Holmes wrote more than twenty books, lectured for fifty years around the world, and frequently spoke on radio and television.
Early life
Born on a farm near Lincoln, Maine in 1883, Fenwicke was one of nine boys. Despite coming from a poor family, the older boys in the family were admitted to Gould Academy, a private school in Bethel, 70 miles from their home. A teacher at the school urged Fenwicke to attend Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he graduated from with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1906. There he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and served as editor of the Oracle yearbook.[2] He married novelist Katharine Eggleston in the early 1920s.
In Venice, Fenwicke founded a Congregational Church where he ministered for six years. The next year he convinced his brother Ernest to join him, and in 1912, he did. The brothers began extensively studying New Thought, in particular the ideas of Thomas Troward, and a few years later, New Thought leader Christian D. Larson. In 1917, Fenwicke resigned from the Congregational Church. During this time he was heavily influenced by the writings of New Thought movement leader William Walker Atkinson.[4] He and Ernest opened the short-lived Metaphysical Sanitarium in Long Beach, California, that year, too. It closed in 1918.
Soon after the brothers founded Uplift, a magazine somewhat critical of traditional New Thought, and began speaking throughout the Los Angeles area.[5] Fenwicke published his first book, The Law of Mind in Action, in 1919. When Dr. Julia Seton Sears, noted New Thought lecturer and author, had urged one of the brothers to attend the International New Thought Alliance in Boston, Massachusetts, and Fenwicke attended. Soon after Seton had Fenwicke appointed as a special lecturer at the League for the Larger Life in New York City. Fenwicke is attributed as the director of a 1921 film called The Offenders.
According to Washburn and deLong's Book "High and Low Financiers" [6] Fenwicke Holmes was investigated by the Securities Bureau of New York during the 1920s for various stock swindles, mostly relating to defunct or worthless mining companies, and eventually indicted. At the time of the US stock market crash and financial collapse of share markets by 1930, Holmes's legal issues were widely reported by the New York Times.[7]
In 1927, Fenwicke helped Ernest found the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy as a means of spreading their teachings.[8] After that he ministered at the Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ in New York City until 1934. Then, Fenwick and his wife moved to Santa Monica, California, where he became president of the International College of Mental Science and continued lecturing.
^Melton, J.G. (1999) Religious leaders of America: A biographical guide to founders and leaders of religious bodies, churches, and spiritual groups in North America. Gale Research. p 28.
^Frankiel, T. (1988) California's spiritual frontiers: Religious alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910. University of California Press. p 156.
^Washburn, de Long High and Low Financiers Bobbs Merrill pub 1930, pp 41-59
^New York Times Feb 6 1930 State Bureau Investigates Merger of Mining Companies
^Albanese, C.L. (2007) A republic of mind and spirit: A cultural history of American metaphysical religion. Yale University Press. p 429.