Talk:Mary Baker Eddy/Archive 2

Semi-protected edit request on 4 February 2023
Please edit "Mark Baker was a strongly religious woman" to "Mark Baker was a strongly religious man" thank you. 81.174.251.218 (talk) 12:28, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I am not going to remove this, but really rally bend over backward to AGF, any sources that claim she was a man? Slatersteven (talk) 12:30, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks like this was a sentence about Mary Baker Eddy's father Mark Baker. ✅ Cannolis (talk) 13:38, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Addition reversed.
I added a section on Historiography of Mary Baker Eddy because understanding the sources, pro and con, of her biography is important. Everything is well sourced. It was undone as follows (from Slatersteven): "I am unsure about a lot of this, take it to takl and justofy it." I am not sure what do do next. By the way, I found this in the Wikipedia help site: "Be bold in improving articles! When adding facts, please provide references so others may verify them." What is the next step in the process? Metaphysical historian (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * See wp:brd. "Few people in history have had such a variance of views (good and bad) as Mary Baker Eddy and her religion. Here are some notable examples:" seems unsourced and wp:or. Nor do we need a list of people's opinions, and certainly not sourced to their own works. We need to have reason to think these peoples opinions are significant which means wp:rs think they are. Also please read wp:cite you did not add any inline citations you did add the words ref. Also the AMA "source" makes no mention if Eddy (see WP:SYNTH). Slatersteven (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, but I am not certain I understand some of the points. [1] the statement that comments on Eddy have an extraordinary variance seems clear from the sources that I listed, from good to bad. The three people cited, Bliss Knapp, Frederick Peabody, and Mark Twain, are all well-known in Christian Science history, so their opinions on Eddy are certainly valid for quoting, I believe. There are countless Wiki biographical articles, but most do not have anywhere near that level of extreme variance, which I think it worth noting,  because the extreme variance (pro and con) impacts the reliability of the early sources  [2] the comments about the lack of reliability of the World’s allegations come from (a) Peter Wallner, the Library Director of the New Hampshire Historical Society and author of the 2014 detailed history of the Next Friends Suit, which was started by the New York World. (b) Gillian Gill, the author of the biography Mary Baker Eddy, which deals extensively with the Next Friends Suit. (cc) Bates & Dittemore, an important biography of Eddy. Dittemore was a former Director of the Christian Science church. It would be difficult to find others who are in a better position to evaluate the New York World claims [3] If you are looking for a source for the APA quote, I can add this:
 * https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom/news-releases/apa-calls-for-end-to-armchair-psychiatry
 * The APA statement is a blanket declaration about not having their members provide “armchair” diagnoses: “Today, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) reiterates its continued and unwavering commitment to the ethical principle known as "The Goldwater Rule." We at the APA call for an end to psychiatrists providing professional opinions in the media about public figures whom they have not examined, whether it be on cable news appearances, books, or in social media. Armchair psychiatry or the use of psychiatry as a political tool is the misuse of psychiatry and is unacceptable and unethical.”
 * They did not mention Eddy or anyone else but it relates to all “public figures.”
 * Thanks. Metaphysical historian (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * A source must say X if you want to add X, so (for example) to say "many people think the sky is blue" you have to have a source that says "many people think the sky is blue" or a lot of sources saying "the sky is blue". In this case, you need sources that say "Few people in history have had such a variance of views (good and bad) as Mary Baker Eddy and her religion", not your interpretation of wp:primary sources. Also if a source does not mention someone, it can't be used to make claims about them. Slatersteven (talk) 09:43, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * At what point does self-evident truth come into play? That the sky appears blue to humans is a self-evident fact. (By the way, the wiki page Diffuse Sky Radiation states that as a fact and explains why. It does not require sources to show that some people think it looks blue.) I show (and source) that some notables in the Christian Science history have opinions on Eddy that range from [1] a fraud and impostor, all the way to [2] one of the two witnesses prophesied in the Bible. Thus to say as I did “Few people in history have had such a variance of views (good and bad) as Mary Baker Eddy” I believe is a self-evident fact. I am happy to be proven wrong if you can show even one case where the divergence of opinion is greater than that.
 * I could cite this from biographer Gillian Gill if you think it will help:
 * “Few women have been so bitterly attacked, so insistently torn from the pedestal upon which she climbed and on which her devotees sought to maintain her. The hagiographic zeal of loyal Christian Scientist biographers has been more than matched by the energy her detractors have expended in producing damning facts and damaging documents about her.”
 * The wiki page on Eddy currently has many examples of later psychiatrists making public pronouncements based solely on having read a newspaper article or biography. The American Psychiatric Association strongly opposes this as being unprofessional and unethical. I added their statement to help the reader weigh in the balance such armchair diagnoses. Isn’t that a reasonable approach? (At no point do I suggest that the APA was making a comment about Eddy. That was not the reason for adding it.) Metaphysical historian (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * +It is "self-evident truth"? Many (most, all) religious figures have been attacked, some killed. Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I could cite this from biographer Gillian Gill if you think it will help:
 * “Few women have been so bitterly attacked, so insistently torn from the pedestal upon which she climbed and on which her devotees sought to maintain her. The hagiographic zeal of loyal Christian Scientist biographers has been more than matched by the energy her detractors have expended in producing damning facts and damaging documents about her.”
 * The wiki page on Eddy currently has many examples of later psychiatrists making public pronouncements based solely on having read a newspaper article or biography. The American Psychiatric Association strongly opposes this as being unprofessional and unethical. I added their statement to help the reader weigh in the balance such armchair diagnoses. Isn’t that a reasonable approach? (At no point do I suggest that the APA was making a comment about Eddy. That was not the reason for adding it.) Metaphysical historian (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * +It is "self-evident truth"? Many (most, all) religious figures have been attacked, some killed. Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The wiki page on Eddy currently has many examples of later psychiatrists making public pronouncements based solely on having read a newspaper article or biography. The American Psychiatric Association strongly opposes this as being unprofessional and unethical. I added their statement to help the reader weigh in the balance such armchair diagnoses. Isn’t that a reasonable approach? (At no point do I suggest that the APA was making a comment about Eddy. That was not the reason for adding it.) Metaphysical historian (talk) 17:40, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * +It is "self-evident truth"? Many (most, all) religious figures have been attacked, some killed. Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

The Question of the Historiography Section
I was asked for my opinion on the controversy about the added and deleted historiography section. However, I will not primarily be stating my opinions on Mary Baker Eddy as a figure in intellectual history, although I have studied in that area. This is the talk page of a Wikipedia article, and I am offering my opinion on how the section in question is or is not consistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I am making that distinction because I agree with the conclusion of the section, but I do not think that it belongs in a Wikipedia article in the voice of Wikipedia. This is a textbook case of two Wikipedia guidelines that are not always understood, Verifiability, Not Truth, and the policy against synthesis constituting original research. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:39, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

User:Metaphysical historian wrote: Few people in history have had such a variance of views (good and bad) as Mary Baker Eddy and her religion. I agree. That is, I think that statement is true, and I think that, as a student of intellectual history, I am qualified to make that statement. However, Wikipedia demands verifiability, not truth. If an editor writes that statement, they must attribute it. If an intellectual historian wrote that, quote them. There probably has been an intellectual historian or other qualified scholar who has made a statement to that effect. Find it and quote it. It is true that one can list and quote multiple statements praising Eddy and multiple statements condemning Eddy, and conclude correctly that she is a controversial figure in history. But making that comparison in the voice of Wikipedia is precisely what is meant by synthesis, original research combining two or more secondary sources to get a conclusion not found in any of the sources. The Christian Science sources probably won't say that she is controversial. Her detractors might not say that she is controversial, but some of them might say it. If so, quote them, or paraphrase them with attribution. Wikipedia does not allow an editor to look at multiple sources and state that there is an extraordinary variance of views, but it does allow an editor to find a scholar who has looked at the multiple sources and concluded that there is an extraordinary variance of views.

My advice is that, since the statement is true, find a scholar who has written it. We cannot do our own scholarship in Wikipedia, or, rather, if we do our own scholarship, we have to attribute it to another scholar who agrees with us.

There should be such a section, but only if it is attributed to an intellectual historian or similar scholar. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:39, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks Robert. I presume the sample quote from Gillian Gill is not sufficient in your mind. I will see if I can find something else. However, I think a section on historiography (how we know what we think we know and how to judge if the sources are reliable) could apply to any important historical figure. I am happy to remove the opening statement in question if that is the problem.
 * On the APA statement which states that armchair psychiatry (diagnosing people without seeing them but rather based on newspaper or other similar claims) is "unacceptable and unethical." The Wiki page has five such examples cited where the writers had never met Eddy, while the three psychiatrist who did examine her had a different opinion from those five. The APA statement was added by me to simply bring a professional position on the subject to help the reader weigh the sources presented. Metaphysical historian (talk) 05:26, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Metaphysical historian - Include the statement by Gill, or include your paraphrase of it with the phrase "according to Gill". It's true, but we don't state truth in the voice of Wikipedia.  We can quote an author who says that it is true.  Robert McClenon (talk) 05:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I am traveling but will work on this. I appreciate your help. Metaphysical historian (talk) 02:08, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

British Israelism 2 (See first discussion here)
I was looking through the archives and page history and noticed a whole section on British Israelism was written and removed in 2013. While some of the old section had some of the primary source/original research problems endemic to this article, there were some parts cited to scholarly sources independent of the Church. Normally I wouldn't be too worried about restoring this, but it appears to have been removed by a church member so I wanted to give it another look. Here's what was cut that could be restored citing Timothy Miller and Michael Barkun:

Eddy was convinced that the Anglo-Saxon race was descended from the lost tribes of Israel. There was a complex interaction between Christian Science and British Israelism which was initiated during Eddy’s lifetime by a number of well known Christian Scientists. Until her death, Eddy continued to keep an interest in British Israelism. Early members of the Christian Science Mother Church accepted the Anglo-Israel message of Mrs Eddy. However, after Eddy’s death in 1910, the Mother Church denied the validity of anything having to do with British Israelism, and any Christian Scientists supporting British Israelism in the Mother Church were excommunicated. Nevertheless, British Israelism remained attractive to many in the Christian Science movement after Eddy’s death. Since the Mother Church no longer wanted to teach British Israelism, a number of offshoot Christian Science churches and groups were set up to continue teaching British Israelism. For example, an English Christian Scientist named Annie Cecilia Bill (1859-1936) became convinced she was the true successor of Mary Baker Eddy. In 1912 Bill began an organization in England known as the Christian Science Parent Church. Bill moved to the United States after World War I, and in 1924 she established her Christian Science Parent Church in America. I didn't write this section, just pulled it from an old version of the page. Should it be restored or was it correctly removed? TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I say add it back in. It seems fine as long as you remove the primary source and original research problems with it. Death Editor 2 (talk) 16:59, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Is it accurate to say that this article is overreliant on church literature?
YouTuber Knowing Better made such a critique:, If true, seems like something that should be addressed. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 02:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, but please mark primary citations with if you feel they should be replaced. I count 22 of the 172 (13%) citations as being written by Eddy or published by the church. Most of those 22 are referencing something Eddy said and are attributed to her.  I removed a few primary citations which already had a secondary citation, and I replaced one with a secondary citation.   ReferenceMan (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Alright, the video has come out now and his main criticism of the sources is the reliance on Gill's book, since it relies rather heavily on primary sources from Eddy even at times when the Church acknowledges those sources are inaccurate, and the book seems to be biased towards Eddy in that it omits many facts that would go against her narrative and defends her from criticism in places. This could be harder to fix but I don't know for sure. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I found that the reviews of Gill's book on JSTOR were mixed. This review, much like Knowing Better, faults the book for selective use of sources. (edited to add:) I don't know how to solve this, though. Neutral sources are lacking. I have read critical books about Christian Science, but I don't think they hold up as neutral sources for this biography. Knowing Better's own take on Eddy is grounded totally in amateurish historical and religious theories, so you won't find much of a basis for an article from him either. NotBartEhrman (talk) 00:19, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Good points; this may just be an article that will always require cautious editing judgement. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 01:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's grounded in amateurish historical and religious theories, I think it's grounded in historical fact. Death Editor 2 (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * His criticism of Gill's book is accurate, and perhaps this article is also overly reliant on church sources, but his interpretation of New Thought as an "extreme version of the temperance movement," and his attempt to "experiment" with New Thought by foregoing alcohol and drugs, is a clueless misunderstanding of period sources. He retracts that claim halfway through the video, but it really shows he did not acquaint himself with the subject before scripting the video. In comparison, Caroline Fraser's book God's Perfect Child is a strong, historically grounded critique of Christian Science and contains a biography of Eddy. I personally would have problems with the author's bias, but it may be worth considering? NotBartEhrman (talk) 00:45, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Fraser's book mentions the work of Edwin Franden Dakin, which is listed in this article's biblio but not used, as well as that of John V. Dittemore, which seems significant but goes uncited here. NotBartEhrman (talk) 00:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think Caroline Fraser's bias as a former Christian Scientist would be problematic for inclusion. In fact, we probably need more former and non-Christian Scientist sources on this article to fix the bias we have from relying mostly on church historians. It's fine for us to cite church historians, especially for non-controversial things, but we need to balance this article with some secular scholarship. The main secular criticism currently in the article appears to be the over 100 year old Cather's series which is a good source for being contemporaneous, but also shouldn't these criticisms be explored by modern scholars? There seems to be a lack of modern critical authors being cited on this page. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:10, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Just to highlight the lack of modern scholarship being incorporated, there are two citations in the article from the past decade. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 19:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes I’m also concerned with the lack of modern scholarship in this article, thanks for pointing that out. There appears to be a number of books and journal articles written in the last 10 to 20 years, so it’s not that the scholarship isn’t available, it’s just not really represented here. I think changing that should be a priority. - Relinus (talk) 04:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I've tagged the article as having possibly unreliable sources. I trust Knowing Better to have made a good call on not trusting this biography. It looks to have been a long-standing thing dating back to the mid-2000s (this seems to have been the worst of it). Given the article size to recent edits ratio, it's worth a deep examination. SWinxy (talk) 02:02, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I personally believe a re-write is possible to address the concerns from this video, and I have set about doing that with contributions like this. It's still a work-in-progress, but what isn't on this website, right? &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 18:32, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I believe there is a strong consensus on this talk page that (1) the article needs a rewrite and (2) there are plenty of sources available to do it. So WP:BEBOLD NotBartEhrman (talk) 00:05, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I know, that's why I said I was doing it. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 01:57, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Knowing Better's criticism is definitely accurate, and this article demonstrates one of the core flaws of Wikipedia itself. "The wikipedia page for the person I am currently researching is almost entirely sourced from Church documents and historians. Imagine reading the wiki for L Ron Hubbard, written by the Church of Scientology, and expecting that to be at all accurate. I know this because I've now read three books on the topic and I finally decided to take a look at the wiki to compare. I am evermore convinced that wikipedia is trash and shouldn't even be used as a starting point for research." The core problem is that this article relies on a large number of books and other sources lacking editorial independence from an entity with a vested interest in an incorrect portrayal of the subject. As he makes clear, the "church" of Christian Science restricts access to their documents, abuses copyright to attack and control neutral writers, and requires any author granted access to church records to grant the church editorial authority over the produced books or articles. The end result is that books such as Gill's are untrustworthy. Reading through the list of sources for this article, a majority of the sourcing falls into this category and shouldn't ever have been used. (But of course, Wikipedia is Wikipedia, so... he's right about the impact of this bad sourcing as well, people who come to wikipedia are tricked into believing they're getting good information when they almost never are!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.105.122 (talk) 14:53, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Restore section on Fall in Lynn?
As part of @LogicalGuessing's purge of sections which only cited Gill or primary church sources, the whole section mentioning the Fall in Lynn was removed. While it may not have been that well written, it's such an important part of the bio it needs to be mentioned somehow. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 17:26, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Why is it important? Slatersteven (talk) 17:33, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Because the Fall in Lynn (where Eddy claimed she miraculously healed herself from a fall down her stairs) is a pretty huge part of Christian Scientist theology. Loki (talk) 22:07, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * here is the edit if any editors wanna see what was removed. Reading the section, it may be significant, but the old section was really really badly sourced. Lots of uncited claims, too many primary and non-independent sources, and of the two scholarly cites in the section one was missing it's page number making it difficult to verify. The old section claimed in wikivoice without citations newspaper accounts existed. In my opinion, it had to go and I wouldn't want to restore anything from the old section, but I wouldn't object to someone rewriting a new section with reliable sources. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:07, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your opinion! I agree it was pretty bad the first time. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 23:52, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Completely agreed with this. We should definitely include it in the article, but only using reliable and independent sources. Loki (talk) 22:07, 18 May 2023 (UTC)