"KEY" TO THE EDDY SCRIPTURE, SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
Mrs. Eddy's Un-Christian Non-Science may be summarized as a caricature of
her early "New England Orthodoxy," crazily combined with New England
Transcendentalism, coated with a kind of free-thought permissible only to
her own "divine Science," all overlying Dr. Quimby's "Science of Health,"
and carefully put under copyright.
Let us now see a few moonstone gems from her "precious volume"--just
enough to illustrate our criticism of it and not infringe on her
monopolized territory.
It may be explained, by the way, that the United States statute governing
copyright precludes the reproduction and sale of books and pamphlets, _as
wholes_, without permission of the authors; and protects even _parts_ of
dramas, pictures, and other "works of art"--the intent being, of course,
to protect, also, one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not steal."
But, if an untrue and injurious book could not be analyzed, and a dozen
extracts taken from it in proof of criticism, no literary quack could be
exposed, in protection of the truth and the public. In that case, the
Copyright Law would be worse than the old "Fugitive Slave Bill," and it
would be a sacred duty to get into jail, if necessary, for violating it.
Fortunately there is no such need. The law was not drawn in the interest
of charlatans and malefactors, and has never been interpreted against the
decencies of justice.
Following "Mother" Eddy's example in connection with our quotations from
her _Science and Health_, we shall interpret them in a strictly
"scientific" light, as she, with miraculous nerve, in her _Key to the
Scriptures_, has done with other sacred writings. Thus we shall illumine
_Science and Health_ in the same way that she has illumined _Genesis_ and
_The Apocalypse_.
_Science and Health_, 7.[35]--"In the year 1866 I discovered the Science
of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been
graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final
revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--History reveals to us, for sure, that
"Mother Eddy," has always _claimed_ to have discovered and founded the
only genuine and original Christian Science. Though she was once a patient
of Dr. P. P. Quimby, and at that time one Mary M. Patterson said that
Quimby cured disease by mental truth--"the truth that Christ taught"--this
miserable episode has nothing to do with the case. Mrs. Eddy has told us
that the Patterson woman was a creature "ignorant" of "Science," whom Dr.
Quimby used to "mesmerize." He cured her of a seven-years' complaint in
the mortal body, but so addled her head that she had no knowledge of what
she talked about. Thus, Mrs. Patterson's impression that Dr. Quimby was
the modern founder of mind-healing has no weight. The truth was not in
her. But Mother Eddy, notwithstanding she herself was once that same Mrs.
Patterson, discovered all truth and all science, without regard to any of
her previous statements.
_Science and Health_, 453.--"A Christian Scientist needs my work on
Science and Health for his textbook, and so do all his students and
patients.... It is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the whole
of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind.... It was
the first published book containing a statement of Christian Science....
It registered this revealed Truth, uncontaminated with human hypotheses.
Other works, which have borrowed from this book without giving it credit,
have adulterated the Science."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--It is evident that everybody "in Science"
should buy its real Bible, _Science and Health_; for the Old and the New
Testament, while it is policy to use them in the Church Scientist, are in
dreadful need of exegesis by Mary Baker G. Eddy. She is the one religious
person, altogether scientific, that now exists in the world. She is
"uncontaminated truth," and anything that interferes with her abets
larceny and spreads leprosy. Moreover, it is a financial crime against
her, conducive to heart-disease. Let it again be stated that "the precious
volume," _Science and Health_, is cheap for cash, ranging from only $3.18
to $6.
_Science and Health_, _Pref._ VIII.--"The question, What is Truth? is
answered by demonstration--by healing disease and sin."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--That truth can only be set on its absolute
end by curing megrims and other unhealthiness, has been incontrovertibly
settled by the religious experience of "Mother Eddy" herself. When she
rose into the revelation that matter is nothing--not even a phenomenal
condition of anything--the truth instantly spliced her broken spine. It
was this "demonstration by healing" that transformed the ignorant,
deluded, mesmerized Mary M. Patterson, into our holy, scientific,
infallible Lady of the "Precious Volume."
_Science and Health_, 2 _and_ 3, _passim._--"The divine Spirit, testifying
through Christian Science, unfolded to me the demonstrable fact that
matter possesses neither sensation nor life.... Human experiences show the
falsity of all material things.... My discovery that erring, mortal,
misnamed _mind_, produces all the organism and action of the mortal body,
led up to my demonstration that Mind is All, and matter is naught, as the
leading factor in Mind-Science.... The revelation of Truth in the
understanding came to me gradually, and apparently through divine power.
When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of
Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born ... and his name
shall be Wonderful.'"
_Interpretation "in Science."_--That there is absolutely nothing in
anything you see, feel, hear, taste or smell, is eternally laid down as
"the leading factor in Mind-Science." Though the ideas of Mrs. Mary Baker
G. Eddy are all wonderful, this is the most surpassingly wonderful of all.
But Mother Eddy herself is much more wonderful than even her ideas. As
little Mary Baker she was wonderful in her likeness to little Samuel; as
Mary M. Patterson, she was more wonderful as a mesmerized victim of Dr.
Quimby; and, as Mary Baker G. Eddy, she is most wonderful, as the Ark of
the Covenant of the only true Medicinal Religion. All Mother Eddy's
writings point, all the time, to this beautiful lesson.
_Science and Health_, 5.--"No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses
of Agnosticism, or Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths of
Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human
mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--All the ancient and modern "isms," except
Eddyism, we must sit on and blot out. The most of them are unpopular, and
don't bring us in anything. But he who opposes Eddyism contradicts the
Divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science, which, logically, must be
the production of our Divine Mother.
_Science and Health_, 8.--"The phrase _mortal mind_ implies something
untrue, and, therefore, unreal."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--This truth is to be taken as infallible on
all occasions. Still, the unreality, mortal mind, is a thing to be healed
by Christian Science, and there is money in the metaphysical pills.
_Science and Health_, 21.--"There is no physical science, inasmuch, as
all true Science proceeds from divine Intelligence."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--Shut up your arithmetic, geometry,
physics, and astronomy. They amount to nothing. There is no truly
scientific book except _Science and Health_.
_Science and Health_, 25.--"Must Christian Science come through the
Christian churches, as some insist? This Science has come already, and
come through the one whom God called."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--Christian Science, my beloved, is
copyrighted property, and can only spread through the owner and her
deputies. The "one whom God called" is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
_Science and Health_, 244, 245, 473, 284.--"The act of describing disease
makes the disease. Warning people against disease frightens them into it.
This obnoxious habit ought to cease.... The unscientific practitioner
says: 'You are ill; you must rest.' Science objects to all this.... Mind
controls the body and brain.... A cup of tea is not the equal of Truth....
A material body is a mortal belief.... The medicine of Science is divine
Mind."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--Your doctor is a fool, whether he be
allopathic, homeopathic, magnetic, or even of any _unauthorized_ school of
mind-healing. Dismiss him, and send for a Christian Science M. D.,
authorized to practise by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. If he can't cure you,
it will not be his fault; it will be simply because your mind, or the
minds around you, or both, are out of tune with _Science and Health_ and
_its Key to the Scriptures_.
_Science and Health_, 259, 480, 475.--"Electricity, the offspring of
finite mind, is unreal.... The physical universe expresses the conscious
and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are
one.... Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit. An image
of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all the eye beholds."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--That a force like electricity has no
reference to any principle or power but finite mind, will always be hard
for an unscientized person to believe. But Mother Eddy knows, and her word
must go. Still, the unreality of electricity is not quite so to people
"out of science." If one toys with a trolley-wire before he has read and
understood _Science and Health_, he may experience a slight shock of
reality, if he lives long enough. But one who has purchased Mrs. Eddy's
great work, and who reads it constantly, need have no fear of
electrocution, or anything else. His mortal mind has pretty nearly
departed from him. His "physical universe" is hardly a picture of
"conscious thoughts," and his "unconscious thoughts," whatever such things
may be, will never lead him into much danger.
_Science and Health_, 487.--"Science reveals material man as a dream at
all times, and never as the real Being."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--Mortals are nothing. The One and Only
Being is the Father-and-Mother God of Christian Science. Our Mother is
Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy.
_Science and Health_, 411.--"The Scientist knows there can be no
hereditary disease, since matter cannot transmit good or evil intelligence
to man, and Mind produces no pain in matter."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--On the ground that mind and matter are
absolutely unconnected, there can be no doubt of there being no hereditary
disease. On the same ground there can be no heredity itself, and no world
for heredity to exist in. How true it is, "in Science," that all actuality
has no actuality in it!
_Science and Health_, 28.--"The true Logos is demonstrably Christian
Science."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--We know, too, from Mrs. Eddy's "precious
volume," that Christian Science, in addition to being the Logos, is the
Holy Comforter. Thus her copyrighted religion is two-thirds of the
Trinity.
_Science and Health_, 411.--"The daily ablutions of an infant are no more
natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of
water every day, and covering it with dirt, in order to make it thrive
more vigorously thereafter in its native element.... Water is not the
natural habitat of humanity."
_Interpretation "in Science."_--Don't take the trouble to wash the baby.
His body is only an expression of mortal mind, and is thus so mussed up
with error and nothingness that water will never get him clean. His proper
habitat is "Science." Scrub his "conscious and unconscious thoughts" with
Christian Science, and never mind the rest of him.
We shall make but one more quotation, here, from Mrs. Eddy's "Divine
comedy," _Science and Health_. There is no use of being too serious with
it. History will soon take it as mostly a "grim joke" on metaphysics,
theology, and medicine. But one thing must give us pause. On approaching
the Lord's Prayer, one feels himself on solemn ground, if such ground
there be anywhere in life, and for once, if never before, puts on the
mantle of conservatism. But, to Mrs. Eddy, the words of Jesus in devotion
and supplication--at once the simplest and grandest words ever
uttered--require her "spiritual interpretation." What, in her index to
_Science and Health_, she terms the "Spiritualized version" of the Lord's
Prayer is this:
"Our Father and Mother God, all-harmonized, Adorable One. Ever present and
Omnipotent. Thy Supremacy appears as matter disappears. Give us grace for
to-day; Thou fillest the famished affections; and Love is reflected in
love. And leavest us not in temptation, but freest us from sin, disease
and death; for Thou art all Substance, Life, Truth, and Love,
forever.--_So be it._"
The author of the _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ tells of a poet who
"Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the psalms."
Let any one not "in Science" ask himself if Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has not
gone farther and done worse.