William Walker Atkinson Archive

William Walker Atkinson Archive
William Walker Atkinson Archive

William Walker Atkinson – The Arcane Teaching

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Art of Logical Thinking

 

William Walker Atkinson – Dynamic Thought or The Law of Vibrant Energy

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Inner Consciousness, Your Greater Self

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Law Of The New Thought

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Mastery Of Being

 

William Walker Atkinson – Memory How to Develop, Train and Use It

 

William Walker Atkinson – Mental Fascination, Reveals The Fantastic Powers of The Mind

 

William Walker Atkinson – Mind and Body or Mental States and Physical Conditions

 

William Walker Atkinson – Mind Power – The Secret of Mental Magic

 

William Walker Atkinson – New Thought Its History and Principles

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Art of Expression and the Principles of Discourse

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Personal Power; or, Your Master Self Vol I of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Creative Power or Your Constructive Forces Vol II of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Desire Power; or, your Energizing Forces Vol III of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Faith Power or Your Inspirational Forces Vol IV of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Will Power or Your Dynamic Forces Vol V of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Subconscious Power or Your Secret Forces Vol VI of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Spiritual Power or The Infinite Fount Vol VII of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Thought Power or Radio‑Mentalism Vol VIII of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Perceptive Power or The Art of Observation Vol IX of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Reasoning Power or Practical Logic Vol X of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Character Power or Positive Individuality Vol XI of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson, Edward Beals – Personal Power – Regenerative Power or Vital Rejuvenation Vol XII of XII

 

William Walker Atkinson – Practical Mental Influence

 

William Walker Atkinson – Practical Mind Reading

 

William Walker Atkinson – Practical Psychomancy and Crystal Gazing

 

William Walker Atkinson – Reincarnation And The Law Of Karma

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Secret of Success

 

William Walker Atkinson – Self Healing By Thought Force

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Subconscious and The Superconscious Planes Of Mind

 

William Walker Atkinson – Suggestion and Auto Suggestion

 

William Walker Atkinson – Telepathy Its Theory, Facts and Proof

 

William Walker Atkinson – Thought Vibration or The Law of Attraction in the Thought World

 

William Walker Atkinson – The Will, Its Nature, Power and Development

 

 

William Walker Atkinson
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, The United States December 05, 1862
DiedNovember 22, 1932
GenreSpirituality, Religion, Philosophy

 

William Walker Atkinson (December 5, 1862 – November 22, 1932) was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q. Dumont, Swami Panchadasi and Yogi Ramacharaka and others.

Due in part to Atkinson’s intense personal secrecy and extensive use of pseudonyms, he is now largely forgotten, despite having obtained mention in past editions of Who’s Who in America, Religious Leaders of America, and several similar publications—and having written more than 100 books in the last 30 years of his life. His works have remained in print more or less continuously since 1900.

William Walker Atkinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 5, 1862, to William and Emma Atkinson. He began his working life as a grocer at 15 years old, probably helping his father. He married Margret Foster Black of Beverly, New Jersey, in October 1889, and they had two children. The first probably died young. The second later married and had two daughters.

Atkinson pursued a business career from 1882 onwards and in 1894 he was admitted as an attorney to the Bar of Pennsylvania. While he gained much material success in his profession as a lawyer, the stress and over-strain eventually took its toll, and during this time he experienced a complete physical and mental breakdown, and financial disaster. He looked for healing and in the late 1880s he found it with New Thought, later attributing the restoration of his health, mental vigor and material prosperity to the application of the principles of New Thought.

Some time after his healing, Atkinson began to write articles on the truths he felt he had discovered, which were then known as Mental Science. In 1889, an article by him entitled “A Mental Science Catechism,” appeared in Charles Fillmore’s new periodical, Modern Thought.

By the early 1890s Chicago had become a major centre for New Thought, mainly through the work of Emma Curtis Hopkins, and Atkinson decided to move there. Once in the city, he became an active promoter of the movement as an editor and author. He was responsible for publishing the magazines Suggestion (1900–1901), New Thought (1901–1905) and Advanced Thought (1906–1916).

In 1900 Atkinson worked as an associate editor of Suggestion, a New Thought Journal, and wrote his probable first book, Thought-Force in Business and Everyday Life, being a series of lessons in personal magnetism, psychic influence, thought-force, concentration, will-power, and practical mental science.

He then met Sydney Flower, a well-known New Thought publisher and businessman, and teamed up with him. In December, 1901 he assumed editorship of Flower’s popular New Thought magazine, a post which he held until 1905. During these years he built for himself an enduring place in the hearts of its readers. Article after article flowed from his pen. Meanwhile he also founded his own Psychic Club and the so-called “Atkinson School of Mental Science”. Both were located in the same building as Flower’s Psychic Research and New Thought Publishing Company.

Atkinson was a past president of the International New Thought Alliance.

Throughout his subsequent career, Atkinson wrote and published under his own name and many pseudonyms. It is not known whether he ever acknowledged authorship of these pseudonymous works, but all of the supposedly independent authors whose writings are now credited to Atkinson were linked to one another by virtue of the fact that their works were released by a series of publishing houses with shared addresses and they also wrote for a series of magazines with a shared roster of authors.