Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/122



THE QUIMBY CONTROVERSY CONTINUED—MRS. EDDY'S ATTEMPTS TO DISCREDIT QUIMBY—HER CHARGE THAT HE WAS ALWAYS A MESMERIST—QUIMBY'S ADHERENTS DEFEND HIM

controversy is chiefly upon two points: whether Quimby healed mentally, through the divine power of mind, or physically, through mesmerism or animal magnetism; and whether he himself developed his own theory and wrote his own manuscripts or obtained his ideas from Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy, when accused of having appropriated Quimby's theories, has always declared that her system had not the slightest similarity to his. Christian Scientists heal by the direct power of God, precisely as did Jesus Himself. They regard mesmerism, or hypnotism, as the supreme error. "Animal magnetism," once wrote the Rev. James Henry Wiggin, Mrs. Eddy's literary adviser, "is her devil. No church can long get on without a devil, you know." Therefore, if Mrs. Eddy proves that Quimby practised this art, and healed by it, to her followers she has more than proved her case. In Retrospection and Introspection, she says that Quimby was a "magnetic doctor," and implies that he was a spiritualist. "It was in Massachusetts, February, 1866," she says, "and after the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P. P. Quimby, whom Spiritualists would associate therewith, but who was in no-wise connected with this