Emmet Fox
(July 30, 1886 – August 13, 1951)
About New Thought Author Emmet Fox
Emmet Fox was a New Thought and spiritual leader, teacher, healer, author, minister, mystic thinker of the early 20th century. He was mostly known for his large Divine Science church services held in New York City during the Great Depression. Fox was born in Ireland. His father was a physician and a member of Parlament, and died before Fox was a young boy. Fox attended St. Ignatius' College, a Jesuit secondary school near Stamford Hill. He became an electrical engineer. Howevre, he would discover early on that he had a unique healing power, and from the time of his late teens onward he studied New Thought. He came to know the prominent New Thought writer Thomas Troward.
In 1914, Emmet Fox attended the London meeting at which the International New Thought Alliance was organized. He gave his first New Thought talk in Mortimer Hall in London in 1928. Soon after, he trav4eled to the United States, and in 1931, he was selected to become the successor to James Murray as the minister of New York's Divine Science Church of Healing Christ. Fox became immensely popular and spoke to large church audiences during the Great Depression; he would hold weekly services for up to 5,500 people at the New York Hippodrome until 1938 and subsequently at Carnegie Hall. Around this time Emmet Fox was also ordained in yhe Divine Science branch of New Thought.
Fox's secretary was the mother of one of the men who worked with Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill W., and partly as a result of this connection early AA groups often went to hear Fox. His writing, especially "The Sermon on the Mount," became popular in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
The theme of Fox's teachings was "Life is Consciousness and we are what we think'. He ephasized that if we want to change our life, we must change our thoughts first. We set forth our own destiny by our own thought, words, and actions; he taught that there is only one presence and poewr in the universe--which is God--and that all else is an illusion. He gave us the Golden Key, "Love is by far the most important thing of all; It is the golden gate of paradise. Pray for the understanding of Love, and meditate upon it daily. It casts out fear. It is the fulfilling of the law. Love is absolute invincible."
Emmet Fox was perhaps the most influential of the New Thought leaders because he attracted large audiences for long into his career. He had a talent for speaking and writing with in a dymanic way with great clarity, and his message was simply and direct. His objective, as a New Thought teacher had been, not to establish yet another religion, or set of religious doctrines, but to encourage individuals, whether they attend church or not, to develop their own creative power and to personally understand what God is, and what God is all about, and then to be able to relate that to their own lives ins ome meaningful way.
"Sooner or later you will have to put God first in your life, God must become the only thing that really matters. It need not be and better not be the only thing in your life, but it must be the first thing. when that happens your life becomes simple, richer and infinitely more worthwhile."--Emmet Fox
Published writings by Emmet Fox:
Resources:
Quotes by Emmet Fox
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