His day in Ilfracombe began with a predawn walk up to the Cairn, where he would meditate for an hour on the hillside overlooking his home and the sea. After his morning meditation, he would return to the house and spend the morning writing. His afternoons were devoted to gardening and his evenings were spent in conversation with his wife Lily and others who were interested in his work.
A friend described Allen as "a frail-looking little man, Christ-like, with a mass of flowing black hair...... I think of him especially in the black velvet suit he always wore in the evenings, the friend wrote. He would talk quietly to a small group of us then - English, French, Austrian and Indian - of meditation, of philosophy, of Tolstoy or Buddha, and of killing nothing, not even a mouse in the garden."
"He overawed us all a little because of his appearance, his gentle conversation, and especially because he went out to commune with God on the hills before dawn."
James Allen's philosophy was rooted in a wide spectrum of spiritual understanding and its popularity may have been due to the evolution of contemporary Christian dogmatism which was being discarded as Christianity returned to its roots of compassionate intelligence. Allen unveils the highest truths in a New Thought exploration rooted in the understanding of humanities innate goodness and divine reflection.
This return to the deepest truths of Christianity was in the words of William James, "the greatest revolution of the 19th Century." One of the impetus of this return to higher truth was the desire to reconcile science and religion following Darwin's publication The Origin of Species.
Charles Darwin himself hinted at the change in belief in The Descent of Man. In that book he writes, "the highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts..."
