Christian Science treatment (prayer-based spiritual healing)

A fall on the ice, and a book that followed

Mary Baker Eddy was born in 1821. In February 1866, after a fall on ice in Lynn, Massachusetts, and a recovery she attributed to reading a New Testament healing account, she said she had discovered Christian Science (Wikipedia, “Mary Baker Eddy”). Rejected by publishers, she self-published Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in 1875, founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in 1879, and in 1881 founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, where she appointed herself Professor of Metaphysics and Christian Science and taught until 1889. She died 3 December 1910. The same “Agree to disagree” passage on cancer, consumption, and smallpox that appears in the Project Gutenberg eBook #3458 transcription of her book is reproduced word for word, aside from hyphenation, on the church’s own current official web edition of Chapter XII.

Mortal mind, alias matter

Eddy’s own explanation for how prayer heals is doctrinal, not physiological. At the exact locator that names the three diseases, she writes: “‘Agree to disagree’ with approaching symptoms of chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consumption, or smallpox. Meet the incipient stages of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit… Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, ‘Thou art whole!’” (Science and Health, SH 390:27-391:6). Earlier in the same book, generic sickness gets the same treatment: “If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well,” with sorrow said to turn into joy once the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love (1:1-1:3; 14:12-18). It is her own proposed, doctrinal mechanism, not demonstrated physiology.

Tuition, a partnership, and a fee-charging network that outlived her

Eddy appointed herself Professor of Metaphysics and Christian Science at her own college and charged her students $300 each for tuition, “a large sum for the time” (Wikipedia, “Mary Baker Eddy”). In 1870, before the college existed, she had already agreed to a revenue-sharing partnership with her student Richard Kennedy, under which Kennedy would pay her $1,000 to teach him to heal and take patients himself, giving Eddy half of his earnings — an agreement the source records, not a confirmed, realized collection of that amount. The practitioner network her teaching produced still charges fees today: the church’s own current site states practitioners are self-employed, don’t receive any form of payment from the church, and charge what the church calls “a reasonable fee for their services,” which practitioners are said to be happy to discuss with patients in advance, while framing the treatment as something that “can resolve and heal any issue.” To advertise as “Journal-listed,” a practitioner must complete Primary class instruction from an authorized teacher and go through, in the church’s own words, “an evaluation process with The Mother Church, which includes verified healing references” — an institutional evaluation and listing system, not an independently verified healing outcome and not, on the church’s own current page, described as an “accreditation.”

A pediatricians’ body says the evidence is not there

The church’s current materials frame reliance on prayer alone as a personal choice, saying Christian Scientists are free to decide on health care and respect those who choose medical treatment instead. But the underlying healing promise has drawn a dated, independent, professional critique. Paul Vitello reported in The New York Times in March 2010 that the American Academy of Pediatrics had, historically, been “the main opposition to Christian Science and other prayer treatments” among medical bodies, and quoted the AAP’s October 2009 letter to Senate leaders: “Given the complete lack of scientific evidence of the efficacy of prayer in treating any illness or disorder in children,” academy officials wrote Senate leaders in October, “mandating coverage for these services runs counter to the principles of evidence-based medicine.” This is Vitello’s report of the AAP’s letter — a pediatric-scoped, categorical finding, not a claim of proven inefficacy for every condition or age the practitioner network’s treatment addresses.