 Posted Tuesday, December 02, 2008 4:28 PM
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I recently picked up a copy of an old CS book: "Twelve Years With Mary Baker Eddy" and was quite surprised to read accounts of her raising people from the dead, healing someone by just passing by in her carriage and smiling at them. This author says "Jesus manifested the "first coming" of the Christ to mankind, and Mary Baker Eddy's discovery of Christian Science (the Comforter) has completely fulfilled the Biblical prophecy of the "second coming""
Whaaaat?? So Christian Science is both the Comforter and the Second Coming of Christ?? and this is based on the Bible?? What Bible would that be?
The comparisons she shamelessly makes of herself to Jesus are absurd. Towards the end of this book, like many false teachers and prophets Mary Baker Eddy says "You do not see me in person, but you find me in my writings". But Jesus says (and this is a very important distinction) "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men"; "I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, but through Me." Jesus can say to follow Him because He is God in the flesh! No false teacher like Mary Baker Eddy or Joseph Smith can do that because their life won't hold up to examination (unless thoroughly censored by CS editors - not one hint of any weakness in MBE's character anywhere!)
I don't mean to ramble, my real question is do any of the other "official" CS writing's talk about MBE raising people from the dead?
Brian
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Posted Saturday, December 06, 2008 11:33 AM
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| I'm a little rusty on my Eddy bio knowledge. Perhaps others can provide greater and more accurate detail. As I recall, her secretary, Frye, (first name anybody? We used to have a CS collegiate who went by the moniker "Calvin Frye") was prone to seizures of some kind. At one time he fell into a very catatonic state, and was/appeared to be "dead." This is an excellent example of where CS "miracles" and "healings" occur, based un non-documented and medically undiagnosed conditions. Anyway, Frye fell into one of these seizures and nobody could rouse him out of it. Eddy went up to him and sternly said, "Get up!" and he did. Or something like that. Hence, she "raised the dead." This kind of "miracle" or sign would help put the imprimateur of Messianic rank on Eddy and CS, which you already seem interested in, BC, as apparent in your other thread. Incidentally, as I recall, Irving Tomlinson had a sister (or some such relative) who was drafted to serve in the Eddy household in Newton, which the local snobs (even to this day) love to refer to as "Chestnut Hill." This young woman got wigged out by the bizarre and controlling atmosphere in the Eddy household and fled to the Parker House Hotel at Tremont & School streets in Boston. There she jumped out of a high window, killing herself. Doubt that you read this in Twelve Years.
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Posted Sunday, December 07, 2008 1:46 PM
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I received a private message from somebody who is well informed on the subject: It is true that Mary killed herself by jumping out of a window of the Parker House Hotel in Boston. But she did this while Eddy was still living at Pleasant View in Concord, NH. Furthermore, Mary Tomlinson never lived or worked in Eddy's household, and was never an employee of Eddy, although Eddy on occasion did ask Mary to help pray about certain situations,such as the Next Friends suit. I have not seen anything that would throw light on what caused Mary to kill herself, but it could not have been experiences she had working in Eddy's household, since she never worked there! 'I consider myself (and the Forum) corrected
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Posted Sunday, December 07, 2008 6:35 PM
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| There is an earlier, very interesting, discussion of this subject begun in 2004 on this site. I'm not sure if it is okay to post a link, but you could try searching the site.
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Posted Tuesday, December 09, 2008 2:36 PM
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Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
-- St. Paul, The Acts of The Apostles, Chapter 26, verse 8
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Posted Tuesday, December 09, 2008 3:22 PM
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Interesting. Now it is hard to remember where I heard/read things. I remember that it was generally accepted that MBE raised the dead. In rereading some of her biographies (both authorized and non-authorized) recently, I was surprised to learn that she didn't really treat people once she had Kennedy and other later students to do it. That was never the impression I had gotten when I was in CS. I remember (and later read) about her supposed raising of Frye from the dead. It's pretty amazing what we just accepted as the truth without question when I was at Prin and active in the church. I do remember something about someone being healed just by seeing her drive by. It never occurred to me back then to question that she seemed to be comparing this to when the woman was healed when she touched Jesus' garment. Now, it seems incredible to me that she would draw such parallels between herself and Jesus, even putting him down at times as if she were superior (being the Second Coming and all). Quite a lot of chutzpah, I'd say!
I also remember being told that MBE had to "spiritually interpret" the Bible because the Bible contradicts itself. But now I wonder what made me accept that MBE had the authority to do that? Well, I guess you tend to accept what you have been told all your life.
Ann
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Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008 4:39 PM
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| Ann, When you observe, it is hard to remember where I heard/read things. I remember that it was generally accepted that MBE raised the dead, what you are involved with is a psycho-social-theological activity known as hagiography. (See below, from Miriam-Webster.com) What happens is that all sorts of legends and half-truths--not to mention outright fictions--get mixed together and become a package of mythic "truth" concerning an exalted religious figure.We all have them. One of my favorite is from when, as a child, I visited the house in Lynn where Eddy wrote S&H. There, as we stood alongside a velvet rope and gazed reverently at the "attic room" with its little period writing table and rocking chair, my mother told me, in hushed terms, that this is where "Mrs. Eddy received Science and Heath." She then told me that Eddy would sit up late into the night, "writing and writing,...and when she looked at it the next day, she didn't remember writing any of it! She would have to read it and study it, just as we do!" Years later I came to understand what this phenomenon is: It's called automatic writing and is a practice found in Spiritism! I'll bet we all have fallen for mythic fictions! Pronunciation: hagriography\-gē-ˈä-grə-fē, -jē-\ Function: noun Date: 1821 1 : biography of saints or venerated persons 2 : idealizing or idolizing biography
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Posted Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:35 AM
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| I have also heard that Joseph Smith experienced the same automatic writing that Mary Baker Eddy did when he wrote the Book of Mormon. It seems to be a common occurrence when someone starts a new religion!!!
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Posted Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:10 AM
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While this is not exactly a story involving Mary Baker Eddy raising the dead, but it is in a related vein.
I wonder if any one else heard this same story that I did years back that was circulating around CS:
My Dad, who was a soloist in the church, told me a story that there was a young lady who, for a reason I don't recall, lost her mind and could no longer perceive reality of any kind. The story was that because she didn't perceive reality anymore, her physical body did not age anymore. This apparently went on for a couple of decades. Who, what, when, where, how, etc. was sketchy at best, but I know my Dad believed it and took it as hard evidence that man was, of course, spiritual and not physical. If he just would believe that he wouldn't age, than in reality he wouldn't, per the experience of this woman.
Does anyone recall this story in CS, or something similar to it growing up?
John
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Posted Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:09 AM
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That story is in the Science and Health, pg 245:
Disappointed in love in her early years, she became insane and lost all account of time. Believing that she was still living in the same hour which parted her from her lover, taking no note of years, she stood daily before the window watching for her lover's coming. In this mental state she remained young. Having no consciousness of time, she literally grew no older. Some American travellers saw her when she was seventy-four, and supposed her to be a young woman. She had no care-lined face, no wrinkles nor gray hair, but youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to guess her age, those unacquainted with her history conjectured that she must be under twenty.
MBE goes on to say that the woman could not age while believing herself to be young because the mental state governed the physical state.
Hope this answers your question!
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