Brad Stock is a special assistant for research in the office of The Christian Science Board of Directors. His article contains previously unpublished material about Mary Baker Eddy's pioneering work in the field of spiritual healing.
Before her discovery of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy spent years exploring the relationship between mind and body. She concluded that all health is produced by the divine Mind, God, and that the body is governed harmoniously through obedience to Mind, through reliance on Truth, a reliance which extends far beyond mere belief, culminating in an absolute faith and scientific understanding—"the knowledge of God." Mary Baker Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection, p. 31. See also Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 107.
From childhood, Mrs. Eddy had caught glimpses of the spiritual fact of God's healing presence. She had healed others and been healed herself through prayer and a natural reliance on God. Thus, she knew firsthand the immediacy and relevance of God's love. But she did not find in the church of her youth a permanent cure for her chronic ills, nor was she able to cure her neighbors or loved ones consistently. Consequently, young Mary and her family turned for her well-being to the curative systems of their day. Mary soon found that she became "a slave to prevailing theories" Church History document: V00801. Church History department of The Mother Church. of health care, although her ills were not cured. The inability of materia medica to heal her, combined with her sincere desire to understand "divine things," caused her "to seek diligently for the knowledge of God as the one great and ever-present relief from human woe." Ret., p. 31.
Thus began her quest for an effective system of healing that took account of God's great grace and the practical care imparted by His love. This quest would transform this young New Hampshire woman into a scientific pioneer, a discoverer and trailblazer who scaled the heights of scientific mental healing. Looking back on this journey, she later summarized her findings in a vigorous and uncompromising conclusion: "There are but two methods of treating disease: the one is through matter; the other is through mind. One is a material modus; the other is a spiritual method or the action of Truth on both mind and body." Church History document: A10585C. The Discoverer of Christian Science refused to mix these antagonistic methods; she chose unswervingly to base her system of Christian healing on the absolute power of the divine Mind.
Mrs. Eddy notes that as early as 1844 she "was convinced that mortal mind produced all disease, and that the various medical systems were in no proper sense Scientific." Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, "Mind-Healing History," The Christian Science Journal, June 1887, p. 116. In that year, her husband of only a few months, Col. George Glover, died of a sudden illness. Pregnant, she returned to her father's house, and after the birth of her son she became increasingly ill. Hoping to regain her independence and health, and longing to understand the grace of God's healing power, she began "trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause." Ret., p. 24. She soon found in homeopathy a "blessed relief" Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 345. and embarked upon a course of medical study.
She began her studies in 1849 by reading allopathy in Warner, New Hampshire, with Dr. Whidden, to whom she had gone, in part, to receive treatment and cure. Church History documents: A10994, L13931. Dr. Whidden was not able to cure her, but this is perhaps not surprising, for as Mrs. Eddy says, she had already been "dosed with drugs until they had no effect." Miscellany, p. 345. Her study of allopathy appears to have been intended to qualify her for a subsequent course in homeopathy by means of which she hoped to find the way to health both for herself and others. Church History document: A11035. See also Ret., p. 30.
Homeopathy was a relatively new field at the time. One of Mrs. Eddy's cousins, Dr. Alpheus Morrill, was one of the founding fathers of homeopathy in Concord, New Hampshire, and he was willing to treat and consult with his young cousin. Church History documents: A11156, L08899. The man who would become Mrs. Eddy's second husband, Dr. Daniel Patterson, also dabbled in homeopathic practice. See Sibyl Wilbur, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1976), pp. 55-56. Both men provided her with some physical relief, See Michael Meehan, Mrs. Eddy and the Late Suit in Equity (Concord, N.H.: privately printed, 1908), p. 160. See also Wilbur, pp. 55-56. and she naturally sought to understand the cause of these effects. Under the tutelage of a homeopathist, she trained to serve as a homeopathic physician. Of this study, she notes that she "did not receive a diploma. Timidity prevented my entering a dissecting room. No woman had then been admitted member of the medical society. Practiced medicine several years before discovering Christian Science, or metaphysical healing." Church History documents: A10219, L13931, A10994.
In the later 1840s or early 1850s, Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) practiced homeopathy among the women and children in her area, although she herself was still unwell. She began to experiment with the homeopathic doses, gradually discovering for herself what we today call the placebo effect. See Meehan, p. 237. See also Myra Smith Wilson reminiscence, Church History department, p. 1. In homeopathy, the most potent remedies were considered to be those in which the drug was most highly attenuated. Indeed, the drug was frequently so diluted that Mrs. Eddy became convinced that it no longer existed in the dose. To verify this hypothesis, she submitted one of her preparations for chemical analysis. No trace of the drug was left. See Meehan, p. 160. See also Mary Baker Eddy, Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 17, and Miscellany, pp. 107-108. Yet, as Mrs. Eddy later noted, "... I found that when I prescribed pellets without any medication they acted just the same and healed the sick." Miscellany, p. 345. This led her to the "final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug, governed the action of material medicine." Ret., p. 33.
In later years, when lecturing and writing on these experiences, she notes: "... the highest attenuation we ever attained in Homeopathy was to leave the sugar without shaking and without the shadow of a drug and then to administer the sugar in the name of the drug; with even this original vehicle we have cured a severe case of dropsy..." Church History document: A10082. In another lecture, she adds: "This was my last material medicine. I then took a step forward, not from matter to mind, but from mind to mind, for I had learned that Homeopathy was the stepping stone to Metaphysics. ..." Church History document: A10361. Elsewhere, she concludes, "After these experiments you cannot be surprised that we resigned the imaginary medicine altogether, and honestly employed Mind as the only curative Principle." Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Healing, p. 13.
The healing of this case of dropsy See Science and Health, p. 156. stood out as a "falling apple" along Mrs. Eddy's road of discovery—"... it made plain to me that mind governed the whole question of [the patient's] recovery." Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, originally published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 136. This insight led directly to the next phase of her quest, for as she herself notes, "When she [Mrs. Eddy] arrived at the conclusion that disease is mental and that mind does the healing, she desired to learn which mind, whether the human or the mind of Christ."Church History document: A11021. See also Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, p. 379, and Meehan, p. 165.This vital distinction was one which she would apply to her analysis of various healing practices throughout her life, coming to base her own system of healing squarely on divine Mind.
During this period, examples of the religious nature of her quest become increasingly evident. "About 1857," as Mrs. Eddy later told Calvin Frye, "during a severe illness which confined her to her bed for a lengthy period, she promised God that if He restored her health she would devote her remaining years to helping sick and suffering humanity." Church History document: L10106. When she had begun to heal cases by means of unmedicated pellets, she relied on her firm faith in God's wisdom and love. Church History document: A10403. She studied the Bible. Eventually, when a vial of homeopathic pellets was accidentally crushed, she was unconcerned, remarking that they were worthless. Wilson reminiscence p. 3.
About this time, a singular event confirmed Mrs. Eddy's faith in God and pointed toward the science of true mental healing. A mother brought to her a child whose eyes were badly infected—neither pupil nor iris could be seen. Knowing of no material remedy which could effect a cure, Mrs. Eddy took the child on her lap. "I gave the infant no drugs,—held her in my arms a few moments while lifting my thoughts to God, then returned the babe to her mother healed." Church History document: A10402, p. 13. This healing offered convincing proof that the remedy for all disease is found in the divine Mind, that Mind which was also in Christ Jesus, that Mind which is God. Although Mrs. Eddy could not yet explain how such healing occurred, she had firm proof that such healing was possible.
Mrs. Eddy began carefully to explore other curative methods popular in her time. She briefly investigated spiritualism (which was reputedly able to diagnose the patient's ills and prescribe an appropriate cure), but found that it was largely a hoax. She also turned briefly to hydropathy, the so-called water cure, but found her health failing at the spa.
At this point, in 1862, she encountered yet another method of healing—mesmerism, with which she had had a brief encounter in her youth. Church History document: V00392. An acquaintance of Mrs. Eddy's returned cured after treatments by Phineas P Quimby, the mesmeric physician of Portland, Maine. Quimby relied on a combination of methods that today might be termed hypnotism and therapeutic touch. Indeed, he was a capable hypnotist, able to induce coughing or sneezing in sizable crowds. See Peel, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, originally published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 343, note 32. In particular, he emphasized his practice with individual patients, stressing his belief that a flow of natural electricity passed from the hands of the physician to the body of the patient, carrying a healing effect and imparting a sensation reportedly similar to that which one might experience when holding an electric battery. See "Mind-Healing History," pp. 110-111.
Initially Mrs. Eddy was somewhat skeptical of Quimby's method, but decided to "test its effects." Church History document: A10408. When her health improved dramatically, she was convinced that she had at last found a scientific method of mental healing. But Quimby had not cured her. Gradually her ills returned, sometimes in worse form. Although she continued to rely upon Quimby for healing over the next few years and respected his "rare humanity," Mis., p. 379. See also Church History document: L09659. she eventually realized that there was never any science behind Quimby's hypnotic method—he could neither explain it, teach it, nor document it. Church History document: L09659. Indeed, she realized that the improvement in her health had been due in part to her "faith in the doctor," Church History document: A10408. coupled with her unsuspecting willingness to submit her own thought to the hypnotic control of another human mind. See "Mind-Healing History," p. 116. Eventually, she categorized Quimby's method as a materialist system which relied on electricity and manual manipulation rather than on a faith in God. Her disappointment with Quimby turned her increasingly to the Bible and to prayer. Church History document: A11021.
By 1864 Mrs. Eddy had heightened her own efforts to discover and practice a science of purely mental healing. Church History document: V03350. Indeed, in 1862 she began to record her insights into the Scriptures and distribute these writings to friends. See Science and Health, p. viii. She also met with some success in healing, at times curing cases that Quimby himself could not, somewhat to that good man's exasperation. Church History documents: A10342, A10225, A11043. Such healings went beyond the placebo effect and included the rapid mending of broken bones and the healing of consumption, without the use of drugs, material manipulation, or therapeutic remedies. See Church History documents: Irving C. Tomlinson reminiscence, AB 97, p. 3, and Clara Shannon reminiscence, p. 22. But in 1864, a new impulsion lifted her demonstration still higher, resulting in further healings, including the cure of another case of consumption (related on pp. 184-185 of Science and Health) and the cure of a woman whose face was burned by acid. See Tomlinson reminiscence, p. 100, and Church History document: L13994. However, despite Mrs. Eddy's accumulating success as a Christian healer, the scientific explanation for such marvels still eluded her.
Then in 1866, an event occurred that led Mrs. Eddy to the discovery of the scientific method of mental healing which relies upon neither medical means nor the human mind for its cure. At this juncture, by means of prayer, she recovered suddenly from the effects of an accident which had been diagnosed as extremely grave. See Discovery, pp. 195-197. With this healing, she at last gleaned a deeper insight into the Principle and Science of Christianity. Church History document: A10301.
Although the healing was sudden, her understanding of that healing required an intensive period of self-sacrifice, discovery, and revelation. See Science and Health, pp. 108-109, and Ret., pp. 24, 28. She spent the next three years studying the Bible, seeking to document within its pages the divine Science which lifts healing beyond belief or mere faith into the realm of understanding—"the Science of divine metaphysics." Message for 1901, p. 10. She documented her discoveries and recorded the Truth that was being revealed to her. She also sought to translate her insights into practice in order that she might prove that her developing understanding of Spirit's law of healing was correct. See Ret., p. 22. The healings she effected were remarkable, including those of enteritis, fevers, clubfeet, felons, a dislocated hip, and insanity. See Discovery, pp. 215, 228, 201; Journal, April 1995, p. 20; Trial, p. 351, note 10. Of one such healing, Mrs. Eddy writes: "[I] healed consumption in its last stages, that the MDs, by verdict of the stethoscope and the Schools, declared incurable, the lungs being mostly consumed." Church History document: A10293B.
In spite of her growing success, she did not rest, for she had not yet thoroughly understood nor documented her discovery. Then, as she records: "About the year 1869, I was wired to attend the patient of a distinguished M.D., the late Dr. Davis of Manchester, N. H. The patient was pronounced dying of pneumonia, and was breathing at intervals in agony. Her physician, who stood by her bedside, declared that she could not live. On seeing her immediately restored by me without material aid, he asked earnestly if I had a work describing my system of healing. When answered in the negative, he urged me immediately to write a book which should explain to the world my curative system of metaphysics." Miscellany; p. 105.
Mrs. Eddy accepted this challenge and spent the next six years elucidating her discovery. She also continued her healing work, viewing it as a Christian duty. The healings she brought about during this period included the cure of carious bones and of cancer. Science and Health, pp. 192-193 and Church History document 163CH214. Finally, in 1875, she published the first edition of her best-known book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the textbook of Christian Science.
Mrs. Eddy had spent her life on a journey of scientific discovery, and she was at last sharing the fruits of that experience with the world. After publishing Science and Health, she dedicated the rest of her life to improving her own understanding and articulation of "the spiritual Science of Mind-healing," Ret., p. 34. to teaching others how to heal as Christ Jesus had healed, and to founding institutions which would protect and perpetuate her discovery. She also dedicated herself to understanding and exposing "the antipode of Christian Science," Mis., p. 31. the mental malpractice which injures its object and is opposed to scientific healing prayer.
The scientific culmination of Mrs. Eddy's pioneering efforts might best be summarized in words that she carefully inscribed in one of her well-used Bibles: "I first gave to the world the Truth, Life, and Love, that was revealed to me. I now give to the world the Truth, Life, and Love, that I am experiencing. I did not understand in the first instance, but could tell what was revealed. I do understand in the second instance, and can testify from experience. What I did in healing at first was a manifestation of Divine power not understood. What I now do in healing is the manifestation of grace and spiritual understanding.
"Mary" Church History document: AA17 v. 1.
