Did Mary Baker Eddy write it? “Keep your eye single”

We are sometimes asked about a document containing this statement: “It is necessary to keep your eye single to light.” Some versions may include the line “refuse to look at the darkness, and your whole experience will be full of light.”

This statement is often said to be part of correspondence from Mary Baker Eddy to her student James A. Neal. The Library is also aware of other versions that claim the recipient to have been Irving C. Tomlinson, Frances Thurber Seal, and Adam H. Dickey. Portions have even been found in a piece titled “Article on Supply.”

We have not been able to find any evidence in our collections to authenticate Eddy’s authorship of a letter or essay with this content. In fact, we are unable to identify any author for the words. But we can confirm that she did not write it.

If you would like more information on a document that we have authenticated, or would like to suggest a new entry, please contact us at [email protected].

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