The Quimby Manuscripts - Summary and Appendix



EDITOR'S SUMMARY

It is noticeable that Dr. Quimby holds very steadily to a few great ideas,
those that yield a vision of the spiritual life in contrast with worldly
matters. Thus we find him contrasting Science with opinion, the spiritual
with the natural man, and the spiritual senses with bodily sensibility. He
dwells without limit upon the superstitions to which the race has been
subjected by priests and the bondages which are traceable to medical
opinion. With endless repetition he classifies disease as an "error of
mind" or "invention of man," showing how sensations or pains of minor
import have been misinterpreted so as to generate such maladies as cancer
and consumption. He is always tracing a patient's trouble to the
particular beliefs, religious, social, medical, which have been accepted
in place of realities. Thus his main interest seems to be to disclose the
power of adverse suggestion, fear, error, ill-founded belief. His thought
therefore seems to lack scope. He seldom takes his readers into the larger
world of social problems. He draws few illustrations from history. Even
when describing the inner life he passes by such subjects as poise,
composure, serenity, spontaneity, and interior self-control; he does not
analyze faith, inward guidance or receptivity.

Yet amidst this apparent narrowness he emphasizes certain characteristics
which he believes to be universally verifiable, and it is for the reader
to see their scope. Having learned, for example, the power of words or
names, when associated with painful sensations and supported by medical
authority, he passes to a study of the nature and origin of language; and
in lengthy articles which we have not had space for he contrasts truth and
error so as to show the difference between language as a human invention
and that tongue which the spirit speaks, "the language of sympathy"
understood by those who know the meaning of the "still, small voice."
Having seen that the sick are slaves to those who pretend to heal them, he
turns to African slavery and discourses at length on the Civil War, then
in full progress, taking Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as types of men
prominent in the struggle. So too he writes at length concerning
aristocracy and de­mocracy, and discovers in all human society the same
typical forces which he finds in the inner life. Again, his knowl­edge of
the inner life leads- him to write on government, the standard of law, the
origin f political parties, and the nature of patriotism. History is to
him an enlargement of the conflict taking place within. Society becomes
intelligible when we understand the forces operating upon man.

There are but few references to nature as the subject of study of the
special sciences, although chemistry and mechanics sometimes figure by way
of illustration. Physical substances are usually referred to from the
point of view of the effects which people produce upon themselves through
ad­verse suggestion, as in the case of medicines and poisons, or food
associated with trouble-making opinion. But this is for the sake of
acquainting man with the fact, never adequately recognized till Quimby's
time, that because of the dominance of beliefs man is often more
influenced by suggestion than by the actual qualities of foods, drugs and
poisons. Quimby aims to show that through acceptance of prevalent beliefs
man often lives in realms of shadows, subject to his own fancies,
literally creating what he believes in. Before we can see things as they
are, as God meant them to be, we must learn what it is we think we see.
The natural world is beset by appearances. The natural man knows nothing
as he ought to know. What we need is a wholly different point of view.
Then, in possession of true Science, we should be able to found the
special sciences on Divine wisdom. Matter is a term which Quimby uses in
so many ways that some of his statements are scarcely intelligible. Matter
is what appears before us in the physical world, without intelligence,
inanimate; it can be condensed into a solid by mind-action, undergoes
changes as the result of mental changes and responses in "the fluids" of
the system ; it is the natural man's mind, the stuff which ideas are made
of, "an idea used like language to convey some wisdom to another," "the
shadow of our wisdom," in which are all our beliefs, opinions, emotions;
and so as "spiritual matter" or substance it is "an idea seen or not, just
as it is called out," and is compared to a belief or casket. "Matter which
is seen is the condensation of the matter not seen, and the unseen matter
is mind." "God, not being matter, has matter only as an idea." "God is not
matter, and matter is only an idea that fills no space in Wisdom."

What is meant by this apparent confusion is that we should disengage our
thought from matter altogether at times, in order to look upon life with
the spiritual eye. If by the term "mind" you mean a vague, airy something
without influence on the body, then Quimby shows that it is indeed
substantial, that thoughts are things which take shape or condense and
come forth in bodily manifestation. If by the word "spirit" you mean
anything as indefinite as spiritists believe in, he points out that spirit
too is substantial, is alive, not "dead." But when you realize what he
means by "substance" your thought has travelled far from material things
to the thought of God, in whom is no matter at all, who manifests Himself
through matter as a mere vehicle or language. "There is no such thing as
reality with God except Himself. He is all Wisdom and nothing else." "All
will admit that God is not matter, for God sees all things. His sight
penetrates the darkest places, and not a thing can be hidden from His
sight." You must see the true Sub­stance or "invisible Wisdom that can
never be seen by the eye of opinion" before you can look forth upon the
panorama of the world, beholding forms taking shape, coming and going at
the behest of spiritual powers.

The mind is the medium in which ideas are sown. Ideas, as distinct from
one another as different kinds of seeds, grow like seeds, take to
themselves character, and become known by their fruits. When the mind is
disturbed, the disturbance is shown in the body as a result of sub-
conscious processes and "chemical changes." Mind in relation to body is
"spiritual matter" because it can be changed, is excited through fears, is
always in process even when we sleep, is not intelligence but subject to
it, and because it receives thought-seeds as the earth receives plant-
seeds.

Sensation contains no intelligence in itself, but is a mere disturbance of
the spiritual matter called "agitation," ready to respond to any direction
given it by our suggestion. So pain is "in the mind," not in the hip, for
example, not in any organ. It contains no intelligence, but might be
wisely interpreted. Disease is due to the misconstruing of sensation or
pain, it is due to a wrong direction of mind. Hence it is not an evil but
an "error." It is not inflicted on us by God God created man to be well,
happy, free. The reflection or shadow' on the body is what the doctors
call disease. Our senses or life become imprisoned in the false direction
of mind, as a result of "false reasoning." Dr. Quimby says that he sees
both the reflection on the body, the symptoms diag­nosed, and the original
which casts the shadow, that is, the inward disturbance which might have
been wisely interpreted. To cure disease is to (1) see its mental causes,
(2) understand the false directions of mind or reasonings, (3) see the
truth concerning health as a Divine ideal, (4) realize the great truth
that the spirit is not sick; hence (5) to separate the true or
"scientific" man from the man of opinion or error. This means undoing the
"false reasoning" and learning what would have been the right
interpretation of the first sensation or pain.

The senses give us a "knowledge of sensation, with or with­out Science."
They have their spiritual counterparts, the true or "real" senses, not in
and of matter. These are "light," "life," and are "in light," in contrast
with the wis­dom of this world (in darkness). The true senses constitute
the real man or, spirit, the child of God. They are larger than the
natural man or body. Hence they are not "in" the body. They include our
higher consciousness, clairvoyance or intuition, with the inner
impressions coming to us independently of the brain. Thus we have
discernment of objects at a distance, we behold spiritual events,
conditions, states; we detect "odors" or mental atmospheres at a distance.
Through these senses we have immediate access to Divine wisdom and love.
They include the feminine side of our nature, the receptivity or higher
love. In brief, they yield Science or "the Christ within." Through this
priceless possession man is able to make Divine wisdom manifest in
spiritual healing.

Science or Truth is fundamental knowledge of this our real nature, with
its inner states and possibilities. It is light in contrast with the
wisdom of the world. It is harmony in contrast with disease or discord. It
corrects all errors, holds no doubts, proves all things, explains causes
and effects. It is Divine wisdom "reduced to self-evident propositions."
It is the basis of all special branches of knowledge­ when those other
sciences are rightly founded. It is Christ, the wisdom of Jesus. It is in
all, accessible to all. We all become parts of it in so far as we discern
real truth. In fact, Quimby often says the real man "is" Science. In
contrast with it, the body is only a "tenement for man to occupy when he
pleases."

Jesus was the man who brought the true light or Christ to light. Christ
was His religion, the God in Him. It is the sympathy "which annihilates
space." It separates Truth from error, Wisdom from opinion. "Christ is
that unseen principle in man of which he is conscious, but which be has
never considered as intelligence." It is in reality the basis of all true
intelligence. It is Wisdom reduced to practice so that it is made tangible
or visible in the concrete things of life. More than that, it is the real
man in us all, the spiritual self or ego. To be a disciple of Jesus is not
only to realize the Christ within as an individual possession, but to put
this wisdom into practice in daily life. The New Testament, rightly
understood, is the great book o f life. We might read the Bible, as indeed
we might read the human heart, if we began with the Christ, if we had
overcome bond­age to the wisdom of the world. To overcome this servitude
is to become spiritually free.

God is an eternal and everlasting Essence without matter or visible form.
'This eternal Wisdom spoke the idea "matter" into existence and everything
else that man calls life. The original language was not then the invention
of man but was God, sympathy, going forth into expression in the human
heart and the world. Man invented language to some extent, but because he
had lost the original and was not content to live by Divine guidance: he
invented language to "explain his own wisdom." But language might be used
to undeceive. Even now the language of sympathy is the language of the
sick. What we need is intuition to read that language, according to Divine
guidance. Quimby is a great believer in the guidance of the moment, the
inward light which shows where a patient stands, what the needs are, what
wisdom is needed to clear away the errors. He emphasizes guidance as
wisdom, rather than "power." He claims no special "power" and maintains
that any one can learn to read the original language.

This language discloses man's true identity or inner con­sciousness. Man,
to be sure, has as many identities as he has directions of mind. But these
are transitory. We "attach our senses" to that which we take to be real
for the time being, we are imprisoned in certain directions of mind
through our "false constructions" or errors. The great point is to observe
the central contrast within the self, between (1) the mind of opinions,
man's natural mind, subject to suggestion, changeable like plastic
substance, amenable to falsities, "the mind of the flesh;" and, (2) the
mind of the scientific man, accessible to Divine truth, possessing an
intelli­gence which does not change, "the Christ within." There is need of
the most clear-cut distinction between the two. Divine truth can
accomplish great results in us, far more than the mere "power of thought."
A fundamental change can be wrought by making this incisive distinction,
through intuition or "clairvoyance," by direct openness to Divine wisdom.
Then error or darkness will be dispelled.

Again, there is a great contrast between the natural and spiritual worlds.
For the moment, in some of Quimby's critiques on religion, the "other
world" seems to have dis­appeared, and there is apparently nothing left
but a collection of beliefs. But this is because Quimby is chiefly
concerned with man's religious belief in a supposed other world as a place
of punishment or mere beatitude; because he is convinced that Jesus did
not refer to the same sort of "world" which the Jews believed in. Man must
first see that his theological heaven or hell is an artifical region
created for him by his religious creed, peopled by his own fancies or made
vivid by his own fears. The two worlds thus far are in man's mind and
nowhere else. Jesus came to destroy both the world of opinion and the
"other world" of theology, that He might reveal the Christ within. But
once aware that our "other world" is non-existent, we are ready for the
profound truth that all phenomena appearing in the natural world are
manifestations of the spiritual world, or world of causes. To attain this
vision is no small accomplishment, for it means total victory over all
conventional ideas of death, with all its terrors, its supposed
decisiveness for salvation and everything else which theology has
invented.

The Bible, strange as it may seem, "has nothing to do with theology." It
is a scientific explanation of cause and effect, showing how man must act
and think for his happiness. It is a study of contrasted elements, such as
Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Moses and Aaron, Saul and Paul, Law and
Gospel, tares and wheat. It was never intended as a religious book
according to the opinion of the world. As a book it "contains no
intelligence of itself," but Intelligence is in it. That is to say, it
contains what Swedenborg called "the Word." Had Quimby been acquainted
with Swedenborg's "Arcana Coelestia," he would have found a completely
worked out science of spiritual correspondences which he would have been
inclined to accept at once in principle, although his teachings concerning
Jesus are not those of Swedenborg concerning the Lord. His writings
contain long articles based on his endeavors to interpret the Scriptures
spiritually to his patients. Further than that his exegesis did not go.
But he went far enough to set the example followed by Christian Scientists
and New-Thought devotees to the present time. He had at least the ideal of
a spiritual Science which should be its own evidence, which any one might
verify by seeking out the Word.

Religion in the true sense was to Quimby a Science which can be applied
for the happiness and health of man here and now. To be religious is to be
"more than the natural man." It yields that wisdom which can say to the
sick and palsied man, Stretch forth thine hand, and I will apply the
Christ or Science and restore it. Naturally enough Quimby is not
interested in the question of sin, and he hardly ever uses the word
"evil." For him it is all a question of ignorance or error. There is
neither ignorance nor error in Science, hence no sin or evil. The problem
of evil differs in no way from that of disease. Therefore Quimby says
nothing about repentance and regeneration. Man already is good in reality.
He is Science. He becomes "a part of God" by accepting Divine wisdom as
his guide. Quimby does not mean this in the sense of pantheistic
submergence of individuality, but in the sense of intimate relationship
with that "invisible Wisdom which never can be seen by the eye of
opinion."

If, however, Quimby's spiritual exegesis might have been fulfilled in
Swedenborg's science of correspondences, we find nothing in his writings
pertaining to the realms of evil spirits and angels, and nothing that
tells us what for him was the content of the spiritual world. He is not at
all interested in psychical experiences except so far as they imply belief
in the spiritism of the day, and he opposes this because be finds it
fundamentally misleading. He does not raise the question whether there is
anything real behind the phenomena, for his interest is to direct
attention to the world of Science or "the Christ within." He is
clairvoyant in high degree, but not as "mediums" are, not through self-
surrender, but through openness to Divine guidance and intuition.

In one of his critiques of spiritualism, for example, Quimby puts to the
typical spiritist the direct questions: "When I speak is it I or my
spirit? If it is I, do I think also, and if I think when do I cease
thinking? If I lose my organs of speech, etc. belonging to the body, where
am I? Am I any­thing? If I am a spirit, when was I not one? How came I to
be flesh and blood and then a spirit? I am either a spirit all the time or
I am not, and if I am one what is the change called death, and what dies?"
He goes on to say that if the spirit is not "dead" it cannot. give an
account of what is supposed to have happened, and if it does not "die"
there is apparently no way to account for communications purporting to
come from the "dead."

He protests, therefore, against the whole notion that the spirit is the
mere thing a seance would make it out to be. Our real existence or
selfhood does not change. True mem­ory persists, for it is eternal, while
memory attached to this existence "belongs to the idea, matter." Our real
life is composed of light and wisdom, while matter is employed to work out
our problems. We are spirits now even while in the flesh. In the spirit we
do our real thinking, real living. Hence our real "future life" will have
continuity with this life according to the persistence of our most
interior identity.

To realize what the spirit is now we should lift our thoughts into
spiritual light, bringing together the various items of inner experience
to make vivid our conception of the self with all its real or spiritual
senses. We do not need to "die" to apprehend these apart from matter, for
there never was any matter in them. They are from God or Wisdom. They are
what give us visions of objects at a distance, disclosing the inner states
of the sick, acquainting us with interior thoughts, revealing "odors" or
atmospheres, in short, the whole sphere of the inner life.

A mesmeriser or spiritist medium has, in Quimby's description, but one
identity; while he, Quimby, when clairvoyant has two. To have but one is
to yield one's selfhood to a mysterious power or "spirit" without
awareness of what is taking place. But if one has learned, as Quimby knew
from long experience, that the real identity, self or spirit possesses
these inner powers as a completely equipped being of intelligence, made in
the Divine image and likeness, endowed with Divine wisdom as guidance,
then one also has a secondary consciousness or identity which is aware of
what is going on in the natural world and in man's natural mind.

So acute was Quimby's own intuition that in two of his descriptive
articles he tells what he saw as if beholding reality itself, when sitting
by patients who thought they were dying, and who visualized death by
peopling the supposed future world according to their own belief. So vivid
was his experience in one instance that he refers to evil spirits almost
as if he were afraid of them, though speaking of them as mere creations in
the world of opinion. That is, he saw the alleged future life with the
eyes of his patient, knew that it was an alleged world simply, and that
tho patient's real world was still an unknown quantity to the patient
himself. So he was in the habit of entering the thought-world of all his
patients, to see how the situation appeared to the patient. He was able to
do this with remarkable sympathy. But thereupon he would make the sharpest
sort of distinction between this world of seeming reality and the true
spiritual world of the Divine wisdom. A spiritist's world may be as full
of error as a theologian's future state. Each world sends off its
"atmosphere" which the intuitive can discern. We are not free until we
make the same discrimination, noting the difference between the world we
have been taught to create through error or belief and the world we might
know through the inner disclosures of Wisdom.

The spirits most of us believe in are the shadows of our own imagination
as surely as the ghosts supposed to haunt graveyards at night. Man should
know that he lives in the world of his beliefs. "The whole error on which
spiritualism is based is a belief in a world separate and apart from the
living." We should learn that "belief separates, Wisdom unites." We should
begin by learning„ therefore, what the true basis of union is even here
and now while we live with the flesh, when we communicate with the living.
For the real world of the living is the same for all, whereas the world of
mere belief is purely relative. Not until we have begun to grow in first-
hand acquaintance with spiritual truth, not until we enter the world of
Science do we know the one true spiritual world which exists for all. We
might go on gener­ating phenomena to the end of time, each in his
particular world of Protestantism or Catholicism, Mormonism,
rein­carnationism and the like, and never arrive anywhere. The only way to
arrive is to put a stop to the whole procedure, right about face and ask
ourselves what we actually know, what the facts are, what that truth is
which can be demonstrated like mathematics.

Dr. Quimby's great conviction is that there is a spiritual Science,
superior even to the most exact of the natural sciences, which is the
basis of all true knowledge and the source of all true wisdom. He is
willing to be misunderstood, charged with putting down religion, making
himself equal to Christ, classified as a mere mesmerist or in any other
way if only he can make it clear that there is a straight pathway to this
Science. So he frequently speaks of himself as a lawyer pleading the case
of the sick in "the court of Science." In some of his longest articles he
introduces the patient first, questioning her to show how little the
patient really knows, then he summons the typical doctor, afterwards a
typical minister, till the whole case is perfectly clear so far as the
wisdom of the world is concerned. He speaks with entire fearlessness when
exposing hypocrisy and sordidness. He proves that the sufferer has been
victimized. Then when error has not a vestige of reality to stand upon he
bespeaks "the Christ within" as manifesting real justice, true health and
freedom.

It is impressively significant that Quimby never judges a case by
affirming abstract perfection. The patient would not be free if he did not
understand his own case, its causes and illusions. The doctor's verdict or
the minister's diagnosis in terms of sin is as real to the victim as a
spiritist's world to a believer in spiritism or the political world to a
demagogue. We are all victims of some sort of demagogue, and must know
this for a fact. Why then should we deny what we must understand in order
to overcome our servitude? The patient realizes that he is entering an
entirely new world when he finds his great healer so sympathetic that the
healer puts himself absolutely in the patient's place, taking upon himself
the burdens which doctors and priests have created. This wins the
patient's confidence. Then he is astonished to find that the whole burden
dissipates when the power of Quimby's Science is brought upon it.

This is the picture Quimby would have us bear away with our study of his
writings. God or Wisdom is so very real that external forms are mere
semblances put on to objectify His truth. We are not to think of the
universe as the home of matter, as that in which God dwells; instead all
things are in God as intimately as ideas are in the mind, all things are
meant for good, all things are guided by Wisdom. This Wisdom is in us, we
live in this Wisdom, and when we identify ourselves with His image and
likeness the new birth will begin, we shall begin in very truth to live
and think from Him. This Life within us will accomplish the work, as
shadows disappear before the morning sun. This Wisdom will create the same
true world in us all.



APPENDIX

LIST OF ARTICLES BY DR. P. P. QUIMBY

1859.

OCT.: What is Disease? Mind is Spiritual Matter; How Does the Mind Produce
Disease? Nov.: Mind is not Intelligence; Is Disease a Belief? Dec.: What
is Disease? Love, I; Love, II; My Belief; Truth and Error; Two Sciences;
Obstacles in Establishing a New Science; A Communication (William).

1860.

Jan.: Am I a Spiritualist? Clairvoyance; Your Position in Regard to the
World; What is My Theory? How Dr. Quimby Cures; Christ and Truth;
Difference between My Belief and Others; True and False Christs; What
Lives After Death? Your True Position Towards Truth and Error; My
Religion. Feb.: Happiness. March: Letter to Mrs. W. of Wayne; To a Patient
Recently Helped; Prayer, I; Prayer, II; How I Hold my Patients;
Illustration of How I Cure the Sick; Do Persons Really Believe in What
They Think They Do? Jesus and Christ? Wrong Use of Words (Weight). April:
Harmony, I; Harmony, II; Differences of Opinion About the Dead;
Resurrection; Jesus, The Real Object of His Mission; Another World. May:
Controversy About the Dead; Life (Senses); Matter and Life; Breathing, I;
Breathing, II; Science; Effect or Religious Opinions on Health; Religion
and Science. June: Consumption (Breathing); Odors; What is Religion? July:
Love; Science; One Character of God; Taking a Disease (Consumption,
Breathing). Aug.: My Use of the Word Mind; The Senses; Science in the
Bible; The Parables of Jesus; Why are Females more Sickly than Males? What
the Parables Taught; Did St. Paul Teach Another World? What is the
Relation of God to Man? Matter is Life; Answer to an Article in the New
York Ledger; Revelation; Parable. Sept.: Right and Wrong; Letter to a
Young Physician; Letter Regarding a Patient. Oct.: God; Letter to a
Gentleman; Letter to a Clergyman; Advertisements (Hair Restorative) :
Disease (Insanity) ; Language (Murdering the King's English). Nov.: Mrs.
C.; Character; The Natural Man, I; The Natural Man, II; Symptoms of a
Patient, I; Symptoms of a Patient, II. Dec.: Substance and Shadow (The
Senses).

1861

Jan.: The Senses; Doctor and Patient (Dialogue). Feb.: Mind. March: Death,
I; Death, II; Spiritualism; Where do I Differ from a Spiritualist and
Others? Dr. Quimby as Reformer: How he Cures; How Dr. Quimby Cures;
Spiritualism (Death of the Natural Man); Difference from Spiritualists
(Continued) ; A Prophecy Concerning the Nation, I. April: Man and Society;
How Disease is Made; Letter to a Patient; Government; A Prophecy
Concerning the Nation, II. May: Letter to a Patient; The Standard of Law;
What I call my Cures. June: Opposing Doctors and Priests; What is Disease:
(Disease, Love, Courage). July: Mind and Matter. Aug.: What is Disease?
How Brought About and Cured? The Christian's God; Language (Parable) ;
What is God? (Six Parts) ; Is There Another World Beyond This? Origin of
Political Parties; Patriotism, I; Patriotism, II; Popular Definition of
the Word Mind; Cancer; Proverbs; Vaccination; True Wisdom. Sept.: What is
a Clairvoyant Person? Conflicting Elements in Man (To the Sick) ; Identity
of God or Wisdom (Ignorance of Man in Regard to the True God) ; Man; Life;
Exposition of I Corinthians, VIII, 1-3; To the Old Whigs. Oct.: Life and
Death; Belief of Man; To those Seeking the Truth; About a Patient
(Exposition of Dr. Quimby's Method) ; Introduction (Dr. Quimby vs.
Spiritualism) ; Introduction (How Dr. Quimby Treats Disease). Nov.: Truth
Based on Wisdom (Re­ligion Analyzed) ; Strength. Dec.: The First Symptoms
of Disease: Sickness an Effect of Belief in Disease; Popular Belief of
Curing Disease; Where do I differ from Others in Curing? About a Patient.

1862.

Jan.: Disease Traced to the Early Ages; How does Dr. Quimby Stand Toward
his Patients? Where do I Differ from a Spirit­ualist? The Natural Man;
Death. Feb.: What is a Belief The Subject of Mind; Disease (Caspar
Hauser). Questions and Answers [Chap. XIII]. March: Prayer for the Sick;
Two Brothers; Mind: Not Wisdom; My Position as a Man and as a Doctor; Why
do I not Cure All Alike? Christian Explanation of the Bible. April:
Religion for the Well and for the Sick; Foundations of Religious Beliefs;
True and False Science; Clairvoyance (A Detective in Disease) ; Do I Know
How I Cure? Sight, Substance and Shadow; Does Imagination Cure Disease?
Music; The Two Trinities. May: The Two Worlds; Bad Belief Worse than None;
What is Spiritualism? What is a Spirit? June: Proof that a Person can be
in Two places at the Same Time and be Aware of the Fact; Unconscious
Effect of Persons on Each Other. July: What is Human Life? Aug.: The
Phenomena of Spiritualism; What is Man? Sept.: Spiritual Communication
between the Living and the Dead; Are We Governed by our Belief? Curing
Children and Fools through the Mind; Conversation with Patients;
Communications from the Dead (Physical Demonstrations) ; Outlines of My
Theory; The White Man and the Negro Race; Science: Error; Opinions:
Wisdom; Spiritualism and Mesmerism (To the Editor) ; Difference on
Philosophy of Mind. Oct.: Experience of a Patient with Dr. Quimby; Works:
the Fruit of our Belief; Is there any Curative Quality in Medicine? The
Religion of Jesus: A Belief or a Truth? The Relation of this Truth to the
Sick; Introduction (Words) ; Concerning the Dying; Life: Its Application.
Nov.: Happiness and Misery; Mind; Resurrection; My Ignorance of the
English Language; Difficulty in Introducing My Ideas to the World. Dec.:
Language: Its Application; Do Words Contain Wisdom? Man Outside of His
Body; The Language of Truth; What has my Writing and Talking to do with
Curing? What calls out my Arguments?

1863.

Jan. May: The Body of Jesus and The Body of Christ: The Kingdom of Heaven;
My Conversion to Health; The Issue of the Rebellion; The Poor vs. the
Rich; Assassination of Lincoln; The Explanation, I; The Explanation, II;
Defence Against an Accusation of Putting down Religion; What is Death?
Disease and Sickness; Man a Progressive Organization (Elements of
Progress) ; My Mode of Treating Disease; Mind; Nothing, Something; Words;
The Definition of Words; Introduction; Marriage; Misery; President
Lincoln's Death; Aristocracy and Democracy; (Christian Science) ;
Lecturers (Their Atmosphere) ; Dialogue on Immortality; New England;
Revolutions and Rebellions; Concerning the Use of Medicine; Nations and
Individuals; On the Draft; The Scientific Man; Introduction (Mesmerism and
Spiritualism) ; Supplement to an Article (Two Patients) ; To the Reader;
Disease: An Example; The Honeymoon; Spirits: Substance and Shadow;
Illustrations of Immortality, (A View). Sept.: Every Person a Book. Nov.:
Defence Against an Accusation of Making Myself Equal with Christ. Dec.:
Circulation of the Blood; Illustration of the Above; Method of Treatment
for a Child.

1864.

February-June: Ignorance: The Obstacle in Establishing a New Science; The
Power of Mind; Imagination, I; Imagination, II; Had Jesus a Belief ?
Objects and Shadows; Spiritualism and Mesmerism; Difference between My
Belief and that of Others; Copperheads Caught in Their Own Trap; Truth:
Error; Senses; Words, Truth: Its Application; Unconscious Effect of
Persons on Each Other (The Effect of Mind on Mind) ; The Power of Lies;
Man's Identities; Truth (How Determined) ; Disease; Its Causes; The Cause
of Man's Troubles; Disease: An Example; Language, I; Language, II;
Language, III; Curing Without Medicine; The Higher Intelligence; The
Effect of Disbelief in Another World; My Experience in Mesmerism; Is Man's
Strength in his Legs? July-Sept.: Understanding My Theory is the Cure of
Disease: Death: A Scene; Disease: White Swelling; Does Man Separate Body
and Soul in Reasoning? Conservatism; Death; How Can a Person Learn to Cure
the Sick? Illustrations of What I Claim to have Discovered; Disease and
Sickness Its Causes; Mind: Not Wisdom; Misery (We Never See That which We
Are Afraid Of) ; Had Jesus a Belief? Nothing Produces Nothing; Man's
Senses; Cures Made outside of the Medical Faculty.

1865.

Experiments in Detaching the Soul from the Body; The Immortality of the
Soul; Happiness; Concerning Happiness; Why do I Talk about Religion?
Ignorance and Wisdom; How the Senses are Deceived (The Senses Compared to
a Virgin) ; Why I am Misrepresented; My System of Reasoning; Preaching;
The Reception of this Great Truth; What I Impart to My Patients; False
Reports Concerning My Religious Belief; Spiritualism; The Two Principles
Acting in Man; Introduction (The Science of Happiness) ; Right and Wrong;
The Evidence of Sight (Dr. Quimby's last article, July 15, 1865).

THE QUIMBY-EDDY CONTROVERSY

AFTER Dr. Quimby's death, Mrs. Eddy continued to teach the new ideas and
methods, as one of his followers until the period of her more public work.
She lived in Stoughton, Mass., 1868-70, where she left a manuscript known
as "Extracts from P. P. Quimby's Writings," on which she based her
teachings. (A part of the Ms., with a facsimile showing emendations in
Mrs. Eddy's hand, was published in the New York Times, July 10, 1904, with
a "deadly parallel" showing Quimby's teachings and those of Mrs. Eddy in
"Science and Health") In 1872, while teaching in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy
claimed this Ms. as her own, and in this and other writings she gradually
changed the terminology so that it bore less resemblance to Quimby's.
After publishing "Science and Health," in 1875, she put forward
progressive claims as discoverer and founder. In her "Metaphysical
College," in Boston, Mrs. Eddy began in 1882 to have trouble with her
students, who criticized her teaching and disputed her claims.

One of these students, Mr. E. J. Arens, learned from Mr. J. A. Dresser,
October, 1882, that the methods and ideas claimed as hers by right of
"revelation" were derived from Dr. Quimby. Arens gave full credit to
Quimby and claimed the right to publish the new ideas without giving
credit to Christian Science, but was sued by Mrs. Eddy for plagiarism. The
suit was won, Sept. 24, 1883, by Mrs. Eddy, because Arens could not
persuade George Quimby to let him take the Quimby Mss. into court.
Meanwhile, the controversy in the press was begun, Feb., 1883, by "A. 0.,"
in a letter to the editor of the Boston Post, entitled "The Founder of the
Mental Method of Treating Disease," in which the facts, acquired from Mr.
Dresser, were accurately stated.

1883. Feb. 19. "E. G.," ostensibly a sometime patient of Dr. Quimby's but
in reality a publicist for Mrs. Eddy, writes a letter to the Post,
representing Quimby as a mere "mesmerist" and trickster.

1883. Feb. 23. Mr. Dresser refutes these statements and puts Quimby's work
in its true light.

1883. March 7. Mrs. Eddy writes to the Post over her own signature, trying
to meet Mr. Dresser's reply by introducing irrelevant subjects.

1884. The scene of the controversy is changed to Hartford, Conn; in the
Hartford Times Mr. Dresser recounts the true history of Quimby's discovery
and practice.

1885. Mrs. Eddy collects her "facts" in "Historical Sketch of Metaphysical
Healing," Boston, pub. by the author; tries to show that Quimby was a mere
mesmerist: alleges that she left Mss. with him in 1862.

1887. By request, Mr. Dresser gives lecture in Boston entitled "The True
History of Mental Science," quotes from a Ms. by Quimby, explains the
ideas and methods to show that they involve neither mesmerism nor
manipulation, reads Mrs. Eddy's articles, verses and letter showing her
loyalty to Quimby during his life-time. This lecture, published in
pamphlet form by the author, Boston, 1887, becomes basis of true history
everywhere; revised, with additions, by H. W. Dresser, Boston, 1899.

1887. June. Having no answer to the "True History," Mrs. Eddy makes a
general denial and adds further fuel to the controversial fires in "Mind-
Healing History," in the Christian Science Journal.

1888. March. George Quimby writes about his father's life and work, in New
England Magazine, showing how Dr. Quimby changed from mesmerism and
discovered mental healing.

1888. Mr. A. J. Swarts visits Boston, Portland and Belfast, learns the
facts at first hand from Mr. Dresser and Mr. George Quimby, and publishes
his findings in various issues of the Mental Science Magazine, Chicago.

1895. In "The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby," Boston, Geo. H. Ellis, Mrs.
Annetta G. Dresser, Dr. Quimby's patient 1862, newspaper excerpts
concerning Quimby's work and brief quotations from the Mss. are published.

1899. Mr. Septimus J. Hanna, publicist, summarizes Mrs. Eddy's side of the
case in "Christian Science History," Boston, Christian Science Pub. Co.

1899. May. H. W. Dresser publishes in The Arena, the facts about Mrs.
Eddy's indebtedness to Dr. Quimby, also portions of Mrs. Eddy's letters;
Mrs. Woodbury, former student under Mrs. Eddy, puts the latter's
statements in Portland papers, 1862, in deadly parallel with those in Mrs.
Eddy's article in the Christian Science Journal, June, 1887.

1902. Another publicist, Alfred Farlow, issues "Christian Science:
Historical Facts," in which the usual claims are made without any
examination of the true history.

1907. Miss Georgine Milmine, after painstaking research, publishes in
McClure's Magazine accurate life of Mrs. Eddy, which appears in book form
as "The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy," New York, Doubleday Page and Co.,
1909. Miss Milmine carefully traces history of Quimby's Ms., "Questions
and Answers," showing how it has been modified by Mrs. Eddy in her
"Science of Man," and "Science and Health."

1907. Miss Sybil Wilbur, writer, undertakes to prepare an off­setting
"Life" without inquiring into the truth of the "facts" put at her
disposal. The result is seen in Human Life, Boston, April, 1907, which
contains a sensational report of an interview with George Quimby, trying
to discredit him and doubting the authenticity of the Quimby Mss. These
statements somewhat modified in "Life of Mary Baker Eddy," New York, The
Concord Pub. Co., 1908.

1907. The controversy is taken up by various clergymen, including Lyman P.
Powell, "Christian Science, the Faith and its Founder," New York, Putman's
Sons, 1907, and James H. Snowden, "The Truth about Christian Science,"
Philadelphia, The Westminister Press, 1920, in which the facts are
impartially stated.

1921. The publication of "The Quimby Manuscripts" and a review in the
Springfield Republican called forth a letter from Clifford P. Smith, which
appeared in the Springfield Republican of September, 29, 1921.

After the publication of portions of the Quimby Ms., with facsimiles and
the deadly parallel, in the New York Times, July 10, 1904, conclusively
establishing the original source, Miss Milmine, who had thoroughly
investigated the subject, wrote to George Quimby, Oct. 27, 1905, as
follows:

"It is quite true that she (Mrs. Eddy) did use your father's Ms. entitled
'Questions and Answers' to teach from in the beginning. In fact, she used
nothing else for many years, and hired a student to make copies of it for
the use of each pupil. I have photographs of one of these copies, and have
seen several of them belonging to early pupils who have kept them and who
showed them to me. With the change of a word here and there, it is exactly
your father's Ms. This manuscript of your father's was used largely to
form a chapter called 'Recapitulation' in 'Science and Health' in later
years; but with each new edition it was revised until the present chapter
of that title is a long way off from the original. Nevertheless this is
the only chapter in her book from which her students are taught in
classes, today. The course in C. S. consists of a series of talks on this
one chapter, which is elucidated and explained to the class. So everybody
who is learning C. S. healing today is learning the essential truth almost
directly from your father's old manuscript, as in the beginning. The rest
of C. S. and all the objectionable part is simply 'frills' added by Mrs.
Eddy. Of course she has used your father's ideas and many of his phrases
all through the book. . . . The Ms. you sent [printed above, Chap. XIII.]
is almost word for word, as you have seen, like the one she used to teach
from."

Even Miss Wilbur, in her "interview" with Mrs. Crosby, of Waterville, as
reported in Human Life, March, 1907, puts in as fact that "Mrs. Patterson
spent most of her time reducing to writing the remembered sayings of
Quimby," while living with Mrs. Crosby.

Turning once more to one who knew the whole history of the production of
the Quimby Mss. from within. In a letter dated Belfast, Me., Nov. 11th,
1901, to one of his many inquiring correspondents, George Quimby says: "As
far as the book, 'Science and Health,' is concerned, Mrs. Eddy had no
access to father's Mss. [Save 'Questions and Answers'] when she wrote it,
but that she did have a very full knowledge of his ideas and beliefs is
also true. The religion which she teaches certainly is hers, for which I
cannot be too thankful; for I should be loath to go down to my grave
feeling that my father was in any way connected with 'Christian Science.'
That she got her inspiration and idea from father is beyond question. In
other words, had there been no Dr. Quimby there would have been no Mrs.
Eddy. Father claimed to believe, and taught and practiced his belief, that
disease was a mental condition and was an invention of man . . . while he
held strong views, and acknowledged God as first cause-and no one ever
believed in God and Jesus more than he -he differed entirely as to the
Bible, and interpreted it in a way entirely orginal with himself. In
curing the sick [conventional] religion played no part. There were no
prayers, there was no asking assistance from God or any other divinity. He
cured by his wisdom. . . . Don't confuse his method of healing with Mrs.
Eddy's Christian Science, so far as her religious teachings go. Disease as
a mental condition caused by error or beliefs, and capable of being cured
mentally without medicine or appliances or applications-these ideas are
embodied in Mrs. Eddy's book- she certainly heard father teach years
before she wrote her book. While under his care, off and on for several
years, she became deeply interested in his theory of disease and its cure.
She heard many of his essays read; wrote many herself which she submitted
to him for inspection and correction. But she never left any of hers with
him, and never had any of his, to more than look at. (1) She had the
opportunity to copy some, and possibly did. After she left his care, she
delivered some lectures on his method of healing. . . . Up to the time of
his death, no one could have been more loyal to father than she. She gave
him full credit for curing her and teaching her the very ideas she later
had revealed to her from Heaven.

(1) That is, Vol. I, loaned her by Mr. Dresser, as already stated.

"Now a word about that great court decision. One E. J. Arens, of Boston,
made a statement which he could not prove, that Mrs. Eddy got her ideas
from father, and that his writings and Mss. would prove it. He went into
court and could not prove what he said, and now Mrs. Eddy and her
adherents claim that because he could not prove that there were such Mss.,
that there are none! I would not allow him to use the Mss. in court, and
consequently he could not prove what he said." (2)

(2) [Mr. Quimby did not loan his father's manuscripts to Mr. Arens because
be was not in a position financially to engage in a suit. Moreover, he was
naturally and rightly asked why he should take part in a suit to establish
what was true? Dr. Quimby had taught that truth could take care of itself,
when the time came. His son believed that his father's rights would be
established when the time should come to publish the Mss. Finally, Mr.
Arens had made unwarranted statements to the effect that Dr. Quimby was
not only the originator of mental healing and the terminology of Christian
Science, but was actually the author of the book, "Science and Health." To
put the matter in the right light it would have been necessary to show, as
we have shown in this volume, that there was a large collection of
manuscripts, original and revised, containing the whole theory of mental
healing and Christian Science; and that what Mrs. Eddy used was the
essential terminology, the methods, and the reasonings which establish the
principle that "all causation is mental" in the origination and cure of
disease.]

Writing to another man, George Quimby said in part:

"The basis of the whole misunderstanding has been that everything that has
emanated from the Eddy side has been taken for God's truth, and everything
that has been stated in opposition to her has been pronounced and believed
to be lies. By assuming all she has said as true, on the start, it doesn't
leave much for the other side.

"To begin with, you must understand that I was with my father during the
term he was in Portland, and had had an intimate personal acquaintance
extending over two or more years with Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson). I
am not stating hearsay, but personal knowledge. As I was father's clerk,
bookkeeper and sec'y, and as it was the wish of his life that I take his
place and carry on his work, I ought to know what he believed and claimed,
and how he treated the sick, and what be wanted me to learn. I have a
package of Mrs. Eddy's letters to my father, covering a period from 1862
to 1864. . . In all her letters she gives him full credit for discovering
and reducing mental healing to a science. . . . This Mrs. Patterson knew,
and this she learned from him, not as a student receiving a regular course
as she taught in her college, but by sitting in his room, talking with
him, reading his Mss., copying some of them, writing some herself and
reading them to him for his criticism. In that sense she and many others
of his patients were his pupils, in the same way that the disciples were
pupils of Jesus. I have heard him talk hours and hours, week in and week
out, when she was present, listening and asking questions. After these
talks he would put on paper in the shape of an essay or conversation what
subject his talk had covered. These writings we would then copy into blank
books. . . Five or six were written before Mrs. Patterson came to
Portland.

"Now, I have had since the article appeared in The Times several letters
from Mr. Wentworth, who claims to have the document from which The Times
gave extracts. I wrote him and asked him to give me the 'Questions and
Answers' of which there purported to be fifteen, and also the beginning of
the 'Answers.' He did so. I have in my possession the original of these
questions and answers.

"Mrs. Eddy did live in Stoughton. She did board with those people. And it
does not seem possible nor probable to me that they would absolutely lie
about this matter-I mean as to where they obtained the paper. If they did
not get it from Mrs. Eddy, where did it come from?. They never saw father,
and father wrote the original article, and I have it before me now, and it
is dated Portland, Feb. 1862. .

"If he was a mesmerist or spiritualist, what did he write that for? And
why did he say in his Circular to the Sick, which he issued from 1860 to
1865, 'I give no medicine and make no outward applications. I tell the
patient his feelings, and my explanation is the cure'? Why did he do this?
Because that was his method and no one knew it better than Mrs. Eddy.

"In your statement of Mrs. Eddy's offer to print father's writings, if any
such existed, and because her offer was not accepted it proved there were
no such writings, you did not give her whole offer which was, 'provided'
she first be allowed to examine them and see if they were not some she
left with him! Just think of it! my letting her, or any one else, have
Mss. I knew were father's because I saw him write them, and copied many of
them myself, to see if she didn't write them and leave them with him."