Mary Baker Eddy
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Mary Baker Eddy (née Baker; July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the Mother Church of the Christian Science movement. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science.[1]
Eddy wrote numerous books and articles, most notably the 1875 book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, selected as one of the "75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World" by the Women's National Book Association.[2] She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.[3] Other works Eddy authored include Manual of The Mother Church, and a collection of varied writings that were consolidated posthumously into a book called Prose Works.[1]
Early life
Bow, New Hampshire
Family
Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker on July 16, 1821, in a farmhouse in Bow, New Hampshire to farmer Mark Baker (d. 1865) and his wife Abigail Barnard Baker, née Ambrose (d. 1849). Eddy was the youngest of six children: boys Samuel Dow (1808), Albert (1810), and George Sullivan (1812), followed by girls Abigail Barnard (1816), Martha Smith (1819), and Mary Morse (1821).Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She was the cousin of U.S. Representative Henry M. Baker.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
She was the sixth generation of her family born in the United States.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The farmhouse she was born in was built by her grandfather, Joseph Baker Jr., on a tract of land his maternal grandfather, Captain John Lovewell, had been given for service in the American Revolutionary War. Eddy's father Mark inherited, alongside his elder brother James, the farm when Joseph Jr. died in 1816.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
A staunch Calvinist, Mark Baker was an active member of the Tilton Congregationalist Church.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". McClure's reported he had a reputation for holding strong opinions and quarreling with those he disagreed with; one neighbor described him as "[a] tiger for a temper and always in a row."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". They also claimed he was an ardent supporter of slavery and a Copperhead who was reportedly pleased to hear about Abraham Lincoln's death.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Despite trying to oust his Republican pastor during the war alongside a faction of his church, he refused to leave the church alongside other members of the faction when they failed. Instead, he continued to attend services, but would storm out at the mention of the American Civil War during a service.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy and her father reportedly had a volatile relationship. Ernest Sutherland Bates and John V. Dittemore wrote in 1932 that Baker sought to break Eddy's will with harsh punishment, although her mother often intervened;Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". in contrast to the strict religiosity of her father, Eddy's mother was described as devout, quiet, light-hearted and nurturing, and a benevolent spiritual influence on Eddy in her formative years.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Health
Eddy experienced periods of sudden illness.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Those who knew the family described her as suddenly falling to the floor, writhing and screaming, or silent and apparently unconscious, sometimes for hours.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Historian Robert Peel wrote that these fits would require the family to send Eddy to the village doctor.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
The cause for Eddy's illness was unclear, but biographer Caroline Fraser wrote she believed the cause was most likely psychogenic in nature.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to psychoanalyst Julius Silberger, Eddy may have been motivated to have these fits in an effort to control her father's attitude toward her.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Fraser attributed the illness likely to a combination of hypochondria and histrionics as well.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Tilton, New Hampshire
In 1836, when Eddy was about 14 to 15 years old, she moved with her family to the town of Sanbornton Bridge, New Hampshire, approximately Script error: No such module "convert". north of Bow. Sanbornton Bridge was renamed in 1869 as Tilton, New Hampshire.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Ernest Bates and John Dittemore write that Eddy was not able to attend Sanbornton Academy when the family first moved there but was required instead to start at the district school (in the same building) with the youngest girls. She withdrew after a month because of poor health, then received private tuition from the Reverend Enoch Corser. She entered Sanbornton Academy in 1842.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
She was received into the Congregational church in Tilton on July 26, 1838, when she was 17, according to church records published by Cather and Milmine. Eddy had written in her autobiography in 1891 that she was 12 when this happened, and that she had discussed the idea of predestination with the pastor during the examination for her membership; this may have been an attempt to mirror the story of a 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Marriage, widowhood
Eddy was badly affected by four deaths in the 1840s.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She regarded her brother Albert as a teacher and mentor, but he died in 1841. In 1844, her first husband George Washington Glover (a friend of her brother Samuel) died after six months of marriage. They had married in December 1843 and set up home in Charleston, South Carolina, where Glover had business, but he died of yellow fever in June 1844 while living in Wilmington, North Carolina. Eddy was with him in Wilmington, six months pregnant. She had to make her way back to New Hampshire, Script error: No such module "convert". by train and steamboat, where her only child George Washington Glover II (1844 - 1915) was born on September 12 in her father's home.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Her husband's death, the journey back, and the birth left her physically and mentally exhausted, and she ended up bedridden for months.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". As Eddy was unable to care for him, her son was nursed by a local woman while Eddy herself was cared for by a household servant.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy's mother died in November 1849. Her mother's death was then followed three weeks later by the death of Eddy's fiancé, lawyer John Bartlett.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy's father Mark Baker remarried in 1850; his second wife Elizabeth Patterson Duncan (d. June 6, 1875) had been widowed twice, and had some property and income from her second marriage.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Baker apparently made clear to Eddy that her son would not be welcome in the new marital home.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Early influences
Study with Phineas Quimby
Eddy married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, in 1853.[4] Mesmerism had become popular in New England; and on October 14, 1861, Patterson, wrote to mesmerist Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, who reportedly cured people without medicine, asking if he could cure his wife.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Quimby replied that he had too much work in Portland, Maine and that he could not visit her, but if Patterson brought his wife to him he would treat her.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy did not immediately go, instead trying the water cure at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute, but her health deteriorated even further.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". A year later, in October 1862, Eddy first visited Quimby.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She improved considerably, and publicly declared that she had been able to walk up 182 steps to the dome of city hall after a week of treatment.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The cures were temporary, however, and Eddy suffered relapses.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Despite the temporary nature of the "cure", she attached religious significance to it, which Quimby did not.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy believed that it was the same type of healing performed by Christ Jesus, who, unlike Quimby, administered no medicine or material means in his healings.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". From 1862 to 1865, Quimby and Eddy engaged in lengthy discussions about healing methods like hydropathy practiced by Quimby and others.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She took notes on her own views of healing, as well as writing dictations from him and "correcting" them with her own ideas, some of which possibly ended up in the "Quimby manuscripts" that were published later and attributed to him. Furthering the case that Eddy had likely written large portions of Quimby's manuscripts, Quimby was notably "illiterate" and would never have had the ability to write his ideas down himself.[5]Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Despite Quimby not being especially religious, he embraced the religious connotations Eddy was bringing to his work since he knew his more religious patients would appreciate it.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Phineas Quimby died on January 16, 1866, shortly after Eddy's father.Template:Efn
J. Gordon Melton has argued "certainly Eddy shared some ideas with Quimby. She differed with him in some key areas, however, such as specific healing techniques. Moreover, she did not share Quimby's hostility toward the Bible and Christianity."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Biographer Gillian Gill has disagreed with other scholars arguing they "have flouted the evidence and shown willful bias in accusing Mrs. Eddy of owing her theory of healing to Quimby and of plagiarizing his unpublished work."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
1866 fall
On February 1, 1866, while living in Lynn, Massachusetts, Eddy slipped and fell on a patch of ice. A contemporary account by the Lynn Reporter stated:Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
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Mrs. Mary Patterson of Swampscott fell upon the ice near the corner of Market and Oxford Streets on Thursday evening and was severely injured. She was taken up in an insensible condition and carried into the residence of S. M. Bubier, Esq., near by, where she was kindly cared for during the night. Dr. Cushing, who was called, found her injuries to be internal and of a severe nature, inducing spasms and internal suffering. She was removed to her home in Swampscott yesterday afternoon, though in a very critical condition.
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When Georgine Milmine interviewed Dr. Cushing forty years later, he stated that his records from the time documented that Eddy was in a "semi-hysterical" intense emotional state which subsided after she was given a small amount of morphine.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
On February 14, 1866, the day after Eddy finished her care with Dr. Cushing, Eddy wrote to Julius Dresser, another patient of Phineas Quimby, claiming that her injury and her subsequent medical care had undone all of the healing that Quimby had done before, and requested that he heal her. Dresser refused, stating that he was not enough to take on the burden of healing, and urged Eddy to instead spread Quimby's teachings further. Eddy would later credit her accident as her moment of spiritual revelation and the "falling apple" that led to her discovery of Christian Science. She claimed that after rejecting the medicines offered to her by her doctor, she opened her Bible three days after her fall and returned to full health after reading of Jesus healing the sick.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Spiritualism
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Eddy separated from her second husband Daniel Patterson in 1866, after which she boarded for four years with several families in Lynn, Massachusetts and elsewhere. Frank Podmore wrote:
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But she was never able to stay long in one family. She quarrelled successively with all her hostesses, and her departure from the house was heralded on two or three occasions by a violent scene. Her friends during these years were generally Spiritualists; she seems to have professed herself a Spiritualist, and to have taken part in séances. She was occasionally entranced, and had received "spirit communications" from her deceased brother Albert. Her first advertisement as a healer appeared in 1868, in the Spiritualist paper The Banner of Light. During these years she carried about with her a copy of one of Quimby's manuscripts giving an abstract of his philosophy. This manuscript she permitted some of her pupils to copy.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
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According to Peel, spiritualists were "eager to claim her as one of their own."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". After she became well known, reports surfaced that Eddy had been a medium years earlier in Boston and St. Louis.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". However, at the time when she was said to be a medium there, she lived some distance away in North Groton, where she was bedridden.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to Gill, Eddy knew spiritualists and took part in some of their activities, but was never a convinced believer.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". For example, she visited her friend Sarah Crosby in 1864, who believed in Spiritualism. According to Sibyl Wilbur, Eddy attempted to show Crosby the folly of it by pretending to channel Eddy's dead brother Albert and writing letters which she attributed to him.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In regard to the deception, biographer Hugh Evelyn Wortham stated "Mrs. Eddy's followers explain it all as a pleasantry on her part to cure Mrs. Crosby of her credulous belief in spiritualism."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". However, Martin Gardner has argued against this, stating that Eddy was working as a spiritualist medium and was convinced by the messages. According to Gardner, Eddy's mediumship converted Crosby to Spiritualism.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In one of her spiritualist trances to Crosby, Eddy gave a message that was supportive of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, stating "P. Quimby of Portland has the spiritual truth of diseases. You must imbibe it to be healed. Go to him again and lean on no material or spiritual medium."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The paragraph that included this quote was later omitted from an official sanctioned biography of Eddy.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Between 1866 and 1870, Eddy boarded at the home of Brene Paine Clark who was interested in Spiritualism.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Seances were often conducted there, but Eddy and Clark engaged in vigorous, good-natured arguments about them.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy's arguments against Spiritualism convinced at least one other who was there at the time—Hiram Crafts—that "her science was far superior to spirit teachings."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Clark's son George tried to convince Eddy to take up Spiritualism, but he said that she abhorred the idea.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to Cather and Milmine, Richard Hazeltine attended seances at Clark's home, and Eddy had acted as a trance medium, claiming to channel the spirits of the Apostles.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Mary Gould, a Spiritualist from Lynn, claimed that one of the spirits that Eddy channeled was Abraham Lincoln. According to eyewitness reports cited by Cather and Milmine, Eddy was still attending séances as late as 1872.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In these later séances, Eddy would attempt to convert her audience into accepting Christian Science.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy showed extensive familiarity with Spiritualist practice,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". but she denounced it in later Christian Science writings.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Historian Ann Braude wrote that there were similarities between Spiritualism and Christian Science, but the main difference was that Eddy came to believe, after she founded Christian Science, that spirit manifestations had never really had bodies to begin with, because matter is unreal and that all that really exists is spirit, before and after death.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In the fiftieth edition of her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, published in 1891, Eddy added the chapter, Christian Science and Spiritualism. This chapter was renamed in 1910 to Christian Science versus Spiritualism.[6]
Building a church
Eddy divorced Daniel Patterson for adultery in 1873.[7] She published her work in 1875 in a book entitled Science and Health (years later retitled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures) which she called the textbook of Christian Science, after several years of offering her healing method. The first publication run was 1,000 copies, which she self-published. During these years, she taught what she considered the science of "primitive Christianity" and the "lost art of healing" to at least 800 people.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Many of her students became healers themselves. The last 100 pages of Science and Health (chapter entitled "Fruitage") contains testimonies of people who affirm to have been healed by reading her book. She made numerous revisions to her book from the time of its first publication until shortly before her death.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In January 1877, Eddy spurned an approach from one of her students, Daniel Spofford. She then married another student of hers, Asa Gilbert Eddy.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". On January 1, 1877, the two were wed, and she became Mary Baker Eddy in a small ceremony presided over by a Unitarian minister.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In 1881, Mary Baker Eddy started the Massachusetts Metaphysical College with a charter from the state which allowed her to grant degrees.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In Spring 1882, the Eddys moved to Boston to Massachusetts Metaphysical College.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Gilbert Eddy's health began to decline around this time,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and he died June 3 that year.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy devoted the rest of her life to the establishment of the church, writing its bylaws, The Manual of The Mother Church, and revising Science and Health. By the 1870s, she was telling her students, "Some day I will have a church of my own."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1879, she and her students established the Church of Christ, Scientist,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". "to commemorate the word and works of our Master [Jesus], which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1881, she founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". where she taught approximately 800 students between the years 1882 and 1889, when she closed it.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy charged her students $300 each for tuition, a large sum for the time.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1892, at Eddy's direction, the church reorganized as The First Church of Christ, Scientist.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1894, an edifice for The First Church of Christ, Scientist was completed in Boston.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Her students spread across the country practicing healing, and instructing others.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Eddy authorized these students to list themselves as Christian Science Practitioners in the church's The Christian Science Journal.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She also founded the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine with articles about how to heal and testimonies of healing.[8]
When the church re-organized in 1892, Eddy was made the leader of the church as "Pastor Emeritus".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1895, she ordained the Bible and Science and Health as the pastor.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy founded The Christian Science Publishing Society in 1898, which became the publishing home for numerous publications launched by her and her followers.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1908, at the age of 87, she founded The Christian Science Monitor, a daily newspaper.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She also founded The Christian Science Journal in 1883,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". a monthly magazine aimed at the church's members and, in 1898,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". 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.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Influences and teachings
Malicious animal magnetism
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The opposite of Christian Science mental healing was the use of mental powers for destructive or selfish reasons – for which Eddy used terms such as animal magnetism, hypnotism, or mesmerism interchangeably.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". "Malicious animal magnetism", sometimes abbreviated as M.A.M., is what Catherine Albanese called "a Calvinist devil lurking beneath the metaphysical surface".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". As there is no personal devil or evil in Christian Science, M.A.M., or mesmerism became the explanation for the problem of evil.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy was concerned that a new practitioner could inadvertently harm a patient through unenlightened use of their mental powers, and that less scrupulous individuals could use them as a weapon.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Animal magnetism became one of the most controversial aspects of Eddy's life. The McClure's biography spends a significant amount of time on malicious animal magnetism, which it uses to make the case that Eddy had paranoia.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". During the Next Friends lawsuit, it was used to charge Eddy with incompetence and "general insanity".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
According to Gillian Gill, Eddy's experience with Richard Kennedy, one of her early students, was what led her to begin her examination of malicious animal magnetism.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy had agreed to form a partnership with Kennedy in 1870, in which she would teach him how to heal, and he would take patients.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The partnership was rather successful at first, but by 1872 Kennedy had fallen out with his teacher and torn up their contract.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Although there were multiple issues raised, the main reason for the break according to Gill was Eddy's insistence that Kennedy stop "rubbing" his patient's head and solar plexus, which she saw as harmful since, as Gill states, "traditionally in mesmerism or hypnosis the head and abdomen were manipulated so that the subject would be prepared to enter into trance."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Kennedy clearly did believe in clairvoyance, mind reading, and absent mesmeric treatment; and after their split, Eddy believed that Kennedy was using his mesmeric abilities to try to harm her and her movement.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In 1882, Eddy publicly claimed that her last husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy, had died of "mental assassination".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Daniel Spofford was another Christian Scientist expelled by Eddy after she accused him of practicing malicious animal magnetism.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". This gained notoriety in a case irreverently dubbed the "Second Salem Witch Trial".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Later, Eddy set up "watches" for her staff to pray about challenges facing the Christian Science movement and to handle animal magnetism that arose.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Gill writes that Eddy got the term from the New Testament account of the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus chastises his disciples for being unable to "watch" even for a short time; and that Eddy used it to refer to "a particularly vigilant and active form of prayer, a set period of time when specific people would put their thoughts toward God, review questions and problems of the day, and seek spiritual understanding."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Critics such as Georgine Milmine in Mclure's, Edwin Dakin, and John Dittemore, all claimed this was evidence that Eddy had a great fear of malicious animal magnetism; although Gilbert Carpenter, one of Eddy's staff at the time, insisted she was not fearful of it, and that she was simply being vigilant.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
As time went on, Eddy tried to lessen the focus on animal magnetism within the movement, and she worked to clearly define it as unreality, which only had power if one conceded to it.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Nonetheless, it continued to play an important role in the teaching of Christian Science.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
The belief in malicious animal magnetism remains a part of Christian Science doctrine.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Christian Scientists use it as a specific term for a hypnotic belief in a power apart from God.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Hinduism, Buddhism, or other Eastern religions
There is some debate on the possible influence of Hinduism, Buddhism, or other Eastern religions on Eddy and her work.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The 33rd edition of Science and Health referenced the Bhagavad-Gita, which according to Gillian Gill was likely added by James Henry Wiggin, who worked as an editor for Eddy; however Eddy removed all references to Eastern religions in 1891.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to Stephen Gottschalk, Eddy consciously distinguished Christian Science from Eastern religions starting in the mid-1880s.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to Claire Badaracco, "Eddy knew little about" these religions.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Damodar Singhal, however, believes that there were the "echoes" of Vedanta in her work, whether Eddy was directly influenced by Hindu philosophy or not.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
British Israelism
Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". Eddy was introduced to British Israelism by Julia Field-King, who herself was introduced by the writings of C. A. L. Totten. Totten allegedly traced Queen Victoria's genealogy to King David, and Field-King offered to create a genealogy tracing Eddy to King David. Eddy eventually requested that Field-King cease work on the genealogy and transferred her to London to expand the church there.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Since her death, academics have debated the extent of Eddy's relationship with British Israelism with Christian Scientist historian Robert Peel arguing she was "intrigued by the theory for several years," while keeping "it resolutely out of her work and her writing on Christian Science." He acknowledges she uses the term "Anglo-Israel" in one poem, but argues the meaning is "metaphorical" instead of "ethnic or historical."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Political Scientist Michael Barkun argued that "Eddy continued to maintain an interest in British-Israelism, although she kept it out of her doctrinal writings" and noted that a "schismatic offshoot" organized by Annie Cecelia Bill in England after Eddy's death centered on British-Israelism.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Professor of religious studies John K. Simmons, citing Peel, argued that Eddy "gave the theory no real credence, at least in verifiable written form," but acknowledged British-Israelism "seemed to attract the turn-of-the-century metaphysical crowd."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Later life and death
Use of medicine
There is controversy about how much Eddy used morphine. Biographers Ernest Sutherland Bates and Edwin Franden Dakin described Eddy as a morphine addict.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Miranda Rice, a friend and close student of Eddy, told a newspaper in 1906: "I know that Mrs. Eddy was addicted to morphine in the seventies."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". A diary kept by Calvin Frye, Eddy's personal secretary, suggests that Eddy occasionally reverted to "the old morphine habit" when she was in pain.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Gill writes that the prescription of morphine was normal medical practice at the time, and that "I remain convinced that Mary Baker Eddy was never addicted to morphine."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Eddy recommended to her son that, rather than go against the law of the state, he should have her grandchildren vaccinated. She also paid for a mastectomy for her sister-in-law.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy used glasses for several years for very fine print, but later dispensed with them almost entirely, claiming she could read fine print with ease.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1907, Arthur Brisbane interviewed Eddy. At one point, he picked up a periodical, selected a paragraph at random, and asked Eddy to read it. According to Brisbane, at the age of eighty-six, she read the ordinary magazine type without glasses.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Towards the end of her life, she was frequently attended by physicians.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Next Friends lawsuit
Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". In 1907, the New York World sponsored a lawsuit, known as "The Next Friends suit", which journalist Erwin Canham described as "designed to wrest from [Eddy] and her trusted officials all control of her church and its activities."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". During the course of the legal case, four psychiatrists interviewed Eddy, then 86 years old, to determine whether she could manage her own affairs, and concluded that she was able to.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Physician Allan McLane Hamilton told The New York Times that the attacks on Eddy were the result of "a spirit of religious persecution that has at last quite overreached itself", and that "there seems to be a manifest injustice in taxing so excellent and capable an old lady as Mrs. Eddy with any form of insanity."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
A 1907 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that Eddy exhibited hysterical and psychotic behavior.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Psychiatrist Karl Menninger, in his book The Human Mind (1927), cited Eddy's paranoid delusions about malicious animal magnetism as an example of a "schizoid personality".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Psychologists Leon Joseph Saul and Silas L. Warner, in their book The Psychotic Personality (1982), concluded that Eddy had diagnostic characteristics of psychotic personality disorder (PPD).Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". In 1983, psychologists Theodore Barber and Sheryl C. Wilson suggested that Eddy displayed traits of a fantasy prone personality.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Psychiatrist George Eman Vaillant wrote that Eddy was hypochondriacal.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Psychopharmacologist Ronald K. Siegel has written that Eddy's lifelong secret morphine habit contributed to her development of "progressive paranoia".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Death
Eddy died of pneumonia on the evening of December 3, 1910, at her home at 400 Beacon Street, in the Chestnut Hill section of Newton, Massachusetts. Her death was announced the next morning, when a city medical examiner was called in.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". She was buried on December 8, 1910, at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her open-air mausoleum was designed by New York architect Egerton Swartwout (1870–1943).[9]
Legacy
A bronze memorial relief of Eddy by Lynn sculptor Reno Pisano was unveiled in December 2000, at the corner of Market Street and Oxford Street in Lynn, Massachusetts, near the site of her fall in 1866.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In 1995, Eddy was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame as the first American woman to have founded a worldwide religion.[10]
Eddy was named one of the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time" in 2014 by Smithsonian Magazine,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was ranked as one of the "75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World" by the Women's National Book Association in 1992.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
She is referenced in the Family Guy episode "Livin' on a Prayer", in which Peter Griffin says in response to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "This is your god, a woman?"
Residences
In 1921, on the 100th anniversary of Eddy's birth, a 100-ton (in rough) and 60–70 tons (hewn) pyramid with a Script error: No such module "convert". footprint was dedicated on the site of her birthplace in Bow, New Hampshire.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". A gift from James F. Lord, it was 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.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eddy is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 105) along New Hampshire Route 9 in Concord, New Hampshire.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Several of Eddy's homes are owned and maintained as historic sites by the Longyear Museum and may be visited (the list below is arranged by date of her occupancy):[11]
- 1855–1860: Hall's Brook Road, North Groton, New Hampshire
- 1860–1862: Stinson Lake Road, Rumney, New Hampshire
- 1865–1866: 23 Paradise Road, Swampscott, Massachusetts[12]
- 1868,1870: 277 Main Street, Amesbury, Massachusetts
- 1868–1870: 133 Central Street, Stoughton, Massachusetts
- 1875–1882: 8 Broad Street, Lynn, Massachusetts (NRHP-listed in 2021)
- 1889–1892: 62 North State Street, Concord, New Hampshire (NRHP-listed in 1982)
- 1908–1910: 400 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (NRHP-listed in 1986)
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23 Paradise Road, Swampscott, Massachusetts
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277 Main Street, Amesbury, Massachusetts
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133 Central Street, Stoughton, Massachusetts
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8 Broad Street, Lynn, Massachusetts
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400 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Selected works
Source:[13]
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See also
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Notes
Citations
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- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World
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- ↑ "Writings" via the Mary Baker Eddy Library.
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Sources
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Further reading
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External links
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- Mary Baker Eddy Library
- Mary Baker Eddy and Basic teachings of Christian Science, christianscience.com
- The Longyear Museum
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- Works by Template:PAGENAMEBASE at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) File:Speaker Icon.svgTemplate:EditAtWikidata
- Annotated Bibliography of Christian Science: Academic and Other Literature
- Norwood, Arlisha. "Mary Eddy". National Women's History Museum. 2017.
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