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Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical or New Thought family of new religious movements. It was developed in the 19th century in the United States by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), and was first described in her book Science and Health (1875), the religion's central text. Four years later Eddy founded The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.

The religion's adherents, known as Christian Scientists, subscribe to a radical form of philosophical idealism, believing that spiritual reality is the only reality and that the material world – including sickness and death – is an illusion. They do not have an anthropomorphic conception of God, believe in heaven and hell, or regard Jesus as a deity; instead they define Christ as the ideal of humankind, and see Jesus as its highest manifestation. A census in 1936, at the height of the movement's popularity, counted nearly 270,000 Christian Scientists in the United States; as of 2010 there were estimated to be under 100,000 worldwide.

The Christian Science position that sickness is an illusion includes the view that the sick should be treated by prayer, known as Christian Science healing, rather than by medicine. The avoidance of medical care and vaccination led to the deaths of a number of adherents and their children between the 1880s and 1990s; several parents and others were prosecuted for manslaughter or neglect, and in a few cases convicted. A church spokesman said in 2010 that the church of today would not allow such deaths to occur. Although Eddy's Science and Health does not allow medical care to be mixed with Christian Science healing – she wrote that we "cannot serve two masters" – the church has sought since 2009 to present the latter as a supplement to conventional medicine, rather than as a replacement for it.

The Christian Science Publishing Society publishes several periodicals, including The Christian Science Monitor, a respected news organization that between 1950 and 2002 won seven Pulitzer Prizes.

History and development

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John Saliba writes that Christian Science is part of the "metaphysical" family of new religious movements, also known as New Thought, a category that includes the Unity School of Christianity and the United Church of Religious Science. They have in common that the human mind is the key to health and "attunement with God," as Saliba writes, the ultimate aim of each human being.

Daren Kemp distinguishes between Christian Science and other religions in the New Thought category. He writes that New Thought developed in parallel with Christian Science, but mostly derived its ideas from New England mentalist Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), who treated and became a mentor to Mary Baker Eddy. Eddy's students, most notably Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849–1925), were also involved in developing the New Thought movement. A key difference between Christian Science and New Thought is that while both say sickness can be healed by the mind, New Thought regards the material world as real, whereas Christian Science dismisses it as an illusion. As a consequence of this doctrinal difference, New Thought practitioners, unlike Christian Scientists, are not opposed to using medicine to deal with ill health.

According to James R. Lewis, the word "science" was appropriated by some of these groups, including Christian Science, Scientology and Science of Mind, because of the quasi-religious status of science in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They not only use the term, but also say they use the methodology of science, applying what they see as the discovery of new spiritual laws to the improvement of people's lives, rather than focusing on salvation in an afterlife.

Mary Baker Eddy

Christian Science
Mary Baker Eddy in the 1850s
Born	Mary Morse Baker (1821-07-16)July 16, 1821 Bow, New Hampshire
Died	December 3, 1910(1910-12-03) (aged 89) Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Cause of death	Probably pneumonia
Resting place	Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Other names	Mary A.M. Baker, Mary Baker Glover, Mary Patterson, Mary Baker Eddy
Spouse(s)	George Washington Glover (m. December 1843 – June 27, 1844) Daniel Patterson (m. 1853–1873, separated 1866) Asa Gilbert Eddy (m. 1877 – June 3, 1882)
Children	George Washington Glover II (born September 12, 1844)
Parent(s)	Mark Baker (d. October 6, 1865) Abigail Ambrose Baker (d. November 21, 1849)

Eddy was born Mary Morse Baker on July 16, 1821, on a farm in Bow, New Hampshire, the youngest and last of six children, three boys followed by three girls. The family, of English and partly Scottish descent, according to Eddy, were Protestant Congregationalists. Her father, Mark Baker (d. 1865), was a deeply religious man – Caroline Fraser calls him pious and obstreperous – who would lead the family in lengthy prayer every morning and evening.

Eddy experienced protracted ill health throughout her childhood and into adulthood – with conditions she or others described as chronic dyspepsia, spinal inflammation, neuralgia and stomach cankers – which disrupted her formal education, though by some accounts she read widely at home. The literary critic Harold Bloom described her in 1992 as "an extraordinary wreck, a monumental hysteric of classical dimensions, indeed a kind of anthology of nineteenth-century nervous ailments."

Fraser argues that Eddy established a pattern from childhood of appearing to be seriously ill, then quickly recovering, possibly having learned that it was likely to gain her attention. Willa Cather (1873–1947) and Georgine Milmine (1874–1950) wrote in a highly critical and much-disputed exposé of Eddy, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) – first serialized by McClure's magazine in 14 articles in 1907–1908 – that "othing had the power of exciting Mark Baker like one of Mary's 'fits' ... His neighbors ... remember him as he went to fetch Dr. Ladd, how he lashed his horses down the hill ... shouting in his tremendous voice: 'Mary is dying!'"

Christian Scientists regard the criticism of Eddy as an "hysteric" as sexist and unfair, a myth perpetrated because she was a woman who became a religious leader, according to Stephen Gottshalk (1931–2005), a Christian Science historian and critic, formerly a member of the church's Committee on Publication. Gillian Gill, author of Mary Baker Eddy (1999), referred to the McClure articles in 2000 as "muckraking."

Gottshalk writes that Eddy in fact suffered serious illness and tragic personal loss. Her first husband died shortly before her 23rd birthday, six months after they married and three months before the birth of their son, George Glover, leaving her penniless. As a result of her poor health, she lost custody of the child when he was four. Her second husband, Daniel Patterson, who left her for another woman after 13 years of marriage, promised to adopt the boy, but never did, and she lost all contact with her son until he was in his thirties. Her third husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy, died five years after they married. Gill writes that these personal losses served to free Eddy from the kind of domestic environment that would otherwise have hampered her work.

Jean A. McDonald argues that the "biological rhetoric" of hysteria, insanity and simple-mindedness was regularly deployed in the 19th century against women who sought to do something different with their lives, especially if it might put them on an intellectual par with men. Eddy was an obvious target for these attacks because she was directly challenging the hegemony of two powerful male groups: the clergy and the medical establishment.

Eddy and Phineas Quimby

Eddy tried every available remedy for her ailments, including homeopathy, mesmerism, hydropathy, and the vegetarian Graham diet of the Rev. Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), who had declared that "ALL MEDICINE, AS SUCH, IS ITSELF AN EVIL." Alternative practitioners were much sought after at a time when physicians regularly "bled, puked and purged" their patients, as Numbers and Schoeplin put it.

In 1862 Eddy heard of "Quimbyism," a healing method developed by Phineas Parkhurst "Park" Quimby, a former clockmaker turned professional mesmerist, who worked in Portland, Maine. Cather and Milmine wrote of Quimby in 1907 that, although he had had only six weeks' of schooling, he was regarded locally as a "mild-mannered New England Socrates," because of his refusal to accept anything on authority. So far as local legend was concerned, they wrote, when he practised his mesmerism, consumptives recovered and the blind saw. Quimby called himself "a teacher of the science of health and happiness," and his philosophy was "the truth is the cure." This would sometimes consist of shouting at a patient who could not walk, "you can walk!"

According to Rennie Schoeplin, Quimby believed that the patient–healer relationship was essential; he would massage his patients' heads and try to experience their symptoms. He described his methods, in a "circular to the sick," as correcting his patients' errors and thereby "chang the fluids of the system":

Dr. P.P. Quimby would respectfully announce to the citizens of ____ and vicinity, that he will be at the ____, where he will attend to those wishing to consult him in regard to their health. And as his practice is unlike all other medical practice, it is necessary to say that he gives no medicines and makes no outward applications, but simply sits down by his patients, tells them their feelings, etc., then his explanation is the cure; and if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and establishes the truth or health.

Eddy wrote to Quimby in August 1862, telling him she could barely sit up, and asked for his help; she had to be carried up the stairs to his consulting rooms. According to Shoeplin, she experienced immediate relief, and returned several times in 1863 and 1864 for treatment, though she found that she was well only in Quimby's presence or when he was treating her remotely; the symptoms returned without his attention. She began to practice his methods herself on patients, with some success, though apparently she found that she sometimes acquired their symptoms.

The "fall in Lynn"

Eddy's father died in October 1865 when she was 44 years old, followed in January 1866 by the death of Quimby. Two weeks after that, on February 1, Eddy experienced what Christian Scientists call "the fall in Lynn." Eddy said it was a revelation, not a communication from a deity, but what she called "human and divine coincidence." She was out walking in Lynn, Massachusetts, when she slipped on some ice, injuring her spine and knocking herself unconscious. Two women who looked after her declared that she was paralyzed. On the third day after the fall, Eddy read a Bible passage about one of Jesus's healings and was able to rise from her bed, apparently well, in what those around her saw as a miracle. Christian Scientists regard her recovery as an example of Christian Science healing, and the birth of their religion.

Both the extent of her injury and the degree to which she considered herself healed at the time are disputed. Eddy asked the city for damages months after the fall "for serious personal injuries from which little prospect of recovering." Gill writes that she may have done this under financial pressure; she was in a financially and emotionally strained marriage at the time to Daniel Patterson, her second husband, and she asked for the damages just months before they separated, when she knew she would have to fend for herself. In addition to the claim for damages, a homeopathic doctor who treated her after the fall, Alvin M. Cushing, apparently had no record or recollection – when asked in 1907, over 40 years later – of the injury being a serious one. According to Gill, the doctor said that Eddy had responded to a homeopathic remedy (highly diluted arnica) and some morphine that he had given her.

Science and Health

Eddy wrote that, after her recovery, she withdrew from society for three years "to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that should 'take the things of God' and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, God." She moved from boarding house to boarding house, and tried to earn a living by teaching her healing method, first advertising for students in July 1868 in a spiritualist magazine, the Banner of Light. She called her method Moral Science, Divine Science, Metaphysical Healing, Christian Science, and (clearly echoing Quimby) the Truth-cure. She stuck with Christian Science:

I named it Christian, because it is compassionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called immortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, and dies, I named mortal mind. The physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called error and shadow. Soul I denominated substance, because Soul alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual entity, but His corporeality I denied. The real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal, I described as unreal. Spirit I called the reality; and matter, the unreality.

She published the forerunner to Science and Health in the form of a pamphlet in 1870, The Science of Man, By Which the Sick are Healed. On October 30, 1875, she published the first, 456-page, edition of Science and Health, added Key to the Scriptures in 1883, and continued to revise the book until her death in 1910, issuing 432 editions in all. By 1999 it had sold nine million copies in 16 languages.

Schoepflin writes that Eddy's understanding of the mind–body relationship and her method of healing owed much to Quimbyism. Eddy nevertheless drew a distinction between her methods and Quimby's, arguing that her approach was purely mental or spiritual, whereas his was physical, both in the sense that he touched his patients and because he maintained that matter was real. Quimby believed he was altering his patients' perceptions when he treated them, thereby effecting physical change ("changing the fluids of the system"). Eddy, on the other hand, believed that her patients' altered perceptions removed their sense of an illness that was never there in the first place. This was a crucial distinction, in her view. She wrote in the preface to a later edition of Science and Health:

Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing, was gained in 1866. He was an uneducated man; but he was a distinguished mesmerist, and personally manipulated his patients. This I know, having been one of them. ... His method of treating disease was obviously physical, rather than mental. When I first conversed with him he believed matter, sin, sickness and death to be verities. He also believed matter to possess sensation, and its verdicts to be valid. Matter was quite as real to him as Mind.

In February 1883 she was accused by one of Quimby's followers, Julius Dresser (1838–1893), in a letter to the Boston Post, of having copied both Quimby's practices and his unpublished manuscript. She denied the charge; on the contrary, she argued, it was she who had influenced Quimby during his treatment of her. The issue ended up in court; Eddy filed a complaint that a New Thought practitioner was using her work, and he counter-claimed that she had plagiarized it from Quimby in the first place. Eddy won the case because Quimby's work was at that point unpublished and his family was unwilling to produce it for the lawsuit. Gill writes that, now that it has been published, her view is that the charge of plagiarism would have failed.

Acquiring a following, malicious mesmerism

Eddy worked from her home at 8 Broad Street, Lynn, with a sign outside saying "Mary B. Glover's Christian Scientists," and several people gathered around her as students and patients. A religion that taught them evil and sickness did not exist, and that the appearance of the latter could be conquered simply by thinking it away, was very attractive. Eight of her students began to call themselves "the Christian Scientists" from June 1875 onwards, and on July 4, 1876, they formed the Christian Scientists' Association.

Despite her view that evil was not real, Eddy became obsessed around this time with the idea that, if mental powers could be used to heal, they could also be used to destroy. She called the latter "malicious mesmerism," or "malicious animal magnetism," known within Christian Science as MAM. Fraser writes that the children of Christian Scientists call the unscrupulous use of healing powers "malping," short for malpractice, and see it as some form of hex.

Eddy became increasingly focused on MAM, believing that two of her students, Richard Kennedy and Daniel Spofford, were using it against her; a third student, Edward J. Arens, was also later accused. Spofford had been a favorite of Eddy's, but had quarrelled with her over the sale of some books, and subsequently found himself expelled from the Christian Scientists' Association. Everything that went wrong in her life from the late 1870s onwards, she blamed on someone using malicious mesmerism against her. It caused objects to get lost, mistakes in the printing of books, bad weather, and critical newspaper articles; it also caused the death of her third husband. She said that if she died it would be because of MAM.

On one occasion she organized two-hour-long "watches" for 12 of her students to look out for MAM from Spofford around the clock. They were told to think about him and declare in their minds that he had no power to heal; she believed this would weaken whatever mental powers he had. Gill writes that Eddy took the term "watch" from the New Testament story about Jesus's night in Gethsemane with his disciples.

In May 1878 a lawsuit was brought against Spofford in Salem, Massachusetts, by another of Eddy's former students, Lucretia Brown. Brown alleged that Spofford had practiced malicious mesmerism on her, though it was clear that Eddy was behind the allegation. Eddy held a power of attorney allowing her to appear in court on Brown's behalf, but the court declined to hear the case. Afterwards several newspapers wrote that Eddy had tried, before the case, to persuade them to publish attacks on Spofford, and in October 1878 Eddy's husband and another man were arrested for conspiring to murder Spofford, after a barman, James L. Sargent, said they had offered him $500 to carry out the killing. The charges were later dropped amid suspicions that the barman may have perjured himself.

Establishment of the church

On April 12, 1879, the Christian Science Association voted to form a church in Boston, Massachusetts. They chose the name The Church of Christ (Scientist), and were granted a charter on August 23 that year with 26 members. The church at first held its services in members' homes in Lynn and Boston; the numbers attending were small, from around six to 20. Eddy would conduct the services, for example by talking about malicious mesmerism. Several members left the church after tiring of the focus on mesmerism, as well as the numerous legal and other disputes Eddy was by that time involved in. They resigned formally in October 1881, signing a document that referred to Eddy's "frequent ebullitions of temper, love of money, and the appearance of hypocrisy." According to Cather and Milmine, Eddy rallied the remaining ranks, who pledged their loyalty to her in February 1882, publishing a resolution that "unless we hear Her voice we do not hear His voice."

On January 31, 1881, a charter was granted to form the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, as a name under which Eddy conducted her teaching. The first church building was erected in 1886 in Oconto, Wisconsin, and still stands at the corner of Main Street and Chicago Street. The original building of The First Church of Christ, Scientist (now known as the Mother Church) was completed on Saturday, December 29, 1894 – in time for the first service held there the following day – on Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston.

Early criticism

Christian Science was frequently attacked in the press and from the pulpit in its early years. Pamela Klassen writes that mainstream Protestants thought of it as a "heresy thought up by a disturbed woman." In 1905 the Bishop of London Arthur Winnington-Ingram (1858–1946) called it a "gigantic heresy."

The writer Mark Twain (1835–1910) was an early critic. He collected several critical articles he had written and published them as a book, Christian Science (1902); they were first excerpted in Cosmopolitan in October 1899 and in the North American Review in December 1902. Twain believed in the power of the mind over matter and illness, and expressed admiration for the ideas behind Christian Science healing. He nevertheless took strong exception to the writings of Eddy, calling them "incomprehensible and uninterpretable." He also believed that she had plagiarized some or most of Science and Health.

He was particularly incensed by the thought that Eddy was using Christian Science to accrue wealth and power for herself, writing: "From end to end of the Christian Science literature not a single (material) thing in the world is conceded to be real, except the Dollar." He called her "rasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything she sees – money, power, glory – vain, untruthful," and several other choice phrases. Twain's fear that Eddy could gain great power as a religious figurehead was the basis of his satirical story, "The Secret History of Eddypus, the World Empire" (written 1901–1902), describing a dystopian future in which Eddy's religion rules the world.

Christian Science was often attacked as a cult; Philip Jenkins writes that Eddy's version of the Lord's Prayer – with its "Our Father-Mother-God, all harmonious" – was regularly quoted in cult exposés. It was still listed as a cult in the 2003 edition of Walter Ralston Martin's religious reference book, The Kingdom of the Cults, first published in 1965, but for the most part the criticism diminished after Eddy's death in 1910, and the movement became more mainstream. The Nation wrote in 1923 that Christian Science was "popular, powerful and almost conservative now."

Beliefs and practices

Theology

Ontology

According to Stephen J. Stein, the basis of Eddy's scriptural reinterpretation was that the Bible had been misunderstood because the nature of reality had been misunderstood. She regarded the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis as an allegorical set of interwoven narratives, one spiritual, the other material. Stephen Gottshalk writes that it was the spiritual narrative that she accepted as authoritative. She argued that spiritual reality is the only reality, and that evil and matter, including sickness and death, are illusions:

What you call matter was originally primitive error in solution, the unformed mortal mind – likened, by Milton, to "chaos and old night." One theory about this mortal mind is, that its sensations form blood, flesh, and bones. The Science of Being – wherein all is Mind, or God and His thoughts – would still be clear, but for the belief that Mind can result in matter, or that Mind can enter its own embodied thought, and bind itself with its own beliefs, calling its bonds material.

She wrote that " first plank in the platform of Christian Science" was the "Scientific Statement of Being," which is the most concrete description of her ontology. In several Christian Science churches, including Sunday schools, this statement is repeated out loud during the service. Eddy revised it several times over the years; in the 1908 edition of Science and Health, it reads:

There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.

Nicholas Rescher likens this extreme idealism to the subjective idealism of the philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753) or to ancient Oriental panpsychism. Swami Yogananda (1861–1899), vice-president of the Ramakrishna Mission, wrote that Eddy took some of her ideas from Hindu philosophy, and that a chapter of Science and Health that quoted the Bhagavad-Gita was omitted from later editions.

Yogananda argued that, while Christian Science has achieved much by focusing on mind, it ignores the "great mental preparation" needed to understand the relationship between mind and matter, or to effect change: "When a man thinks he cannot exist a day without munching a big piece of beef steak, and at the same time talks about the non-existence of matter and the uselessness of medicine, he contradicts himself. If one believes in food, one believes in medicine also, for food is nothing but certain chemicals taken to heal the decaying tissues, which purpose medicine also serves."

Nature of God and death

Eddy referred to God as "Mother" and "Father-Mother God." Despite this there is no anthropomorphic conception of God in Christian Science. She wrote that "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." God is not a giver of life, but is life itself, and life is mind, what she called "the everlasting I AM."

There is also no final judgment, and no heaven or hell, except as states of mind. Christian Science teachers that death is an illusion that can be conquered through the conquest of sin. A person who seems to die simply adjusts to another level of consciousness, inaccessible to the living, with the same sense of physicality that they had before. Eddy wrote that in burying a body we bury only our own false sense of the person. She was critical of conventional Christian views of the hereafter and their social consequences:

If changeableness that repenteth itself; partiality that elects some to be saved and others to be lost, or that answers the prayers of one and not of another; if incompetency that cannot heal the sick, or lack of love that will not; if unmercifulness, that for the sins of a few tired years punishes man eternally, – are our conceptions of Deity, we shall bring out these qualities of character in our own lives and extend their influence to others.

Beliefs about Jesus

According to Gill, Christian Scientists believe that Eddy restored and explained the healing practices attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. The church has said that Jesus and Eddy were "the two most transparent sources of spiritual light the world has ever known." According to David Weddle, Eddy saw her work as "the dawning of the messianic age: the second advent of Jesus." Eddy herself wrote: "The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science."

Eddy saw Jesus as a mediator, what she called a "way-shower," between God and humanity. Christian Scientists do not regard Jesus's healings as miraculous or supernatural, but as examples of the healing power that stems from the correction of mental error. Eddy wrote that Jesus was a "natural and divine Scientist ... a Christian Scientist." Christian Science holds that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was conscious in his tomb, healing himself. It teaches that Jesus's atonement (the crucifixion and forgiveness of sin) – what Eddy called the "at-one-ment with God" – was not a propitiatory sacrifice; that is, Jesus did not die to pardon or cancel sin, or simply to provide a moral influence on mankind. Instead Christian Scientists see the atonement as exemplifying the unbreakable relationship between God and humanity, and showing that sin, disease and death can be overcome.

Christian Science healing

Philosophy

Eddy wrote that asking a doctor for treatment "invites defeat," though she allowed exceptions for going to the dentist, fixing broken limbs, and basic surgical procedures. She herself wore glasses, had her third husband treated by a physician, and arranged for an autopsy when he died, something else she was otherwise opposed to. She nevertheless argued that "sickness is error," and that "if we trust matter, we distrust spirit":

We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have small-pox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. ... Palsy is a belief that attacks mortals through fear, and paralyzes the body ... Destroy the fear, show mortal mind that no muscular power can be lost – for Mind is supreme – and you will cure the palsy.

Christian Scientists pray in private, seeing prayer as a process of learning about God's spiritual reality. They do not appeal to God or saints for help, or see their prayers as faith healing or examples of miracles. Healing is based on a simple act of dominion, that of standing porter at the door of one's thoughts. They do not focus on what is wrong with the body, but instead try to re-adjust the apparent misalignment with Mind or God. They believe that the effect of this spiritualization of thought is moral, physical and emotional health. A church spokesman wrote in a letter to the New York Review of Books in 2001 that Christian Science healing had seen people "cured of cancer, diabetes, asthma HIV." Fraser wrote in 1995 that, according to the church, Christian Science healing has been "verified by medical diagnosis," and that, of the 10,000 or so healing testimonies published by the church between 1969 and 1988, 2,337 involved conditions that had been medically diagnosed.

Several of those raised within Christian Science families have written about how distant their parents became when there was any mention of suffering; several have discussed this in terms of what seemed to be a lack of empathy. Fraser cites Spalding Gray (1941–2004), who wrote in his Sex and Death to the Age Fourteen (1986) about having fallen when he got out of a bath:

When I landed my arm fell against the radiator. I must have been out quite a long time because when I came to, I lifted my arm up and it was like this dripping-rare-red roast beef, third-degree burn. Actually it didn't hurt at all because I was in shock, a steam burn on my finger would have hurt more. I ran downstairs and showed it to my mother and she said, "Put some soap in it, dear, and wrap it in gauze." She was a Christian Scientist, so she had a distance on those things.

The next day when I got to school, the burn began to drip through the gauze. I went down to the infirmary, and when the nurse saw it she screamed, "What, you haven't been to a doctor with this? That's a third-degree burn. You've got to get to a doctor right away." So I went back home and told my mother what the nurse had said, and my mother said, "Well, it's your choice, dear. It's your choice."

Practitioners, nursing homes

Those who offer Christian Science healing are known as Christian Science practitioners. There is no physical manipulation in Christian Science healing, no laying on of hands. A 1910 article in the British Medical Journal described how a practitioner can act from a distance, thinking whatever would be said were the practitioner present at the bedside, assuring the patient that the disease is imaginary and that God would not permit sickness. Christian Scientists wanting to become practitioners take classes in Eddy's teachings, and are then able to advertise and charge for their services. Around 1,400 practitioners were registered with the church as of 2010, according to the New York Times; at that time they were charging $25 to $50 for a visit, telephone consultation, or e-mail discussion.

Christian Science nursing homes have been run independently of the church since 1993, accredited by the Commission for Accreditation of Christian Science Nursing Organizations/Facilities. The nurses are Christian Scientists who have completed a course of religious study and training in basic skills – such as feeding and bathing – in a Christian Science training center. No medical or nursing qualifications are required, and the homes offer no medical services. Several of them are Medicare or Medicaid providers.

Relationship with medicine

Christian Scientists believe that medicine and Christian Science healing proceed from contradictory assumptions. Medicine asserts that something is physically broken and needs to be fixed, while Christian Science asserts that the spiritual reality is harmonious and perfect, and that any belief to the contrary is an error that needs to be corrected. According to one practitioner who spoke to the New York Times, a patient with a lump under his arm is displaying a "manifestation of fear, not a lump."

There has been criticism of Christian Scientists who impose these ideas on their children. Caroline Fraser writes that children in pain, or with conditions such as diabetes or deafness, have been told by their Christian Science parents, teachers and nurses that there is nothing wrong with them, or that there is no such thing as pain. Fraser argues that this is not only dangerous, but that it also undermines the children's self-confidence and trust in their own perceptions, and can make them feel guilty that their "incorrect" thinking has made them ill or disabled.

The insistence that all physical ailments are simply mistaken beliefs can also paradoxically cause hypochondria, and an intense focus on physicality, by making children obsessed with their bodies the more they try to control their thoughts about them. Fraser writes that Rockwell Gray, Spalding Gray's brother, was worried at the age of eight that he would have a heart attack, because he had been taught to believe that thinking about it could make it happen. There have also been several cases (see below) where children have died after medical treatment was withheld.

According to the New York Times, the Christian Science church has always said publicly that its members were free to choose medical care, although some members have said that seeking outside help risks them being ostracized. In 1999 the church issued a statement that "lthough it is entirely natural for students of Christian Science to rely on prayer, it is also important, when it comes to the care of children, that Scientists consider well their individual spiritual readiness, their own past experience and record, and the mental climate in which they live ..." The statement asked church members to be supportive of families who choose medical treatment for a child. In 2009 a church spokesman again emphasized that adherents may seek medical treatment if they wish.

First Church of Christ, Scientist

Governance and services

The First Church of Christ, Scientist (the Mother Church) church is now headquartered in a 28-story building on its original site in the Back Bay area of Boston. The site now covers 14 acres and includes a plaza with a 670-foot reflecting pool.

The president of the church for 2012–2013 is Chet Manchester. The organization is presided over by the Christian Science Board of Directors, a five-person executive created by Eddy, the function of which is defined by the Manual of the Mother Church, the set of by-laws written by Eddy. The church posted an $8 million financial loss in 2003, and in 2004 cut 125 jobs – a quarter of the staff – at the Christian Science Monitor, though a spokesman said it was not facing financial problems.

The church has no clergy, sermons or rituals; it does not perform baptisms, marriages or burials. There are Sunday morning services, in which excerpts from Science and Health and the Bible are read out loud, and meetings on Wednesday evenings, where members give testimonies of healing. According to Fraser, there are no "ecstatic expressions of religious fervor" during these meetings; on the contrary, she writes, "if the emotional range of the experience were plotted on a chart, it would be represented by a straight line."

The Mother Church has been accused at times of trying to silence Christian Scientists who are critics, by firing them, delisting them as practitioners, or excommunicating them. For example, Stephen Gottschalk – author of The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (1973) and Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism (2005) – who had spent his life in the church and had worked for 13 years for its powerful Committee on Publication, was forced to leave his position in 1990 after advising the board to be more welcoming of internal criticism. Fraser writes that by the end of the year, five of Gottshalk's associates had resigned or been fired.

Members

Christian Scientists have tended to be white, well-educated, middle-class, and comfortable financially. Caroline Fraser writes that 42 percent have a college education, over 16 percent of Christian Scientist households earned more than $50,000 in 1990, and most Christian Science practitioners are women. Outside the United States, the religion is most prevalent in Australia, Canada, Germany, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.

Notable Christian Scientists have included former Directors of Central Intelligence William H. Webster and Admiral Stansfield M. Turner, Richard Nixon's chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's White House Counsel John Ehrlichman, and Judge Thomas P. Griesa.

There used to be a concentration of Christian Scientists in the film industry, such as film director Cecil B. DeMille, actors and actresses Carol Channing, Joan Crawford, Doris Day, Robert Duvall, George Hamilton, Val Kilmer, Mary Pickford, Ginger Rogers, Mickey Rooney, Jean Stapleton, and playwright Horton Foote.

Other notable Scientists have included physicist Laurance Doyle and NASA astronaut Alan Shepard. In England, the viscountess Nancy Astor and Charles Lightoller, the highest-ranking officer to survive the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, were both Christian Scientists.

Those raised by Christian Scientists include comedian Robin Williams, television host Ellen DeGeneres, actors and actresses Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Harlow, Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, and military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The writer and actor Spalding Gray, the writers Ernest Hemingway and V. S. Pritchett, the poet Hart Crane, Metallica lead singer James Hetfield, and gymnast Shannon Miller were also raised by Christian Scientists. The actress Anne Archer left Christian Science when her son, Tommy Davis, was still a child; both went on to became prominent in the Church of Scientology.

Membership is often passed on within families; the church recruits comparatively few new followers from other sources. In the early decades of the 20th century, churches sprang up in communities around the world, though in the later decades there was a marked decline in membership, except in Africa, where there was growth. In 2009, for the first time in church history, more new members came from Africa than from the United States. The New York Times reported in 2010 that membership had dropped to under 100,000, with around 1,100 churches in the United States and 600 overseas.

Christian Science Publishing Society

Journals

The Christian Science Publishing Society publishes several periodicals from the headquarters of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, including The Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper with a reputation for high-quality international news coverage. The winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes and 427 other awards, the Monitor was founded by Eddy in 1908 under the slogan: "To injure no man, but to bless all mankind." At its height in 1970, it had a circulation of 220,000, which by 2008 had contracted to 52,000. Citing losses of $18.9 million a year and $12.5 million in revenue as of 2008, the magazine moved in April 2009 to a largely online presence, with a weekly, instead of daily, print run.

The church also publishes the weekly Christian Science Sentinel, the monthly Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science, a non-English publication available in several languages. The Journal and Sentinel include comments, called testimonies, from people who say they were healed through Christian Science prayer. The submission of these include the names of three "verifiers," one of whom must be a member of the Mother Church, who believe they witnessed or can otherwise confirm the healing. A project was underway as of 2012, known as JSH-Online, to make all back issues of the Journal, Sentinel and Herald available online.

The Christian Science Publishing Society also produced its own television programs, Christian Science Monitor Reports and World Monitor, in the 1980s. In May 1991 it founded the Monitor Channel, a 24-hour current affairs cable channel, which closed with heavy losses after 13 months.

The Destiny of the Mother Church

Caroline Fraser writes that "othing has ever rocked the foundations of Christian Science" as much as the decision of the Christian Science Publishing Company to publish The Destiny of the Mother Church (1991) by Bliss Knapp (1877–1958). Knapp was a Christian Science practitioner and lecturer, and son of Ira Oscar Knapp and Flavia Stickney Knapp, who had both been Eddy's students. Ira Knapp was one of the early members of the Christian Science board of directors.

Bliss Knapp wrote and printed the book privately in 1947, angering the church because the book appeared to deify Eddy by suggesting that she was the Woman of the Apocalypse in the New Testament's "Book of Revelation." The Christian Science Publishing Society refused to publish it. Knapp was anxious to have the book published as church-authorized literature, and so he, his wife and his sister-in-law bequeathed their estates worth around $98 million to the church on condition that it publish the book by 1993. If it failed to do so, the money would be left instead to Stanford University and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The church refused at least once after the bequest was set up, but agreed to publish it in 1991, and made the book available in Christian Science reading rooms. Commentators linked the church's decision to its financial losses following its failed broadcasting efforts. In the view of some church members, Fraser writes, the book tainted the religion's status as Christian and encouraged its opponents to brand it a cult. Several employees resigned over the decision, including the senior editors of the religious journals, and others were fired for refusing to support the book in public.

Reception and criticism

Attitudes toward Eddy, Next Friends suit

Several writers in the 1970s and 1980s interpreted Eddy's creation of Christian Science as a response to the male-dominated society of 19th-century America. For them Christian Science was a protest movement founded by a woman who conformed to the male-constructed "hysterical" profile of the time, and who had a need for power, status and prestige. Gail Parker wrote in 1970 that by founding Christian Science Eddy had created a "job opportunity" for herself, which satisfied her urge to dominate.

Four psychiatrists were sent to Eddy's home in 1907 home, when she was 86, to interview her over the course of a month as part of a lawsuit. Known as the "Next Friends suit," it was brought against the church, ostensibly on Eddy's behalf, by her son George Washington Glover II, her nephew George W. Baker, and her adopted son Ebenezer J. Foster Eddy. They sought to show that Eddy was insane, which would have removed her control of her fortune and the church. The suit seems to have evolved out of stories published by Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that said Eddy was very sick and dying, and by the series of 14 highly critical articles in McClure's magazine by Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine that began in January 1907.

The psychiatrists (then referred to as "alienists") determined that she was mentally competent and able to manage her financial affairs. One of them, Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton (1848–1919), told the New York Times that, although he disagreed with her teachings, the attacks on Eddy were the result of "a spirit of religious persecution that has at last quite overreached itself," and that "there seems to be a manifest injustice in taxing so excellent and capable an old lady as Mrs. Eddy with any form of insanity." It was partly in response to this case that Eddy founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908 as a platform for responsible journalism.

Sexuality and sexual minorities

Amy Black Voorhees writes that Eddy saw sexuality as principally serving the need to procreate; as a result the church has treated homosexuality, sex outside marriage, excessive sexuality within marriage, and masturbation as practices to be discouraged. A lesbian reporter was fired in 1982 from the Christian Science Monitor after rumors circulated that she was gay; in 1985 the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the church's right to fire her on religious grounds. That year a group of LGBTQ Christian Science students formed Emergence International (EMI), a coalition within the church advocating change. According to an EMI member writing in 2004, the church now treats sexual minorities with a degree of acceptance. Voorhees writes that gay students have found the Mother Church and other Christian Science churches in Boston to be welcoming, but others have been excommunicated from local churches.

Medical criticism

Religious exemption

Caroline Fraser writes that from the 1880s the American Medical Association launched campaigns against Christian Scientists and groups with similar ideas, by seeking legislation that would allow only physicians to treat the sick. The Christian Scientists survived the onslaught in part because they acquired powerful supporters, including a somewhat reluctant William James (1842–1910). A physician and philosopher, James opposed such legislation on the grounds that medical practice "changes unexpectedly from one generation to another in consequence of widening experience," and spoke from that perspective in support of religious exemptions.

In Canada and the United Kingdom, Christian Scientists are obliged to allow their children access to medical care. In the United States, the constitutional guarantee of protection of religious practice from intrusion by government has been used by Christian Scientists and others to persuade states to pass religious-exemption laws. In 1974, in response to the conviction for manslaughter of a Christian Scientist who failed to provide medical care for her daughter, Lisa Sheridan (see below), the church successfully lobbied the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for the following words in the Code of Federal Regulations:

A parent or guardian legitimately practicing his religious beliefs who thereby does not provide specified medical treatment for a child, for that reason alone shall not be considered a negligent parent or guardian; however, such an exception shall not preclude a court from ordering that medical services be provided to the child, where his health requires it.

Fraser writes that the Department of Health and Human Services eliminated the regulation in 1983. Nevertheless, according to the lobby group Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty (CHILD), 38 states and the District of Columbia still had religious-exemption statutes in place as of 2013 that were based on the old regulation, because while it was in force, states were required to pass it to get funding for child protection work. Some of the statutes say that in life-threatening situations the children must be given access to medical care, but Fraser argues that without medical care in the first place the life-threatening nature of the illnesses may not be recognized.

Paul Vitello wrote in the New York Times in 2010 that the church had recently adopted a less rigid position toward adherents who seek medical care. In June 2009 a church spokesman said in The Christian Science Journal that parents should "do what you have to do for your kids' health." According to Vitello, the church now seeks to present Christian Science healing as a supplement to conventional medical care, similar to biofeedback, chiropractic and homeopathy, rather than as a substitute for it.

Child deaths and prosecutions

In over 50 cases between 1888 and the early 1990s, prosecutors charged Christian Scientists with manslaughter or murder after both adults and children died of treatable illnesses without medical attention. Fraser writes that what Christian Scientists call the "child cases" began in 1967 in Massachusetts, when five-year-old Lisa Sheridan died of pneumonia without medical care, as a result of which her mother was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to probation. In July 1977 16-month-old Matthew Swan died of bacterial meningitis after his parents were persuaded by two Christian Science practitioners not to take him to a physician; they did eventually take him to hospital, but the infection had spread too far. The parents responded by founding Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty in 1983, a non-profit group that lobbies against religious-exemption laws.

Between 1980 and 1990 seven Christian Scientist parents whose children died without medical treatment were prosecuted in the United States. Two of the cases were dismissed and four resulted in convictions, two of which were later overturned. The mother of a child who died of bacterial meningitis in California in 1984 was convicted of manslaughter; the conviction was overturned in 1990 on the grounds that the wording of the religious-exemption statute at the time had led her to believe she could not be prosecuted. In June 1988 in Arizona, a child died in a Christian Science nursing home after having lived for months with a tumor on her leg the size of a watermelon, according to the prosecutor who handled the case against her parents; they pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.

One prominent case was that of the Twitchells in Massachusetts in 1990. David and Ginger Twitchell were convicted of involuntary manslaughter after failing to seek medical help for their two-year-old son who died in April 1986 of peritonitis caused by a bowel obstruction. The conviction was overturned in 1993 when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the couple had "reasonably believed," based on a church publication they had read, that they could rely on Christian healing without being prosecuted, an argument that had not been presented to the jury.

Lundman v. McKown

The first time the church itself was held liable in a wrongful death suit was in August 1993, when a jury in Minnesota ordered it to pay damages to the father of 11-year-old Ian Lundman, who died of hyperglycemia in May 1989 as a consequence of undiagnosed juvenile-onset diabetes. The case is regarded as important because, although the award against the church was overturned, the judgments against several individuals, including a Christian Science practitioner and a Christian Science nurse, were upheld.

The boy had been ill for weeks, but his condition worsened on May 6, leading his mother, Kathleen McKown, to ask a Christian Science practitioner to pray; she also sought advice from a Christian Science nursing home and the church's Committee on Publication. On May 8 the home sent a nurse to sit with the boy. The nurse's notes were entered into evidence; the first entry at 9 pm noted that the boy's breathing was labored, he was vomiting, and he seemed barely responsive. The nurse read hymns, rubbed his lips with Vaseline and tried to give him water as he lay in a diabetic coma. Over five hours after she had arrived, and sixteen minutes before she wrote that he had stopped breathing, she wrote "passing possible." Doctors testified that he could have been saved by an insulin injection up to two hours before his death. The boy's mother and stepfather were charged with second degree manslaughter, but the charges were dismissed.

Ian's father, Douglass Lundman, sued McKown (his former wife), the stepfather, the practitioner, the nurse, the nursing home and the church. He was awarded $5.2 million compensatory damages divided between all the defendants, later reduced to $1.5 million, and $9 million in punitive damages against the church alone. The Minnesota State Court of Appeals upheld the judgment against the individuals in 1995, ruling that, "Although one is free to believe what one will, religious freedom ends when one's conduct offends the law by, for example, endangering a child's life." The court overturned the award against the church and the nursing home, finding that a judgment that forced the church to "abandon teaching its central tenet" was unconstitutional, and that, while the individuals had a duty of care toward the boy, the church and nursing home did not. The mother, stepfather, practitioner and nurse appealed the judgment against them to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the importance of the case to Christian Scientists could "scarcely be overstated," but the court declined to hear the case. It also turned down an appeal by the father to reinstate the punitive damages against the church.

Avoidance of vaccination

The Compulsory Vaccination Act was introduced in England in 1853, requiring children to be vaccinated against smallpox. Massachusetts made vaccination against smallpox compulsory for schoolchildren in 1855, and other states soon followed. Michael Willrich writes that Christian Scientists protested against the laws throughout the 1890s. A Christian Scientist in Wisconsin won a legal case in 1897 that allowed his unvaccinated son to attend public school, and several Christian Scientists were arrested for avoiding vaccination during a smallpox epidemic in Georgia in 1899. In 1900 Eddy issued advice to adherents: "Rather than quarrel over vaccination I recommend that if the law demand an individual to submit to this process he obey the law and then appeal to the gospel to save him from any bad results." In 1902 she added, in the Christian Science Sentinel, that Christian Scientists should report contagious diseases to health boards when the law required it. Willrich writes that some followers continued nevertheless to avoid vaccination, and tried to heal smallpox with prayer.

As of 2013, 48 states allow religious exemptions to compulsory vaccination. Many Christian Scientists continue not to have their children vaccinated, and are less likely to report illness to physicians, so infection may remain undetected. There were several outbreaks of infectious diseases at Christian Science schools and camps between 1972 and 1994. In 1972, 128 students at a Christian Science school in Greenwich, Connecticut, contracted polio and four were left partially paralyzed. In 1982, a nine-year-old girl died of diptheria after attending a Christian Science camp in Colorado. In 1985, 128 people were infected with measles at Principia College, a Christian Science school in Elsah, Illinois, and three died. In 1994, 190 people in six states were infected with measles spread by a child from a Christian Science family in Elsah, after she was exposed to it on a skiing holiday in Colorado.

See also

• Bone pointing / Voodoo death
• Efficacy of prayer
• Faith healing
• Hindu idealism
• Hospital-acquired infection
• Iatrogenesis
• Jewish Science
• Law of attraction
• Medical malpractice
• Placebo effect / Nocebo
• Psionics
• Psychosomatic medicine
• Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)
• Prince v. Massachusetts (1944)
• Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)

Notes

1. ^ Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 1.
2. ^ Saliba 2003, p. 26: "The Christian Science-Metaphysical Family ... also known as "New Thought" in academic literature, stresses the need to understand the functioning of the human mind in order to achieve the healing of all human ailments. Essentially a religious philosophy that stresses individualism, New Thought developed its own creed in which attunement with God is the primary goal of the individual's life."
   • Lewis 2003, p. 94: "Groups in the metaphysical (Christian Science–New Thought) tradition ... usually claim to have discovered spiritual laws which, if properly understood and applied, transform and improve the lives of ordinary individuals, much as technology has transformed society."
   • Gallagher 2004, p. 54: ... the New Thought Movement ... combines ideas from Eddy and the prominent faith-healer Phileas Quimby."
   • Melton 2005, p. 146: "Christian Science is a metaphysical religion that emerged in New England in reaction to the spiritual healing experienced by founder Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)."
3. Melton 2005, pp. 146–147.
4. Rescher 2009, p. 318: "Perhaps the most radical form of idealism is the ancient Oriental spiritualistic or panpsychistic idea – renewed in Christian Science – that minds and their thoughts are all there is; that reality is simply the sum total of the visions (or dreams?) of one or more minds."
   • Numbers and Schoeplin 1999, p. 583: "At the basis of Eddy's doctrine lay a radical idealism that denied the existence of anything but God and the ideas that generate from his being."
   • Schoeplin 2001, p. 28: "Embracing a radical idealism, Eddy affirmed that there is no Life, Substance, or Intellgence in Matter. That all is mind and there is no matter.'"
   • Wessinger, DeChant and Ashcraft 2006, p. 757: "Possible factors for the egress of talented women were Eddy's dogmatism, her radical idealism, and her authoritarianism."
   • Gottschalk 1973, p. 76: "In the most general sense, of course, teaching can be understood as a form of idealism. For broadly speaking, one can call any system which construes experience in terms of mind or spirit idealistic. Yet there is no evidence that ... Mrs Eddy was directly influenced by any form of philosophic idealism."
5. Gottschalk 1973, pp. 59, 83.
6. For the 1936 figure of 268,915, see Schoeplin 2001, p. 119.
   • For 2010, see Vitello (New York Times) 2010, , p. 1.
   • Gallagher 2004, p. 54, writes that the church had almost 100,000 members in 2003.
7. Schoepflin 2002, p. 6; Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 1.
8. Margolick (New York Times) 1990; New York Times, August 19, 1993; Asser and Swan 1998.
9. For the church spokesman, see Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 2.
   • For "e cannot serve two masters," see Eddy, Science and Health, p. 18.
10. ^ Fuller 2011, p. 175; Cook (Christian Science Monitor) 2008.
11. ^ Kemp 2004, p. 38.
12. DeChant 2006, p. 71.
13. DeChant 2006, p. 72.
14. Lewis 2003, pp. 18, 93–94, 105.
15. Gill 1999, p. 549.
16. Cather and Milmine, February 1907, p. 339.
17. Fraser 1999, p. 78.
18. Fraser 1999, p. 37.
19. Gill 1999, pp. 84–85.
20. Gill 1999, pp. 3, 9; Fraser 1999, p. 27.
21. For chronic dyspepsia and spinal inflammation, see Gottschalk 1973, p. 106; for spinal irritation, neuralgia, dyspepsia, stomach cankers, and ulcers, see Fraser 1999, p. 34.
22. Bloom 1992, p. 133, cited in Fraser 1999, p. 35, and Balliett 2000.
    • Melton 2005, p. 146, describes Eddy as a semi-invalid.
23. Fraser 1999, p. 35.
24. Cather and Milmine 1993 , p. 22, cited in Fraser 1999, p. 34; also in Fraser (New York Times) 1999.
    • For the 1909 Doubleday edition of the book, see here.
    • The material in the 1909 book first appeared in McClure's magazine as 14 articles between January 1907 and June 1908; see Cather and Milmine 1907–1908.
    • Cather's name was omitted from the McClure's and Doubleday byline; see Stouck 1993, p. xv, introduction to the 1993 University of Nebraska Press edition of the book.
25. Jones and Gottschalk 2001, letters to the New York Review of Books.
26. Gill 2000; see the reply from Fraser on the same page.
27. Jones and Gottschalk 2001, letters to the New York Review of Books.
28. For the death of her first husband, see Fraser 1999, p. 36, and for the birth of her son, p. 37.
    • For Eddy's second marriage and the husband failing to adopt the boy, see Gill 1999, p. 102; for the second husband's adultery, see p. 170.
    • For Gill discussing Eddy's losses, see Gill 1999, pp. 93–94.
    • For Eddy discussing losing custody of her son when he was four, and losing contact with him until he was in his 30s, see Eddy, "Marriage and Parentage," Retrospection and Introspection, p. 20:

    • "After returning to the paternal roof I lost all my husband's property, except what money I had brought with me; and remained with my parents until after my mother's decease.

      "A few months before my father's second marriage, to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson of New York, my little son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and put under the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the northern part of New Hampshire. I had no training for self-support, and my home I regarded as very precious. The night before my child was taken from me, I knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this trial. ...

      "My second marriage was very unfortunate, and from it I was compelled to ask for a bill of divorce, which was granted me in the city of Salem, Massachusetts.

      "My dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child, but after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should have a home with me. A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he was committed very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West.

      "After his removal a letter was read to my little son, informing him that his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge a guardian was appointed him, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met again until he had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and two children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts."

    • For Eddy's third husband's death, see Fraser 1999, p. 78.
29. McDonald 1986, p. 97ff; Cunningham 2006, p. 744.
30. Schoeplin 2001, p. 22.
    • For the quote from Graham, see Numbers and Schoeplin 1999, p. 580.
31. Numbers and Schoeplin 1999, p. 580.
32. Cather and Milmine, February 1907, pp. 340–341.
33. For "a teacher of the science of health and happiness, see Quimby 2009, p. 472. The phrase also appears on pp. 81, 264, 286. For "the truth is the cure," see p. 507, and Gill 1999, p. 129.
    • In his essay "Aristocracy and Democracy," Quimby used the phrase "Christian Science," but not clearly of his own ideas; see Quimby 2009, p. 69.
    • Also see Numbers and Schoeplin 1999, p. 583ff.
34. Gottschalk 1973, p. 105.
35. ^ Schoeplin 2001, p. 23.
36. Quimby 2009, p. 507.
37. Gill 1999, pp. 127–128.
38. Fraser 1999, p. 52.
39. Gottschalk 1973, p. 27.
    • Also see Weddle 1991, pp. 288–289.
40. For a detailed account of Eddy's fall and injury, see Gill 1999, pp. 161–168, and Fraser 1999, pp. 52–54.
    • The Lynn Reporter wrote on February 3, 1866 (see Gill 1999, p. 161):

    • "Mrs. Mary Patterson of Swampscott fell upon the ice near the corner of Market and Oxford Streets on Thursday evening and was severely injured. She was taken up in an insensible condition and carried into the residence of S.M. Bubier, Esq., near by, where she was kindly cared for during the night. Doctor Cushing, who was called, found her injuries to be internal and of a serious nature, inducing spasms and internal suffering. She was removed to her home in Swampscott yesterday afternoon, though in a critical condition."

41. ^ Gill 1999, pp. 163–164.
42. Gill 1999, p. 70.
43. Eddy, Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-healing, p. 8.
44. ^ Numbers and Schoeplin 1999, p. 583.
45. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 11, and for "Divine Science," p. 22.
    • For "Truth-cure," see Fraser 1995.
    • For "Moral Science," see Gottschalk 1973, p. 107.
46. Eddy, "The Great Discovery," Retrospection and Introspection.
47. Weddle 1991, pp. 281, 288.
    • For her addition of Key to the Scriptures, see Schoeplin 2001, p. 119.
    • For 432 editions, see Fraser 1999, p. 26.
    • For the first edition being 456 pages, and for the number of copies and languages, see Gardner (Los Angeles Times) 1999.
48. ^ Schoeplin 2001, p. 119.
49. ^ Gottschalk 1973, pp. 107–108, 108.
50. Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 6–7.
51. Gill 1999, p. 313.
52. Gill 1999, pp. 314–316.
    • See Quimby, The Complete Collected Works of Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, first published 1921.
53. Cather and Milmine, July 1907, p. 333.
54. ^ Cather and Milmine, August 1907, p. 458.
55. Fraser 1999, pp. 103, 323.
56. Cather and Milmine, September 1907, p. 568.
57. Cather and Milmine, July 1907, p. 339ff.
58. Fraser 1999, p. 103; Gill 1999, pp. xvii, 397.
    • For her husband, see Cather and Milmine, September 1907, pp. 568–569.
    • One Christian Scientist, Marion Stephens, killed herself in April 1910 apparently in fear of MAM; see The New York Times, April 26, 1910.
59. Tucker 2004, p. 166.
60. Cather and Milmine, July 1907, pp. 339, 343, 346.
61. Gill 1999, p. 397; Fraser 1999, pp. 103, 107.
62. Cather and Milmine, July 1907, p. 344ff.
63. Moore 1986, p. 112; Cather and Milmine, July 1907, p. 346.
64. Cather and Milmine, August 1907, p. 450ff.
    • That the barman may have perjured himself, see Cather and Milmine, August 1907, p. 455; Fraser 1999, p. 70.
65. ^ Gill 1999, p. xxxi.
66. Cather and Milmine, August 1907, pp. 458–459.
67. Cather and Milmine, August 1907, pp. 460–461.
68. Cather and Milmine, August 1907, p. 461.
69. ^ Beasley 1952, pp. 289, 580–582; Chiat 1997, p. 133.
70. Kimball 2005 (lecture delivered 1898), p. 17.
    • Also see Kimball 2012 , the chapter, "Editorial Comments," p. 98ff, a collection of quotes from magazines and newspapers around the United States.
71. Klassen 2009: "Christian Science was not considered by mainstream Protestants to be a development within the fold, but a heresy thought up by a disturbed woman."
72. British Medical Journal 1905, p. 1357.
    • Also see Cunningham 1967, p. 898: "Thus, the ministers who discerned a parallel between Emerson's 'Oversoul' and Mrs. Eddy's 'All-in-all' penetrated to the fundamental heresy of both."
73. British Medical Journal 1899.
74. Twain 1902; Bercovitch and Patell 2005, p. 528.
75. Mizruchi 2005, p. 529.
    • See Twain 1902:

    • "For the thing back of it is wholly gracious and beautiful: the power, through loving mercifulness and compassion, to heal fleshly ills and pains and grief—all—with a word, with a touch of the hand! This power was given by the Saviour to the Disciples, and to all the converted. All—every one. It was exercised for generations afterwards. Any Christian who was in earnest and not a make-believe, not a policy—Christian, not a Christian for revenue only, had that healing power, and could cure with it any disease or any hurt or damage possible to human flesh and bone. These things are true, or they are not. If they were true seventeen and eighteen and nineteen centuries ago it would be difficult to satisfactorily explain why or how or by what argument that power should be nonexistent in Christians now."

76. Schrager 1998, p. 29.
    • For "incomprehensible and uninterpretable," see Horn 1996, p. 123.
77. Mizruchi 2005, p. 529.
    • Twain 1902: "hey believe that she philosophized Christian Science, explained it, systematized it, and wrote it all out with her own hand in the book Science and Health.

      "I am not able to believe that. ... The known and undisputed products of her pen are a formidable witness against her. They do seem to me to prove, quite clearly and conclusively, that writing, upon even simple subjects, is a difficult labor for her: that she has never been able to write anything above third-rate English; that she is weak in the matter of grammar; that she has but a rude and dull sense of the values of words; that she so lacks in the matter of literary precision that she can seldom put a thought into words that express it lucidly to the reader and leave no doubts in his mind as to whether he has rightly understood or not. ...

      "In the very first revision of Science and Health (1883), Mrs. Eddy wrote a Preface which is an unimpeachable witness that the rest of the book was written by somebody else."

78. Stahl 2012, p. 202.
    • For the quote from Twain, see Twain 1902, chapter 7.
79. Twain 1902: "Grasping, sordid, penurious, famishing for everything she sees – money, power, glory – vain, untruthful, jealous, despotic, arrogant, insolent, pitiless where thinkers and hypnotists are concerned, illiterate, shallow, incapable of reasoning outside of commercial lines, immeasurably selfish – ..."
80. Fishkin 2002, p. 82.
    • See Twain, "The Secret History of Eddypus, the World Empire".
81. Jenkins 2000, p. 231.
    • For some of Eddy's changes to the Lord's Prayer, see Feehan 2001, p. 215.
82. Martin and Zacharias 2003 , p. 173: "For the present, ... the Christian Science cult is a powerful force with which evangelical Christians everywhere must deal."
    • Jenkins 2000, p. 59.
83. Stein 1995: "Her working premise is that the Bible has been misunderstood because the nature of reality has been mistaken."
84. Gottshalk 1973, p. xxvii.
    • Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 501–557.
85. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 358.
86. ^ Rescher 2009, p. 318.
87. Eddy, Miscellaneous Writing, p. 21, cited in Gottschalk 1973, p. 58.
88. For example, see "Sunday School", First Church of Christ, Scientist, Riverside.
89. Eddy, Miscellaneous Writing, p. 21.
    • Another version reads:

    • "There is no Life, Substance, or Intelligence in matter. All is Mind. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and the eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness; hence, man is spiritual and not material." See Eddy, Science and Health, p. 406.

90. ^ Swami Yogananda, "Christian Science and Hindu Philosophy".
    • Also see Swami Yogananda 1926.
91. Vorhees 2012.
92. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 465; Gottshalk 1973, p. 55.
93. Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 289–290; Gottshalk 1973, p. 55.
94. Gottshalk 1973, p. 95.
95. Eddy, "The People's Idea of God", p. 8.
96. Gill 1999, p. 318.
97. ^ Fraser 1995.
98. Weddle 1991, p. 281.
99. Eddy, Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 95–96:
    • "We do not question the authenticity of the Scriptural narrative of the Virgin-mother and Bethlehem babe, and the Messianic mission of Christ Jesus; but in our time no Christian Scientist will give chimerical wings to his imagination, or advance speculative theories as to the recurrence of such events.

      "No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.

      "The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science.

      "And the scientific ultimate of this God-idea must be, will be, forever individual, incorporeal, and infinite, even the reflection, 'image and likeness,' of the infinite God."

100. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 508.
     • Gottschalk 2006, p. 234:

     • "Her discovery of Jesus's mission and its consequences, Eddy believed, empowered Christian experience as no other form of Christian theology had. Through his life and sacrifice, she held, Jesus empowered his followers in all ages to partake of the sonship he showed was possible. He was, therefore, the unique 'Wayshower' to humanity. Following in his way, Christians could expect to live a measure of the divine Sonship that Jesus lived, and thereby experience a proportionate measure of the salvation he made possible from sin, sickness, and eventually, death itself."

101. Kaplan 2006, p. 93.
102. Eddy, Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-healing, p. 8.
103. Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 285–286.
     • McKim, July 1914, p. 139: "It accepts the statement that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son, but hastens to explain that it was only a seeming death."
     • McKim, March 1914, p. 407: "In fact, He was engaged those three days in the sepulcher in resuscitating His wasted energies, healing His torn palms, binding up His wounded side and lacerated feet – and all this 'on the basis of Christian Science'."
104. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 498.
105. Gottschalk 1973, pp. 84–85, 89.
106. For the glasses, see Cather and Milmine, August 1907, p. 459.
     • For the physician and autopsy, Cather and Milmine, September 1907, p. 568.
107. Eddy, Science and Health, p. 22.
108. Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 357–358.
109. Gottschalk 1973, p. 191.
110. Eddy, Science and Health, pp. 19–20, 23.
111. Jones (New York Review of Books) 2001.
112. Fraser 1995:
     • "That infuriating, smug calm in the face of crisis is part of what makes Christian Science so dangerous. Fixated on their rote readings and prayers, Christian Science parents and practitioners are apt to be unmoved by the visible signs of any disease or accident. I remember the hypnotic voice of the practitioner my mother phoned to talk to me when I was sixteen and had a fever so high that I had been delirious; the practitioner was interested in hearing not how I felt but what I had been studying in Science and Health.

       "This obliviousness of the reality of pain and suffering has been documented in trial after trial."

113. Fraser 1995; Gray 1986, p. xvii.
114. Morris 1910, p. 1463.
115. Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 2.
     • Also see "Christian Science Primary class instruction", christianscience.com.
     • Christian Scientists wanting to become practitioners may take an intensive two-week, 12-session "primary" class from an authorized Christian Science teacher. The primary class focuses on the chapter "Recapitulation" in Science and Health, which contains the "Scientific Statement of Being"; see Eddy, "Recapitulation," in Science and Health, p. 403ff. When they have completed the course, they may submit their names for publication in the directory of practitioners in the Christian Science Journal.
     • A practitioner who has been listed for at least three years may apply for "normal" class instruction, given just once every three years; see Eddy, Manual of the Mother Church, Article XXIX, Section 2, p. 89; Article XXVI, Section 4, p. 84. Those who receive a certificate are authorized to teach; see Eddy, Manual of the Mother Church, Article XXVI, Section 9, p. 85. The normal class focuses on the chapter "Platform of Christian Science"; see Eddy, Manual of the Mother Church, Article XXVII, Section 3, p. 86, and Eddy, "Platform of Christian Science," in Science and Health, p. 377ff.
116. Fraser 1999, p. 329.
117. ^ Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 2.
118. ^ Fraser 1999, pp. 323–325.
119. Fraser 1999, p. 326.
120. Fraser 1999, pp. 284–318.
121. May 1999, pp. 75–76.
122. Fraser 1995.
     • Estes and Palmer (Boston Globe) 2005.
123. "Church officers for 2012-2013", christianscience.com.
124. The Manual explains the responsibilities of members, officers, practitioners, teachers and nurses, and establishes rules for discipline and other aspects of church business.
125. Estes and Palmer (Boston Globe) 2005.
     • Palmer (Boston Globe) 2006.
126. Fraser 1999, p. 17; Eddy, Science and Health, p. 35.
127. Fraser 1999, pp. 17, 18.
128. Stecklow (Philadelphia Inquirer) 1991.
129. Fraser 1999, p. 373–374.
130. Morrill 2003, p. 96.
131. Fraser 1999, p. 18.
132. ^ Margolick (New York Times) 1990, p. 2: "William H. Webster, the Director of Central Intelligence, and Adm. Stansfield M. Turner, a former Director; Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut; Judge Thomas P. Griesa of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York; and Jean Stapleton and Carol Channing, the actresses."
     • For H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, see Fraser (The Atlantic) 1995.
     • Gardner (Los Angeles Times) 1999: "Believers included Cecil B. DeMille, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, Mickey Rooney, Ginger Rogers and, later on, Doris Day, Robert Duvall, George Hamilton and a raft of others."
     • For Horton Foote and Val Kilmer, Fraser 1999, p. 215.
133. For Alan Shepard, see Fraser 1999, p. 239.
     • For Laurance Doyle, see "Dr. Laurance Doyle", Principia College.
134. For Nancy Astor, see Fraser 1999, pp. 186–190; for Charles Lightoller, p. 427.
135. For Robin Williams and Elizabeth Taylor, see Fraser 1999, p. 215; for Jean Harlow, p. 204; for Spalding Gray, p. 324; for James Hetfield, p. 214; for Shannon Miller, p. 214; for Hart Crane, p. 208.
     • For Ellen DeGeneres, Henry Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Daniel Ellsberg and Ernest Hemingway, see Fuller 2011, p. 48.
     • For V.S. Pritchett, see Balliett 2001.
     • For Elizabeth Taylor, also see Larry King Live, CNN, May 30, 2006.
136. Wright 2013, p. 335.
137. Bryant (Christian Science Monitor) 2009.
138. Clifford (New York Times) 2008.
139. For the losses and move to a weekly print run as of April 2009, see Fine (Business Week) 2008.
     • Also see Cook (Christian Science Monitor) 2008.
140. "Testimony Guidelines", Christian Science Sentinel.
141. Sparkman (Christian Science Journal) 2012, p. 19.
142. Faison (New York Times), April 6, 1992; Bridge 1998, p. xiv.
143. ^ Steinfels (New York Times) 1992.
144. Fox 1978, p. 403; Klein 1979.
145. Parker 1970.
     • Also see Lindley 1984.
146. Gottshalk 2006, pp. 14, 28ff.
147. The New York Times 1907.
148. Gottshalk 2006, p. 40.
149. Voorhees 2007, pp. 81–82.
150. UPI (New York Times) 1985.
     • Also see Christine Madsen vs. Robert Erwin and others, October 4, 1984 – August 21, 1985.
151. Fuller 2011, p. 112.
152. Voorhees 2007, p. 85.
153. Fraser 1999, p. 265.
154. Fraser 1995.
     • For a 1913 case in England, see:

     • "Eddyite is Held for Child's Death; London Coroner's Jury Renders a Verdict of Manslaughter", The New York Times, August 20, 1913.
     • "Christian Science Failed; English Father Appears in Court on a Manslaughter Charge", The New York Times, August 21, 1913.
     • "X-Scientist Escapes; Englishman Whose Child Died While Undergoing Treatment Is Freed", The New York Times, September 9, 1913.

155. Young 2001; Hughes 2004.
156. ^ Fraser 1999, p. 284.
157. "Exemptions from providing medical care for sick children", Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty, Inc., accessed January 30, 2013.
158. Fraser 1999, p. 262: "The campaign of the professional medical societies against Christian Science took several forms. Beginning in 1888, with the manslaughter indictment of Mrs. Abby Corner, and on into the 1890s, several Christian Science practitioners were tried for manslaughter or murder following the deaths of their patients; some of these charges were instigated by outraged medical doctors, whose testimony was a feature of the trials."
     • That it was over 50 cases and continued into the 1990s, see Vitello (New York Times) 2010, p. 2: "Over its history, more than 50 church members or practitioners have been charged in connection with such deaths. Prosecutions have come in waves, most recently during the 1980s and '90s, when the church and its practitioners were linked to the deaths of a half-dozen children whose lives, the authorities said, might have been saved if they had not been denied medical care."
     • See Schoepflin 2002, pp. 10, 82–85, for the 1888 case of Abby Corner that began the series of prosecutions.
     • In a study of 172 child deaths between 1975 and 1995 where parents had withheld medical care for religious reasons, 28 (or 16 percent) were from a Christian Science background; see Asser and Swan 1998, p. 626.
159. Fraser 2003, p. 268; Fraser 1999, pp. 279–281.
160. Fraser 1999, pp. 287–292, 295.
161. New York Times, August 19, 1993.
     • Margolick (New York Times) 1990.
162. Fraser 1999, pp. 298–300.
163. Peters 2007, p. 13; Fraser 1999, pp. 305–309; Fraser 1995.
     • Also see Jones (Los Angeles Times) 1989.
164. Margolick (New York Times) 1990; Fraser 1999, pp. 303–305.
165. Associated Press, August 12, 1993.
     • North East Rep Second Ser, August 11, 1993.
166. Roberts (British Medical Journal) 1996.
167. Fraser 1999, p. 313: "It would be the most far-reaching and ultimately damaging lawsuit ever filed against Christian Scientists and their church."
     • Greenhouse (New York Times), January 23, 1996: "This case, involving a family from Independence, Minn., has been one of the most closely watched of these cases in its circuitous journey through the Minnesota courts since Ian Lundman's death in 1989."
     • For the case, see Lundman v. McKown et al, Court of Appeals of Minnesota, April 1995; Lundman v. McKown, North West Rep Second Ser, 4(530), April 1995, pp. 807-834. Also see State v. McKown, 1990.
     • For the Supreme Court declining to hear the appeal, see Greenhouse (New York Times), January 28, 1996.
     • Also see:

     • Lee 2005, pp. 66–67, 83–84.
     • New York Times, August 19, 1993.

168. ^ Fraser 1999, pp. 310–313; Lundman v. McKown, Court of Appeals of Minnesota, April 1995, p. 3.
169. Fraser 1999, p. 314.
170. Greenhouse (New York Times), January 23, 1996.
171. Lundman v. McKown, Court of Appeals of Minnesota, April 1995, p. 31. The decision reads:
     • "The trial court erred in denying the First Church of Christ Scientist's motion for J.N.O.V. or remittitur of the punitive damage award; that award was unconstitutional. The trial court erred in denying motions for J.N.O.V. made by appellants James Van Horn, Clifton House, and the First Church of Christ, Scientist; they had no duty to Ian. The court properly granted appellants' motions for remittitur of the compensatory damage award from $5.2 million to $1.5 million. Appellants' alternative motions for a new trial were properly denied. Judgment in the amount of $1.5 million against Kathleen McKown, William McKown, Quinna Lamb, and Mario Tosto is affirmed."
172. Greenhouse (New York Times), January 23, 1996; Fraser 1999, pp. 313–315.
     • Also see Carter (Christian Science Monitor) 1996.
     • For the cases, see McKown v. Lundman, No. 95-355, and Lundman v. First Church of Christ, Scientist, No. 95-534.
173. ^ The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, accessed February 8, 2013.
174. Willrich 2011, p. 260.
175. Willrich 2011, pp. 260–261.
     • For Eddy's statements, see Cayuga Chief, November 29, 1902.
     • When Eddy's son told her he had refused to have his own son vaccinated, Eddy replied: "But if it were my child I should let them vaccinate him and then with Christian Science I would prevent its harming the health of my child" (Gill 1999, p. 684)
176. Novotny 1988; Fraser 2003, p. 268.
177. Fraser 2003, p. 268.
178. Fraser 1999, p. 303; for the polio outbreak, Fraser cites Swan 1983.
179. Fraser 1999, pp. 301–302.
     • The death-to-case ratio was 2.3 percent; the usual rate in the United States is 0.1 percent or lower. See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1985: "The high attack rate (15.9%) at Principia College is undoubtedly due to these students' very low immunization levels. This outbreak illustrates the potential severity of measles and the rapidity of spread in an unvaccinated population. The very high apparent death-to-case ratio (2.3%) is unusual in the United States, which usually has a reported death-to-case ratio of 0.1% or lower. The reasons for this high mortality are under investigation."
180. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1994: "During April 4-May 17, 1994, the largest U.S. measles outbreak since 1992 occurred among students in two communities that do not routinely accept vaccination. ...

     "The outbreak began in a 14-year-old Christian Science high school student who developed a rash on April 4, 2 weeks after skiing in Colorado where a measles outbreak was occurring. ... From April 16 through May 19 , 141 persons with measles (age range: 1-24 years) were reported to the St. Louis County Health Department, and 49 persons with measles (age range: 4-25 years) were reported to the Jersey County Health Department ...

     "All cases met the measles clinical case definition and were epidemiologically linked to the boarding school and/or college. ... All cases occurred among persons not vaccinated before the outbreak. Eighteen prospective students from outside St. Louis County attended a carnival at the boarding school on April 16; eight developed measles after returning home (three to Maine, two to California, and one each to Missouri, New York, and Washington)."

     • Fraser 1999, p. 303: "Measles returned to Principia in the spring of 1994, when a fourteen-year-old girl, a Christian Scientist from Elsah, Illinois, contracted measles while on a Colorado ski vacation. From this one case, measles spread to over 150 people in six states. Like the Elsah girl, most of the victims in Missouri were students at Principia's elementary and upper school, in St. Louis. The victims in Illinois lived in Elsah. Those in other states – New York, Maine, California, and Washington – had contracted the illness while visiting Principia; those in Colorado had contracted it from the Elsah girl."
     • Also see Associated Press, May 8, 1994: "One of the 25,000 skiers who spent spring break in Summit County, Colo., apparently started a measles outbreak that has hit at least 176 people in six states, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday."

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• Voorhees, Amy Black. "Mary Baker Eddy, the Woman Question, and Christian Salvation", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 28(2), Fall 2012, pp. 5–25.
• Weddle, David L. "The Christian Science Textbook: An Analysis of the Religious Authority of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy", The Harvard Theological Review, 84(3), 1991.
• Wessinger, Catherine; DeChant, Dell; and Ashcraft, William Michael. "Theosophy, New Thought and New Age Movements", in Eugene V. Gallagher and Michael Ashcraft (eds.). Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in America. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.
• Willrich, Michael. Pox: An American History. Penguin Press, 2011.
• Wright, Lawrence. Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief. Knopf, 2013.
• Young, Beth Rapp. "Defending Child Medical Neglect: Christian Science Persuasive Rhetoric", Rhetoric Review, 20(3/4), 2001, pp. 268–292.

Further reading

External links

• Official Christian Science website
• Christian Science publications (Journal, Herald and Sentinel)
• Eddy, Mary Baker. Manual of the Mother Church, 89th edition.
• Commonwealth vs. David R. Twitchell, report of the 1993 case.
• Mary Baker Eddy Library
• Mary Baker Eddy Institute
• Resource for lectures on Christian Science
• Emergence International, LGBT advocacy within Christian Science.
• Longyear Museum, devoted to the life and work of Mary Baker Eddy.
• Christian Way, former Christian Scientists for Jesus.
• The Bookmark, independent source of literature on Christian Science.
• Interview with Virginia Harris, chair of the Christian Science board of directors, Larry King Live, CNN, May 4, 2001 (transcript).

Books and articles

• Bellwald, A.M. Christian Science and the Catholic Faith. Kessinger Publishing, 2005.
• Encyclopædia Britannica. "Christian Science", 11th edition, 1911.
• Encyclopædia Britannica. "Christian Science", 2013.
• Doyle, Laurance. "Science & Spirit: Where Do They Meet?" (lecture on Christian Science), Stanford University, May 6, 2008.
• Fraser, Caroline. God's Perfect Child (extract), The New York Times, August 22, 1999.

• Zaleski, Philip. "Thinking Made It So, for a While", The New York Times, August 22, 1999 (review of Caroline Fraser's God's Perfect Child).

• Fraser, Caroline. "Overachiever", The New York Review of Books, April 27, 2000 (review of Gillian Gill's Mary Baker Eddy).
• Harrington, Anne. The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. W.W. Norton & Co, 2008.
• Hickey, K.S. and Lyckholm, L. "Child welfare versus parental autonomy: medical ethics, the law, and faith-based healing", Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 25(4), 2004, pp. 265–276.
• James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1902 (Gifford Lectures).
• Manca, T. "Medicine and Spiritual Healing Within a Region of Canada: Preliminary Findings Concerning Christian Scientists' Healthcare Practices", Journal of Religion and Health, June 17, 2011.
• Merrick, Jana C. "Christian Science healing of minor children: Spiritual exemption statutes, First Amendment rights, and fair notice", Issues in Law and Medicine, 10(3), Winter 1994, pp. 321–342.
• Merrick, Jana C. "Spiritual healing, sick kids and the law: Inequities in the American healthcare system", American Journal of Law and Medicine"], 29(2-3), 2003, pp. 269–299.
• Mizruchi, Susan L. "Becoming Multicultural: Culture, Economy, and the Novel: 1860–1920," in Sacvan Bercovitch and Cyrus R. K. Patell. The Cambridge History of American Literature: Volume Three. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• New York Times, The. "Mary Baker Eddy", the newspaper's archive of articles.
• Nudelman, A. E. "Christian Scientists' Beliefs About the Role of Suggestion in Illness and Healing", Psychological Reports, 47(2), 1980.
• Peel, Robert. Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age. Harper and Row, 1987.
• Ruetenik, T. "The First Church of Christ, Pragmatist: Christian Science and Responsible Optimism", Journal of Religion and Health, 51(4), December 2012, pp. 1397–1405.
• Stores, Bruce. Christian Science: Its Encounter with Lesbian/Gay America. iUniverse, 2004.
• Twain, Mark. Christian Science, 1907.
• Zindler, Frank R. "Mary 'Faker' Eddy and the Cult of Christian Science", American Atheists, September 1987.

Books by former Christian Scientists

• Fraser, Caroline. God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church. Metropolitan Books, 1999.
• Kramer, Linda S. The Religion That Kills: Christian Science: Abuse, Neglect, and Mind Control. Bookworld Services, 1999.
• Simmons, Thomas. The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood. Beacon 1991.
• Swan, Rita. The Last Strawberry. Hag's Head, 2009.
• Wilson, Barbara. Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood. Picador 1997.

Biographies of Mary Baker Eddy

• Cather, Willa and Milmine, Georgine. The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science. Doubleday 1909.
• Gardner, Martin. The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy. Prometheus Books, 1993.
• Gill, Gillian. Mary Baker Eddy. Da Capo Press, 1999.
• Gottschalk, Stephen. Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism. Indiana University Press, 2006.
• Peel, Robert. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery. The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966.
• Peel, Robert. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Authority. The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966.
• Peel, Robert. Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial. The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1971.
• Tomlinson, Irving C. Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy. Christian Science Publishing Society, 1945.

v t e Religious Science / Science of Mind
Beliefs	Spiritual mind treatment
Founder	Ernest Holmes
Notable ministers	Fenwicke Holmes Raymond Charles Barker Stuart Grayson Louise Hay Michael Beckwith Joseph Murphy Jean Houston Terry Cole-Whittaker William Hornaday
Largest groups	Centers for Spiritual Living Seicho-no-Ie Affiliated New Thought Network Global Religious Science Ministries
Influences	Ralph Waldo Emerson Emma Curtis Hopkins Thomas Troward Mary Baker Eddy Phineas Quimby Emmet Fox Church of Divine Science
Other	New Thought The Science of Mind Science of Mind

• Christian Science
• Christian new religious movements