The idealism of Mary Baker Eddy
Reading | History
Matthew Cocks, PhD | 2026-07-17
Prof. Cocks recounts the life and ideas of Mary Baker Eddy, a forgotten but founding figure of the New Thought movement in the 20th century, in particular her gnostic-leaning idealist metaphysics. As he explains, Eddy’s idealism attempts to tackle the problem of evil—which arises under the light of Christian Theology—and claims practical applications in health care and well being.
At the turn of the 20th century, Mary Baker Eddy was perhaps the most famous woman in the United States of America. When she died in 1910, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune read: “With the death of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy there passes from this world’s activities one of the most remarkable women of her time” [1]. Similarly, an obituary in Twentieth Century Magazine noted:
The story of her life forms one of the most remarkable records among the history of the religious leaders of the ages, and she was unquestionably the greatest religious leader that has arisen in the new world. [2]
Eddy was born in Bow, New Hampshire, and lived her entire life in the surrounding area, spending considerable time in Boston, Massachusetts, and Concord, New Hampshire [3]. She was an influential writer and theologian and is known as the founder and leader of the Christian Science denomination.
Her interpretation of the canonical scriptures presents a distinct form of Christian idealism. In a recent philosophical analysis of her work, Nicholas Sheldon concludes that she “comes across in the 110 years since her death as a more wholehearted, more committed idealist thinker than many—perhaps all—famous philosophers in the field … [She] must … be regarded as a genuinely original philosopher. In fact, her originality abounds” [4].
Eddy’s idealism would go on to influence much of the New Thought or ‘mind-cure’ movement in late 19th century America. The movement is generally considered to have begun with the Maine-based mental healer Phineus Quimby, whom Eddy went to for healing. Her interactions with Quimby were important in the development of her thinking, which would eventually lead to the publication of the first edition of her main work, Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures, in 1875.
However, whilst Quimby was an important initial impetus for what would later become known as New Thought, it is Eddy that has been noted as the initiator of the movement itself. In his history of New Thought Charles Braden writes:
Quimby … had no organization at all. Nor did he seem concerned with having formed one … The first to really organize a healing ministry was Mary Baker Eddy, and it must be recognized that it was her organizing activity which produced, either directly or indirectly, both Christian Science and what may be termed the whole “Metaphysical Movement,” of which both Christian Science and New Thought are component parts. [5]
Scholarly perceptions of New Thought have been significantly shaped over subsequent decades by William James’s discussions of the movement in his 1902 Varieties of Religious Experience, a text that remains a standard fixture on the reading lists of undergraduate students in psychology and religious studies. James took considerable interest in the movement but did not explicitly distinguish Eddy’s contribution. He writes in Varieties:
To my mind a current far more important and interesting religiously than that which sets in from natural science towards healthy-mindedness is that which has recently poured over America and seems to be gathering force every day … and to which … I will give the title of the ‘Mind-cure movement.’ There are various sects of this ‘New Thought,’ to use another of the names by which it calls itself; but their agreements are so profound that their differences may be neglected for my present purpose, and I will treat the movement, without apology, as if it were a simple thing. [6]
James’s perspective on New Thought was likely influenced by his friendship with Annetta and Julius Dresser, whose son Horatio was a student of his at Harvard [7]. The Dressers were long time critics of Eddy, famously accusing her of plagiarizing Quimby. Such accusations are today considered to lack substantiation, with Amy Vorhees recently summarizing that “Scholars by now uniformly concur that Eddy did not plagiarize Quimby” [8].
Eddy’s idealism posits that the human experience is an entirely mental one, but that this experience comprises a mixture of two sources of thought: thoughts from the Divine Mind (or God), and thoughts from what she termed ‘mortal mind’ or ‘material sense.’ In Eddy’s view, the mortal mind is responsible for our experience of the physical world, as well as some aspects of our inner life. She writes: “The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals” [9] and “what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness” [10].
The Divine Mind, on the other hand, is responsible for the remainder of our inner thoughts, and a task for the Christian, she suggests, is to cultivate the ability to distinguish the sources of the mental elements that make up their experience. She counsels her readers in Science and Health on developing a “mental self-knowledge” that “consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin,” adding: “Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question” [11].
Eddy suggested that Jesus of Nazareth possessed an intuitive understanding of this cosmology and that his parable of the tares and the wheat, for instance, is suggestive of such a psychological sorting process. Her interpretation also recalls a distinction made in a famous passage in the Book of Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” [12].
Eddy’s idealism bears a notable resemblance to cosmologies that have arisen throughout Christian history. In his two-volume The Story of Christianity, Justo Gonzalez observes that “Christian Science was the main expression in the United States of a long religious tradition that we have repeatedly encountered in our narrative … In general, that tradition holds that the material world is either imaginary or of secondary importance” [13].
Gonzales is referring particularly to texts circulated amongst certain groups of early ‘Jesus-followers’ prior to Rome’s adoption in the 4th century of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed. A significant number of these texts were discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945, 35 years after Eddy’s death [14].
One prominent text in the collection is the Secret Revelation of John (originally discovered elsewhere in Egypt in 1896 but not translated into English until 1996), which has been noted by scholars to present a cosmology very similar to Eddy’s. The text features a perfect and good divine creation, inhabited by what the text refers to as the “perfect human,” and a counterfeit copy created by a demiurge-like being named Yaldabaoth. In a scholarly analysis of the text, Shirley Paulson summarizes:
Two distinct records of creation are documented in [Secret Revelation of John] … One (5:6–9:14) showcases the perfection and goodness of God and the entire universe, and the other, which began with Yaldabaoth’s creating of his own ruling authorities (11:5), explicates the cause of all human sin, sickness and death. But what is frequently overlooked is the fact that the second account is consistently treated as a counterfeit, or false version of the original reality of the Father-Mother-Son realm. A counterfeit is not in the same ontological category of reality as the original. [15]
Similarly, whilst Eddy discusses two creations, she only gives ontological status to one of them. In her view, only the Divine Mind actually exists. The immaterial creation of this Mind, she writes, “consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God” [16]. Mortal mind, on the other hand, presents to human consciousness counterfeit physical representations of these true ideas and hides the underlying, purely spiritual cosmos. But, in Eddy’s view, mortal mind is illusory and has no ultimate reality.
Whilst Eddy did not have access to the Nag Hammadi texts, she did nevertheless see her idealism reflected in the Genesis narrative of creation. In her exegesis on Genesis, incorporated into Science and Health, she suggests how the first chapter can be seen as an allegorical representation of the true spiritual creation, entirely “very good” and including humans made in God’s perfect image. The second chapter she saw as representative of mortal mind’s counterfeit universe, where humans are “formed of the dust of the ground” and discord is common. A “mist from the earth” separates the two.
The assertion that the physical cosmos is ultimately unreal has historically been one aspect of Eddy’s theology that critics have found most difficult to accept. Indeed, it was on a related point that William James most fundamentally disagreed with her, regarding the resulting proposition that evil is not real.
Eddy substantiated her view on this point by citing Jesus’s statement in the Gospel of John that the devil is “a liar, and the father of it,” having “no truth in him.” A similar statement attributed to Jesus was later discovered in another non-canonical early Christian text, the Gospel of Mary. After being asked “What is the sin of the world?”, Jesus responds: “There is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin” [17].
James considered the proposition that evil is unreal a “bad speculative omission,” although added that it is “intimately linked with the practical merits of the system we are examining” [18]. But despite the theological disagreement on this particular point, he was in general friendly towards the New Thought and mind-cure movement, including Christian Science. In the context of his broader interest in psychical research [19], he defended Christian Science twice in public, on one occasion writing to the Boston Transcript:
I assuredly hold no brief for any of these healers … But their facts are patent and startling; and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity. [20]
James actually visited a Christian Science healer multiple times for his heart disease, but failed to find physical relief. David Pfeifer has noted that his most common note on the experience was “great mental lift, symptoms unchanged” [21]. On the other hand, James’s brother, Robertson (Bob) James, also underwent treatments by a Christian Science healer with much more success [22]. It was perhaps partly witnessing his brother’s experience that led James to consider his own thought a barrier to healing. Donald Bellomy writes:
in the last year or so of his life James went both to a homeopathic doctor who gave him pills and electric shocks and to a Christian Science practitioner, whose inability to help him James blamed on his own mental shortcomings. “I think there is a certain impediment in the minds of people brought up as I have been which keeps the bolt from flying back and letting the door of the more absolutely grounded life open. [23]
It is the claims of physical healing for which Christian Science is most well-known, and that over the decades has stirred up the most controversy. The method of healing in Christian Science is deeply grounded in Eddy’s idealist metaphysics, and Christian Science perhaps presents the foremost case of an idealism that claims to have practical import.
Christian Science healers pray by affirming the present reality of the Divine Mind (or the ‘Divine Science’), where existence is purely spiritual and the perfect reflection of the Creator. Humans are seen in such prayers as the flawless image and likeness of a flawless creator. Physical disease is considered a product of the mortal mind, or material sense, and so has no actual reality. Eddy claimed that prayer on this basis explains the many healings performed by Jesus of Nazareth, writing that:
Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Savior saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. [24]
Critics over the decades have frequently highlighted cases where such prayer has failed to bring about curative results, sometimes with tragic consequences. And although the Christian Science church has more recently clarified that members are free to choose their preferred method of medical treatment, the 1980s in particular saw the church embroiled in number of high-profile child neglect cases.
Yet it remains the case that the successful healings that have been documented do present an intriguing empirical body of case study data to supplement existing evidence on the mind-body relationship [25]. As James notes in Varieties in relation to the ‘mind-cure’ movement more broadly:
The leaders in this faith have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes … Their belief has in a general way been corroborated by the practical experience of their disciples; and this experience forms to-day a mass imposing in amount. The blind have been made to see, the halt to walk; lifelong invalids have had their health restored. The moral fruits have been no less remarkable … [Regeneration] of character has gone on an extensive scale; and cheerfulness has been restored to countless homes. [26]
In terms of the historical documentation of such cases, perhaps most notable in the Christian Science context are two general databases: firstly, the record of healing by Eddy herself, and secondly, the over-100-year record of testimonials published in the Christian Science church’s suite of periodicals.
Beginning in 1992, an effort was made by the church to identify in its archives every reference to a healing by Eddy. Over 28,000 documents were scanned overall, including Eddy’s unpublished letters, reminiscences of her students, and accounts from others that knew her personally. This effort resulted in the collation of hundreds of accounts of healing by Eddy, ultimately filling eleven two-inch-thick (8.5 x 11) binders. In their 2009 book, Mary Baker Eddy Christian Healer—Amplified Edition, Yvonne Cache von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck draw upon these accounts to offer “the first comprehensive record of [Eddy’s] healing works” [27].
In addition to Eddy’s own healing record, for over 100 years the Christian Science church has published three regular magazines—the Christian Science Journal, Christian Science Sentinel and non-English-language Herald of Christian Science—that in each edition include multiple testimonies of healing submitted by readers. The publishers seek verification of the healing or integrity of the testifier from three acquaintances prior to publication [28].
Despite this archive, now including many thousands of experiences, there has been little methodical research into the collection. A limited content analysis was however published by a department of the church in 1989. The study sought to record and categorize the medical information contained in testimonies published in the magazines over a roughly 30-year period. The research found that this period alone included over 10,000 testimonials of physical healing, of which around 2,300 had been medically diagnosed.
To summarize, Mary Baker Eddy’s idealism perhaps offers two distinct perspectives. Firstly, and particularly of relevance for theists, her idealism provides a novel approach to handling the problem of evil. In her theology, evil resides in the counterfeit ‘mortal mind’ which, although seeming very real, is ultimately illusory. The actual reality of the Divine Mind’s entirely spiritual creation is “very good” throughout. In a short commentary on George Berkeley’s idealism in 1901, Eddy argued that Berkeley’s assertion that matter is nothing more than conscious experience in the universal mind “makes God the cause of all the ills of mortals” [29].
Secondly, Eddy presents perhaps the most prominent example of an idealist cosmology that claims to have practical implications, particularly through the physical healings that she and others may have performed based upon her teachings. Whilst to an outside observer it may not be possible to determine if such healings were the result of an unknown physiological cause, the individual’s human mind, the ‘mortal mind’ more broadly (as Eddy defines it), or a Divine Mind, the accumulated database of cases does nevertheless present a substantial additional body of evidence to inform wider discussions on the relationship between the mind and body.
References
[1] The Christian Science Publishing Society (CSPS) (1993) Tributes from the Press: Editorial Comments on the Life and Work of Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science Publishing Society, p. 17.
[2] The Christian Science Publishing Society (CSPS) (1993) Tributes from the Press: Editorial Comments on the Life and Work of Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science Publishing Society, p. 78.
[3] For scholarly accounts of Eddy’s life see Christian Scientist Robert Peel’s three-volume work Mary Baker Eddy (1971) and non-Christian Scientist feminist Gillian Gill’s 1997 biography of the same name. For an annotated bibliography of scholarly works on Christian Science see Shirley Paulson, Helen Mathis and Linda Bargmann (2021) An Annotated Bibliography of Academic and Other Literature on Christian Science, Scholarly Works on Christian Science.
[4] Sheldon, N. (2022) Radical Idealism and Empirical Metaphysics in the work of Mary Baker Eddy, Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Keele, UK, p. 171 and p. 156. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/599360266.pdf.
[5] Charles S. Braden (1963) Spirits in Rebellion; The Rise and Development of New Thought, Southern Methodist Univ Pr, pp. 129-130.
[6] William James (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience, Penguin Books Ltd, p. 94.
[7] Donald Bellomy (2014) ‘Intellectuals and mind-cure: William James, Frank Podmore, and the appeal of Christian Science at the turn of the Twentieth Century’, p. 69.
[8] Amy Vorhees (2021) A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experience in American Culture, The University of North Carolina Press, p. 132.
[9] Mary Baker Eddy (1910) Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, The Writings of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 484.
[10] Science and Health, p. 573.
[11] Science and Health, p. 462.
[12] Isaiah 55:8-9.
[13] Justo L. Gonzalez (2010) The Story of Christianity: Volume II The Reformation to the Present Day, HarperCollins, p. 346.
[14] For an overview, see the work of Karen King, Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School (https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/karen-l-king) and Elain Pagels, Professor of Religion, Emeritus at Princeton University (https://www.elaine-pagels.com/). For online courses, see Shirley Paulson’s website: https://earlychristiantexts.com/.
[15] Shirley Paulson (2017) Healing Theologies in Christian Science and Secret Revelation of John: A Critical Conversation in Practical Theology, Ph.D. in Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, UK, p. 85. Available at: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7649/1/Paulson17PhD.pdf. See also Paulson’s 2022 book: Illuminating the Secret Revelation of John: Catching the Light, Cascade Books.
[16] Science and Health, p. 503.
[17] ‘The Gospel of Mary’, in Hal Taussig (2015) A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts, First Mariner Books, p. 224.
[18] William James (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience, Penguin Books Ltd, p. 107.
[19] See Gardner Murphy and Robert Ballou (1960) William James on Psychical Research, Augustus m Kelley Pubs.
[20] Cited in Murphy and Ballou (1960), p. 10.
[21] David Pfeifer (2014) Comments made during panel discussion at the Mary Baker Eddy Library entitled ‘Varieties of Scientific Experience’. Available at: https://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/project/varieties-of-scientific-experience/.
[22] Bellomy (2014), p. 72.
[23] Bellomy (2014), p. 72.
[24] Science and Health, p. 477.
[25] See, for instance, Kelly et al (2007) Irreducible Mind: Towards a Psychology for the 21st Century, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
[26] James (1902), pp. 94-95.
[27] Yvonne Cache von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck (2009) Mary Baker Eddy Christian Healer—Amplified Edition, The Christian Science Publishing Society, p. 9.
[28] The full archive is available at jsh-online.com.
[29] Mary Baker Eddy (1901) Message to The Mother Church, Boston, Massachusetts, June 1901, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A, p. 24.
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