Atkinson was a prolific writer, and his many books achieved wide circulation among New Thought devotees and occult practitioners. He published under several pen names, including Magus Incognito, Theodore Sheldon, Theron Q. Dumont, Swami Panchadasi, Yogi Ramacharaka, Swami Bhakta Vishita, and probably other names not identified at present. He is also popularly held to be one (if not all) of the Three Initiates who anonymously authored
The Kybalion, which certainly resembles Atkinson's other writings in style and subject matter. Atkinson's two co-authors in the latter venture, if they even existed, are unknown, but speculation often includes names like Mabel Collins, Michael Whitty, Paul Foster Case, and Harriett Case.
A major collection of Atkinson's works is among the holdings of a Brazilian organization called Circulo de Estudos Ramacháraca. According to this group, Atkinson has been identified as the author or co-author (with individuals such as Edward E. Beals and Lauron William de Laurence) of 105 separate titles. These can be broken down roughly into the following groups:
Titles written under the name William Walker Atkinson
These works treat themes related to the mental world, occultism, divination, psychic reality, and mankind's nature. They constitute a basis for what Atkinson called "New Psychology" or "New Thought". Titles include
Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World, and
Practical Psychomancy and Crystal Gazing: A Course of Lessons on the Psychic Phenomena of Distant Sensing, Clairvoyance, Psychometry, Crystal Gazing, etc.Although most of the Atkinson titles were published by Atkinson's own Advanced Thought Publishing Company in Chicago, with English distribution by L. N. Fowler of London, England, at least a few of his books in the "New Psychology" series were published by Elizabeth Towne in Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, and offered for sale in her New Thought magazine
The Nautilus. One such title, for which Atkinson is credited as the author, with the copyright internally assigned to Towne, is
The Psychology of Salesmanship, published in 1912. The probable reason that Atkinson made an assignment of copyright to Towne is that his "New Psychology" books had initially been serialized in Towne's magazine, where he was a freelance writer from 1912 at least through 1914.
Titles written under pseudonyms
These include Atkinson's teachings on Yoga and Oriental philosophy, as well as New Thought and occult titles. They were written in such a way as to form a course of practical instruction.
Yogi Ramacharaka titles
When Atkinson wrote under the pseudonym Yogi Ramachakara, he claimed to be a Hindu.As Ramacharaka, he helped to popularize Eastern concepts in America, withYoga and a broadly-interpreted Hinduism being particular areas of focus.The works of Yogi Ramacharaka were published over the course of nearly ten years beginning in 1903. Some were originally issued as a series of lectures delivered at the frequency of one lesson per month. Additional material was issued at each interval in the form of supplementary textbooks.
Ramacharaka's
Advanced Course in Yoga Philosophy and Oriental Occultism remains widely respected as an excellent primer for the Western layman, despite the fact that it was 100 years old in 2004 and is understandably dated in some respects.
According to Atkinson's publisher, the Yogi Publication Society, some of these titles were inspired by a student of the "real" Yogi Ramacharaka, Baba Bharata, although there is no historical record that either of these individuals ever existed.
In reply to inquiries about Yogi Ramacharaka, this official information was provided by the Yogi Publication Society:
- "Ramacharaka was born in India in about the year 1799. He set forth at an early age to educate himself and to seek a better philosophy for living.
- "Traveling throughout the East almost always on foot, he visited the depositories of books available. The primary places where libraries were open to him were lamaseries and monasteries, although with the passing of time some private libraries of royalty and of wealthy families were also thrown open to him.
- "In about the year 1865, after many years of searching and many visits to the lonely high places where he could fast and meditate, Ramacharaka found a basis for his philosophy. At about this same time, he took as a pupil, Baba Bharata, who was the eight year old son of a Brahmin family. Together teacher and pupil retraced the steps of the teacher's earlier travels, while Ramacharaka indoctrinated the boy with his philosophy.
- "In 1893, feeling that his life was drawing to a close, Ramacharaka sent his pupil forth to carry their beliefs to the new world. Arriving in Chicago where the World Columbian Exposition was in progress, Baba Bharata was an instant success. He lectured before enthusiastic audiences from all parts of the world who were visiting the Fair, attracting a considerable following in the process. Many wished him to start a new religion - but he felt only the drive to write on the subject which he lectured on so effectively.
- "In the closing years of the 1800s, Baba Bharata became acquainted with William Walker Atkinson, an English author who had written along similar lines and whose books had been published by ourselves and by our London connection, L. N. Fowler & Company Ltd.
- "The men collaborated and with Bharata providing the material and Atkinson the writing talent, they wrote the books which they attributed to Yogi Ramacharaka as a measure of their respect. The very fact that after all these years their books are well known around the world and sell better with every passing year is a credit, too, to the two men who wrote the books."
Note that in at least one point, this "official" account is false: William Walker Atkinson was an American, not "an English author" and L. N. Fowler, an occult publishing house, was the British publisher of books that Atkinson had published under various of his own imprints in Chicago.
Swami Bhakta Vishita titles
Atkinson's second Hindu-sounding pseudonym, Swami Bhaka Vishita, billed as "The Hindoo Master" was not authentically Hindu, nor did he write on the topic of Hinduism. His best-known titles, which have remained in print for many years after entering the public domain, were "The Development of Seership: The Science of Knowing the Future; Hindoo and Oriental Methods" (1915), "Genuine Mediumship, or Invisible Powers", and "Can We Talk to Spirit Friends?" Atkinson produced more than two dozen Swami Bhakta Vishita books, plus a half-dozen saddle-stitched paper pamphlets under the Vishita name. All of them dealt with clairvoyance, mediumship, and the afterlife. Like Ramacharaka, Vishita was listed as a regular contributor to Atkinson's
Advanced Thought magazine, but his books were published by the Advanced Thought Publishing Company, not by the Yogi Publication Society, which handled the Ramacharaka titles.
Swami Panchadasi titles
Despite the popularity of his Yogi Ramacharaka and Swami Bhakta Vishita series, the work that Atkinson produced under his third Hindu-sounding pseudonym, Swami Panchadasi, failed to capture a wide general audience. The subject matter,
Clairvoyance and Occult Powers, was not authentically Hindu, either.
Theron Q. Dumont titles
As Theron Q. Dumont, Atkinson stated on the title pages of his works that he was an "Instructor on the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism, Paris, France" -- a claim manifestly untrue, as he was an American living in the United States.
The Atkinson titles released under the Dumont name were primarily concerned with self-improvement and the development of mental will power and self-confidence. Among them were
Practical Memory Training, The Art and Science of Personal Magnetism, The Power of Concentration, and
The Advanced Course in Personal Magnetism: The Secrets of Mental Fascination.
Theodore Sheldon titles
One book by this otherwise unknown author has been attributed to Atkinson, the health and healing book
Vim Culture. (It should be noted that, despite the similarity of names, Theodore Sheldon is apparently not the same person as T. J. Shelton, who, like Atkinson, wrote on health and healing for
The Nautilus magazine and also, like Atkinson, was one of several honorary presidents of the International New Thought Alliance.)
Magus Incognito titles
The Secret Doctrines of the Rosicrucians by Magus Incognito consisted of a nearly verbatim republication of portions of
The Arcane Teachings, an anonymous work attributed to Atkinson (see below).
The Three Initiates
Ostensibly written by "Three Initiates,"
The Kybalion was published by the Yogi Publication Society.
Whether or not any of the above has a basis in fact,
The Kybalion bears notable structural resemblances to
The Arcane Teachings, an anonymous set of six books attributed to Atkinson. A full description of the similarities between the two works can be found on the Kybalion page.
Titles Atkinson co-authored
With Edward Beals, Atkinson wrote the so-called "Personal Power Books" --a group of 12 titles on humanity's internal powers and how to use them.Titles include
Faith Power: Your Inspirational Forces and
Regenerative Power or Vital Rejuvenation. With his fellow Chicago resident L. W. de Laurence he wrote
Psychomancy and Crystal Gazing.
The 'Arcane Teaching' Books
A series named
The Arcane Teaching is also attributed to Atkinson. Perhaps significantly, the doctrine behind
The Arcane Teaching is remarkably similar to the philosophy in
The Kybalion (another title attributed to Atkinson), and significant portions of material from
The Arcane Teaching were later re-worked, appearing nearly verbatim in
The Secret Doctrines of the Rosicrucians by Magus Incognito (yet another Atkinson alias).
Nothing is known of the first edition of
The Arcane Teaching, which apparently consisted of a single volume of the same name.
The second edition was expanded to include three 'supplementary teachings' in pamphlet form. The four titles in this edition were:
The Arcane Teaching (hardback),
The Arcane Formulas, or Mental Alchemy (pamphlet),
The Mystery of Sex, or Sex Polarity (pamphlet), and
Vril, or Vital Magnetism (pamphlet). This edition was published by A. C. McClurg...the same publisher who brought out the
Tarzan the Ape-Man series by Edgar Rice Burroughs -- under the "Arcane Book Concern" imprint, and the name of the publisher, A. C. McClurg, doesn't actually appear anywhere upon the books in this edition. The series bears a 1909 copyright mark, listing the copyright holder as "Arcane Book Concern". There also appears to have been a pamphlet entitled
Free Sample Lesson which was published under the "Arcane Book Concern" imprint, indicating that it may have appeared concurrently with this edition.
The third edition split the main title,
The Arcane Teaching, into three smaller volumes, bringing the total number of books in the series to six. This edition consisted of the following titles (the three titles marked with an asterix (*) are the volumes that had appeared together as
The Arcane Teaching in the previous edition):
The One and the Many* (hardback),
Cosmic Law* (hardback),
The Psychic Planes* (hardback),
The Arcane Formulas, or Mental Alchemy (binding unknown),
The Mystery of Sex, or Sex Polarity (binding unknown), and
Vril, or Vital Magnetism (binding unknown). The third edition of
The Arcane Teaching was published by A. C. McClurg under its own name in 1911. The books in this series bear the original 1909 copyright, plus a 1911 copyright listing "Library Shelf" as the new copyright holder.
A search of the Library of Congress' web site has revealed that none of
The Arcane Teaching series resides in its current collection.
Other likely pseudonyms
Because Atkinson ran his own publishing companies, Advanced Thought Publishing and the Yogi Publication Society, and is known to have used an unusually large number of pseudonyms, other authors published by those companies may also have been his pseudonyms;
- A. Gould and Dr. Franklin L. Dubois (who co-wrote The Science of Sex Regeneration circa 1912), and
- Frederick Vollrath (who contributed articles on the subject of "Mental Physical-Culture" to Atkinson's Advanced Thought magazine)