Throughout her youth and early adulthood, Mary Baker Eddy faced poor health and financial and emotional hardship. She overcame these challenges to become one of the most prominent spiritual leaders of her day. Toward the end of her life, Human Life magazine described her as “the most famous, interesting and powerful woman in America, if not in the world, today.”

Eddy, a self-described visionary and scriptural interpreter, founded The First Church of Christ, Scientist. Eddy powerfully tapped into a rising American interest in the connection between science, spirituality, and health.   She taught that physical matter, including disease, was an illusion. Disease is, rather, the result of separation from the spirit of God. Separation could be overcome through spiritual cultivation and Bible study.

Her primary work, Science and Health, is still studied.  The church has over 400,000 members worldwide.  Eddy’s is one example of how the flourishing of religious freedom gives rise to new religions and to new religious leaders.