Letters May 23, 1988 Issue

Letters to the Press

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION

Robert Peel

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the century-old charge that someone other than Mary Baker Eddy was the actual Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science continues to be made from time to time. The usual candidate brought forward for that honor is Phineas P. Quimby of Belfast, Maine, the mental, or "magnetic," healer from whose treatment Mrs. Eddy received temporary benefit before she discovered Christian Science. The Committee on Publication of this Church has frequent occasion to point out the vast gulf between her spiritual teachings and Quimby's system of mental suggestion. The following letter to the Belfast Republican Journal in Quimby's home territory is an example of such a correction. It contains factual information that points conclusively to Quimby's practice as resting on an entirely different basis from the spiritual and Biblical basis on which Christian Science rests.

To the Editor:

A recent article in the Republican Journal pays tribute to an eminent Belfast citizen, Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866), known to Belfast people of his day as a "magnetic" healer. In its description of Quimby as the "original founder" of Christian Science the article reflects a common misunderstanding about the nature of Quimby's work as well as about Christian Science itself. Belfast readers may be interested to know some of the facts uncovered by research in the past two decades that throw a different light on this longstanding controversy.

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