Saturday, February 16, 2008

Torch-Bearer to Light the Way by Neal Vahle

Ironically, I developed a cold while reading the biography of a spiritual healer. Torch-Bearer to Light the Way; the Life of Myrtle Fillmore is by Neal Vahle and includes an explanation of how Fillmore and her husband started the Unity movement from their home in Kansas City in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Along the way there is much connection with the contemporaneous Christian Science movement, but eventually the Fillmores distanced themselves from it. They felt it is more important to rely on your own inner knowing than to accept the dictates of outside authorities, especially in your spiritual life. And Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy appears to have been pretty dictatorial.

I try not to proofread when I'm reading for my own pleasure but this book was amazingly full of typos and mistakes. At one place I pondered over how a daughter could have been born before her mother until I finally realized that the author had inserted a birth date where he should have used a death date.

Adequate biography if you're interested in Unity.

2 comments:

Verndigger said...

Hell Linda; whether it is from the book, the Fillmores themselves, or your own thought, the following quote is incorrect about Christian Science:

...Christian Science movement, but eventually the Fillmores distanced themselves from it. They felt it is more important to rely on your own inner knowing than to accept the dictates of outside authorities,

I have been a student of Christian Science for 7+ decades, and have never been dictated to by anyone -

Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures encourages readers to think for themselves, and to prove what it says by demonstration.

Only in the same sense that mathematics may be considered dictatorial, could Christian Science be described as such.

regards,

Verndigger

Linda Macintosh Rodger said...

Thanks for the input Vern. Keep on doing it your way! Linda