What is the Non-profit, Non-denominational Divine Science Church?

The religion named Divine Science was founded in the late 1880s. While it has no direct connection to our Divine Science University there are many similarities in what we each believe.  This article is but a brief exposure to the religion, or faith of this 1880s Divine Science.

Divine Science is based on a belief in the Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omniaction of God.  In other words, the Divine is everywhere, and because it IS everywhere it is all knowing.  It is unlimited in power because it IS ALL power; and IS all action. 

The word omniaction is mainly found in Christian Science writings, where it describes the infinite, all-encompassing activity of God (or divine Mind) with the idea that true action is continuous, harmonious, and proceeds solely from the divine.  Stated in a "science perspective", because the "Big Bang", or whatever the initiation of creation actually was, initiated ALL following action, the creator of this "Big Bang" is within all of the presence, knowledge, power, and action that occurs in the universe following its initiation.

 The Divine Science Religion is associated with Malinda E. Cramer (1844–1906) who was an American minister, author, faith healer, and a key early figure in the New Thought movement. Born Malinda Elliott in Greensboro, Indiana, she suffered chronic illness for decades. After moving to San Francisco in the 1870s and marrying photographer Charles L. Cramer, she experienced a spiritual revelation in 1885 through meditation and prayer that led to her healing. She then began teaching and practicing spiritual healing.

In 1888 she and her husband founded The Home College of Spiritual Science in San Francisco.  Two months after its founding the name was changed to the Church of Divine Science and launched the monthly journal Harmony. In 1892 she established the International Divine Science Association, an early umbrella association for the New Thought Movement which was influenced by a number of earlier ideas such as Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism/hypnotism – Mesmerism. Transcendentalism is also counted among the roots of this movement. 

Transcendentalism was a 19th-century American philosophical, literary, and religious movement that flourished mainly in New England from the 1830s to the 1860s. It emphasized the inherent goodness of people and nature; the primacy of individual intuition and insight over reason, tradition, or organized religion; self-reliance and personal spiritual experience; the essential unity of all creation (often described through ideas like Emerson’s “Over-Soul”), and a deep reverence for nature as a source of truth and divinity.

The movement grew out of a reaction against the materialism of the era and a reaction against both strict scientific empiricism and traditional religious doctrines that focused on sin and punishment. It drew on German Idealism (especially Immanuel Kant), English and German Romanticism, Platonism, and aspects of Eastern religions (such as the Vedas and Hindu texts) 

To me it is interesting that key figures include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller (feminist writer; Woman in the Nineteenth Century) and others such as Theodore Parker, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Elizabeth Peabody. The Trancendentalists formed the informal Transcendental Club in 1836 and published the journal The Dial. Their ideas influenced American literature, environmentalism, individualism, abolitionism, women’s rights, and later civil disobedience movements

The religious movement founded a Divine Science College in Denver in 1898 to train teachers, practitioners, and ministers.  

After Cramer’s death in 1906 (following the San Francisco earthquake), leadership and the movement’s center shifted toward Denver and was led by Nona L. Brooks (until her death in 1945), whose work helped establish an early Divine Science Church in Denver.  

Their teachings are that God is the one infinite, ever-present Life, Mind, Spirit, and Love. It focuses on the “Christ method of healing” and the realization of one’s unity with God, rather than material causation.  

Spiritual growth involves awakening to the divine presence within.  Divine Science’s aim was not simply belief, but the practical realization of unity with God—often described with terms such as Christ-consciousness, and spiritual wholeness.  Their teachings are practical and experiential, aiming for a direct knowing of God and participation in bringing forth greater good. 

The religion emphasizes the omnipresence of God as the foundational truth, teaching that God (understood as limitless Being, pure Spirit, perfect Life, Love, and Substance) is equally present everywhere and constitutes the All of everything – both invisible and visible. This God IS One Mind, Intelligence and Substance; One Spirit, Life and Law. This Mind is the source of all wisdom, love, knowledge, understanding and power.

Man is the expression of God and is forever one with his Source. But, believing in two powers, he thought himself separated from the true Source and came into the bondage of his false beliefs. Hence Divine Science's basic affirmation is: "I accept the Omnipresence without any reserve."

Man's constant application of this basic principle, or fundamental truth of the Allness of God accepting the Omnipresence without any reservation, acknowledging but one Power working always according to Perfect Law frees him from the belief in separation and duality. 

There are three ways to approach Divine Science in their perspective. In one the student learns the different phases of Mind action, both objective and subjective; the power of thought and the result of negative (destructive) and (positive) constructive thinking; the effect of his thought on his emotions; and the effect of resistance, resentment or any negative attitude toward people, circumstances, conditions or events of man's everyday experiences. 

The student learns that wherever man searches, be it with microscope or telescope, he finds evidence of this Intelligence.  The student also learns that all the resources of that Mind are available to man. Every man is an inlet and may be an outlet to the same. In this acknowledgment, we learn there is an unfailing Source of supply for man's every need. 

The more completely man identifies himself with this Mind the more he finds the true Source of an exhaustless store of ideas and an ever increasing awareness of oneness with a great Force, working according to infallible law, for his highest good. This great Force they call the Presence, and in its contemplation man literally "lives, moves and has his being in God." In this great Unity is found the love that holds all within Itself unto Itself. The greatest awareness in this marvelous manifestation is Man is the "image and likeness" of the Limitless. He is here to learn the dominion over himself and to manifest the purpose and power of the invisible God.

Divine Science points out that in the allegory of the Garden of Eden is a portrayal of the Omnipresence; One Presence, Mind or Intelligence creating or coming forth in the visible out of Its own substance. And it was said of each manifestation "it was good", even humanity was deemed “very good.” There was just one thing this manifestation was not to do — to "eat of the tree of good and evil", i.e. conceive for himself a world of duality.

Throughout the remainder of the Bible we find man, through the power of his own choice, working his way out of sense delusion into conscious oneness with his Source made manifest by the man Jesus. In this marvelous manifestation man finds "the Way, the Truth, the Life." Jesus accepted his Sonship, identified with the Father ("I and the Father are one"), proved it by his words and works and identified man with the same Source. The history of the soul in its journey from sense delusion to the realization of its sonship is set forth in the Bible narrative.

Jesus, the original Master of Christ-Consciousness (a state of heightened spiritual awareness in which a person realizes their inherent oneness with the Divine and lives from that higher, divine identity) noted that the law governing this life was simply stated in Mark 12:29–31, and elsewhere, paraphrased here as 1) Love God (THE ALL) with YOUR All; 2) Love those around you with YOUR All. 

This means that the law governing the realm of Reality, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is Love. It is also conscious oneness with ALL. We find in Jesus' teaching the truest psychology as he emphasized the power of thought, the effect thought has on the emotions, the right use of the imaging faculty and the sure working of the law. 

The logical conclusion of the whole matter is: There is one Principle or Fundamental Truth, invisible and visible. Call it Infinite, Spirit, Mind, Energy, God or whatever else man conceives it to be. It is unhindered by name for It is that which is: undefeatable, undefilable, imperishable, infinite and eternal, always working according to the law of Its own nature; a Principle of Life as unfailing as the principle of mathematics. As children of this One Divine Creator, we are all connected to  it - and to each other.

The word science in Divine Science means a disciplined inquiry into—and demonstration of—spiritual principles. 

Divine Science Religion has a number of affiliated Organizational Members around the world and offers Affiliated Schools to train practitioners and ministers, to teach Spiritual Law, and to teach a very practical approach to organizing and running a church.  

It also offers educational works and books for purchase, and will hold a Divine Science Federation Biennial Conference in South Florida for the purpose of providing a dedicated space to deepen your practice, meet like-minded community members, and celebrate our shared journey.  The theme for this conference is "It’s All Good" exploring the profound truth that, in the Divine order, It’s All Good. 

It will be held Sunday, September 20, 2026–Tuesday September 22, 2026.

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The Take Away:  While not affiliated with our Divine Science University, the Divine Science Federation, and its other organizations espouse and promote a reality with which we generally are in agreement. Now we know a bit more about THIS version of Divine Science.