Mary Baker Eddy, orig. Mary Morse Baker, (born July 16, 1821, Bow, near Concord, N.H., U.S.—died Dec. 3, 1910, Chestnut Hill, Mass.), U.S. religious leader, founder of Christian Science. A daughter of Congregationalist descendants of old New England families, she married in 1843; her husband died the following year, and she married again in 1853. She suffered from ill health for much of her life. In the early 1860s she was cured of a spinal malady by Phineas P. Quimby (1802–66), who cured ailments without medication. She remained well until shortly after Quimby’s death; in 1866 she suffered a severe fall and lost hope for recovery, only to be healed by reading the New Testament. She considered that moment her discovery of Christian Science and spent several years evolving her system. In 1875 she published Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which her followers regarded as divinely inspired. Having divorced in 1873, in 1877 she married one of her followers, Asa G. Eddy (d. 1882). The Church of Christ, Scientist was organized in 1879. Eddy established the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in 1881; she also founded three periodicals, notably The Christian Science Monitor (1908).
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