Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 85:340 (Oct 1928)
Article: The Source Of Science And Health
Author: Hermann S. Ficke

BSac 85:340 (Oct 1928) p. 417

The Source Of Science And Health

Hermann S. Ficke, Ph.D.

In 1856 the pioneer of American spiritism, Andrew Jackson Davis, published a concise statement of his system, entitled The Penetralia; Being Harmonial Answers to Important Questions. The most interesting feature of this volume is “The Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, Revised and Corrected.” This revision had a wider influence than its author intended. Its teachings found an echo in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and some of the phrases which are most frequently on the lips of her followers had their origin in the mind of Andrew Jackson Davis.

Is there any evidence that Mrs. Eddy was acquainted with his writings? The authorized biography of the founder of Christian Science is The Life of Mary Baker Eddy by Sibyl Wilbur. She acknowledges that Mary Baker may well have read the works of the spiritistic leader, but one can find much more convincing evidence, if one places the words of Davis and their adaptation in Science and Health side by side. An examination of these parallel passages will show that from the teachings of Andrew Jackson Davis, Mrs. Eddy borrowed the expressions: Father Mother God, Christ-principle, her definition of God as principle rather than person, her conception of Baptism as submergence in Truth, her objection to audible prayer, and the distinction which she makes between the human Jesus and the eternal Christ. These are among the most important features in Christian Science, and it is interesting to see that they are legacies of the first great wave of spiritism, which swept over the United States in the decade after 1848. So much attention has been paid to her supposed indebtedness to her teacher, Dr. Quimby, that up to the present time there has been no investigation of the influence which the first great leader of the spiritists exerted on her.

BSac 85:340 (Oct 1928) p. 418