# The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur)/Chapter 09

CHAPTER IX
MESMERISM DOMINANT
BELIEVING somewhat in Quimby as a profound sage and saintly man, Mrs. Patterson, to the astonishment of her family, returned to Tilton a well woman. Before leaving Portland she ascended to the dome of the city hall by a stairway of one hundred and eighty-two steps to signalize her complete recovery from spinal weakness. Attributing her well-being entirely to Quimby and asserting that he was not a Spiritualist or a mesmerist, she wrote two articles for the Press of Portland, giving him the honor of her cure and revealing a gratitude so heartfelt and sincere that the most cynical must have admitted her generosity. In one article she said she could see dimly and only as trees walking the great principle which underlay his works.
That neither Quimby nor any of his patients could discern this principle, and that he did constantly resort to Spiritualistic clairvoyance for diagnosis and to mesmerism for healing, made no alteration in the faith of Mary Baker. She heard and saw only what was in her own mind and experience, and continued to identify publicly and privately her faith with Quimby’s in the face of all the evidence to the contrary and his own occasional expostulation. The Portland public, reading her articles, fairly caught ​its breath and asked in amazement, “What, this Quimby compared to Christ! well, what next?” In her attitude toward Quimby she was like a daughter idealizing a father whom all the world knows to be other than she thinks him. Controlled by her search for the ideal, Mary Baker was to this extent controlled by mesmerism.
On arriving at her sister’s home she talked to the various members of her family and all their intimate friends about Quimby’s power to heal, talked until she really excited in her sister Abigail a curiosity to know something of Quimby. The handsome boy, Albert, whose birth had been largely responsible for the banishment of Mary’s son, George Glover, had grown up into a rather wayward young man. Abigail wanted her boy cured of his habits and she instructed Mary to write “Dr.” Quimby to come to them, as he professed himself able to do, spiritually, or in his “condensed identity,” or by his “omnipresence,” and give Albert the benefit of his magnetic “wisdom.” As nothing resulted from the writing to change Albert’s habits, Mrs. Tilton determined to go herself to Portland. She made the journey with a woman friend about a month after Mary’s return, but she returned home confirmed in her own mind that Quimby was exactly what she had previously supposed him to be, an ignorant quack with a jargon of cant which made no impression upon her. She was gratified that Mary was cured, but what had cured her she failed to comprehend from her experience with Quimby. Abigail Tilton came near to the truth, however, when she ​told her family that it was Mary’s own faith and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Portland mesmerist. As for Albert, he was not benefited, and his life ended in an early death.
Mrs. Patterson’s restored health made possible her activity in her husband’s interest. She shortly made a journey to Washington with letters from the governor of New Hampshire to President Lincoln, to intercede for his release from prison. Official action was set in motion and about the holiday season she returned to Tilton happy over the probable outcome of her trip. Shortly afterwards Dr. Patterson was released and he also came to Tilton. He was penniless, threadbare, and emaciated, a spectacle to excite commiseration. His share in the fortunes of war had been inglorious and bitter, but he had a thrilling tale to unfold and was eager to relate it. Through the assistance of his brother in Saco, Maine, and his wife’s intervention for him with her own family, he soon recovered his former prosperity, but did not at once resume his dental practise, nor did he seem disposed to reassume his domestic obligations. Some natural toleration was felt by all who knew him for his desire for a vacation and he was humored in an imaginary importance which impelled him to a lecture tour. So he departed on a leisurely round of visits to the various towns where he had formerly practised, speaking on his prison experiences.
Mrs. Patterson remained with her sister and took an active interest in the sewing circles which were organized to provide garments for the soldiers and ​lint and bandages for the hospitals. In this work both sisters were active and much together in their old-time affectionate intimacy. With her wasting illness gone, Mrs. Patterson recovered her early comeliness, her cheeks again became rosy, her eyes sparkling, and her spirits gay. She wrote a letter at this time to Quimby in which she said, “I am as much an escaped prisoner as my dear husband was.”
All through the summer she remained at Tilton, active in charitable work; but in the fall her sense of private duty and personal obligation led her to go to Saco, the early home of her husband. Here she visited his brother and was for a time with her husband, whom she endeavored to persuade to return to his practise. His wander-fever was not yet satisfied, but he agreed to make an effort to establish himself, and for this ultimate object went to Lynn, Massachusetts.
Disappointed in his purposeless conduct, Mrs. Patterson felt a spiritual depression overtaking her. It seemed likely that she was going to find it difficult to reconcile her husband to orderly living, just when her improved health made life seem to stretch before her invitingly with many avenues open for usefulness. Her perplexity was so serious that it amounted to anxiety, and now she experienced a return of a number of minor ailments and illnesses which threatened to culminate in a serious renewal of suffering.
Was this cure of hers, so widely proclaimed, to lapse, and was she again to return to the old misery? In the year which had just passed she had been ​more or less absorbed in the world, traveling, and actively working in the relief organizations. Her religious life had not been exclusively absorbing, for she had been conforming more to the customary ways of the world than for many years. But if she could not take her understanding of God’s laws into every-day life and use it to meet the shock of events, of what use was it to her or to others, how could she really claim to possess an understanding? She began to see that she had not possessed herself of clear and definite understanding, or any sound philosophy; and with the hope that she would yet acquire such an enlightenment from Quimby, she left the home of her husband’s family and went again to Portland. This was in the early part of 1864.
During this sojourn in Portland Mrs. Patterson resided at a boarding-house where were also living two other of Mr. Quimby’s patients, Mrs. Sarah Crosby and Miss Mary Ann Jarvis. They became acquainted and shortly a friendly intimacy was established among them all on the basis of their common interest. Mrs. Crosby had an especially vigorous personality and was later to show herself possessed of considerable business ability. At the time of her meeting Mrs. Patterson she had been broken down in health by the birth of several children and thought her vitality exhausted.
Mrs. Crosby’s experience under Quimby’s treatment was like Mrs. Patterson’s in outward seeming. He sat opposite her and gazed fixedly into her eyes; he laid one hand on her stomach and one on her head to establish an electric current; and finally ​rubbed her head vigorously and told her his spirit would accompany her home. In describing him she says he was a “natural healer.”
It was the custom of the patients to take their treatment in the morning and the afternoon hours were largely spent in disentangling each other’s hair from the mesmerist’s snarling and their ideas from his confusing statements. Mrs. Patterson did not linger long with this feminine seminar. Quimby frequently invited her to return to his office after he was through practising to continue those interviews which he had had with her on her previous visits, remembering the absorbing discussions of the topic of spiritual healing which she had introduced at the time. On these occasions she sometimes argued long and earnestly with him, endeavoring to lead him to accept her ideas and to group his thoughts into a logical syllogism. Her evenings were almost entirely spent in the attempt to harmonize his notions with her own spiritual ideas. Mrs. Crosby has said that Mrs. Patterson labored long into the night at her writings. These are some of the writings which supposedly form the basis of the copybook literature.
In the spring of 1864 Mrs. Patterson spent two months at Warren, Maine, with Miss Jarvis and her consumptive sister, striving to further the work Quimby had begun and to complete the cure of the consumptive. She had traveled home with the invalids from Portland and they clung to her for healing. She was able to help them but little, for now she was trying to believe in “Quimbyism” with all ​the force of her nature and she talked Quimbyism to the exclusion of all other topics. In Warren she even gave a lecture on Quimby’s “science” in the town hall, defending him from deism and Spiritualism; and in an interview with the editor of the Banner of Light, the Spiritualistic organ, she continued this defence, much to his bewilderment. For what was she, an avowed philosophical Christian, working, this gentleman asked. How could she claim to be the pupil of a disbeliever in Christ’s Christianity — a clairvoyant and a magnetic healer? If Quimby was not such, as all who knew him believed, but something else which he could not fathom, as Mrs. Patterson held, then he wished to see this “defunct Spiritualist” and look into this new doctrine. Thus in those days, Mary Baker’s divine impulse seemed to bring confusion to others.
In May Mrs. Patterson went to Albion to visit Mrs. Crosby. Here a family of numerous members dwelt in a large roomy farmhouse and life was carried on in the patriarchal spirit of the American Colonial period. Mrs. Crosby lived with her husband’s family and spent much of her time in the big sunny nursery while her mother-in-law directed the work of the household. She was delighted to have Mrs. Patterson with her, and after years of experience in the world, she still looks back to this summer and her companionship with Mary Baker as one of the most stimulating, interesting, and inspiring periods of her life.
Her little daughter Ada became Mrs. Patterson’s shadow, following her everywhere, about the house, ​on her walks, and bringing her hassock to sit at her feet to hear fairy stories when she was not banished to outer gloom. She was the first of three young girls who were attracted like young disciples by the wonder and enthralment of the unfolding, spiritual nature which entertained them with glimpses of the land of heart’s desire. Mrs. Patterson spent a great deal of her time here as elsewhere in writing, but there were long hours which she passed in conversation with Mrs. Crosby, and the latter has said no woman was ever such a friend to her, no friend had up to that time or has since done so much to help her to “get hold of herself.”” She has described Mrs. Patterson as possessed of a vigorous intelligence, but a gentle and refined personality, and witnesses her daughter’s devotion to the womanly sweetness of her guest.
Spiritualism was a dominant interest in this family as in many New England families of the period. How Mary Baker strove to overcome the inherent superstition in Sarah Crosby, and how Sarah Crosby curiously misinterpreted the effort and continued to misinterpret through all the years to come makes the most illuminating anecdote which can be told of this visit. It portrays a source of much offense that has trailed its revenge through years, pilloried density and wounded pride crying long and loud against the sprightly wit that cornered them.
Mrs. Patterson was radically opposed to Spiritualism and Mrs. Crosby was almost as strenuously set in its defence. She would describe its phenomena as conclusive argument while Mrs. Patterson, ​bantering her, protested she could reproduce the so-called phenomena. Failing by raillery or argument to convince her friend, she resorted to illustration. In their conversations of a long summer’s afternoon, Mrs. Patterson had occasionally reverted to the influence her lamented brother had exercised over her studies and ideals. She had described his appearance, talents, and personality with the loving strokes of reminiscence which make vivid portraiture. Mrs. Crosby was an impressionable listener. She possessed a sentimental imagination combined with practical energy, and she became enamored of the mental picture of the departed Albert Baker.
To cleanse her mind of such trumpery rouge of false sentiment and to administer a sharp corrective to her superstition, Mrs. Patterson conceived and put in practise an admirable though harmless hoax. One day, as Mrs. Crosby has described it, while they sat together at opposite sides of a table in the big nursery, Mrs. Patterson suddenly leaned back in her chair, shivered from head to foot, closed her eyes, and began to talk in a deep, sepulchral voice. The voice purported to be Albert Baker’s, saying he had long been trying to get control of his sister Mary. He wished to warn Mrs. Crosby against putting entire confidence in her, for though Mary loved her friend, the voice said, life was a hard experiment for her and she might come to slight Mrs. Crosby’s devotion.
As the message was uncomplimentary to herself, Mrs. Patterson expected Mrs. Crosby would shortly recognize the pretense and laugh with her over it. ​Not so. Mrs. Crosby became mysterious, shook her head sagely, and declared that she knew what she knew. Mrs. Patterson, with a gaiety which she rarely indulged, continued the hoax. She pretended to go into another “trance” on the following day to inform Sarah Crosby that if she would look under the cushion of a certain chair, she would find letters from Albert. Mrs. Crosby eagerly did so, and her seriousness affected Mrs. Patterson. She had not intended to really mislead her friend, but seeing that she persisted in taking the affair seriously, Mrs. Patterson wrote her some good advice, couched in language supposedly appropriate to spirit utterance, and laid it in the secret place, as good mothers reply to the letters written the fairies. These letters Mrs. Crosby has kept and has always maintained that they came from the spirit land. Though their source was in humor, their character was not facetious; they were not harsh or misleading, subtle or filled with guile; they are gentle admonishments to right living, and cheerful encouragement to believe in the sure reward.
It seems unnecessary to point out that this whilom ​indulgence in nonsense during a rather long and tedious visit does not in any sense connect Mrs. Eddy with the belief in Spiritualism, nor does it show levity concerning sacred things. It was simply an effort to disabuse a too confiding mind of its credulity, which, failing, was turned into a harmless toleration of its limitations. Mrs. Crosby very shortly after her association with Mrs. Patterson took up the study of stenography. She had imbibed from Mary Baker’s companionship the desire to make her life useful. She was one of the earliest female court reporters in New England. After a business career which netted her a small fortune, she settled in Waterville, Maine, where she acquired property, and in continuation of her liking for the esoteric, she became a member of the society of mystic adepts of New York or elsewhere.