Literary Works
The Golden Key
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A six page pamphlet by Emmet Fox, first published June 1, 1931 by DeVorss & Company. It teaches a single practical method: when a problem occupies the mind, stop thinking about the problem itself and turn attention toward God, on the premise that a changed focus of attention changes the outcome. According to DeVorss's own listing and independent secondary accounts, it has been reprinted continuously since 1931 and translated into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and Hindustani, reportedly selling in the millions of copies across those editions.
Facts
Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterA New Thought prayer method as taught within Divine Science: redirecting attention from a difficulty toward God rather than continuing to dwell on the difficulty itself, on the premise that thought directed rightly shapes circumstance. 1 Scholarly ReceptionReported by DeVorss's own listing and by independent secondary accounts as Fox's most widely reprinted single work, translated into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and Hindustani and cited as an influence on later popular spiritual writers including Wayne Dyer, Esther Hicks and Louise Hay. The specific millions of copies figure could not be independently traced to a primary sales record and is reported here as a claim made in secondary accounts rather than an atlas assertion. 1 Production
Publication Year AuthorEmmet Fox, ordained a minister of Divine Science in 1931 by Rev. Nona Brooks and at the time of writing the serving pastor of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ, New York. 2 Place of OriginNew York City, where Fox was serving as pastor of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ; published by DeVorss & Company. 1 Learn More
Six Pages from a Divine Science Pulpit, Read in Seven Languages
Emmet Fox published The Golden Key on June 1, 1931, the same year Nona Brooks ordained him into Divine Science and set him on the path to the Hippodrome pulpit. The pamphlet is six pages long and teaches one method: when a problem will not leave the mind, stop giving it attention and turn attention to God instead, on the premise that a mind occupied with God rather than with the difficulty finds the difficulty resolving itself.
That is a small claim for a text DeVorss & Company has kept in continuous print for nearly a century, and it undersells the reach the pamphlet actually had. Secondary accounts report translations into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and Hindustani, the last reaching readers well outside any market Divine Science's own congregations ever served, and later popular spiritual writers including Wayne Dyer, Esther Hicks and Louise Hay have named it as an influence on their own work. The precise sales total reported in the millions could not be traced to a primary publisher's record and is carried here as a reported figure rather than a counted one.
Read next to The Sermon on the Mount, published three years later from the same pulpit, The Golden Key makes the same point Fox's longer book makes about Divine Science's own teaching that thought directed rightly shapes circumstance, compressed to its shortest possible statement and handed to readers who mostly never knew, and did not need to know, which denomination's minister had written it.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Portuguese directly: "into French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian and Hindustani, reportedly selling in the millions of copies across those editions."
Belongs to Tradition
Written by Emmet Fox while he was the ordained, serving minister of Divine Science Church of the Healing Christ, New York, a fact the denomination's own ministers association records without qualification.
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