Read Ebook: The Church of St. Bunco A Drastic Treatment of a Copyrighted Religion-- Un-Christian Non-Science by Clark Gordon

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ror, or belief; the Truth is the cure."

It is necessary to explain, however, that Dr. Quimby found the cause of human misery "not alone in the conscious mind" and the "opinions and beliefs about disease," but in the "mental influences and thoughts by which every person is surrounded," and in the "unconscious or subconscious mind." He declared that he could tell "an idea or cause" of sickness from the sensation produced by it, "just as a person knows an orange by the odor." As he "was able to do this," says Mr. Dresser, "he always told the patient, at the first sitting, what the latter thought was his disease, and never allowed the patient to tell him anything about the case."

He labored, too, under great difficulties. Fifty years ago, the average inhabitant of New England was not quite so bigoted and superstitious, perhaps, as the Jews in the time of Christ, but quite enough so to suggest a comparison. Dr. Quimby was not orthodox in his theology, and was still less orthodox in medicine. As Mr. Dresser records the situation,

" who were then willing to try a practitioner outside of the medical schools, were persons who had exhausted every means of help within those schools, and, when finally booked for the grave, would send or go to Quimby."

In the way of a "grim joke," the Doctor himself said that his patients "would send for him and the undertaker at the same time, and the one who got there first would get the case." And the worst of it all was that his power, when acknowledged, was frequently "imputed to the devil." Still, he had more work than he could do--so much that it wore him completely out, and finally ended his life at the age of sixty-four. In his busiest days, he said:

"I have sat with more than three hundred individuals every year for ten years, and for the last five years I have averaged five hundred yearly--people with all sorts of diseases, and every possible state of mind, brought on by all kinds of ideas in which people believe. Religion in its various forms embraces many of these causes. Some cases have been occasioned by the idea that had committed the unpardonable sin. When asked what it was, no two persons ever answered alike."

There is no doubt that Dr. Quimby's patients were generally cured, unless he told them at once that they were past his or any other mortal aid. "He saw through them at a glance," as all who knew him agree in testifying. To deceive him was impossible. For instance: A lady who scouted his special vision, and was in good health, went to him feigning illness, and for the purpose of a test. "He received her, as he would any one, and, after a few moments, without a word having been spoken, took his chair, and, placing it before her, sat down with his back to her, saying: 'That is the way you feel toward me. I think you don't need my services, and had better go home.'" A patient and friend--an eye-witness of unquestionable veracity--says:

"People were coming to Dr. Quimby from all parts of New England. Many of these came on crutches, or were assisted into the office; and it was most interesting to note their progress day by day, or the remarkable change produced by a single sitting.... I remember one lady who had used crutches for twenty years, who walked without them after a few weeks."

There is now living in Boston a gentleman who happens to be personally known to the present writer. The gentleman is a college graduate of high culture, of large experience, and with the rest, is an author of distinction. When a young man he had a serious affliction of the eyes, which gradually increased until he was threatened with blindness. He was a man of means, and no expense was spared to secure the best medical treatment. It was unavailing. He heard of Dr. Quimby, and, as the usual "last resort," applied to him. "He cured me," says the gentleman, "and I have had no trouble since. But how he did it I don't know. He sat and talked with me, and sometimes touched my head and face with his hands, moistened with cold water, though declaring even this to be of no vital consequence. He cured other people of all sorts of things, as easily as he cured me. Here I am with two good eyes, and you have the facts."

The ultimate value of "The New Thought," or "Mental and Moral Healing," is yet a problem; but that P. P. Quimby was the spring and fountain of the whole stream, with its various branches, is beyond all reputable dispute. It rests on these grounds:

DR. QUIMBY'S MOST DISTINGUISHED PATIENT.

"P. P. Quimby stands upon the plain of wisdom with his truth. Christ healed the sick, but not by jugglery or with drugs. As the former speaks as never man before spake, and heals as never man healed since Christ, is he not identified with truth, and is not this the Christ which is in him?... P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection.... But light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not."

LYNN, February 15, 1866.

MR. DRESSER:

"Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and struck my back on the ice and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby.

"Respectfully, "MARY M. PATTERSON."

"Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night, All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes, When Truth, receding from our mortal sight, Had paid to error her last sacrifice?

"Can we forget the power that gave us life? Shall we forget the wisdom of its way? Then ask me not amid this mortal strife-- This keenest pang of animated clay--

"To mourn him less: to mourn him more were just, If to his memory 'twere a tribute given For every solemn, sacred, earnest trust Delivered to us ere he rose to heaven--

"Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul, Growing in stature to the throne of God. Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, Seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod." MARY M. PATTERSON.

"In 1862 my name was Patterson, my husband, Dr. Patterson, a distinguished dentist. After our marriage I was confined to my bed with a severe illness, and seldom left bed or room for seven years, when I was taken to Dr. Quimby and partially restored. I returned home, hoping once more to make that home happy, but only returned to a new agony to find that my husband had eloped with a married woman from one of the wealthy families of that city, leaving no trace save his last letter to us, wherein he wrote: 'I hope some time to be worthy of so good a wife.' I have a bill of divorce from him...."

"We never were a student of Dr. Quimby. Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowledge. He was somewhat of a remarkable healer, and at the time we knew him he was known as a mesmerist. We were one of his patients."

What an astonishing look these statements by Mrs. Eddy in 1883 have, when compared with the statements of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson from 1862 to 1866. Let us see.--

"At the time we knew him , he was known as a mesmerist."

"Dr. Quimby healed with the truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms."

On March 7th, 1883, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy made, in the Boston Post.

"We had laid the foundation of mental healing long before we ever saw Dr. Quimby.... We made our first experiments in mental healing about 1853, when we were convinced that mind had a science which, if understood, would heal all diseases."

"P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection."

This little thing was a calm statement of facts, proved as they were given. From the facts, Dr. Quimby's theory was drawn, and Mr. Dresser frankly recounted what the general reader would consider Dr. Quimby's foibles and prejudices, as well as his doctrines and gifts. The pamphlet contained Mrs. Mary M. Patterson's opinion of Dr. Quimby in 1862, and her poem of 1866. It agreed with what was then the substance of her own assertions, by summarizing Dr. Quimby "as the first person of this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and openly apply it to the healing of the sick."

But, in criticising Mr. Dresser's quiet monograph, the amiable "Mother of Christian Science," proclaimed that Mr. Dresser had "let loose the dogs of war."; had unleashed a "pet poodle," alternately "to bark and whine" at her "heels"; and she identified the "pet poodle" with a certain "sucking litterateur," who had renounced allegiance to her. But when her preliminary high-tide had ebbed a little, her pen dropped this:

"Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser's pamphlet, purporting to be mine? I might have written them, twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his death, in 1865. He was illiterate, and knew nothing then of the science of Mind-healing; and I was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she was tempted by the serpent."

Those Patterson-Eddy "articles," then--no possible mendacity being adequate to their extinction--have been grudgingly and angrily admitted by their author to be genuine. But she would ignore them on the ground of "mesmerism." Her "head," she says, "was so turned by Animal Magnetism and will power" under Dr. Quimby's treatment, that she "might have written something as hopelessly incorrect" as the articles referred to.

Mrs. Patterson continued her letter by saying what has already been quoted in full--that Dr. Quimby cured her by "a great principle" of "science," through which he established "the truth" in "the patient"--a truth which he opposed to the error of giving intelligence to matter, and placing pain where it never placed itself.

In Mrs. Eddy's magazine article of June, 1887, she went so far as to say of Dr. Quimby,

Mrs. Eddy's reversal of herself has been so agile and exhaustive since her comparisons of Dr. Quimby with our Lord Jesus Christ, that she has latterly preferred to speak of the good old doctor, who taught and healed her, as "unlearned"--a "mesmerist" who cured a patient by "rubbing" her--an "illiterate" man who said that he was only "John" while she was "Jesus," and whose "scribblings" she, to a considerable extent, wrote herself. From all this it must be adduced that Mrs. Eddy, in her Patterson days, went to Dr. Quimby to be cured of disease, but taught him to do it.

"When our Shakespeare decided that there were more things in this world 'than were dreamed of in your philosophy,' I cannot say of a verity that he had a foreknowledge of P. P. Quimby. And when the school Platonic anatomized the soul and divided it into halves, to be united by elementary attractions, and heathen philosophers averred that old Chaos in sullen silence brooded o'er the earth until her inimitable form was hatched from the egg of night, I would not at present decide whether the fallacy was found in their premises or conclusions, never having dated my existence before the flood."

A few years ago, the eldest of Dr. Quimby's two devoted friends, the Ware sisters, passed away. With the younger sister she left the following statement, in the form of an affidavit, which is here printed with permission:

"I, Emma G. Ware, of Portland, Maine, in the United States of America, do hereby declare that I knew personally the late Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and that I and my sister, Mrs. Mackay , were his patients while he resided in Portland, between the years 1859 and 1865, and that we both owe our restored health to his treatment or mode of teaching. I have learned that attempts are being made to deprive him of the credit of being the first to introduce the method of healing through the mind , and I make this declaration out of regard to him, in order that the credit to which he is entitled may not, without protest, be assumed by others. I know that while Mr. Quimby resided in Portland he wrote out his ideas on Mental Science: he was not a scholarly man, and on that account copies of his writings were made by my sister, myself, and by Mr. Quimby's son, George A. Quimby. These copies were read over to Mr. Quimby, and such corrections made as he thought fit. They are now in the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby, who resides in Belfast, Maine, and my sister and I have also copies of a number of them. Beyond these, there are no other copies of his writings, if I except a few fugitive pieces which he gave away while he resided in Portland. The mode of reasoning pursued by Mr. Quimby is not new, but its application to disease as a remedy has not, so far as I am aware, been previously made in modern times. His teaching may be thus summarized: that all diseases, whether mental or physical, are caused by an error in reasoning, and that correcting the error will remove the cause, and restore the sufferer to health."

A GREAT "METAPHYSICAL" NOVEL.

As shown by our last chapter, Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, whatever divine attributes may have perched upon her, has been endowed with some very human qualities. But in one gift she has been strangely lacking--a good memory. For, in spite of her association with Dr. P. P. Quimby, his renovation of her broken system, and all the mellifluous prose and poetry she devoted to him in his day, the fruitful "mother," "discoverer," and "founder" of "Christian Science," when she came to set up her new religion, entirely forgot that her old friend, Quimby, was the real suggestion of her whole Shekinah. She not only failed to mention the fact, but she has been so miraculously forgetful, ever since, as to repudiate her own record of it, and to attempt the obliteration of it from sacred and profane history.

Still, in these days of "Spiritual manifestations," the numerous believers in messages from "the summer land" would account, in a quite simple way, for the voices calling little Hebrew Samuel and little New-England Mary. But not so Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. "Am I a believer in Spiritualism?" she asks. "I believe in no ism.... As I understand it Spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science."

In 1878 Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was called to preach at the Baptist Tabernacle of Boston. The congregation increased beyond the capacity of the pews, and it was no uncommon occurrence for the sick to be healed by her sermons. Cancers were cured, and "many pale cripples went into the church, leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on their shoulders." Mrs. Eddy says so.

It is not well to wear mourning too long. In the spring of 1866 it must have occurred to Mrs. Eddy that weeds of poetry would not pay, and she hustled them off. Dr. Quimby having gone "to heaven" and slipped out of a decayed memory, his obituary poetess just then realized that she had spent "twenty years" in tracing "physical effects to a mental cause." Then came the "scientific certainty" that "all causation" is "Mind," and that "every effect is a mental phenomenon."

What "Christian Scientists" mean by "scientific certainty" is proof by "healing." Take the revered principle of cosmogony that "the moon is made of green cheese." If one who holds the doctrine, "heals" anybody, the proposition is "demonstrated." Mrs. Eddy's "scientific works" are all filled with this unanswerable logic. "Mortal Mind"--a thing which she utterly reprobates--may find difficulty in accepting the conclusion; but it is doubtless quite as well founded as most of the "healing" itself.

Of the genuine original "Christian Science"--the sole and undivided "discovery" of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy--she says:

Dr. Quimby never thought of pushing his thought and work under the special name of "Christian Science," though his writings show that he used the term.

If Mrs. Eddy had ever read a history of philosophy before she instituted a religion, she would have found that Spinoza honored her advent, some two hundred years in advance of it, by postulating "Substance" as the "Soul" of things. Incidentally, too, he postulated "matter" as an "unreality of sense," and thus, in a way, as "error" and "shadow"--the product of "mortal mind." Dr. Quimby said, with the utmost possible distinctness, "I believe matter to be nothing but an idea belonging to the senses"; and it will be found, when his writings get published, that he said the same thing in some hundreds of different ways. But all this was known to the thought of India, even before books were written, and the original authorities for it had then been lost.

A SOFT SET OF CRITICS.

The book, as we have seen, came among men--or, more strictly speaking, among less busy women--in 1875; and a thousand copies, we are told, comprised the first edition. "The critics," Mrs. Eddy informs us, pronounced it "wholly original," but a thing that would "never be read."

Now if any "critics" ever did really shoot such soft intellectual putty as that, they ought certainly to have been condemned to the most heroic sort of mind-healing.

Think of George Berkeley, the most acute, the most logical mind of his age, standing with both feet on John Locke's "Essay of the Human Understanding," and attempting to pull himself up into the Infinite by mouthing the shibboleth that there is no finite!

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