
“Joseph Denis Murphy was born in Ballydehob, County Cork, Ireland, the son of a private boys’ school headmaster and raised a Roman Catholic. He joined the Jesuits. In his twenties, before being ordained a priest, an experience with healing prayer led him to leave the Jesuits and emigrate to the United States in 1922; he journeyed as a steerage passenger on board the S/S Cedric, sailing from Liverpool, England, to the Port of New York; on the ship’s passenger manifest, his occupation was listed as chemist, the British term for pharmacist. In New York City, he became a professional pharmacist in New York City (having a degree in chemistry by that time). Here he attended the Church of the Healing Christ (part of the Church of Divine Science), where Emmet Fox had become minister in 1931.




