Christian Science -- Mind Or Myth -- No. II.
It can be correctly said that the last 150 years in this country has been the age of cultism with each cult emphasizing its own peculiarities while exalting its own founder to a position equal to, if not above, that of Jesus Christ. There is mormonism with its Joseph Smith; Seventh Day Adventism and its Ellen G. White; Jehovah's Witnesses and Russell and Rutherford; the multitude of so called "Holiness" with their professional "Faith Healers" and press agents with conflicting claims and counter-claims, each clamoring for more notoriety than the others — each convinced that theirs is a "good racket" and a source of "easy money"; and there is Christian Science and its founder Mary Baker Eddy. All of these cults mentioned, as well as all others, have one thing in common. Their religion is a system of infidelity and direct denial of either a part or all of the Bible. When their founders are exposed and their doctrines refuted, they loudly cry, "Persecution!"
Christian Science believes that Mrs. Eddy was inspired of God to write what she wrote. They believe that Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures is on a par with the Bible, yea, even more reliable than the Bible when the two disagree. Mrs. Eddy claims to have "discovered" Christian Science in a miraculous sort of way. After a fall on a slippery sidewalk, she was pronounced "incurable" by her doctor and given three days in which to live. On the third day, which was supposed to be her last, she called for the Bible and read Matthew 9:2 and rose up immediately completely healed. In this manner it is said she "discovered" Christian Science. Now the truth of the matter is, Dr. Alvin M. Cushing, the attending physician at this illness alluded to, denied under oath that he ever believed or said that Mrs. Eddy was in a critical condition. Seven months later he said he administered medicine to her on five separate occasions, despite the fact that Christian Scientists claim that Mrs. Eddy enjoyed robust health after her supposed "discovery."
How did Mrs. Eddy come to possess her theories, which Christian Science believes were given to her of God? According to THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MYTH, a book exposing this cult, P. P. Quimby is the father of Christian Science. "Dr." Quimby, as he was known, became embroiled in mental healing early in his life and after connecting this phase of activity with religion and adding a dash of mesmerism graduated into a full-fledged "mental healer." Denying the principle that "matter has reality, "Quimby built up a considerable following, having authored numerous pamphlets and manuscripts dealing with his theories.
"Dr." Quimby in the late 1850's had already discovered his "Science of Man," which manuscript was used by Mrs. Eddy and sections of which she copied and incorporated into "her" textbook known as Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures. Quimby's system was known as "Science of Christ." Mrs. Eddy called hers "Christian Science," considerably after Quimby's death, thereby eliminating any possibility of his exposing her. Mrs. Eddy based her system upon his plagiarized excerpts from his manuscripts and switched his terminology about to make up a major portion of her first literary effort. In 1862, four years after Quimby's death and the same number of years before Mrs. Eddy claimed to have discovered Christian Science, she committed herself to Quimby for treatment of "spinal inflamation." She said: "I visited P. P. Quimby and in less than one week from that time I ascended by a stairway of 182 steps to the dome of the city Hall and am improving, ad infinitum."
Following this acclaim for Quimby and his powers, Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) studied his manuscripts thoroughly and copied them extensively. From the year 1867 to 1870, after the death of Quimby, she edited, copied, and taught his theories and declared that they were his, not hers! These same theories she published in 1875 thinly masked in remarkably similar language and titled Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures and declared that they were hers and that she alone discovered and founded the Christian Science religion and assigned the time at 1866 at the slippery sidewalk incident when she was supposed to be at death's door and read Matthew 9:2 and rose completely healed, regarding which incident her attending physician said was not so!
Mr. Horace T. Wentworth, whose mother Mrs. Eddy lived with while she was copying the Quimby Manuscripts (1867 - 1870) has made the following statement, and no Christian Scientist has ever refuted or disproved it: "As I have seen the amazing spread of this delusion and the way in which men and women are offering up money and the lives of their children to it, I have felt that it is a duty I owe to the public to make it known.
'I have no hard feelings against Mrs. Eddy, no axe to grind, no interest to serve; I simply feel that it is due the thousands of good people who have made Christian Science the anchorage of their souls and its founder the infallible guide of their daily life, to keep this no longer to myself. I desire only that people who take themselves and their helpless children into Christian Science shall do so with the full knowledge that this is not divine revelation but simply the idea of an old-time Maine healer, "meaning Dr. Quimby. "Further than this statement, Mr. Wentworth has also recorded as incontestable evidence the very copy of P. P. Quimby's manuscripts from which Mrs. Eddy taught during the years 1867 - 1870, which copy also contains corrections in Mrs. Eddy's own handwriting."
Mrs. Eddy secretly copied these Quimby Manuscripts and funneled the results to a gullible following, declaring it to be inspired of God.