“Mary Baker Eddy: An Interpretive Biography of the Founder of Christian Science by Julius Silberger” (Review)
Marty, Martin. “Mary Baker Eddy: An Interpretive Biography of the Founder of Christian Science by Julius Silberger.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12, no. 4 (Spring 1982): 739–42.
Marty’s critique of Silberger’s 1980 biography on Mary Baker Eddy applies equally to Silberger’s inadequate psychological theory and to the fault of the Christian Science church in the late 20th century for barring its doors against researchers. It was not the fault of Silberger that he offered no new documentation, but his claim to psychohistory also fails to make use of any elaborated psychological theories. Whenever he “places Eddy on the couch and elaborates a theory,” he “never footnotes his assertions in primary sources or in the psych literature” (741). Fortunately, for researchers, the Mary Baker Eddy Library opened its doors to its archives in 2002, twenty-two years after Silberger had attempted to write this biography based on secondary documents or worse. But, according to Marty, Silberger’s otherwise “readable, brisk, decent recounting of an oft-told story” (741) would have also benefited from more rigorous psychoanalysis.
ISSN: 1530-9169
Print ISSN: 0022-1953
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/203580
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Mary Baker Eddy: An Interpretive Biography of the Founder of Christian Science by Julius Silberger