of students each week were in touch with him through personal correspondence, and his ability to turn out tremendous quantities of writings, courses, personal letters, etc., always amazed the other teachers in the field.