Eddy, Mary Baker (1821-1910)

Mary Baker Eddy is regarded as one of the most influential women in American history. In 1992 the Women's National Book Association recognized her Science and Health as one of the 75 books by women "whose words have changed the world." In 1995 she was elected into the National Women's Hall of Fame as the only American woman to have founded a religion recognized worldwide.

Eddy was born the sixth child of a Puritan family outside of Concord, New Hampshire on July 16, 1821. As a child she was extremely frail and suffered from persistent illnesses. In 1843, Eddy married her first husband, Major George Washington Glover, who died of yellow fever six months after their marriage, leaving her penniless and 5 months pregnant. Once born, her son was taken from her and given to a couple who had just lost twins. In 1853, Eddy married her second husband Daniel Patterson, a Baptist dentist. Since her health was persistently in decline, she began to investigate many "mind over matter" theories that were popular at the time. She even went so far as to consult a psychic healer in 1862.

Eddy's struggle with illness lasted until her epiphany experience on February 4, 1866. Eddy was bedridden after having sustained critical spine injuries from a fall on an icy sidewalk. She came across a story in the Bible about a palsied, bedridden man who is forgiven by Christ and made to walk. She then formed her theory that the power to heal sin is the same power that heals the body. Indeed, she believed and got out of bed. Patterson left her that year, and, seven years later, Eddy divorced him.

After her transforming spiritual realization, she preached her discovery of Christian Science. She had found the answer to her quest for health, and she wrote her first book on the subject, Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures (1875). And, in 1877, Eddy was married for a final time to Asa Gilbert Eddy.

Christian Science is based on her beliefs that anything associated with the physical world is an illusion (including pain), and that mind, life, and spirit are all that exist and are all part of God. Healing for her meant recognizing the error of believing in the flesh. Eddy's philosophy, however, cannot be considered a mind over matter philosophy because, in Christian Science, the concept of matter does not exist.

Eddy's writings and beliefs quickly helped her become the leader of thousands of people in the Christian Science movement. By the year 1900, only 34 years after her revelation and only 25 from the publication of her first book, over 900 churches participated in the Christian Science movement. Eddy obtained a nearly god-like status in her churches by her death in 1910.

The Christian Science Church, from its "Mother Church" headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, has been a major media influence. Science and Health, reissued in 1994, immediately became an annual best seller among religious books. Eddy also wrote 20 other books and pamphlets, including other theology books and a book of her poetry and letters. In 1883, Eddy published the first issue of The Christian Science Journal. In 1899 she established both the Christian Science Sentinel and Christian Science Quarterly. She had a strong influence as editor of these periodicals. And, finally, in 1908 she requested that a daily newspaper be started called the Christian Science Monitor. Both the Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Monitor are still in print and continue to be very well respected.

In 1989, the Christian Science Monitor launched The Monitor Channel, a cable network that failed and collapsed in 1992. At the same time, the church also started a radio network and a public affairs magazine that both fell through. Although Christian Science has remained politically powerful throughout the second half of the twentieth century, estimated membership totals have shown a drop, from 270,000 members before World War II to 170,000 in the 1990s. Branch churches have declined from 3,000 in 37 countries to fewer than 2,400 in the 1990s.

A major criticism of Christian Science is that its members are often unwilling to seek medical help for themselves or their critically ill children. In the last half of the twentieth century, Christian Scientists have even succeeded in most states to establish the right to deny their children medical treatment. Part of the decline of the church population is due to an increasing trust of traditional medicine.

The followers of Christian Science revere Mary Baker Eddy. Outside of the religion she is heralded as having made major feminist accomplishments. In Science and Health, she pushed for the equality of the sexes, female suffrage, and the right of women to hold and dispose of property. She also pushed for an understanding of both the motherhood and the fatherhood of God. Eddy's ideas, although spawned and proliferated in her time, have outlived her.

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