In 1861 Mrs. Patterson first heard of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. In the early forties Quimby became interested in Mesmerism. He gave up clock-making, and began to practice Mesmerism with great success, finally elaborating a system of mental healing without the aid of medicines. He was an enthusiast-believed he had solved the riddle of life. His one consuming idea was to commit his ideas to writing for the sake of posterity. This he did in ten manuscript volumes.
Mrs. Patterson put herself under Quimby's care for spinal trouble. In three weeks she was cured. But more than that, Quimby not only cured a patient, he gained an enthusiastic admirer.
"For the first time in her life she felt an absorbing interest. Her contact with Quimby and her inquiry into his philosophy seem to have been her first great experience, the first powerful stimulus in a life of restraint, disappointment and failure. Her girlhood had been a fruitless, hysterical revolt against order and discipline...Up to this time her masterful will and great force of personality had served to no happy end. Her mind was turned in upon herself; she had been absorbed in ills which seem to have been largely the result of her own violent nature-lacking any adequate outlet, and, like disordered machinery, beating itself to pieces. Quimby's idea gave her her opportunity, and the vehemence with which she seized upon it attests the emptiness and hunger of her earlier years" (M., p. 57).
Mrs. Patterson was allowed to copy certain of Quimby's manuscripts. She haunted his room, studied his writings, watched his treatment of patients.
She left Portland thoroughly captured and delighted with Quimby and his system. She talked incessantly of him, and wrote him many letters. In 1864 she spent two or three months in Portland. "'She would work with Dr. Quimby all afternoon,' says. Mrs. Crosby, and then she would come home and sit up late at night writing down what she had learned during the day....It was during this visit that she first manifested a desire to become herself an active force in the teaching and practicing of this 'Science.' The desire became actually a purpose, perhaps an ambition-the only definite one she had ever known. She was groping for a vocation" (M., p. 62). And we may safely add, she was groping for a vocation that meant financial gain, a means of livelihood, if not more. Quimby died in 1866. "Nine years after his death (1875), Mrs. Eddy published her book, Science and Health, in which she developed her system of curing diseases by the mind. In this work she mentions Quimby incidentally, and acknowledges no indebtedness to him for the idea upon which her system is based. Upon this foundation Mrs. Eddy has since established the Christian Science Church" (M., p. 70).
How much Mrs. Eddy discovered "Christian Science" and how much she borrowed from Quimby, in spite of her assertion to the contrary, may be easily tested. The author of The Faith and Works of Christian Science writes: "Mr. Lyman Powell quotes from Quimby the following phrases ... 'Christian Science: Science of Health: Matter has no intelligence: Matter is an error: Truth is God: God is Principle: Error is sickness: Truth is health: The patient's disease is in his disbelief.' Side by side with these phrases and sentences, he sets the parallel phrases and sentences of Science and Health. 'The deadly parallel,' he says, 'does not always prove the case. There may be similarity of view without plagiarism. But when similarity shades off into practical identity of thought and word alike, there is but one conclusion to be reached.'... The documentary evidence is indeed overwhelming, that Mrs. Eddy did not discover Christian Science, but took it from Quimby." And yet Mrs. Eddy rebukes vigorously all who dare to commit, in the smallest degree, plagiarism in connection with her writings. Verily, the legs of the lame are not equal.