Why did Mary Baker Eddy devote considerable attention in her writings to terms like animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism, and electricity? Part of the reason was the prominence and popularity of these practices in the culture of her time. For guest speaker Dr. Jackson Lears, explorations into the relation of the mind with different forms of invisible energy fell under the larger umbrella term of vitalism. For Eddy they presented a spiritual challenge, which she responded to. In this episode, Lears—as a leading cultural and intellectual historian of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America—explains why these pursuits held such attraction for the age. Examining some of Eddy’s statements on these practices, our conversation elucidates why and how she addressed these practices in the language she chose and the stances she took.
Access more on this topic:
- Ask a Researcher: What is the Historical Background of No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy?
- Chapter 5, “Animal Magnetism Unmasked,” Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
- “Mind-Healing History,” Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, The Christian Science Journal, June 1887, 109
Dr. Jackson Lears is the Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University and editor-in-chief of the Raritan Quarterly Review. He is the author of five books in cultural history, beginning with No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920 (1981) and, most recently, Animal Spirits: the American Pursuit of Vitality from Camp Meeting to Wall Street (2023). Lears has written essays and reviews in The New York Times, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, The New Republic, and other magazines. About his work in general, Susan Sontag wrote, “No one is thinking with more spiritedness and subtlety about the roots (and ethical tangle) of American culture and the distinctive American pursuit of happiness than Jackson Lears.”
Collage photos: Book: Animal Spirits: the American Pursuit of Vitality from Camp Meeting to Wall Street (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023) by Jackson Lears. Journal: “Mind in Nature: A Popular Journal of Psychical Medical and Scientific Information,” 1886. Article: “Mind-Healing History” by Mary Baker Eddy, The Christian Science Journal, June 1887. Photo of Jackson Lears used by permission.
