Healing and happiness in the Christian Science tradition

Abstract

Well known as a church which promises physical healing through prayer and change of consciousness, Christian Science is less well known as one that promotes mental wellbeing through the same means. However, the founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) could be held up as a model of psychological resilience through her own methods as she went from being an invalid suffering from the scourge of the nineteenth century, hysteria, to a dynamic business woman and religious leader who established an international church from her headquarters in Boston. In this paper I show that many of Eddy’s twentieth century followers have, like her, been able to become resilient and happy women treating psychological distress as they would physical concerns.