The following predictions by Mary Baker Eddy are taken from her published writings as well as documented letters to students and statements preserved by her early loyal students. Some of the statements here may be disturbing to some readers in light of the times we live in. It is not our desire to alarm our readers in any way, but to provide important historical information, that in some cases has been intentionally suppressed by the organized church. Our Leader said "the time for thinkers has come." Her statement on page 227 from the "Precious Volume," the first edition of Science and Health, "containing the complete statement of Christian Science," is timely in light of the below predictions. (See Retrospection and Introspection, p.36:1.)
"Personal man is only an atom in immensity, therefore the impersonal Life and Love, that embrace all things, cannot be found in him; we must look outside of man for Life and Love, for, "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Reckoning ourself from the standpoint of Soul, instead of personal sense, we progress as spontaneously as light emits light: but reversing this order of science, in which man begins in the body, and looks there for both pain and pleasure, yea, for Life and for death, he retrogrades hourly, until he finally disappears in what is termed death. The evidence of personal sense, or Life in matter, is utterly reversed in science, wherein we learn there is neither a personal God nor a personal man. But here do you say, you "have taken away my Lord," and "I know not where you have laid him," I have lost my Maker and my own identity? Look away then from your body, and you will find them; let go the belief you live in matter, and you will grow as the bird that springs from the ovum; personality will be swallowed up in the boundless Love that shadows forth man; and beauty, immortality, and blessedness, be the glorious proof of existence you recognize. This is not losing man nor robbing God, but finding yourself more blessed, as Principle than person, as God than man, as Soul than sense, and yourself and neighbor one. This science of being lessens not the dependence of man on God, but heightens it; neither does it diminish the high obligations of man towards God, but greatly increases them; it deteriorates not in the least from every possible perfection in God, because ascribing all to the impersonal Life, Love, and Truth." (p. 227, Science and Health 1875, First Ed.)
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1875
"Error will continue seven thousand years, from the time of Adam, its origin." Science and Health (First Edition, p. 282)
1886
"I foresee and foresay that every advancing epoch of Truth will be characterized by a more spiritual apprehension of the Scriptures, that will show their marked consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind-healing, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.'" Misc. Wri. p.363-4
"So sure as they give up the Church or let it be taken out of their hands, they will lose God's presence and providence in their behalf, and have no character in the public as a Christian Scientist. Those who are not helping this church will at length lose their power as healers." [Hmmm, wonder if this has come to pass?] 500 Watching Points by Gilbert C. Carpenter, C.S.B., at one time a secretary to Mrs. Eddy.
1887
"Matter is not Mind, to claim aught; but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no need of the sun, for Spirit will be the light of the city, and matter will be proved a myth. Until centuries pass, and this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divine Science, this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable now as it can be then." No and Yes p.27:4-14
"...material history is drawing to a close." No and Yes p.45:27
1888
"Not much more than a half-century ago the assertion of universal salvation provoked discussion and horror, similar to what our declarations about sin and Deity must arouse, if hastily pushed to the front while the platoons of Christian Science are not yet thoroughly drilled in the plainer manual of their spiritual armament. "Wait patiently on the Lord;" and in less than another fifty years His name will be magnified in the apprehension of this new subject, as already He is glorified in the wide extension of belief in the impartial grace of God,...." Unity of Good p.6-7
1890
"It is my impression that at least a half century will pass away before man is permitted to render his public verdict on some of the momentous questions that are now agitating the world [re: who and what she is and the efforts of evil to hide this]." Christian Science Journal, August
1891
"Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inexhaustible topics of Science and Health is sufficiently understood to be fully demonstrated." Retrospection and Introspection, p.84:1
1895
"This volume contains scintillations from press and pulpit--utterances which epitomize the story of the birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress during the ensuing thirty years. Three quarters of a century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have not only a record of the inclination given their own thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass of the world's opinion." [Sadly, this has not been borne out as she surely expected, but, nonetheless, her commentary stands true to the mark.] Pulpit and Press, vii:1
1895
"If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists." Pulpit and Press, 22:9-15
1899
"At an activities meeting in Roxbury, Mass., Mrs. Daisette McKenzie [whose husband, Wm. McKenzie, had been a Director] told of a prophecy Mrs. Eddy made to two of her students: She said, 'The reason for asking, "Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?" is that Christian Science must answer that question to the world or all will be destroyed by fire in the year 2000.'" from Mae Macleod, secretary to Prof. Herman Hering.
The above was also confirmed in the following statement from Daisette McKenzie, recorded by a student when Mrs. McKenzie was speaking to the workers at the Christian Science Publishing Society in 1946. "I have been told that Mrs. Eddy talked to ___ about the end of the present material sense of things. It was in substance that by the end of this century there would be an end to the material sense of things and that if Christian Scientists lived up to the light of Truth it would be accomplished with a minimum of suffering, but if not, it would be as if by fire." See Christian Science Standard, Vol. 7, Number 1 available from the Christian Science Endtime Center.
1899, June
"I reluctantly foresee great danger threatening our nation,--imperialism, monopoly, and a lax system of religion." My. 129:3-5
1900, December
"To my sense, the most imminent dangers confronting the coming century are: the robbing of people of life and liberty under the warrant of the Scriptures; the claims of politics and of human power, industrial slavery, and insufficient freedom of honest competition; and ritual, creed, and trusts in place of the Golden Rule, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'" My. 266 (INSUFFICIENT FREEDOM)
1901
"The only opposing element that sects or professions can encounter in Christian Science is Truth opposed to all error, specific or universal. This opposition springs from the very nature of Truth, being neither personal nor human, but divine. Every true Christian in the near future will learn and love the truths of Christian Science that now seem troublesome. Jesus said, 'I came not to send peace but a sword.'" Message for 1901, p.31:3
June, 1901 - The Christian Science Journal Volume 19 Issue 3 June, 1901
MRS. EDDY'S SUCCESSOR.
IN a recent interview which appeared in the columns of the New York Herald, the Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, stated that her successor would be a man. Various conjectures having arisen as to whether she had in mind any particular person when the statement was made, Mrs. Eddy gave the following to the Associated Press, May 16, 1901: -
"I did say that a man would be my future successor. By this I did not mean Mr. Alfred Farlow nor any other man to-day on earth.
"Science and Health makes it plain to all Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood of God have already been revealed in a degree through Christ Jesus and Christian Science, his two witnesses. What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the full image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind."
1901+
"In answer to on-coming questions, will say: I calculate that about one half century more will bring to the front the man that God has equipped to lift aloft His standard of Christian Science." Divinity Course and General Collectanea, p.97 [See also My. 342:17-343:12 and 346:18-347:5 in regards to the above statement.]
1901+
"Mrs. Eddy told the Knapps [early loyal students of Mrs. Eddy's - Ira O. Knapp was a Director of the church, and Mrs. Knapp had been selected to teach the Normal class prior to her sudden passing] the end [of the world] would come--regardless--no later than the year 2001--apparently through Science or suffering." from a letter (1961) from a dear friend of Mr. Bliss Knapp as seen in the Christian Science Standard of October, 1992, p.7, available from the Christian Science Endtime Center.
1901+
"[Christian Science] was her child, her offspring; and her constant concern, day and night, was what was to become of this Cause. Those of her followers who were present in her home can testify to her anxious thought in this direction. On several occasions, when she was trying to get her followers to see the import of this and what it meant, she would say, with a gesture of despair, 'What is to become of this Cause?' And again, when troubled about the future of the Cause she would say, 'If error can do this to me, what is it going to do to you?'" [Helen Wright has preserved comments from both Irving Tomlinson as well as Gilbert Carpenter, that substantially confirm this most timely and vital concern: they both stated to Mrs. Wright that Mrs. Eddy had told them several times she was very concerned about what would happen to the Cause when she was no longer with them; she saw great danger, and it caused her no little anxiety apparently.]
"You must rise to the point where you can destroy the belief in mesmerism, or you will have no Cause. It tried to overcome me for forty years and I withstood it all. Now it has gotten to the point where the students must take up the work and meet animal magnetism. I cannot do it for you. You must do it for yourselves, and unless it is done, the Cause will perish and we will go along another 1900 years with the world sunk into the blackest night. Now will you rouse yourselves? You have all the power of God with you to conquer this lie of mesmerism. The workers in the field are not healing because they are not meeting animal magnetism which says they cannot heal." Excerpted from Memoirs of Mary Baker Eddy by Adam H. Dickey, CSD, p.116, 128.
("Frequently our Leader was called upon to make a decision of great importance at a moment's notice that would perhaps affect the future of her Cause for years. She seemed rarely to weigh in her thought what the consequence of her action might be. Her sole desire was to get the Divine leading and follow that unhesitatingly. ...It always turned out, however, that her action was right, regardless of the reason assigned, which convinced those who were familiar with her work that her judgment was unerring in every detail and that in following the direction of divine Wisdom, she never made a mistake. Often I heard her say with great impressiveness that in over forty years of church leadership, she had not made a mistake, a record that is most truly remarkable.") ibid., p.113-114 emphasis added.
1904, February 22
"In the year twenty-one hundred I think will be the end. Then Christian Scientists will have held crime in check as the book (Science and Health) says. At that time either the world will be saved through universal salvation, or those who now are working against us will burn up as the physical scientists say the world will be burned up, by volcanic action; we know what they call volcanic action is mortal mind destroying itself. All must learn they cannot sin and escape punishment, as they think they can. Those who have worked against this Cause and those who are then doing so will all be burned together. Those who work out now will be saved; the others will all be hundreds of years; all the woes Jeremiah predicted will come to pass. God is making demands upon us." Divinity Course and General Collectanea, compiled by Richard Oakes, p.21; from information preserved by Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB, a secretary to Mary Baker Eddy.
[See also Mrs. Eddy's admonition in the Church Manual titled, "Alertness to Duty."]
1904-6
"One morning Mrs. Eddy was examining us in her study, putting various questions to us. Finally she said, 'Dear ones, you have answered well. Now that you have been so patient with Mother [a term many in her household used in reference to her, because of the inherent Mother-love she always expressed], what can she do for you?' We were all surprised at the question, but Mr. Strang, I believe it was, spoke up finally, 'Mother, will you prophesy for us?' Her face clouded for just an instant, and then she said, 'To perform the demonstration of prophecy always includes the temptation of animal magnetism [Mrs. Eddy's term for the devil, evil, or the carnal mind]. Now I have always found this rule of help: When you are about to prophesy, always handle animal magnetism [the devil] first, and then you will find that the times are in His hands, and all need for prophecy will be gone. Why? Because faith in God will have taken its place!' But the next day she referred to this again, and said, 'My dear students, God has told me this much for you: At the end of this century, Christian Science will be the only universally acknowledged religion in the world, because the other religions have no demonstrating basis. But much work remains undone, much self-denial waits for us all before this end can be fulfilled. The main thing is for us to handle malicious animal magnetism that would make us fold our hands till this manifests itself. But Truth demands work, work, work! Never forget that!'" Divinity Course and General Collectanea, compiled by Richard Oakes, p.249, from information preserved by Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB, a secretary to Mary Baker Eddy.
1904+ This article is taken from a notebook kept in Mrs. Eddy's handwriting.
CATHOLICISM-PROTESTANTISM-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
The first holds barbarous pictures of cruelty in mind, and carries out its ideal. Instead of liberality and universality, it is absolute despotism. It would cause Jesus Christ to abdicate for the Pope, and his reverence to have full power to sin ad libitum, and teach others to do so.
Protestantism is susceptible of breaking each of the Ten Commandments, and teaching others so to do; and then by appeal to the Catholics' deposed sovereign to obtain pardon, and be welcomed into heaven through the religious law of chancery. Insolvent, unable to be a good man himself, he expects God to justify him, because God is good and pays the debts of sin, so that the sinner can pass on without punishment.
Christian Science is susceptible of being made the repository for all the sins of the other two religions in marked face and form, whereby the most aggravated and exaggerated and liberated powers of evil have full sway.
Each religion defined by what the words include is right; but fatally wrong and wronged in its interpretation by the world, the flesh and the devil-the three-in-one of error, opposed to the trinity of Life, Truth and Love.
The woman has cast into these three measures of iniquity, the leaven that is fermenting them. Therefore, they, inherent in mortal mind, take vengeance on their destroyer. Alas for the masquerade of their friendship, of their gratitude, of their honesty, of their virtue, and especially of their humanity towards this woman. Does one human heart love her? No! It is all a farce. The carnal mind hates her, and deserts her, lies about her, steals from her, mocks her, betrays her, nails her to the cross and spits on her, saying 'Come down from the cross. Then parts her seamless robe that has not one ridge of the three religions as interpreted by this trio of error-and casts lots for it. Rending it into rags it picks up the shorn glory and decks itself therewith in harlequin jacket. Not one of these three religions misused-is the Rock on which Christ, Truth, builds the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. And the last one is named the final one; therefore, it holds the most relentless war against the woman.