CONTENTS

Preface: God's Perfect Child 1
At the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mercer Island . Raising the Dead . The Cross and The Crown . I Tip My Hat

Part I. Mary Baker Eddy: "Mere Historic Incidents" 25
"A Very General Acquaintance" . "Mere Historic Incidents" . "An Agreeable Variety of Pain" . Mother Mary . "Gems of Truth" and "Dewdrops of Wisdom" . Dr. P. P. Quimby and His Disciple . The Fall in Lynn . Healing and Head-­Rubbing . Science and Health, First Edition . "A Touch of Fanaticism" . "I Shall Never Again Trust a Man" . "Take Up Spofford" . "A Demonic Strain" . Science and Health, Second and Third Editions . "Mesmeric Poison"

Part II. "You Will Have to Learn to Love Me More": Mrs. Eddy Builds Her Empire 93
Footman Frye . The Boston Craze . "Mind-­Quacks" . At the Massachusetts Metaphysical College . Metaphysical Obstetrics . Another Son . The Mother Church . M.A.M. at Pleasant View . "A Power Not One's Own" . The C.O.P. and "The Corrective Work" . Mark Twain and "That Shameless Old Swindler, Mother Eddy" . Radical Reliance and Mrs. Eddy's Teeth . The "Excelsior Extension" and the "Next Friends" . Willa Cather's Secret . "Call It the Christian Science Monitor" . The
Stetson Problem . "A Combination of Sinners That Was Fast" . Science and Health, 1910 Edition . Postscript: "Mrs. Eddy's Place"

Part III. "Nothing Has Gone Right Since 1910": Christian Science After Death 195
The Telephone in the Tomb . The Great Litigation . Lady Astor Leads the Way . Nothing Succeeds Like Supply . "Three Cheers for the Christian Scientists" . Healing in Hollywood . "The Blight That Failed" . Paul Revere Rides Again . Behind the Scenes with the Metaphysicians . "The President's Son of a Bitch" . The Kerry Letters

Part IV. "God's Law": Christian Science Goes to Court 299
Breaking the Law . Writing the Law . The Child Cases . Gaslight . Fruitage . Inside the Sanatoriums . The Child Cases Come to Boston

Part V. "God's Requirement": Christian Science on the Air 393
Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Ed . "To Live for All Mankind" . "Betting the Company" . "One Spooky Operation" . "USA Yesterday" . "The Big Room" . The Dissidents and The Destiny of The Mother Church . The Facts . "Schisms in Our Church" . A Cancer . "My Child Is Dead"

Part VI. "God Will Do the Rest": Resurrecting Christian Science 457
"God Will Do the Rest" . Science and Health for the New Age . Accentuating the Positive . Eliminating the Negative . Remarkable Providences

Afterword: The Church That Can't Heal Itself 517

Acknowledgments 529

Glossary 531

Notes 541

Selected and Annotated Bibliography 619

Index 629