Editing Mary Baker Eddy (section)

=== Study with Phineas Quimby ===
[[File:Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.jpg|upright|thumb|alt=photograph|[[Phineas Parkhurst Quimby]]]]
Eddy married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, in 1853.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Eddy, Mary Baker (1821–1910) {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/eddy-mary-baker-1821-1910 |access-date=2023-06-07 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref>  [[Animal magnetism|Mesmerism]] had become popular in New England; and on October 14, 1861, Patterson, wrote to mesmerist [[Phineas Parkhurst Quimby]], who reportedly cured people without medicine, asking if he could cure his wife.{{sfn|Powell|1930|pp=95-96, 99}} Quimby replied that he had too much work in Portland, Maine and that he could not visit her, but if Patterson brought his wife to him he would treat her.{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=126}} Eddy did not immediately go, instead trying the [[Hydrotherapy|water cure]] at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Institute, but her health deteriorated even further.{{sfn|Powell|1930|p=98}}{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=127}} A year later, in October 1862, Eddy first visited Quimby.{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=131}}{{sfn|Powell|1930|p=98}} She improved considerably, and publicly declared that she had been able to walk up 182 steps to the dome of city hall after a week of treatment.{{sfn|Buchanan|2009|pp=80–81}} The cures were temporary, however, and Eddy suffered relapses.{{sfn|Gill|1998|pp=133-135}}

Despite the temporary nature of the "cure", she attached religious significance to it, which Quimby did not.{{sfn|Frerichs|1988|p=196}} Eddy believed that it was the same type of healing performed by Christ Jesus, who, unlike Quimby, administered no medicine or material means in his healings.{{sfn|Cather|Milmine|1909|p=60}} From 1862 to 1865, Quimby and Eddy engaged in lengthy discussions about healing methods like [[hydropathy]] practiced by Quimby and others.{{sfn|Powell|1930|p=109}}{{sfn|Peel|1966|pp=180-182}}{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=146}} She took notes on her own views of healing, as well as writing dictations from him and "correcting" them with her own ideas, some of which possibly ended up in the "Quimby manuscripts" that were published later and attributed to him. Furthering the case that Eddy had likely written large portions of Quimby's manuscripts, Quimby was notably "illiterate" and would never have had the ability to write his ideas down himself.<ref name="Quimby Illiteracy">{{cite news|title=Mind Healing History |url=https://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1887/6/5-3/mind-healing-history |publisher=Christian Science Journal |date=June 17, 1887}}</ref>{{sfn|Peel|1966|pp=181-183}}{{sfn|Fisher|1929|p=29}} Despite Quimby not being especially religious, he embraced the religious connotations Eddy was bringing to his work since he knew his more religious patients would appreciate it.{{sfn|Fisher|1929|pp=27-29}} Phineas Quimby died on January 16, 1866, shortly after Eddy's father.{{efn|Mark Baker died on October 13, 1865. He left his entire estate to George Sullivan Baker, Mary's brother, and a token $1.00 to Mary and each of her two sisters, a common practice at the time, when male heirs inherited everything.{{sfn|Knee|1994|p=7}}}}

[[File:Mary Baker Eddy, c. 1864.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=photograph|Eddy around 1864]]
[[J. Gordon Melton]] has argued "certainly Eddy shared some ideas with Quimby. She differed with him in some key areas, however, such as specific healing techniques. Moreover, she did not share Quimby's hostility toward the Bible and Christianity."{{sfn|Melton|1999|p=175}} Biographer [[Gillian Gill]] has disagreed with other scholars arguing they "have flouted the evidence and shown willful bias in accusing Mrs. Eddy of owing her theory of healing to Quimby and of plagiarizing his unpublished work."{{sfn|Gill|1998|p=120}}