Resources Discussing Mary Baker Eddy

Cocks examines Mary Baker Eddy’s idealism through contemporary philosophy, early Christian writings, and the history of Christian Science healing. He explains her distinction between Divine Mind and ‘mortal mind,’ compares her cosmology with the Secret Revelation of John, considers William James’s ambivalent response, and argues that Christian Science healing records merit consideration in discussions of mind-body relationships.

Sheldon attempts to restructure and edit the ideas in Mary Baker Eddy’s textbook Science and Health to produce a concise and more coherent form of her radical idealism. His approach is to extract, re-express, and analyze Eddy’s essential core concepts, tapping into a number of explanatory models taken from the history of philosophy, logic, theology, and mathematics.

This book presents an independent Christian Scientist’s argument for Mary Baker Eddy’s role in biblical prophecy, critiquing institutional resistance within both Christian Science and broader Christianity. Keyston proposes a first and second advent of Christ—fulfilled by Jesus and Science and Health—and urges readers to help usher in the millennium, supported by extensive documentary appendices.

Utilizing church records and publications, plus public sources, Swensen examines the reasons for decline of Christian Science focusing on a dominating church leadership valuing conformity and eschewing individual initiative. Also contributing was the development of medical science, bad press, a lack of socializing opportunities among youth, and cloistered members’ reticence to share their faith. Some hope comes in the recent reorientation toward members’ own initiative.

Stiles examines Christian Science novels written in the early 1900s in light of Mary Baker Eddy’s views on what she calls nauseous fiction. Specifically, Stiles studies Eddy’s correspondence with, and tentative support of, Christian Scientist authors of some of the more wholesome fictions for youth, comparing these with the more secular novelists writing for youth who often mixed Christian Science and New Thought beliefs.

Swensen presents a comprehensive timeline and biography of Augusta Stetson including her adoption of the Christian Science faith, being taught by Mary Baker Eddy, becoming a Christian Science practitioner and teacher, her healing practices, and her founding of, and influential leadership of First Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City. Stetson’s significance to women’s studies is also appraised.

Armer researched Mary Baker Eddy’s 1881 founding of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College emphasizing her frequently overlooked contribution to adult education. The co-educational institution promoted lifelong learning, continuing education, self-directed learning, and vocational training, and uniquely emphasized entrepreneurship. Many graduates started their own businesses as practitioners of healing through Christian Science treatment, and some would go on to establish 37 institutes of instruction in healing methods.

Cooling examines the role, meaning and contemporary relevance of spiritual healing as found in the New Testament gospels, the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and the practices of Christian Scientists and Pentecostals today. She explores the elements that constitute Christian healing, and the different means of healing such as the laying on of hands, the anointing of oil and prayer.

The Mary Baker Eddy Library examines Eddy’s correspondence and documents related to the 1881 chartering, development and fruition of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. The College, an institution meant to teach Eddy’s metaphysical healing method, accepted both sexes regardless of age or gender. Eddy intended her students to practice what they learned back in their own communities.

Amy B. Voorhees’s A New Christian Identity offers a concise, culturally informed study of Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, and the rise of Christian Science. While noting some minor errors, reviewer Judy Huenneke sees the book as a valuable resource for readers of American religious history and women’s religious leadership, and she praises its sympathetic, well-researched approach, and insightful context.

The practice of Communion in The Mother Church would come to differ from that in the Christian Science branch churches. Due to the excessive popularity of Communion services in The Mother Church, in 1908 Mary Baker Eddy ceased the practice out of concern that it was becoming too social an event. However, Communion services continued in the branch churches.

Mary Baker Eddy’s support for the emancipation of slaves in the confederate states is shown through her correspondence with Union Army generals Benjamin Butler and John Fremont in their efforts and support of the emancipation of slaves. Along with regular correspondence, Eddy took initiative and drafted a petition in support of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Sheldon’s dissertation associates Eddy’s writings and “radical idealism” theology with philosophical writings through the ages. Eddy’s central thesis, Sheldon claims, is that the physical senses are unreliable and create a system of false beliefs about reality. The dissertation also contains a brief history of Eddy’s movement and critical reception as a religion. His assessment includes scholars within and without the Christian Scientist community.

Mary Baker Eddy’s approach to the weather is the topic of research, including stories of how threatening weather and the laws of nature were made subordinate to God’s divine law. One student of Eddy’s explains how she instructed them not to try to control the weather. Rather, their prayers were to affirm that God, not outside influences, governs the weather.

Due to the long-standing debate over Mary Baker Eddy’s use of morphine, the Mary Baker Eddy Library sought to resolve it in order to restore focus on Eddy’s larger record. Calvin Frye’s diaries had recorded several instances of Eddy’s use of morphine, but some claimed his diaries had been altered. A forensic analysis in 2021 concluded the diaries are reliable.

Christian Scientists from Chicago would convince a skeptical Mary Baker Eddy to participate in the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions with its message of unity among all religions. Although the address was enthusiastically received, its overall negative impact was the association of Christian Science with theosophy and Vedanta, and the crystalizing of opposition from the more traditional Christian Churches.

Mary Baker Patterson [Eddy] responded to newspaper accounts of the courage and wisdom of the Union Army General, Benjamin F. Butler. As commander of the fort where three enslaved men sought refuge, Butler’s defense became a foundation for legal freedom for slaves. Eddy’s letter to Butler sheds light on her anti-slavery convictions and willingness to advocate for them. 

Countess Dorothy von Moltke was a devoted Christian Scientist and strong advocate for the German translation of Mary Baker Eddy’s textbook Science and Health. Throughout her life, she worked to make Christian Science more accessible to German-speaking followers by providing English lessons and by serving on the translation committee that ultimately completed the first foreign language translation of Science and Health.

The derivation of psychotherapy is examined through the contributions of 19th-century American mind-cure movements and personalities such as Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Warren Felt Evans, New Thought, Christian Science, and the Emmanuel Movement. These movements’ focus on the connection between the healer and sufferer made them precursors of contemporary psychotherapy’s relation-based methods.

Voorhees offers new scholarship on a broad array of topics related to Christian Science identity focusing on reception history. With attention to fully resourced details and modern scholarship, Voorhees outlines the reception history of Christian Science in fields of religion, women studies, American history, politics, medicine, and metaphysics. She probes Mary Baker Eddy’s relationships with contemporary scholars, religion leaders, and students.

Swensen documents how, in the fifteen years after the passing of Mary Baker Eddy (1910-1925), the Christian Science Board of Directors consolidated and centralized their authority both at Church headquarters and over local branch churches. Mirroring a corporate business model, church organization, administration, and standardization were merged with obedience and loyalty. 

The objective of Armer’s study of Mary Baker Eddy’s establishment of her Massachusetts Metaphysical College is to highlight the achievements of women pioneers in higher education and entrepreneurial successes. Characteristics of Eddy’s business success included taking risk, managerial skills, knowledge of the product and the market, financial resources to produce capital, and enough success to produce profits.

Peidle finds common ground between Christian Science and Vedanta (represented by Swami Vivekananda), by examining a speech written by Mary Baker Eddy for the 1893 Parliament of World Religions, as well as her other writings, and Vivekananda’s correspondence. Vivekananda first learned about Christian Science at the Parliament. His later ill health prompted an interest in the nature of healing and reality.

Eddy’s first published reference to the subject of vaccination was in an 1880 sermon. In 1900, Eddy was consulted by some Christian Science parents, including her son, who wanted to keep their children from school due to their opposition to vaccination laws. But Eddy recommended compliance with the law and affirmed that one could also submit to the providence of God. 

Eder finds in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings about masculinity that Christian Science could not be practiced only as an ethereal form of religion (caricatured as a woman) but reflect “a discernible and repeated thrust to extend the reach of Christian Science thought and practice beyond the sheltered sphere of nineteenth-century feminine religiosity into the proving grounds of the public realm.”