Eddy, Mary Baker

(1821–1910)

   Sect Founder.

   Eddy was born near Concord, New Hampshire, and she was brought up a Congregationalist. From early childhood she suffered from convulsive fits, but she was cured in 1862 after visiting a hypnotist. She was so overwhelmed by this experience that she wrote her famous volume Science and Health, which she claimed was dictated under divine inspiration. (She subsequently had the Almighty’s grammar corrected by a local clergyman.) Her fundamental belief was that God is in everything and that there is no reality outside God’s spirit. Evil, sin and death are unrealities which can and should be ignored. She married Asa Gilbert Eddy as her third husband in 1877 through whom she inherited considerable wealth. She is remembered as the founder of an international movement, Christian Science, based on Science and Health. She also was the author of Unity of God and Unreality of Evil and Retrospection and Introspection. Christian Science has spread throughout the world and is particularly successful in English-speaking countries.

   A.F. Conant, A Complete Concordance to Science and Health (1916);

   M. Gardner, The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy: The Rise and Fall of Christian Science (1993);

   LP. Powell, Mary Baker Eddy (1930).