William W. Walter was born in Sublette, Illinois on July 13, 1869. He was the youngest of thirteen children. At an early age his parents moved to LaSalle, Illinois, where he attended school. Later the family moved back to Sublette and after finishing school there, he took a business course in Chicago.
On May 24, 1890, he married Barbara A. Stenger and they lived in Aurora. In the years from 1903 until 1906 he was ill with various claims among which was tuberculosis. He tried various treatments from doctors and specialists to no avail, and finally, as a last resort, had Christian Science treatment. He was skeptical, but to please his wife, consented to have the treatment, feeling it would do no harm, and there was nothing else available. After a few treatments, the healer explained to him that this teaching was a Science and not a religion. This awoke his curiosity, because science appealed to him. He then and there made up his mind that if this science healed him, he would devote his life to it. At this point all their finances had been exhausted.
They rented a part of their home, and his wife did fancy work to help, so as not to incur any debt. After the third week of treatment, he dismissed the healer, and told her he would try and complete the healing himself, as he did not wish to go into debt. The healer told him that poverty was also a disease and taught him to overcome it.
Practicing every moment of the day and far into the night the healing application which he had learned from his study, he was soon well on the road to recovery, and all during that time he helped others to recover from their various ills, in which he was very successful. This gave him courage, and he was soon known as the best healer in the U. S. In the beginning he did all the healing gratis, or for whatever patients would give him.
He and his wife joined the Christian Science church in July 1906, and he was soon made First Reader and took active part in the various branches of church work. After a few years of church activities, he tried in vain to show the members that this teaching was a Science, something to learn and apply, rather than a religion to believe in. This proved fruitless, even though all knew of his tremendous success in healing, including several cases of healing that had not been accomplished by the best in the church.
Not being able to do as his conscience bid while in the church organization, he and his wife withdrew from the church and started teaching his method as a free lance, following his findings through his continuous study of Science and Health and the Bible.
He documented his time in the Christian Science Church in his book “Five Years in Christian Science, where he relates many wonderful examples of his ability to heal.
He wrote many books in “story” format, including “The Pastor’s Son.” The sale of this book was a grand success and soon he wrote a sequel, “The Doctor’s Daughter.” After that he wrote many others as time permitted, for he was still in the healing field.
His success as a healer and author soon became widespread so that it became impossible for him to take one half of the cases presented to him for healing, so he developed the idea of teaching others his method, and thus his teaching grew and grew.
Mr. Walter was known throughout the world through his teaching, healing and writing. He had many students from Canada, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and most every state in the United States. Wishing to give to the world the benefit of his finding he wrote a book entitled “The Sickle,” which acted as a bridge between mind and matter and brought the readers’ thought up gradually. After a few years of study of this book, he wrote “The Sharp Sickle,” which became the text-book of Eschatology.
He was an incessant searcher to further unfoldment, and spent many, many hours in this work. He and his family spent their winters in St. Petersburg, Florida, where on March 2, 1941 he passed into a higher state of consciousness.