Thomas Parker Boyd Jr. was born in Kentucky about 1865, the middle son of Thomas Parker Boyd and Mary Bosenquet Greenup. He worked in the tobacco fields in the summer and went to school in winter. His family moved to Texas when he was fourteen, and later they moved to Oregon, where they bought a flour mill.

Dr. Boyd felt called to the ministry while he was still in his teens. In his autobiography, "Te-Pe-Be," he writes "One day, when a family member was very sick, I prayed. I promised that if the Great Physician would come out of the Unseen and touch the sick one back to life, I would go and do what I was called to do. Next morning the sick one was greatly improved and was soon well."

He attended a Western college, he said, "to learn how to think. I didn't learn because they didn't seem to know how it was done." After some years, he entered the ministry, earned a Doctorate in Divinity, and spent many years as rector of several Episcopalian churches in Oregon, Washington and California. "I began to visit and pray with the sick and saw them get well. I took it for granted that the Master meant what he said when he included healing in the ministry." He wrote, "I found that when I followed the guidance of the Spirit within, my work was most effective." Dr. Boyd formed the Society of Healing Christ right after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire in 1906.

While serving as Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, he learned of work being done by the psychology department of the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. George M. Stratton, President of the American Psychological Association, was then Professor of Psychology. Dr. Boyd introduced himself to Professor Stratton, and they set up experiments with epileptics, using hypnosis. This was his initial effort in forming a local branch of the Emmanuel Healing Movement, the subject of his first book. The Emmanuel Movement, which originated at Emmanuel Church, Boston, Massachusetts, dealt with the treatment of alcoholism. Dr. Boyd studied psychology at U.C. Berkeley, earning another Doctorate. He then used hypnosis with other professors, clergymen and doctors on the West Coast.

"I became interested in the various independent movements being carried on in the name of the Christ, and found much of their teaching and work bearing a more modern stamp of truth than is usually found in the churches." However, he thought they lacked a coordinating organization, and authoritative statement of truth. It was the lack of trained people that induced him to "become a teacher of teachers, to furnish them with the technique of correct thinking, and establish them in the basic truths of Being." Thus, Dr. Boyd founded the Society of the Healing Christ to train people who wanted to be healers. This seemed justified by the fact that, he said, "barnstorming psychologists overran the country, with the merest smattering of true psychology. On the other hand, systems of truth, having a head and no heart, had also overspread the country." This led him to become involved with the fledgling International New Thought Alliance, of which he served as President from August 1930 to July 1932. His students then joined the International New Thought Alliance.

Edna Miriam Lister met with Dr. Boyd after meeting him on Sunday night, December 5, 1925. "We spent all day planning how I would be trained," she said. She started campaigning with him and his staff of twenty-six in January 1927. Dr. Boyd traveled almost constantly for more than twenty years, visiting every state in the Union, most of the cities and larger towns. They went to England and Scotland and various cities in Canada. Dr. Boyd also founded the London Truth Forum, later headed by Michael Grimes.

To scatter the healing message as widely as possible, he wrote ten books, and several pamphlets, setting forth a rational way of interpreting the truth and applying it to the various needs of life. In 1934, Dr. Boyd retired, naming Dr. Edna Lister his successor as head of the Society of the Healing Christ. Thomas Parker Boyd passed to the other side in 1936.