Julia Seton

Born in Illinois in 1862, Julia Seton trained as a doctor, earning her medical degree in Denver and later doing postgraduate study at Tufts Medical College. After practicing medicine, she shifted toward lecturing and writing, blending ideas about health, personal growth, and metaphysical religion in a way that reached a broad early-20th-century audience.

She became a prominent figure in the New Thought movement and founded the Church and School of the New Civilization in 1905. Her lectures and classes expanded from Boston to New York and even London, and her books explored themes such as success, healing, love, and spiritual development.

Seton is also remembered for helping popularize what came to be known as numerology. For listeners interested in classic self-help, metaphysical writing, or the history of New Thought, her work offers a window into a moment when medicine, spirituality, and personal transformation were often discussed together.