Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

Although he had practically no formal education, Phineas Quimby had a keen mind and a streak of inventive genius. Before he took up his career as a faith healer, he worked as a clockmaker and daguerreotype artist, and produced several useful inventions, including an apparatus for boat steering. Quimby was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, but moved with his family at the age of 2 to Belfast, Maine. Thirty-two years later, he attended an exhibition of Mesmerism there that changed his life. Finding that he possessed mesmeric powers himself, Quimby shortly thereafter was giving exhibitions of his own. He was so successful that he became a professional lecturer throughout New England, working with a "medium" who, in hypnotic trance, gave people advice that apparently cured their illnesses. However, Quimby was troubled by the theatricality of this routine and came to believe that the cures arose from the patients' faith rather than the medium's advice. He gave up Mesmerism in 1847 and began to practice mental healing, moving to Portland in 1859, where he gained many patients. His thinking developed along with his practice, and by the 1860s he was convinced that each human soul was linked to God in an intimate relationship that gave human beings access to divine wisdom. Disease was a purely mental concept that could be removed through realization of this truth. In 1862 came his celebrated meeting with Mary Baker Eddy (1821--1910), then the chronically ailing Mrs. Patterson (she had not yet married her third husband or discovered the principles of Christian Science). He told her that her family and physician were holding her in bondage and that the grief this caused her was reflected in physical illness. After several visits, during which Quimby imparted "healthy electricity" into her, she pronounced herself cured and became, for a while, his disciple. Quimby ended his practice in 1865, suffering from an abdominal tumor that did not respond to mental treatment. He retu