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The Quimby Manuscripts

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The Quimby Manuscripts The Quimby Manuscripts THE QUIMBY MANUSCRIPTS by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby Edited by Horatio W. Dresser New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company [1921] [Scanned, proofed and formatted by John Bruno Hare at sacred-texts.com, October 2007. This text is in the public domain in the US because it was published prior to 1923. These files may be used for any purpose.] [Typos corrected and formatted for easy reading in PDF 5/15/2009 by [email protected] -- Enjoy!] Publisher’s Note The book as a whole contains an adequate statement of Quimby’s original theory as found in his manuscripts, 1846-65. The volume also contains the writings, hitherto inaccessible, which Mrs. Eddy borrowed during her stay in Portland as Quimby’s patient. The editor is a son of Mrs. Julius A. Dresser, who was the most active of Quimby’s followers at the time Mrs. Eddy was under treatment and who loaned Mrs. Eddy the copybooks which made her acquainted with the Quimby manuscripts. Editor’s Preface to the Second Edition For many years a mass of documents of interest to Christian Scientists and to their critics as well, has been withheld from publication, although earnestly sought. These documents were written by Dr. P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Maine, and contain his views regarding mental and spiritual healing. They be- came familiar to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy when she visited Dr. Quimby as a patient, and it has been charged by her critics that many of the ideas later promulgated in her teachings were born of the Quimby theories. In order to set this controversy at rest, many attempts have been made to gain access to the Quimby manuscripts, but heretofore without success except in piecemeal or disjointed form. The present editor, however, has been fortunate in securing from Mrs. George A. Quimby, owner of the manuscripts, per- mission to print the documents in full. Many of them now see the light of the printed page for the first time. Others give a full and authentic version of material from which only short extracts have previously appeared. The editor’s point of view is that of the expositor, never critical save as the author of the manu- scripts might have criticized his own work. All subject matter in brackets is by the editor, also all foot- notes. Italics and quotation marks have been introduced to a slight extent. Scriptural quotations have not been corrected, because Dr. Quimby was in the habit of paraphrasing in order to show how he inter- preted the Bible. Some of the articles have been condensed to avoid repetition, but no material changes have been made. The terms Science, Truth, Wisdom, have been capitalized throughout in conformity with the usage in some of the articles in which these words are synonyms for Christ, or God. The same is true of the general terms for Quimby’s theory, the Science of Health, the Science of Life and Happi- ness. The term Christian Science is used with reference to the growth of the original teaching of Jesus. In this edition several errors have been corrected and Chapter twelve has been rewritten. H. W. DRESSER 1/244 5/16/2009 The Quimby Manuscripts Contents Biographical Sketch History of the Manuscript Quimby’s Restoration to Health The Mesmeric Period The Principles Discovered The Intermediate Period Early Writings Contemporary Testimony Letters from Patients Letters to Patients Letters to Patients and Inquirers Mrs. Eddy: 1862-1875 Questions and Answers Christ or Science The World of the Senses Disease and Healing God and Man Religious Questions Science, Life, Death Appendix List of Quimby’s Writings - The Quimby-Eddy Controversy Photographic Reproductions of Manuscripts The Quimby Manuscripts 2/244 5/16/2009 The Quimby Manuscripts 1 - Biographical Sketch WHEN a man of ability and influence in the world has been misrepresented, a golden opportunity is put before us. Once in touch with his spirit, we may have the good fortune to catch his vision, see the marvels he might have achieved had he lived until our day, his genius recognized, his truth made our own. It will not then be necessary to devote much time to the controversies which have grown up around his name. Such an opportunity is put before the truth-loving world in the case of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, gone from among us since January 16, 1866. He was not great as some account greatness. We need not praise him to do him justice. But he loved his fellowmen, lived and labored, and laid down his life for them. He was a very genuine lover of truth, and faithfully stood for a great truth of surpassing value for humanity. Whoever does this is worthy of our endeavors to put his work in its real light. Because he was persistently misrepresented, the world demands to know the full truth about him, and in knowing it may come into surer possession of his gift to humanity. Because Dr. Quimby, as he was called by his patients and friends, has been put in a false light for many years, he is given opportunity to speak for himself, in his own words, from his letters, manuscripts and other documents, preserved precisely as he left them. Time has kept for our purposes everything needed to make the record complete. Quimby’s writings were not meant for publication, although their author hoped to revise them for a book, and he had already written experimental introductions. The lapse of time has brought many changes of thought, hence notes and explanations are necessary. The therapeutic movement which grew out of Quimby’s pioneer work has also undergone changes. Time has shown that the original teachings have come to possess a value which might not have been theirs had they been published fifty years ago. Now that the teachings are given to the world, many new estimates will be made. The majority of us are little accustomed to thinking in terms of inner experience without the embellishments of literary art or the interpretations of sects and schools; and some effort will be required to take up the point of view of a writer who wrote precisely as he thought. There is little to add to the biographical sketch published by his son George A. Quimby, in the New England Magazine, March, 1888, so far as external details are concerned. Quimby was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, February 16, 1802. When two years of age, his home was moved to Belfast, Maine, where he spent his boyhood days without noteworthy incident. The family home remained in Belfast. There Quimby began his first investigations in mental phenomena. Thither he went for rest and change in the years of his greatest activities as spiritual healer in Portland, and there his earthly life came to an end, after more than twenty years devoted to the type of work which gives him title to fame among original minds. His education in the schools was so meager that he did not learn to spell and punctuate as most writers do. But when he misspelled he did so uniformly, and his phonetic spellings are convenient means of identification in his manuscripts. The same is true of his peculiar use of words. In one of his papers he says, with reference to his education, that if he has learning enough to convey his ideas to the world that will suffice. Had he been granted the opportunity as a young man, he would naturally have sought the best training in the special sciences, as that was the tendency of his mind. But there are other sorts of education which some of us value more. If to be educated is to have power to quicken in men and women knowledge of themselves, love for spiritual truth and love for God, then indeed he was educated in high degree. The significant fact is that with only a common-school education, and with but slight ac- quaintance with the ages of human thought, Quimby made the best use of his powers and grappled with 3/244 5/16/2009 The Quimby Manuscripts the greatest problems with clear insight. To see why he came to believe as he did is to pass far beyond the external facts of his biography, and turn to his inner life with its outreachings. Quimby early manifested ability as an inventor, but his mechanical interests do not explain him. So, too, in his occupation as watch and clockmaker there is no hint of his peculiar ability in discerning the human heart. His power as inventor was limited by his interest in mechanics. Before the period of his experiments in mental phenomena there is only one incident of any significance recorded, the recovery of his health in part without the aid of medicine; but even in this case his meager account fails to tell us whether the change was in any sense permanent. It was not until his investigations were well begun that he wholly regained his health and began to see that health is a spiritual possession. But in reviewing this introductory period of his life everything once more depends on what we call education. Inventive or creative ability, combined with love for facts, the facts and laws of the special sciences, is a splendid beginning if one is to devote maturer years to establishing a spiritual science. Perhaps it was Quimby’s love for natural facts which kept him from ignoring the existence and reality of the natural world, when he became absorbed in the study of the mind. Quimby’s mind was scientific in the good sense of the term.
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