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MARY
BAKER EDDY
LEADER
FOREVER
The
Manual Comes Alive
by
Helen M. Wright
OTHER WORKS BY
THE SAME AUTHOR
Mary Baker Eddy: A New
Look
Mary Baker Eddy's Church Manual
& Church Universal & Triumphant
If Mary Baker Eddy's Manual Were
Obeyed
America: Cradle for the Second
Coming of the Christ
Mary Baker Eddy: God's Great
Scientist, Vol. I
Mary Baker Eddy: God's Great
Scientist, Vol. II
Mary Baker Eddy: God's Great
Scientist, Vol. III
Mary Baker Eddy Reveals Your
Divinity, Vol. IV
Humanity's Divinity, Vol. V
Made Whole Through Our Marriage
To God, Vol. VI
Mary Baker Eddy: Leader Forever
(112 page booklet)
Mary Baker Eddy: Leader Forever
(46 page booklet)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I take this
opportunity to again thank those who ordered my previous books, and to thank
those who will order and read this booklet. I also deeply appreciate the
wonderful letters I have received from readers.
In order that this
booklet in support of our Leader's Manual may have wide readership, I
will be happy to send extra copies to anyone who would like to help with its
circulation. Extra copies can be obtained from the:
Mary Baker Eddy
Institute 3350 North Key Drive, #B712
North Fort Myers, FL 33903
EXPLANATORY
NOTES
Italics and All Capital Letters
Italics and all
capital letters not appearing in the original are sometimes used in quotations,
either to emphasize, or to identify that portion of the quote directly
applicable to the point under discussion.
Prose Works is
often referred to as Mary Baker Eddy's Other
Writings.
EOF is
the abbreviation for Mary Baker Eddy's Essays and
Other Footprints, compiled by Richard Oakes.
DCC - Divinity
Course & General Collectanea
WKMBE - We Knew
Mary Baker Eddy Series
Abbreviations
Abbreviations for titles of Mrs.
Eddy's writings are those used in the Concordance to Miscellaneous Writings
and Works Other than Science and Health.
Mis. Miscellaneous
Writings
Mis. Doc. Miscellaneous
Documents
Ret. Retrospection and
introspection
Un. Unity of Good
Pul. Pulpit and
Press
No. No and Yes
Pan. Christian Science Versus
Pantheism
Peo. The People's idea of
God
My. The First Church of Christ,
Scientist and Miscellany
Po. Poems
Man. Church Manual
FOREWORD
In 1889 when Mary Baker Eddy retired
to Concord to work on the 50th Edition of Science and Health, no one was found
who could preach in her place. At this critical juncture, Mrs. Eddy recommended
that the church be dissolved.
She states (Ret. p.
44), "No sooner were my views made known, than the proper measures were
adopted to carry them out, the votes passing without a dissenting voice. This
measure was immediately followed by a great revival of mutual love, prosperity,
and spiritual power. The history of that hour holds this true record. Adding to
its ranks and influence, this spiritually organized Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston, still goes on. A new light broke in upon it, and more
beautiful became the garments of her who "bringeth good tidings, that
publisheth peace."
But after three years of spiritual
formation alone (and even though they were experiencing unprecedented
prosperity) the students began a campaign to reorganize-to again organize on
the old legally chartered basis.
Mrs. Eddy explained to William B.
Johnson, Clerk of The Mother Church: "If you organize again it will ruin the
prosperity of our church... Open the eyes of the church to these facts... If
she again sells her prosperity for a mess of pottage it is
not my fault. Their urge to
reorganize, [she told them] was not of God... and only harm can come from
returning to a position outgrown."
Mrs. Eddy's whole purpose was to
design a Church that would aid man in his great quest-the understanding and
service of God, infinite good.
She saw that only suffering would
teach them God's will. Today, with the Church of Christ, Scientist's former
great "prosperity" gone, we see how right she was in her condemnation of the
reorganizing of the church in 1892. She might have said: "If all else fails,
follow my directions."
We cannot afford to continue to
ignore our Leader's directions. The price is too high. The quiet catastrophe
the hierarchy has presided over for the past eighty years has headed the
Christian Science movement toward oblivion.
This book is a challenge to every
loyal Christian Scientist to pay close attention to the By-Law estoppels in
Mary Baker Eddy's Manual as she wrote it.
We must seek to heal, to reach across the divide and cause the Christian
Science movement to flourish again. Blessed are we, "insomuch as the
consciousness of good, grace, and peace comes through affliction rightly
understood, as sanctified by the purification it brings to the flesh,-to pride,
self-ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet indeed are
these uses of His rod" (Mis. 8:29).
MARY BAKER EDDY
LEADER FOREVER
"Once upon a time there were four
people: named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important
job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could
have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was
Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized
that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when
Nobody did what Anybody could have."
Part I
This might have been a tale of what
happened after Mary Baker Eddy left the human scene. But it wasn't. At that
time, when "There was an important job to be done"-because those Mrs. Eddy had
trusted betrayed that trust-somebody DID do something.
Somebody answered Mrs. Eddy's plea: "Tell the truth about your
Leader...(because) the truth in regard to your Leader heals the sick and saves
the sinner."
Immediately after Mrs. Eddy's
passing, Frederick Dixon, Editor of the Christian Science Monitor, admonished
Board-member Archibald McClellan that obedience to the Manual required
termination of the five-member Board since this Board was only installed by
Mrs. Eddy to transact the business of The Mother Church, and The Mother Church
as a material organization ceased to exist when Mrs. Eddy was no longer here.
(The Manual shows every function of The Mother Church required Mrs.
Eddy's consent, approval, or her signature in her own handwriting.) Mr. Dixon
reports that Board member McClellan stated emphatically that he had to obey
Mrs. Eddy while she was here, but he felt no compulsion to obey her when she
was not here. Having kicked off this sprint for obedience, Mr. Dixon returned
to England, after the "Great Litigation," leaving the Boston hierarchy to stew
and simmer in disobedience for the next eighty years. (The Carpenter "Precepts"
contain several rebukes and corrections Mrs. Eddy administered to Mr.
McClellan.)
While we are on the subject of
obedience the following from Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy by James Gilman, seems
pertinent:
In speaking of obedience, (Mrs.
Eddy) referred to Mr. Nixon [an important early worker, not to be confused with
Mr. Dixon] as embodying a general feeling of unwillingness to obey her
implicitly as a little child [the same unwillingness the Board of Directors
exhibited in regard to obeying the Manual]. She represented him (Mr.
Nixon) as being in the attitude of mind to feel it beneath him to obey her
because she was a woman. "He would declare himself ready to obey God in
whatever He might require of him, but to obey a woman, bah!" Continuing, she
said, "We understand God and are ready to obey Him only so far as we understand
and are ready to obey His highest representative in mortal life. Our love for
God and consequent willingness to obey Him is never greater than our love for
and willingness to obey His highest demonstrator." [Two thousand years ago His
highest demonstrator was Christ Jesus. In modern times His "highest
demonstrator" was, is, Mary Baker Eddy.]
Valiant Warriors Arise
to Defend Mary Baker Eddy
During the years that followed
Frederick Dixon's parley with Director McClellan-as the
Manual-terminated Board of Directors increasingly arrogated to
themselves the mantle of authority on Christian Science-a few valiant warriors,
stalwarts, who, not counting the cost to themselves, have done, and are
continuing to do, their best to awaken the field. They have courageously come
forward to defend Mary Baker Eddy's Manual By-Laws, to fight for a
sacred cause against the injustice standing in a holy place.
These intrepid soldiers of the
cross, fighting "in the trenches," persevered in their efforts to free the
Christian Science movement from the reign of ecclesiasticism that is harming
it. Confronted with traitors to the right of them, an apathetic field to the
left of them, encountering scorn, ridicule and severe persecution, they
persevered. They knew they had latched onto an issue that would not go away
"until He whose right it is shall reign."
Today, as the fires of spiritual
thinking are stoked, people are awakening, and are appalled at what has
happened to the Christian Science movement. Now instead of continuing on with
weary resignation, many are rising up in rebellion, demanding the umbilical
cord to a dishonest Boston regime be cut.
The Organizational Mother Church
Outlived Mrs. Eddy By Six Months
It can't be emphasized too strongly
that THERE WAS NO MATERIAL MOTHER CHURCH after Mrs. Eddy left the human scene.
At the annual meeting following her departure, no officer of The Mother Church
could be elected without her consent (Manual p. 25). Her Manual
shows that when she was no longer here The Mother Church assumed the status
of a branch church, though a glorified one, entitled "The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, Boston." Mrs. Eddy's Manual freed this Boston church
to manage only its own affairs as set forth in its Deed of Trust (ibid.
p. 128). It also freed every individual Christian Scientist, as set forth in
the documentation which will follow later.
Item From Los Angeles Times, June
2,1992
A prominent article, entitled,
"Christian Science in Poor Health," appeared in the June 2, 1992 Los Angeles
Times, stating:
By 1892, Eddy reorganized the church
in its present form, with a powerful self-perpetuating Board of Directors
whose members choose their successors-a structure that today leaves church
critics with no direct power to change the church.
THIS IS INCORRECT. However, it is
precisely what the Board of Directors wants the Christian Science field to
believe, when exactly the opposite is true. The five-member Board was NOT
self-perpetuating. It could not replace a lost member without Mrs. Eddy's
consent as can be readily seen by turning to the Manual (p. 26,
Sect. 5, Directors) and reading what Mrs. Eddy wrote.
Mrs. Eddy left a final plea to all
loyal Christian Scientists: "I ask the help of others...that my students
reprove, rebuke, and exhort. A lie left to itself is not so soon destroyed as
it is with the help of truth telling." (My. 130:15)
Mrs. Eddy's Deeds of
Trust
If Mrs. Eddy's Manual had
been obeyed, the organizational Mother Church which dissolved six months after
Mrs. Eddy's passing, would have taken on the status of a branch church and
assumed its legal title: "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston." It
was distinguished from all other branch churches by the preposition "The,"
namely, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist." It had no power over any
church other than that one Boston church, as provided by Mrs. Eddy's Deed of
Trust concerning it. (Manual, pp. 128-135.) That first deed-the Deed of
1892-conveyed property on which to build the original Mother Church. (*This
deed states: "The congregation which shall worship in said church shall be
styled "The First Church of Christ, Scientist" (Man. p.
132, item 6). This is in harmony with Mrs. Eddy's
definition of "Church." (S&H. p. 583:12) In 1902 Mrs. Eddy began deeding to
the four-member Board the property she had purchased for the
Extension.
It should be noted that on March 18,
1903, the first two of the ten deeds needed to secure the property for the
Extension were conveyed from Mrs. Eddy to the four fiduciary directors.
The March 17, 1902 deed did not count as it did not contain the restrictionary
"further trusts" provision. (Note: the Directors increased to five on February
7, 1902 and the March 17, 1902 deed had already been drafted and presented to
Mrs. Eddy. **See the author's If Mary Baker Eddy's Manual Were Obeyed,
pp. 218-219 for a complete plan of
properties.)
Mrs. Eddy's Step 1 and
2 to Eliminate Organization
Because the Boston hierarchy has led
most Christian Scientists into believing that the Board of Directors was Mrs.
Eddy's successor, it can't be stressed too forcibly that The Mother Church was
entirely under Mrs. Eddy's jurisdiction;
the BOARD OF DIRECTORS WAS UNDER HER ABSOLUTE CONTROL. Nothing could operate
without being subject to her approval. (See Manual p. 18:15, which
states, that the reorganized church was "under her jurisdiction.") Mrs. Eddy
was given absolute control of "Mother's Church," as the By-Laws containing
estoppels show. (It should be
noted, of course, that while twenty-nine functions could not continue without
her, many other functions of the church went unimpeded by virtue of not having
estoppel restraints with which to deal. "Estoppel" is a legal term for
STOPPING an action.) Nothing could operate without her approval, consent, or
her signature, as hereinafter explained. We should add here that ultimately
every function was subject to her permission. She could, of course, allow
something to go ahead which she saw was inappropriate since she was ready for
her followers to "learn by what they suffer." (Suffer = Allow things to take
place.)
And here it should also be noted
that The Mother Church was not under Mrs. Eddy's absolute control from 1892
until 1895 when the first Manual appeared. For three years the
re-organized church worked out the issues of organization without the benefit
of the Manual. They operated under a modest form of cohesion with just a
few pages of guidelines which were never even reduced into pamphlet or book
form. Mrs. Eddy's absolute control, as we understand it
today, must not be confused with the Historical Sketch assertion of the church
being "under her jurisdiction." This was later amplified and expanded to
include "absolute control" but that control had to first be rescued out of the
hands of First Members, the Executive Members, then the General Association of
Christian Science Teachers (twelve in number), then it had to be withdrawn from
the five Directors, then deposited with the four Directors, then securely
affixed into her own hand. Only then was it to be turned over to the eternal
jurisdiction of the Church Manual. Something can be under our
jurisdiction and still not be under our control.
Organizing "UNDER HER JURISDICTION"
was Mrs. Eddy's first step in her plan to terminate material organization. Mrs.
Eddy never wanted to re-organize. She warned the students repeatedly, "If you
organize again, it will ruin the prosperity of our Church." But when her
students insisted, she acquiesced, saying, "Suffer it to be so now...to
complete our church history."
Organizing "under her
jurisdiction," and writing the Church Manual, were steps 1 and 2 in
her plan to eliminate all centralized control.
Continued Organization is
Death-knell to Learning Truth
Mrs. Eddy knew that continued
organization would lower the curtain on effectively promoting and extending the
Science of the Christ she had discovered and was teaching. In this Science,
infinite good is found to be the Mind of man, and the entire being is found in
Mind, God. Mrs. Eddy taught us that the mind we now have is the divine Mind
(God) when free from hypnotic suggestion, "animal magnetism," and aggressive
mental suggestion. The Science of the Christ cannot be materially organized
anymore than can math, music, or sunlight. Material organization can only
hinder our learning this Science.
The following quotations are just a
few of the many references in Mrs. Eddy's first edition of Science and Health
which may help to make clear her dread of organized religion. On pages 166-168,
she states:
- We have no need of creeds and
church organizations to sustain or explain a demonstrable platform, that
defines itself in healing the sick, and casting out error...
- The mistake the disciples of
Jesus made to found religious organizations and church rites, if indeed they
did this, was one the Master did not make...
- Jesus paid no homage to diplomas,
to forms of church worship, or the theories of man, but acted and spake as he
was moved by Spirit, the Principle of being...
- He stood boldly up in the face of
all accredited evidences of personal sense, Pharisaical creeds, etc., and
refuted them all with his healing.
- Christ's church was Truth ("I am
Truth and Life") the temple for the worshipers of Truth
is Spirit and not matter, even the Principle of man and the universe that calls
on those professing godliness, to understand God, and to be absent from the
body to be present with Him, and to claim their right of membership by
destroying sickness, sin, and death. Is there any higher Christianity than
this?...
- No time was lost by our Master in
organizations, rites, and ceremonies, or in proselyting for certain forms of
belief: members of his church must answer to themselves, in the secret
sanctuary of Soul, questions of the most solemn import.
- First, am I surely gaining a
victory over matter, and present with Spirit, present with Love and Truth,
supping with them and they with me, gaining this oneness with God, of which
Jesus spake, thus rising superior to personal sense, and conquering sickness,
sin and death; am I caring less and less for earthly pleasures or pains, and
getting out with the sinner and in with the saint?
- The true answer to these
inquiries will set us all right; they are the only signs significant of the
burial of the body with Christ, and its resurrection with God, Truth, compared
with which rites and ceremonies sink into insignificance. We have no record
that forms of church worship were instituted by our great spiritual teacher,
Jesus of Nazareth, and we learn the improbability of this, in the Science of
God, that he taught and demonstrated. Said he, "The time now is when
they that worship the Father should worship him in Spirit, and no longer in
Jerusalem," (the wealth and learning) "of our temples"; a magnificent edifice
was not the sign of Christ's Church.
The Real I of You is
God (S&H 588:9)
Mary Baker Eddy did not hesitate to
go beyond all preconceptions of the "I." Speaking of your real 'I,' she said
the 'I' signifies God and not man, Principle and not person. The I, your I, is
intelligence. (See also S&H 249:20.) "To admit oneself Soul," she said,
"sets one free to master the infinite idea. The belief that God [infinite good]
has a separate being leads to multitudinous errors [errors we experience in material organization]."
Man is the phenomena of Soul, true
identity, intelligence. "When realizing Life as it is, namely, Soul, not sense,
or the personal man, we shall expand into Truth and self-completeness that
embrace all things" (First edition, p.223).
How can a Science that teaches us
this great truth, this divine reality, have anything to do with material
organization? A spiritual Science has nothing to do with five personalities
called a Board of Directors. "The final understanding that we are Spirit must
come," said Mrs. Eddy, "and we might as well improve our time in solving the
so-called mysteries of today on this Principle."
In Christian Science we find our
happiness, our paradise within us in the consciousness of heaven within us.
"The kingdom of heaven is within you" (Luke 17:21). We learn heaven is not
a place you go to, as Old Theology teaches. This brings to mind the experience
of a Sunday School teacher, who, finding the classroom hot and stuffy, decided
to move the children out to the sidewalk. Here he continued his teaching with,
"Now, who wants to go to heaven?" Au raised their hands except Horace.
Surprised, the teacher asked, "Horace, don't you want to go to heaven?" "Yes,"
replied Horace, "But I didn't know you wuz gettin' up a load right
now!"
How God Answered Mrs. Eddy's
Prayer-vs.-The Board's Tooth Fairy Approach
After her "suffer it to be so now"
reorganization in 1892, Mrs. Eddy prayed day and night for a God-directed way
to lay off church organization. She didn't want the Second Coming of the Christ
to meet with the same fate that befell the First Coming when, upon what the
disciples understood of Jesus' message, an organization, a church, came forth.
Jesus' partially understood message crystallized into a creed, and before long
the principle concern of the church was to sustain itself as an organization.
This very thing has happened to the Christian Science movement today, with
little thought given to what Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy taught. Her solution was
Step 2, the Manual.
Are we today giving devoted thought
to what our Leader taught, namely: that our own "I" is God, Mind, when rightly
viewed? (See S&H 588:9). When will you and I see that the mind we now have
is the divine Mind, which is able to view all things rightly when free from
hypnotic suggestion, when not looking "through a glass, darkly"? There is only
one Mind, the God-Mind, infinite good. And that is your Mind now. This
is what the spiritual symbol of St. John's God-crowned woman in Revelation XII
is telling us, and "when each individual reflects this
'God-crowned woman' -reflects the motherhood of Love within himself -what need
is there to look to a mother-authority external to himself? In 1908 therefore,
Mrs. Eddy abolished the communion season in The Mother Church (because it had
become a communion between branch and Mother), but she left the branches'
communion service to be a matter for each branch with its divine Principle,
Love. Indeed by this time she has made it legally impossible for The Mother
Church, without her, to exercise its maternal control... The textbook
now is the mother and the leader, and the personal revelator can depart. It
remains for the students to prove that Christian Science is the Science of
inorganic being" (Mrs. Eddy's Other Writings-John Morgan).
How God Led Mrs. Eddy
to Make the Manual A Legal Instrument
First, Mrs. Eddy bought the needed
parcels of land for the Extension. The answer for ending material organization,
she knew, lay in how she would deed this property to the FOUR Directors to whom
ten years previously she had deeded land for the original Mother
Church.
There were thirteen deeds, ten of
which had restrictive clauses. Of these ten, the first nine were nearly
identical in wording with the last By-Law in the Manual, namely,
Amendment of By-Laws. p. 105. "No new Tenet or
By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled, without
the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and
Health." (She substituted only "the" textbook, for
"our" textbook, since she had a premonition that the Manual would some
day be adjudicated in the courts of our land, where it might not be the
textbook of the lawyers taking part.) The TENTH deed additionally held a
non-modification, non-waiver clause. It seals everlastingly her plan for the
human race. It absolutely sets in concrete for time and eternity that no one
can in any way alter, modify, waive or effect a change in any of the
Manual's By-Law estoppel clauses. This should be clear even to those who
are programmed to speak no evil against God, motherhood, and the Boston
hierarchy.
You can no more organize the Science
of being than you can organize the sunlight. "God, infinite good, is
ALL."
The thirteen Deeds of Trust were
brought to light in Michael Meehan's Proceedings in Equity during the
1919-1921 "Great Litigation." But it seems that it took another sixty years of
progress Spiritward to gain the true meaning of what these deeds have all along
been telling us; and to see the spiritual greatness of Mary Baker Eddy's plan
of liberation for the human race.
Step 3-Mrs. Eddy Provided Ten More Deeds of Trust
Ten years after Mrs. Eddy executed
the 1892 Deed which set up The First Church of Christ, Scientist, it was
proposed that an Extension to the original Mother Church be built. This
proposal, Mrs. Eddy saw, would hold the answer she had prayed for since the
re-organization of 1892. She now saw how she could use this proposal (to build
an Extension) to gracefully and legally, terminate church organization when she
was no longer here to oversee its every detail. She knew her third step must be
a way to make the Church Manual a LEGAL instrument (since a church
manual, as an ecclesiastical document, would have no chance of being taken
seriously in a court of human law.)
Mrs. Eddy's Manual
Terminated Organizational Mother Church
Mrs. Eddy's Manual as she
left it, terminated the material Mother Church since no officer to run "The
Mother Church" could be elected without Mrs. Eddy's consent. As stated in the
Manual it should be emphasized that no function of the organizational
Mother Church could continue without Mrs. Eddy's consent, approval, or her
signature in her own handwriting. At Mrs. Eddy's departure, The Mother Church
building became more like a special branch church, and assumed its legal
title: "The First Church of Christ Scientist, Boston." Remember
here too, that it is the congregation which shall worship in said church [that]
shall be styled "The First Church of Christ, Scientist" (Man. p.
132:4). It had no control over any other branch
church. This is set forth, as already mentioned, in Mrs. Eddy's 1892
Deed of Trust (Manual
p. 128).
Today we hear the COPs (Committee on
Publication) blathering to the press: "The Mother Church is governed by the
Church Manual. The Manual guides the actions of the five-member
Board of Directors" (July 1992 Yankee).
This COP obviously has never read the relentlessly
stuffy, woodenly earnest little volume called the Manual- it's lack of
humor doesn't invite avid interest-or else he is guilty of what Mrs. Eddy
abhorred. She said: "When anyone argues in justification of error to cover it
up against their honest convictions, it fills me with righteous indignation
beyond any other form of error" (DCC 182).
As stated earlier, at Mrs. Eddy's
departure The Mother Church assumed its legal title, "The First Church of
Christ, Scientist' It had more the status of a branch church, and when the
Board of Directors of this church assumed control of every Christian Science
branch church in the world, disaster followed, just as Mrs. Eddy expected. She
was painfully aware that "power corrupts," and we saw
this happen after her departure. The Board of Directors encouraged the tattling
on teachers and practitioners who talked "too freely." Heads began to roll when
prominent Christian Scientists who, seeing further spiritually than the Board
of Directors, raised an outcry.
Ecclesiastical
Tyranny
As the forces of ecclesiasticism
kept adding notches to their belt many of our best thinkers disappeared.
Dissenters, those with courage to speak the truth, were put on the rack,
summarily excommunicated, or disciplined and warned. This caused fear, "the
weapon of tyrants," to reign. It ended the wondrous progress Christian Science
had been making.
During the same interview cited
earlier, the Committee on Publication was asked the question: "Can a Christian
Scientist be excommunicated?" The COP replied: "There are provisions in the
Manual to allow for excommunication of members. These are applied in
rare instances only after every effort is made to resolve differences through
dialogue with the member and sincere prayer."
Friends, it grieves me to point out
that this is a joke! In the first place, the Manual terminated the
five-member Board that would be doing the excommunicating. The Board of
Directors (who simply refused to acknowledge that they
no longer existed!) did pounce on and excommunicate those who were chiefly the
best, wisest and most spiritually-minded. The cruelty and mental suffering
inflicted all too often (not in "rare instances") caused many a Christian
Scientist to spend his last earthly days in pain and grief.
Dubbing themselves "The Highest
Ecclesiastical Court in The Land" the hierarchy proceeded with great
"spiritual" haughtiness to issue royal edicts. With lordly patronizing
presumptuousness, they have demanded that their injunctions be obeyed. End of
"dialogue" and "sincere prayer." (This assessment is done without any intention
of hurting the Board's feelings, and we trust that revealing this saga of
misdeeds will not cause the hierarchy to drown in a "Slough of
Despond.")
But "all the darkness in the world
cannot overcome the light shed by a single candle." We are grateful for the
champions of liberty who have fed, and are continuing to feed, the flame of
spiritual light, who dare to put their faith in her who brought the Second
Coming of the Christ. We know that whatever hinders or threatens free thought
is perilous, and we should demonstrate its nothingness wherever it seems to
appear. We all must eventually demonstrate the nothingness of domination,
selfishness and greed; they are mis-conceptions that
hinder thought from thinking scientifically.
The Shadow of a Great Rock In a
Weary Land
"From first to last The Mother
Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit, even
that shadow whose substance is the divine Spirit, imperatively propelling the
greatest moral, physical, civil, and religious reform ever known on earth. In
the words of the prophet: 'The shadow of a great rock in a weary land"'
(Pul. p. 20:19).
Where Were the Other "Extension"
Deeds?
One of the deeds concerning the
Extension is shown on p. 138 of the Manual. But since Mrs. Eddy had
purchased thirteen parcels of land where were the other vitally important
deeds? Why had they been only peeked at during the 1919-1921 "Great
Litigation?" Why, through insidious pressure from the hierarchy, has the field
been tricked and trapped into never investigating these deeds which only
briefly, uncomprehendingly, surfaced during the great lawsuit?
Why is the scandal-scarred Boston
hierarchy, even today, referring the sheep to the 73rd and 57th
Manual, incorrectly interpreting these as a basis for their claim to
power? Reeling from all the adverse publicity, we see
here a hierarchy scrambling in a last-ditch dishonest effort to keep itself in
the saddle through its benighted emissaries. Do YOU have the 73rd and 57th
Manual? Those who are pushing this crafty maneuver are well-aware that
few have these early Manuals to see for themselves what they actually
say. The 73rd Manual refers us to "subsequent" Manuals, not
to "previous" Manuals.
Must We Learn the Hard
Way?
In the matter of the pertinent deeds
remaining so long hidden, could it be that Christian Scientists had to learn
the hard way that turning to persons (to five personalities in Boston) for
guidance- instead of to divine Principle as All-in-all-leads to disaster? Could
this be why Mrs. Eddy's ten deeds that contain her vital, indispensable
restrictive clauses-that make the Manual a legal instrument and solve,
at last, the problem that has brought the great Christian Science movement to
its knees- remained hidden for over seven decades? "Time tells all tales true,"
Mrs. Eddy was fond of saying. And today a new understanding is being born on
the Boston hierarchy's ash pile.
Mrs. Eddy's Ten Deeds
Re-discovered
In 1980 the intrepid chairman of
United Christian Scientists-in search of a copy of Mrs. Eddy's signature when
she was eighty-nine years of age-was divinely led to the basement of the Court
House Annex on Beacon Hill, in Boston, Massachusetts. He states:
In the Court House, in the
subterranean basement, I found the Deed Book. Everything was there exactly as
it appears in our Manual. But it said: "See Deeds in Book (so and so)."
I found the next book under a quarter inch of dust that had gathered during all
these decades. Opening it, lo and behold! Here were ten more Deeds of
Trust!
So it came to pass that in God's own
time these deeds, hidden since their brief airing during the "Great
Litigation," will now play the part Mrs. Eddy intended for them. They will
fulfill Mrs. Eddy's prophecy that "the Manual will be acknowledged as
law by law," as we will presently show.
Mrs.
Eddy's 1892 Deed of Trust
In her 1892 Deed of Trust Mrs. Eddy
appointed four (4) Directors to look after "The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, in Boston" (Manual p. 128). They had no power over any church
other than this church: The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, and
church property. They could appoint successors as long as necessary WITHOUT
Mrs. Eddy's consent. This 1892 Deed is limited to ONLY The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston. It does NOT pertain to THE
MOTHER CHURCH which was Mrs. Eddy's church while she was here in person to
administer it.
After Mrs. Eddy's departure
Christian Scientists had no further excuse for localizing The Mother Church.
"Mother" is defined in the "Glossary" (S&H 592:16) as "God; divine and
eternal Principle; Life, Truth, and Love." "Church" is defined in the
"Glossary" as "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and
proceeds from divine Principle..." (ibid. 583:12). Church is something the
Christian Scientist IS. Church is not an edifice the Christian Scientist enters
and prays to "become.
A
Tale of Two Boards
Four-member Board and Five-member
Board NOT the Same
Contrary to what the
earlier-mentioned Los Angeles Times article states, Mrs. Eddy's
Manual TERMINATED the five-member Board of Directors of The Mother
Church when she was no longer here. This has to be repeated ad infinitum
because the field has been so thoroughly impregnated with the false notion
that the Board of Directors is Mrs. Eddy's successor. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER
FROM THE TRUTH!
Page 27:1 of the Manual
states: "The business of The Mother Church shall be transacted by
its [five-member] Christian Science Board of Directors." But six months after Mrs. Eddy
passed on, the organizational Mother Church ended since NO office of The Mother
Church could be filled without Mrs. Eddy's consent and approval. The
five-member Mother Church Board of Directors is not her successor. They had NO
RIGHT OF SUCCESSORSHIP.
Here remember that when the church
reorganized in 1892, it "reorganized under her jurisdiction." This gradually
gave Mrs. Eddy absolute power to terminate the organizational Mother Church and
its five-member Board at any time. This termination took place December 3 and
was confirmed in June of 1911 when no officer of The Mother Church could be
elected without Mrs. Eddy's "approval," or "consent ...given in her own
handwriting" (Manual p. 25-26). Also, when a member of the five-member
Board passed on a year later, he could not be replaced without Mrs. Eddy's
personal approval (ibid. p. 26, Sect. 5).
Who or What is Mrs. Eddy's
Successor
Here the question may be asked: Who
or what IS Mrs. Eddy's "successor"? The Board of Directors was NOT her
successor. Mrs. Eddy indicates that her successor is "the Church Universal and
Triumphant" (Manual p. 19:6). "Uni" means one. There is only one
infinite being. "There is but one I, or Us" (S&H
588:11). It is our real "I." This I functions as individual and indivisible
Mind. It is your real Mind here and now, when it is freed from hypnotic
suggestion and awakened out of the Adam-dream sleep.
Why is it "tri-umphant"? Because its
threefold, triune, tri-unity, Principle, Life, Truth and Love eternally
constitutes our true being, so that (in reality) we dwell in "the consciousness
of Love forever" (S&H 578:17). This "marvelous [tri]-unity of man with God
[is] shadowed forth in scientific thought" (Un. 5:24). This has been
made clear by our Leader, and we find our Leader in her writings.
Mrs. Eddy's "successor" will be
revealed by man, "the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God..." (My.
347:2). Mrs. Eddy speaks of her successor as a revelation-"will reveal
my successor"- rather than a person since Science and Health is her
successor; and as we spiritually assimilate what is in Science and Health-we
become the revelation. We EACH make ourselves Mrs. Eddy's successor in
proportion to our "understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and
Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death; thus to reflect in some
degree the Church Universal and Triumphant" (Manual p. 19)
Obedience to Mrs. Eddy's Manual
means obeying the Manual as she wrote it, not as the five-member
Board of Directors disobediently paid the lawyers to interpret it-to interpret
it in such a way as to make the Manual-terminated Mother Church Board of
Directors Mrs. Eddy's successors at her passing. This was done, not in a blaze
of glory, but in a sly surreptitious way. At Mrs. Eddy's passing the Board
simply announced to the press that they were Mrs. Eddy's successors. That
settled it. Few were aware of the treachery being perpetrated, and so,
unwittingly, became a part of the ecclesiastical soap opera that has continued
to the present day.
A
Third Step Toward Terminating Organization:
The Temporary Fifth
Director
In 1902 Mrs. Eddy asked in essence,
that temporarily (while she was present with us to govern The Mother Church,
her Church, "Mother's Church") a fifth
Director be appointed. This temporary Board was
appointed to TRANSACT THE BUSINESS OF THE MOTHER CHURCH under Mrs. Eddy's
jurisdiction. To distinguish this temporary Board from the LEGAL four-member
Board that would care for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, when
Mrs. Eddy was no longer here, Mrs. Eddy added a fifth Director, namely,
Archibald McClellan. Adding a fifth Director was- 28 -another step in
Mrs. Eddy's plan to terminate organization at her passing. This temporary
five-member Board did NOT have the right to appoint successors. (See Manual,
26, Sect 5.) It could not fill a vacancy on "THAT" Board without
Mrs. Eddy's approval. Note: "THEY SHALL FILL A VACANCY ON THAT BOARD
AFTER THE CANDIDATE IS APPROVED BY THE PASTOR EMERITUS" (Man. p. 26).
By terminating (when she was no longer here) the five-member Board who
transacted the business of The Mother Church, we can see how Mrs. Eddy was
laying plans for terminating all centralized control.
Again, the five-member Board had to
do with The Mother Church ONLY. Note: "The business of The Mother Church shall
be transacted by ITS (five-member) Christian Science Board of Directors"
(Manual p. 27). Because the field has been so thoroughly indoctrinated
with the WRONG belief that the Board of Directors is Mrs. Eddy's successor, it
cannot be impressed too vigorously that, AFTER MRS. EDDY'S PASSING, THERE NO
LONGER WAS A LOCALIZED, MATERIAL "MOTHER" CHURCH, since no officer could be
elected without her (the Pastor Emeritus') consent.
The Only By-Law the Board of
Directors Wanted Changed
The above mentioned By-Law
(Manual p. 26. Directors, Sect. 5) regarding the termination of the five
(5) member Board, when Mrs. Eddy was no longer here to give her approval, was
the only By-Law the Directors pleaded with Mrs. Eddy to change. But she firmly
declared that God had dictated that By-Law estoppel. (Mrs. Eddy, discerning her
Board of Directors' thoughts, frequently chided and rebuked them for seeing
her, as we today might say, "with one foot in the grave and another on a banana
peel." She urged them to hold her in thought as vigorous, valiant, and
victorious over the "creeping things.")
This estoppel that the five-member
Board complained about (along with the other estoppels) was, of course, Mrs.
Eddy's God-given answer concerning how to set the Christian Science movement
free from material organization. When with her By-Law estoppel clauses she
terminated all central control, she set every Christian Scientist free to
follow her teachings as given in her writings, the Second Coming of the Christ.
Once more, it must be clear that
from a strictly legal standpoint the Mother Church activities, which the
Manual's estoppels forbade, came to a halt six months after Mrs. Eddy's
passing, when at- 30 -the annual meeting in June, 1911, no officer of The
Mother Church could be elected without Mary Baker Eddy's consent. The church
then assumed its legal title, namely, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist,
Boston," with power only over the Boston Church and its property, as given to
it in the Deed of Trust, Manual, p. 128. Then the following year, in
June of 1912, a member of the five-member Board passed on and could not be
replaced without Mrs. Eddy's approval.
'You Find Me in My
Writings'
What and where is our Leader? Mrs.
Eddy said, "Those who look for me in person or elsewhere than in my
writings, lose me instead of find me" (My. 120:2). We find our Leader only
in her writings.
But wait! Mrs. Eddy tells us: My
book is not all you know of me (My 133:22). What did she mean? Here
Mrs. Eddy confides:
I have a secret to tell you and a
question to ask. Do you know how much I love you and the nature of this love?
No: then my SACRED SECRET is incommunicable, and we live apart. But, yes: and
this inmost something becomes articulate, and my book is NOT all you know of
me. But your knowledge with its magnitude of meaning uncovers my life, even
as your heart has discovered it. The spiritual bespeaks our temporal
history.
As we become real and consecrated
warriors giving ourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of
establishing the truth necessary for the salvation of the world, we grow in the
spiritual understanding of her books and her life. This adds a new dimension
to what we know of her. Reading between the lines we see her life is
depicted in the chapter "Atonement and Eucharist" in Science and Health.
In a conversation with a
spiritually-minded dear friend, he decoded Mrs. Eddy's cryptic prophecy and
"sacred secret" substantially as follows:
"If we know how much she loves us
then we know something that we have learned other than what is in her books-we
have found her elsewhere than in her writings. But where? In our qualification
for church membership it says: 'The BIBLE, together with Science and Health and
other works by Mrs. Eddy, shall be [our] only textbooks for self-instruction in
Christian Science' (Manual 34).
"While Miscellany 120:2 tells
us we find her only in her writings, yet here she tells us she has 'a sacred
secret,' namely, 'my book is NOT ALL you know of me.' Where else do we find
her? Where else do we learn about our Leader other than in her writings?
Obviously in the Bible! There is our answer to the great Bliss Knapp
controversy raging today: Is she fulfilling Bible prophecy?-'Am I not
fulfilling the prophecy of the woman of the Apocalypse?' she is asking.
'I have a secret', she is telling us, and affirming, 'If you know my love for
you, you will know it too.'"
So it is not only in our Leader's
writings that we find her, we find her in the sacred Scriptures. And on
the previous page (My. 132:12) she tells us: 'Oh, may this hour be
prolific, and at this time and in every heart may there come this benediction:
Thou hast no longer to appeal to human strength, to strive with agony.' Then,
Mrs. Eddy states unequivocally, 'I AM THY DELIVERER.'"
Only the Christ can say that! But
she came as close to saying that as anyone possibly could. 'I AM THY
DELIVERER.' The Second Coming of the Christ which she brought is our
'deliverer.' [Those of us who have experienced wonderful healings in Christian
Science through reading the textbook, or through the work of Christian Science
practitioners, know what this means-we are grateful for this Second Coming of
the Christ that Mrs. Eddy's writings brought. We know what was our
'deliverer.']
"Mrs. Eddy's statement, 'I am thy
Deliverer,' is truly a revelation because in all Christian history the only
deliverer, redeemer, was Jesus Christ. But here Mary Baker Eddy is telling all
mankind: I am thy deliverer. Jesus said the Comforter would complete his
work on earth, and reveal 'ALL' Truth. The woman, as Jeremiah prophesied:
'shall compass a man.' Her work completes that of Christ Jesus. It is now
through Mary Baker Eddy that mankind receives eternal salvation through her
completion of the work of Christ Jesus, as he himself said the Comforter,
Science, would do."
Mary Baker Eddy's work is a
continuation or extension of the work of Christ Jesus. Through Mary Baker Eddy,
primitive Christianity has been extended into this Age. Its new name is
Science. Today, salvation is the product of understanding the joint
demonstration which Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy equally share. Salvation
instantaneously occurs when the work Christ Jesus initiated and Mary Baker Eddy
completed is understood as one undivided and uninterrupted process. The Christ
of Jesus brings God down to individual man in Christianity and the Christ of
Mary Baker Eddy elevates individual man up to God in Science. One Christ with a
dual function. These two complimentary processes equate to ONE salvation, or
God and man ONE."
Mrs. Eddy states we can read her
books, but if we don't know the love she has for us, then her 'secret' is
unknown. And her 'secret' is that she is the Christ to this age. She is 'the
second witness that stands before the God of the whole earth.' We don't find
that in her writings. But here Mrs. Eddy- 34 -is saying-she has actually put it
here in writing-if you know how much I love you...this inmost something
becomes articulate, and my book is not all you know of
me.
"Of course, it is not all. There is
much more that we know about her, and we have learned it in the Bible.
The Bible is full of the prophecies of the woman who would bring the Second
Coming of the Christ.
"So here, on page 133 of
Miscellany, is a plainspoken, straight to the heart appeal to the
spiritually minded, that if we know how much she loves us, if we feel her love
for us, then we know more about her than what her books contain. And the only
place we learn about Mrs. Eddy other than in her writings, is in the Bible. The
Scriptures are full of prophecies of the coming of "the woman." And in the
entire Scriptures, from Genesis through Revelation, the real issue is not
whether Mrs. Eddy is the woman of the Apocalypse. The real issue is: Does Mary
Baker Eddy represent the ideal woman who appeared in the first day of creation
with God? Have we been attacking the problem from the wrong end of the book?
Might we not call this an excavation-shoveling away the debris of the centuries
to reveal reality?"
Mrs. Eddy's Writings Include the Manual
Returning now to Mrs. Eddy's
writings: These writings include the Manual as she wrote it and
left it for us with its estoppels. (Remember, in the Manual, estoppels
are those clauses that stopped an action when Mrs. Eddy was no longer here to
supervise.) Looking from today's perspective we can see that the Manual
estoppels were Mrs. Eddy's only reason for writing a Manual. She
said she considered her Manual second only to Science and Health in
importance. She wrote and copyrighted the Manual. (See Manual p.
104:3.) Therefore we find our Leader in her Manual with its By-Law
estoppels. We do not find her in the legal fraternity's interpretation of the
Manual, namely, their finding that "The old lady cannot rule from the
grave." Loyal Christian Scientists know that "Eternity (not the legal
profession) awaits our Manual."
Today, many at "headquarters" are in
a high dudgeon over the ferreting out of "who done it?"-who caused the present
embarrassing exposures? Some plaintive voices from the chicken coop are
calling; "T'aint no one here but us long-time supporters of our great Leader,
Mary Baker Eddy." "Hypocrisy is ever the homage vice plays to virtue." It's
time to start cutting our spiritual teeth.
Continued Organization Retards
Spiritual Advancement
Remembering that she insisted her
Manual was second only to Science and Health in importance, it should be
obvious from all Mrs. Eddy has written derogating organization, how strongly
she felt that "continued organization retards spiritual growth." And her
Manual for all "eternity" definitely prevents five personalities from
sinking the divine Principle of her great discovery and revelation in
personality. No one knew better than Mrs. Eddy that "there was never a religion
or philosophy lost to the centuries except by sinking its divine Principle in
personality" (My. 117:22).
The first Christian Science church
from 1879 to 1889 was a
democratic church. What the majority voted for, ruled. But when they
RE-organized in 1892, that changed. She took over lock,
stock, and barrel. It was no longer democratic. Twelve students met with Mrs.
Eddy, and as mentioned before, "RE-organized UNDER HER JURISDICTION." The
Mother Church then became a theocracy; Mrs. Eddy-the Christ Mind-was given
absolute control which she used to gradually turn it all over to the
eternal jurisdiction of the Church Manual.
Once more, it is absolutely critical
to understand that no church officer of The Mother Church could be elected
without Mrs. Eddy's approval. Page 25 of the Manual shows that the
President must have Mrs. Eddy's approval. The Clerk, the Treasurer, and the
Committee on Publication could NOT continue after the consent of Mrs. Eddy "in
her own handwriting" could no longer be obtained. At Mrs. Eddy's passing, The
Mother Church assumed its legal title. It became "The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, Boston," and continued to be governed by the Church Manual.
It is a fact that the deed of 1892 caused the Church to exist, but the
Church Manual regulates "how" that created Church would exist throughout
all time and on into eternity.
Remember it's "the congregation
which shall worship in said Church shall be styled 'The First Church of Christ,
Scientist"'; and "Church" is "The structure of Truth and Love" that constitutes
our real being, our consciousness (S&H 583:12). Thus the true Church goes
on forever.
The Church Manual dictates
the way the Boston Church ONLY is to function or NOT function. The Church
Manual to this day governs the Church created by the September 1, 1892
deed.
How was the property of this beloved
and magnificent edifice of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist" to be
maintained? The original little church and the Extension in Boston will
continue to draw countless thousands of loyal Christian Scientists who stare up
at these beautiful symbols -"Our prayer in stone"-with reverential awe. What
was Mrs. Eddy's provision for them? Her Publishing Society Deed of Trust has in
it a stipulation that provided for the upkeep of the property of The First
Church of Christ, Scientist.
Thus after Mrs. Eddy's passing, when
there was no longer a Mother Church to which members could belong and pay a
per capita tax to maintain the church property in Boston, Mrs. Eddy
provided that surplus funds from the Publishing Society were to be turned over
to the treasurer of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, for the maintenance
of the Boston church property-the original little church and the
Extension.
Board of Directors Breaks Mrs.
Eddy's Publishing Deed
As long as Mrs. Eddy's Publishing
Society Deed was honored (before the "Suit in Equity," also called "The Great
Litigation"), the profits turned over to the Treasurer of The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, were huge. But a change came after Mrs. Eddy's Publishing
Society Deed of Trust was broken. Despotic control of ecclesiasticism,
masquerading as the Christian Science organization, began at once to put
freedom through the shredder, demanding the Boston Board be allowed to govern
the thoughts of Christian Scientists and keep us in the wilderness
forever.
This infamy resulted in sharply
reduced revenues from the Publishing Society. Pioneering creative thinkers were
no longer free to break through the inherited mold of scholastic theology and
"keep abreast of the times." Our greatest and best thinkers were shunned as
prophets without honor. Had The Christian Science Monitor continued, as
under Mrs. Eddy's supervision, it would have continued to "spread
undivided the Science that operates unspent," and to bless "all mankind."
Instead it has failed to prevent the mental pollution from mass media
communications that is today contaminating the minds of untold millions. In
addition, it has all but stopped spiritual healing. Today we must, through
deeper consecration to what is in our textbook, recapture the great light that
shone from Mary Baker Eddy's consciousness. She taught us Spirit is the ONLY.
Spirit is what is really there, but it looks like matter; so we have to
dematerialize it-de-materialize our concept of Spirit, omnipresent infinite
good.
"The Manual Will Save the
Cause"
Why did Mrs. Eddy tell Prof. Hering,
"The Manual will save the Cause"? Why did she write (My. 230:1):
"...eternity awaits our Church Manual" which Revelation 12 tells us is
destined to rule "with a rod of iron"? Why did Mrs. Eddy insist the By-Laws
"were impelled by a power not one's own"? (Man. iii). Why did she
insist that every By-Law was "inspired," that "I wrote the Manual just
as I wrote Science and Health"?
"The Manual Will Be Acknowledged
As Law By Law"
Again, why did she tell other
students: "The Manual will be acknowledged as law by law"? (The Cross
and Crown, p.322).To reiterate, the answer to this question lies with the
restrictive clauses in the deeds concerning the land for the Extension-land
Mrs. Eddy bought and deeded to the same legal FOUR (4) member Board to
whom she had previously given the property on which to build the original
Mother Church.
The Manual Shows a Second Deed of
Trust
To repeat, pages 136-138 of the
Manual show a second deed. What does this deed concern? It
pertains to one of the ten parcels of land, mentioned earlier, on which to
build the Extension to the original Mother Church building. The first deed, in
1892, conveyed land for the Church edifice. The second deed, in 1903,
conveyed land for Church purposes. What was/is the "purpose" of the
Extension? To legally box the Directors into strict compliance and performance
after Mrs. Eddy's passing-to begin at once to dematerialize and disorganize,
the centralized material organization.
The Extension could serve no higher
or more important "purpose." (See "Pond and Purpose" Mis. 203.)The
second deed (Man. p. 136) was one of the ten by which Mrs. Eddy conveyed
the ten parcels of land she purchased on which to build the Extension. This
deed was given to the same four Directors of The First Church of Christ,
Scientist, as the 1892 Deed on the previous page of the Manual. But it
speaks of "FURTHER" trusts, namely: "this property is conveyed on the
further trusts that no new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any
Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled by the grantees unless the written consent
of said Mary Baker G. Eddy...be given therefore."
The Ten Deeds Hold the
Key
Why is the hiding of these pertinent
documents one of the most important factors in the drastic decline of Mary
Baker Eddy's great Christian Science movement? Why is it causing a high-ranking
member of the forbidden ecclesiastical hierarchy to sanctimoniously intone to
church members: "We'll want to think together about whether our movement is in
danger of being lost"?
The reason, of course, is
disobedience to the Manual's estoppel By-Laws. We see now why these ten
Deeds of Trust which for so long were deviously and fraudulently concealed by
the Boston hierarchy, hold the key to Mrs. Eddy's statement that the Manual
will "be acknowledged as law by law," because in each one of those ten
Deeds of Trust given to the four-member Board, is a "FURTHER" trust; namely, as
found in the sample deed (one of the ten) at the end of the Manual, p.
136 and 137, which states: "...this property is conveyed on the FURTHER
trusts that no new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law
amended or annulled by the grantees unless the written consent of said Mary
Baker G. Eddy, the author of the textbook, Science and Health...be given
therefore."
This stipulation, appearing in every
one of the ten Deeds of Trust, makes the Manual a legal instrument,
legally enforcing precisely the same stipulation which appears on Manual
page 105, under "Amendment of By-Laws, Sect. 3," which reads: "No new Tenet
or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled,
without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook,
Science and Health." The only way the Board could have ignored the estoppel
would have been to refuse to accept the deeds to the land.
Interlocking of Deeds With Manual
Estoppel
Whether the Directors were aware of
it or not, their acceptance of this deeded land legally bound the Directors to
obey the estoppel clauses in the Manual. Why? Because the "FURTHER
TRUSTS" in the real estate deeds interlocked with the last estoppel in the
Manual, which reads, as already quoted twice: "No new Tenet or By-Law
shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled without the
written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and
Health."
This stipulation legally bound the
Directors then in office, and their successors-remember it is the "Manual
of the First Church of Christ, Scientist"-to obey the Manual as Mrs.
Eddy wrote it. Among other By-Laws, it bound them to obey the plainly stated
By-Law on page 26, Sect. 5, which states unequivocally that the five-member
Board which transacted the business of The Mother Church could not fill a
vacancy on that Board without Mrs. Eddy's approval. When she was no
longer here, The Mother Church assumed its legal title under its four
member Board which had control ONLY over the Boston Church.
Today, with the sad division
staining the ongoing history of the Christian Science movement, it is a
question of "Do we obey Mary Baker Eddy's Manual as she wrote it, or do
we obey a self-appointed Board of five Directors, who hired lawyers to
interpret the Manual in such a way as to leave them (the
five-member Board) in power after Mary Baker Eddy's divinely-dictated Manual
terminated their positions?
Terminated Organizational "Mother
Church" Becomes
"The First Church of Christ,
Scientist"
Under Article XXXV, "For The Mother
Church Only," Mrs. Eddy writes: "The Church Manual of The First Church
of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., written by Mary Baker Eddy and
copyrighted is adapted to The Mother Church only... This Manual
shall not be revised without the written consent of its author" (Manual
104). The ten Deeds of Trust legally enforce this By-Law. After Mrs. Eddy's
passing and there no longer was a localized "Mother Church," The Mother Church
became something you had in your heart, and the property assumed its legal
title: The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, having the status of a
branch church. Again remember, it was "the congregation, which shall worship in
said church shall be styled 'The First Church of Christ,
Scientist."'
The Disobedient Board of
Directors'
Illegal, Spurious and Misleading
89th Manual
The 88th Manual was the last
one put out by Mrs. Eddy. But when she refused to write a By-Law transferring
her power to the FIVE (5)-member Board, one of the Directors, Archibald
McClellan and Mrs. Eddy's publisher, secretly, without authority from Mrs.
Eddy, had the Plimpton Press print a Manual that would be ready to go to
the field at Mrs. Eddy's passing. Immediately upon Mrs. Eddy's departure, the
plates of this altered Manual, the 89th, were pulled from the safe,
printed and sent surreptitiously to all Christian Science Reading Rooms to
replace Mrs. Eddy's 88th, and last, Manual.
In their attempt to erase the
shadows of Mary Baker Eddy, this 1911, 89th Manual, put out by the
five-member Board, removed Mrs. Eddy's name as head of the church, defiantly
replacing it with their own names, with the five-member Board of Directors,
which the Manual, if OBEYED, had terminated. (Her name was restored in
1924 only because of pressure from the field.)
In their spurious 89th Manual,
this Board- which, again, remember, Mrs. Eddy's By-Laws specifically and
legally terminated-decided they must have dominion over every Christian Science
church in the world; and to make sure nothing- 46 -would knock the wheels off
their bandwagon, they infamously, shamefully, added the three words on pages
120 and 127: "AND BRANCH CHURCHES." Under it they wrote: "Republished from the
Sentinel." But in the Sentinel it says only: "Present order of the Services in
The Mother Church." It does NOT add: "and branch churches." As before noted,
the Manual states, page 104, Art. XXXV: "For The Mother Church
Only."
In the same interview quoted
earlier, the COP was asked yet another question by the press: "When was the
last time Mrs. Eddy revised the Manual?" The COP, either through
ignorance or fearful of losing his job if he answered truthfully, quibbled:
"Mrs. Eddy made her last revision to the Manual not long before she died
in December, 1910. This last edition-the 89th-came off the press early in
January 1911. This edition is the final version and is the one that is still in
use today" (Yankee, July, 1992).
This, of course, as previously
explained, is a complete fabrication! To this type of intentional or witless
unintentional falsehood, Mrs. Eddy would have responded: "When the Discoverer
of Christian Science in this age must deal with sinning, so-called
Christian Scientists, [then] those who know their Leader as she is [as
the one scripturally prophesied to bring the promised Comforter] must be- 47
-awake to the delusions of malicious animal magnetism that would make
Jerusalem a waste and desert place. Take up those transgressors in our midst
who would undo the work of their Leader... Waken to the need of this hour that
those who would set aside the Manual of The Mother Church with its JUST
By-Laws see the sinfulness of their ways." (Preserved by Carpenter Foundation.)
It appears that for the Boston hierarchy's ecclesiastical dictatorship the trip
to the spiritual world may be one of history's most undisciplined and slowest
rides.
"Tell the Truth Concerning the
Lie."-Mary Baker Eddy
In strong language Mrs. Eddy
condemned the practice of only denouncing error in general, "saying nothing, in
particular, of error that is damning men [leading them to falsely believe the
Manual-terminated Board of Directors is Mrs. Eddy's successor]. They
[those that try to argue in justification of error to cover it up, against
their honest convictions, which Mrs. Eddy once said filled her with
righteous indignation beyond any other form of error] are sticklers for
a false, convenient peace, straining at gnats and swallowing camels. The unseen
wrong to individuals and society [the wrong of flagrantly disobeying Mrs.
Eddy's Manual estoppel By-Laws] they are too cowardly, too ignorant, or
too wicked to uncover, and excuse themselves by denying that this evil exists.
This mistaken way, of hiding sin in order to maintain harmony, has licensed
evil, allowing it first to smoulder, and then break out in devouring flames [as
it has today]. All that error asks is to be let alone" (My. 210:21). But
when error is let alone and has its way unchallenged, we are eventually
confronted with chaos on an unimaginable scale.
Lack of Principle in Christian
Science Schools
One of the saddest consequences of
disobedience to Mrs. Eddy's Manual is that the Directors in Boston have
seeming control of, or at least great influence over, the so-called "Christian
Science Schools." And, until the extraordinary web of lies and deceit spun by
this ecclesiastical hierarchy crumbles, it will continue to deprive the
children enrolled in these venerable schools of a true estimate of her who
brought the Second Coming of the Christ.
Instead of spiritually educating
students to be powerful leaders in Christian Science through an understanding
of the woman of prophecy, and training young people to become leaders in
explaining the Second Coming of the Christ, young people are taught the
official Boston line about the ingeniously contrived legal settlement
concerning the Board of Directors. Considering this rampant dishonesty, is it
surprising that these revered, time honored schools are concerned about lack of
enrollment? If Christian Science schools defended her whom they acknowledge as
their Leader there would be no need for concern about enrollment.
If any schools in the world should
be renowned for the daunting depth and breadth of their scholarship, for
powerful insight, for vigor in defense of Truth and individual freedom, it
should be Christian Science schools. But sadly, this is not the case. It were
well if the faculty daily reminded themselves of Mrs. Eddy's instruction: "When
anyone tries to argue in justification of error to cover it up against their
honest convictions, it fills me with righteous indignation beyond any
other form of error." Mrs. Eddy's statement deserves to be repeated over and
over again.
Surely in these schools, children
should be taught that we progress in Christian Science when our lives are
dedicated to Truth, and are focused, disciplined. But as usual, when things
sound easy, it often turns out there is one part we didn't hear.
The March Forward
Having said that, let's rejoice in a
fact that's not lost in all this doom and gloom, namely how the exposing and
clobbering of the machinations of the Boston hierarchy by the disenchanted,
disillusioned church membership has been in accordance with her Church
Manual provisions. (see Art. I, Sec. 9.)9.) We can't recall too often that
after Mrs. Eddy's passing there was no "Mother" church. This, of course,
gradually, gracefully, left only Christian Science SOCIETIES to go on
forever. The Manual sets no restrictions on "Christian Science
Societies." They can continue as long as needed.
Why would the time come when even
branch churches would cease to exist? Answer: Because the Manual
provided that Readers in branch churches must be members of The
Mother Church (Manual p. 32, sect. 6). And also to form a branch church,
four of the Christian Scientists must be members of The Mother Church
(Manual p. 73:2).
What does this mean? This was Mrs.
Eddy's method of phasing out all material organization including branch
churches. Why? How? After December, 1910, certainly by June, 1911 there was no
"Mother" church since no officer could be elected without Mrs. Eddy's consent
or permission given in her own handwriting. So, in order to qualify for
readership in a branch church today, one would have to be at least ninety-four
years of age or older. This is so, because if you were twelve in 1910, (the age
you could join) and June, 1911 ended The Mother Church's existence, today you
would be about ninety-four. Right? Thus the Manual eliminated all
organization, recommending that we "meet in unity, (in "Societies") preferring-
51 -one another and demonstrating the divine Principle of Christian Science"
(Mis. 6).
Organization with its man-made laws
was FINISHED!
With mathematics, for example, we
would not attempt to thrust in personal beliefs and opinions. We are content to
observe the facts of the subject as they prove themselves; and remember, when
learning music or math we are only removing our own ignorance on the
subject.
"Catholicism - Protestantism -
Christian Science"
True equality of man and woman will
not be realized until one holds in consciousness true pictures of God's two
witnesses, Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy. Most of Christendom has acknowledged
God's manhood, but even Christian Scientists in general have yet to acknowledge
God's womanhood. So the warfare against womanhood continues as graphically
depicted in Mrs. Eddy's own handwriting in a notebook she kept. The short
article is entitled Catholicism - Protestantism - Christian Science. It
says in part:
Each religion defined by what the
words include is right; but fatally wrong and wronged in its interpretation by
the world, the flesh, and the devil..
The woman has cast into these
three measures of iniquity, the leaven that is fermenting them. Therefore they,
inherent in mortal mind, take vengeance on their destroyer... Not one of these
three religions- misused-is the Rock, on which Christ, Truth, builds the church
against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. And the last one is named the
final one; therefore, it holds the MOST RELENTLESS WAR AGAINST THE
WOMAN.
Mrs. Eddy foresaw that so-called
Christian Scientists who failed to see her as the woman of prophecy would be
the ones that would "hold the most relentless war against the
woman."
It is recorded that when Mary Baker
Eddy's followers wanted to inscribe on the wall at the entrance to the Mother
Church building: "Within these walls you will hear Truth proclaimed," Mrs. Eddy
emphatically stated, "No! The time may come when Truth will NOT be proclaimed
within these walls." It is also recorded that on her one and only drive to view
the Mother Church building with its Extension, she suddenly had a clear
vision of the evil that would befall this great symbol of Spirit and of
spiritual Truth. So dire and penetrating was the vision, it gave her a severe
physical problem to meet. (Told to the author by Mr. Carpenter,
Sr.)
Mrs. Eddy was well aware that the
Number One priority of the Anti-Christ would be to bury her. As the Discoverer,
Founder, demonstrator, and Leader of Christian Science, she became the main
target in her lifetime; and she knew that after she was no longer personally
present to do the required spiritual knowing and realization, the enemy's
campaign to destroy all memory of her would be stepped up.
"Mother Church"-vs.-"Smother Church"
That she accurately foresaw this
priority of the "enthroned antagonist" is amply proven by the actions of the
entrenched hierarchy.
Consider just a few of the actions
of the enthroned assailant; we can see how right she was:
- Upon Mrs. Eddy's leaving, the
campaign to demean, denigrate, and destroy all memory of her began immediately
with an announcement to the press that the Board-which the Manual
By-Laws had terminated-would be Mrs. Eddy's successor.
- Girding for an all-out assault on
Mrs. Eddy's authority, a "new" Church Manual was immediately issued.
This new Manual, the 89th- the only one sold in Christian Science
Reading Rooms since 1911-totally undermined Mrs. Eddy's inspired intent, as we
have previously explained.
- When the Board was unwilling to
obey the By-Laws as Mrs. Eddy wrote them, legal opinion was allowed to overrule
these God-impelled By-Laws.
- As the ecclesiastical juggernaut
rolled on, Mrs. Eddy's picture was removed from the final uncopyrighted
edition of Science and Health. Pictures of Mrs. Eddy were removed from
Christian Science Reading Rooms, as well as books presenting her in a favorable
light. (Recently, in order for the "church" to qualify for the $97 million
dollar Bliss Knapp bequest, a few books favorable to Mrs. Eddy are being
restored.)
- Wholesale excommunications and
the threat of them, silenced many of the more spiritually minded Christian
Scientists capable of leading the movement forward.
- The beautiful granite Memorial
Marker at Bow, New Hampshire (Mrs. Eddy's birthplace), was dynamited. Reason:
The Board noted that too many people were visiting it.
- Her home at Concord was sold for
use as an insane asylum. Here Mrs. Eddy had spent nearly two decades tirelessly
laboring for humanity; here she issued 380 editions of Science and Health, all
of her 88 Manuals, all editions of Christ and Christmas, nearly
all of what we have in her wonderful Prose Works, besides writing
thousands of letters, and carrying on endless other duties.
Mrs. Eddy Did Not Remove Her
Picture
That Mary Baker Eddy did not remove
her picture as the frontispiece to Science and Health can be seen from the
following facts:
The 1910 December Christian
Science Sentinel carried the following "SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT":
FROM THE PUBLISHER OF MRS. EDDY'S
WORKS. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXTBOOK, "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE
SCRIPTURES."-This work contains IMPORTANT CHANGES and ADDITIONS by the
author [changes added after the final copyrighted 1906 edition], also a
PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT of Mrs. Eddy, together with a facsimile of her
signature.
This announcement ran in the early
December, 1910, issue of the Sentinel at the time Mary Baker Eddy left
the human scene.
Alice Orgain, who began her writings
on Mary Baker Eddy in the late 1920s, asked the Board of Directors for proof
that Mrs. Eddy herself had her picture removed. The archives of the Mother
Church were meticulously searched, but no trace could be found explaining why
her picture had been removed. The Board of Directors finally told Alice
Orgain that Mrs. Eddy must have orally instructed that her picture be
removed.
I am told that today, if visitors to
the Mother Church Archives ask concerning the removal of Mrs. Eddy's picture,
they are quickly shown letters by both Frye and Dickey purporting to be
directives from Mrs. Eddy to remove her picture. These letters are obvious
forgeries.
They were not there in the 1920s.
Nor do they hold up historically since for over forty years Mrs. Eddy's own
handwritten approval was absolutely required for any changes in Science and
Health. Why in this vital case should that standard he changed? In Mrs.
Eddy's definition of "veil". (S&H 506:2X) she says: .."The great Nazarene,
as meek as he was mighty, rebuked the hypocrisy, which offered long petitions
for blessings upon material methods, but cloaked the crime, latent in thought,
which was ready to spring into action and crucify God's anointed."
The Uncopyrighted 1907
Edition-Attorneys Consulted
"Christian Science is not
copyrighted..." (Ret. 75:2) Mm. Eddy did not copyright the 1907 edition
of Science and Health in which she had made cardinal, all-important
changes--such as to her definition of God on which her whole divine Science
depended. (See my book, Humanity s Divinity, p. 277.)
She had consulted her attorneys, and
was informed by them that a work containing her picture over her signature
would, from a legal standpoint, protect her writing, so a further copyright was
not necessary. She had reduced her divine metaphysics to a ..system," and it
did not need copyrighting any more than the multiplication table in mathematics
needs copyrighting. (Advanced students in Christian Science are today beginning
to see this "system". that has seven synonyms for God which operate through the
Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science, just as in mathematics the ten digits
operate through addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; OT as in
music the seven notes operate through tone, rhythm, melody, and
harmony.)
- Perhaps the greatest wrong done
Mrs. Eddy was the breaking of her Publishing Society Deed of Trust, and the
taking over by the self-appointed hierarchy. This was the publishing medium
Mrs. Eddy had set up for the propagation of Christian Science throughout the
world, as she taught it.
- To compound the injury done to
both Mrs. Eddy and her followers, the hierarchy instituted the grossly damaging
"Authorized Literature" policy of 1916. Obviously their intent was to control
what was published in the Christian Science periodicals. This deplorable
strategy kept the field frozen where it was in 1910 instead of being kept
abreast of the times.
- The Christian Science Monitor
steadily refused to take ads for books favorable to Mary Baker Eddy, while
it "reviewed" books extremely false and detrimental to her.
These items constitute only the tip
of the iceberg! These and many other demeaning actions were followed by
the Board's imprisonment of Science and Health via the
imposition of copyright. Only through the successful legal action of the United
Christian Scientists and their courageous chairman was Science and Health set
free. Mrs. Eddy did not copyright her final edition of Science and Health. The
Board deceitfully, craftily, renewed a copyright on the 1906 edition when it
expired and passed it off as a copyright on the uncopyrighted final edition.
The final 1910 edition contained far-reaching vital changes.
Mrs.
Eddy Never Sought The Applause of
Men
"The kind of domination rampant
today cannot tolerate having what it considers the 'spectre' of Mary Baker
Eddy. She is an embarrassment to them and an obstacle to the respectability
they seek in the realm of mainline religions and academia. [As with Jesus, so
it was with Mrs. Eddy. Her mission was to vindicate a Principle, NOT a person.
While the highest ambition of those who usurped her place seems to be the
applause of men.]
"A recent letter of resignation in
Boston dutifully denounced the Knapp book and spoke of the dread felt when
hearing Christian Science referred to recently as a cult, all supposedly
because of the Knapp book-which, by the way, tells the truth about Mary Baker
Eddy, when read by those who know that Christian Science can only grow
and prosper in the field among humble individuals aflame
with spiritual understanding, and the Love which alone can heal" (The
Banner).
Mrs. Eddy was not unaware that a
massive campaign was being plotted to destroy her and her work. However she
wrote: "A siege of the combined centuries, culminating in fierce attack, cannot
demolish our strongholds. The forts of Christian Science garrisoned by God's
chosen ones, can never surrender" (My. 127:21). Today's requirement is that we
heed Mrs. Eddy's admonition to speak louder and more often in defense of the
truth about her. There are countless good men in the world. We only wish they
had louder voices.
The Enemy's First
Priority: To Hide Mrs. Eddy's True
Identity
In a letter to Mr. Edward Kimball,
CSB, Mrs. Eddy wrote:
"For the world to understand me
in my true light and life would do more for our Cause than aught else
could. [Why? Because if we see that she demonstrated that infinite good
(God) was her Mind, then we too, can learn-through her teaching-that infinite
good is our Mind also, here and now.] This I learn from the fact that the
enemy tries harder to hide these two things, than to win any other
points. Also Jesus' life and character in their first
appearing were treated in like manner. And I regret to see that loyal students
are not more awake to this great demand in their measures to meet the enemies'
tactics. (DCC 112; see also page 109, letter to Judge Hanna.)
"All the people need to love and
adopt Christian Science," Mrs. Eddy said, "is a TRUE SENSE OF ITS FOUNDER. In
proportion as they have it, will our Cause advance" (WKMBE 1 p.40). Why?
Because then they will be motivated to search, to learn the truth about
themselves as having the Mind of God here and now-the same Mind that Mrs. Eddy
had when she wrote Science and Health. There is only one Mind. "All is infinite
Mind [your Mind] and its manifestation."
"All Is Infinite Mind"
Manifested
Mildred LeBlond, CSB, wrote: "When
Mrs. Eddy announced that, 'all is infinite Mind and
its infinite manifestation,' she did something for
the human race it cannot ever escape, and which
will do more to lift the human race out of fears and
limitations than any statement ever made by anyone." Yes! It was this very statement that was used by
the practitioner who healed my mother of blindness, my father
on his deathbed, and my little brother of double hernia. I was seven years old,
but I can still hear my parents repeating this statement with the conviction
that it would heal them.
As I have testified before, my
mother's sight was restored in three treatments. Then my father asked for
treatment and was healed the same day, in one treatment. When my parents spoke
to the practitioner about my little brother's condition, she said, "You know
what healed you, just keep knowing All is Infinite Mind manifested." The
next day it was found that the little truss he had been wearing was no longer
needed. That same statement in Science and Health-understood by the
practitioner- had healed him, too. Those three, almost instantaneous, healings
in Christian Science have been the watershed experience of my life.
"What thou needest to know," Mrs.
Eddy declared, "is that mortal mind has translated the body and its functions
into matter, and immortal Mind gives back the original with its functions
preserved and harmonious, but not as not in matter, but as and of
Mind." (Dear Reader, this instruction has a deep
spiritual meaning, not only for the churched, but also for the un-washed. It
simply means everyone and every thing will always be recognizable to us in the
stage of growth we have arrived at.)
Mrs. Eddy Must Be Seen
Rightly - Professor Hering
In a letter to his pupils, Professor
Herman S. Hering, CSB, wrote: "It is of first importance to see Mrs. Eddy
rightly as the woman of prophecy referred to in the Apocalypse, as the one
through whom the Comforter came, the second coming of the Christ."
"Thou Art the Woman!"
- Ira 0. Knapp
Before continuing with Professor
Hering's letter, let's examine Ira 0. Knapp's sudden illumination. In a class,
he saw Mrs. Eddy "rightly" when she was explaining the twelfth chapter of
Revelation. He spontaneously exclaimed: "Thou art the Woman!" Mrs. Eddy
discerning his spiritual thought did not rebuke him anymore than Jesus rebuked
Peter two thousand years ago when Peter, "with his usual impetuosity," cried:
"Thou art the Christ..." Precisely so did Mrs. Eddy discern Ira Knapp's
assertion, knowing that: "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but
my Father which is in heaven." Through a lightening flash of spiritual insight
both Peter and Ira 0. Knapp realized that the great Truth which was being
taught and which was leading them God-ward was the Mind of Christ. Ira Knapp
was referring to the God Mind Mrs. Eddy was letting use her to bring
forth Truth. His statement had nothing to do with a fleshly
form those in the class saw as Mary Baker Eddy, which, of course, correctly
seen is Spirit, since "Spirit is ALL" but ignorantly seen, as matter, it is
just part of the Adam-dream that we have to be awakened from.
Perhaps we are still too close to
the advent of Mary Baker Eddy to see clearly. But in years to come, Ira 0.
Knapp's statement: "Thou art the Woman," will be just as immortal as Peter's
exclamation to Jesus: "Thou art the Christ!" Unity of Good, p.
49:8 states: "The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be
sinless,-as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker." When the veil that human
birth has cast over us is removed, when the hypnotic suggestion that makes us
believe we are mortals with matter bodies, is finally dislodged, overcome, we
will realize our divinity.
If Christian Science isn't teaching
us this, what IS it teaching? If Mrs. Eddy's writing is not teaching us that
the Mind "infinitely above" our ignorant mortal SENSE of things, is our Mind
here and now, when rightly seen, what good is it to us?
Professor Hering's Letter
Continues:
(That was a digression.) We continue
with Professor Hering's letter (of 1938): "Unless we see that this revelation
came through Mrs. Eddy under divine inspiration, and see it as the inspired
Word of God, we are not seeing Christian Science rightly. Jesus and Mrs. Eddy
were the two witnesses and must be seen as such. Just as Jesus in the flesh
must be seen as the one who established the first coming of the Christ, back of
whom was the divinely royal man (S&H 313:5), so Mrs. Eddy in the flesh must
be seen as the one who established the second coming of the Christ, back of
whom was the divinely royal woman, the God-crowned woman of the 12th chapter of
the Apocalypse"
(See S&H 118:6.) She saw the
"marvelous unity of man with God shadowed forth in scientific thought"
(Un. 5:24).
Mrs.
Eddy's Preparation for Removing the
Veil
To paraphrase Science and Health, p.
494:5: Is it not a species of infidelity to believe that so great a work as
Mary Baker Eddy's was done for herself or for God, who needed no help?... But
mortals did need this help, and Mrs. Eddy, manifesting the Mind of God-the Mind
"infinitely above" the uneducated human mind-infinitely above a fleshly sense
of herself-brought the Second Coming of the Christ. She tells us that it was
not her human self but "the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above
me"-infinitely above a mortal sense of self, "which dictated Science and
Health."
What prepared Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs.
Glover) to receive this divine revelation-the Second Coming of the Christ? She
states, "God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the
reception of this final revelation..."(S&H p. 107:3).
This "gracious preparation" actually
consisted of nearly forty years of sheer unmitigated physical suffering and
endless disappointments. In 1866 "the world was dark... The senses could not
prophesy sunrise or starlight. Thus it was when the moment arrived of the
heart's bridal to a more spiritual existence. When the door opened, I was
waiting and watching; and, lo, the bridegroom came! The character of the Christ
was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. My heart knew its
Redeemer...I had touched the hem of Christian Science..." Ret.
23:10). It was February, 1866.
With her Godlike character and using
her lightening-fast Mind of Christ, she was able to complete the work of Christ
Jesus on earth and to fulfill the biblical prophesies concerning her divine
Advent.
Her revelation and discovery teaches
mortals how to remove the veil, "the covering cast over all people" that makes
people seem like matter bodies. The woman in the Apocalypse is a symbol of your
real divine selfhood, as it was and is a symbol of Mrs. Eddy's true being and
of her great revelation.
This is so, or nothing in Science
and Health would be true about you. Mrs. Eddy revealed your true identity, your
divine identity as a God-being here and now. For forty years she worked
indefatigably to reduce to human apprehension her divine metaphysics; to
reduce to a system the divine Science her God-Mind discovered. (See S&H
471:30.) Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy instructed us how to let that Mind be in us
that was also in them (the Mind that was Mind to Jesus and to Mrs.
Eddy).
Re:
Deification
Our Leader never considered
recognition of her place in Bible history as either deification or personality
worship. She discovered the Science of being that we au have to "LEARN." She
has nearly one hundred fifty references to "learn" and "learning" in the
textbook.
Jesus is not deified by
acknowledging his place in scriptural prophecy, and
neither is Mary Baker Eddy deified because she completed
his work on earth and brought the promised "Comforter."
She is not deified because she fulfilled the many
biblical prophesies concerning the "woman"-the
"woman (that) shall compass a man" Jer. 31:22 - that
shall encompass Jesus' teaching, as promised by
Jesus. Remember he prophesied that "the
Comforter...shall teach you ALL things, and bring to your
remembrance ("compass") whatsoever I have said
unto you" (John 14:26). Do we say, "Yes, I believe this," but
in our heart do we want a king, a Board of Directors (five mortals) to rule
over us, and to be successors to her who brought the Second Coming of the
Christ?
Today, in the gathering twilight, we
hear the constant drumbeat of the universal news reports of Boston's decline.
As Mrs. Eddy foresaw: "An unjust, unmerciful and oppressive priesthood must
perish, for false prophets IN THE PRESENT as in the past stumble onward to
their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. God is not mocked"
(Pul. 7:19).
Mrs. Eddy also perhaps knew that
prophecy cannot be broken (John 10:35). It "is history written in advance." We
have already cited Revelation 12:12 as pertaining to the present era which
warns: "the devil is come down unto you with great wrath because he knoweth
that he hath but a short time."
Because humanity everywhere is
breaking new spiritual ground, we are heartened to feel that "short time" is
almost over, and that it will shortly come to pass that all mankind will
realize who it was that walked among us in the last century and the first
decade of this.
A cold hungry winter looms high on
the hierarchy's horizon now that the tides of Truth have unleashed forces that
can't be stopped; no longer will spiritual education
languish as the fraying exposure-ridden Boston regime engulfs itself in a
morass of double talk and eventually returns to its crypt.
"Church organization often looks
like a great substantial fort. It looks strong and indestructible from the
outside, but when you go through the gate almost everyone inside is
dead."
Marching on in
Spiritual Organization
As we grow "equal to the march
triumphant, God will give to all His soldiers of the cross the proper command,
and under the banner of His love, and with the 'still, small voice' for the
music of our march, we all shall take step and march on in spiritual
organization."
Remember; Mrs. Eddy knew: "There was
never a religion or philosophy lost...except by sinking its divine Principle in
personality" (My. 117:22).
Part II
"MRS. EDDY'S PLACE"
In 1938 the Board set up a committee
to investigate Mrs. Eddy's own assessment of herself as representing the
spiritual idea typified by the woman in the Apocalypse. 57 pages were prepared
on the subject. Then in 1943 Mrs. Eddy's place in fulfillment of Bible Prophecy
was clearly set forth in the Christian Science Sentinel and Journal
in the following six points. (Since these six points are familiar to most
Christian Scientists, the author has taken the liberty of injecting
interpolations.)
1. Mrs. Eddy, as the Discoverer and
Founder of Christian Science, understood herself to be the one chosen of God to
bring the promised Comforter to the world, and therefore, the revelator of
Christ, Truth, in this age.
2. Mrs. Eddy regarded portions of
Revelation (that is, Chapter 12) as pointing to her as the one who fulfilled
prophecy by giving the full and final revelation of Truth; her work thus being
complementary to that of Christ Jesus. [Jesus prophesied that the "Comforter,"
will guide you into ALL truth, and "bring ALL things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have said unto you." Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, in bringing the
first and second coming of the Christ-even though they were "the Spirit of
Truth"-had to come in fleshly forms else how could we be
taught?]
3. As Christ Jesus exemplified the
fatherhood of God, she (Mrs. Eddy) revealed God's motherhood; she truly
represents in this age the spiritual idea of God typified by the woman in the
Apocalypse. (See S&H 565:13-22.) [This is also made clear in Science and
Health pages 560-562 with even a modicum of spiritual sense. The "man child"
(Rev. XII:5) is a symbol for the purely spiritual and mental Christ in
distinction from the man Jesus who came as a corporeal Savior or as Christ,
Jesus.]
4. Mrs. Eddy considered herself to
be the "God-appointed" and "God-anointed" messenger to this age, the woman
chosen by God to discover the Science of Christian healing and to interpret it
to mankind; she is so closely related to Christian Science [the product of her
God-Mind] that a true sense of her is essential to the understanding of
Christian Science; in other words, the revelator cannot be separated from the
revelation [they are one]
5. This recognition of her status
enabled her to withstand the opposition directed against her by "the dragon"
(malicious animal magnetism); she was touchingly grateful to those who saw her
as the woman of prophecy and who therefore trusted, obeyed, and supported her
in her mission. [A few of Mrs. Eddy's helpers were truly spiritually minded,
but many were bulbs of small wattage and what Mrs. Eddy characterized as
"stuffed shirts and trained monkeys." Only because she leaned completely on
infinite good (God) was she able to complete Jesus' work on earth and bring to
mankind the Comforter he prophesied.]
[Dear Reader: Do you see Mary Baker
Eddy as fulfilling St. John's Revelation, chapters 10 and 12, the woman of
prophesy, and trust her? Or do you trust those who for eighty years have
infamously denigrated her and tried to separate her from her great discovery
and revelation?]
6. This same recognition [of Mrs.
Eddy as "the woman of prophecy"] is equally vital to our movement, for
demonstration is the result of vision; the collecting of this indisputable
evidence of our Leader's own view of herself and of her mission marks a great
step forward. [Here it should be remembered that Carolyn Noyes, C.S.D. wrote
that all Mrs. Eddy's loyal students recognized that Mrs. Eddy was the
fulfillment of St. John's prophecy in Revelation XII. (See Mis. Doc.
227.) This wide recognition of Mrs. Eddy as fulfilling prophecy accounts
for the marvelous healing work done during her time and the decades immediately
following. So far as the world is concerned there is no Christ evident here and
now until the Word becomes flesh, until there is an individual to show
it forth. Mrs. Eddy speaks of Jesus' parable "foretelling the
second appearing IN THE FLESH of the Christ, Truth" (S&H p. 118)]. Wisely
utilized, this evidence will stimulate and stabilize the growth of Christian
Scientists today and in succeeding generations; it will establish unity in the
Field with regard to the vital question of our Leader's relation to scriptural
prophecy.
Mary Baker Eddy reminds us "The
Scriptures and Christian Science reveal 'the way,' and personal revelators will
take their proper place in history, but will not be deified" (Mis. p.
308).
"Where Are the 57 Typewritten
Pages?"
Where are the 57 typewritten pages
prepared by the Committee that included Albert Gilmore, W. Stuart Booth, Violet
Ker Seymour, Duncan Sinclair, and George Shaw Cook? Why have those 57 pages
remained hidden by subsequent Boards obviously hostile to Mary Baker Eddy? Why
has this 57-page document-so important in unifying the field with regard to how
Mrs. Eddy's followers regard her- never been made public? On this issue of Mary
Baker Eddy's fulfillment of scriptural prophecy, no genuine Christian Scientist
can remain in the closet and fail to make a choice. "Choose Ye"-to stand with
your Leader's own recognition and assessment of herself-just as Jesus urged his
disciples to stand with his own recognition of himself.
Perhaps some of the "57 pages" would
contain the following pertinent material: Jesus said: "When the Comforter
is come ...when the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into ALL
truth," the truth people in his day were not yet ready for as they were just
coming out of mythology. Similarly, Mrs. Eddy states: "The Science of physical
harmony, as now presented to the people in divine light, is radical enough to
promote as forcible collisions of thought as the age has strength to bear (Un.
6:10). She had to veil much that she wrote about. But today change, often
unexpected, is the overwhelming phenomenon of our age, and we are seeing more
clearly our way to the finish line. Mrs. Eddy's discovery and revelation is a
"final" revelation (S&H 107:5). "There will be no third coming," Mrs. Eddy
affirmed.
In a letter Mrs. Eddy wrote to her
devoted students, the Millers, she said: "Today, it is a marvel to me that God
chose me for this mission, and that my lifework was the theme of ancient
prophecy and I the scribe of His infinite way of salvation" (May 27,
1902).
Ivimy Gwalter, CSB, wrote:
"[Prophecy] comes to glorious fulfillment in the advent of Mary Baker Eddy, who
in fulfillment of prophecy, typifies the spiritual idea symbolized by the woman
in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse...Mrs. Eddy's discovery was not the product of human reason but of divine
revelation. She speaks of herself as a scribe ['under orders'] whose orders
came from heaven. (See Mis. p.311.) But she was more than a person
transcribing a heavenly message. Her spiritual stature transcends mortal
measurements. She is one with the revelation; through her the revelation
speaks" (Mary Baker Eddy: A Centennial Appreciation p. 109).
Albert F. Gilmore, CSB, wrote: "Her
works furnish positive proof of her position as the revelator -the woman
representative-of the Christ in this age, through whom the prophecy of the
'second coming' has been fulfilled. There is abundant proof that Mrs. Eddy was
definitely aware of her unique work..." [She knew Jesus' parable of the leaven
which a woman hid in three measures of meal foretold "the second appearing
in the flesh of the Christ, Truth." (S&H 118:7)]. (C.S. Journal
Nov. 1939, p. 407).
Because Mrs. Eddy was well aware of
her divine mission she warned: "No greater mistake can be made than to disobey
or delay to obey a single message of mine. God does speak through me to this
age. This I discern more clearly each year of my sojourn with you" (DCC
113).
"When a student loses the true sense
of me, and what I do, he is at the threshold of the plunge
so many make into darkness, believing that darkness is a
greater light" (DCC 184).
"(1892) I thank God for your faith
in Him and your true sense of me. Why? Because in over one quarter of a century
I have never in one single instance seen these fail to carry a student safely
on in growth and prosperity. But in every single instance the loss of these
mental conditions has wrecked the student...Yes, you may give me the title that
God has given, viz. Discoverer and Founder. It will do much towards steadying
the minds in the present and future. Only I beg of you to be temperate
in using it, be wise as the serpents that it will cause to hiss...A
moderate reminder of this great point of history is needed and will be so long
as time lasts. 1. It shows the advent of God's expressed motherhood. 2. It
shows the fact that destroys the falsehood. 3. It is God's order of showing to
the human race the divine dispensation of Christian Science. Will you see, can
you see me as I am?" (Mary Baker Eddy's Six Days of Revelation, p. 412,
Richard Oakes).
In her Memoirs, Sue Harper
Mims records Mrs. Eddy's statement "...when my students become blinded to me as
the one through whom Truth has come to this age, THEY GO STRAIGHT
DOWN."
We have seen this happen today as
the death throes assail the once mighty Boston colossus. Of
course, to a large extent, the Christian Science movement has
"gone straight down" because too many Christian Scientists have acquiesced in
the Board of Directors' poorly disguised swindle of our rights in their claim
to be Mrs. Eddy's successor. The instantaneous healings that took place during
Mrs. Eddy's time-and for a few decades longer on the momentum she built
up-have temporarily almost disappeared.
Nevertheless, her discovery and
revelation is continuing to transform the universe, as Mrs. Eddy knew it would.
(See Mis. 372:5.) A small instance of this would be: if sixty years ago you
told someone, "It's all in the mind," it would have been hailed as ridiculous.
Today, people who have absolutely no spiritual training, know nothing of
Christian Science, look you straight in the eye and say: "It's all in the mind,
you know!" This is progress.
Knapp's Book Comes Under Heavy
Fire
Gathering More Woes for Hierarchy
Bliss Knapp's book The Destiny of
The Mother Church is currently adding still more to the woes of the
beleaguered exposure-racked Boston hierarchy as this hierarchy drifts
irretrievably toward "the bottomless abyss of self-damnation" (My. 200:24).
Mr. Knapp's book contains a chapter
concerning Mrs. Eddy as fulfilling Bible prophecy regarding the woman of the
Apocalypse. This was the view accepted by all loyal Christian Scientists during
Mrs. Eddy's time and actually until about 1950. This stir and confrontation
today shows how convincing has been the monstrous lie, and how far afield the
interlopers-the enemy in our midst have led the entire Christian Science
movement with regard to Mrs. Eddy as our forever Leader, and her fulfillment of
scriptural prophecy in bringing the Second Coming of the Christ.
Mr. Knapp states in WKMBE I, p.
57, "Mrs. Eddy, in her human experience, represented the woman of the
Apocalypse, for as Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health (p. 565) the Christ
idea was represented first by man and, according to the Revelator, last by
woman."
Perhaps foreseeing the furor that
today is raging over Mr. Knapp's book (which heralds Mary Baker Eddy as the
woman who has fulfilled scriptural prophecy), Mrs. Eddy prophetically wrote to
Mr. Knapp:
My beloved Student: I call you
mine conscientiously for God has given you to me and sometime the world
will know this better even than it does now.
Disaster Stalks in Wake of Not
Seeing Mrs. Eddy Rightly
Yes, had Christian Scientists
sincerely, en masse, acknowledged Mrs. Eddy as fulfilling Jesus'
prophecy to St. John, instead of being beguiled by Boston's siren wiles to
acknowledge THEM, the Board of Directors, as their Leader, it would not have
been necessary for the fraudulent Boston hierarchy to announce, June 8th: "We
will want to think together about whether our movement is in danger of being
lost." (Reported in The New London Day, June 9, 1992, as previously
noted.)
Neither would the establishment
media finally find the Boston hierarchy front-page news, with dozens of
reporters barking at the Board's heels. As all the unraveling threads of the
burgeoning scandal are being tied together, "the truth concerning the lie," as
Mrs. Eddy urged, is being told, and presently the Christian Science movement
will be revitalized and universally recognized as it carries on its great
healing mission.
The world is learning fast, with all
the media exposure today being given to Bliss Knapp's book; and Mrs. Eddy's
prophecy regarding him is definitely being fulfilled. His book seems to be a
catalyst in bringing to world notice Mrs. Eddy's fulfillment of scriptural
prophecy.
All must finally come to see that
Christian Science is true, that it is Truth itself and was revealed and given
to the world by its Discoverer and Founder, who was the one, the only person
who knew enough to discover it.
In the waning days of the twentieth
century the covers are pulled back on the Boston behemoth that has for so long
been the object of dread among the sheep. Let us hope that today's disclosures
and exposures mark the last episode in this sorry spectacle. "Only as we
recognize the revelator, can we understand and obey the revelation. As the
prophecies of Jesus and of John were fulfilled through (Mary Baker Eddy), so
must we, her followers, do our part in fulfilling her prediction for the
twentieth century." (See Pul. p. 22:9.)
How the Christian Science
Movement Will Revive
"Entirely separate from the belief
and dream of material living [from the belief of a material Christian Science
church organization] is the Life divine"-reality. Material organization was
necessary only in the beginning because, among other things, people were
programmed to go to a church on Sunday, etc.
What is the real need? Obviously
understanding. Jesus made this point clear when he said, "Ye shall know
the truth [gain understanding]." Only understanding can free us from the
thralldom of believing that matter is anything other
than Spirit incorrectly viewed. Spirit is ALL, so what looks like matter has to
be Spirit misconceived.
When you actually realize this, you
are letting your "light [understanding] so shine before men that they may see
your good works" and glorify the truth you are manifesting-not a religion or a
church organization that promotes it.
Christian Scientists, who have
digested what is in their textbook, should be a light in their own everyday
world. Only by letting their "light so shine before men that they may see your
good works" can the Christian Science movement be revived. "The time for
thinkers has come" (S&H vii), and if we keep our mind and awareness on the
truth of being we can benefit everyone our thoughts rest upon. This individual
knowing and realization of divine reality is truly the only way to revive the
Christian Science movement. You and 1, as Christian Scientists, are always
"alone with our own being and with the reality of things" (Message, 1901.
20:8). Are we benefiting all that our thoughts rest upon by keeping our
minds "So filled with Truth and Love that sin, disease, and death cannot enter
them"? (My. 210). If so, we are doing our part in reviving the Christian
Science movement.
We, as Christian Scientists, have
been given all the instruction, all the tools necessary to bring
heaven down to earth-to realize heaven's everpresence, because
of infinite good's omnipresence. Are we today using the truth we have been
taught? It has absolutely nothing to do with material church organization, but
everything to do with dematerializing Spirit, that is, viewing correctly what
looks like matter. Matter is an incorrect view of Spirit. Mrs. Eddy and Jesus
"beheld in Science the perfect man who appeared to [them] where sinning mortal
man appears to mortals" (S&H 476:32).
Jesus said, "Give, and it shall be
given unto you." What greater gift can you give to anyone than to behold them
as they actually are in reality? -behold them as God, infinite good,
individually expressed. What we are looking at is always something that
identifies God. This must be so since God, infinite good, is ALL. The more the
world awakens to these great spiritual facts the sooner the Christian Science
movement will revive.
The secret of Christian Science is
that God (infinite good) appears as you and me. If God is Au, and your Life is
ageless, endless, birthless, deathless, and is the reflection of God, then in
reality did you not also appear on the first day of creation in Genesis I:1? If
"Principle and its idea is one" (S&H 465:17) and you are one with that one,
then can it be otherwise? This, again, is why Mrs. Eddy could say: "The more I
understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be
sinless-as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker" (Un. 49:8); This
tells us that the Mind we now have-when free from hypnotic suggestion-is the
Mind of God (infinite good), and why we can "know that [we] have sovereign
power to think and act rightly..." (Pul. 3:7).
"The scientific man and his maker
are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate
the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being" (Un.
46:9).
To gain the power inherent in our
consciousness we must occupy thought with spiritual concepts. We must argue
with our sense of things, since there is nothing "out there." Mrs. Eddy
in answering, "Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?"
said: "Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so" (Un. 8:5).
It is only our sense of things that needs correcting. And it is only
through mighty wrestlings with hypnotic suggestion "that we sail into the
unfathomable sea of possibilities." Does this teaching of the Science of being
have anything to do with five mortals in Boston who aspire to be "the tender
guardians of our journey heavenward"? Or, are the textbook and the Bible our
"tender guardians"? "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve."
Further Statements
Daisette McKenzie, CSB, who knew
Mrs. Eddy, conceded: "Perhaps we sometimes read Science and Health without a
thought about the author. May we not rather realize that we are not only
reading the Word of God, but that our communion with [infinite good] is through
the message written by [infinite good's] scribe?... Mrs. Eddy stated, 'It was
not myself [my corporeal body] but the divine power of Truth and Love,
infinitely above me, which dictated Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures.' The prophecy of the Apocalypse was fulfilled. A woman had brought
forth a child [a textbook and a Manual] that was to 'rule all nations
with a rod of iron'; i.e., unchanging Principle [the truth about ourselves as
having the Mind of infinite good here and now, when rightly viewed, and not
influenced by hypnotic suggestion]."
While Mrs. Eddy was editor of the
Christian Science Journal and later while she supervised it, there were
often statements definitely indicating that Mrs. Eddy's place in scriptural
prophecy was comprehended and appreciated by her and her faithful followers.
Paul Stark Seely in Mary Baker
Eddy: A Centennial Appreciation, avers: "Hers was a God-ordered
mission-symbolized in Revelation as a woman clothed with the sun. the radiance
of spiritual truth-inspired by deific Mind to proclaim
the message which, Christ Jesus said, 'will guide you into ALL
truth.'
"Micah and Zechariah foresaw that
two messengers would appear to further and fulfill this divine purpose. The
first, Christ Jesus, by the spoken word and mighty proofs of the healing power
of God's Word... That the divine purpose demanded a subsequent revelation of
truth the Master made clear in these prophetic words: 'I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever.'
"John, in the twelfth chapter of
Revelation, reiterates Micah's prophecy that she who travaileth shall bring
forth that revelation of eternal truth which shall rule all peoples... Christ
Jesus, the first of Truth's great messengers to mankind, foretold by the
prophets, spake to men as no man had ever spoken... Mrs. Eddy, who had made his
teaching her own through the years of study, prayer, and self-immolation,
became qualified to be the subsequent messenger of Truth, foreseen by the
prophets."
Judge Hanna and Isaiah
54
Nearly a hundred years ago Editor
Judge Hanna realized that Isaiah's Chapter 54 was a prophecy of the Second
Coming of the Christ that Mary Baker Eddy brought. He wrote it in an
article.
Mrs. Eddy praised the article, but
cautioned him that the time had not yet come for him to say the wonderful
things he had written. Why? Because the great red dragon, envy and revenge,
seemed very much in the saddle.
"Do not say blandly that I represent
the second appearing of the Christ. That assertion will array mortal mind
against us," she warned. [Mrs. Elizabeth Earl Jones was told that in the latter
1880's Mrs. Eddy had said it would be at least fifty years before mankind would
be ready for this type of information. It was approximately fifty years later
that the "Six Points" were published in The Christian Science Sentinel and
Journal.] Mrs. Eddy saw that while infinite Love had inspired Judge
Hanna to write it, still it would be a prompting by malicious animal
magnetism to publish it at that time, when spiritual ignorance largely
prevailed.
As previously explained, the Bliss
Knapp flap currently going up Boston's chimney exposes how far astray the
"transgressors," the self-appointed ecclesiastical hierarchy, has led otherwise
loyal Christian Scientists. Mr. Knapp points out that Mrs. Eddy could rely on
the obedience only of those who understood her divine status. Mrs. Eddy
confided in very few. She never allowed any reference to her place in Bible
prophecy to be made unwisely to the general public. She taught that "A
lack of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as
effectually as does a subtle conspirator" (My. 128). "The dire results of
proclaiming herself as the womanhood counterpart to the manhood of Jesus would
have been incalculable then if debated in public, as would still be so today.
Only by understanding the divine and human coincidence can Christian Scientists
rightly perceive Mrs. Eddy as the woman in the Apocalypse," writes a
friend.
Mrs. Eddy was "light-years," eons,
ahead of even her students. They shone by borrowed light -their Leader's
heavenly light. The marvelous healings of Mrs. Eddy's students were brought
about through the reflected light of her consciousness, and this wondrous
spiritual light continued for about forty years after Mrs. Eddy left the human
scene. In Jesus' time the disciples healed in the "name" of Jesus, meaning by
the reflected light of his consciousness. Today we have to work harder to
accomplish healing; we have to learn the Science of our being, and only
to the extent that we actually realize Truth, do we heal.
The period we are now passing
through was prophesied in Rev. 12:12 and 17: "The devil is come down
unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short
time....And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the
remnant of her seed."
E. Kimball Caught
Between Rock and Hard Place
Unbelievable hatred and animosity
lay in wait to pounce on every word uttered by Mrs. Eddy's students. It is
important to see this, and why Mrs. Eddy could not correct Mr. Kimball
when he said she did not teach that she was the woman of the Apocalypse.
It was too early to teach this. He was trying to protect her, when answering
questions from the press regarding a lawsuit brought against Mrs. Eddy by a
disloyal, treacherous student.
Unfortunately, since that time,
those hostile to Mrs. Eddy, unwilling to slink away and lick their wounds, have
tried to use Mr. Kimball's statement to bolster their incorrect contention that
Mrs. Eddy did not fulfill scriptural prophecy. It must be remembered that in
this seething sea of hatred toward her and her discovery and revelation, she
had to use great wisdom in dealing with the public, in what she said, or what
she counseled her student to say. (See Miscellaneous Writings, 253
:1621, for the "types and shadows of this hour.")
More on Judge
Hanna;
More on Mrs. Eddy's
Statement, "I am Thy Deliverer"
Returning to Editor Judge Hanna's
article, Mrs. Eddy commended his proposed editorial question and answer: "Must
the 'Spirit of Truth,' or the 'Comforter' that Jesus
said should come, be personalized or individualized? Undoubtedly. There could
be no fulfillment of prophecy otherwise." The Virgin Mary in fulfilling
prophecy had to come as a person. Jesus in fulfilling prophecy had to come as a
person. In the same way Mary Baker Eddy had to come as a person in order to
fulfill the many Bible prophecies concerning the "woman." (See S&H 118:7.)
Therefore, Editor Hanna asked: "Must the Woman of the Apocalypse be
personalized to mankind?" and answered, "Yes!"
The woman standing in the sun (Rev.
12) is a scriptural symbol of the one who Jesus said would bring the
Comforter and "reveal ALL Truth."
Jesus' true identity-as scripturally
prophesied -was not realized by the mortals he walked among. Neither was Mrs.
Eddy's true identity- as scripturally prophesied-realized as she walked among
her fellow mortals (and her enemies have done their best to keep her true
identity hidden.)
James Gilman in his Recollections
of Mary Baker Eddy writes: "The substance of fresh thought that she wanted
added was that Christian Science was a modern thought and was appropriately
expressed in modern surroundings. 'There is too much looking backward two
thousand years. They will find,' she said, 'that there is aWay here
in Concord as well as in Palestine"' (p.81).
Previously, in this account, we
quoted Mrs. Eddy's statement (My. 132:15): "I AM THY DELIVERER." Mrs.
Eddy, knowing that she had brought the Second Coming of the Christ, could say,
"I am thy Deliverer." Mrs. Eddy's writing assimilated, understood,
demonstrated, is our "deliverer." We no longer have to strive with agony. The
Christ Science she discovered and put in writing for all to learn, is our
"deliverer." She has revealed that, rightly viewed, we are divine beings here
and now. She has aroused and showed us how to awaken from the Adam-dream that
condemns us to till the ground of sense testimony when all the while we have
been given dominion and "sovereign power."
To Judge Hanna, Mrs. Eddy wrote:
"Ponder in thought your infinite harmonious Christ expressing selfhood, and
claim it as you. Drink in its perfection, its moral beauty, its integrity,
worth, its unspeakable safety. [You are as safe as 2+2=4 (which is infinite and
ever-present) because in reality you are a mental and spiritual being here and
now, and you will find it to be so when you awaken from the Adam-dream, the
mesmerism, the hypnotism that has held you in bondage to matter all your days.
How do you awaken yourself? Keep declaring the truth. "When you affirm that
which is true although to human reasoning and sight it is not true at all, you
will bring it to pass because it is already the fact."]
All the truth and beauty of God's creation," Mrs. Eddy continued, "is yours and
you... In that hour of prayer, discard all your sense of selfhood-all that is
involved in the belief of birth, heredity, association, time, decay,
death.
"By the grace and authority of God
close your thought firmly against the interference of mortal beliefs. Hold
yourself open to the plan of God and closed to the plots of Satan. Rise into
the spiritual forces of your own being and your destiny.
"This magnificent spiritual exercise
of treating yourself in devoted prayer and praying for yourself will keep you
in the secret place which is unknown to the senses and open to all that heaven
holds for you. And safe! The secret place of right understanding of
yourself-(infinite good) reflected-is as safe as eternity."
ADDENDUM
Keeping Abreast of the
Times
A Peek into the
Future
We all pass through three stages:
youth, middle age, and "you're looking good!" In the same way mankind
historically has passed through two world-wide changes and is now well into a
third great universal social change which in turn, according to Scripture, will
be followed by a fourth and final change.
The first universal wave of change
that we know of was launched
thousands of years ago by the invention, or development of
agriculture.
In an interesting article published
by World Monitor, June, 1992, Alvin and Heide Toffler speak
intelligently of TODAY'S THIRD WAVE. The second great wave of change came with
the Industrial Revolution, which triggered a vast need for an immense
(unskilled) labor force, and workers flooded into the United States from all
over the world to "earn a living by the sweat of their brow." In this second
great change with its many industries and factories the melting pot ideal arose
from the need to homogenize the workers. This is in sharp contrast to a whole
society that is now (as the third great change takes place) becoming more
heterogeneous (unlike, dissimilar).
Today a third wave-the greatest
techno-social transformation since the industrial revolution-is sweeping the
earth. Gone is the smokestack and assembly line society; the jobs they supplied
are gone forever. In this third world-wide, all-reaching change, gone is the
need for unskilled workers. The misery-producing joblessness this great change
brings up will surely fulfill the Bible prediction: "Through great tribulation
we enter the kingdom."
"Man is not made to till the soil.
His birthright is dominion, not subjection... Man [meaning you] created by God
was given dominion over the whole earth. [This is slowly coming to pass.] The
notion of a material universe is utterly opposed to the theory of man evolved
from Mind... Error tills the whole ground in this material theory, which is
entirely a false view, destructive to existence and happiness" (Mary Baker
Eddy, S&H 518:1; 545:15).
Here let us recall that the Bible
(in the Adam dream narrative) speaks of man being cursed to earn his bread by
the sweat of his brow. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread..."
(Genesis 3:19). This cruel era, in which man lacked understanding of his
oneness with infinite good (God), is ending, thanks to
the spiritual education brought by the prophets, Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy,
and many lesser lights who have continually enlarged mankind's vision and
comprehension of his present divinity.
Being well into this third
world-shaking wave of change in which unskilled workers are becoming obsolete,
a completely new way of educating people is called for. This brings to mind
another Bible prophecy: namely, "And they shall teach no more every man his
neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all
know me [Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love] from the least of
them unto the greatest" (Jeremiah 31:34).
Pointing in this direction, the
Tofflers say that spreading swiftly across the United States, Europe, Japan,
etc., the Third Wave economy's primary resources are educated brain-power,
innovative creativity, rapidly learned and unlearned skills, organizational
transience and post-bureaucratic forms of authority through phone and fax, or
computerization, on vast, globe-encircling electronic infrastructure, on
computer, data base, and above all, on new attitudes, and ever-newer and
ever-changing skills.
In the initial changes that are in
the offing, and tending toward "a more spiritual adhesion and devotion," is the
fading out of what was formerly the standard industrial family unit, namely, a
working father, a stay-at-home mother with two children. It may not be seen
today by the general public, but the changes taking place point to Jesus'
prophecy: "For behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed
are the barren and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave
suck... And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father,
which is in heaven (Luke 23:29; Matt. 23:9). Of interest also at this juncture
in human history is Mrs. Eddy's statement: "Matrimony, which was once a fixed
fact among us, must lose its present slippery footing, and man must find
permanence and peace in a more spiritual adherence" (S&H p.
65:25).
After the third universal change now
taking place world consciousness will enter the wholly spiritual era prophesied
by St. John: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and
the first earth were passed away... And I heard a great voice out of heaven
saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men... And
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain [or
unemployment]: for the former things are passed away."
"The baptism of Spirit," writes Mary
Baker Eddy, "or final immersion of human consciousness in the infinite ocean of
Love, is the last scene in corporeal sense. This omnipotent act drops the
curtain on material man and mortality. After this, man's identity or
consciousness reflects only Spirit, good, whose visible being is invisible to
the physical senses: eye hath not seen it, inasmuch as it is the disembodied
individual Spirit-substance and consciousness termed in Christian metaphysics
the ideal man-forever permeated with eternal life, holiness, heaven. This order
of Science is the chain of ages, which maintain their obvious correspondence,
and unite all periods in the divine design. Mortal man's repentance and
absolute abandonment of sin finally dissolves all supposed material life or
physical sensation, and the corporeal or mortal man disappears forever. The
encumbering mortal molecules, called man, vanish as a dream; but man born of
the great Forever, lives on, God-crowned and blest." -Mary Baker Eddy
(Mis. 205:13)
In a talk given on October 15,
1931 at Fifteenth Church of Christ, Scientist, New York
City, Mrs. Francis Thurber Seal told of Mrs. Eddy
confiding in her concerning the finishing touches she was putting on the Church
Manual and how it was the most important work of her life since finishing
Science and Health because it included the provisions for the termination of
the government of the Mother
Church.
Mrs. Eddy told Mrs. Seal that
after more than thirty years of demonstration and constant study of her
revelation, as a final culminating step she had shut herself away from the
world and spent months in silent communion with God in order to bring forth
this conception of church government. She said the Church Manual (with its
estoppels) was equally necessary to what was in Science and Health. It was the
completion of the government of the Mother Church. Mrs. Seal said, "I can still
see the look of far away vision as Mrs. Eddy said, 'When it is completed it
will be the most perfect form of government the world has ever seen.' Then,
after a long pause, she continued, 'And the world will not be able to see it
for a long time to come."'
In My. 230:1, Mary Baker Eddy
states, "Notwithstanding the sacrilegious moth of time, eternity awaits our
Church Manual, which will maintain its rank as in the past, amid ministries
aggressive and active, and will stand when those have passed to rest."
INDEX
PART I
Valiant Warriors Arise to Defend
Mary Baker Eddy
The Organizational Mother Church
Outlived Mrs. Eddy By Six Months
Item From Los Angeles
Times, June 2,
1992
Mrs. Eddy's Deeds of
Trust
Mrs. Eddy's Step 1 and 2 to
Eliminate Organization
Continued Organization is
Death-knell to Learning Truth
The Real I of You is God (S&H
588:9)
How God Answered Mrs. Eddy's Prayer
-vs.- The Board's Tooth Fairy Approach
How God Led Mrs. Eddy to Make the
Manual A Legal instrument
Step 3 - Mrs. Eddy Provided Ten More
Deeds of Trust
Mrs. Eddy's Manual Terminated
Organizational Mother Church
Ecclesiastical Tyranny
The Shadow of a Great Rock In a
Weary Land
Where Were the Other "Extension"
Deeds?
Must We Learn the Hard
Way?
Mrs. Eddy's Ten Deeds
Re-discovered
Mrs. Eddy's 1892 Deed of
Trust
A Tale of Two Boards - Four-member
and Five-member Board NOT the Same
Who or What is Mrs. Eddy's
Successor?
A Third Step Toward Terminating
Organization: The Temporary Fifth Director
The Only By-Law the Board of
Directors Wanted Changed
'You Find Me in My
Writings'
Mrs. Eddy's Writings include the
Manual
Continued Organization Retards
Spiritual Advancement
Board of Directors Breaks Mrs.
Eddy's Publishing Deed
"The Manual Will Save the Cause"
"The Manual Will Be Acknowledged As
Law By Law"
The Manual Shows a Second Deed of
Trust
The Ten Deeds Hold the
Key
Interlocking of Deeds With Manual
Estoppel
Terminated Organizational "Mother
Church" Becomes "The First Church of Christ, Scientist"
The Disobedient Board of Directors'
illegal, Spurious and Misleading 89th Manual
"Tell the Truth Concerning the
Lie"-Mary Baker Eddy
Lack of Principle in Christian
Science Schools
The March Forward
"Catholicism - Protestantism -
Christian Science"
"Mother Church" -vs.- "Smother
Church"
Mrs. Eddy Never Sought The Applause
of Men
The Enemy's First Priority: To Hide
Mrs. Eddy's
True identity
"All Is infinite Mind"
Manifested
Mrs. Eddy Must Be Seen Rightly -
Prof. Hering
"Thou Art the Woman!" - Ira O.
Knapp
Prof. Hering's Letter
Continues:
Mrs. Eddy's Preparation for Removing
the Veil
Re: Deification
Marching on in Spiritual
Organization
PART II
"MRS. EDDY'S PLACE"
"Where Are the 57 Typewritten
Pages?"
Knapp's Book Comes Under Heavy Fire
Gathering
More Woes for Hierarchy
Disaster Stalks in Wake of Not
Seeing Mrs. Eddy Rightly
How the Christian Science Movement
will Revive
Further Statements
Judge Hanna and Isaiah 54
Kimball Caught Between Rock and Hard
Place
More on Judge Hanna and Mrs. Eddy's
Statement, "I am Thy Deliverer"
ADDENDUM
Keeping Abreast of the Times - A
Peek into the Future
Ordering information
"Tell the truth
concerning the lie."
- Mary Baker Eddy,
Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science
Copies of this 112
page booklet (or its 44 page abbreviated cousin) may be
obtained from: The Mary Baker Eddy Institute
2100 Third Ave.,
#2601, Seattle, WA 98121
Any donations to help
with the expenses of our publishing work are gratefully
appreciated
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