When did Mary Baker Eddy discover Christian Science?

We are sometimes asked about differences given for when Mary Baker Eddy determined she had found what she sometimes called “the Science of Being,” or Christian Science. Successive editions of her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures provide different dates.

Here is some of what we have learned:

In the Preface of Science and Health’s first edition, published in 1875, Eddy noted the year 1864:

We made our first discovery that science mentally applied would heal the sick, in 1864, and since then have tested it on ourselves and hundreds of others, and never found it fail to prove the statement herein made of it.¹

In the second edition, published three years later, that passage was replaced, with no year mentioned:

Several years ago we made the Metaphysical discovery that mind governs the body not in part, but the whole, and submitted our radical statement of this to the severest practical tests. Since which our theory has gradually gained ground, and become known as the most effectual curative agent.²

In 1881 the third edition of Science and Health was published with this passage:

We made our first discovery of the adaptation of metaphysics to the treatment of disease about the year 1864; since then we have tested the Principle on ourselves and others, and never found it fail to prove the statement herein made of it.³

The wording shifted to “1866” in the sixth edition, published two years later, and remained the same through the 15th edition, published in 1885. Eddy discussed her time spent with Phineas P. Quimby and alluded to an accident she had on February 1, 1866:

About the year 1862, having heard of a mesmerist in Portland who was treating the sick by manipulation, we visited him; he helped us for a time, then we relapsed somewhat. After his decease, and a severe casualty deemed fatal by skilful physicians, we discovered that the Principle of all healing and the law that governs it is God, a divine Principle, and a spiritual not material law, and regained health.⁴

Beginning in the 16th edition in 1886, the following passage appeared:

The cowardly claim that I am not the originator of my own writings, but that one P.P. Quimby is, has been legally met and punished….

 

Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing, was gained in 1866. He was an uneducated man; but he was a distinguished mesmerist, and personally manipulated his patients. This I know, having been one of them. When he doctored me I was ignorant of the nature of mesmerism, but subsequent knowledge has convinced me that he practiced it. Hence he did not really heal me, and my disease returned.

 

After his death I was healed, and this healing followed the revelation to me of the Principle of Christian Science….⁵

In the 50th edition, published in 1891, the passage begins to resemble what is found in the textbook today:

In the author’s little work on Mind-healing will be found a biographical sketch, narrating experiences which led her, in the year 1866 to the discovery of the system which she at once denominated Christian Science. As early as 1862 she began to write down and give to friends the results of her Scriptural study, for the Bible was her sole teacher; but these compositions were crude, the first steps of a child in the newly discovered world of Spirit.⁶

Why did Eddy point to 1864 as her “first discovery that science mentally applied would heal the sick” in early editions of her book? We do not know for certain. But it is noteworthy that Science and Health includes an account of her “metaphysical treatment” of a woman “who always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east” and her quick healing of “consumption,” or tuberculosis.⁷ The book assigns no name or date to this incident, although it appears that her patient was Mary Ann Jarvis of Warren, Maine. Eddy had stayed with Jarvis for two months in 1864, and wrote of the cure to Quimby. This healing made an immediate impression on Eddy, who described herself as “even surprised” by Jarvis’s quick turnaround.⁸ In a letter written 10 days later she observed, “Miss Jarvis has got well A lame back and some other ailments have all gone.”⁹ The significance of that healing and her ability to effect it must have meant a lot to Eddy; around that time another woman asked her for help, to which she even demurred that she was “not done with my pupilage yet.”¹⁰

For more on Eddy’s experiences during this period, see Chapter 3 in the book Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition.¹¹