CHRISTIAN
SCIENCE
Christian Science
1. Mary Baker Eddy born in New Hampshire in 1821.
2. Her parents where members of the Congregationalist Church
and where strict Calvinist.
3. She disagreed with predestination, final day of judgment,
endless punishment.
4. As a child she suffered from a spinal weakness.
5. She was married for 6 months when her first husband died.
6. She returned home while pregnant and the trip was very
hard on her and she was never pain free from that time on.
7. She married (Patterson) again but divorced her husband
due to his unfaithfulness and adultery.
8. In 1862 she heard that a man named Phineas P. Quimby
could heal without medicine.
9. She excepted his teaching that he had rediscovered Jesus
healing methods.
10. Quimby called his system as "the Science of the Christ."
Mary Baker will call her system "Christian Science."
11. Mary Baker fell on the ice in 1866. The injury had
been pronounced fatal by the physicians (she said many years
later.) On the third day of the injury she opened her Bible
to Matthew 9:2-8 (the story of the paralytic being healed.)
Here Jesus says, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thy
house." As she read this the healing truth dawned upon
her senses. She got up and got dressed. She was in better
health after that than ever before.
12. In 1904 the Dr. Alvin M. Cushing of Springfield, Massachusetts
said in an affidavit that: "I did not at any time declare,
or believe, that there was no hope of Mrs. Patterson's
(Mary Baker) recovery, or that she was in a critical condition,
and did not at any time say, or believe that she had but
three or any other limited number of days to live; and Mrs.
Patterson did not suggest, or say, or pretend, or in any
way whatever intimate, that on the third day or any other
day, of her said illness, she had miraculously recovered
or been healed, or that discovering or perceiving the truth
or the power employed by Christ to heal the sick, she had,
by it, been restored to health." 13. In an existing letter
from 13 days later she says to a friend and student of Quimby,
“I am slowly failing.” But when Mary Baker said she was
not placing her intelligence in matter, The student replied,
“If you believe you are failing, then your intelligence
is placed in matter.” 14. Her healing practice grew and
she began to write down her ideas and teach others. 15.
In 1870 she was teaching pupils her system of healing and
charging $300 for 12 lessons. 16. She wrote her textbook
of Christian Science, “Science and Health.” 17. IN 1877
she married Asa Gilbert Eddy a sewing machine agent. He
became a student and was the first person to receive the
title of “Christian Science Practitioner.” 18. In 1879 the
Church of Christ (Scientist) was incorporated. 19. She started
the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in her home in 1881.
20. She took a manuscript of Science and Health to a literary
advisor named Wiggins who later wrote: “Of all the dissertations
a literary helper ever inspected, I do not believe one ever
saw a treatise to surpass this. The misspelling, capitalization
and punctuation were dreadful, but these were not the things
that feazed me. It was the thought and the general elemental
arrangement of the work. There were passages that flatly
and absolutely contradicted things that had preceded, and
scattered all through were incorrect references to historical
and philosophical matters. . . .I was convinced that the
only way in which I could undertake the requested revision
would be to begin absolutely at the first page and rewrite
the whole thing!” 21. Mary Baker Eddy became engrossed in
problems of organization and administration. 22. Her health
began to fail again. She attributed her illnesses to the
evil influences of her enemies calling them “malicious animal
magnetism.” 23. Her teeth had to be removed and she wore
dentures. She began to wear glasses. 24. Due to the pain
she became addicted to morphine and had to battle a morphine
habit. 25. She did not use her Christian Science mental
measures to alleviate the pain because: “If from an injury
or from any cause, a Christina Scientist were seized with
pain so violent that he could not treat himself mentally
- and the Scientists had failed to relieve him, - the sufferer
could call a surgeon who would give him a hypodermic injection,
then, when the belief of pain was lulled, he could handle
his own case mentally.” 26. In 1882 her third husband died
of heart disease. Mary Baker Eddy announced to the newspapers
that he had been murdered with arsenic mentally admisitered
by “certain parties here in Boston who had sworn to injure”
the Eddys. 27. In 1886 Christian Scientists began to go
national. 28. 1892 she organized the mother Church in Boston.
“The First Church of Christ, Scientist” 29. 1908 she founded
the Christian Science Monitor, a daily paper stressing the
edifying news instead of the negative. 30. Mrs. Eddy banished
Augusta Stetson, the head of the New York church because
her popularity was threatening Mrs. Eddy's supremacy. 31.
Some of Mrs. Eddy's pupils began to believe that if one
became sufficiently spiritual it would be possible to conceive
a child without the help of a man. This occurred in 1890.
The newspapers picked up on this and the woman was excommunicated.
32. On December 3, 1910, Mrs. Eddy who had taught that there
is no death, died. 33. Shortly before her death Mrs. Eddy
said to one of her students: “If I should ever leave here,
will you promise me that you will say that I was mentally
murdered?
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