William Walker Atkinson
William Walker Atkinson
was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and writer, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. He is the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q. Dumont and Yogi Ramacharaka.
He wrote an estimated 100 books, all in the last 30 years of his life. He was mentioned in past editions of Who's Who in America, in Religious Leaders of America, and in similar publications. His works have remained in print more or less continuously since 1900.
Life and career
William Walker Atkinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 5, 1862, to Emma and William Atkinson. He began his working life as a grocer at 15 years old. He married Margret Foster Black of Beverly, New Jersey, in October 1889, and they had two children. Their first child 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.
Mental Science and New Thought
By the early 1890s, Chicago had become a prominent center for the New Thought movement, largely due to the influence of Emma Curtis Hopkins. William Walker Atkinson relocated to the city in 1900 and became involved with Dr. Herbert A. Parkyn's University of Psychic Science, an offshoot of his Chicago School of Psychology. Atkinson enrolled in classes and became increasingly active in its activities.In 1901, Atkinson delivered a series of lectures on personal magnetism at the University and began contributing to Suggestion, a New Thought journal edited by Parkyn. His involvement with the publication grew, and he was eventually appointed assistant editor, working closely with Parkyn. That same year, Atkinson published his 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, published through Parkyn’s University of Psychic Science.
He then met Sydney Flower, who had previously worked for several years with Dr. Parkyn as his business manager and publicist, as well as editor of the Hypnotic Magazine, the unofficial house organ of Dr. Parkyn's Chicago School of Psychology. By that time, Flower had also established himself as a prominent New Thought publisher and entrepreneur, and Atkinson joined him in his publishing ventures. 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 Atkinson School of Mental Science. Both were located in the same building as Flower's Psychic Research and New Thought Publishing Company.
He was responsible for helping to publish the magazines Suggestion, New Thought and Advanced Thought. Atkinson was a past president of the International New Thought Alliance.
Publishing career and use of pseudonyms
Atkinson wrote under many pseudonyms and false personas. His work was released by a series of publishing houses with shared addresses, and these personas wrote for a series of magazines with a shared roster of authors, all edited by Atkinson. His pseudonymous authors acted first as contributors to the periodicals and were then spun off into their own book-writing careers, with most of their books being released by Atkinson's own publishing housesThe magazine Advanced Thought, billed as A Journal of The New Thought, Practical Psychology, Yogi Philosophy, Constructive Occultism, Metaphysical Healing, Etc. was edited by Atkinson, and advertised articles by Atkinson and Theron Q. Dumont—the latter two were later credited to Atkinson—and had the same address as The Yogi Publishing Society, which published the works attributed to Yogi Ramacharaka. Advanced Thought carried articles by Swami Bhakta Vishita, but when it came time for Vishita's writings to be collected in book form, they were not published by the Yogi Publishing Society. Instead they were published by The Advanced Thought Publishing Co., the same house that brought out the Theron Q. Dumont books and published Advanced Thought.
Mail fraud charges
In 1919 the United States Post Office Department investigated Atkinson's "Advanced Thought Publishing Company" and the "Yogi Publishing Company," both operating out of the Masonic Temple in Chicago. The inquiry focused on allegations of misleading advertising and potentially fraudulent use of the mail for the sale of metaphysical books, pseudonymous authorship, and the accuracy of promotional materials, particularly those related to health and astrology.Inspectors raised concerns about several promotional items, including an astrological device called the Planetary Hour Indicator and the book Private Sex Lessons of a Physician, citing exaggerated claims and vague authorship. Testimony revealed that the Yogi Publishing Company had been founded by William Walker Atkinson and unnamed associates and was later sold to Mrs. Ollie Gould, who had previously worked with Sidney B. Flower. The figure "Yogi Ramacharaka" was identified by inspectors as a pseudonym, and Mrs. Gould confirmed that the name did not refer to an actual individual but was used for a series of books authored by Atkinson and unnamed associates. Inspectors also questioned the provenance of other pseudonymous works, such as Zodiac Mysteries, Sex Force, and Secret Doctrines of the Rosicrucians, and noted that authorship and publication information was frequently withheld or misrepresented in correspondence.
The case was settled with the promise to revise promotional materials, cease distributing contested items such as the Planetary Hour Indicator, and remove references to health remedies in future publications.
False personas
In the 1890s, Atkinson became interested in Hinduism. After 1900, he promoted yoga and Oriental occultism in the West.Atkinson claimed to have an Indian co-author, which was common among the New Thought and New Age writers of his era, who often embraced a vaguely exotic theme of "orientalism" in their writings and credited Hindus, Buddhists, or Sikhs with possession of special knowledge and secret techniques of clairvoyance, spiritual development, sexual energy, health, or longevity.
Atkinson started writing a series of books under the name Yogi Ramacharaka in 1903, ultimately releasing more than a dozen titles under this pseudonym. The Ramacharaka books were published by the Yogi Publication Society in Chicago and reached more people than Atkinson's New Thought works did.
Atkinson created two more Indian personas, Swami Bhakta Vishita and Swami Panchadasi. Neither of these identities wrote on Hinduism, instead focusing on divination and mediumship, including "oriental" forms of clairvoyance and seership. Of the two, Swami Bhakta Vishita was more popular, and with more than 30 titles to his credit, he eventually outsold the Yogi Ramacharaka persona.
During the 1910s, Atkinson created another persona, that of Theron Q. Dumont. This entity was supposed to be French, and his works, written in English and published in Chicago, combined an interest in New Thought with ideas about the training of the will, memory enhancement, and personal magnetism.
Dual career and later years
In 1903, the same year that he began his writing career as Yogi Ramacharaka, Atkinson was admitted to the Bar of Illinois.In addition to writing and publishing a steady stream of books and pamphlets, Atkinson started writing articles for Elizabeth Towne's New Thought magazine Nautilus, as early as November 1912, while from 1916 to 1919, he simultaneously edited his own journal Advanced Thought. During this same period he also found time to assume the role of the honorary president of the International New Thought Alliance.
Among the last collaborators with whom Atkinson may have been associated was the mentalist C. Alexander, "The Crystal Seer," whose New Thought booklet of affirmative prayer, Personal Lessons, Codes, and Instructions for Members of the Crystal Silence League, published in Los Angeles during the 1920s, contained on its last page an advertisement for an extensive list of books by Atkinson, Dumont, Ramacharaka, Vishita, and Atkinson's possible collaborator, the cult leader and self styled spiritual authority on occultism, L. W. de Laurence.
Death
Atkinson died November 22, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 69.Writings
Atkinson was a prolific writer whose books achieved wide circulation among New Thought devotees and occult practitioners. He published under several pen names, including Magus Incognito, Theodore Sheldon, Theron Q. Dumont, Swami Panchadasi, Yogi Ramacharaka, Swami Bhakta Vishita, and probably other names not identified. He is also popularly held to be one of the Three Initiates who anonymously authored The Kybalion.A major collection of Atkinson's works is among the holdings of a Brazilian organization called Circulo de Estudos Ramacháraca. According to this group, Atkinson has been identified as the author or co-author of 105 separate titles. These can be broken down roughly into the following groups: