Resources Discussing the Plagiarism Controversy

McNeil’s extensive research of all the original papers of Phineas P. Quimby in conjunction with the vast holdings of The Mary Baker Eddy Library has brought resolution to the complex questions about the alleged influence mental healer Quimby had on Eddy’s later founding of Christian Science. McNeil also covers other important 19th-century figures as well as other relevant subjects, such as Mark Twain and Christian Science and early animal magnetism in 1830s and 1840s America.

…and its ineradicable link to her personality” (123), a concept that presaged her later appointing Science and Health (along with the Bible) as Pastor of the Christian Science Church. Responses…

Squires sees the opening of the Mary Baker Eddy Library as an opportunity for literary scholars to give closer attention to the history, doctrines, and distinctions of Christian Science. Only then will there be an honest and accurate account for the literature that seeks to represent or critique them. 

Janik traces the historical path of mesmerism from Franz Mesmer’s late 18th-century theories on animal magnetism, leading to de Puysegur’s discovery of hypnosis, to Charles Poyan’s 1830 lecture tour introducing mesmerism and hypnotism to New England, to Phineas Quimby’s mind cure practice, to Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science movement, to New Thought and eventually today’s clinical psychology.

This well-researched biography of Emma Curtis Hopkins, little-known founder of the 19th-century New Thought movement, includes Hopkins’s early-stage affiliation with Mary Baker Eddy—her tutelage by Eddy and editorship of The Christian Science Journal for 13 months before being suddenly discharged. Harley draws on a range of scholarship to contextualize the complexity of this knotty developmental stage of Christian Science.

Gill, a feminist historian and biographer, offers a fresh view of Mary Baker Eddy’s achievements in the light of obstacles faced by women in her time. Without access to Church archives Gill relied on Peel’s archival research. Gill’s unique contribution challenges the traditional biographers’ view of Eddy as a hysterical invalid who abandoned her son and stole her ideas.

Christian Science and New Thought both conveyed a “metaphysical perfectionism” in sync with late 19th-century American can-do spirit and the golden glow of California culture with its promises of prosperity. Key women in Christian Science left the movement to become teachers and prime movers of New Thought in California. Other reasons for the decline in both movements today are discussed. 

This sourcebook was compiled by the Christian Science Publishing Society as a response to many unanswered questions in public thought regarding Christian Science beliefs and practices in the late 1980s. It includes primary and secondary sources, as well as scholarly analytical work and personal statements of faith.

Johnsen’s 1980 overview of the multi-decade controversy over a forgery is a response to the enduring nature of the false accusations against Mary Baker Eddy as a plagiarist. Research leading to the discovery of forgery was not difficult, because handwriting experts quickly detected the astonishingly crude and obvious fraud that served as a basis for the accusations.

Braden’s book includes a recap of accusations of Mary Baker Eddy’s plagiarism in her writings, the struggles and abuses of power through and after the ‘Great Litigation,’ and the identification of what he finds are inconsistencies in Science and Health and class teaching.

Nineteen years after the publication of Haushalter’s charges of Mary Baker Eddy’s plagiarism, Dr. Moehlman, a member of First Baptist Church of Rochester, NY, published this scholarly rebuttal to those charges. Moehlman, a professor of the history of Christianity, specialized in the study of literary forgeries and demonstrated how Haushalter’s employment of concordance cannot be substituted for scientific analysis of content.

Before Conrad Moehlman’s scholarly 1955 rebuttal of Haushalter’s accusations of plagiarism against Eddy was published, Haushalter’s 1936 book had garnered a great deal of publicity. His charge that Eddy lifted Hegelian theology and established her chief doctrinal points in Science and Health from Hegel stems from a complicated (undocumented) tale of secret passage through one of Eddy’s early students.

Prior to the publication of this book, Dittemore served in official capacities of the Christian Science Church. He was voted out of office in 1919, and he describes the motives behind his bitter campaign against the Church based on his (later proved to be false) belief in Mary Baker Eddy’s plagiarism. His accusations originated in an internal Church squabble.

This 1930 biography on Mary Baker Eddy appears in this contemporary bibliography because of its role in Christian Science history. Without access to church archives and drawing on others who discredited her, Dakin’s biography reads like a conspiracy theory against Eddy. An important comparison can be made between Dakin’s and Lyman Powell’s biographies of the same year.