Mary Baker Eddy
Encyclopedia
Mary Baker Eddy was the founder of Christian Science
(1879), a Protestant American system of religious thought and practice religion adopted by the Church of Christ, Scientist
, and others. She is the author of the movement's text book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
, and founded the Christian Science Publishing Society
(1898), which continues to publish a number periodicals including The Christian Science Monitor
(1908).
Married three times, she took the name Mary Baker Glover from her first marriage. She was also known from her third marriage as Mary Baker Glover Eddy or Mary Baker G. Eddy. She and others credit her with the ability to heal instantaneously.
, the youngest of six children of Abigail and Mark Baker. Although raised a Congregationalist
, she came to reject teachings such as predestination
and original sin
. She suffered chronic illness and developed a strong interest in biblical accounts of early Christian healing.
At the age of eight, Eddy began to hear voices calling her name; she would go to her mother only to learn that her mother had not called her. In her autobiography, Eddy relates one of these later experiences:
According to Yvonne Cache von Fettweis, in her book Christian Healer, "Mary's religious upbringing had taught her that all men are God's servants." In her discovery of Christian Science, Eddy found that healing the sick was an integral part of Christian service.
From early childhood, Eddy’s life included incidents of healing others. Her family would bring sick farm animals to her to heal, for example. Some biographers have suggested Mary was high-strung or emotional; irrespective of such claims, reports from friends in the community where Eddy grew up corroborate reports of her ability to heal at a young age.
Eddy frequently expressed confidence in God's love, which placed her at odds with her father's theological outlook, leading to a religious crisis when she was twelve and first eligible to join the Congregational church. Mark Baker held to a hard and bitter doctrine of predestination, believing that a horrible decree of endless punishment awaited sinners on a final judgment day. Amid their clash of views Mary developed a life-threatening fever, which at last prompted her father, in his love for her, to set aside his stern beliefs. She was healed of the fever after prayer, as she wrote:
Mary did not join the Congregational church until she was 17 at Sanbornton Bridge, New Hampshire (present-day Tilton
).
While Eddy attended the Pembroke Academy
, an event occurred, later related by long time Tilton residents. A mentally disturbed man had escaped from the local Concord
asylum and, brandishing a club, entered the Pembroke schoolyard terrifying pupils who ran shrieking into the schoolhouse. Peering through the windows, the children watched in horror as Eddy approached him as he wielded his club above her head, expecting her to be struck down before their eyes. Instead, she simply took his free hand and walked him, as he lowered his club to his side, to the schoolyard gate, from which he departed. The following Sunday he reappeared. Quietly entering the church, he walked to the Baker pew and stood beside Eddy during the hymn singing, after which he yielded without resistance into legal custody.
on June 27, 1844, a little over two months before the birth of their only child, George Washington Glover. After her husband's death, Eddy freed her husband's slaves, unwilling to accept for herself the price of a human life. As a single mother of poor health, Mrs. Glover wrote some political pieces for the New Hampshire Patriot. She also worked as a substitute teacher in the New Hampshire Conference Seminary. Her success there led to her briefly opening an experimental school which was an early attempt to introduce kindergarten methods (love instead of harshness for discipline; interest instead of compulsion to impart knowledge), but this, like other similar attempts at this time was not accepted and soon closed. The social climate of the times made it very difficult for a widowed woman to earn money.
Her mother died in November 1849 and about a year later, her father remarried Elizabeth Patterson Duncan. Eddy continued to have poor health and her son was put into the care of neighbors by her father and stepmother. Eddy married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, in 1853 hoping he would adopt the young boy, and Daniel Patterson signed papers to that effect on their wedding day. However, he never followed through on his promise. Eddy was often bed-ridden during this period. Of her sisters who were able to help her in the care of her rambunctious child, sadly, none really did, beyond short periods. Her mother had passed on and her father had remarried a woman who did not welcome either Eddy or her child. A neighbor couple with a small farm and no children took up the care of the boy for a fee, during times Eddy was confined to her bed. When this couple, who found the boy useful in the farm labor, intended to move out to the Prairie territories, without her knowing, some of Eddy's family arranged that the couple should take the child along with money given them by Eddy's father. Eddy's symptoms worsened and plunged her into a deep depression. The failure of Patterson to make good on his promises of reunification with her now far-distant son plunged Eddy into deep despair. Her acute desire to recover her health led her to seek healing in the various systems fashionable of the period. Eddy was ready to try anything to bring relief to her sufferings.
Patterson chased after other women while married to Eddy. He ran into financial difficulty and mortgaged Eddy's furniture, jewelry, and books, but was still unable to keep current on their property in Groton, New Hampshire
, and was eventually forced to vacate. Patterson intended to leave Groton and Eddy's sister, Abigail, removed her from her Groton home to Rumney
, six miles distant, in a carriage with her blind servant following on foot.
for the Betterment of Humanity in Boston, Massachusetts, portray her sufferings and search for relief.
, a magnetic healer from Maine
. She benefited temporarily by his treatment and it is said by Quimby's supporters that his beliefs influenced her later thinking and writing, although to what extent has been frequently disputed. Originally, Eddy gave Quimby much credit for his hypnotic treatments of her nervous and physical conditions and initially thought his brand of mesmerism entirely benign, but later changed her mind.
Quimby was steeped both in the Protestant Christianity of his time and the science of the industrial revolution. Quimby wrote in the 1860-1865 period, "The wise man knows that the light of the body or natural man is but the reflection of the scientific man. Our misery lies in this darkness. This is the prison that holds the natural man, till the light of Wisdom bursts his bonds, and sets the captive free. Here is where Christ went to preach to the prisoners bound by error, before the reformation of Science." Quimby writes many such passages linking the healing power of Christ with right perception and understanding, which Quimby equates with Science. The impartial student may see Quimby as a precursor in the theory and practice of Christian Science,though Eddy's relationship with Quimby was a subject of controversy even within Eddy's own lifetime.
While Quimby had his own notions on the nature of these unseen forces, which Eddy accepted early on, she would later draw decidedly different opinions on the nature of thought on the body and reject any form of hypnotism.
Quimby later said he learned more from Eddy than she did from him.
caused a spinal
injury in February 1866, Eddy turned to Matthew 9:2 in the Bible and recovered unexpectedly. Although she filed a claim for money from the city of Lynn for her injury on the grounds that she was "still suffering from the effects of that fall," she later withdrew the lawsuit.
Eddy's attending physician Alvin M. Cushing, a homeopath
, testified under oath that he "did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope for Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in critical condition."
She devoted the next three years of her life to Biblical study and what she considered the discovery of Christian Science
. In her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, Eddy writes "I then withdrew from society about three years,--to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, --Deity."
Convinced by her own study of the Bible, especially Genesis 1, and through experimentation, Eddy claimed to have found healing power through a higher sense of God as Spirit and man as God's spiritual "image and likeness." She became convinced that illness could be healed through an awakened thought brought about by a clearer perception of God and the explicit rejection of drugs, hygiene and medicine based upon the observation that Jesus did not use these methods for healing:
Claiming to have first healed herself and then others, and having learned from these experiences, Eddy felt anyone could perceive what she called "the Kingdom of Heaven" or spiritual reality on earth. For her, this healing method was based on scientific principles and could be taught to others. This positive rule of healing, she taught, resulted from a new understanding of God as infinite Spirit beyond the limitations of the material senses.
), which she called the textbook of Christian Science. The first publication run was one thousand copies, which she self-published. In the final edition, she wrote "In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science" (p. 107). During these years she taught what she considered the science of "primitive Christianity" to hundreds of people. Many of her students became healers themselves. The last 100 pages of Science and Health (chapter entitled "Fruitage") contains testimonies of people who claimed to have been healed by reading her book.
Although Eddy used terms such as "Science", "Health", "error", "shadow", "belief", "Christ" and others used by Quimby, these terms are also to be found in the Bible. In the end, her conclusions from scriptural study and continued healing practice were diametrically opposed to the Quimby teachings. Eddy also eventually rejected many of Quimby's conclusions on the dynamics of human disease, suffering, healing, redemption, God and Christ.
Through her study of the Bible, Eddy rejected Quimby's notion of a dualism between matter and spirit. She wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error." (S&H 468: 10–12)
Eddy found that while at first hypnotism seemed to benefit the patient, it later created more problems than the original sickness. Ultimately she rejected any form of hypnotism or mesmerism, stating
Eddy's use of these terms and her teaching are considered by both her defenders and Quimby's family to be distinct from Quimbyism. Quimby's son, George, wrote, "Don’t confuse his method of healing with Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science, so far as her religious teachings go.... The religion which she teaches certainly is hers, for which I cannot be too thankful." (Gottschalk, Rolling Away the Stone, p. 72).
Phineas Quimby died in January 1866. In 1873, Eddy divorced Patterson for adultery
to which he readily admitted. In 1877 she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.
In 1903 Mark Twain
published a satirical diatribe attacking Eddy and her church entitled Christian Science. Twain wrote However, later he seemed to reverse his stance as Paine
wrote:
In view of Mark Twain's extended and caustic attack in his book "Christian Science" on both Christian Science and its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (whom he once described as the "queen of frauds and hypocrites"), it is widely assumed that his reference to "Mother Eddy" as "the benefactor of the age" was purely sarcastic. When Harper's refused to publish "Christian Science" in 1903, Twain interpreted the rejection as suppression caused by pressure from Christian Science and wrote, "The situation is not barren of humour. I had been doing my best to show in print that the Xn Scientist cult has become a power in the land – well, here is the proof: it has scared the biggest publisher in the Union."
, and revising Science and Health. While Eddy was a highly controversial religious leader, author, and lecturer, thousands of people flocked to her teachings.
By the 1870’s Eddy was telling her students “Some day I will have a church of my own.” In 1879 she and her students established the Church of Christ, Scientist, “to commemorate the word and works of our Master [Jesus], which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.” In 1892 at Eddy’s direction, the church reorganized as The First Church of Christ, Scientist, “designed to be built on the Rock, Christ....” Some years later in 1881, she founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College
, where she taught approximately 800 students in Boston, Massachusetts between the years 1882 and 1889. These students spread across the country practicing healing, and instructing others, in accordance with Eddy's teachings. Eddy authorized these students to list themselves as Christian Science Practitioner
s in the church's periodical, The Christian Science Journal. She also founded the Christian Science Sentinel
, a weekly magazine with articles about how to heal and testimonies of healing.
As teacher, author, and preacher, Eddy was leader of the burgeoning Christian Science movement. In 1888, a reading room selling Bibles, her writings and other publications opened in Boston. This model would soon be replicated, and branch churches worldwide maintain more than 1,200 Christian Science Reading Rooms today.
In 1889, she closed the Massachusetts Metaphysical College to focus on a major revision of Science and Health. Throughout her lifetime, Science and Health would appear in over 400 separate printings, and undergo six major revisions. Science and Health is currently published in 17 languages including Braille.
In 1894, an edifice for The First Church of Christ, Scientist edifice was completed in Boston (The Mother Church). In the early years, Eddy served as pastor, and she was succeeded by several other individuals. In 1895, however, Eddy ordained the Bible and Science and Health as the pastor of The Church of Christ, Scientist, and the Sunday sermon consists of readings from these two books. Wednesday meetings also include readings from the Bible and Science and Health, and attendees participate by sharing accounts of healing and spiritual insight. Also in 1895 she published the first edition of a church manual, establishing guidelines that are followed to this day. It is also in this slim volume that she made provisions for democratically run local churches around the world.
Eddy founded The Christian Science Publishing Society in 1898, which became the publishing home for numerous publications launched by her and her followers. In 1908, at the age of 87, Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor
, a daily newspaper. She also founded the Christian Science Journal in 1883, a monthly magazine aimed at the church's members and, in 1898, the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly religious periodical written for a more general audience, and the Herald of Christian Science
, a religious magazine with editions in many languages. All of these publications continue to be published today.
Mary Baker Eddy died on December 3, 1910 at her home at 400 Beacon Street, in the Chestnut Hill
section of Newton, Massachusetts
.
Her death was not announced until the next morning when a city medical examiner was called in. She was buried December 8, 1910 at Mount Auburn Cemetery
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
.
Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures has been a best seller list for decades, and was selected as one of the “75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World,” by the Women's National Book Association. In 1995, Eddy was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2002, The Mary Baker Eddy Library opened its doors, giving the public access to one of the largest collections about an American woman.
For more than a century, The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel have been publishing accounts of restored health based on the system of care that Eddy taught. The Christian Science Monitor newspaper has won seven Pulitzer Prizes to date.
In 1921, on the 100th anniversary of Eddy's birth, a 100-ton (in rough) and 60–70 tons (hewn), eleven-foot square granite pyramid
was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, New Hampshire
. A gift from James F. Lord, it was later dynamited in 1962 by order of the church's board of directors. Also demolished was Eddy's former home in Pleasant View, as the board feared that it was becoming a place of pilgrimage
. Although Eddy allowed personal praise in her lifetime for various reasons, including for publicity and fundraising, the church shuns both the cult of personality
and religious reliquaries.
.
All of these houses are currently owned by the Longyear Museum, and all may be visited.
Christian Science
Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...
(1879), a Protestant American system of religious thought and practice religion adopted by the Church of Christ, Scientist
Church of Christ, Scientist
The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, by Mary Baker Eddy. She was the author of the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Christian Science teaches that the "allness" of God denies the reality of sin, sickness, death, and the material world...
, and others. She is the author of the movement's text book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the central text of the Christian Science religion. It was written by Mary Baker Eddy, inspired by studies of the Bible she undertook in 1867 following a healing experience....
, and founded the Christian Science Publishing Society
Christian Science Publishing Society
The Christian Science Publishing Society was established in 1898 by Mary Baker Eddy and is the publishing arm of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located, along with the Mary Baker Eddy Library, in the Publishing Society building at the Christian Science...
(1898), which continues to publish a number periodicals including The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
(1908).
Married three times, she took the name Mary Baker Glover from her first marriage. She was also known from her third marriage as Mary Baker Glover Eddy or Mary Baker G. Eddy. She and others credit her with the ability to heal instantaneously.
Childhood
Mary Baker Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker in Bow, New HampshireBow, New Hampshire
Bow is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 7,519 at the 2010 census.- History :Incorporated in 1727, the town was one of several formed to ease population pressures on the Seacoast. The town's name comes from its establishment along a bend, or "bow", in the...
, the youngest of six children of Abigail and Mark Baker. Although raised a Congregationalist
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
, she came to reject teachings such as predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
and original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
. She suffered chronic illness and developed a strong interest in biblical accounts of early Christian healing.
At the age of eight, Eddy began to hear voices calling her name; she would go to her mother only to learn that her mother had not called her. In her autobiography, Eddy relates one of these later experiences:
According to Yvonne Cache von Fettweis, in her book Christian Healer, "Mary's religious upbringing had taught her that all men are God's servants." In her discovery of Christian Science, Eddy found that healing the sick was an integral part of Christian service.
From early childhood, Eddy’s life included incidents of healing others. Her family would bring sick farm animals to her to heal, for example. Some biographers have suggested Mary was high-strung or emotional; irrespective of such claims, reports from friends in the community where Eddy grew up corroborate reports of her ability to heal at a young age.
Mary did not join the Congregational church until she was 17 at Sanbornton Bridge, New Hampshire (present-day Tilton
Tilton, New Hampshire
Tilton is a town located on the Winnipesaukee River in Belknap County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,567 at the 2010 census. It includes the village of Lochmere. Tilton is home to the Tilton School, a private preparatory school.-History:...
).
While Eddy attended the Pembroke Academy
Pembroke Academy
Pembroke Academy is a secondary school in Pembroke, New Hampshire.-History:Pembroke Academy was incorporated on June 25, 1818, and the first building dedicated May 25, 1819. The academy opened with 48 students on May 26, 1819. The first headmaster of Pembroke Academy was the Reverend Amos Burnham...
, an event occurred, later related by long time Tilton residents. A mentally disturbed man had escaped from the local Concord
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
asylum and, brandishing a club, entered the Pembroke schoolyard terrifying pupils who ran shrieking into the schoolhouse. Peering through the windows, the children watched in horror as Eddy approached him as he wielded his club above her head, expecting her to be struck down before their eyes. Instead, she simply took his free hand and walked him, as he lowered his club to his side, to the schoolyard gate, from which he departed. The following Sunday he reappeared. Quietly entering the church, he walked to the Baker pew and stood beside Eddy during the hymn singing, after which he yielded without resistance into legal custody.
Early marriages
On December 10, 1843, she married George Washington Glover. He died of yellow feverYellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
on June 27, 1844, a little over two months before the birth of their only child, George Washington Glover. After her husband's death, Eddy freed her husband's slaves, unwilling to accept for herself the price of a human life. As a single mother of poor health, Mrs. Glover wrote some political pieces for the New Hampshire Patriot. She also worked as a substitute teacher in the New Hampshire Conference Seminary. Her success there led to her briefly opening an experimental school which was an early attempt to introduce kindergarten methods (love instead of harshness for discipline; interest instead of compulsion to impart knowledge), but this, like other similar attempts at this time was not accepted and soon closed. The social climate of the times made it very difficult for a widowed woman to earn money.
Her mother died in November 1849 and about a year later, her father remarried Elizabeth Patterson Duncan. Eddy continued to have poor health and her son was put into the care of neighbors by her father and stepmother. Eddy married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, in 1853 hoping he would adopt the young boy, and Daniel Patterson signed papers to that effect on their wedding day. However, he never followed through on his promise. Eddy was often bed-ridden during this period. Of her sisters who were able to help her in the care of her rambunctious child, sadly, none really did, beyond short periods. Her mother had passed on and her father had remarried a woman who did not welcome either Eddy or her child. A neighbor couple with a small farm and no children took up the care of the boy for a fee, during times Eddy was confined to her bed. When this couple, who found the boy useful in the farm labor, intended to move out to the Prairie territories, without her knowing, some of Eddy's family arranged that the couple should take the child along with money given them by Eddy's father. Eddy's symptoms worsened and plunged her into a deep depression. The failure of Patterson to make good on his promises of reunification with her now far-distant son plunged Eddy into deep despair. Her acute desire to recover her health led her to seek healing in the various systems fashionable of the period. Eddy was ready to try anything to bring relief to her sufferings.
Patterson chased after other women while married to Eddy. He ran into financial difficulty and mortgaged Eddy's furniture, jewelry, and books, but was still unable to keep current on their property in Groton, New Hampshire
Groton, New Hampshire
Groton is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 593 at the 2010 census.- History :The town was originally named Cockermouth in honor of Charles Wyndham, Baron Cockermouth and Earl of Egremont, who was Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1761 to...
, and was eventually forced to vacate. Patterson intended to leave Groton and Eddy's sister, Abigail, removed her from her Groton home to Rumney
Rumney, New Hampshire
Rumney is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,480 at the 2010 census. The town is located at the southern edge of the White Mountain National Forest.-History:...
, six miles distant, in a carriage with her blind servant following on foot.
Persistent ill health
A fragile child, Mary Baker Eddy suffered from a number of physical complaints. The exact nature of these illnesses, and their possible psychosomatic or hysterical (as it was called at that time) nature, is still a subject of debate. Eddy's letters from this time, now at the Mary Baker Eddy LibraryMary Baker Eddy Library
The Mary Baker Eddy Library is a lending library and museum as well as the repository for the papers of Mary Baker Eddy, an influential American author, teacher, and religious leader who founded Christian Science...
for the Betterment of Humanity in Boston, Massachusetts, portray her sufferings and search for relief.
Study with Phineas Quimby and his influence
In October 1862 she became a patient of Phineas QuimbyPhineas Quimby
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby , was a New England philosopher, magnetizer, mesmerist, healer, and inventor, who resided in Belfast, Maine, and had an office in Portland, Maine...
, a magnetic healer from Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
. She benefited temporarily by his treatment and it is said by Quimby's supporters that his beliefs influenced her later thinking and writing, although to what extent has been frequently disputed. Originally, Eddy gave Quimby much credit for his hypnotic treatments of her nervous and physical conditions and initially thought his brand of mesmerism entirely benign, but later changed her mind.
Quimby was steeped both in the Protestant Christianity of his time and the science of the industrial revolution. Quimby wrote in the 1860-1865 period, "The wise man knows that the light of the body or natural man is but the reflection of the scientific man. Our misery lies in this darkness. This is the prison that holds the natural man, till the light of Wisdom bursts his bonds, and sets the captive free. Here is where Christ went to preach to the prisoners bound by error, before the reformation of Science." Quimby writes many such passages linking the healing power of Christ with right perception and understanding, which Quimby equates with Science. The impartial student may see Quimby as a precursor in the theory and practice of Christian Science,though Eddy's relationship with Quimby was a subject of controversy even within Eddy's own lifetime.
While Quimby had his own notions on the nature of these unseen forces, which Eddy accepted early on, she would later draw decidedly different opinions on the nature of thought on the body and reject any form of hypnotism.
Quimby later said he learned more from Eddy than she did from him.
1866 injury, healing and study leads to Christian Science
After a fall in Lynn, MassachusettsLynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...
caused a spinal
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...
injury in February 1866, Eddy turned to Matthew 9:2 in the Bible and recovered unexpectedly. Although she filed a claim for money from the city of Lynn for her injury on the grounds that she was "still suffering from the effects of that fall," she later withdrew the lawsuit.
Eddy's attending physician Alvin M. Cushing, a homeopath
Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient...
, testified under oath that he "did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope for Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in critical condition."
She devoted the next three years of her life to Biblical study and what she considered the discovery of Christian Science
Christian Science
Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...
. In her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, Eddy writes "I then withdrew from society about three years,--to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, --Deity."
Convinced by her own study of the Bible, especially Genesis 1, and through experimentation, Eddy claimed to have found healing power through a higher sense of God as Spirit and man as God's spiritual "image and likeness." She became convinced that illness could be healed through an awakened thought brought about by a clearer perception of God and the explicit rejection of drugs, hygiene and medicine based upon the observation that Jesus did not use these methods for healing:
It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing. … The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love. (Science and Health with Key to the ScripturesShe eventually called this spiritual perception the operation of the Christ Truth on human consciousness.Science and Health with Key to the ScripturesScience and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the central text of the Christian Science religion. It was written by Mary Baker Eddy, inspired by studies of the Bible she undertook in 1867 following a healing experience....
, 143:5, 367:3)
Claiming to have first healed herself and then others, and having learned from these experiences, Eddy felt anyone could perceive what she called "the Kingdom of Heaven" or spiritual reality on earth. For her, this healing method was based on scientific principles and could be taught to others. This positive rule of healing, she taught, resulted from a new understanding of God as infinite Spirit beyond the limitations of the material senses.
Publishing her discovery
In 1875, after several years of testing the effectiveness of her healing method, Eddy published her discovery in a book entitled Science and Health (years later retitled Science and Health with Key to the ScripturesScience and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the central text of the Christian Science religion. It was written by Mary Baker Eddy, inspired by studies of the Bible she undertook in 1867 following a healing experience....
), which she called the textbook of Christian Science. The first publication run was one thousand copies, which she self-published. In the final edition, she wrote "In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science" (p. 107). During these years she taught what she considered the science of "primitive Christianity" to hundreds of people. Many of her students became healers themselves. The last 100 pages of Science and Health (chapter entitled "Fruitage") contains testimonies of people who claimed to have been healed by reading her book.
Distinguishing between Eddy and Quimby and other criticisms
Gillian Gill, writesAlthough Eddy used terms such as "Science", "Health", "error", "shadow", "belief", "Christ" and others used by Quimby, these terms are also to be found in the Bible. In the end, her conclusions from scriptural study and continued healing practice were diametrically opposed to the Quimby teachings. Eddy also eventually rejected many of Quimby's conclusions on the dynamics of human disease, suffering, healing, redemption, God and Christ.
Through her study of the Bible, Eddy rejected Quimby's notion of a dualism between matter and spirit. She wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is the central text of the Christian Science religion. It was written by Mary Baker Eddy, inspired by studies of the Bible she undertook in 1867 following a healing experience....
, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error." (S&H 468: 10–12)
Eddy found that while at first hypnotism seemed to benefit the patient, it later created more problems than the original sickness. Ultimately she rejected any form of hypnotism or mesmerism, stating
Eddy's use of these terms and her teaching are considered by both her defenders and Quimby's family to be distinct from Quimbyism. Quimby's son, George, wrote, "Don’t confuse his method of healing with Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science, so far as her religious teachings go.... The religion which she teaches certainly is hers, for which I cannot be too thankful." (Gottschalk, Rolling Away the Stone, p. 72).
Phineas Quimby died in January 1866. In 1873, Eddy divorced Patterson for adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
to which he readily admitted. In 1877 she married Asa Gilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.
In 1903 Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
published a satirical diatribe attacking Eddy and her church entitled Christian Science. Twain wrote However, later he seemed to reverse his stance as Paine
Albert Bigelow Paine
Albert Bigelow Paine was an American author and biographer best known for his work with Mark Twain. Paine was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Committee and wrote in several genres, including fiction, humour, and verse....
wrote:
In view of Mark Twain's extended and caustic attack in his book "Christian Science" on both Christian Science and its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (whom he once described as the "queen of frauds and hypocrites"), it is widely assumed that his reference to "Mother Eddy" as "the benefactor of the age" was purely sarcastic. When Harper's refused to publish "Christian Science" in 1903, Twain interpreted the rejection as suppression caused by pressure from Christian Science and wrote, "The situation is not barren of humour. I had been doing my best to show in print that the Xn Scientist cult has become a power in the land – well, here is the proof: it has scared the biggest publisher in the Union."
Building a church
Eddy devoted the rest of her life to the establishment of the church, writing its bylaws, The Manual of The Mother ChurchManual of The Mother Church
The Manual of The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy is the governing document, or in effect constitution, of the Christian Science Church.The "Church Manual" or "Manual" went through 88 revisions during Eddy's lifetime. The 89th edition incorporates revisions said to be in process prior to Eddy's...
, and revising Science and Health. While Eddy was a highly controversial religious leader, author, and lecturer, thousands of people flocked to her teachings.
By the 1870’s Eddy was telling her students “Some day I will have a church of my own.” In 1879 she and her students established the Church of Christ, Scientist, “to commemorate the word and works of our Master [Jesus], which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing.” In 1892 at Eddy’s direction, the church reorganized as The First Church of Christ, Scientist, “designed to be built on the Rock, Christ....” Some years later in 1881, she founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College
Massachusetts Metaphysical College
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of Christianly scientific metaphysical healing that she named Christian Science. Eddy records in the preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her chief work...
, where she taught approximately 800 students in Boston, Massachusetts between the years 1882 and 1889. These students spread across the country practicing healing, and instructing others, in accordance with Eddy's teachings. Eddy authorized these students to list themselves as Christian Science Practitioner
Christian Science practitioner
A Christian Science practitioner is an individual who follows the practice of healing through prayer according to the teachings of Christian Science...
s in the church's periodical, The Christian Science Journal. She also founded the Christian Science Sentinel
Christian Science Sentinel
The Christian Science Sentinel is a magazine published by the Christian Science Publishing Society. The magazine includes articles, editorials, and accounts of healings from a Christian Science point of view....
, a weekly magazine with articles about how to heal and testimonies of healing.
As teacher, author, and preacher, Eddy was leader of the burgeoning Christian Science movement. In 1888, a reading room selling Bibles, her writings and other publications opened in Boston. This model would soon be replicated, and branch churches worldwide maintain more than 1,200 Christian Science Reading Rooms today.
In 1889, she closed the Massachusetts Metaphysical College to focus on a major revision of Science and Health. Throughout her lifetime, Science and Health would appear in over 400 separate printings, and undergo six major revisions. Science and Health is currently published in 17 languages including Braille.
In 1894, an edifice for The First Church of Christ, Scientist edifice was completed in Boston (The Mother Church). In the early years, Eddy served as pastor, and she was succeeded by several other individuals. In 1895, however, Eddy ordained the Bible and Science and Health as the pastor of The Church of Christ, Scientist, and the Sunday sermon consists of readings from these two books. Wednesday meetings also include readings from the Bible and Science and Health, and attendees participate by sharing accounts of healing and spiritual insight. Also in 1895 she published the first edition of a church manual, establishing guidelines that are followed to this day. It is also in this slim volume that she made provisions for democratically run local churches around the world.
Eddy founded The Christian Science Publishing Society in 1898, which became the publishing home for numerous publications launched by her and her followers. In 1908, at the age of 87, Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
, a daily newspaper. She also founded the Christian Science Journal in 1883, a monthly magazine aimed at the church's members and, in 1898, the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly religious periodical written for a more general audience, and the Herald of Christian Science
Herald of Christian Science
The Herald of Christian Science was first published in 1903 in response to the demand for a monthly publication on Christian Science in Germany. Due to an increasing demand for Christian Science Literature from other countries, the Herald grew to include twelve different languages. Until the 90’s...
, a religious magazine with editions in many languages. All of these publications continue to be published today.
Death
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Chestnut Hill is a wealthy New England village located six miles west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Like all Massachusetts villages, Chestnut Hill is not an incorporated municipal entity, but unlike most of them, it encompasses parts of three separate municipalities, each of...
section of Newton, Massachusetts
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...
.
Her death was not announced until the next morning when a city medical examiner was called in. She was buried December 8, 1910 at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
.
Legacy
Today, almost 1,700 Christian Science churches are active in 76 countries throughout the world. People from all walks of life continue to practice the Bible-based religion and use the system of health that Eddy discovered almost 150 years ago.Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures has been a best seller list for decades, and was selected as one of the “75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World,” by the Women's National Book Association. In 1995, Eddy was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 2002, The Mary Baker Eddy Library opened its doors, giving the public access to one of the largest collections about an American woman.
For more than a century, The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel have been publishing accounts of restored health based on the system of care that Eddy taught. The Christian Science Monitor newspaper has won seven Pulitzer Prizes to date.
In 1921, on the 100th anniversary of Eddy's birth, a 100-ton (in rough) and 60–70 tons (hewn), eleven-foot square granite pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, New Hampshire
Bow, New Hampshire
Bow is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 7,519 at the 2010 census.- History :Incorporated in 1727, the town was one of several formed to ease population pressures on the Seacoast. The town's name comes from its establishment along a bend, or "bow", in the...
. A gift from James F. Lord, it was later dynamited in 1962 by order of the church's board of directors. Also demolished was Eddy's former home in Pleasant View, as the board feared that it was becoming a place of pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...
. Although Eddy allowed personal praise in her lifetime for various reasons, including for publicity and fundraising, the church shuns both the cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
and religious reliquaries.
Residences
A number of the homes Eddy lived in are now maintained as historic sites. The following list contains these houses arranged by dates of her occupancy:.
- 1855–1860 – Hall's Brook Road, North Groton, New HampshireGroton, New HampshireGroton is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 593 at the 2010 census.- History :The town was originally named Cockermouth in honor of Charles Wyndham, Baron Cockermouth and Earl of Egremont, who was Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1761 to...
- 1860–1862 – Stinson Lake Road, Rumney, New HampshireRumney, New HampshireRumney is a town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,480 at the 2010 census. The town is located at the southern edge of the White Mountain National Forest.-History:...
- 1865–1866 – 23 Paradise Road, Swampscott, MassachusettsSwampscott, MassachusettsSwampscott is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States located 15 miles up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population is 13,787...
- 1868,1870 – 277 Main Street, Amesbury, MassachusettsAmesbury, MassachusettsAmesbury is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Though it officially became a city in 1996, its formal name remains "The Town of Amesbury." In 1890, 9798 people lived in Amesbury; in 1900, 9473; in 1910, 9894; in 1920, 10,036; and in 1940, 10,862. The population was 16,283 at...
- 1868–1870 – 133 Central Street, Stoughton, MassachusettsStoughton, MassachusettsStoughton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,962 at the 2010 census. The town is located approximately from Boston, from Providence, and from Cape Cod.-History:...
- 1875–1882 – 12 Broad Street, Lynn, MassachusettsLynn, MassachusettsLynn is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 89,050 at the 2000 census. An old industrial center, Lynn is home to Lynn Beach and Lynn Heritage State Park and is about north of downtown Boston.-17th century:...
- 1889–1892 – 62 North State Street, Concord, New HampshireConcord, New HampshireThe city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
- 1908–1910 – 400 Beacon Street, Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy HomeDupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy HomeThe Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy Home, located at 400 Beacon Street in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dupee Estate, but is better known as the last home of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ,...
, Chestnut HillChestnut Hill, MassachusettsChestnut Hill is a wealthy New England village located six miles west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Like all Massachusetts villages, Chestnut Hill is not an incorporated municipal entity, but unlike most of them, it encompasses parts of three separate municipalities, each of...
, Newton, MassachusettsNewton, MassachusettsNewton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:...
.
All of these houses are currently owned by the Longyear Museum, and all may be visited.
Eddy biographies, pro and con and in between
- A well footnoted (scholarly) biography which eventually became a church-authorized biography of Eddy is Robert Peel'sRobert Peel (Christian Science)Historian and journalist Robert Peel was a significant ecumenical figure in Christian Science, best known for writing his church's definitive three-volume authorized biography of its founder, Mary Baker Eddy...
trilogy Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (ISBN 0030575559), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (ISBN 0875101186), and Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority (ISBN 003021081X). (1966–1971) - A more recent single volume is another originally independent, but now church-authorized and still controversial, 1999 work by a non-Christian Scientist, Gillian Gill (ISBN 0-7382-0227-4). Gill's work included a review of numerous other Eddy biographies over the years. She also uncovered evidence that Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, from whom critics have long-claimed Eddy stole all her ideas, could not possibly have been the "author" of the so-called "Quimby Manuscripts" as Horatio DresserHoratio DresserHoratio Willis Dresser was a New Thought religious leader and author.-Early life:Dresser was born January 15, 1866 in Yarmouth, Maine to Julius and Annetta Seabury Dresser. His parents were involved in the early New Thought movement through their study with Phineas Parkhurst Quimby...
, the son of two of Quimby's students, claimed. Gill wrote that Quimby's actual manuscripts, in his own almost illegible handwriting, indicated that for all intents and purposes Quimby was functionally illiterate and could not write a single cogent English paragraph let alone the manuscripts. She also uncovered materials that demonstrated that Dresser intentionally left out all manuscripts that would have demonstrated the independence of Eddy's ideas from Quimby's. - See also Stephen Gottschalk, Rolling Away the Stone, Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism, (ISBN 0-253-34673-8) for a new account of her founding the church and relations to critics such as Mark Twain. (Indiana University Press: 2006)
- A more recent book which focuses on the healings of Mary Baker Eddy and her letters to students is Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer
- Mary Baker Eddy, Speaking for Herself (ISBN 0-87952-275-5)
- Willa CatherWilla CatherWilla Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
and Georgine Milmine The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1993) began as a famous magazine series 1907–08 and critical book in 1909. - Doris and Moris Grekel also wrote three-part non church-authorized biography on Eddy, The Discovery of the Science of Man: (1821–1888), (ISBN 1-893107-23-X), The Founding of Christian Science: The Life of Mary Baker Eddy 1888–1900, (ISBN 1-893107-24-8), and The Forever Leader: (1901–1910) (ISBN 0-9645803-8-1). This biography was aimed at serious students of Christian Science as opposed to the general public.
- Former Church treasurer and clerk, John V. Dittemore teamed up with Ernest Sutherland Bates, in 1932, to write a biography, Mary Baker Eddy – The Truth and the Tradition. Most of the prose was written by Bates and Dittemore would later distance himself from the book. It has some genuinely distinct information including a list of Eddy's students taught at the Massachusetts Metaphysical CollegeMassachusetts Metaphysical CollegeThe Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of Christianly scientific metaphysical healing that she named Christian Science. Eddy records in the preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her chief work...
. - The famous Viennese novelist Stefan ZweigStefan ZweigStefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world.- Biography :...
wrote a biography "The Mental Healers: Mesmer, Freud, Mary Baker Eddy." Original in German: "Die Heilung durch den Geist: Mesmer, Freud, Mary Baker Eddy." Zweig based his book solely on the Milmine biography (above) and after consultation with Sigmund Freud, concluded that Eddy was a madwoman. - Martin GardnerMartin GardnerMartin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
, The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy, Prometheus Books, 1993.
Works
- Science And Health, With Key To The Scriptures – 1875, revised through 1910
- Miscellaneous Writings
- Retrospection and Introspection
- Unity of Good
- Pulpit and Press
- Rudimental Divine Science
- No and Yes
- Christian Science versus Pantheism
- Message to The Mother Church, 1900
- Message to The Mother Church, 1901
- Message to The Mother Church, 1902
- Christian Healing
- The People's Idea of God
- The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany
- The Manual of The Mother Church
See also
- Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy HomeDupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy HomeThe Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy Home, located at 400 Beacon Street in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Dupee Estate, but is better known as the last home of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ,...
in the Chestnut HillChestnut Hill, MassachusettsChestnut Hill is a wealthy New England village located six miles west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Like all Massachusetts villages, Chestnut Hill is not an incorporated municipal entity, but unlike most of them, it encompasses parts of three separate municipalities, each of...
village of Newton, MassachusettsNewton, MassachusettsNewton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States bordered to the east by Boston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Newton was 85,146, making it the eleventh largest city in the state.-Villages:... - Massachusetts Metaphysical CollegeMassachusetts Metaphysical CollegeThe Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of Christianly scientific metaphysical healing that she named Christian Science. Eddy records in the preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her chief work...
with a complete list of students of Eddy - Septimus J. HannaSeptimus J. HannaSeptimus J. Hanna, C.S.D. , an American Civil War veteran and a judge in the Old West, was a student of Mary Baker Eddy, who was the discover and founder of Christian Science. He was a Christian Science healer/practitioner, lecturer, teacher and president of the Church's Massachusetts Metaphysical...
student of Eddy and vice-president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical CollegeMassachusetts Metaphysical CollegeThe Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded in 1881 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, Massachusetts, to teach her school of Christianly scientific metaphysical healing that she named Christian Science. Eddy records in the preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, her chief work... - William R. RathvonWilliam R. RathvonWilliam Roedel Rathvon, CSB, , sometimes incorrectly referred to as William V. Rathvon or William V. Rathbone, is the only known eye-witness to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, of the over 10,000 witnesses, to have left an audio recording of his impressions of that experience in 1938, one year...
student of Eddy, early Christian Scientist and lone person to leave an audio recording of his hearing Lincoln's Gettysburg AddressGettysburg AddressThe Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and is one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. It was delivered by Lincoln during the American Civil War, on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery...
at the age of nine. - Bliss KnappBliss KnappBliss Knapp , the son of Ira O. and Flavia S. Knapp, students of Mary Baker Eddy, was a Christian Science lecturer, practitioner, teacher and the author of the highly controversial book, The Destiny of the Mother Church.-Childhood:Bliss Knapp, C.S.B., was born on June 7, 1877 in Lyman, N.H...
a child when the church was in its formative years. Later, he was a teacher and also lectured for 21 years. His father was one of the first Directors of The Mother Church. Knapp's Book, The Destiny of the Mother Church, which was rejected by the Church but privately published, was quite controversial, and Knapp's opinions of Eddy remain controversial to this day in the Christian Science Church. - Augusta Emma StetsonAugusta Emma StetsonAugusta Emma Stetson was an American Christian Science leader, born in Waldoboro, Maine She studied at the Blish School of Oratory in Boston, and in 1884 received the degree of Doctor of Christian Science from the Massachusetts Metaphysical College...
, pastor and later First Reader of First Church of Christ, Scientist (New York, New York), excommunicated by the Mother Church in 1909.
- Christian Science Herald
- Christian Science JournalChristian Science JournalThe Christian Science Journal is an official monthly publication of the Church of Christ, Scientist through the Christian Science Publishing Society, founded in 1883 by Mary Baker Eddy...
- Christian Science Monitor
- Christian Science Pleasant View HomeChristian Science Pleasant View HomeThe Christian Science Pleasant View Home is an historic senior citizen residential facility located at 227 Pleasant Street in Concord, New Hampshire, in the United States, It was built in 1927 by the Christian Science Board of Directors as a retirement home for aged Christian Science practitioners...
- Christian Science practitionerChristian Science practitionerA Christian Science practitioner is an individual who follows the practice of healing through prayer according to the teachings of Christian Science...
- Christian Science SentinelChristian Science SentinelThe Christian Science Sentinel is a magazine published by the Christian Science Publishing Society. The magazine includes articles, editorials, and accounts of healings from a Christian Science point of view....
- Christian Science Reading RoomChristian Science Reading Room400px|left|thumb|A typical storefront Christian Science Reading Room on the main street of a suburb of Boston. The window displays a lamp, a large Bible open to the current reading, and copies of Science and Health....
- List of Christian Science tenets, prayers, and statements