One of several 19th-century “science” religions. Divine Science was founded in 1888 by Melinda Cramer, a former Quaker residing in San Francisco in the 1880s. She seems to have absorbed Christian Science from two of Mary Baker Eddy’s students, Miranda Rice, who opened an office as a Christian Science practitioner in San Francisco in 1883, and Emma Curtis Hopkins, a student of Mary Baker Eddy, who taught a basic class in Christian Science healing in San Francisco in 1887. Cramer developed her own synthesis, which was distinct from the levels of both Eddy and Hopkins, and took as its main theme the omnipresence of God. Divine Science Developed’a second main center in Denver and, following Cramer’s death in 1906 (the result of an accident she experienced during the San Francisco earthquake), the center of the movement moved to Colorado, where it has since remained.
Divine Scientists have seen in their teachings a union of reason and faith. To them “divine” indicates that the truth proceeds directly from God and hence is inspired and excellent in the highest degree. “Science” indicates that it contains comprehensive information. Science investigates truth for truth’s sake. It rejects disjointed and unsupported facts, and embodies only those which are proven. According to Fannie James, the original Divine Science leader in Denver, Divine Science is scientific because its teachings are proved in our experience for example, the experience of physical healing.