Occult America_ The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz [56]
Calling their racially mixed audience “Beloved,” Robinson extended Holmes’s remarks the next day:
Now, Beloved, when the Almighty created the human race, He created black, white, yellow, and every other color which exists on earth, in one creation. He did not make three or four special jobs of creation, nor did He make several different attributes, one for each nation. He made them all flesh and blood—every human soul that has ever lived on the face of this earth. We are all brothers, regardless of our religious affiliation, our race, or nationality.
While known as a political conservative—Robinson ardently opposed the New Deal and supported each of the Republican challengers to Franklin Roosevelt—here was a religious leader who, together with Holmes, was making social statements that would not become common fare for at least another twenty-five years.
The five-day series was so popular that Robinson made a return engagement three weeks later. And he and Holmes drew up arrangements for Holmes’s seminary, the Institute of Religious Science in Los Angeles, to offer graduate training to students who had already passed through the Psychiana lessons. It was the start of a plan to certify Psychiana teachers and practitioners for a nationwide congregational mission that would take Psychiana beyond its reliance on mail-order lessons or the pronouncements of its charismatic chief. Joint advertising literature was printed, featuring Robinson and Holmes together with the headline When You Have Decided to Enroll for This Teacher’s and Practitioner’s Course, both Ernest Holmes and Dr. Robinson will Help You.
In the end, however, the Holmes–Robinson partnership became little more than a reminder of what might have been. Robinson showed little interest in the face-to-face management of a congregation, preferring instead to work privately on his books, lessons, ads, and radio addresses. Holmes had a growing flock and network of churches and was easily engulfed in his own organizational affairs. The two men drifted apart.
It is one of the more intriguing “what ifs?” of twentieth-century religious history to consider the possibilities had they remained together. Between Robinson’s millions-strong reach and Holmes’s well-established seminary and churches, it is possible that Psychiana might have survived the death of its founder, perhaps becoming the galvanizing force of New Thought’s disparate flock. But by the time of Robinson’s death—about seven years from the day that he and Holmes first spoke together—the organization foundered and then collapsed.
Remains of the Day
A large, athletic man, Robinson nonetheless had a weak heart. A series of cardiac failures in the mid-1940s caught up with him on October 19, 1948, when he died at sixty-two. Shocked followers flooded the Psychiana offices with telegrams of condolence, mourning the man who many said gave them a fresh start in life. Where, some wondered, would the movement find its new voice? Robinson’s son, Alfred, stepped forward to run the operation, but he lacked the obsessive passion that drove his father. With new students dwindling and bills mounting, the family closed Psychiana’s doors by the end of 1952.
The memories quickly faded. When the Daily Idahonian—which the Robinson family partly owned—ran a history of the town of Moscow in 1961, not one word appeared about Frank B. Robinson or Psychiana. It was as if neither had ever existed. What caused Psychiana’s abrupt fall? Several factors seem paramount.
With the exception of his son, Robinson cultivated no deputies. And, in the absence of independent congregations, no leaders emerged naturally. He was a messenger without apostles.