William Walker Atkinson (December 5, 1862 - November 22, 1932) was a very important and influential American figure in the early days of the New Thought Movement. He was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of New Thought, which is in fact the title of a magazine he edited at one time. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q. Dumont and Yogi Ramacharaka.
Atkinson's 1906 book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World, is associated with the thinking behind the recent phenomena surrounding the 2006 movie, The Secret.
Due in part to his 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.
William Walker Atkinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 5, 1862, to William and Emma Atkinson, both of whom were also born in Maryland. He began his working life as a grocer at 15 years old, probably helping his father. He married Margret Foster Black of Beverley, New Jersey, on 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. From mental and physical wreck and financial ruin, he wrought perfect health, mental vigor and material prosperity, which he attributed 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.
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