4th Phase Renaissance - Rise Of Women And Healing 1870-1940

(July 6, 2022) The transcendental superiority of the spirit realm was put into practice with the spiritual healing of Christian Science. This both shows the effectiveness of magical placebo healing and its limitations.

Mary Baker Eddy was born July 16, 1821 as Mary Baker in New Hampshire and died December 3, 1910 in Newton Massachusetts. She founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper in 1908 whose mandate was fair news reporting in contrast to the biased sensationalism of the day. She wrote numerous books and articles with the most popular being Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures which had sold over nine million copies as of 2001.

In her book she identified the deep reality of nature as "Principle" which seems to be her word for the Greek concept of Logos, the conscious interconnection of all things. She also uses the word "metaphysics" instead of theology because she is arguing from nature and not the Bible. She is also a dualist in that Principle is good and matter is evil. She says this on the first page of her book:

But being the dualist she does not make the mind (consciousness) equal to matter but insists it is superior and that will eventually cause her movement to fail because it encourages ignoring the findings of medical science.

Mary Baker married Dentist Daniel Patterson in 1853 after the death of her first husband. On October 14, 1861, Daniel wrote to mesmerist Phineas Parkhurst Quimby asking if he could cure his wife Mary of some undisclosed illness. Quimby replied that he had too much work in Portland, Maine to leave but if Patterson brought his wife to him he would treat her. Before going they first tried the nearby water cure at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute but her health deteriorated even further. A year later, in October 1862, Mary and Daniel visited Quimby where she improved and publicly declared that she had been able to walk up 182 steps to the dome of city hall after a week of treatment. The cures were temporary, however, and Eddy suffered relapses.

Despite the temporary nature of the "cure," she attached religious significance to it, which Quimby did not. She believed that it was the same type of healing that Jesus had performed. From 1862 to 1865, Quimby and Mary engaged in lengthy discussions about healing methods practiced by Quimby and others.

On February 1, 1866, Mary slipped and fell on ice while walking in Lynn, Massachusetts, causing a spinal injury:

In 1968 she separated from her husband and became a spiritist for a short time before becoming disillusioned with the practice. Her first advertisement for her healing services appeared in the Spiritist newspaper, The Banner of Light in 1868.

In the 24th edition of Science and Health, up to the 33rd edition, Eddy admitted the harmony between Hindu Vedanta philosophy and Christian Science. She also quoted certain passages from an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, but they were later removed.

Mary was aware of the dark side of spiritual energy work which she called Malicious Animal Magnetism  of M.A.M. As there is no personal devil or evil in Christian Science, M.A.M. became the explanation for the problem of evil. Eddy was concerned that a new practitioner could inadvertently harm a patient through unenlightened use of their mental powers, and that less scrupulous individuals could use as a weapon. At first she was paranoid about this. In 1882 Eddy publicly claimed that her last husband, Asa Gilbert Eddy, had died of "mental assassination". Daniel Spofford was another Christian Scientist expelled by Eddy after she accused him of practicing malicious animal magnetism. This gained notoriety in a case irreverently dubbed the "Second Salem Witch Trial."  

As time went on Eddy tried to lessen the focus on animal magnetism within the movement as she came to understand that mental healing or mental cursing (placebo effect) only worked if a person's deep emotions were open to it. 

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy

Eddy, Mary (1875) Science and Health    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Science and Health

(July 6, 2022) Occult and faith based practices come from claimed divine revelations to certain people. This is in contrast to nature based practices which are based knowledge coming from observation and subsequent theory crafting. The Occult had a brief revival during and after the Spiritism era.  

In a reaction against the fraud of Spiritism, the Theosophical Society was formed in New York City in September 1875 with Henry Olcott as the president and Ukrainian émigré Helena Blavatsky as the theorist. Helena was born in what is now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Its purpose to help free “the public mind of theological superstition and a tame subservience to science” by rational investigation into the spiritual powers. (Lavoie 2012, page 141). Earlier Blavatsky had claimed that lower form elemental spirits were deceiving the mediums based upon the medium's own biases. This idea was rejected by the Spiritists which motivated her to form the Theosophist Society with Olcott.

In 1877 Blavatsky published the founding book of the movement entitled “Isis Unveiled.” She adopted Emerson’s Transcendentalist metaphysics that matter was a manifestation of the Divine and combined that with eastern religious ideas from India entering the West for the first time. 

Although Isis Unveiled attracted attention, the society dwindled. In 1879 Blavatsky and Olcott left New York and went to India. Three years later they established the Theosophical Society headquarters at Adyar near Madras and began publication of the society’s journal, The Theosophist, which Blavatsky edited from 1879 to 1888. Here she changed the society's focus from observation and investigation to promoting revelations coming to herself. In order for her ideas to get noticed she claimed that they were transmitted to her via automatic writings from “mahatmas” in Tibet. The society soon developed a strong following in India among the English speaking community. Branches of the Theosophical Society were soon formed in the U.S., London, and India. 

This was a time of revival for all sorts of occult groups using rediscovered ancient mystical texts which were then being translated into English. Collectively these texts are broadly called Rosicrucian and Hermetic. Most of these texts claim to represent more ancient revealed traditions.

In 1888 a ritualistic occult society inspired by these trends was formed in Britain by Freemasons William Wescott, Samuel Mathers, and William Woodman. They modeled it on the Freemasons but women had full equality. It was called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn which is an important part of our story.

The Golden Dawn consisted of three main levels (Orders) with many sublevels. Its first Order taught personal development through study and awareness based on the four classical elements, as well as the basics of astrology, tarot divination, and geomancy. The second Order got members ready to work with revelations by teaching scrying, astral travel, and alchemy. The Third Order was working with the Secret Chiefs (the Mahatmas of Blavatsky) who directed the activities of the lower two orders by spirit communication with the Third Order members. 

For some reason William Wescott quit in 1897 At that time his partner Samuel Mathers, claimed that on a visit to Paris he was contacted by the same mahatmas (called the Secret Chiefs) as Blavatsky and they ordered him to establish an inner secret order to the Golden Dawn. This allowed Mathers to eventually take over the whole group in 1897 which he took in the direction of recreating the Egyptian derived Roman mystery religion involving the goddess Isis. Their goal was to gain mystical power by temporarily uniting themselves with various classical divinities. This new direction caused various people to leave the society such that it effectively ended in all but name in 1903. This included Aleister Crowley who desired to experiment with a variety of approaches for gaining spiritual power (Hutton 1999, p 72-83).​

In time Cowley came back and took over the then defunct Order of the Golden Dawn. Crowley was an egotistical, self-centered showman who popularized this group's magical rituals for the growing British tabloid press which loved to print sensationalistic news (Kaczynski 2010). Yet this publicity kept magic in the British public consciousness and was one source of inspiration for Gerald Gardener and Ross Nichols who rejected the whole revealed approach of the occult to found the more nature and ancestral based Wicca and Druidry during the 1950s.

References

(July 6, 2022) In the 1880's Charles and Myrtle Fillmore of Kansas City, Missouri became impressed by the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy after they themselves were healed and desiring to spread that knowledge they launched a newsletter entitled "Modern Thought" in April 1889. Their ideas were further refined by the teachings of a former student of Mary Baker Eddy's named Emma Curtis Hopkins who rejected Mary Baker Eddy's view of Jesus. Mary Baker viewed Jesus as perfection incarnate, the Savior and Messiah. In contrast Hopkins and the Fillmores saw Jesus in Christian Gnostic and Buddhist terms as a man being born mortal but who perfected his divinity over several lifetimes. 

The Fillmores published their praise of Emma Hopkins in their January 1890 edition of Modern Thought magazine shortly after they attended their first public lecture with her:

The Fillmores adopted the magical healing practices of Mary Baker Eddy is shown by this statement from Charles:

This dualist idea that the divine is good and the material world is bad continues to be central in the modern day Unity Movement:

The Unity movement's view of the Divine shows that it has adopted the soft, Buddhist form of dualism in which the material world is imperfect. This view is not the hard dualism of fundamentalist Christians in which the material world is evil and at war with the good divine forces. Still, all dualist thinking leads to the unsolvable conundrum of why a good and perfect God would create an evil or imperfect world allowing pain, and suffering. Unsolvable conundrums are a clue that the metal framework in which the question is posed is wrong.

 During the 1890's H. Emilie Cady, a homeopathic physician, began writing for the Unity movement and her 1901 book "Lessons in Truth." It became the theoretical foundation for the movement. She says this about evil which shows she was struggling with dualism and the differences between soft and hard dualism. Her solution was to treat evil as a delusion. She cannot bring herself to admit that so called negative conscious feelings also represent the Divine:

 The Fillmore's came to view the Unity ideas as "practical Christianity" but by the 1960's the Unity Movement was considered by all other Christian churches to be non-Christian and even heretical. Yet even today, the Unity movement keeps one foot in traditional Christianity with its use of the Bible as an authority and the other foot in mystic Gnostic Christianity with its reliance on direct spiritual insights for knowledge. They always quote a Bible passage in their Daily Word lesson. They make no distinction between personal spiritual knowledge and collective community knowledge as do Nature Pagans. For Nature Pagans, the source for community knowledge is nature which because it is communal knowledge is authoritative. In contrast personal spiritual knowledge is not authoritative but is instead inspirational and motivational. Authoritative knowledge constrains inspirational knowledge.

H. Emily Cady and subsequent Unity teaching have de-emphasized the bodily regeneration part of coming to  highest consciousness as being too Christian. She says, "The possibility of living in these bodies indefinitely seems altogether foolish and shortsighted."

The primary spiritual practice of the Unity movement is opening up emotional/spiritual channels via meditative (prayer) affirmations which in eastern religious traditions are called mantras. Early in the movement they offered such prayer affirmations via phone and by letter which was called Silent Unity. The leader of Silent Unity was James Freeman between 1971 and 2000. He says this about their practice and compares their approach with the typical Christian prayer of petition, Nature Pagans adopted this same self-reliant approach:

One of Freeman's most memorable times on the Unity prayer phone lines is recounted below:

References

 Unity Daily Word Online at http://www.dailyword.com/about

Vahle, Neal (2002) The Unity Movement - Its Evolution and Spiritual Teachings. Templeton Foundation Press

(July 6, 2022) The year 1900 saw the publication of the book Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum in the United States which began the rehabilitation of witchcraft with Glenda the good witch of the north.  In 1902, a musical loosely based on the book debuted in Chicago which went on to Broadway in New York during January 1903 where it played for nearly two years. In 1939 the famous movie came out. (Good video history at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/american-oz/)

Frank Baum's mother-in-law was the amazing theoretical and activist suffragette, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826 - 1898). In 1893 she published Woman, Church, and State. In that book she argued that the institutional Christian church was responsible for women’s oppression throughout history. Gage believed that the church's resistance to women's equality was foundational to other church beliefs and that the church gained power through influencing marriage and education laws. 

This became the "radical" wing of the suffragette movement which led in 1890 to the creation of the more conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association whose less controversial views actually achieved the women's vote in the United States in 1920. Yet, the NAWSA was forced to officially repudiate Woman, Church, and State in 1913 when it was banned under the Comstock laws. This was a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1873 which had the stated purpose of suppressing "Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.”

 While federal anti-obscenity laws existed for some time, censorship itself was not mandated by federal or state governments. What codified censorship was the 1873 Comstock Act, which called for the banning of literature deemed sexually arousing, even indirectly. The man for whom the act is named, Anthony Comstock, was the leader of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and a special agent for both the U.S. Post Office and the New York state prosecutor’s office. The Comstock Act banned the mailing, importation, and transportation of any printed material (even private letters) that contained lewd or lascivious material. It also banned the transport of any sort of contraceptive drug or device, as well as literature describing contraceptive devices. What this meant was that a book that in any way made mention of any sort of birth control could be considered lewd and subject to confiscation. Individuals convicted of violating the Comstock Act could receive up to five years of imprisonment with hard labour and a fine of up to $2,000.

Other books that were affected by the Comstock Act included The Decameron (written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the fourteenth century), Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Beginning in the 1950s, a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases helped change the scope of censorship laws in the United States. In 1971 Congress removed the language concerning contraception, and federal courts until Roe v. Wade (1973) ruled that it applied only to “unlawful” abortions. 

Gage died in the Baum home in Chicago, in 1898. Although Gage was cremated, there is a memorial stone at Fayetteville Cemetery in Illinois that bears her slogan "There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven. That word is Liberty." 

The Chapter Summaries of Women, Church, and State As Listed in the Front of the Book:

Chapter One—The Matriarchate

Tendency of Christianity from the first to restrict woman’s liberty. Woman had great freedom under the old civilizations. The Matriarchate; its traces among many nations; it preceded the Patriarchate. The Iroquois or Six Nations under reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Government of the United States borrowed from the Six Nations. To the Matriarchate or Mother-rule, is the world indebted for its first conception of “inherent rights,” and a government established on this basis. Malabar under the Matriarchate when discovered by the Portuguese. The most ancient Aryans under the Matriarchate. Ancient Egypt a reminiscence of the Matriarchal period. Authority of the wife among the most polished nations of antiquity. As Vestal Virgin in Rome, woman’s authority great both in civil and religious affairs. Monogamy the rule of the Matriarchate. Polygamy, infanticide and prostitution the rule of the Patriarchate.

Chapter Two—Celibacy

Original sin. Woman not regarded as a human being by the church. Marriage looked upon as vile. Celibacy of the clergy; their degrading sensuality. A double Code of Morals. Celibacy confirmed as a dogma of the church. Many notable consequences followed. Wives sold as slaves. Women driven to suicide. Influence of the church unfavorable to virtue. Women of wealth drawn into monastic life. The church in Mexico. President Diaz. Protestant Orders.

Chapter Three—Canon Law

The church makes the legitimacy of marriage depend upon its control of the ceremony. Change from ancient civilization to renewed barbarism at an early age of the Christian era, noted by historians, but its cause unperceived. The clergy a distinct body from the laity; their rights not the same. A holy sex and an unholy one. Rapid growth of Canon law in England. Alteration in the laws through the separation of Ecclesiastical courts from the Civil, recognized by Blackstone as among the remarkable legal events of Great Britain. Learning prohibited to women. The oath of seven persons required to convict a priest. Husbands prohibited by Canon law from leaving more than one-third of their property to wives; might [Pg xi]leave them less. Daughters could be disinherited; sons could not be. The Reformation effected no change. Governments catering to Pope Leo XIII, at time of his Jubilee; the President of the United States sends a gift.

Chapter Four—Maquette

Feudalism; its degradation of woman. Jus primae noctis. Rights of the Lords Spiritual. Peasants decide not to marry. Immorality of the heads of the Greek and the Protestant churches. Breton Ballad of the Fourteenth Century. St. Margaret of Scotland. Pall Mall Gazette’s disclosures. Foreign traffic in young English girls. West End. Eton. Prostitution chiefly supported by “Heads of Families.” Northwestern Pineries. Governmental crime-makers. Rapid increase of child criminals. The White Cross society. Baptism of nude women in the early Christian Church.

Chapter Five—Witchcraft

The possession of a pet of any kind dangerous to woman. Black cats and witches. The fact of a woman’s possessing knowledge, brought her under suspicion of the church. The three most distinguishing features of witchcraft. Opposition of the church to the growth of human will. Persecution for witchcraft a continuance of church policy for obtaining universal dominion over mankind. The Sabbat. The Black Mass. Women physicians and surgeons of the middle ages; they discover anaesthetics. Their learning; their persecution by the church. The most eminent legal minds incapable of forming correct judgment. Three notable points in regard to witchcraft. Persecution introduced into America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.” First Synod in America convened to try a woman for heresy. Whipping half nude women for their religious opinions. Famine caused persecution of women.

Chapter Six—Wives

“Usus.” Disruption of the Roman Empire unfavorable to the personal and proprietary rights of woman. Sale of daughters practiced in England seven hundred years after the introduction of Christianity. The Mundium. The practice of buying wives with cattle or money regulated by law. Evil fame of Christendom. “The Worthier of Blood.” Murder of a husband termed petit treason; punished by burning alive. Mrs. Sanio decapitated in Finland, 1892, for crime of petit treason. Husbands control wives’ religion. The “Lucy Walker case;” Judge Dodge decides a husband has a property interest in a wife. Davenport’s Rules for his wife. Assaulting wives protected by law. The Ducking Stool; its use in England; brought to America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.” Salic law. Gavelkind. Women not permitted to read the Bible. “Masterless women.” Women not admitted as a surety or witness. The Code Napoleon. Morganatic marriage. Ibsen’s “Ghosts.” Strindberg’s “Giftas.” Ancient Slavs. Russia under Greek Christianity. The Domstroii Marriage forms. Burying wives alive. “Darkest England.” Advertising wives. An English clergyman offers £100 reward for the capture and return of his wife. Civil marriage is opposed by the church. Action of the Chilian Republic.

Chapter Seven—Polygamy

Polygamy sustained by the Christian Church and the Christian State. The first Synod of the Reformation convened to sanction polygamy. Favoring views of Luther and the other “principal reformers.” Favoring action of the [Pg xii]American Board of Foreign Missions. Favoring action of a Missionary Conference in India. Mormons compared to the Puritans. Mormon theocracy similar to that of other Christian sects.

Chapter Eight—Woman and Work

God’s “curse” upon Adam. Opposition of the church to amelioration of woman’s suffering as an interference with her “curse.” Man’s escape from his own “curse.” The sufferings of helpless infants and children because of woman’s labor. Innutrition and the hard labor of expectant mothers the two great factors in physical degeneration and infantile mortality. Woman’s work in Europe and the United States. Woman degraded under Christian civilization to labors unfit for slaves.

Chapter Nine—The Church of Today

Sin killed by sin. Woman’s inferiority taught from the pulpit today. A Pastoral letter. The See trial. Modern sermons on women. Lenten lectures of Rev. Morgan A. Dix. The Methodist General Conference of 1880, reject Miss Oliver’s petition for ordination on the plea that woman already has all the rights that are good for her. Resolves itself into a political convention. The General Conference of 1888, rejects women delegates. The Catholic Plenary Council of 1884. Mazzini’s prophecy. The opposition of the church to woman’s education has killed off the inhabitants of the world with greater rapidity than war, famine or pestilence. The present forms of religion and governments essentially masculine.

Chapter Ten—Past, Present, Future

The most important struggle in the history of the church. Not self-sacrifice, but self-development woman’s first duty in life. The protective spirit; its injury to woman. Christianity of little value to civilization. Looking backward through history; looking forward.

References

(Dec 23, 2023) Matilda Joslyn Gage's book and the rehabilitation of the witch's image set the stage for Margaret Murray to propose in 1921 that remnants of a European wide Nature religion were preserved into historical times as witch covens whose characteristics could be discovered from the transcripts of witch trails. Her 1921 book, “The Witch-Cult in Western Europe” was based upon witch trial evidence gathered between 1550 and 1700. She also notes that the first witch trails occurred in Britain during the early 1300's and that Joan of Arc was burnt as a witch in 1431. 

Chapter 1

Murry starts in chapter 1 by providing evidence from ancient sources that some sort of Pagan religion existed prior to the arrival of Christianity:

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 introduces the witch's god (called the devil by Christians). He was seen usually a handsome man but sometimes a woman (probably in proportion to the witches sexual orientation) or an animal. In rituals this god was usually played by some man dressed up as an animal. She says in section 4:

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 covers the admission ceremonies. 

A witches mark in some places and times was considered proof that a person had been ordained as a witch although it was not proof at other times and places:

Chapter 4

In chapter 4 Murry describes the witches assemblies and their magical means of travel. Their main assemblies were their sabbaths or in French “sabbats.” 

Some witches reported that they were magically transported to their sabbats via applying magical oils 

From these magical but ambiguous beliefs came the idea that witches rode on broomsticks for as Murry says:

In contrast to attending sabbats, other witches just rode around at night. These nocturnal reports associate witches with the goddess Dianna:

(Murray's source here was incorrect, this quote did not come from that council so it must be considered to be from the European 800's) Diana was the Roman moon goddess and the main feminine deity of the Latin west. She was probably in the line of Sumerian Inanna, Mesopotamian Ishtar, Mediterranean Ayu, and Greek Artemis. Herodias seems to be a temptress goddess based upon Herodias, the woman who causes John the Baptist to be executed by King Herod Antipas of Galilee back when Jesus was living.

Chapters 5 and 6

Chapters 5 and 6 describes the Sabbat proceedings. A French source, Boguet (1589), describes the "typical" Sabbat as revealed by the witch trials (translated into English): 

Chapter 7

Witch hunters were motivated by the fear of organized conspiratorial groups which could corrupt the social order. In some cases the prosecutors found or more likely invented what they were looking for. Murry says this:

Appendix

In an appendix Murray links fairies and witches:

Murray's 1933 Sequel

In 1933 Murray brought out a sequel entitled “God of the Witches” aimed at the more casual reader. She continue to claim that the fairies originated out of a race small people and that they originated the witch religion.

But the big difference is that Murray now linked the Devil with the Goddess Diana instead of a fertility god in a convoluted and fraudulent linkage which goes as follows:

She claimed that the Devil derived from the nature god Pan who was the two horned god representing the masculine aspect of nature (the imagery was certainly borrowed).

 She further claimed that Pan was the same as the god Janus who was the god of gateways and transitions who was often represented as two heads facing in opposite directions (we get the month of January from Janus in a representation of the yearly transition). Sometimes one of the heads of Janus is horned in a representation of the transition from the divine to the material realms.

Next Murray claimed without any evidence that Janus was the same as a male version of the goddess Diana whom she called  Dianus (such a god does not exist in the classical texts). She got this speculative linkage from chapter 16 of the book The Golden Bough by James Frazier. The Golden Bough was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; and in twelve volumes in the third edition, published 1906–1915. While those books popularized anthropology they were full of speculation and short on facts.

Murry now claimed that Diana was the original Goddess of the witches before the rise of Christianity.

Initially these books had little impact with the first book only selling 2,020 copies while the second book was pulled from publication and discounted in price after two years (Hutton, p 200). Yet due to the increased interest in witches due to the Wizard of Oz movie, the second book was republished during the late 1940’s and it became a bestseller. 

References