Mary Baker Eddy : An Interpretive Biography of the Founder of Christian Science [first edition]

An interpretive biography of the founder of Christian Science. From the time Mary Baker Eddy began preaching her vision of spiritual healing in the mid-nineteenth century, writers have either glorified her as the messenger of God's word or sharply condemned her as a charlatan. 'Mary Baker Eddy' by psychoanalyst Julius Silberger, Jr., stands apart from the standard polemic approaches to the life of the founder of Christian Science. Scrupulously objective, but unflinchingly candid, this biography sets forth this remarkable woman's shortcomings and idiosyncrasies as well as her strengths, her special talents, and her enduring contribution to the American scene. Much was miraculous about the life of Mrs Eddy. Helpless, eccentric, and inconsequential for the first half of her life, she experienced a dramatic turnabout at age forty-five, suddenly focusing newfound energies on the development of Christian Science doctrine and the building of the Church. She converted her own pains and bedridden spells into a new formula of belief, asserting that illness derived from thoughts and feelings which were out of tune with the goodness of God and the forces of God's healing. It is extraordinary that at a time when women were limited to homemaking or, at best, school-teaching, Mary Eddy created a new religion, penned (among her many works) a landmark religious text entitled 'Science and Health', founded two newspapers, one of them the 'Christian Science Monitor', and established a major religious institution, the Christian Science Church. Of all the forms of mental healing that enjoyed a vogue in the late 1800s, only Mary Eddy's Christian Science has prospered into the twentieth century. Whatever the controversy raised by her own conduct, Mrs. Eddy successfully joined her spiritual message with the special needs of the times. She created for many women significant careers as healers, thus freeing them from the restrictions that the wider society imposed upon their sex.