Frederick L. Rawson
(1859-1923)
About New Thought Author Frederick L. Rawson
Frederick L. Rawson
was an Influential English New Thought Leader. He was a brother to a great engineer in England. F. L. Rawson took 100 men into world war one. They all returned without a scratch on any of them. "There is nothing but God." was his statement to that miracle. "There is nothing but God in God's perfect world. Man is the image, the likeness, passing on God's ideas to his fellow man with perfect regularity and ease."
F. L. Rawson was born in England in 1859. Like many other leaders in the field of New Thought, was not a clergyman. He was an engineer and businessman. he became a distinguished practicing engineer, had achieved a marked success in his profession as consultant and as businessman, and had retired before he founded the Society for Spreading the Knowledge of True Prayer. Among other things, he was a pioneer in the field of the practical use of electricity and engineer of the first company in the field of electrical lighting, even laying the first electric railway in England. He had other interests; even drawing up plans for the first gas-driven automobile and was consulting engineer for the first airship built in Britain. Rawson had the respect of serious minded scientists of his day. he also excelled at various sports and was the first violinist in an orchestra for more than a dozen years.
He was widely knowledgible in the fields of science and philosophy, and it was through his scientific interest in the remarkable claims made in the area of religion and the occult which led to him studying them extensively to discover the truth for himself.
In the late 1880's, Christian Science had emerged in Britian with considerable success. Rawson was commisioned to make a study of this cult and write a series of articles about it. Rawson accepted the assignment and began a stufdy of Christian Science, only to become fully convinced of its truth and eventually became an ardent Christian Scientist himself. Eventually he would part ways with the church to begin his own work; this ultimately grew into one of the most active and influential metaphysical healing groups in England, affiliating himself with the growing New Thought Movement.
In 1914, Frederick L.Rawson attended the first meeting of the International New Thought Alliance, held in London; it is here where he would become personally aquainted with the very influential English New Thought author, Thomas Troward. In 1916, he began a weekly publication called Active Service. The first words of the masthead of the weekly paper read: "A weekly paper devoted to the spreading of the knowledge of the truth. Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free."
In 1917, Rawson set up an orgination called the Society for Spreading the Knowledge of True Prayer (SSKTP); the method of prayer was to be that of the realization of and conscious communion with God. He lectured to larger audiences throughout the British Isles. In 1920 he made an extended tour of the United States and Canada, lecturing and giving class instruction and treatments. Later that year, Rawson was arrested in St. Louis near the end of his healing and teaching tour. He was charged with practicing medicine without a licence and was released with charged dropped as long as he promised to refrain from the healing sessions.
Although Rawson's basic outlook was distinctly Christian Science based, he co-operated enthusiastically with the various New Thought groups. He was a great scientist himself, and entertained a number of ideas--one of these being that the British and the Americans were the true Israel--that is, he held the expunded Anglo-Israel theory, which commended itself to a good many within the New Thought and the metaphysical field in general (one other being, Mary Baker Eddy).
Frederick L. Rawson passed away in 1923, but the SSKTP movement that he founded went on and his magazine Active Service continued publication up until the 1960's.
Resources:
Frederick L. Lawson and the Christian Science Movement
Quotes by Frederick L. Rawson
<< Previous Page
Next Page>>
