Annotations Related to Spirituality

Four women— Emma and Abigail Dyer (daughter of Emma) Thompson, Janette Weller, and Annie M. Knott—were selected as representative of the pioneering work of early Christian Scientists due not to their gender, but to the available historical evidence, the range of their contributions to the history of Christian Science, and the relative familiarity of that person among today’s Christian Scientists.

Schuette, a former U.S. Army chaplain representing the Christian Science Church, cites records of the Christian Science chaplaincy during WWI and WWII. But his focus is on the post-WWII years where he presents insights into the service of Christian Science chaplains as well as the context and issues faced by chaplains of all faiths.

Johnson’s book expounds on the ‘science of prayer’—based on her own journey of discovery and framed by her Christian Science faith. Each of the seven chapters explores one of Mary Baker Eddy’s seven synonymous terms for God. Each synonym represents a scientific law effectively defeating any challenge that confronts the reader and bringing healing.

Psychotherapist Jauregui brings her clients’ stories of healing and transcendence in conversation with her Christian Science faith, and the reflections of great thinkers and scientists on such topics as: the ontological nature of being; a participatory quantum universe; Freud’s deterministic theories; Isaac Newton’s cosmology; the efficacy of prayer; fractals; and the nature of postmodern psychotherapy as a mystical calling.

Wood, who has written extensively on playwright, screenwriter and Christian Scientist Horton Foote, analyzes the influence of religion in his writings. Wood observes that religion in Foote’s plays and films is never the operative center of characters’ behavior, but that certain deeply felt religious notions are at work, especially a grace-inspired love that generates courage and responsibility.

Safran reviews recent works of academic psychology in the area of unconscious and subjective, as opposed to rational, ways of knowing. In America, he claims that trust in inner and unconscious ways of finding meaning in life, versus sensory experience, has its roots in Great Awakening religious movements. Christian Science, as part of this time and milieu, is mentioned, but no in-depth arguments are made.

Umansky studies the history of Jewish Science—a movement that arose to counter the estimated tens of thousands of Jews (a majority women) attracted to Christian Science in the late 19th and early 20th century. These Jews had been attracted to Christian Science’s promise of health and healing. Umansky also examines the Christian Science theology that resonated with Jewish beliefs.

Hodgson highlights Hay’s significant contributions to the Christian Science movement during the early 20th century, recognizing their basis on the spiritual animus that motivated her. An authorized practitioner and teacher, Hay founded churches in London and Cape Town (S.A.) and was a poet and musician. Long-time Christian Scientists know her best as the author of many of their most beloved hymns.

Swensen documents the long-term effect of Alfred Farlow’s early crusade to protect the growing Christian Science Church from outside attacks, and muzzle an unrestrained and over-zealous faithful. He sees this protective stance as casting a long shadow over the content of future church periodicals, and the reason why members have since shown a deep reticence for personal outreach.

​​According to Simmons, Eddy’s eschatology is understood in its original sense of an unveiling—sometimes conflicting unveiling: an earth-shattering disintegration of the ego. Both ‘catastrophic apocalypticism’ and ‘progressive apocalypticism’ (the journey of progressive unfoldment) can bring about authentic transformation, and revelation of all good, harmonious spiritual reality, or ‘ethical eschatology.’ Simmons seeks a balance on the journey from apocalyptic to paradise.

This book grew out of Craig’s 1970s dissertation on the Bernard Maybeck architecture at Principia—a college for Christian Scientists in Illinois. Craig contextualizes Maybeck within late-19th- to mid-20th-century architecture, and highlights the values Maybeck shared with the Principia community, especially seeing the project as the unfoldment of Principle–embodied in the College’s very name.

Fuller describes contributions of major figures in the history of American religion, with a focus on those whose contributions were controversial but ultimately highly influential. He considers Mary Baker Eddy the best-known of Quimby’s student-disciples, arguing that Eddy reworked Quimby’s ideas with more explicit connection to scriptural passages. But the Christian Science role in introducing Americans to metaphysical spirituality was enormous.

This historically valuable documentary recounts the story of the earliest growth of Christian Science in the Midwestern US of the 1880s. The story includes many significant healings that turned patients into students of Christian Science. Despite severe persecution and ridicule, they also healed others. These pioneers represented all walks of life—farmers, businessmen, housewives, clerks, simple and sophisticated.

Umansky analyzes the evolution of Rabbi Alfred Moses’s teachings identified as Jewish Science, as found in his two books responding to the early twentieth-century exodus of Jews to Christian Science. His first book specifically contrasts Christian Science with Jewish Science. Seeking a practical faith as a counter to Christian Science, the second book is influenced by both psychology and New Thought.

Shortly after the opening of the Mary Baker Eddy Library in 2002, Kniffel describes it as a dedication to the betterment of humanity, the quest for meaning, and the achievements of a remarkable woman. It is also neither a neutral public-information repository, nor a doctrinal library. Rather it strives to inspire individuals to explore the power of ideas.

Hodgson’s half-biography, half-musical documentation of the life and work of Lyman Brackett highlights his important role in the development of hymnody for the Christian Science Church. Brackett ultimately became the overall designer, music editor, and original composer of 99 hymns in the first Christian Science hymnal.

Michell examines the influences, and theological connections and differences, between the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, Emma Curtis Hopkins, the 19th-century Woman’s movement, and the New Thought and New Age movements. Hopkins, unlike Eddy, would see Truth in all religions, not limited to Christianity, and focused more on a prosperity gospel.

Simmons explores the reasons for the parting of ways between Mary Baker Eddy and one of her followers, Emma Curtis Hopkins. He speculates that the Hopkins-Eddy relationship embodied the second and third stages in the process of spiritual transformation where Hopkins moved through Christian Science and “graduated” to a higher spiritual level.

Ivey outlines the rising popularity of the classical style for the rapidly growing Christian Science church in the late 19th-century Midwest by highlighting Solon Spencer Beman, a well-known Chicago architect. Beman advocated classical architecture because it “put an authoritative public face” on the new movement and also linked spiritual ideals to the built environment.

Nineteenth-century technological advances, credited to a superior Protestant-Enlightenment heritage, empowered women (physically the weaker sex) to rule by intellectual and religious power, even as they held on to the carefully crafted ideology of female spiritual exceptualism which gave them a kind of knowing beyond the knowledge of the material world.

Schoepflin includes short sections on the Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons and Christian Scientists, seeing them as movements which used science as a “tool for apologetics.” He shows how Mary Baker Eddy combined the tools of science (reason and empiricism—in the evidence of bodily healing) with “the spiritual and immaterial dimensions of Christianity” (311).

Michell examines in detail the remarkable similarities where the unorthodox theologies of Julian of Norwich (14th century) and Eddy (19th century) converge. Both women struggled with serious illness and near-death experiences which became the basis for profound revelation and healing.  Eddy understood God as mother, and Julian’s vision of Jesus as mother reflected on the kindness and gentleness of God.

This article addresses the relationship between the practice of biomedicine and religious beliefs and practices related to children. Christian Scientists are mentioned only in the context of describing the tension between clinicians and faith healers in general. But the article is relevant because of its acknowledgment of both the benefits and challenges to society and to families who practice spiritual healing.

LaMothe highlights the famous dancer Ruth St. Denis and how she found theological meaning in her dance informed mainly by Christian Science and some other religious influences, including Isis. Understanding dance as an expression of divine Mind, St. Denis struggled to justify her love of the physical expression of dance in light of Mary Baker Eddy’s teaching that matter was illusion.

This book is primarily a collection of Gilman’s reminiscences as he illustrated Mary Baker Eddy’s poem, Christ and Christmas. Gilman’s detailed letters and reminiscences of their work reveal Gilman’s profound struggle to obey and please his teacher through his art. Eddy ultimately considered the book one of her most important, as the time, prayer, and thought committed to it testifies.