The Religio-Medical Masquerade: A Complete Exposure of Eddyism

Peabody, Frederick W. The Religio-Medical Masquerade: A Complete Exposure of Eddyism. Boston: The Hancock Press, 1910.

Peabody had been the legal counsel for Josephine Woodbury in a 1901 lawsuit against Mary Baker Eddy. Woodbury lost the case, but Peabody continued to attack Eddy, accusing her of immoral and abusive motives and acts. Eddy responded but was counseled not to publish her response (subscribers to the Christian Science Journal can read about this decision). Since Peabody believed she had not responded to his 1901 book, he wrote in this 1910 work: “I challenge Mrs. Eddy and the whole Christian Science combination to dare to prosecute me for libel, and I affirm and shall continue to affirm that their omission so to do is an acknowledgement of the truth… “ (17). Peabody explains that he was also instrumental in supplying testimony against Eddy for the highly publicized McClure’s magazine yellow journalism, which led to another trial known as the ‘Next Friends’ suit (that Eddy ultimately won in court). Explaining his own motives, Peabody writes, “for Mrs. Eddy, the charlatan and adventuress, … the fraudulent claimant of exclusive and immediate revelation from God, for Mrs. Eddy, upon whose altar of greed have been sacrificed the harmony and happiness of marriage, … for Mrs. Eddy, the heartless and avaricious despot of multitudes … there shall be no charity in my speech” (22-3).

ISBN-10: 1331597609
ISBN-13 (Softcover): 978-1331597605

See also annotations:

“Footprints Fadeless” by Mary Baker Eddy

Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy’s Challenge to Materialism by Stephen Gottschalk

Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority by Robert Peel

“Authorship and Authority in Intellectual Property: The Copyright Activism of Mary Baker Eddy” in Copyrighting God: Ownership of the Sacred in American Religion by Andrew Ventimiglia

Faith on Trial: Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science and the First Amendment by Peter A. Wallner

This resource is categorized as ‘polemic’ literature and is included in the bibliography for its historical value. For further explanation, click here.