Why would Mary Baker Eddy remove through “Manual” prohibitions such aids as Christian Science literature, lectures, class instruction, and all of the teaching functions of the Mother Church, and allow the Branch churches to gradually disappear in lieu of Christian Science Societies, after she passed on, December 3, 1910?

In 1902, when Mrs. Eddy gave us the 20th Century edition of Science and Health, she added the Chapter “Fruitage” which documents only the impersonal healing of the Word; and not that of a Practitioner. The Chapter is made up of wonderful healings of all manner of cases, contrary to both the medical and surgical practices of the day.

Noting that there was no appreciable diminution of Christian Science practice, she allowed such practice to continue until it would gradually diminish as a result of her comments at the time of her passing, when all form of aids to the Word of Christian Science would be removed as a result of her “Manual” commands.

Mrs. Eddy must have realized that all form of aids to physical, moral, and spiritual health must rest entirely upon the Word, and be found to need no forms of help, whereas disobedience to her commands have caused all of the confusion that has occurred in the Christian Science movement today.

If there were no interference with the printed Word, such as a teacher, practitioner, or formal church in existence, the would-be patient would accept the Word at his point of spiritual evolvement (evolution) and never be forced to grapple with other conceptions, or even a lesser unfoldment of the Word than he is prepared to accept.

To illustrate . . .

Alice Orgain testifies that she “came into Christian Science” at the point of seeing God as of “purer eyes than to behold sin and cannot look upon iniquity.”

She says that she “had been advanced in my studies at the Dallas, Texas, high school at the age of twelve to where I was studying the nebular theory of creation in Astronomy, and cried out in my class, ‘Oh, that does not accord with the Bible account of creation,!' whereupon my teacher looked at me disdainfully, as if to asked 'Whoever believed that it did?'”

“After that, Christianity and Science began a conflict in my thought which lasted until I was 17 years old. When I could stand it no longer, I appealed to several ministers of different denominations to answer my questions that both Science and Christianity had placed in my thought — on one hand those of Science of an evolutionary nature, and those of Christianity which seemed static.”

“The theological question that I asked all ministers was, If God ‘declares the end from the beginning’ and is ‘immutable' (unchanging), and he made Adam and Eve to sin and punished them and us for sinning, are all of the theological books that teach this concept wrong?”

“The various ministers that worked for me told me that these things were not given us to know and must be accepted with a trusting faith in God. I answered each of them by saying, ‘I will never open my heart to a religion that does not satisfy my head first.’”

“Eventually Science and Health was put into my hands, whereupon I accepted it with ecstatic joy for it presented to me a God that didn’t know evil, sin, disease, nor death. I accepted it at this point and have never fallen below this conception for fifty-three years.” (end quote)


Now, if everyone who comes to Christian Science for light were allowed to find his own “place” in this process free from the infections of another person’s thoughts — be it teacher, practitioner, lecturer, or literature, which have been forbidden by the provisions of the Manual ever since Mrs. Eddy left us in person — they would find their own evolution and never become confused.