Draft:DeVorss & Company

DeVorss & Company is a publishing house based in the Los Angeles area which specializes in body, mind, spirit and self-help books. They currently have over 450 titles in print under the trademark “DeVorss Publications”, and have 120 Ebooks in print. The publishing house was founded by Douglas Kimball DeVorss over 90 years ago, in 1929 under the company New Thought philosophy.

The books distributed and published with DeVorss teach health between mind and body, human empowerment, prosperity, and this new way of consciousness. Los Angeles, at the time, already had many established centers under this philosophy.

DeVorss’ top seller continues to be the six-volume boxed set, Life & Teaching of the Masters of the Far East.



History
Douglas DeVorss was introduced to a new way of thinking, as his mother was a Unity practitioner at the Unity School in Kansas City. The Unity School in Kansas City was, and remains to this day, an outpost for the New Thought philosophy. He began to work at the Unity when he was 20 years old, where he noticed the books published here were only for their own organizational writings. DeVorss decided to move to Los Angeles, where he saw a market for metaphysical books from other publishers.

In 1929, on the very eve of the Great Depression, Doug took leave of Unity and set out for the West Coast to follow his dream of starting a company to enlighten the world to a new way of thinking. A local newspaper described his departure:

KANSAS CITY, MO: We have just learned that another Unity worker has decided to try life in the golden state of California. Doug DeVorss will go to Los Angeles August 15 where he may open his own office for promoting the sale of Truth publications. . . . . We have much for which to thank Doug, because his patience and pep have made the sales department at Unity what it is today – well-organized and efficient. Also, it is through his untiring efforts that the magazines are on the newsstands today.

DeVorss' journey, that he was soon to embark upon, would not only confront him with the financial challenges of starting a new business, but that he was doing this on the brink of perhaps the darkest period in America’s economic history. “Truth publications” would find much use in the years ahead.

He began his enterprise by calling it the “Metaphysical Capital of the World”. The interest in the novels he published was very high, as not only was Southern California undergoing a spiritual renaissance, the Great Depression needed people to find hope for prosperity to come.

At that time, there already were quite a few centers, institutes, and even churches that taught a new, “metaphysical,” brand of philosophy and spirituality. Today the market has expanded to include New Age Bookstores, Centers, New Thought Churches as well as many general trade bookstores around the world.

Unity School of Thought
One of the outposts of this new way of thinking and doing is Unity School in Kansas City. It was up and running more than a century ago, with a spreading network of centers and its own publishing operation that included books and magazines. One of Unity’s monthlies, Wee Wisdom, was in fact the first children’s magazine in America.

Douglas DeVorss did not write for Wee Wisdom. His mother was a Unity practitioner – one of those men and women to whom the faithful of that New Age could turn for guidance and for healing therapy of the “hands off” kind: purely mental/spiritual. Doug’s upbringing was of that kind, and so when he was 20 years old he went to work for Unity.

The Metaphysical / New Thought market had been pioneered in the 19th century by such best-selling authors as Warren Felt Evans, who wrote The Mental Cure in 1869 – regarded by many as the first “modern” book in the New Thought tradition.

In this and his five other books, all published before 1886, Evans taught an integrated, holistic spirituality that included the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of life, while departing from religious and medical orthodoxy in important ways but they were radical ideas at the time.

Unity’s publications were naturally confined to their organizational writings, serving their denominational needs, and targeting their own market. Doug DeVorss, from his vantage point as head of sales, saw a bigger picture: not just Unity books, but the books of other publishers who were discovering the growing market for “metaphysical” books. And it would not be Kansas City any more: the “capital” for this kind of interest was already on the map and had been for some time: Los Angeles.

Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s was a storybook place. Besides Science of Mind, Self-Realization, and Philosophical Research Society, DeVorss added to the color and legend by creating a “Metaphysical Capital of the World” – his own name for the new publishing and distribution enterprise he was launching. His market awaited him with open arms: the tremendous interest in novel religious teachings and philosophies that one could almost breathe in the Southern California spiritual climate was at its peak. Bookshops and department stores poured in their orders, adding to those from the book outlets of the many churches and institutions.

There was the eventual crossing of paths of “the” author and “the” publisher. DeVorss was the publisher; the author was Baird T. Spalding, who a few years before DeVorss’ arrival in LA had arranged for a small, paperback printing of his two volumes entitled Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East – “a breakthrough in Western spirituality,” according to a recent New Age newspaper account; “a landmark work in spiritual literature.”

These words typify the praise that has been heaped upon the Life and Teaching books for three-quarters of a century. Doug DeVorss was quick to see in the slender volumes these same merits and the New Age in all its fullness: spiritual values and healing techniques transcending time, space, theology, and medicine – set against the exotic backdrop of an expedition to India in 1894 by Spalding, one of the most brilliant yet enigmatic seers of recent times.

There was also a publishing phenomenon that started. It started from a private printing and word-of-mouth publicity, and ending up in worldwide translation, with millions of copies sold.

DeVorss liked to tell the story, "I have been told by people who knew Mr. Spalding in Calcutta, India, in the early nineties that he decided to write out in longhand some of the accounts of his experiences in India." Some friends asked him to type it and let them have copies, and for many years he carried these typewritten accounts (of what later became Volume 1 of the now 6-volume set) with him. People would read them and pass them among themselves until, finally, a very prominent woman in Oakland, California, whose husband was the builder of the Oakland Municipal Railway, asked Mr. Spalding if he would have any objection to her having her printer, the California Press in San Francisco, print a thousand copies of this work in an inexpensive paper binding; she wanted to give every one of her friends a copy of that book. Mr. Spalding gave his consent and soon after this he left for England.

The books were printed and passed among her friends, as a gift. Within about 60 days, phenomenally as it seemed, more than 20,000 orders were received for copies of that book. When Mr. Spalding returned from England, of course he was astonished at the interest in his discoveries and experiences, so he permitted her to have the balance of the work published, which became know as Volume 2."

As for Baird Spalding, he was already 70 years old when his second volume came out in 1927. He was shy, highly reclusive, and often far afield exploring mining properties in the desert Southwest. He would return every few years to the task of telling the story of the 1894 sojourn. These had been encounters with spiritual guides who broke the molds of orthodoxy and tradition in Western spiritual philosophy, revealing an empowerment available to the individual for living life on nothing less than the Masters’ own level.

Spalding and Doug DeVorss gradually embarked on a kind of partnership in which DeVorss bought up volumes 1 and 2 and then urged Spalding to complete his story in a third volume. This was published in 1935 on the eve of Spalding’s return trip to India in the company of 18 fellow-travelers and seekers. Over the years to come Spalding continued writing material to help the readers understand his findings on a deeper level. There emerged volumes 4,5, and eventually, 6 in 1997 compiled from previously unpublished material Doug DeVorss had stored away since the early 50s. For generations, readers have been searching for more information about Baird T. Spalding and his masterwork.

Recently, while arranging stock in the warehouse, a DeVorss employee came upon ten dusty cartons that were never suspected to contain anything more than old proofs, invoices, and correspondence relating to Baird Spalding’s books.

A DeVorss editor began sorting through the cartons. He found unpublished Spalding manuscripts, papers, magazine articles, personal letters, photographs, and other biographical materials relating to the legendary figure. This discovery of unsuspected writings, rare articles, letters and photographs is now available in volume 6.

During DeVorss’ lifetime, and afterwards as his legacy, this genre of books would continue to characterize the company’s publishing and distribution activities. Subsequent titles continue to uphold Doug DeVorss’s publishing focus such as The Infinite Way, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity, Living the Science of Mind, and Your Mind Can Heal You.



Numerous other successful titles in this burgeoning field were also signed by DeVorss. Prominent among these: The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ; The Impersonal Life; and Quiet Talks with the Master.

DeVorss today
It has been over 90 years since DeVorss set up in the Los Angeles area as a publisher of Mind, Body, and Spirit books. At that time, the term was New Thought, and Los Angeles was already home to many centers, institutes, and churches that taught a new, “metaphysical,” brand of philosophy and spirituality.

It all had very much to do with health (maintenance and healing) in terms of the mind, body and spirit relationship; human empowerment from inner resources; prosperity and abundance,  and the emergence of a new era fashioned by a new consciousness. To this end, the millennia-old Eastern teaching of Karma was dusted off, rehabbed, and Westernized: a “universal law” that fashions experiences of every kind out of habitual thoughts and feelings. Change these thoughts and feelings, and life changes with them: it is the Law; and it can be used now.

There were those who felt that this was muscling in on God’s business and so it was neatly explained that God is to be found within, and that the individual is God “in person.” Waking up to this God within was part of what it was all about and this is a rather Eastern ideal. To do something with it was the rest of what it was about is a very Western ideal

DeVorss & Company took a very dramatic turn in 1953 when word came of Spalding’s death while he was prospecting in Arizona. Coping with the loss of his best-selling author, Doug DeVorss died suddenly in a dreadful accident in the DeVorss offices. For fifteen years thereafter, DeVorss & Company was managed by an executive under arrangements with DeVorss’ estate until 1968, when Arthur Peattie was appointed manager. Within a year, he hired Hedda Lark and the two of them led the company to great success. Two years after acquiring the company in 1981 from the estate, Arthur Peattie died, leaving his wife Mary, son Gary, and Hedda Lark to manage DeVorss & Company. Today, Gary still manages the company and the headquarters are currently located in Camarillo, California.

In all those years, the company remained faithful to what DeVorss and Spalding had initiated. As early as the fateful year of 1953, Spalding’s eulogist observed that “a New Age of spiritual understanding had been born” and credited Spalding with having “ushered in the New Age spiritual concept” with the first appearance of his books in the 1920s

Today, 150 years after Evans’ The Mental Cure and 90 years from the founding of DeVorss & Company in rented rooms at the Embassy Hotel in Los Angeles, to its present-day offices in Camarillo, California, the company continues to publish mind, body, spirit and self-help books that help people explore their inherent spiritual nature.

Bodhi Tree Bookstore
One of the key relationships the publishing house made within Los Angeles was with the Bodhi Tree Bookstore. The bookstore opened in the 1970s and specialized in selling books teaching metaphysics, wisdom traditions, Buddhism, and philosophy.

Special editions
DeVorss published a special Graceland edition of The Impersonal Life by Joseph Benner in 2001 which featured Elvis Presley on the cover.

Noted books
Books labeled with an * are on DeVorss & Company's best selling list


 * Life and Teachings of the Far East (1924) by Baird T. Spalding *
 * The Rules (1995) by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider *
 * The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (1908) by Levi H. Dowling *
 * The Impersonal Life (1914) by Joseph Benner *
 * Quiet Talks with the Master (1936) by Eva B Werber
 * The Infinite Way (1947) by Joel S. Goldsmith *
 * Little Green Apples: God Really Did Make Them! (2003) by O.C. Smith
 * The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (1962) by Catherine Ponder
 * The Neville Reader by Neville *
 * Living the Science of the Mind (1984) by Ernest Holmes *
 * Your Mind Can Heal You (1941) by Frederick Bailes
 * Touch of Health by John Thie *
 * The Invisible String (2000) Patrice Karst *
 * It Works (1926) by Roy Herbert Jarrett *
 * The Game of Life and How to Play it (1925) by Florence Scovel Shinn *
 * Your Word is Your Wand (1928) by Florence Scovel Shinn
 * The Golden Key #1 (1931) by Emmet Fox *
 * The Lord’s Prayer #3 (1932) by Emmet Fox
 * You too can be Prosperous (1950) by Robert A. Russell
 * Working with the Law (2005) by Raymond Hollwell
 * As a Man Thinketh (1907) by James Allen *
 * A Course of Love (2019) by Mari Perron
 * The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity (1962) by Catherine Ponder
 * The Dynamic Laws of Healing (1966) by Catherine Ponder
 * The Dynamic Laws of Prayer (1987) by Catherine Ponder
 * The Prospering Power of Love (2007) by Catherine Ponder
 * Numerology (1965) by Juno Jordan
 * Living Enlightened (2023) by Elizabeth Cantley
 * Book of Solace (2023) by Anja Steesig
 * You are like a Seed (2019) Michael Madsen
 * The Technology of Intention (2020) by Kim Stanwood Terranova
 * A Guide for the Advanced Soul (1984) by Susan Hayward
 * Five Steps to Freedom (2003) by John Waterhouse
 * The Power of Unlimited Imagination (2015) by Neville Goddard
 * As a Woman Thinketh (1985) by Dorthy Hulst
 * Thirty-Day Mental Diet (1963) by Willis Kinnear