Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/205

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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
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ity," the passages regarding the manipulation of the patient's head. These passages are within parentheses in the following:

That is, do not be discouraged but hold calmly and persistently on to science that tells you you are right and they are in error, (and wetting your hand in water, rise and rub their head, this rubbing has no virtue only as we believe and others believe we get nearer to them by contact, and now you would rub out a belief and this belief is located in the brain, therefore as an M.D. lays a poultice where the pain is, so you lay your hands where the belief is to rub it forever out) do not address your thoughts for a moment to their body as you mentally argue down their beliefs (and rub their heads) but take yourself, the Soul, to destroy the error of life, sensation and substance in matter to your own belief, as much as in you lies, etc.

"Manipulation," as she called it, became a thing of horror to Mrs. Glover; it was the taint which distinguished the false science from the true. Now, manipulation had been Quimby's method of treating his patients, and as Mrs. Glover was a person of singularly literal mind, breaking away from that method gave her a sense not only of independence but of conquest. She considered that she had improved upon the original Quimby method and left it behind her. She still taught her students to put their fingers upon the patient's head, but the rubbing and the bowl of water were now symbols of the dark abuses of "mental malpractice." Having abjured them, Mrs. Glover felt that this Science was hers as it had never been before. She felt that she had now a system which was practically her own, and told Dr. Spofford she considered that Quimby had been a detriment to her growth in Science. The more one studies the illogical and literal quality of Mrs. Glover's mind as evinced in her life and writings, the better one understands how she could readily persuade herself that this was true.