These pages are dedicated to Dr. Julia Seton, founder of the New Civilization Center and School, who was an important figure in the development of the New Thought movement from an esoteric-metaphysical perspective and had a significant influence on Fenwick and Ernest Holmes, founders of the Religious Science movement. She brought the Ancient Wisdom into practical use in the modern age. The philosophies and secret doctrines of Egypt, India, and Greece were as familiar to her as if she had been an initiate in the ancient temples and schools of philosophy, such as Zoroaster, Osiris, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato.
Julia Seton was born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1862. She trained as a physician in Boston and returned to Colorado to practice medicine there. (She had visited Colorado as a sick child and recovered from tuberculosis.) She was a dynamic attraction at the San Francisco World's Fair. She established several New Civilization Centers throughout the world. She was married to Franklin Warren Sears for twelve years between 1902 and 1914, to whom she taught the philosophy of New Thought. He later branched out as a New Thought teacher and writer in his own right, after which the couple divorced and went their separate ways. In 1937, she founded the New Civilization Center in Ocala, Florida. Seton was active in creating the New Civilization City Foundation, a non-profit association for all humanity.
Dr. Seton lectured around the world twice, speaking in America, England, Australia, New Zealand, and other English-speaking countries or communities. Everywhere she went, the masses followed her. She rented the Strand Theatre in Los Angeles and filled it to capacity night after night. She was instrumental in bringing Fenwick Holmes to the New Thought Alliance in Boston, where he gave a speech, and through her influence he became a special lecturer at the League for the Larger Life, an organization of New York and Brooklyn leaders and writers. Julia Seton enjoyed writing poetry and encouraged Fenwicke in that field as well.
Julia Seton wrote a number of books, including: Free Conversations (1906); The Science of Success (1914); Destiny, a New Novel of Thought (1917); Fundamental Principles of a New Civilization (1914); The Key to Health, Wealth and Love (1917); Songs for a New Day (1953). Julia Seton died in Ocala, Florida, on April 25, 1950.
EDITOR - JÁN MASTER