Mary Baker Eddy’s Place – Chapter 5
by MJSmith
Chapter 5 – IF MARY BAKER EDDY IS THE WOMAN GOD-CROWNED WHAT HAPPENED?
If Mary Baker Eddy is the woman God-crowned what happened? This answer can be answered once you understand what arguments have been brought up in resistance to the woman, and why these resisting arguments have been taught by the majority, and taught to the majority, of Christian Scientists.
Mrs. Josephine Woodbury, a wayward Christian Science student (she was Mary Baker Eddy’s student), was an immoral woman. She had an affair with a man while her husband was out of town, she became pregnant and pronounced that her son’s birth had been the result of an immaculate conception. She gave her son the name Prince of Peace. Woodbury had lied to her students about the conception. Later on she convinced Christian Scientists to work metaphysically against the contractors and the Christian Scientists building The First Church. She had continually tried to gain control of the Cause and remove Mary Baker Eddy from her place (station). In the 1899 Communion Message to The Mother Church in Boston, Mrs. Eddy made statements about the Babylonish woman, the counterfeit of the woman God-crowned in Revelation. Woodbury took Mary Baker Eddy’s statements about the Babylonish harlot personally, claiming Mary Baker Eddy was stating that she (Josephine) was the Babylonish woman. Accordingly, she sued Mary Baker Eddy for slander.
If Woodbury (would bury) could convince any of Mary Baker Eddy’s students to state or prove that Mary Baker Eddy taught that she was the woman God-crowned, then Woodbury could prove that the Leader taught that prophecy had to have its appearance in the human. Thus, she would have indirect proof that Mary Baker Eddy had been referring to her as the Babylonish woman. This is why Mrs. Woodbury specifically charged in her bill of complaint that Mary Baker Eddy taught and considered herself to be the woman God-crowned and that Science and Health was divinely inspired.
Mary Baker Eddy’s students, who did testify at the trial, understood this very dangerous aspect of the trial. Thus they stated under oath that their Leader did not teach that she was the woman. They were not lying, for Mary Baker Eddy could not teach that POINT openly, although she had made such statements to them individually. Further more she preferred her students to understand this truth about her on their own without teaching it to them.
The newspaper media were more interested in this aspect of the trial and they pressed (as the press so often does) to find out if what Woodbury claimed about Mary Baker Eddy was true. Edward Kimball, a student of Mary Baker Eddy, responded to the press upon this topic telling them that Mary Baker Eddy had never taught in her classes that she was that woman, which was true because she did not openly teach this. However, he also said that she did not wish her students to teach it, and this was not true. The July Journal of 1901 repeated what the newspapers reported of their conversation with Mr. Kimball, thus confusing (clouding) Christian Scientists thoughts upon this topic from that day unto today.
At that time Judge Hanna had been working on a piece with Mary Baker Eddy for a lead article in The Journal on the topic of her place in Bible prophecy, fulfilling the promise of the woman God-crowned. Because of the Woodbury trial, Mrs. Eddy knew it unwise to publish Judge Hanna’s article at that time. Kimball was totally unaware of this article. It is Kimball’s statement to the press that has affected the Christian Science Cause about Mary Baker Eddy’s place in prophecy far more than her words about herself concerning this subject, more than statements from early workers close to her, and more than the pamphlet Mrs. Eddy’s Place. Later on, giving weight to Kimball’s statement during the trial, was the deduction that he was right because of Mary Baker Eddy’s statement ascribed to her concerning Kimball’s “clear, correct teaching of Christian Science….” (My. 297) In Paul R. Smillie’s book, Mary Baker Eddy, he says that Mary Baker Eddy did not ever write these words, that Adam Dickey, one of Mary Baker Eddy’s secretaries, admitted that he was responsible for this statement about Kimble. I do not know where Smillie got his information, as he does not say. However, it is important to understand in this instance that Kimball was speaking about Mary Baker Eddy’s place to the mortal minded men of the press. He was not teaching a class in Christian Science; therefore, what he told the reporters did not have to be a “clear, correct teaching of Christian Science.” And Christian Scientists should take this into account and understand it.
In commending Judge Hanna on her place in Bible prophecy, Mary Baker Eddy wrote:
The time has not yet come to say the wonderful things you have written in proof read by me today, unless you qualify it. Now you may hold your ground as therein, but do not say blandly that I represent the second appearing of Christ.
That assertion will array mortal mind against us, and M. A. M.[1] has been putting it into your mind to say it, and the infinite Love has inspired you to say it. Now be wiser than a serpent. Throw out your truths not as affirmations or protestations, but as suggestions. Then catch your fish, and make the wrath of man praise Him.
With deep love,
Mother
Permission to proceed with the publication of the entire article was indicated in another letter. However, events quickly developed concerning Woodbury’s suit, and such information in the hands of Woodbury would have been extremely damaging to the Cause of Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy. Thus, the article was cancelled.
During the trial, Mary’s lawyers were concerned about this point. So in answering their questions upon this matter Mary Baker Eddy responded to their questioning minds of “Are you the woman in the Apocalypse?” with a relative answer in the form of a question, “Do you think a little old gray haired lady could be the woman in the Apocalypse?” This is the same exact way that Jesus treated Pilot when asked if he were a king (See the last chapter on this.)! Many practitioners, teachers, and lecturers took this statement as Gospel, believing that it was a denial of her identity as the woman God-crowned. What Christian Scientists must understand and recognize is that Mary Baker Eddy made this statement to her lawyers who were not Christian Scientists. The two lawyers were quite interested in Woodbury’s charges about Mary Baker Eddy’s Place and her feeling with regard to Science and Health being divinely inspired. If Mary Baker Eddy had given her non-Christian Scientist lawyers an affirmative “yes” to these two matters (the second being if the Babylonian woman was Woodbury) it would have jeopardized her rapport with them and eroded the genuine esteem they felt for her. It would have jeopardized her chances of winning the lawsuit. This was her way of silencing mortal mind’s resistance to Truth that lay beneath their inquisition. Furthermore, her lawyers may have quit the case feeling that they had no hope of winning. She knew that the lawyers would misinterpret her to mean that she was not that woman and that is what she wanted them to think.
In a letter to Judge Hanna dated October 13, 1902, Mrs. Eddy wrote:
The united plan of the evildoers is to cause the beginners either in lecturing or teaching and in our periodicals to keep Mrs. Eddy as she is (what God knows of her and revealed to Christ Jesus) out of sight, and to keep her as she is not (just another white-haired old lady) constantly before the public. This kills two birds with one stone. It darkens the spiritual sense of students and misguides the public. Why? Because it misstates the idea of the divine Principle that you are trying to demonstrate and hides it from the sense of the people.”
This is an important point that we must take a look at. She says this error is committed for it “misstates the idea [she is the idea] of the divine Principle that” the Christian Scientist is “trying to demonstrate.” When this misstatement takes place then it “hides” the idea of divine Principle” from the sense of the world. The result is, she said, the darkening of the student’s spiritual sense and it also misguides the public (the world). To me her meaning is very clear.
During the time of the Woodbury trial, in order to further protect herself and her Cause, she made additional statements upon this topic. Since then they have been misunderstood and taken to mean she was not the woman. One example: “What St. John saw in prophetic vision and depicted as ‘a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet’ prefigured no specialty or individuality. His vision foretold a type, and this type applied to man as well as to woman.” She is being as wise as a serpent here, as what she is really telling us is that John did not see the relative (human) appearing of the woman God-crowned; he only saw the absolute appearing. This, however, does not mean that God did not know the woman’s identity!
In “Woman’s Hour” she wrote, “Prophecy is but history written in advance. The beloved disciple of Jesus on the Island of Patmos, from the spiritual heights of revelation, foresaw human history and recorded the events of these ‘later days’. He did not leave the ages comfortless. He saw the final readjustment of all things, and in the vision he saw symbolically the crown of power and revelation placed upon the head of womanhood.” Prophecy is only fulfilled when it has its human appearing. In the previous statement Mary Baker Eddy says, “His vision foretold a type….” In Miscellaneous Writings she says, “The Scriptural metaphors, – of the woman in travail, the great red dragon that stood ready to devour the child as soon as it was born, and the husbandmen that said, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours,’ – are type and shadow of this hour.” The type referred to is “of this hour.” She is saying that the human and divine coincidence,[2] its human appearing, is taking place now and what John saw as type was being manifested now (when she wrote it) as fact.
Mary Baker Eddy would not publicly call herself the woman in the Apocalypse in her time. She did, however, associate herself publicly with the woman God-crowned by calling herself the woman in the wilderness.
Many Christian Scientists, even some very enlightened Christian Scientists, think that Mary Baker Eddy says the woman in the Apocalypse (the woman God-crowned) is generic man, but she does not say that. “The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence[3] of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea.” This statement does not say that the woman is generic man; it says that the woman “symbolizes” generic man. There is a distinct difference!
“The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea.” I have wondered if Christian Scientists have had a problem with this sentence because they have misinterpreted her meaning of the word “symbolize”? When you give up the idea of trying to figure out what symbolize means and look to another word instead, her meaning becomes much clearer!
If you look up “symbolization” in the dictionary it reads “man’s capacity to develop a system of meaningful symbols.” Well, Mary Baker Eddy certainly developed a system of meaningful symbols. It is known as the matrix system of the seven synonymous terms for God, the divine calculus, and the four levels of Science. Thus if we interpret her meaning this way, she is saying “The woman in the Apocalypse develops the system of meaningful symbols that explains generic man (the absolute man), the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates (shows clearly, demonstrates) the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea.”
To me this means that it was Mary Baker Eddy, a (wo)man, who had the capacity to develop the divine Science (system), or scientific matrix of the seven synonyms, the four of the divine calculus, and the four levels of Science (which are the meaningful symbols).
Capacity (cap-a-city, pretty interesting if you think about it) means “power to grasp and analyze ideas and cope with problems; a position or character assigned or assumed; a measure of content; the measured ability to contain: volume.” Mary Baker Eddy wrote a volume of S&H textbooks (text means woven). Who was it that capitalized the Holy City Matrix? It was Mary Baker Eddy.
“Symbolic logic” is a science. Symbolism is “a system of symbols or representations.” The woman God-crowned serves “holds an office” as a (the) symbol (Science) of generic man. Is not it clear that it is the system that brings generic man to light, or explains the one man?
The word “serve” also means “seal”. Seals were used in ancient times. In Sumer, for instance, people wore cylinder stamp seals around their necks. Each person had a different symbol on their cylinder seal, the symbol represented their name, or identity. They used the seals as legal signatures for documents, etc.
This makes me think of the Christian Science Seal, with its four commands. Could obedience to these commands be part of the contract-covenant we have with God? I think it is.
The Word Apocalypse
The word Apocalypse means: “to uncover [discover]” this fits Mary Baker Eddy as she calls herself the Discoverer of Christian Science. Apocalypse also means: “to cover.” What if the title of the sixteenth chapter happens to be a reference to the cover of the textbook? Sometime after Dec. 3, 1910 the Board of Directors eradicated the picture of Mary Baker Eddy that was on the inside of the book, before the text began. (This picture of Mary Baker Eddy was her “hidden” Trade Mark.) You could say that her picture was on the cover of the book. Was this a sign from our Leader that when she said, “The woman of the Apocalypse” she was pointing a finger at herself? It seems to me she would be saying, “The woman on the cover, me, symbolizes generic man.” I will not argue this point with anyone, because there is no proof that this is what she meant, however, it is worth thinking about. And it would explain why erring mortal mind got rid of the picture!
The woman in the “Apocalypse” is the identity (is to identify) of a symbol (creed) “an arbitrary or conventional sign used in writing or printing relating to a particular field [the C. S. Field] to represent operations, quantities, elements, relations, or qualities,” of (on the part of) generic man.
Arbiter – “a person with power to judge.”
Convention – “to come; contract, agreement.” Thus a convention could also be a covenant – “compact; pledge; a written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance of some action.”
So what would the covenant (contract) in “The Apocalypse” be? It must be the human and divine coincidence she speaks of in the same sentence.
But there is another sign of the covenant on S&H 558:4 – speaking about the angel the Bible verse reads: “clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head.” This goes back to the covenant God made in the time of Noah in Genesis 9:14-16.
“And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow [upon his head, his brow] shall be seen in the cloud.[4]
“And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the water [teachings] shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. [The red dragon’s flood will fail.]
“And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” (Infuses added.)
Mary Baker Eddy tells us that the use of the woman is to “illustrate.” “Illustrate” is defined in various dictionaries as “to make clear, bright or luminous,” “to make distinguished, to brighten with honor, to make glorious or display the glory of; to explain or elucidate; to make clear, intelligible or obvious, what is dark or obscure; as to illustrate a passage of Scripture by comments.” The word “illustrate” more clearly defines the symbol as a person rather than place or thing. Further on in the statement (S&H 561:23), we read what she illustrates. Mary Baker Eddy illustrated, made clear, “the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea.”
We only know and understand spiritual man because of her demonstration. We cannot add to her demonstration any more than we can add to the leavening process.[5] She did it all and we must follow as she implores us to on page 21 of Science and Health.[6] If we reject her, we reject her demonstration and the Cause will dwindle away to nothing.
One of the prophecies of the Second Coming was that it would be the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power. This is a reference to the spiritual idea, the Son of God, the truth about all mankind. And the second coming came as a woman (in the clouds, as predicted by the Shawnee Indian prophecy). It was a woman because “woman is the highest species of man.” This is the human (the angel clothed with a cloud) and divine (the woman clothed with the sun) coincidence.
SHAWNEE’S GRANDMOTHER
In Shawnee Indian prophecy they have a name for Kohkumthena “Our Grandmother.” They call her Cloud (meaning “messenger”). Cloud sits at home weaving (Glovering) a basket (or net) while she watches her Earth children from a window in the sky (a sky light). At night the dog (dogma) at her side, and sometimes her grandson Cloud Boy, unravel her weaving. They say that someday she will finish her weaving and life on Earth will come to an end (as we know it). “Our Grandmother” will make a new world (as mentioned in Revelation). And into this world she will send the people she has gathered in her basket. She gave her children RULES to follow and told them to pray often, and live by the sacred ways of the Great Spirit (God). The Shawnee “the People of the South [Christianity]” are based upon twelve tribes, like Jacob’s twelve sons.
IN CONCLUSION
Certainly, Mary Baker Eddy is the woman in Revelation 12 but a direct statement in her time acknowledging this fact would have instigated and aroused mortal mind against her even more than it already was aggravated by the Truth. She does, however, assert that she is, in fact, that woman in her published and unpublished writings.
Mary Baker Eddy saw the human and divine coincidence of herself (human) and the woman clothed with the sun (divine). In Science and Health she gives over twenty different accounts of the human appearing of this woman in “The Apocalypse” chapter.
It seems clear, after understanding all the tricks of the red dragon, why there are Christian Scientists today who are afraid to admit Mary Baker Eddy’s place in Bible prophecy. They are afraid that they are going to deify her. Perhaps, if you are one of these Christian Scientists, reading this will help you to accept your Leader’s place? I certainly hope it does.
Mary Baker Eddy is not to be idolized; her persona is not to be displayed to the world or bowed down to. That would not be Christian Science. But she must be seen as having a place (a mission) in Bible prophecy.
She referred to herself as “God’s scribe,” so she wrote the textbook in the interest of God (with the “finger of God”). And with this in mind I can honestly say that it is the same hand that writes the page, the Word of God, whether it was Moses writing the Ten Commandments, or the Disciples writing the Gospels. Because it was never the person doing the writing, it was always the reflection of divine Mind writing the page.
Mary Baker Eddy did not say that she was the Inventor of Christian Science she said she was the Discoverer, thus, Christian Science has always been, but it was veiled to world thought. She was chosen by God to discover (un-cover or unveil) it and write about it. It was not written via human intellect or brain, rather she was inspired to write about Christian Science because she reflected divine Mind. She manifested Principle and its idea as one. It was Mind’s own doing that chose the woman and knew who she was from the beginning (the First Day of Mind).
[1] malicious animal magnetism
[2] concurrence, the meeting of two at the same point
[3] Let us understand that when Mary Baker Eddy spoke of the coincidence of God and man, and the human and divine coincidence, that the word “coincidence” means “to co-in-side.”
[4] Divine messengers ascend and descend on clouds.
[5] “The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.—Jesus.” (S&H 107, chapter – “Science, Theology, Medicine” are the three measures of meal.)
[6] See the paragraphs Inharmonious travelers and Zigzag course.
The Ark of Truth- Mother's Hood 