PREFACE
Mrs. Eddy was deeply saddened by the necessity of providing a Manual of rules for her students, after having given "Science and Health" to THE WHOLE WORLD!
She later realized how crucially important her Manual would become after she disappeared from mortal sight, for she wrote:
"Not withstanding the sacrilegious moth of time, eternity awaits our Church Manual . . . . which will stand when [ministries aggressive and active] have passed to rest." Misc. 230:1.
Mrs. Eddy realized also that the directors of her Mother Church were conspiring to break her Manual, for they importuned her to rescind its By-Laws [the estoppels STOPPERS] ! This was because the estoppels require that the organization, not ANY churches, dissolve at her decease; and the directors would feel that they had been demoted!
She always replied to their plea by saying God dictated her Manual, and that it was spiritually inspired EQUALLY with "Science and Health" and therefore she could not rescind it.
Until the publication of this document, the members of the Mother Church and many other Christian Scientists were unaware that the current Manual is a fake. It is NOT Mrs. Eddy's !
This writer saw that the 1910 COUP had been inflicting the Biblically-promised plagues upon the whole world, ever since the COUP occurred. She saw that these plagues are cited in the Bible, in its closing verses [Rev. 22:18,19], and that the penalties would continue to escalate under the regime of the hoax-Manual which the directors had fabricated IN SECRET while Mrs. Eddy was still here, and which they sold AS HERS within three weeks after her funeral !
The reason the world's plagues would continue to increase is chillingly simple. It is because the directors' spurious Manual not only conceals the great Leader's divine guidance for the whole world but it flies in the face of those Bible verses which tell of the inexorable plagues that would result from "ADDING TO" and "TAKING FROM" the words of the sacred Scriptures.
To thus associate Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual with the Bible, evokes a quick remonstrance from other church-goers, however charitable they may feel toward religions other than their own. BUT Christian Science is showing the world that Christian Science IS God's Word, and is therefore sacred Scripture !
It is only recently that large numbers of the defrauded members of the Mother Church have begun to realize that they have been helping the usurper-directors [and their fake Manual] to impinge increasing painful crises upon all humanity instead of bestowing peace and healing which true Christian Science brings.
There is a truism that "world conditions are the reflection of the highest world religion." The religions of the world, however, are fragmented, and are personally specialized. In this light, Christian Science should not be called RELIGION but SCIENCE, because it is not fragmentary. It reveals and TEACHES the ultimate of God, Good, in the pure SCIENCE OF BEING !
While Mrs. Eddy was here, the world recognized that the Christian Scientists possessed the highest understanding and proof of God, that was ever manifested on earth since the Acts of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.
THEN "SATAN ALSO CAME" IN THE FORM OF THE 1910 COUP and the Christian Science denomination began its imperceptible [at first] plummeting toward becoming almost the least influential religion on the planet ! Worse, the "mentally-liberated" and humanly-ambitious directorate became the veritable Biblical CAUSE of our Biblically-promised plagues !
Today, despite the several past decades of these inevitable plagues, there is a crescending "GLAD SOUND" heard in human consciousness ! It is caused by at least 35 years of obedience to Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual by uncounted thousands of "Independent" Christian Scientists, of whom there are more today than there are members of the organized Mother Church.
These free Christian Scientists are participating, all year round, all over the literate world, in a myriad of Christian Science seminars, conferences, classes and study groups. They are happily learning the advanced and exalting discoveries of John W. Doorly and his students, hidden for so long in "Science and Health", our TEXTBOOK !
In 1976, the theme of the June Annual Meeting at the Mother Church was "SHOW ME, SHEPHERD !" But the high hopes of the members were dashed when it became evident that the theme meant: "O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds !"
Now, a quarter of a century later, that is still the dominant theme of the LOYAL director supporters; all the while, in divine vindication of Mary Baker Eddy, their disobedient organization is RAPIDLY melting out from under them !
"PREVIEW"
How the directors of the Boston Mother Church and NOT Mary Baker Eddy created today's forbidden hierarchy at the moment of the Leader's death; and how it has resulted in today's vanishing ORGANIZED Christian Science Mother Church.
It was a religious COUP of unprecedented scope and depth. It was WORLD SHAKING !
It mutated the Christian Science Movement into a travesty [from Mrs. Eddy's standpoint] at the very moment when, a few months before her death, LIFE Magazine of July 14, 1910, had printed a glowing birthday tribute to her in her 90th year, in part as follows:
"She has held her course with apparent serenity and at present, at an advanced age, is still the head and front of ONE OF THE GREATEST RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS KNOWN." [Emphasis added.]
At her decease, all of the nationally-known newspapers [and hundreds of lesser ones] editorialized in eulogy of Mrs. Eddy. Regardless of the length or brevity of the editorials and whether cordial or merely polite, the tone of them all is reflected in the SOUTH BEND [Ind.] NEWS, referring to Mrs. Eddy as "Leader of one of the most remarkable religious movements THE WORLD HAS EVER WITNESSED." [Emphasis added.]
The PITTSBURGH [Pa.] LEADER said: "Christian Science is one of the principal faiths of civilized nations . . . and is in a most flourishing condition."
NOTE: Its "flourishing" was given in fact as a new Christian Science Church or Society formed every 3-1/2 days ! [Quoted by the Christian Science SENTINEL of June 11, 1910.]
The eulogies to Mrs. Eddy touched generally upon these outstanding remarkable points:
1. The phenomenal growth of the denomination, Christian Science;
2. The attraction of Christian Science for cultured intelligent people; and, notably, for almost as many men as women;
3. Its miraculous permanent healings of sickness without medication; and its painless regeneration from sin and addictions;
4. The persistent citing of its "millions of devotees, worldwide;"
5. The noticeable uplift of community standards whenever there was a Church of Christ, Scientist, or a Christian Science Society; and
6. The unstinted concession that Mrs. Eddy had made the most tremendous contribution toward human welfare of any woman who ever lived.
It is especially interesting that many of the non-partisan editorials lauded Mrs. Eddy's wisdom in providing for her Church to continue to surge forward on its own spiritual momentum, through its thousands of branch churches WITHOUT HER PERSONAL PRESENCE, AND WITHOUT ANY CENTRAL CONTROL !
This is even more significant, in that it reveals how successfully Mrs. Eddy had established the Biblical "BRANCH" IDEA [Zechariah 6:12], so that the literate public understood the symbolism of BRANCH-EXPANSION in the edifice called "The EXTENSION" as well as the subordination of the Boston organized Church all within THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST.
Regarding her phenomenal leadership, Mrs. Eddy herself said: "Follow me only so far as I follow Christ."
This was the ultimate opposite of following a cultist like the People's Temple Jim Jones, in 1978, or the five-member Christian Science board of directors who, at Mrs. Eddy's deathbed, seized the fraudulent control of all Christian Science churches, thereby precipitating the first communist coup on Planet Earth.
Those five individuals and all of their ensuing self-elected successors thereafter were no better qualified to assume the leadership than ANY of the Leader's followers. Her Manual of 1910 NOT the directors' Manual of January 1911 was the fool-proof, impersonal successor to Mrs. Eddy's proven inspired spiritual guidance.
It was at the dedication of the "Extension" edifice that Mrs. Eddy declared she beheld "a glimpse of glory." It was because the "EXTENSION" meant BRANCH, not the fetters of the organized Boston congregation and NOT merely to add seating space !
She called the churches "branches", branches of THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST before there was ever a Boston "Mother" Church. The original Boston "Mother" Church was so labeled by her Boston followers as a testimonial to her as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
The reason she called all of the Christian Science churches "branches" was that they were the promulgating extension of her founding of Christian Science. She called them branches at least fifteen years before the Boston Mother Church was built. They had formed in voluntary association, as Mrs. Eddy wished.
When the eulogies were published about Mrs. Eddy they were spontaneous, with no inkling to the Press that a silent, world-shaking COUP had already taken place before Mrs. Eddy's funeral. It had been pre-planned and skillfully executed by the five men called directors of the unique Christian Science Mother Church.
Within a few weeks, serious things began to go wrong within the denomination. Nothing was the same at the Boston Mother Church. Whereas the Press had always sought every scrap of news about Christian Science while Mrs. Eddy was here, an abrasion began to seep into the customary cordial Press relations. It was seriously disturbing to both the Press and the membership. Editorial caution by the public Press became uncomfortably noticeable.
The result was manifested inevitably in waning public interest in Christian Science, hastened by the fact that every word which appeared in the news about Christian Science was pounced upon by the zealous C. S. Committees on Publication [COPs] demanding space to provide "correction." The Press rebelled at this unending retracting, and quickly placed a silent unanimous boycott on the publicity which the Christian Scientists had received under the spiritual regime of Mrs. Eddy herself.
NOTE: It is true that the Extension cathedral provided additional seating space [exactly 5,012 seats]. However, that was beside the point, even though there is a footnote in MISCELLANY [142:4] by the "Editor of the SENTINEL", Archibald McLellan which demeans Mrs. Eddy by deflating her solemn explanation of her spiritual reason for abolishing Communion in the Mother Church, [MISCELLANY pp. 140, 141 and 142.]
The added footnote was obviously "sneaked" into the July 1908 JOURNAL, unknown to Mrs. Eddy, after the June Communion Service, its last. It may have been the end of August before she discovered McLellan's added footnote [page 250 of the July 1908 JOURNAL]. Her extreme displeasure at his temerity and spiritual density appears to have been her reason for summarily dismissing him, both as a Church director and as a publishing trustee, in early September of that year.
The dual dismissal is recorded in Calvin Frye's diary of September 4, 1908; and John V. Dittemore says that Mrs. Eddy reinstated McLellan as a director before her action became public. There are several instances on record of her severe rebukes to McLellan, indicating that she was aware of his ambivalence, and giving credence to the conclusion that it was he who did the master-minding of both the Manual COUP of December 1910 and the subsequent "Great Christian Science Litigation" of 1919-1921.
Very soon, along with the insidious impairment of cordiality among the Press, a more ominous condition crept onto the WORLD scene. In hindsight, we all know that historians consider the year 1910 as marking the END of that relatively pleasant plateau in history; for THEN "everything began to go wrong!"
The tyrant, Napoleon, had died; the United States Civil War was well over; there was a surplus of more than $46,000 in the U. S. Treasury; and taxation was considered so "immoral" that taxes were always refunded as soon as any tax-related emergency was over !
Suddenly, in 1911, the year after Mrs. Eddy's departure, today's tax horror was born [in the State of Wisconsin]. Even now, it is seen more clearly every day that 1913 pinpointed an irreversible trend against humanity. It was in 1913 that the usurping Boston directors clamped a rigid moratorium, still in force, upon the progressive unfoldment, by members, of the divine Science of Christianity, Christian Science.
In 1913 the directors issued MISCELLANY for Mrs. Eddy posthumously, disobediently adding some items and distorting chronology, implying fraudulently that she was rescinding [from the grave] their FORBIDDEN jurisdiction over the branches !
It was in 1913 that the Federal Income Tax Law was enacted under the Sixteenth Amendment to our Constitution; and today's Federal Reserve System was born in a clandestine Christmas-Holiday trick, not even as a Federal Agency but as private skullduggery to promote the WORLD BANK and an [enslaved] ONE WORLD !
In 1913, the Balkan Wars exploded into the first World War of 1914. Later, the 1929 financial crash; World War II; the Korean War; the perpetual "Cold War;" then alcohol and drugs; runaway population; noise and garbage; pornography and unchecked crime; violated ecology; and perpetual "hot" wars !
Even today, the world is ignorant of the fact that the 1910 COUP is still the culprit in Earth's planetary writhings consequent to that tragic event because "world conditions reflect church conditions," and "the world progresses in proportion to its highest religious light." This phenomena is described in Revelation 22:18,19 and in the 21st Chapter of Luke.
Neither does the world yet make any connection between the first REPORTED communist COUP in 1917 and "The Great Christian Science Litigation" which had smoldered behind the scenes since Mrs. Eddy's passing in December 1910, and burst into the courts in 1919. When it ended, in 1921, it left nothing resolved definitively or rightly; so that "Eternity [still] awaits" the spiritual [LITERAL] demands of Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual, her 88th Edition, NOT the one in use since January 1911 called the 89th Edition.
While Mrs. Eddy's body was lying in her home at Chestnut Hill [she died on December 3rd], and while the Christian Scientists, world-wide, were grieving in shock at the departure of their great Leader, the 1910 COUP occurred.
It was the quietest, quickest, slickest, most invisible, and most mentally violent, churchly reversal in all history ! It was also the farthest reaching and the most devastating, judging by its planetary effects in the meantime.
Mary Baker Eddy's Church Manual was nullified over night, with two simultaneous, carefully pre-planned shockers; namely:
1. Before the funeral, the 1910 directors announced to the Press that Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual provided for THEM to be her successors, wielding central control over all Christian Science church and all Christian Scientists, forever. NOTHING WAS FARTHER FROM FACT ! Her Manual has ALWAYS demanded the independence of the branch churches from the Boston Church !
2. Those same directors immediately "sprung" a Manual of their own WHICH WAS ALREADY SET INTO PRINT BEFORE MRS. EDDY DIED. They called it the 89th Manual. It had been just waiting for the Leader to die ! Only three new plates [pages] were needed for the sudden transformation ! One plate [page] at the front of the book simply omitted Mrs. Eddy's name as Pastor Emeritus, while two, near the back, contained three added ALL-REVERSING words: "and Branch Churches."
The so-called 89th Manual was such a dazzling counterfeit of Mrs. Eddy's Manuals that it appeared instantly to have been issued by Mrs. Eddy herself, and it was sold AS HERS without comment, within a month after her death !
The catch is: there is not a word of the estoppel By-Laws changed in the 89th from Mrs. Eddy's 88th. The directors claim that the changes which THEY made are not By-Laws, and therefore her authorship was not violated. This of course is not true. It was their CHANGES which overturned Mrs. Eddy's Manual in being accepted by the majority of unaware members.
NOTE: While Mrs. Eddy always capitalized the word "Directors" in professional courtesy, the Press consistently did not. The decapitalization of the word in this document does not imply a vendetta. This reporter was not "thrown out" by the organization but RESIGNED, in order to search freely for the explanation of the 89th Manual's glaring contradictions, convinced that Mrs. Eddy herself had not disobeyed her own Manual by introducing any DISCREPANCIES ! [See: Manual p. 104:17.]
Millions of words have been written and spoken about "THE" Christian Science Church Manual. The reason for emphasizing the word "THE" is that the Boston directorate never makes a distinction between the 88th Manual, which is Mrs. Eddy's final edition, and the 89th, which is completely contradictory to Mrs. Eddy's and contravenes hers. The 89th is fraudulent; and the way is came about is THIS:
After a miraculous performance by the directors and other Christian Scientists in 1894, the original [Little] Mother Church building was finished at exactly midnight on Saturday, December 29th, and the first service in the Mother Church was held the next day. It was a Communion Service. Joseph Armstrong's little book titled "The Mother Church" tells of one of the most exciting episodes in the founding of Christian Science [in the estimation of this reporter].
The directors offered the building to Mrs. Eddy as a Memorial to her spiritual Motherhood; but she had required them to call her Leader, not Mother. She acknowledged the gesture as a Testimonial to her but declined the gift. [Manual p. 75.] Then she declared: "My work for the Mother Church is DONE" [her emphasis] and moved to Concord, N. H., to revise "Science and Health."
Mrs. Eddy's Manual, Manifested Many members became alarmed that perhaps Mrs. Eddy was deserting them; but she assured them she would always be their Leader. As though to reassure them, she offered to furnish a Manual of rules to guide them, and the offer was accepted readily. Her first Manual was in 1895.
During the next fifteen years, through her Manual's By-Laws plus her prose writings on the subject of organized church, she prepared the followers for spiritual adulthood. This included letting go of her, as a PERSON, and the relinquishment of the organized Boston Church; but it did not close any of the Christian Science churches.
And the followers WERE READY, according to the Scientific messages to the Boston GLOBE from members around the world at the time of Mrs. Eddy's passing. Worship in VOLUNTARY ASSEMBLY was not strange to the non-organized branch churches because they had never been organized. Also, it had been required by the 72nd Manual in 1908 that resident helpers in the Leader's home were through with going to church, and willing to give up merely personal affairs.
By use of the "estoppels" [stoppers] in the Manual's By-Laws, Mrs. Eddy made two things unmistakably clear. First, the Mother Church would become inoperable AS AN ORGANIZATION at whatever time her approval of its officers could not be obtained annually; and second, that the Boston Church was never to exert any jurisdiction over the branch churches !
The 73rd Authority Manual That edition, also in 1908, was designated by Mrs. Eddy as the Church's Authority Manual for all time, in the event any DISCREPANCY appeared in any seceding Manual. She herself never created a discrepancy, of course.
Therefore the 88th [her last] is still the "Authority" Manual. It states that the Manual is FOR THE MOTHER CHURCH ONLY [p. 104]; it forbids Communion in the Mother Church [p. 61:8] and Communion BETWEEN branches [p. 70:15]; and it demands that the Mother Church keep hands-off the branches [p. 70:10].
All of this is cavalierly ignored under the false so-called 89th Manual. Even the forbidden Communion in the Mother Church has been continued under the label of "The Annual Meeting" in which the branches are always included !
The directors NEVER mention "their" Manual, or the 89th Manual, only "The" Manual, or Mrs. Eddy's Manual, thus silently accusing Mrs. Eddy of having given the 1910 COUP permission-to-happen with its atrocities against her and her inspired Founding !
Because of unending criticism from the Field about the changes which the directors were making in "the" Manual and in Mrs. Eddy's other writings, the directors issued a lead article in the February 1955 JOURNAL titled "An Important Statement."
NOTE: It may be asked, Why is every tampering "blamed" on the directors and not on the publishing trustees? The answer is: Director McLellan was "calling the shots" after the dramatic success of the 1910 COUP. The publishing trustees acceded to the directors' instructions for the false sake of "peace, peace," until Herbert Eustace balked. This led to the Litigation of 1919-1921. Since then, the publishing trustees have performed under the absolute control of the directors, where independent action means dismissal and/or excommunication for "insubordination."
The "An Important Statement" was so embarrassingly immature, contradictory, implausible, and obviously untruthful that the directors finally substituted two different pages of reading matter in reading-room volumes, so that the JOURNALS in some reading rooms contained the article and in others did not. The article was on pages 92 and 93, should anyone try to find it. All subscription editions contained it.
The "Statement" declares categorically: "No change whatever has been made in anything which [Mary Baker Eddy] has written. The text of all her writings AS PUBLISHED remains today exactly as she left it, and will, of course, be preserved in this form." [Emphasis added.]
Then it states: "The changes WHICH HAVE APPEARED in her books since her passing, changes in topography and bindings to keep them abreast of the times, and a few others, none of them altering her own words, have all been due to specific instructions from her or policies firmly established by her." [Emphasis added.]
NOTE: One of those allegedly "firmly established by her" means "Free Literature Distribution" which Mrs. Eddy condemned, giving her spiritual reasons for doing so.
In 1891, the directors had "sneaked" an elaborate "public relations" article into the May JOURNAL launching the activity without Mrs. Eddy's knowledge. When the article came to her attention [apparently late in June], the July JOURNAL was already being mailed.
She put a stop to the mailing in order to have a "tip-in" page inserted, advising against the activity; and it was rescinded by Carol Norton on the same page. After Mrs. Eddy left us, the directors removed the tip-in page from all available copies [in reading rooms, etc.] and announced that Mrs. Eddy had once initiated free literature distribution.
This left the pretentious scheme still printed in the JOURNAL, still making a liar of Mrs. Eddy !
The "An Important Statement" further claims: "The CHANGES mentioned were authorized personally by her even though they did not appear in the finished book until after her passing." [Emphasis added.]
The directors have never possessed a wisp of documentation to this effect. If they ever had, they would have displayed it prominently, ever since, in every Christian Science reading room, every practitioner's office, and in every vestibule of every branch church.
The Statement also admits: "The words 'and Branch Churches' were added to the titles on pages 120 and 127 of the Manual." Then it says: "This printing [it SHOULD say "This 89th Manual"] went to press in 1910 in Mrs. Eddy's lifetime."
TRUE ! IT WAS READY AND WAITING ! But it was NOT PUT ON SALE IN MRS. EDDY'S LIFETIME ! It went on sale in January of 1911. Mrs. Eddy died on December 3, 1910. And the 89th Manual has NEVER EVER been announced in any way by the directors !
Those 1955 directors had not done their homework ! Or else they did it well enough to know where and how to dodge and suppress such facts as appeared in the JOURNAL of January 1911, its first issue after Mrs. Eddy died, mailed to subscribers by at least December 25th or 26th. Its lead article quotes the Christian Science MONITOR [page 631 of that January JOURNAL] as follows:
"Those around her [Mrs. Eddy] could at first hardly realize that she had gone. Her thought was clear until the last AND SHE LEFT NO FINAL MESSAGES." [Emphasis added.]
The directors' CHANGES ARE CHANGES ! Even the symbolic topographical changes [to keep up with the times!] have constituted diametrical changes from Mrs. Eddy's MEANINGS !
All the while, the hierarchy proclaims to the public that "the" Manual's By-Laws and estoppels are still obeyed "to this day, without the slightest deviation."
This same perjury pervades all of the director-approved articles in the public Press. See: Look Magazine of December 9, 1958; The NATIONAL OBSERVER, August 2, 1965; The WALL STREET JOURNAL, July 31, 1967; HARPER'S Magazine, September, 1967; and ALL of the C.O.P. [Committees on Publication] statements in the more recent Press as well as all pertinent articles in the Christian Science periodicals.
After the COUP in 1910, the directors maintained that it was "inconceivable" to adhere to the estoppels and let the organization dissolve. But those who accept Mrs. Eddy's Manual maintain that, if those directors had been genuine Christian Scientists, they would never have even hesitated to comply. While she was here, many of her directives were startling and sudden. But this basic one provided at least two years to prepare for implementing it. It was spelled out in stark words in her 73rd Authority-Manual of June 1908, and was never rescinded by Mrs. Eddy.
Very recently, all of the members have become painfully aware that Mrs. Eddy would not have prescribed or required anything of Christian Scientists that would have resulted in the sure ruin of the Boston Church, as she warned WOULD happen under HUMAN organization. HER leadership of the human organization was successful because it was divine guidance, OBEYED. HER Manual left that guidance in print; and she declared that it was divinely inspired, equally with "Science and Health."
Ironically, the mere explanation of the 1910 hoax against Christian Science has healed many individuals who where not even students of Christian Science.
Almost all Christian Scientists have heard about the experience of Mrs. Clifford P. Smith while her well-known husband was an adversary-attorney against Mrs. Eddy's Manual during the 1919-1921 Litigation. She was very ill and was not receiving healing in Christian Science. One day, in earnest prayer, she suddenly felt very strongly the words: "Every word written by Mrs. Eddy is from God, including her Manual." She acknowledged the message wholeheartedly, and immediately became entirely well.
Many have believed it was spawned by mortal greed for power, and ecclesiastic clout, and for the obvious ready-made financial bonanza.
But the turbulence at the Mother Church during the last two years of Mrs. Eddy's earthly sojourn gives clearer evidence that the desperation of the COUP was spawned by the fright of Adamic mankind at the new Idea, WOMAN, which clearly threatened to impinge upon men's age-old male supremacy.
Briefly, the turbulence was the ingrained secret Adamic fear and hatred of WOMAN, not merely "some" women.
Mrs. Eddy had caused Adam Dickey to take an oath that, if she ever "seemed to die," she would tell the world that she was mentally murdered. Obviously he knew what she meant, and he couldn't do it, at least not until he was on his death-bed because he passed on, soon after writing his MEMOIRS.
Both Mrs. Eddy and Augusta Stetson had weathered the attempts of men to destroy WOMAN. In Mrs. Eddy's case, it was the diabolical "Next Friends' Suit" in 1907 to have her declared mentally incompetent, so that the men could take-over, with due ceremony, and avoid dissolving the organized Boston Church, even though only the ORGANIZATION was required to dissolve.
The Stetson Saga of 1909 was another shocker which also fell through, but NOT because Mrs. Eddy repudiated Stetson ! THAT is a still further shocker, to be reported eventually in all its exotic mind-bogglement.
The Coup Maintained at ANY Cost The evidence of documented facts shows mercilessly that everything the directors have done since Mrs. Eddy left us has been to nudge her out of her unique PLACE in history by purporting to FUSE themselves into HER place ! There would have been no point in their super-sophisticated network of establishing such falsification except for the determination of men to foil "WOMAN" however much they loved Mrs. Eddy !
To have obeyed their Leader's Manual would have ushered-in the Womanhood of God on earth; but the five men directors were not ready to promote THAT, certainly not McLellan [the bold Archer], and not Adam Dickey who was perhaps still in shock from Mrs. Eddy's charge that he tell of her "mental murder." Undoubtedly, Dickey was persuaded by the others that "the time was not yet ripe for THAT !"
Therefore, to kill Mrs. Eddy without being seen doing it, it had to be done in subtlest secrecy and deceit. The method that succeeded was the burning of Mrs. Eddy in LITERARY-EFFIGY changing all of her writings as furtively as possible !
It was very easy, with the Manual. The directors knew that the world-wide members considered the Manual to be a "dull, little booklet" and "Mrs. Eddy had appointed the directors to administer it," and certainly THEY would not stoop to any skullduggery, no matter WHAT !
The COUP was performed in such "exquisite precision" it has endured for nearly a century, during which time the directors have bought up all possible copies of Mrs. Eddy's genuine 88th Manual "for burning," along with her other original writings.
Through the decades, many members have sweetly contributed to this book-burning by sending precious rare books to the directors "for the Archives" where they become buried [LOST] forever. This dishonest activity has been helped by cozy arrangements with dealers in rare books in many cities where Boston's directors are offered first choice to buy them, "since the hierarchy pays higher prices for them than the book dealers would ask from others."
This, of course, makes research about Christian Science unusually difficult. Whatever valid and scholarly research has been possible for several decades has been due largely to the Rare Book Co., of Freehold, N. J. P.O. Box 957 [07728].
Summary of the COUP Mechanics It was very easy !
1. Only three plates were involved in the 138 page booklet.
2. No change in pagination was involved.
3. No change was made in the outward appearance or inner format of Mrs. Eddy's familiar Manuals.
4. Not a single By-Law [estoppel] was changed. These were simply ignored.
When the grieving followers turned to the directors to learn what Mrs. Eddy's Manual prescribed in regard to successorship, they were sold a Manual which she did not write, but which completely overturned her final one. That one, her 88th, had been quietly removed from the reading rooms, practically overnight; and the so-called 89th was simply sold AS BEING "Mrs. Eddy's", without comment !
Those who actually undertook to STUDY that Manual were suddenly bewildered by the brutal confrontation with their Leader's apparent [unsuspected] stupidity. They tried to comfort one another, saying: "It was Mrs. Eddy who appointed the directors; therefore we must trust them!"
Today, tens of thousands of worried members-in-good-standing-with-the-directors are wringing their mental hands in the wake of the exposed 1910 COUP in a document first published in 1972 titled "The 1910 COUP." A copy was sent to Mr. Reginald Kerry when his Letter No. 1 in 1975 became the subject of a full column in TIME Magazine of March 15, 1976. Mr. Kerry sent scores of copies of "The 1910 COUP" to selected friends and issued two more of his famous Letters in 1976 Letters No. 2 and 3.
In the meantime, an updated version of "The 1910 COUP" was issued in 1977 and reached a wider readership, both in the United States and Overseas; and Mr. Kerry published his Letter No. 4 in 1977 also. His next Letter, No. 5, appeared just before Christmas in 1978 and reached a far wider readership in the organization than did the others. This present, widely-improved issue of "The 1910 COUP" is in booklet form, at the behest of many friends.
Several other former Mother Church members have written and distributed excellent studies regarding the deteriorating Boston Mother Church, so that the hierarchy has been obliged to take note of it all, while still assuring the members "It is all a bunch of lies, for ALL IS WELL AT THE BOSTON HEADQUARTERS !"
The directors and COPs [Committees on Publication] declare this with tongue-in-cheek even while impersonal reporters have been tabulating for years, from the Christian Science JOURNAL itself, the increasing numbers of closing churches and reduced practitioner listings.
All the while, reports from members in Boston declare that all is chaos and deep gloom at the Church Center, all in confirmation of Mrs. Eddy's prophecy: "Organize and you will see I am right. It will ruin the prosperity of our Church."
"Show me, Shepherd" In a show of open-mindedness, the directors chose for the theme at the Annual Meeting of June 1976: "Show me, Shepherd." At last !
The members prayed hard for THAT ! Many attended the Annual Meeting, praying to be shown, and apparently believing that the "me" referred to each director as well as each member ! Instead, there was a "shoot the moon" characteristic at every session. The absence of spirituality and ordinary honesty was a traumatic awakening to all but the most deeply mesmerized.
No questions from members were answered from the podium except those which were SELECTED beforehand from ONLY those which had been submitted IN WRITING prior to the Meeting. It was obvious that God [the "Shepherd"] was being instructed by the directors to SHOW the [gullible] members that the five humans called directors were God's and Mrs. Eddy's vicars on earth forever !
A Formal Boston Response Just before the next Annual Meeting [June 1977] there was an article in the Christian Science JOURNAL for June titled: "The Manual: Staff and Rod." It would have reached subscribers and reading rooms in late May, prior to the Annual Meeting which was on June 6 [the first Monday after the first Sunday in June].
The article asked: "What is the Manual of The Mother Church?" Its own question is never answered in the 5-1/2 columns. With poetic, feverish, FALSE, tongue-in-cheek rhetoric, the article says not one true word about Mrs. Eddy's Manual. When it exhorted "obey ['the'] Manual and be blessed," it meant "Obey the 89th."
But the 89th is so contradictory within its covers that even TRYING to obey it would induce insanity, because its contradictions cannot possibly be OBEYED ! Therefore, calling the 89th Manual "Mrs. Eddy's" calls Mary Baker Eddy a liar !
The article gave no explanation that it was talking about a Manual which Mrs. Eddy DID NOT WRITE but completely reversed hers. Not once did it mention that the obvious reason for Mrs. Eddy's ESTOPPEL By-Laws was to forbid the Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, to exert any jurisdiction over other Christian Scientists. Nor was there a word about the world-shaking CHANGES which the 1955 directors admitted had been made in the first edition of the 89th Manual of January 1911.
Just as an attorney must be an "able lawyer" to win the wrong side of a case, the directors are fully aware of the TWO contradictory Manuals: Mrs. Eddy's final 88th and their own spurious 89th. In being so well aware of this, they are "smart enough" to nimbly HIDE the fact with distracting specious distortions. They are far too "smart" to even speak of the 89th Manual as "the 89th Manual !"
This reminds us of the times Mrs. Eddy addressed the directors in letters to them as being "smarter than God." [Carpenter, "Spiritual Precepts of Mary Baker Eddy."]
Perhaps there are some Christian Scientists who genuinely believe that Mrs. Eddy recanted on her deathbed, even during those five remaining days after she wrote on November 28th that "a combination of sinners" had been too fast for her, not a week before she left us on December 3rd. It is impossible to imagine that such a world-shaking event as her reversing her own Manual [even only in words] would have been ignored in that historic period of five days !
Rather, it would seem that her statement implied her own conviction that she could have proven Life eternal, right there, if her adversaries had not blocked it with their determination to perpetuate the organization; and this was tantamount to killing her. It reinforced her famous words to her secretary, Adam Dickey, that if she should ever seem to die, it would be because she was mentally murdered. [Dickey, "Memoirs."]
Also, if anyone should suppose that those words, "a combination of sinners", only five days before she died indicating her capitulation to that combination-of-sinners, she didn't SAY THAT ! She could have said so, if she had meant THAT ! There is no doubt that she knew the directors were conspiring to break her Manual. Several other students also knew it, including the outspoken Stetson who made no secret of it.
Without a Reasonable Doubt Throughout its 15 year development, Mrs. Eddy's Manual headed straight toward its vivid demand for deorganization. Every new By-Law [or revision of a By-Law] was always printed verbatim in the soonest issue of the weekly SENTINEL and repeated exactly in the next issue of the monthly JOURNAL.
Also, the little "box" in the SENTINEL [listing publications for sale] always carried the same sentence: "Each new edition of the Church Manual containing By-Laws of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, will have Special Notice in the SENTINEL."
That sentence was a fixture in the "box" in every issue of the SENTINEL, whether or not a particular issue contained such additional Special Notice of a new Manual for sale.
Proof by Orderly Chronology [verifiable in the Christian Science Reading Rooms]:
Sentinel, September 3, 1910, and Journal, October, 1910. Exactly three months before her death, the Sentinel of September 3rd contained the last Manual revision that Mrs. Eddy ever made. It was titled "Practitioners and Patients." See: Manual p. 46:12. It was also printed in the October Journal.
The fact of its being a Manual revision, created automatically the issuance of a new Manual, the 88th, which was routinely announced for sale in the Sentinel of September 17th, illustrating how speedily it was possible to issue a new edition. [The plates were always ready and waiting; and the revisions were usually brief, not involving even a change in pagination.] The 88th was also announced in the October Journal.
Sentinel, September 10, 1910. The lead article was titled "The Church Manual" by Blanche Hersey Hogue. The article is conspicuous for NOT featuring The Mother Church or the directors or The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Mass. Obviously, that was because Mrs. Eddy was still here; and the writer of the article knew the true spiritual situation. In the article, it was THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST that was featured.
Sentinel, September 17, 1910, and Journal, October, 1910. Both of these issues contained Mrs. Eddy's "TAKE NOTICE" as follows: "The article on the Church Manual by Blanche Hersey Hogue, in the Sentinel of September 10th is practical and scientific, and I recommend its careful study by all Christian Scientists. Mary Baker Eddy."
No reasoning is requisite for realizing that, if Mrs. Eddy herself had created a "discrepancy" from her 73rd Authority Manual of 1908 [p. 104:12], her TAKE NOTICE would have mentioned it. Therefore, her advice to study the Hogue article was meant to alert all Christian Scientists [and perhaps the directors especially] that her 88th Manual contained NO DISCREPANCY, and prescribed deorganization at her passing.
If the 89th Manual had been Mrs. Eddy's Manual, it would have been accorded the routine procedure for all revisions, namely: The Special Notice of the revision or revisions, QUOTED EXACTLY in the soonest-possible editions of the Sentinel and Journal of the availability of the 89th Manual for sale.
To have done THAT for the maverick 89th Manual would, of course, have advertised that it was a hoax, and would have immediately exposed that it was a conspiracy by the directors.
After the Leader's September 3rd revision in the 88th Manual, there was never another Manual revision printed in any Christian Science periodical, nor any announcement of a new Manual for sale after the 88th!
The 89th was simply put on sale, masquerading as the 88th reversing and nullifying the Leader's Manual. The 89th was NEVER MENTIONED and was NEVER ADVERTISED FOR SALE. It is never spoken of, by the hierarchy, but only as "The" Manual, or "Mrs. Eddy's Manual."
Double Proof Again, the familiar little "box" in every SENTINEL, telling every week about available Christian Science publications for sale, always carried the routine sentence: EACH NEW EDITION OF THE CHURCH MANUAL WILL HAVE SPECIAL NOTICE IN THE SENTINEL.
Again, this sentence was always in the box, whether or not any particular issue carried such special notice. Mrs. Eddy's 88th without the three added words "and Branch Churches" was duly announced; but the 89th was NEVER ANNOUNCED ANYWHERE !
The routine sentence was still in the box in the January 14th issue of the Sentinel in 1911, and there was never another announcement of a new Manual after the 88th. The routine sentence was merely omitted from the box without comment in the SENTINEL of January 21, 1911, and thereafter.
Triple Proof From another approach, every one knows that most periodicals are in the mail several days prior to the date shown on a given issue. In the following analysis, it is assumed that the interim between the mailing of the weekly SENTINEL and the monthly JOURNAL and the date that was printed on them was approximately a week. According to professional practice on this point, it might have been a day or two sooner, or a day or two later.
Backtracking to the SENTINEL of September 3, 1910 which contained the Leader's last Manual revisions, and following through on a calendar by weeks, the Sentinel of December 3rd would have been in the mail by November 26th.
It was only two days later, on November 28th, that Mrs. Eddy signed her statement that she was being harmed by "a combination of sinners," implying that she thought her death was imminent. She died five days later, December 3rd.
That would leave only two days between the mailing of the December 3rd SENTINEL on November 26th and Mrs. Eddy's signing of her famous statement on November 28th.
THOSE TWO DAYS WOULD CONSTITUTE THE ONLY "BLIND SPOT" that would be created by the pre-dating of the periodicals during which Mrs. Eddy could have changed or rescinded the Manual's estoppel By-Laws, which the directors have claimed she did do "while she was here," but they have never offered a shred of proof or evidence of it !
If the December 3rd SENTINEL had already been mailed on its November 26th mailing date, such world-shaking news as the capitulation of Mrs. Eddy to the rescinding of her Manual would have been featured blazingly in that SENTINEL [December 3rd, mailed November 26th] and even in the public Press. But no such thing was ever mentioned.
The next-soonest SENTINEL would have been the December 10th issue, which would have been in the mail by December 3rd presumably before Mrs. Eddy died on that day [Saturday] "in the evening," [as the records state].
Reduction to Absurdity The foregoing reveals that the COUP-directors who foisted the travesty were depending on the gullible Christian Scientists as being too unintelligent to think for themselves.
This is painfully corroborated by the fact that so many generations of members of The Mother Church have cherished the fake 89th Manual since Mrs. Eddy left us in 1910. They became comfortably smug, and stupidly mind-locked by the "aggressive mental suggestion" impinged upon them by human PERSONS, men !
But the great Discoverer of Christian Science had unlocked our minds into the freedom of finding and recognizing divine Truth. The very first page of the Preface of "Science and Health" has ALWAYS contained the words: "The time for thinkers has come."
If Christian Scientists are not thinkers, they are chattels to the priesthood of the self-constituted directors who are forbidden by our true Manual to DIRECT ANY OTHER MORTALS.
When this reporter was a willing, brain-washed supporter of the [sacred!] directors, I was once a guest at a social gathering of members of The Mother Church who, like this writer, were all members-in-good-standing-with-the-directors. A personable young man mentioned the "awful" Christian Science litigation, until then, never heard of by the rest of us.
When pressed for some particulars, the man took the floor and, speaking for the directors, delivered the following shattering pronouncement:
"Mrs. Eddy made "a loving mistake" in causing her estoppel By-Laws to de-organize The Mother Church. Therefore, when she died, those directors had to be "intelligently disobedient" to those estoppels; and those directors saved our Mother Church. And we are still obliged to continue saving it by refusing to discuss the error of Mrs. Eddy's "loving mistake." This includes not discussing the litigation of 1919-1921 because the court decided THAT for all time !"
The above speech, in shocking defamation of Mrs. Eddy, was a haunting dismay for many years to this narrator who was then quite young. Later, it led to the startling discovery that the 89th Manual was NOT even Mrs. Eddy's Manual !
This disclosure was verified with the assistance of Ralph Geradi, owner of the Rare Book Company, [P. O. Box 957, Freehold, N. J., 07728]. He made available a hard-to-find copy of Mrs. Eddy's final Manual [the 88th] of 1910.
He also furnished a copy of the first edition of the so-called 89th Manual of January 1911, and also various successive issues of the 89th which exposed the gradual transformation of its Title Page to purportedly MERGE the Boston Mother Church with "Science and Health", a brazen sacrilege !
All genuine followers of Mrs. Eddy accept her 88th Manual as tantamount to inspired Scripture. Otherwise they should call themselves something else, for Mrs. Eddy herself declared that her Church Manual was INSPIRED EQUALLY with "Science and Health."
This means that the repudiation by reversal of her inspired Manual is tantamount to the repudiation of her undisputedly inspired book "Science and Health."
Symbolic Outward Appearance The Leader's Manuals were uniform in size and appearance hard cover; outside measurement 5" x 7-1/2"; medium brown; gold lettering; gilt-edged white pages and noticeably stark, as though in consonance with her lament at the students' praise of it: "Heaps upon heaps of praise confront me, and for what? That which I said in my heart would never be needed, namely, laws of limitation for a Christian Scientist." [See: Miscellany, 229:24.]
The early editions of the COUNTERFEIT [89th] Manual were exactly like Mrs. Eddy's in outward appearance, easily masquerading as one of hers. After the Great Litigation [1919-1921] it became "progressive" to reprint MATCHING editions of the 89th Manual and "Science and Health."
This was the first gesture of the directors to create the impression that the two books belonged together like twins, whereas Mrs. Eddy had left nothing undone to establish her opposite intention. The volumes have been diligently WEDDED ever since.
The Front Cover Mrs. Eddy's 88th Manual [as with its predecessors] bore only a gold imprint as follows:
On the outside of the book's spine is: CHURCH MANUAL 88TH EDITION
The Christian Science Seal The valid Manual never had the Christian Science Seal on the cover nor anywhere inside the book, as in the 89th. In affixing it onto and into the Manual, the great lie was manufactured that Mrs. Eddy did it; and that she did it in order to symbolize a permanent fusing of her Manual [and the directors] with "Science and Health." Nothing was farther from her known intention.
After the litigation, there was nothing at all printed on the cover except the Seal which was intended for "Science and Health" only !
The Flyleaf [Trademark] On the blank flyleaf opposite the Title Page, there appeared a notice about the directors' own creation: The Christian Science Trademark. It consisted of the Christian Science Seal combined with a facsimile of Mrs. Eddy's own handwriting namely: HER SIGNATURE !
In light of the Manual's several By-Laws which demand her signature in her own handwriting, this expedient appears very cleverly and DISHONESTLY to have been designed by Mrs. Eddy herself, as though to impress her own energetic seal of approval on the very Manual [the 89th] which OVERTURNS and CANCELS-OUT HERS !
The Title Page for Mrs. Eddy's final Manual [the 88th] was severe in its bareness, corroborating the Leader's lament that it had ever become a necessary [temporary] aid to spiritual attainment.
In comparison, the Title Page of an 89th Manual as it evolved into a thing of dazzling beauty [topographically] is a brazen pre-calculated defamation of Mrs. Eddy's FOUNDING. It merges the human DIRECTORS [the Mother Church] into "Science and Health" via the Boston [ONLY] Church Manual.
In fact, it serves, symbolically, to confine "Science and Health" with the limitations of the Manual, to further "protect the public" from our Textbook, "Science and Health."
There is no date on the 89th Manual, the better to defeat any would-be scholars, and to divert attention from the fact that the 89th has been through so many distortions that its correct number would be now in the 100's. Its only system of dating is tiny figures at the foot of the Church Officers page when there is a change of an officer.
THERE IS NOT A WORD IN "SCIENCE AND HEALTH" ABOUT THE MANUAL, THE MOTHER CHURCH, THE DIRECTORS, THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, OR ANY WORD IN FAVOR OF CHURCH ORGANIZATION OR AN ORGANIZED HIERARCHY.
The Copyright Page The 1910 Copyright Page shows that Mrs. Eddy copyrighted only eleven of her 88 editions of the Manual. The last one that she copyrighted was the 73rd in 1908, which she designated as the authority edition forever, should a discrepancy ever appear in a succeeding edition. [Manual, p. 104:17,18.] Mrs. Eddy never created a discrepancy in her subsequent fifteen uncopyrighted editions. Therefore her last edition [the 88th] is still here Authority Manual.
The obeyed Manual would have dissolved the organization in 1910, but not the Boston Church or any branch, a quarter of a century before the copyright-renewal-period of 28 years would have occurred. The only valid reason for ever re-printing the Manual would be for the use of students of the history of religion and in law libraries.
There was no point in EVER renewing Mrs. Eddy's copyright on the Manual because no one would ever conceivably wish to STEAL the contents of the Church Manual ! No one, that is, except the Mother Church DIRECTORS; and that is exactly what they did do. They cavalierly INFRINGED Mrs. Eddy's copyright when they appropriated the bulk of her Manual for concocting their own 1911 edition called the 89th Manual !
On second thought, Mrs. Eddy knew that her Manual was not a marketable commodity as were her other writings. Therefore, since she copyrighted it anyway, it is not far-fetched to assume that she did it to PROTECT her Manual from the only individuals on earth who might be interested in tampering with it, namely, the conspiring directors ! They [illegally] renewed copyright on all eleven of Mrs. Eddy's own Manual copyrights. [See: Alice Orgain's "Angelic Overtures," p. 820.]
In the meantime, students of the history of religion have found the "available" 89th Manual so self-contradictory that they are obliged to conclude that Mrs. Eddy was "not very bright", to put it politely, for foisting such a set of By-Laws upon her followers; and therefore ALL of her writings must be highly suspect. The awful corollary is: the loyal members themselves have wrestled SUBLIMINALLY with the same suppressed conclusion, so that their healing work has automatically deteriorated on account of it.
The Copyright Page still shows that the 88th Manual was renewed in 1936 [28 years after its 1908 copyright]. If the 1936 directors did indeed renew it, they did it illegally, as proven in 1930 by expert independent copyright lawyers engaged at Mrs. Orgain's expense.
On the other hand, if the directors took out a new copyright on their own 89th Manual, they obviously did it under the label of Mrs. Eddy's 88th, for the Copyright Page has never shown it. Obviously, for them to have published it on the Copyright Page would have constituted a clear notification to Christian Scientists that it was a new CHANGED publication.
If they could have proved that Mrs. Eddy had ever rescinded her 88th, they would have copyrighted an 89th Manual forthrightly as a new work [even though posthumously] in relation to her decease in December of 1910. But no mention has EVER been made of copyright of an 89th.
The directors PROVEDLY lied to our Congress in obtaining the 1971 copyright extension on "Science and Health" to the year 2046. It has never been the duty [or privilege] of the Copyright Office to question the veracity of those seeking copyright coverage. However, it is always mandatory that copyright seekers swear that they are telling the truth. Therefore, it seems most plausible that the 1936 directors [in obtaining extension of Mrs. Eddy's 1908 copyright] simply declared that they were legally empowered to "make a few changes" in it.
Nevertheless, they issued the fake 89th Manual as being Mrs. Eddy's Manual without comment to anyone in any way at any time, publicly.
"Authorized Literature of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts" [on Copyright Page]. This language NEVER appeared on any of Mrs. Eddy's writings while she was here. Its presence on any Christian Science literature is the badge which identifies it as having been subjected to tampering by the directors. The so-called 89th Manual, for instance, was "authorized" ONLY by the very directors who nullified the valid God-dictated Manual.
Extract from a Letter in Miscellaneous Writings. This is a boxed paragraph on page 3 of the Manual, quoted by Mrs. Eddy herself from page 148 of "Miscellaneous Writings." The fact that she herself incorporated it in her Manual emphasizes that its By-Laws are for the Boston Mother Church ONLY.
Table of Contents [pp. 5-14] Page 14 in Mrs. Eddy's Manual does not contain the words "and Branch Churches" in the listings for Order of Services [pp. 120 and 127], because those three words do not appear in the headings of those pages in Mrs. Eddy's Manual, as explained herein under "The Appendix Atrocity." It was 1916 before the directors got around to adding THEIR three words "and Branch Churches" to the listings of pages 120 and 127 in THEIR 89th Manual. This is further proof that Mrs. Eddy never intended to use those words where the directors added them. To conceal THAT blunder, they simply omitted pagination.
The "Topical Index" In 1925, a 9-page Topical Index was put into the 89th Manual to "improve upon" the entirely adequate Table of Contents which was always in the Manual. The real motive for the "gimmick" was comically obvious. It was to divert attention from the Manual's inexorable demand that the branches remain forever self-governing and exempt from interference by the Boston Church. The ruse was so embarrassingly childish, and was criticized so mercilessly that the Index was removed in 1951 with the explanation that it "was not widely used !"
Tenets of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist [pp. 15-16] "To be signed by those uniting with The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass." The presence of the Tenets in Mrs. Eddy's Manuals, as well as in "Science and Health," does not support an implication that she intended to merge the two volumes into each other, but rather reminds the organization-minded directors that the Tenets apply to ALL Christian Scientists forever, not only to the members of the Boston Mother Church.
Historical Sketch [pp. 17-19] In Mrs. Eddy's "Historical Sketch" there is no footnote on page 19, as now, with its posthumous implied REPRIMAND to the Leader on a point of accuracy. The directors' footnote was first added to page 18 in 1931 and later moved to page 19. If Mrs. Eddy seemed inaccurate, it is possible that someone called her attention to it while she was here; and if so, it is entirely likely that she showed it to be correct, due to some slight circumstance that was unknown to FUTURE uninformed directors, such as those very ones who so piously added the derogatory footnote !
In fact, it is plainly evident to all who have eyes to see, that ALL of the directors' presumptuous "annotating" of the Leader's original words since her departure has had the effect of either subtly or openly DOWNGRADING her ! This seems to imply, by suggestion, that the directors were [and are] "smarter" than was Mrs. Eddy, or that the directors believe it to be a fact.
NOTE: Mrs. Eddy wrote several letters to the Boston directors in which she privately addressed them as "smarter than God." She did not publicly embarrass them, but frequently had to bale them out of financial difficulties and even get them out of "hot water" in their bungling of public relations. [See: Carpenters' "Spiritual Precepts of Mary Baker Eddy."]
At one time, the directors were mechanically "twaddling" a portrait of Mrs. Eddy up and down a wall of the [Little] Mother Church by ropes and pulleys, both before and after the church services. They once had a statue of her standing outside the Benevolent Association at Chestnut Hill.
At another time, the directors presented her by surprise with fourteen Persian rugs at a cost of $42,000.00. She neither needed, requested, nor even WANTED them ! but, after a polite lapse of time, she returned the rugs to the directors "for safe keeping !"
Once she rebuked them for keeping a flame burning in The Mother's Room [a la Roman Catholic candles]; and at another time she scolded them for GOING INTO DEBT to keep fresh-cut flowers there. They were merely following their own highest "light !"
"Church Officers" Page [p. 21] This is one of the pre-prepared, changed pages. The plates for printing them were ready and waiting for Mrs. Eddy to die. In all of her Manuals, the list of officers is headed by her name as "Mary Baker Eddy Pastor Emeritus."
In their very first 89th Manual [on sale in January 1911] the directors omitted her name, thus nudging her from her historical PLACE, and supplanting her THEMSELVES ! This was especially unprofessional, editorially, since they have irrationally kept the phrase "Pastor Emeritus" intact everywhere else in their 89th Manual, in which THE DIRECTORS MAY NOT EVEN APPOINT OR ELECT THEMSELVES ! [p. 26:22.]
NOTE: Even though Mrs. Eddy's name was restored to the Officers Page in 1924, obviously it does not belong there in the 89th Manual because that is not the Manual she wrote, and because there was never ANY intention by the Boston directors to heed the estoppels which are still in the 89th.
In omitting her name from the first issue of the 89th Manual, the directors proclaimed graphically that Mrs. Eddy was finally out of their way, to "let the men run the organization" as they had so long urged her [in vain] to let them do. [See: Calvin Frye's Diary, quoting Judge Clarkson.]
Church By-Laws [pp. 25-105] The major portion of the Manual consists of 35 terse Articles which governed the valid operation of The Mother Church. These contain short Sections or By-Laws, 29 of which are known as "estoppels" because they are STOPPERS. They prohibit the organization's continuance in the absence of Mrs. Eddy's annual approval of its officers. They DO NOT dissolve The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., or any other Christian Science church.
The main thrust of the [ignored] estoppels is the forever demand that the organized Boston Mother Church keep hands-off the branch churches. Specifically, this is shown in the following By-Laws [estoppels]:
"The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist shall assume no general official control of other churches, and it shall be controlled by none other." [p. 70:10.]
"Each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no individual, and no other church shall interfere with its affairs." [p. 74:6.]
"The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., written by Mary Baker Eddy and copyrighted, is adapted to The Mother Church only." [p. 104:3.]
The divine Plan was a tacit confirmation of the sacred United States Constitution with its untouchable States' Rights and its equally untouchable Separation of Church and State. When the disobediently-continued Mother Church organization STOLE-BY-KIDNAP the untouchable rights of the branches in 1910, it became reflected by the United States Government doing the same thing to the individual States' Rights, and further, to the individuals comprising the States, and the branch churches.
It was THEN that "everything began to go wrong" simultaneously with the Boston organization and with the whole world !
Mrs. Eddy always referred to the independent Christian Science churches as branches of THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, NOT as "children" or "offshoots" of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. Such a fabricated assumption, after 1910, had nothing to do with the Biblical BRANCH-IDEA which Mrs. Eddy founded on earth as THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST. She was also fixedly devoted to our unique United States Constitution, and also to our Monroe Doctrine. As soon as she left us, the directors scuttled entirely the spiritual structure of her founding. Nearly a century later, their perfidy is painfully palpable in America's turbulent soul-searching.
Church Officers -- Names, Election, Duties [p. 25.]
Under President, Sect. 2 [p. 25] there is a footnote by Mrs. Eddy saying: "See under 'Deed of Trust' for incorporation of the Christian Science Board of Directors."
That innocent-sounding sentence is perhaps the most "loaded" one in the entire Manual. Because of the 1910 directors' disobedience to it, they accomplished the 1910 COUP and precipitated the Great Litigation of 1919-1921, and NOW, the death throes of the Boston Mother Church. The Manual's Board of Directors is comprised of four members only, under their LEGAL Deed of Trust which is indeed printed in the Manual at page 128. The four members of that Board were serving under two hats, so to speak, as members of the legal Property Board and also the Church Board which had no LEGAL standing.
When McLellan became a fifth member of the CHURCH Board, this did not make him a legal member of the Manual's legal four-member Property Board, nor did it make the five-member CHURCH Board a legal unit with any standing in a court of law.
Charles Evans Hughes saw this, in the Great Litigation. The Court itself declared that it had no power to make a ruling for a CHURCH Board; and therefore, it did not ! It simply ALLOWED the five-member Church Board to continue controlling the world's Christian Scientists since that is what the world's membership was demanding. That is what the directors always mean when they say the Court "settled it." It never became a law.
Under Directors, Sect. 5 [p. 26] the By-Law states: "They shall fill a vacancy occurring on that Board after the candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus."
Under Duties of Directors, Sect. 9. [p. 29], Line 15 prescribes the directors' annual salaries as "at present [1910] $2,500.00." Those obviously intentionally-meager salaries were elevated in one leap to $10,000.00 per annum by the directors themselves almost as soon as Mrs. Eddy was gone. Mrs. Eddy's trusted lawyer, General Frank Streeter, was then still the attorney for The Mother Church, and he informed the directors this was illegal and that they knew it. He said that if the members knew of the directors' misdeeds, the directors would be quickly deposed.
In Mrs. Eddy's absence, and the organized Mother Church dissolved, the four legal Boston Property directors were at liberty to regulate their own salaries. But, as honorable Christian Scientists, they were expected to do it honorably not characterized, as it was, by exorbitant greed !
The directors have always scoffed at the fact of the two distinct Boards, calling such an idea far-fetched and RIDICULOUS ! In holding to that stance, the directors have maintained that both God and Mrs. Eddy are "ridiculous" because the Leader declared that God dictated the Manual to her. The directors have simply abrogated the Manual's legal Deed of Trust without ever answering for it to any court, or to any member.
The Christian Science Publishing Society [pp. 79-82] This By-Law made the Great Litigation inevitable, in the face of the success of the 1910 COUP when the directors refused to carry out the Manual's estoppel provisions.
In 1898, Mrs. Eddy bestowed a "perpetual, irreversible" Deed of Trust upon three publishing trustees. It is not printed in the Manual because of its universal and truly eternal nature in its responsibility for THE WORD: "The Word was with God, and the Word was God." [John 1:1.] The Property Deed of Trust IS in the Manual because it deals with the administration ONLY of the Boston property ONLY, both before and after the death of the Leader.
The branches were always their own finance/property administrators, and were also the recipients of bequests to THEM, not to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.]
The Allegedly "Hopeless" Interlock Much has been said and written about the so-called constant interlock in the Manual between the two Trusts, in that the Manual's directors had the duty of seeing that the publishing trustees performed well, and could declare a vacancy on the publishing board "for such reasons as to them [the directors] may seem expedient" BUT NOT TO FILL said vacancy. [p. 80:12-21.]
Simultaneously, the publishing Deed of Trust requires the three publishing trustees to publish genuine Christian Science literature "on their own responsibility;" to fill their own vacancies; to prepare and sell the Lesson Sermon Quarterlies; and to maintain the JOURNAL registry of churches and practitioners.
Unlocking The Interlock With the Boston organization dissolved, the interlock automatically became dissolved, or WOULD HAVE if the Manual had been implemented instead of killed when Mrs. Eddy died.
… While she was here, she kept tabs on the publishing trustees AND the directors; so that all of the individuals involved were always on their best Christian behavior to impress her favorably, and to prove their ability [and willingness] to work together harmoniously.
… All of the individuals realized that the Manual required The Mother Church to de-organize at Mrs. Eddy's departure. This meant that the Boston local church could still have five church directors if it so wished; but that only FOUR according to the Manual's LEGAL Deed of Trust would be responsible for the Boston church property ONLY.
… While the Publishing Society's Deed of Trust was designated by Mrs. Eddy as "perpetual and irrevocable" it was nevertheless not a legally-filed document, as was the Manual's Property Deed.
… In other words, while the four LEGAL property directors were no longer answerable to Mrs. Eddy [when she was no longer here and when the organization was dissolved] these four property [ONLY] directors no longer had any "duty" or any RIGHT to police the Publishing Society; and they NEVER had any right to police the branch churches.
… To obey Mrs. Eddy's Church Manual was a voluntary commitment by loyal Christian Scientists; and similarly, the Publishing Society was voluntarily supported by loyal followers.
… The crafty lawyer-director Archibald ["Bold Archer"] McLellan had realized since 1902 that this was the situation which Mrs. Eddy's Manual had devised, if it were carried out at her decease.
… Clearly, the only way he could prevent it was to bellow loudly that Mrs. Eddy had created an inescapable "INTERLOCK" between the two Deeds of Trust. This appeared FALSELY to be true, in the face of the acceptance of the 1910 COUP which PERPETUATED the organized Mother Church instead of letting the organization dissolve.
… This was "the demon scheme" about which Mrs. Eddy warned the three publishing trustees INDIVIDUALLY when she conferred upon them the 1898 Deed of Trust, six years AFTER she conferred the Manual's legal Deed of Trust [1892] upon four ONLY Boston property [ONLY] directors.
… The two Trusts therefore, in Mrs. Eddy's absence, were independently self-operating, WITH NO INTERLOCK, according to the divine Plan.
… It becomes plainly evident that the 1910 COUP was contrived for one over-all purpose: to upset the independence of the publishing trustees, in order to dominate and distort The Word, the "Key to the Scriptures", the SCIENCE OF BEING !
That is how McLellan began immediately a systematic harassment of the three publishing trustees who compromised conscience for several years after the COUP in a motive of "peace, peace" when there was none. Worse, there were rampant "leaks" to the Field that the publishing trustees were not cooperating adequately with the directors ! [See: Caporn's "Awake, Christian Scientists!".]
When Herbert W. Eustace became one of the three publishing trustees, he BALKED, acting upon Mrs. Eddy's warning to them INDIVIDUALLY to not allow "the demon scheme" to succeed. He took the directors to court and WON, except that the directors appealed the Court's decision. The directors then staged one of the most depraved performances in forensic history. It was known as "The Great Christian Science Litigation" and also as "The Great Literature [Manual] Litigation." It was only eight years after Mrs. Eddy's departure!
After the Litigation, the publishing trustees became and still are, the abject puppets of the directors. Dissent means excommunication with the label of "having the name but not the life of a Christian Scientist!"
Skipping Pages 23 Through 108 brings the reader to the Appendix Pages,109 through 138. It was in only four of these pages [120 through 127] where the chief violation to Mrs. Eddy's Manual was inflicted by the 89th. Its elfish butchery is shown here, called:
The four changed pages in the Appendix are all under the section called "Order of Services."
The fifth changed page was "Church Officers" in the front of the Manual, omitting Mrs. Eddy's name as an Officer. [Due to demands from the Field, her name was restored in 1924 in the 89th Manual. But THAT was a double default, because the 89th is not Mrs. Eddy's Manual !]
The Headings shown below are for the pages which appear in Mrs. Eddy's 88th Manual.
120.
123.
124.
127.
On page 120 of Mrs. Eddy's 88th Manual, under the Order of Services in The Mother Church appears, "Republished from the Sentinel." This is valid, and indeed, correct, for it was published originally in the SENTINEL of January 25, 1900 [p. 336], prior to the printing of the next numbered Manual. In that article, Mrs. Eddy's words were: "It will be understood that the order is that of the Mother Church." [In reading room REPRINTS, this wording is changed, to impute accuracy here !]
But, when the phrase "Republished from the Sentinel" was included on page 120 in the heading of the 89th Manual, it was a HOAX, for it was NEVER printed in any SENTINEL with the words "and Branch Churches" included. The 1911 directors obviously thought the members were too doltish to notice this GLARING DISCREPANCY. [See: Manual p. 104:17.]
THANKSGIVING DAY
This heading posed a special problem for being changed unnoticeably, because Mrs. Eddy herself had used the three words "and Branch Churches" in that heading, and she herself put them in ITALICS so that the significance of HER italics would not be missed.
This is shown also in the comparative pages for both Manuals. Obviously, Mrs. Eddy was emphasizing the fact that she was NOT grafting the branch churches onto the moribund Boston organization; but she was stressing that all of the Christian Scientists in the world are thankful that America was a haven for the appearance and the founding facts of Christian Science.
Mrs. Eddy's conspicuous use of italics in that heading certainly reminded the branches of their independence from the Boston organization, and, in their self-government, to never become lax in their observance of Thanksgiving Day. ESPECIALLY, her italics reminded the DIRECTORS of the estoppels !
Nevertheless, the "grafting" was accomplished anyway by the 1910 directors in the expedient of printing THE ENTIRE HEADING in italics ! In "one fell swoop" the heading was made to erase the earth-shaking distinction between the TEMPORARY Boston organization and THE BRANCH OF THE BIBLE !
COMMUNION IN BRANCH CHURCHES
This heading in Mrs. Eddy's Manual posed an additional difficulty in being doctored up for grafting, because it mentions Branch Churches ONLY. To be "consistent" by adding the words "and The Mother Church" would be a "dead give-away" because every member knew that Communion in The Mother Church had been abolished. Therefore the only alteration that was ever made in this heading was limited to the over-all throwing of the entire statement into italics !
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OF THE MOTHER CHURCH
In the very first 89th Manual, this changed page showed [as now] the following heading:
The artificial alteration here is the "1" referring to an added footnote in addition to the already-added "and Branch Churches." The directors' added footnote says:
This "instruction" seems almost like a comical cracking-of-the-hierarchical-whip, as though emulating [with tongue in cheek] Mrs. Eddy's similar Note under Thanksgiving Day [See: p. 124] which reads: "No collection is to be taken at this service."
Mrs. Eddy had also required that no collection be taken at the first service in the Mother Church on December 30, 1894, for the special reason that it was a Communion Service.
The deliberately changed IMPORT of the foregoing four Appendix Headings in the 89th Manual has always declared SILENTLY to the Christian Scientists [and to the world] that Mrs. Eddy was a crude bumbler for creating such a contradictory phenomenon as the 89th Manual purporting to demand simultaneously "CENTRAL jurisdiction by Boston" and "NO jurisdiction by Boston."
In fact, it is manifestly reasonable to conclude that the eternally-escalating rate of crime and insanity, ever since the 1910 COUP, is the outward effect of the powerful MISTAKEN thought of the fiercely-loyal followers of the self-constituted human directors of the Mother Church, in a weird delusion that they are successfully implementing the HOAX called the 89th Christian Science Church Manual.
In this light, the 89th Manual is seen as a pagan invention, obliterating Mrs. Eddy's Founding of Christian Science on the planet; obscuring her divine Mission from humanity's recognition; and hiding SPIRITUAL WOMAN'S Place in the world.
Deed of Trust [p. 128] Conveying Land for Church Edifice. This is a strictly LEGAL item in the Manual, considering that Mrs. Eddy's Manual is a spiritual document which involves voluntary acceptance in spiritual understanding, contrasted to fallible man-made decrees.
The Manual's Deed of Trust [being humanly legal] provided a divine system of checks and balances, in consonance with the inspired checks and balances in the sacred Constitution of the United States of America including its States' Rights which are comparable to the independence which Mrs. Eddy provided for every BRANCH of THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST. It was the refusal of the chief director-lawyer, Archibald McLellan, to comply with the human-and-spiritual law of Mrs. Eddy's Manual which accomplished the 1910 COUP and spawned the monstrous "Great Christian Science Litigation of 1919-1921."
NOTE: The Litigation cannot be explained adequately in an article of this kind. That unique legal horror has been studied, ever since 1922, by law students. All able lawyers who have analyzed Mrs. Eddy's Manual-Plan in combination with her two Deeds of Trust, Property-in-Boston and Publishing Society, have marveled at its soundness and workable brilliance.
This enlightenment is contingent, of course, upon being able to FIND Mrs. Eddy's valid 88th Manual. One "admirer" was [later] Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes, who was Chief Counsel for the Publishing Society during that Great Litigation. He and his colleagues served without fee during both terms of that legal action because they were so profoundly impressed by Mrs. Eddy's astuteness, and because the directors had first importuned Mr. Hughes to represent THEM !
Amended Massachusetts Statute [p. 130] There is now a footnote titled "Editor's note" added below Mrs. Eddy's footnote. Hers has always required that the Mother Church directors, under her legal property-Trust Deed [p. 128], be CITIZENS of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The new "Editor's note" announces that in May, 1971, the statute was amended by substituting RESIDENTS for CITIZENS. The only possible explanation for this world-wobbling REVISION was raw subversive wheeling-and-dealing by the directors. This arrogant mutiny against Mrs. Eddy's provision was a traitorous nullification of the Monroe Doctrine which declares United States opposition to European influence in the Western Hemisphere. She wrote: "I believe strictly in the Monroe doctrine." DOCTRINE has been decapitalized in Miscellany p. 282 !
Deed Conveying Land for Church Purposes [p. 136] This deed applies to the Extension edifice only. This deed's legality was also entirely abrogated by the directors in their unannounced breaking of the Deed's legal covenant.
Discipline [pp.40-56] This portion of the Manual is left until last because it is the core of the heresy which accomplished the COUP. This section comprises five Articles relating to human thinking, behavior, loyalty and other humanities.
The most popular of these By-Laws is: Alertness to Duty [p. 42] "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to . . . not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind." [Lines 4-8.]
In both FORGETTING [or did they?] and NEGLECTING their duty to their Leader, the directors AND the members have neglected and ROBBED all three: "God, their Leader, and mankind." All of this is due to the disobediently perpetuated organization called "The [organized] Mother Church in Boston !"
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It is well documented, that the 1910 directors thoroughly understood the Manual's estoppels, for they importuned Mrs. Eddy many times IN VAIN to rescind them. She always declared that God dictated her Manual and she could not change it.
Even though the 1910 COUP DID change it, by complete reversal, its divinely-planned dissolution of the ORGANIZATION began anyway, in vindication of Mrs. Eddy. It was unnoticeable at first, like a glider which continues on, after its power is cut off. Today, though, with its power cut off almost a century ago, it is apparent that the enemy temporarily achieved its goal.
The enemy's undeclared goal was the destruction of The BRANCH of the Bible [Zechariah 6:12] not merely the Boston Church, but the many thousands of branches throughout the world. The 1910 COUP, plus the "Great Litigation" of 1919-1921, turned those thriving world-wide churches into fawning caricatures of the SELF-GOVERNING branches of THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST. The Leader had designed their spiritual autonomy, and her Manual [obeyed] guaranteed it to them.
Instead, twelve years after she left us, at the end of the Litigation, every branch church in the world began to proclaim at every service that it was a [clone-like] offshoot of the small local Boston Church, saying: "This Church is a branch of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts."
This signified that the members of each branch were content to be tyrannically manipulated by successive quintets of fallible UNQUALIFIED mortals, never known to their Leader, and not even known to the members themselves !
Mrs. Eddy herself said she knew NO HUMAN BEING who was spiritually competent to assume the leadership of her Church; but that otherwise she would be most happy to find such an individual.
Today there is an irreversible "turn-around" at the Boston Mother Church, now called the Church Center. It is partly due to members seeing the light and resigning; and partly due to the decease of thousands of members whose numbers are not replenished with new members. Because of the hierarchy's un-American refusal to release financial statements, many members are changing their bequests and Last Wills to by-pass the organization.
Also, today there are more thousands of Christian Scientists outside the organized Mother Church than are in it. They obediently refrain from publishing their numbers, for their flourishing seminars and classes cannot be hidden. They are known generally as Independent Christian Scientists who are rejoicing in unfettered reading and study of truly satisfying Christian Science book and tapes.
When the directors exhort: "Obey the Manual," they mean "Obey THEIR fraudulent 89th Manual." Since they know this to be an impossibility, they are actually exhorting the members to continue the destruction of Mrs. Eddy's Founding; and are exposing themselves as the worst possible enemies of Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy.
Organized church is not "Christian Science." It conceals the SCIENCE of Christianity, and instead is a form of fallible human priesthood.
The directors have stated that Mrs. Eddy once told a resident helper: "Someday the Manual will be acknowledged as law, by law." If she did say that, she meant, of course, HER Manual. However, when the directors claim [as they do] that the Litigation confirmed their 89th HOAX-Manual as fulfilling that prophecy, they say it in unvarnished contempt toward the members for accepting such an obvious lie about God and His Revelator.
Like mischievous little boys, full of zealous ingenuity, those five SERVITORS of The Mother Church [the directors] OUTWITTED their "beloved, revered Leader" who had appointed them to help her with the repugnant [to her] reorganization which they foisted upon her in 1892 under threat of mutiny if she refused [See: Carpenter, "Precepts."]
They OUTWITTED her by killing her Manual behind her back, assuming that she was unaware of it; but she wrote, pointedly, as though to the WHOLE WORLD: "Eternity awaits our Church Manual." She was saying:
. . . .Humanity will wait for ORGANIZED CHURCH [with its fallible personal priesthood] to give place to the Biblical requirement for voluntary, individual learning about the SCIENCE OF BEING, free from obscuration by fallible human priesthood. This will be accomplished only with the understanding of GENUINE Christian Scientists.
DIVINE LAW CANNOT BE BROKEN. Mortals break themselves on it, when they believe they are breaking it, or when they are not even aware of doing so. Mary Baker Eddy's Church Manual IS divine Law, and it cannot be broken !