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In many places, the children of Christian Scientists are excused from
taking health or biology courses, lest in learning about diseases they become sick! After
all, the High Priestess of Christian Science herself, Mary Baker Eddy states in the
"Christian Science Textbook," (Science and Health, p. 389) "The less
we know or think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed to sickness."
In 1977, Ohio's Christian Science lobbyist — officially known as
the "Christian Science Committee on Publication for Ohio" — managed to get
the Ohio legislature to accept the unconstitutional religious exemption quoted above.
Since that time, child-sacrifice has been legal in Ohio, and no parents have ever been
convicted of child-neglect — let alone manslaughter or murder — if they have
been able to show that they "treated" the "physical or mental illness or
defect of the child by spiritual means through prayer alone, in accordance with the tenets
of a recognized religious body," as allowed by Sec. 2919.22(A) of the Ohio Revised
Code.
Although only a few Christian Science children are known to have died
in Ohio in recent years, by putting the present unconstitutional religious exemption into
Ohio's laws in 1977, the Christian Science Church has made it possible for other cultists
legally to kill their children by faith non-healing or prayer over-dose. In the
"Faith Assembly," a cult centered in Warsaw, Indiana, and having quite a few
adherents in Western Ohio, nearly 100 children died between the mid-70s and the mid-80s.
One Faith Assembly-related death in Ohio was that of 23-month-old Kimberly Miller, who
died of pneumonia on April 3, 1986, after State Representative Francine Panehal — apparently
yielding to Christian Science pressure — killed a reform bill, H.B.-67, which
sought to remove the religious exemption from Ohio's child-abuse statutes. Because the
Faith Assembly cultists do not get involved in lobbying, the only group to
oppose H.B.-67 was the Christian Science Church. Not only did a cadaverous Bill
Evans – the CS "Committee on Publication" – testify to the efficacy of
prayer for healing, Christian Scientists from all over Ohio jammed the hearing room to
pressurize the proceedings. Mrs. Smucker – the Jelly Queen herself – came from
Orrville to give witness to the magical powers of mind over the illusory claims of matter.
This blockade of legal reform allowed — and continues to allow — the
deaths of children to continue. Bill Evans himself now is dead, but the evil he engendered
lives on.
The active role being played by the Christian Science Church in this
sorry affair makes it imperative that we bring “The Probing Mind” to bear upon
the cult which George Bernard Shaw described as being "neither Christian nor
scientific."
Figure 1.
Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. From a tintype given to Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby in 1864.
(Reprinted from The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian
Science, by Georgine Milmine [New York: Doubleday, Page, & Co. 1909, 19371.)
Figure 2. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, physician and teacher of Mary Patterson, later to
become Mary Baker Eddy. (Reprinted from The Quimby Manuscripts, Showing the Discovery
of Spiritual Healing and the Origin of Christian Science, ed. Horatio W. Dresser (New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. Pubs., 1921].)
An Eddyfying Religion
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.
(Mary Baker Eddy, Science & Health, 1898 ed., p. 1.)
Christian Science is a system of mental "healing" marketed by
Mary Baker Eddy [Fig. 1] in the last half of the 19th century. The system was actually
invented by a man named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby [Fig. 2] who, after "healing"
Mrs. Eddy (then Mary Patterson) of a variety of hysteric symptoms, taught his system of
mind-healing to her. His system, which he himself often referred to as "Christian
Science," contained all the essential elements of Christian Science as it is
practiced by the Eddyites — including the idea that disease is just incorrect
thinking (the result of "mortal mind"), the idea that "absent
treatment" is possible, etc. After Quimby died in January of 1866, Mrs. Eddy reworked
his notebooks, gradually removing references to Quimby, and finally claimed the system as
having been her own divine discovery. The system became more and more
"Eddyifying" the longer Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy worked it over. As
a pseudoscience guided by the modest personality of Quimby, Christian Science gained only
passing attention in New England. Transformed into a religion by Mrs. Eddy, the system
rapidly became a world-wide, multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Of course, this is not the story told by the Christian Scientists.
As is the case with all religions I have had opportunity to study in
depth, Christian Science began with a healthy dose of deception and fraud. According to
the official account given by Mrs. Eddy herself, Christian Science came as a divine
revelation from you-know-who. On February 1, 1866, she claimed, she fell on an icy
sidewalk in Lynn, Massachusetts. The injury sustained was so serious, Mrs. Eddy claimed (Miscellaneous
Writings [Boston: First Church, 1977], 24), that it was "pronounced fatal by the
physicians." After sustaining this "fatal" injury, Mrs. Eddy goes on to say
that
On the third day thereafter, I called for my Bible, and opened it at
Matthew ix. 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that
I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed.
Nowhere does the canonical account recognize Mrs. Eddy's debt to
Quimby. Nowhere does it admit that she took manuscripts describing someone else's system
of mental healing, repeatedly rewrote and reworked them, and ultimately produced a product
so muddle-headed that it bore little immediate resemblance to the relatively clear ideas
of a former mentor.
What are the facts about this legendary "fall at Lynn"?
Scarcely two weeks before her fall, Phineas P. Quimby had died. Mrs.
Eddy mourned the loss of her guru in a poem published in a January issue of The Lynn
Advertiser. The poem was titled "On the Death of P. P. Quimby, Who Healed with
the Truth that Christ Taught." In later years, Mrs. Eddy was to discount Quimby as
having been a "mesmerist" and "illiterate." She also later denied ever
having been his student.
However, on Sunday, July 10, 1904, The New York Times proved
otherwise, in an unsigned article titled "True origin of Christian Science:
Documentary evidence refuting Mrs. Eddy's claim that her system was revealed to her by
God." The exposŽ was "of the gravest importance," the Times
writer explained:
"Christian Science," supposed to be a divinely revealed
religion and a specially discovered science, has spread tremendously in a quarter of a
century. Thousands of persons accept it as their creed, and it is the foundation of a
church; immense sums of money, contributed by those who believe in it, have enriched Mrs.
Eddy and her friends; and many persons, including children unable to care for themselves,
have died without medical attendance because this religion teaches that disease is merely
a belief and matter is nothing.
If, therefore, this religion is not of divine origin, is not the
discovery of Mrs. Eddy, but is merely a slight elaboration of the humanly invented
theories of a Maine Yankee, it is of the utmost importance that the fact should be known,
not only that "Christian Science" may be put in its true light, but that parents
who may be tempted to join this church and endanger the lives of their children may have
full knowledge beforehand of the exact extent to which God is responsible for its origin.
The Times article showed incontrovertibly that Mrs. Eddy had
been a disciple of Quimby from 1862 until his death on January 16, 1866, and that until
1870 (i.e., after the time in 1866 when Mrs. Eddy was later to claim she had had a
divine revelation of the healing system used by Christ), Mrs. Eddy continued to use
Quimby's unpublished manuscripts, loaning them to her disciples to be copied. At least one
such copied manuscript, titled "Extracts from Dr. P. P. Quimby's Writings," is
known to bear Mrs. Eddy's "corrections" in her own handwriting in the
margins. Later in her life, Mrs. Eddy would claim that, far from her ever having been a
student of Quimby, she had taught him, and had "corrected" some of
his "scribblings," trying to help him improve his ideas. The discovery by The
Times that for at least three years after Quimby's death, Mrs. Eddy self-confessedly
taught Quimby's system — and used manuscripts identified on their covers as being the
creations of Quimby — shows the would-be prophetess and successor to Christ to have
become a common liar and plagiarist.
One of the several bombshells exploded by The Times dealt as
specifically as possible with the would-be "miracle at Lynn." The Times
had located Dr. Alvin M. Cushing, the physician who had treated Mrs. Eddy at the time of
the accident! On August 13, 1904, Dr. Cushing signed a sworn affidavit explaining exactly
what had happened. His statement was derived from his own physician's record book, in
which daily records of Mrs. Eddy's condition had been made, in February and August of
1866.
Because the record of the attending physician is so important, we quote
it more extensively than did The Times. Our source is the very rare book, Mary
Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition, by Ernest Sutherland Bates, and John
V. Dittemore (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932):
On February 1, 1866 I was called to the residence of Samuel M. Bubier,
who was a shoe manufacturer and later was mayor of Lynn, to attend said Mrs. Patterson,
who had fallen upon the icy sidewalk in front of Mr. Bubier's factory and had injured her
head by the fall. I found her very nervous, partially unconscious, semi-hysterical,
complaining by word and action of severe pain in the back of her head and neck. This was
early in the evening and I gave her medicines every fifteen minutes till she was more
quiet...
Each day that I visited her I dissolved a small portion of highly
attenuated remedy in one-half a glass of water and ordered a teaspoonful given every two
hours, usually giving one dose while there, and she told me she could feel each dose to
the tips of her fingers and toes, and gave me much credit for my ability to select a
remedy. I visited her twice on February first, twice on the second, once on the third, and
once on the fifth, and on the thirteenth day of the same month my bill was paid. During my
visits to her she spoke to me of a Dr. Quimby of Portland, Me., who had treated her for
some severe illness with remarkable success, but did not tell what his method was, but I
inferred it was not the usual method of either school of medicine.
...when I left her on the 13th day of February, she seemed to have
recovered from the disturbance caused by the accident and to be, practically, in her
normal condition. I did not at any time declare, or believe, that there was no hope of
Mrs. Patterson's recovery, or that she was in a critical condition, and did not at any
time say, or believe that she had but three or any other limited number of days to live;
and Mrs. Patterson did not suggest, or say, or pretend, or in any way whatever intimate,
that on the third day or any other day, of her said illness, she had miraculously
recovered or been healed, or that discovering or perceiving the truth or the power
employed by Christ to heal the sick, she had, by it, been restored to health.
As I have stated, on the third, and subsequent days of her said
illness...I attended Mrs. Patterson and gave her medicine; and on the 10th day of the
following August, I was again called to see her...I found Mrs. Patterson suffering from a
bad cough and prescribed for her. I made three more professional calls upon Mrs. Patterson
and treated her for this cough in the said month of August, and with that ended my
professional relations with her. (Bates & Dittemore, Mary Baker Eddy, pp.
111-113)
In 1921 another bomb exploded, shattering the oh-so-proper quiet of the
Christian Science kingdom. Thomas Crowell Publishers came out with Horatio W. Dresser's
book, The Quimby Manuscripts, Showing the Discovery of Spiritual Healing and the Origin
of Christian Science. In addition to publishing the Quimby manuscripts — and thus
demonstrating how Quimby had developed all the "tenets" of Christian Science
belief long before meeting Mrs. Patterson-Eddy — Dresser included transcripts of
letters written to Quimby by Mrs. Patterson, along with several facsimiles.
Some of these letters to Quimby express Mrs. Patterson's indebtedness
to him for her own recoveries and describe details of his system — details which
later became characteristics of "Christian Science." In a letter dated April
24th, 1864 [Fig. 3], Mrs. Eddy tells Quimby that she is to lecture on his system in the
town of Warren:
Posted at the public marts of this city is this notice:
Mrs. M. M. Patterson [Mrs. Eddy's name after marrying her second
husband] will lecture at the Town Hall one week from next Wednesday on P. P. Quimby's
spiritual Science healing disease — as opposed to Deism or Rochester-Rapping
Spiritualism.
Figure 3. Photographic fragments of a letter from Mary Patterson
(Mary Baker Eddy) to her physician and teacher Phineas P. Quimby. The letter is dated
Warren (Maine), April 24, 1864. Mrs. Patterson tells Quimby she has been lecturing on his
system of healing and asks him to give her (absent) treatment for dyspepsia and
constipation (full transcription in text). Original letter in the Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Eddy then goes on to ask Quimby to give her "absent
treatment":
Please attend to my case when you get this; dyspepsia and constipation;
two bugbears that Miss Jarvis has just got rid of and saddled on to me.
This letter is interesting for at least two reasons. First of all, it
shows belief in the mental contagiousness of disease and the idea that if one person gets
over the "erroneous" notion that he or she is sick with a particular disease,
the false idea then can pop into someone else's head, especially the person who has just
done the "healing." This appears to be the germ from which the idea of
"Malicious Animal Magnetism" developed. Secondly, it shows that Quimby had
developed the peculiar theory of "absent treatment."
In Christian Science, absent treatment involves a
"Practitioner" ("quactitioner" would be a more descriptive term)
mentally (telepathically?) "taking up the case" of a patient who is not
physically present beside the practitioner. A patient may be suffering from cancer in
Cleveland and the practitioner may be in Cincinnati, but it is believed that healing
thoughts can be generated by the practitioner which will cure the absent patient. Although
the Christian Science Church never reveals statistics of its membership or of its cure
rates, it has bamboozled the public so well that "absent treatment" by these
quacks is reimbursable by many major insurance companies. Christian Science "nursing
homes" qualify for reimbursement by Medicare!
Although Mrs. Eddy's writings (including her reworking of Quimby's
material) is often so muddled that it is difficult to be sure one understands her
intention, it is clear that she taught that there is no such thing as disease, only false
thoughts. Your liver cannot be diseased, because the liver itself is but an illusion! You
have no physical body at all, so it can't be sick, nor can it die. Some dispute about this
has raged through the church during the twentieth century, with some members being
excommunicated for believing in the spiritual equivalent of body organs, and some still
today might say that people have bodies, but that the body is spiritual, not material!
Mrs. Eddy was not very fond of matter (legal tender excepted, of course). In Science
& Health (p. 591), she “defines” the term:
Matter, Mythology; mortality; another name for mortal mind; illusionÉ
the opposite of Truth; the opposite of SpiritÉ that which mortal mind sees, feels, hears,
tastes, and smells only in belief.
If there be no such thing as disease, and if matter be but a product of
“mortal mind,” it seems there can be no such thing as death, either. According
to Mrs. Eddy (Science & Health, p. 584),
Death. An illusion, the lie of life in matter; the un-real and untrue;
the opposite of Life. Matter has no life, hence it has no real existence. Mind is
immortal. The flesh, warring against Spirit; that which frets itself free from one belief
only to be fettered by another, until every belief of life where Life is not yields to
eternal Life. Any material evidence of death is false, for it contradicts the spiritual
facts of being.
If anyone finds the above to be clear, psychotherapy is available.
So strongly did Mrs. Eddy's disciples come to disbelieve in the
unreality of death, it was at first impossible for them to believe it when she herself
"passed on" in 1910, in the ninetieth year of her life. Her casket was placed in
a cement and steel vault, and a 24-hour guard was posted —along with a telephone
— inside the tomb. The purpose of the telephone was to provide
instant communication between the guards and the new rulers of the church, in the event
that Mrs. Eddy might show signs of resurrection. Ultimately, after a decent amount of time
had passed, Alfred Farlow, the chief of the Publication Committees issued an official
statement:
While absolute Christian Science teaches that all is Spirit and
Spirit's manifestation, it does not ignore the relative fact — the temporal and false
appearance — that in our present immature condition we have more or less of a
misconception of creation which will improve and eventually disappear as we advance
spiritually and that eventually we will be able to see all things as God sees them in all
their spirituality and perfection.
While Christian Scientists believe the Scriptural teaching that the
time will come when there will be no more death, they take the common-sense view that
centuries may pass meanwhile before this exalted spiritual estate is reached... They do
not look for her [Mrs. Eddy's] return to this world. (Fleta Campbell Springer,
According to the Flesh: A Biography of Mary Baker Eddy, [New York: Coward-McCann,
1930], pp. 496-7)
Despite the fact that Mrs. Eddy repeatedly taught that death is but an
illusion, and despite the fact that there is no Christian Science funeral service (corpses
are disposed of as quickly and quietly as possible!), she did make provision for this
"unreality" in her Church Manual:
Article IX. Sudden Decease. Sect. 2. If a member of The Mother Church
shall decease suddenly, without previous injury or illness, and the cause thereof be
unknown, an autopsy shall be made by qualified experts. When it is possible the body of a
female shall be prepared for burial by one of her own sex. [emphasis in
original].
One cannot help but wonder just what constitutes “sudden
decease” if there be no such thing as death. Since supposedly there is no such thing
as “injury or illness,” it would follow that all Christian Scientists
lack physical bodies, we are left to wonder just what it is that will be autopsied. With
regard to the autopsy being performed by “qualified experts,” we wonder if this
was a concession by Mrs. Eddy to the world of real doctors — people who can tell the
difference between livers, spleens, and strangulated hernias. Precisely who these
“qualified experts” might be, we may never know. Even so, whenever the
nonexistent body of a pretending-to-be dead female is to be prepared for burial —
despite the impossibility of death and thus the need for burial — said female
non-dead non-body should be viewed only by a not-pretending-to-be-dead female pretending
to be embodied. (I hope readers find this discussion to be lucid.)
Malicious Animal Magnetism
One of the most interesting beliefs of Christian Scientists, alluded to
previously, is the paranoid notion that there exists something called "Malicious
Animal Magnetism," or M.A.M. for short. This is the same thing as "Mental
Malpractice," forbidden in Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual, page 42 of which states:
No Malpractice. Sect. 8. Members will not intentionally or
knowingly mentally malpractice, inasmuch as Christian Science can only be practiced
according to the Golden Rule....
A member of The Mother Church who mentally malpractises upon or treats
our Leader [Mrs. Eddy] or her staff without her or their consent shall be disciplined
[Mrs. Eddy allegedly could determine telepathically if such "malpractice" has
occurred!], and a second offense as aforesaid shall cause the name of said member to be
dropped forever from The Mother Church.
Earlier on the same page, Sect. 6 says that "It shall be the duty
of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental
suggestion...."
The notion of M.A.M. was needed to explain how it could be that Mrs.
Eddy, despite her alleged ability to heal disease in others, and despite the
"unreality" of disease, could persistently be victimized by the
"illusion" of kidney stones, etc. Enemies were maliciously beaming these
delusions at her telepathically! If there be no such thing as disease, why do we always
have the illusion of disease? What is the cause of illusion? Mental malpractice, of
course! M.A.M. from our enemies is what does it.
When Mrs. Eddy's third husband died of heart disease, she avoided the
embarrassment of a death in a family where death should be impossible by claiming that her
lamented consort had been mentally poisoned with arsenic! The fact that at autopsy no
trace of arsenic poisoning could be found proved, she averred, that the poisoning had been
mental. Mrs. Eddy had teams of staff surrounding her to fight off the in-coming beams of
M.A.M. For many years, the Christian Science Church had special teams to fight off Mental
Malpractice allegedly coming from the Catholic Church. Whether or not such teams still
exist today to "take up the case" of Catholic anti-Science aggression is
unknown.
M.A.M. may also have been the reason given as to why Mrs. Eddy (like
many other Christian Scientists) had to wear glasses. One time, when challenged on this
point at a public meeting, "Mother Mary" replied that she wore glasses
"because of the sins of the world" — almost certainly a reference to
malicious mental malpractice, a synonym for M.A.M. It is amusing that although Christian
Science "practice" is able to cure leprosy, cancer, and diphtheria, it cannot
cure myopia. Nor can it handle tooth decay. But then, Mrs. Eddy herself resorted to
dentists long after her "discovery" of divine healing — and took morphine
to ward off the "illusion" of pain!
The Eclipse of Christian Science
Since the advent of antibiotics in World War II, the extraordinary
success of materialistic forms of medical practice has made it all but impossible for
Christian Science practice to compete. After all, drugs and medical procedures are not
adopted unless they can be shown to be superior to placebos, and placebos are all the
Christian Science quactitioners have to offer. Quite wisely, the Christian Science Church
will not allow a census of its membership. However, all evidence shows that "the
healing church" is dying. Only the great wealth and social prominence of its members
give it the appearance of being a major component of society. Almost no new converts have
been gained in twenty years, and the increasingly geriatric membership has been dying off.
In the summer of 1986 when Atheists and Humanists picketed Columbus'
First Church of Christ, Scientist, there were only 67 persons in attendance at the
enormous church. In the winter of 1986-7, visits to the other three Christian Science
churches in Columbus documented the existence of only 144 more, for a total of 211.
Allowing for the possibility that some of the "Scientists" may have been at home
sick (!) on the mornings their churches were visited, it still appears that there are no
more than 300 Christian Scientists living in Greater Columbus, a metropolis having a
population of about one million. The Christian Science population is even smaller in
Toledo. In Cleveland, long the center of Christian Science activity in Ohio, all churches
have closed except the First Church and the Eighth Church.
In the entire state of Ohio in 1987, there were only seventy Christian
Science churches left — twenty fewer than there were in 1926! Most of those churches
were as empty as those of Columbus. There were fewer than 100 Christian Science
"practitioners" in the entire state. In the entire country, there were only
about 2,650 practitioners — a mere 32% of the number in 1931! [If one counts the
number of practitioners listed in The Christian Science Journal, one must be
careful to deduct from the total the number of practitioners listed twice; a practitioner
once listed for Columbus actually resided in Jakarta, Indonesia!]
By May of 1998, the collapse of Christian Science was in full-swing.
The number of churches in Ohio had declined from seventy to 51 – a decrease of 27% in
twelve years. (There were also eleven "Christian Science Societies" – tiny
skeleton-crew affairs that are not expected to last very long.) The number of
practitioners in Ohio declined to just 54 persons who still claimed to be able to cure
people of cancer by means of "absent treatment." It is quite possible that close
to half of Ohio's CS practitioners have died in the past decade or so! As for the world
total of such scalawags, the May 1998 issue of The Christian Science Journal lists
2047 – a decline of 23% since 1987.
There are some amusing aspects to the decline in CS practitioners.
Although the church is based in Boston, it would appear that nearly a third of all its
American practitioners reside in California. (Curiously, of the 48 practitioners listed
for Los Angeles, only nine actually reside there.) Detroit has no resident practitioners
at all any more, and only about fifty still live in the shade of the "Mother
Church" in Boston. It is almost too good to believe, but it is true: besides the
Mother Church, Boston has but two other CS churches!
In all of Canada, there are fewer than forty of these "physicians
of the soul," and only an unlucky thirteen ply their intangible trade in London. In
Spain there are but two, and only solitary soldiers fight the war against M.A.M. in
Greece, Russia, Puerto Rico, Portugal, the Philippines, Cuba, and Angola. Although both
Austria and Denmark claim two practitioners, one of the "Austrians" actually
lives in Germany, and one of the "Danes" lives in Sweden. The only practitioner
listed for all of Japan resides in New Jersey.
Worldwide, the decline in Christian Science churches is equally
encouraging. A count of the listings in the November 1986 issue of The Christian
Science Journal showed that there were only about 2,250 Christian Science churches in
the entire world. In addition to the churches (which must have at least sixteen members),
there were approximately 630 Christian Science “societies” in the world.
Societies have fifteen or fewer members. By 1998 there were only 1586 CS churches and 586
CS societies left on the planet – declines of 30% and 7%, respectively. (It appears
that when membership shrinks below sixteen, churches are down-graded to societies –
which linger for a while, then disappear.)
How many Christian Scientists are there left in the world? Some simple
calculations show there can't be very many. Starting with the "societies" –
which do not have more than fourteen members – there would be a maximum of
8204 in the world at this level of participation. If we make the generous estimate that
the average church membership is around a hundred, we would have 158,600 more – for a
grand total of 166,804 persons. If, however, we make the much more reasonable estimate of
an average of sixty persons per church, our world population of Eddyites would be a little
over 100,000 – an underwhelming 0.0018% of the earth's population. Thus does the
shadow of extinction begin to fall upon the stage for yet another passion play – a
play of immensely tragic significance for the children of its actors.
Despite its approaching extinction, the Christian Science church has
managed to hold on to its unjustifiably famous newspaper, The Christian Science
Monitor. Although The Monitor has long been touted as a paragon of journalistic
excellence, the fact is that the paper carries almost no news of the materialistic world
of science, despite the fact that the middle name of the paper is “Science”! For
nearly a month in 1987, I monitored The Monitor daily. Only two trivial references
to AIDS were seen, and no news whatsoever about medical break-throughs, although several
articles did manage to slip out which could, in the absence of Christian Science
understanding, lead one to believe that there is such a thing as matter. By 1998 the
coverage was even worse. The financial empire established by Mrs. Eddy before her
“passing” has proven to be amazingly resistant to the decline in membership.
Nevertheless, magic does not exist — not even in the world of Christian Science. The
Monitor has had to undergo Draconian downsizing. What once was a tabloid newspaper of
respectable thickness is now little more than a newsletter of sixteen pages.
Even though it is moribund, Christian Science – like other
religions – manages to collect money from the federal government. Christian Science
“sanatoria” (nursing homes) are one of the conduits by which federal money finds
its way to Christian Scientists.
Although the "services" provided by Christian Science nursing
homes are minimal (Christian Science “nurses” are forbidden to give “any
physical application beyond the normal measures of cleanliness,” according to
official instructions from the Christian Science Board of Directors), Medicare does
reimburse them for services claimed. According to figures from the Department of Health
& Human Services and Medicare sources, in 1981 a total of 21 Christian Science
"sanitoria" received $4,888,687. In 1982 they received $5,464,288, and
$6,030,965 in 1983! In 1984, the amount of $5,633,935 was paid, decreasing to $4,709,708
in 1985. More recent statistics have been slow to come from Washington, but it appears
that the Christian Science geriatric population is declining rapidly in size, and the
greatest number of "Scientists" has already "passed out of our sight"
to use the euphemism standard in Christian Science parlance.
That such reimbursements violate the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment is clear by virtue of the fact that the nurses in such sanatoria must be members
of the Christian Science Church, all the patients must be retaining Christian Science
practitioners for prayer treatment, and the sanatoria must be certified
by the Church, rather than the government, to get Medicare funds!
We end this discussion of Mary “Faker” Eddy and the cult she
established by noting that although Christian Science is dying, it isn’t dead yet. It
can still do a lot of harm with its well-financed lobbying efforts to keep child sacrifice
as a legal option for religious fanatics. Nevertheless, the sickness of the church at
large seems to extend to individual members as well. Although one would suppose that a
Christian Scientist applying for sick leave from work would be an acute embarrassment to
Church and family alike, Christian Science practitioners are legally authorized to certify
sick leave and disability claims for both government and private employees. A typical
authorization form reads as follows:
I hearby certify that_________________________was under my professional
care from______ through______ due to a physical illness. From what I was told by the
patient and from my experience, it was considered inadvisable for the above-named person
to report for work or attend to his/her regular duties during this period.
Signed_____________________________
Surveying what I have written, I have the feeling that I have not
succeeded in giving readers an adequate insight into the arcanum that is Christian
Science. And so I end with one final quotation from the “Christian Science
Textbook.” If anyone figures out its meaning, I don’t want to know about it.
The human mind tries to classify action as voluntary and involuntary,
and suffers from the attempt. If you take away this erring mind, the mortal material body
loses all appearance of life or action, and this so-called mind then calls itself dead;
but the human mind still holds in belief a body, through which it acts and which appears
to the human mind to live, — a body like the one it had before death. This body is
put off only as the mortal, erring mind yields to God, immortal Mind, and man is found in
His image. (Science and Health, 187-8)
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