BAKER, MARY EDDY. - Founder of the medico-religious association known under the name of Christian Science, b. in 1821, d. on 3 Dec. 1910.
I. LIFE
She was born on a farm near the small town of Concord, in the State of New Hampshire (United States), the last of six children of the B. family. From her earliest years she was subject to nervous illnesses, which lasted her whole life: for this reason her schooling was deficient. In Dec. 1843 she married George W. Glover, who died a few months later, leaving her pregnant with a son, whom she all but abandoned for many years. In 1853 she entered a second marriage with Dr. Patterson, from whom she divorced in 1866, finally marrying for the third time in 1873 G. Eddy, of whom she was left a widow in 1882. Hence the various names by which she is known; but the most common is that of M. E. B. or Mary Baker Eddy. While she was still married to Dr. Patterson, in order to alleviate her ailments she submitted to the treatment of Dr. Phileas P. Quimby, who said that all illnesses were mental and not physical. This doctrine thrilled her, and having experienced some relief, she appropriated it; she opened a school with a few pupils, and began her career as a foundress. With the help of her third husband the founding of the new sect established itself, and in the years following the death of G. Eddy, between 1882 and 1896, it attained a regular stability and organization, overcoming serious opposition both internal, on the part of her students, and external, from the enemies and opponents of her theories. In 1896 she retired from Boston to Pleasant View, near her native town of Concord, where she remained closely watched by her most faithful followers until 1908, when, following certain unpleasant events and quarrels, she moved permanently to the magnificent residence prepared for her by her admirers, called Chestnut Hill, near Boston, where she remained until her death.
II. THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Dr. Quimby had called his doctrine "Truth," "Science," or "Christian Science." According to him, spiritual man knows that there are no diseases of the senses, because the only reality is God, the divine Substance or spiritual Mind (with a capital M); all the rest is nothing but mortal mind (with a lowercase m), which disappears if it is replaced by spiritual Mind, the only existing reality; but just as this spiritual Mind suffers neither pains nor sorrows, all these things exist only for the mortal mind, which is not real. It was to this doctrine and to the name of Christian Science that B. adhered. At first she acknowledged that she owed everything to Dr. Quimby, but later she boldly denied it: "No writing, no professor taught me the science contained in this book (Science and Health), and no pen or tongue will be able to destroy it."
In 1875 B. published the first of the very numerous editions of her book Science and Health, to which a few years later (1882) she added the Key to the Scripture (Key to the Scripture). This is the symbolic and almost sacred book of the Scientists: and in it one can distinguish what she plagiarized from the writings of Dr. Quimby, and what the author added of her own, which consists of: the Key to the Scripture, interpreted in the light of the doctrine of Christian Science; the theory of M.A.M., "Malicious Animal Magnetism," with which she explains the adversities encountered and the failure of her cures; and finally the framing of her doctrine within a new Church.
Already before the publication of the book, but even more so afterward, B. devoted herself with incredible activity to the propagation of her doctrines. Among the students who attended her private classes, the idea arose in 1879 of establishing a Church, entirely based on the new theories. B. compiled its Statutes, was elected its "pastor," and in 1887 the "First Church of Christ, Scientist" was founded in Boston and legally approved, which later took the name of "Mother Church." During this work, in 1882 B. opened in Boston the "Massachusetts Metaphysical College," where she trained the doctors or "practitioners," as those who were to heal according to her theories are called among the Scientists. In 1883 she published the Christian Science Journal, a monthly, which was followed in 1898 by the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly, and two years before her death she began the publication of a daily newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor. If to this one adds the public discussions in newspapers and magazines about the new theories and the nascent Church, the disputes sustained over unsuccessful cures and with disciples who rebelled, and many other events, one will easily understand the notoriety that B. obtained. The entire movement was directed by her, even when she remained hidden in the villa of Pleasant View or in that of Chestnut Hill: nothing was done without her permission and direction. She showed herself implacable toward those who opposed her, whether friends or enemies. No one was admitted into the new Church without a formal renunciation of all the doctrines and ties with the sect from which he came. With the title of "pastor emeritus," she held, as long as she lived, absolute and total authority. The whole of art. 22 of the Statutes, in its 18 sections or points, sanctions this absolute authority. Christian Science is a Church without ministers, without special feasts, without Sacraments. At the Sunday meetings a chapter or a passage of the Bible is still read, but it is followed by the reading of the esoteric interpretation found in the Key or in other books by B. Instead of ministers there are two readers, who must every Sunday read precisely what has been designated in good time by the mother Church of Boston. Besides the two readers there are one or two "practitioners," that is, doctors approved by the mother Church of Boston, whose task is to make it penetrate into the spirit of the sick person that God or the spiritual Mind is all in all, and that illness does not exist. For lack of these requirements, in Italy the two small Scientist communities or societies of Rome and Turin are not Churches: whereas that of Florence is. The individual Churches cannot unite with one another, but each depends directly on Boston. After the death of B., the government of the Church is in the hands of a committee of eight directors (105 Falmouth St., Boston), who jealously preserve the organization given by the foundress.
III. THE DOCTRINE
Something of the doctrine has already been indicated. The writer Fleta Campbell Springer summarizes it very well in these words: "In matter there is no life, nor truth, nor intelligence, nor substance: everything is infinite Mind and infinite manifestation, because God is all in all. Spirit is immortal Truth, matter is unreal and temporal; Spirit is God, man is His image and likeness; therefore man is not material, he is spiritual." From this fundamental principle B. derives consequences such as these: "Sin, sickness, death are but the real appearance of things not real in the human mind" (ch. 14 of her symbolic book). "Man is not matter, nor is he composed of brain, blood, bones and other material elements... man is incapable of sinning, of becoming sick, of dying, because his essence comes from God and he has not a single original element that does not come from God; therefore the real man cannot separate himself from Holiness" (ibid.). "You say that a boil hurts, but this is not possible, since nature without mind does not hurt. The boil simply manifests your belief in pain with inflammation and swelling, and you call this belief a boil; mentally place a strong dose of Truth in your patient, and this will cure the boil" (ch. 1). The ills of the flesh, that is, are due to the belief of the flesh, to a false sense of life of matter separated from spirit, and "Christian healing" is obtained to the extent that Christians learn to master the sinful sense that believes in the reality of what is not, because it does not come from God (sickness, death). Not miracles, then, but healings by those and in those who believe that man is not subject to evil, by those and in those who abandon the erroneous vision of themselves as a corporeal, heavy and suffering being. Jesus did not intend to perform miracles, but only made known the technique of healing through the "right concept" that existence is, with all its activity and its phenomena, really only a mental state, and that evil does not exist.
Scientists have a special way of interpreting Sacred Scripture. One need only read the Key and the Glossary that is found after it, to have an idea of the strange interpretations they give it. There is therefore no cause for wonder if both in the Catholic and in the Protestant field (for example the celebrated writer Mark Twain) this pantheistic doctrine has been severely criticized, a doctrine that has of Christian Science only the name, and is rather a therapeutic school than a Church or sect.
Bibliography15 works
Camillo Crivelli
IV. "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" FROM THE MEDICAL POINT OF VIEW. - The difficulty of judging the efficacy of the curative effect of Christian Science depends on the relatively small importance that it gives to medicine and on the conviction of what we might call the subjectivity of illness, linked to the idea of a certain non-existence of the body. Indeed it affirms that the patient's exact knowledge of the illness is rather an obstacle to healing, and that, up to a certain point, admitting that one is sick makes the body less curable. This mental position does not encourage one to seek sure diagnoses and prognoses, nor to study whether the healing corresponds or not to the expectation. Hence, in the accounts of healings, a certain vagueness in the diagnosis, almost a disinterest in knowing what illness is involved ("I thought I had Bright's disease," "a so-called incurable spinal disease," "what medicine would probably call a fibroid tumor," "dyspepsia, congestion of the liver and many other things"), combined with vague reports on the time taken to heal ("in a few days," "slowly," "in some weeks"). As also noted by Philipon, a physician favorable to Christian Science, "what distinguishes it from the other sciences of the same nature is a certain character of apriority, a certain contempt for experience and for the data of the senses."
Reading the accounts of healings due to Christian Science, very few are found that stand comparison with those that serve the Church for canonization processes, but, like all the others of lesser moment, not even these are documented from the medical point of view. For this reason, it is not possible to give a judgment on their true nature. Here, however, is what may not unreasonably be said. When it is a matter of "pains" that instantly disappear, let us bear in mind that pain depends on the whole set of affective dispositions and that the regular and encouraging practice of Christian Science can, through the optimism it inspires or the emotions it arouses, suppress it. In other cases one must bear in mind the efficacy of the psyche on functions that "psychosomatic medicine" has once again brought to light. B.'s very recommendation "you must mentally not see the illness" undoubtedly corresponds to the common observation that in certain cases an illness not seen or not wished to be seen disturbs less or heals (Breitner; Max Lowy recalls in this connection the Hindu saying: "pay no attention to it, it cures all diseases"). Finally, when the illness healed is of a psychological nature, one must bear in mind that Christian Science also in some way brings one into contact with Christ and, however confusedly, with His redemptive power; sincere trust in God and the desire for inner purification can favorably modify the "bad conscience" that plays its part in mental pathology (cf. P. Cossa, op. cit.). Mayo observes that Christian Science in some way makes up for the (psychological and affective) deficiencies of Protestantism. In short: insofar as it preserves something Christian in its inspiration, patients who are not entirely imbued with the novelty of this "science" (which in itself has nothing Christian, if one understands it well) can draw benefit from prayer understood in a Christian sense. Insofar as it realizes an autosuggestion (healing through meditation), Christian Science recalls the "psychic healings" known also outside Christianity, in times and places where this "science" was not and is not known (a possible analogy with the "psychic healings" of Hinduism, with which Christian Science has elements in common).