Here he attended the Church of the Healing Christ (part of the Church of Divine Science), where Emmet Fox had become minister in 1931. In his twenties, an experience with healing prayer led him to leave the Jesuits and move to the United States, where he became a pharmacist in New York (having a degree in chemistry by that time).
He studied for the priesthood and joined the Jesuits. Murphy was born in Ireland, the son of a private boy's school headmaster and raised a Roman Catholic.
Joseph Murphy was a Divine Science minister and author.
