Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer

Mrs. Eddy is one of the most interesting women in American history and you have to admire a woman who, during the Victorian era, in the thoroughly male-dominated field of healing, had the courage to stand up and say, "I've found a way to heal through prayer and I'd like to share what I've learned." "Christian Healer" focuses on the spiritual development of Mrs. Eddy's healing work and talks about how Eddy came to write "Science and Health" (and revise it, too). At a time when women didn't even the right to vote or the right to hold property (or many other basic rights), Mary Baker Eddy wrote a book and then self-published it. She then went door to door selling that book. And then she had to find more money to publish more books. But now, more than 130 years after the publication of that first edition, her originally self-published tome on spiritual healing has sold more than 10 million copies. Not too shabby. In the world of literary wonders, this is known as an "evergreen title" and it's every publishers dream come true. "Christian Healer" does a fine job of documenting how Mrs. Eddy came to write Science and Health. And it's also a very inspiring read and reassures the rest of us that healing through prayer is a practical and effective means for healing "all the ills that flesh is heir to." Prayer is finally coming into its own as a healing resource in mainstream 21st Century culture but you gotta love Mary Baker Eddy for taking this radical stand 130 years ago. And then devoting her life to producing a written work that would preserve and perpetuate her hard-won knowledge of spiritual healing. I highly recommend this book and I promise, it's an inspiring and worthy read.

This well-written book describes the life and healings of the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. Mary Baker Eddy believed that without a spiritual aspect, healing would turn into a mesmeric exercise. One must prove through living, as well as by healing and teaching. Mary Baker Eddy never stopped healing. She was striving to teach others to heal quickly and completely. Her discovery of Chrisitian healing dated from 1866. In 1872 she suspended her teaching for three years in order to work on her book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH. To be an author was a longstanding desire of Mrs. Eddy. At age seven she is reported to have said that she would grow up and write a book. Whether teaching or lecturing, healing was at the center of all of her efforts. At one point Mary Baker Eddy told her students that the grand secret to their success was Christianity. The authors distinguish Chrisitian Science from the mind cure movement prevalent in the mid 1880's. Sometimes healing resulted from Mrs. Eddy's public speaking. The use of sources gives the book the feel of discovery. It may serve as a good introduction to the reader of the Chrisitian Science movement and the life of Mary Baker Eddy. The chief purpose of the book is to recount the numerous healings achieved by Mary Baker Eddy from childhood to old age. The evidence presented is substantial. The biographical glossary at the end is extremely useful in identifying persons of importance to the history of Christian Science.

Some books bring inspiration by the very import of their subject. The warmly historical, first-hand accounts of witnessing the restoration of wells, the calming of storms, and the raising of people from the dead, to list but a few examples of the remarkable healing ministry of this profoundly Christian woman, Mary Baker Eddy, do just that. One's inner child or soul-sense rejoices in the sweet sense of the loving Deity's ever-presence, as demonstrated through this woman, and marvels that such works are indeed available to the pure in heart who give such fervent, effectual prayer. Her great reflection of "this Mind which was also in Christ Jesus," namely "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is an open door of loving, principled teaching to this goal-fittedness, and a logical progressive choice for those desiring to go and do likewise, i.e. to walk in the way shown by the Messiah. "Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer" presents a warmly victorious example of what man, reflecting his Creator and doing His Will, may reasonably expect to demonstrate.