Christian Science Witchcraft
Let us now pass to consideration of another phase of Mrs. Eddy’s
influence, more astounding, perhaps, than any we have considered,
and more discreditable, if possible, to the age in which we live.
I refer to the belief in what I have called the new-old
witchcraft; that is to say, to the belief, taught by Mrs. Eddy as
inspired truth, and accepted by her followers as revealed of God,
that a maliciously disposed person has the power, by absent
treatment, through his or her mind to cause any form of sickness,
the most horrible of deaths, and complete domestic, social or
business disaster to others. I shall quote somewhat liberally
from Mrs. Eddy’s own statements in this regard, in order that
there may be no question that I represent her correctly, and of
these statements I invite thoughtful consideration.
In her first edition of “Science and Health,” published in 1875,
Mrs. Eddy said, on page 123:
“In coming years the person or mind that hates his neighbor
will have no need to traverse his fields, to destroy his flocks
and herds, and spoil his vines; or to enter his house to
demoralize his household; for the evil mind will do this
through mesmerism; and not _in propria personæ_ be seen
committing the deed. Unless this terrible hour be met and
restrained by science, mesmerism, that scourge of man, will
leave nothing sacred when mind begins to act under direction of
conscious power.”
On page 382, Mrs. Eddy says:
“The silent argument used in his own behalf, as he manipulates
the head, the malpractitioner would blush to make audibly.
Suppose he has a juror for a patient, and establishes the
mesmeric connection between them, he can influence more than
law or evidence, the verdict of that honest juror.”
(Possibly this accounts for the presence in the court-room, at
the trial of a case in which Mrs. Eddy was defendant, of a large
number of the most potent Christian Science hypnotists.)
On page 177 of the 13th edition of “Science and Health,” Vol. II,
Mrs. Eddy says:
“Mesmerism is practiced both with and without manipulation; but
the evil deed without a sign is also done by the manipulator
and mental malpractitioner.
“The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, and needs to be
branded to be known in what he is doing.”
On page 175, Mrs. Eddy says:
“If the right mental practice can restore health, as is proven
beyond a question, it is self-evident that a mental malpractice
can impair the health of those ignorant of the cause and how to
treat it.”
On page 179, Mrs. Eddy says:
“The evidence of the power that Mind exercises over the body
has accumulated in weight and clearness until it culminates, at
this period, in scientific statement and proof. Our courts
recognize the evidence that goes to prove the committal of a
crime; then, if it be clear that the so-called mind of one
mortal has killed another, is not this mind proved a murderer,
and shall not the man be sentenced whose mind, with malice
aforethought, kills? His hands, without mortal mind to aid
them, could not murder; but it is proven that this mind,
without the aid of his hands, has killed.”
In “Science and Health,” thirty-sixth edition, published in 1888,
Mrs. Eddy says, on page 220:
“It is hoped that eventually our laws will take cognizance of
mental crime.”
On page 515, she says:
“This malicious animal-power (of which the Dragon is the type)
seeks to kill his fellow-mortals, morally and physically, and
then to charge the innocent with his crimes.”
On page 516, she says:
“The highest degree of human depravity, which is to be found in
this propulsive will power, or Animal Magnetism.”
In “Miscellaneous Writings,” published in 1897, on page 222, Mrs.
Eddy says:
“The crimes committed under this new regime of mind-power, when
brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery
protects it now, for it is not yet known.”
In a long article entitled “Malicious Animal Magnetism,” written
by Mrs. Eddy and published as hers in the _Christian Science
Journal_ for February, 1889, when the _Journal_ was her property,
she lays down her inspired teaching on that subject with unwonted
clearness. She says:
“One of the greatest crimes practiced in, or known to, the ages
is mental assassination. A mind liberated from the beliefs of
sense, to do good, by perverting its power becomes warped into
the lines of evil without let or hindrance. A mind taught its
power to touch other minds by the transference of thought, for
the ends of restoration from sickness, or, grandest of all, the
reformation and almost transformation into the living image and
likeness of God—this mind, by misusing its freedom, reaches the
degree of total moral depravity.
“Does the community know this criminal? He sits at the friendly
board and fireside; he goes to their places of worship; he
takes his victim by the hand, and all the time claims the power
and carries the will to stab to the heart, to take character
and life from this friend who gives him his hand in full trust,
and has, perhaps, toiled and suffered to benefit and bless
him.…
“It is no longer possible to keep still concerning these things
—nay, it is criminal to hold silence and to cover crime that
grows bolder and picks off its victims as sharpshooters pick
off the officers of an attacking force.
“These secret, heaven-defying enormities must be proclaimed, or
we become guilty before God as accessory after the fact. If a
friend were fallen upon and maltreated or murdered before our
eyes, should we hold ourselves guiltless, should we count
ourselves men and women, if we buried the secret of the
violence and our knowledge of the assassins?
“Are we such cowards, knowing the facts that we do know, as to
turn and run? Shall we see the evil, the deadly danger that
threatens our brother, and, to hide ourselves, flee away not
warning him?
“The Science of mind uncovers to Scientists secret sin, even
more distinctly than so-called physical crimes are visible to
the personal senses; crime is always veiled in obscurity, but
Science fastens guilt upon its author through mind, with the
certainty and directness of the eye of God Himself.
“Human laws will eventually be framed for these criminals that
now go unwhipped of human justice. Human law even now
recognizes crime as mental, for it seeks always the motive.
Rude counterfeit as it is of Divine Justice, it metes out
punishment or pardons according as it finds, or finds not, the
evil intent, the mental element. _The time has come for
instructing human justice so that these secret criminals shall
tremble before the omnipotent finger that points them out to
the human executioner._”
If that isn’t witchcraft, I don’t know what witchcraft is. The
Omnipotent finger will point out these criminals, who operate
through silent and invisible mental influences, and justice will
be meted out to them by the human executioner!
In a personal letter to a student Mrs. Eddy said:
“The mental malpractitioners or mesmerists employ the argument
of poison to kill people. They cause you or your patients to
suffer from arsenical poison in the blood or stomach, mercurial
poison, morphine or any other form of mineral, vegetable or
animal poison which they may name in their arguments.”
In the latest editions of her book, and in formal communications
to her followers, Mrs. Eddy reaffirms her belief in this
malicious power of mind, and again warns her followers against
it. Her personal teaching to her students was even more
extravagant than the language of her published works, and it was
a common occurrence for her to frighten young girls and children
nearly into fits with the dreadful fear that a malicious mind was
seeking to cause them unspeakable disaster. She has taught that
the malicious action of mind alone might, of itself, cause, and
had caused, the pregnancy of woman, with consequences I must
leave to your imagination. And all this damnable doctrine is
accepted and believed by Mrs. Eddy’s “intelligent” followers as
the truth revealed by God through the founder of Christian
Science—believed with a belief that trembles.
I have talked with a gentleman who, years ago, with his family,
lived for some six months in the house with Mrs. Eddy; and he
said to me with great earnestness: “I lived there six months, and
I tell you, sir, I would rather spend ten years in hell than
another six months in Mrs. Eddy’s company. She nearly drove my
children into frenzy with her malicious animal magnetism
business.” Malicious animal magnetism is the name by which Mrs.
Eddy now calls her witchcraft.
It has been also a regular part of the teachings of that bogus
institution, the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, of which
Mrs. Eddy was president, that malicious minds may, and today are,
causing sickness, death and disaster to Christian Scientists and
their families. I know it to be a fact that the lecturer there
literally taught that Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury, whom he named,
possessed this power, and used it to the detriment of Christian
Scientists and the cause; and to such an extent has this teaching
regarding this particular lady spread that I think it would be
hard to find a Christian Scientist in the United States who did
not, or had not, believed Mrs. Woodbury had possessed and had
exercised this power.
A Christian Scientist healer, guilty of an unpardonable
impropriety with young lady patients, is called to account by
their father, and, acknowledging his offence, says that he can
only account for it on the ground that Mrs. Woodbury made him do
it, by malicious animal magnetism. An aged lady, a Christian
Scientist in a distant city, having fallen unaccountable several
times upon the street, explains to her daughter that the cause of
it is “that vile Mrs. Woodbury of Boston.” The child of a member
of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, dies, and the
grief-stricken mother entertains the firm conviction that Mrs.
Woodbury killed it. The husband of a member of Mrs. Eddy’s church
has been sick for years here in Boston, and for years, without
having known or seen Mrs. Woodbury, such has been the teaching at
the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston and of the alleged
“College,” that she has had no doubt that Mrs. Woodbury caused
her husband’s illness, and she has continually sought to protect
her husband by a mental effort to throw the illness back upon
Mrs. Woodbury. Meantime Mrs. Woodbury is, of course, utterly
unconscious of all of these happenings and entirely innocent of
any such criminal purposes and deeds.
And all this deviltry as revealed by God! All this medieval
witchcraft in the name of Christ! Out upon it! I say. Let it no
longer be tolerated amongst us!
Three hundred years ago, some nineteen or twenty estimable people
in the town of Salem in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
because of the finding of a Court that they were witches, were
legally hanged by the neck until they were dead. And should the
inspired and infallible founder of Christian Science prevail in
her benevolent intention of “instructing human justice so that
these secret criminals shall tremble before the omnipotent finger
that points them out to the human executioner,” the supposed
offences of malicious animal magnetism, the invention of her
disordered imagination, would be atoned upon the gibbet or at the
stake.
In her published work Mrs. Eddy has expressly justified the
employment of this alleged power for retaliation or defense. She
says:
“It was years after we were personally attacked by mental
malpractice before we defended ourselves or taught our students
self defence. Until this attack was aimed at our life, we never
resisted or even investigated it thoroughly and so discovered
the full purpose and extent of a mental malpractice. But we
gave our attention to it and found how to save the scattering
remnants of our Christian students that had been mown down like
grass. We resolved in the strength of God to save them and
others from the hands of these murderers and to find, as sure
defence, the ever present help. Since God has shown us our way
in Christian healing, our mind often heals involuntarily. The
malpractitioners know this and often have asked us about their
patients to direct our thoughts to them, knowing the benefit
therefrom. They know, as well as we, that it is impossible for
science to produce sickness, but science makes sin punish
itself. They should have feared for their own lives in their
attempts to kill us. God is Supreme and the penalties of their
sins they cannot escape. Turning the attention of the sick to
us for the benefit they may receive from us, is another milder
form or species of malpractice that is not safe; for if we feel
their sufferings, not knowing the individual, we shall defend
ourselves and _the result is dangerous to the intruder_.”
The retaliatory method of mental treatment devised by Mrs. Eddy
consisted in an endeavor mentally to hurl cancer back upon the
person she believed to be attempting to afflict her with cancer,
or tumor upon the person attempting mentally to transmit tumor to
her, or consumption upon the evil one thinking consumption at
her, and the various forms of chemical poison upon those
endeavoring to think mercurial, arsenical or other forms of
poison into her organism. She told her students that she had the
power of discerning such malicious mental activity on the part of
those she believed to be her enemies, and that the way to protect
her was to hurl the malicious thoughts backward and cause them,
as it were, to recoil upon and destroy their authors.
When Mrs. Augusta Stetson of New York was accused of attempts at
mental murder, she justified or tried to justify such endeavors
on the ground that they were defensive and, as such, taught and
sanctioned by Mrs. Eddy. Whatever Mrs. Stetson and other
Christian Scientists know about the power to commit murder by
mental means, they have learned from Mrs. Eddy; and if it be an
offence against the Christian Science Church, as was decided in
the case of Mrs. Stetson, to attempt to cause disease and to kill
through the employment of mental powers, then Mrs. Eddy herself
should follow Mrs. Stetson into exile from the communion of the
saints.
Mrs. Stetson’s excommunication is an interesting sequel to an
incident that occurred in Concord, N.H., in April of 1907. Mrs.
Eddy was then living at Concord, and the litigation by the sons
had been commenced in the preceding month. It had been the talk
of the newspapers, from time to time, that Mrs. Stetson was
nourishing an ambition to succeed Mrs. Eddy in the leadership of
Christian Science upon Mrs. Eddy’s demise, and it had even been
said that, expecting Mrs. Eddy’s death to occur at a particular
time, Mrs. Stetson had come to Boston prepared with a most
magnificent costume for attendance upon Mrs. Eddy’s ascension.
It was pretty generally known in Christian Science circles that
Mrs. Stetson was maneuvering to succeed Mrs. Eddy as the official
head of the movement, and doubtless the report reached Mrs.
Eddy’s ears. At this time one Herman S. Herring was the first
reader of Mrs. Eddy’s church at Concord and H. Cornell Wilson was
acting as one of her secretaries at her home at Pleasant View. By
some means, through the New York _World_, possession was obtained
of a letter written by Herring to Wilson, dated April 27, 1907,
in which he asked Mr. Wilson if “it would not be well to protect
Mrs. Eddy from the Stetson argument specifically, or are the
workers doing so?”
The meaning of this, of course, is that Herring assumed Mrs.
Stetson was, by malicious mental endeavor, operating adversely to
Mrs. Eddy, either to cause Mrs. Eddy to designate Mrs. Stetson as
her successor, or to hasten Mrs. Eddy’s departure, by ascension
or otherwise, from the world; and the “workers” referred to are
the corps of Christian Science mental practitioners always
maintained by Mrs. Eddy at her home by concentrated mental effort
to erect and maintain a mental bulwark around her that shall be
impenetrable by Mrs. Stetson’s or any other malicious mental
bullets.
“It has troubled me,” said Herring, “but helped me, to hear that
Frye was a channel for that diabolism.”
Mrs. Eddy has always contended that she herself was so immaculate
that malicious animal magnetism could not immediately approach
her; but injury to her might be effected through some less pure
personality close to her. As no one was closer than Frye, it
appears that he was believed to be the medium through which Mrs.
Stetson was supposed to be operating, or attempting to operate,
against Mrs. Eddy.
The newspaper reports of the Stetson trial and excommunication
did not, so far as they came to my attention, contain any
intimation that judgment had fallen upon Mrs. Stetson because of
her mental attacks upon Mrs. Eddy; but there can be no doubt that
Mrs. Eddy believes she had been the target of such attacks, and
that the excommunication was Mrs. Eddy’s own act of retaliation
upon Mrs. Stetson.
“The highest degree of human depravity,” Mrs. Eddy calls this
alleged power to cause sickness and to cause death, which, when
successfully employed, should be expiated upon the scaffold; and,
deliberately and solemnly, with full understanding of the meaning
of my language, I affirm and I charge that Mary Baker G. Eddy,
the founder of Christian Science and the pretended successor to,
and equal of, Jesus, has again and again and again sought to
exercise it; that she, herself, has repeatedly thus sought to
cause sickness, sought to cause death, and this, as everything
else I have alleged, I will prove by legal evidence whenever Mrs.
Eddy may be pleased to require it.
To bring out clearly the effect upon Mrs. Eddy’s daily life of
her genuine belief in this diabolical thing she calls malicious
animal magnetism, and her efforts to avail herself of the
supposed power of mind to cause disease and death, the following
letter, received from a gentleman, now a practising physician,
who in his earlier manhood was attracted to Mrs. Eddy and her
teachings, is incorporated here:
“I lived in the ‘College’ with Mrs. Eddy and her family for
nearly a year, and had ample opportunity to observe all the
things I now tell you; I shall not make a statement without
_knowing_ that it is _absolutely_ true.
“As you desire information in regard to her teachings of
malicious animal magnetism, I will confine myself mostly to
that subject.
“Nearly two-thirds of the time of her class lectures was taken
up with teaching us how to ‘meet the enemy,’ as she called
Richard Kennedy, Edward Ames, Clara Choate, and her mother,
Mrs. Childs. We were taught that Richard Kennedy, especially,
was the ‘Arch Enemy’ of Christian Science, and of Mrs. Eddy
herself; that he had learned the art of using ‘malicious animal
magnetism’ on Mrs. Eddy and her students; that he had ‘secret
service’ men and women who watched every movement of Mrs. Eddy,
and of each one living with her; that we could not go out
without some one following, and watching us, reporting to ‘the
ring of enemies,’ namely, Kennedy Ames, Choate and Childs. We
were taught that by being aware of all our movements—just how
we looked, and who our patients were—they had the mental power
to so mesmerize our minds as to cause us to meet with defeat in
all our attempts to heal; that they were informed of the
diseases and weaknesses from which we had been healed, and by
malicious thoughts and concentration upon us could cause us to
relapse into our old forms of disease.
“Mrs. Eddy was constantly having attacks of illness (always in
the night). We were often called up about eleven o’clock at
night to treat her, and were obliged to remain up until about
two o’clock a.m. These attacks, we were told, were brought on
by the ‘enemy,’ working through us, as her students. She
claimed that the only way the ‘enemy’ could reach her was
through her students, she being so strong and so pure that
their ‘malicious animal magnetism’ could not reach her in any
other way. So we used to go into the parlor, after breakfast
and supper, each day, and mentally ‘take up the enemy.’ We were
taught to recognize the error, and treat ourselves and the
‘enemy,’ so that they (‘the enemy’) could have no power over
us, or our patients; and every time we gave the treatments we
were taught to first ‘treat the enemy.’
“The result of all this was, that Mrs. Eddy was always full of
fear; as the ‘enemy’ were supposed to have power to prevent all
kinds of desired results, not only in healing, but in business,
as well.
“I was taught that the postal clerks were so mesmerized that
letters to and from the College would never reach their
destination unless certain conditions were complied with; also
that the telegraph operators were so under this malicious
influence that a message sent by telegraph would not reach the
person to whom it was sent unless certain precautions were
taken. I was once sent from her house to West Newton to forward
a telegraph message to Chicago, so that it would be sent by way
of Worcester, instead of Boston, as all Boston operators were
supposed to be so mesmerized by the ‘enemy’ that no message
from Mrs. Eddy could reach its destination, if sent through
their hands. And so I might run on for hours, giving you facts
about such things.
“I was told to treat the ‘enemy’ (Kennedy, Ames, Choate and
Childs) to cause their ‘old beliefs’ to return, ‘_and prostrate
them at once!_’ ‘Old beliefs’ meant former diseases, from which
they had been healed, in _some cases even tumors and cancers_.
“I could write pages of things said and done, to show that
insane idea of the power of malicious men and women to nearly,
if not quite, kill people. We were taught that they had killed
several students of Mrs. Eddy. I was taught that Kennedy and
Ames knew how to treat people in a way to cause ‘sixty symptoms
of arsenic poisoning.’
“I was often called in the night to treat Mrs. Eddy, as she was
sick. I have been sent to the homes of other students to call
them in the night to help her out of her fears and spasms.
“I was sent in the month of May, 1884, at two o’clock a.m., to
call lawyer Roberts to make her will, as it seemed she could
not live till morning—all caused by ‘malicious animal
magnetism,’ or ‘M.A.M.’ as we were in the habit of abbreviating
it.
“I found Mrs. Eddy a strong-willed, obstinate, and arbitrary
woman. Her business was obliged to be conducted as she
dictated, whether right or wrong.
“I was one of four students told by Mrs. Eddy to treat certain
clergymen of Boston to come into her classes and endorse
Christian Science.
“The following incident might be of interest at this time:
“In the summer of 1884, Mrs. Eddy taught her first class in
Chicago. For several weeks before going there she was
constantly in a state of worry, or fear, that Mrs. Choate would
‘prostrate her,’ and so prevent her from going there, as she
thought that Mrs. Choate herself wished to go and teach a
class. Calvin A. Frye had purchased Mrs. Eddy’s ticket, and
engaged a private compartment for her, and a berth for himself
(to accompany her to Chicago), when, the night before she was
to start, she was taken very ill (the work of Mrs. Choate, she
believed it to be) and was not able to go the next day, as she
had intended to do. She called in her students, at the College
with her, to treat against Mrs. Choate, to prevent her
mesmerism from prostrating her (Mrs. Eddy), and by the second
day she was able to go to Chicago. We afterwards learned that
at the same identical time, Mrs. Choate was ill, and thought
that Mrs. Eddy was sending ‘malicious animal magnetism’ to
prostrate her, and called in a former student of the college to
treat against Mrs. Eddy’s mesmerism.
“So you see how fear controlled Mrs. Eddy (even at that distant
day) and every one connected with her, and has continued to
control every one taught by her, who has not escaped from the
bondage of that teaching.
“This is only a fragment of what I might tell you in regard to
Mrs. Eddy and her teachings at the time I was with her; but it
is enough to show you what she taught and practised then, as
well as now.”
Could anything be more insane than the condition of Mrs. Eddy’s
household as indicated in this letter? Or could anything be more
diabolical than her attempt, to which this gentleman and others
are willing to make oath whenever they are called upon, by
concerted mental operations to afflict her enemies with tumor and
cancer?
But to be somewhat more specific. Some years ago Mrs. Eddy
regarded Mr. Daniel H. Spofford, who had been one of her students
and friends, as an enemy, and it was her determined and expressed
purpose that he should in some manner be disposed of. The cause
of Mrs. Eddy’s violent antipathy to Spofford is not quite clear,
except perhaps upon the theory that all of her antipathies have
been violent. It may be in some measure due to his unwillingness
to pay her money he did not believe was due her, and to the
failure of various litigations brought against him by her. Mrs.
Eddy brought suit against Spofford upon one of her early
contracts for $100 for teachings, ten per cent royalty on income,
and $1,000 for omission to utilize the teachings; and she failed
to recover in the courts. She actually caused a suit in equity to
be brought against Spofford in the Superior Court at Salem,
Mass., in which the court was asked to issue an injunction to
restrain Spofford from using his mind to cause the illness of her
patient, who was said to suffer physically from his malicious
mental activity.
It is interesting to note that this singular proceeding was
brought in the same jurisdiction in which, some hundreds of years
ago, certain individuals were arraigned and tried for the crime
of witchcraft, found guilty and hanged by the neck until they
were dead.
Mrs. Eddy acted as attorney in fact for the plaintiff in this
suit and the power of attorney is still of record in the case.
The strange bill of complaint is as follows:
“Humbly complaining, the plaintiff, Lucretia L. S. Brown of
Ipswich, in said County of Essex, showeth unto your Honors,
that Daniel H. Spofford, of Newburyport, in said County of
Essex, the defendant in the above entitled action, is a
mesmerist and practices the art of mesmerism and by his said
art and power of his mind influences and controls the minds and
bodies of other persons and uses his said power and art for the
purpose of injuring the persons and property and social
relations of others and does by said means so injure them.
“And the plaintiff further showeth that the said Daniel H.
Spofford has, at divers times and places since the year
eighteen hundred and seventy-five, wrongfully and maliciously
and with intent to injure the plaintiff, caused the plaintiff
by means of his said power and art great suffering of body and
mind and severe spinal pains and neuralgia and a temporary
suspension of mind, and still continues to cause the plaintiff
the same. And the plaintiff has reason to fear and does fear
that he will continue in the future to cause the same. And the
plaintiff says that said injuries are great and of an
irreparable nature and that she is wholly unable to escape from
the control and influence he so exercises upon her and from the
aforesaid effects of said control and influence.”
Naturally Mrs. Eddy could find no lawyer sufficiently besotted,
or shameless, to argue this case for her when it came up for
hearing. She was present and such argument as was made was by one
of her then dear friends, who afterwards became, as she believed,
one of her dearest foes; but upon the filing of the demurrer by
Mr. Spofford’s lawyer, raising the legal point that the bill of
complaint did not set forth any cause of action, the court
sustained the demurrer and threw the case out, declaring with a
smile that it was not within the province of the court by its
writ of injunction to control the operations of Mr. Spofford’s
mind.
Whatever may have been the cause of Mrs. Eddy’s hatred of
Spofford, she wished him killed, and to that end instructed her
students to sit together daily, at noon and in the evening, and
by concerted mental concentration hurl disease into Mr. Spofford.
I do not contend that Mrs. Eddy, or Christian Scientists or
others, ever killed or can kill or afflict with disease any other
person by absent mental treatment, and one of my strong reasons
for this confident belief is that I am still permitted to walk
the earth. I only seek to show the murderous purpose in the heart
of the woman who is pretending to be the voice of God to this age
and the equal of Jesus Christ.
Failing in her effort mentally to dispose of Spofford, did this
vindictive woman endeavor to accomplish her purpose by any other
method? I cannot precisely say, but what I can say is this: In
December, 1878, after a hearing in the Police Court in Boston (in
which one of the witnesses testified she had heard Mrs. Eddy say
Spofford was a bad man and ought to be put out of the way), by
which they were held for the grand jury in $3,000 bail, and after
an examination by the Suffolk grand jury of some six or eight
witnesses, one Edward J. Arens, and one Asa G. Eddy, third
husband of Mary Baker G. Eddy, and then living with her as her
husband, were duly indicted for a conspiracy to commit murder. To
commit murder upon whom? Upon Daniel H. Spofford, the same
Spofford Mrs. Eddy had solicited her followers to kill by mental
means.
There were two counts in the indictment.
The first read: “That Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy of Boston
aforesaid, on the 28th day of July in the year of our Lord, one
thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight, Boston, aforesaid,
with Force and Arms, being persons of evil minds and
dispositions did then and there unlawfully conspire, combine
and agree together feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice
aforethought, to procure, hire, incite and solicit, one James
L. Sargent, for a certain sum of money, to wit, the sum of five
hundred dollars, to be paid to said Sargent by them, said Arens
and Eddy, feloniously, wilfully, and of his, said Sargent’s
malice aforethought, in some way and manner and by some means,
instruments, and weapons, to said jurors unknown, one, Daniel
H. Spofford, to kill and murder. Against the law, peace and
dignity of said Commonwealth.”
What connection there was between the failure of Mrs. Eddy’s
efforts to kill Spofford or to have him killed by mental means
and her husband’s alleged efforts to have him killed by physical
means, I do not positively know. I did not hear Mrs. Eddy say to
Mr. Eddy: Asa, we have tried and tried and tried to kill that man
Spofford, but he is a tough proposition, and we have made no
progress. Now you pay Sargent $500 to lie in wait for him with a
club and we will see if that won’t settle him. That was the
charge against Eddy. Nothing mental about the club form of
treatment! I did not hear Mrs. Eddy say that to Eddy, but I very
much doubt if he would have found himself in the position in
which he was placed, if his dominating helpmeet had offered any
objection to the thing of which he was accused. I do not know
that Mrs. Eddy knew anything about Asa G. Eddy’s undertaking to
have Spofford killed; but I do know that what I have stated is
true, and I do know that the human mind necessarily makes
deductions from circumstances; and I do not doubt every human
mind that believes the facts to be as I have stated them, will
make the same deduction that my mind makes.
For some unexplained reason this indictment was never prosecuted;
but, upon the payment of costs by Eddy, was _nol prossed_. There
was no disproof of the sworn testimony given in the Police Court.
Eddy never asked for a hearing, he never insisted upon the
vindication only a trial could give. He put his hand into his
pocket and paid a considerable sum to escape a trial; and Mrs.
Eddy and her friends call that a vindication. Does an innocent
man accused of serious crime pay money to escape a trial, or does
he demand a full hearing and establish his innocence?
And Spofford is not the only assumed enemy the good “Mother” of
Christian Science has sought to dispose of by mental murder.
Richard Kennedy and Clara E. Choate, both now living in Boston,
and Edward J. Arens, also fell under the ban and at Mrs. Eddy’s
instigation received so-called mental treatment designed to
relieve them of the burden of the flesh by divers diseases.
Another one of her early friends, whom Mrs. Eddy ceased to love
and grew to hate, was Richard Kennedy. He had been one of her
earliest pupils, studying with her when she lived at the
Wentworth house in Stoughton in the sixties; and they had carried
on a sort of co-partnership at Lynn, Mrs. Eddy doing the teaching
and Kennedy the healing.
But she had had a falling out with Kennedy as with her other
early friends, Spofford and Arens, and she had dragged him into
court as she had dragged them, Kennedy was a young man and an
easy victim. He gave Mrs. Eddy his promissory note for a thousand
dollars for her teachings, and after he had paid two hundred and
fifty dollars on account she brought suit against him for the
balance, seven hundred and fifty dollars, but again she lost her
case.
After a time, somehow or other, the strange notion got into Mrs.
Eddy’s head that Kennedy was the most malicious and Satanic of
all her enemies, who were, by mental means, seeking her
destruction. He was the very incarnation of the mind’s hellish
power in its most malignant and effective form; and she denounced
him in the following lurid language:
“The Nero of today, regaling himself through a mental method
with the tortures of individuals, is repeating history and will
fall upon his own sword and it shall pierce him through. Let
him remember this when, _in the dark recesses of thought_, he
is robbing, committing adultery, and killing; when he is
attempting to turn friend away from friend, ruthlessly stabbing
the quivering heart; when he is clipping the thread of life,
and giving to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when he is
turning back the reviving sufferer to her bed of pain, clouding
her first morning after years of night; and the Nemesis of that
hour shall point to the tyrant’s fate, who falls at length upon
the sword of justice.”
And in one of the editions of her book Mrs. Eddy went so far as
to expressly accuse Kennedy of the crime of murder in the
following extraordinary language:
“The husband of a lady who was the patient of this
malpractitioner poured out his grief to us and said: ‘Dr. K——
has destroyed the happiness of my home, ruined my wife,’ etc.;
and, after that, he finished with a double crime by destroying
the health of that wronged husband so that he died. We say that
he did these things because we have as much evidence of it as
ever we had of the existence of any sin. The symptoms and
circumstances of the cases, and the diagnosis of their diseases
proved the unmistakable fact. His career of crime surpasses
anything that minds in general can accept at this period. We
advised him to marry a young lady whose affection he had won,
but he refused; subsequently she was wedded to a nice young
man, and then he alienated her affections from her husband.”
All of this, of course, by absent mental treatment!
It is a matter of record in the Superior Court of the State of
New Hampshire, by sworn testimony, that Mrs. Eddy sought to
relieve herself of the imagined malicious mental treatment of Mr.
Kennedy by instructing her friends to sit together at stated
times daily and, holding his lungs in a diseased condition in
their minds, hurl consumption at him with all the power of
concentrated malevolent thought.
Kennedy, who is living today, and with whom I am well acquainted,
is as gentle and kindly a person as can be imagined; and, while
Mrs. Eddy was working herself into a frenzy over his supposed
malignity, and having consumption mentally hurled at him, was
pursuing the even tenor of his way without thought of her except
as an occasional memory of a bitter experience. Mrs. Eddy hated
Kennedy as she hated Spofford, and she wanted Kennedy killed as
she wanted Spofford killed; and, as in the case of Spofford, she
solicited her friends and students to undertake by mental
coöperation to terminate his mundane career.
It may relieve the minds of some to know that Mrs. Eddy’s kindly
purpose did not succeed with any of the persons whose illness was
sought, as I have related. Spofford, Kennedy and Mrs. Choate did
not succumb to the malicious absent treatment, but are still
present with us in the flesh. Arens died, I am told, but some
time after Mrs. Eddy had given him up as hopelessly tenacious of
life.
But one more incident and I have done—I have kept the worst until
the last.
A sad and tragic episode in connection with the litigation
instituted by her sons in reference to Mrs. Eddy’s mental
condition, was the suicide at the Parker House, in Boston, on
April 20, 1907, of Miss Mary C. Tomlinson, sister of Irving C.
Tomlinson, a former Universalist minister, but then and now a
Christian Science healer, and of Rev. Vincent Tomlinson, a
Universalist minister of Worcester, Mass. Miss Tomlinson had
lived with her brother Irving at Concord, N.H., and had been a
Reader in the Christian Science Church there and an ardent
disciple of Christian Science and of Mrs. Eddy, being much in
company with her and absolutely devoted to her service. After the
law suit by Mrs. Eddy’s sons began, all the closest friends of
Mrs. Eddy in Concord (as well as elsewhere) were called upon to
defend her from the attack, and, by the peculiar method of absent
and silent mental treatment, both Mr. Glover and his senior
counsel, Mr. Chandler, were pressed by the so-called “workers” to
the utmost of the powers they supposed themselves to possess.
Miss Mary C. Tomlinson was not in the least degree unwilling to
exercise her powers of absent treating of persons in order to
repel the Stetson argument; nor even unwilling to treat Glover
and Chandler in the ordinary way, trying to make them abandon the
lawsuit; but when the decision was made at Concord, to treat Mrs.
Eddy’s own son and his lawyer in hostile fashion—by sending
arsenical poison into their veins, or otherwise putting them to
death, Miss Tomlinson’s whole nature revolted. She had implicit
faith in Christian Science, she worshiped Mrs. Eddy, she believed
in the existence of malicious animal magnetism and its devilish
power and in the methods of counter-working to prevent its evil
work; but she had never before seen an attempt made to use absent
treatment diabolically—by putting to death the enemies of the
Church of Christ, Scientist. When she opened her eyes to the
enormity to be practised in the name of a revengeful church, her
mind revolted. She determined to leave Concord, to renounce Mrs.
Eddy and all her works and to denounce the system to which she
had been so earnest a servant. Indeed the intense revulsion of
feeling seems to have upset her mental balance. Following up her
determination, she went to Boston on April 19 and wandered about,
uncertain what to do with herself, at last finding her way to the
Parker House in the hands of a Christian Scientist, where her two
brothers, being telegraphed for, came to take charge of her.
Here the tragedy begins. The Parker House manager wished her to
be seen by Dr. Payne, the hotel physician; but did not succeed in
getting him admission to her rooms. He did, however, send to her
a nurse from Boothby Hospital, a Miss Telfair, who arrived about
nine p.m. Later, Mr. Vincent Tomlinson, the Universalist
minister, came and with the nurse took charge of his sister.
About eleven o’clock Mr. Irving C. Tomlinson, the Christian
Science healer, arrived and at once took controlling charge of
Miss Tomlinson—saying that he understood the case and knew what
to do. Mr. Vincent Tomlinson left the rooms and took a room down
the corridor which his brother had engaged. The nurse was not
allowed to stay in the room with Miss Tomlinson but was placed
out in the corridor, while Mr. Irving Tomlinson took off his
shoes and coat and laid down in a connecting room. About one
o’clock in the morning there was the sound of a window being
raised in Miss Tomlinson’s room and the nurse entered quickly
from the corridor as Irving came in from his room. They found she
had opened the window, and she said to Irving, when he
remonstrated, that she wanted to look out. They induced her to go
back to bed and Irving then _locked on the inside_ the door from
her room into the corridor and took out the key and kept it. Miss
Telfair went into the corridor again and Irving went into his own
room. About three a.m., Miss Telfair heard the door connecting
with Irving’s room shut and locked by Miss Tomlinson. Again she
heard the window opened, but, _having been locked out_, could not
get to Miss Tomlinson. She called for the porter and they finally
got into Miss Tomlinson’s room by breaking down the door
connecting it with Irving’s. They found the window wide open and
the room empty. Miss Tomlinson had thrown herself down four
stories to the street. She was brought back to her room, but
never spoke, and died about five a.m.
She had worshiped Mrs. Eddy. She had been one of the most devoted
of her disciples, and when she came to a realization of the
infamies being practised in the name of Christ, life lost every
ray of light and every particle of charm, and she dashed herself
to death upon the stones of the streets of Boston.
Small matter for wonder that, when the bruised and mangled body
had been carried to the chamber Miss Tomlinson had occupied, the
Universalist minister, standing by his dead sister, should
solemnly say to his brother, the renegade Universalist minister,
the Christian Science healer, “Irving, the blood of our sister is
upon the skirts of Mrs. Eddy!”
The story is now completely told. Of those who have followed me
to the end, I ask, was it incumbent upon me, knowing the facts as
I know them and as I have here presented them, to crowd them down
into my soul and by suppressing them become a party to Mrs.
Eddy’s monstrous imposition? Just because the author of all of
this fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, blasphemy and attempted crime
is a woman, now an aged woman, should I therefore stand silently
by and permit her longer to masquerade before mankind as like
unto the pure and holy Jesus? I think not. That has not seemed to
me to be my duty in the matter. I have done my duty as I have
seen it, and I will stand by the position taken and the facts
affirmed.
Is it possible for any decent person, man or woman, to peruse
this book and then acknowledge himself or herself a disciple of
Mary Baker G. Eddy? Is it conceivable that any sane man or woman,
with full knowledge of the facts of her life, can honestly
profess belief in her disgusting imposture? Can any one who
feels, as I do, that Jesus is the common glory of all who bear a
human heart, without resentment and without anger witness the
endeavor of this vulgar creature to place herself by His side?
Can any devout Christian have any other feeling than one of
abhorrence for the blasphemous woman and the bunco game she dares
to say is “authorized by Christ”?
If I have made good, if I have accomplished what I set out to
accomplish, I ask every man and every woman who reads this book
to lose no opportunity to show this hateful thing, miscalled
Christian Science, in its true light to those with whom they come
in contact. Let it have no quarter. Hit it every time you have a
chance and hit it as hard as you can. It is not entitled to
respectful treatment. Nothing is more _impossible_ than to love
Jesus, even a little, and to have the slightest, the very
_slightest_, tolerance for Mrs. Eddy and her frauds.
A Christian Science speaker recently, in a suburb of Boston, in
concluding an address exhorted her hearers to “follow Mrs. Eddy,
as Mrs. Eddy follows the Saviour.” Not follow the Saviour, but
follow Mrs. Eddy in Mrs. Eddy’s way of following the Saviour.
As Mrs. Eddy follows the Saviour.
By faking a revelation from God? By stealing the ideas of another
and ascribing them to God’s voice in her private ear? By putting
on the cloak of religion in order to pick the pockets of those
whose hands are clasped in prayer? By copyrighting a “religion,”
and suing those who infringe her copyright? By fixing, under the
pretended guidance of God, upon the extortionate sum of three
hundred dollars for twelve lessons in “the divine power that
heals”? By invoking the aid of the courts to compel poor
creatures to pay her, at the rate of twenty-five dollars per
hour, for telling them of God, and His Christ? By organizing a
church in which membership is made dependent upon activity in the
sale of her puerile and profitable wares? By denouncing as vile
debauchery the sweetest and purest and noblest relation of men
and women? By declaring the children, in whom our souls delight,
to be the offspring of “legalized lust”? By refusing to put forth
her professed Godlike power to soothe any pain, even that of the
sister she loved, to save any life, even that of her own
grandchild? By constituting herself the veritable autocrat of the
Bedlamites and reigning with despotic sway over the multitudes of
her self-abased dupes? By never telling the truth, unless there
was money in it, and never hesitating at a lie that would add one
simple soul to the number of her victims or one soiled dollar to
her bulging exchequer? By living a life of unvarying deception
and uncleanness, and professing, with eyes rolled heavenward, to
be “as pure as the angels”? By seeking, with Satanic zeal and
hatred, the destruction of her fancied enemies, through the
attempted mental infliction of disease and suffering and death?
As Mrs. Eddy follows the Saviour?
Not thus, not thus, O Saviour of mankind! not _thus_ have
followed in the royal road which thou hast trod _ages of
worshipers!_