What were some of Mary Baker Eddy’s own healings?

The Mary Baker Eddy Library is often asked to verify accounts of Christian Science healing involving Mary Baker Eddy and her teachings. She herself had a number of prayer-based healings across her lifetime.

For example, Eddy wrote that as a child, long before her discovery of Christian Science, she was healed by prayer alone of a fever and also released from the influence of an oppressive religious doctrine:

My father’s relentless theology emphasized belief in a final judgment-day, in the danger of endless punishment, and in a Jehovah merciless towards unbelievers; and of these things he now spoke, hoping to win me from dreaded heresy.

 

My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, bade me lean on God’s love, which would give me rest, if I went to Him in prayer, as I was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone, and I rose and dressed myself, in a normal condition of health. Mother saw this, and was glad. The physician marvelled; and the “horrible decree” of predestination — as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet — forever lost its power over me.¹

In contrast with this experience, the first four decades of Eddy’s life were marked by chronic illness. She frequently experienced bouts of sickness, sometimes leaving her bedridden. A turning point occurred in February 1866, when reading the Bible brought freedom after she experienced a fall on the ice that critically injured her. Later she wrote that her discovery of Christian Science happened as a result of that healing:

My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make others so.

 

…I then withdrew from society about three years, — to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, — Deity.

 

…I wrote also, at this period, comments on the Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual interpretation, the Science of the Bible, and so laid the foundation of my work called Science and Health, published in 1875.²

Without evidence, some writers have implied that Eddy was never ill again! Her own published writings and correspondence contradict this. The better health she enjoyed after her 1866 healing was real, as witnessed by the nearly 45 years of activity that followed it. But she did get sick at times, and turned to her own discovery, Christian Science, for healing. If she fell ill, she often asked her students to heal her through prayer. In a diary entry by Calvin Frye — a longtime member of Eddy’s staff, he wrote about a healing Eddy experienced, brought about by a student.

Mrs. Eddy called her students to her this morning & said, “Yesterday I suffered a great deal during the entire day & I said to Mrs. [Laura] Sargent ‘the cause of this is nothing but a lack of love.’ I went to bed in that same condition; my warning not having been heeded. Afterward my watcher came and spoke to me in love without any special argument & it relieved me immediately.³

At other times she prayed for herself. On December 10, 1893, Frye wrote in his diary about a healing she experienced during her daily carriage ride.

As Mrs. E. [was] driving out today, she prayed “God, give me holiness!” Instantly, a voice which seemed outside of herself said “and holiness is health!” At that moment, all her pains ceased.⁴

Eddy asked for prayerful help from other Christian Scientists when facing illness. Irving Tomlinson, another member of her staff, wrote in his 1932 reminiscence about her healing of a need for eyeglasses:

When arguments presented themselves in an effort to dim her human vision, she was alert to protect herself. Her own words are proof of this:

 

“All called in. ‘I want to thank you for your good work (said Mrs. Eddy). You know I have been at work on the question of sight. This A.M. I opened to Luke 18:42, 43 — Jesus said, Receive thy sight.’” (Diary — September 17, 1909).

 

How effective this work was is born out by the following diary record:

 

“All called in. Gave me (the writer) Christian Science Monitor saying, ‘Hand me the paper please and see me read.’ I gave her (Mrs. Eddy) the editorial page. Without glasses and holding the paper at normal distance she read without hesitation the editorial on ‘Progress in the Philippines.’ At the conclusion of the reading she said with a glad smile, ‘This is what your Leader can do when she is nearly one hundred years old.’ We suggested that she was not a hundred years old but rather a hundred years young.” (Diary — February 15, 1910).⁵

Along with Eddy’s requests of her students for prayerful help, she sometimes provided written guidance for these prayers. In a typed 1909 manuscript that concludes with “To be repeated three times each day,” Eddy detailed some of the metaphysical ideas supporting her ability to overcome sickness:

A lie is powerless, it has no effect whatever. A lie does not harm Mrs. Eddy, she does not feel it. It has no power; it has no effect; it is nothing whatever.

 

The Truth is power, is Life; it has in itself all power, all good, all happiness, all blessing. The truth is that Mrs. Eddy is not sick; she is not old, nor weak nor feeble. She is strong, she is in perfect health and it does her good to walk and to go over rough roads. She is stronger for it; she is healthier for it; she is better for it; better for overcoming a lie, and knowing the truth, and the truth does make her free. It makes her healthy and happy. It takes away all fear and gives her peace, health and life everlasting.⁶

While this list is not exhaustive, it is clear that Eddy worked tirelessly to “practice what she preached,” relying on the healing power described in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.