Chronicles the author's coming-of-age in a family whose Christian Science faith forbade consultations with doctors or the use of mainstream medicine, a belief system that caused doubt and bitter divides when the author's mother became seriously ill. A first book. 30,000 first printing.

“A courageous and finely crafted portrait of a young woman struggling with her family, her faith, and that awkward space between being a child and growing into adulthood.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis) “Unimaginable . . . As much an indictment of Christian Science as it is a memoir of her family’s experience of loss.”—O: the Oprah Magazine Lucia Ewing had what looked like an all-American childhood, but when it came to accidents and illnesses, her parents didn’t take their kids to the doctor’s office—they prayed and called a Christian Science practitioner. As a teenager, her visit to an ophthalmologist created a family crisis, and she was a sophomore in college before she had her first annual physical. In December 1985, when Lucia and her siblings, by then young adults, discovered that their mother was sick, they came face-to-face with the reality that they had few—if any—options to save her. Powerless as their mother suffered, they were grief-stricken, angry, and confused. In this haunting, beautifully written book, Lucia pulls back the curtain on the Christian Science faith and chronicles its complicated legacy for her family. At once an essentially American coming-of-age story and a glimpse into the practices of a religion few really understand, fathermothergod is an unflinching exploration of personal loss and the boundaries of family and faith.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 In Christian Science, we know that there is no illness. No disease. No contagion. We are not sick. We are God’s perfect children. We are all going to work very hard to keep our thoughts elevated. #2 I had learned in Sunday school that Christian Science was a real science that worked. It was a comfort to know that everything the church taught was real, and that error, disease, and death were not real. #3 I love going to Grandma’s house. It is the best place in the world for me. I love the smell of coffee, and Grandma keeps a candy dish of lemon drops next to her ashtray on the small round kitchen table. #4 My brother and I had chicken pox, and we were sick for a week. We came to Grandma’s house, where we were fed applesauce and cinnamon toast. We sang Mother’s Evening Prayer together.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements. Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise. Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults. A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.

The daughter of a white mother and black father describes the factors that caused her mother to place her in the custody of an African-American family and the impact of her mother's later choice to hide the truth about their relationship.

Sylvia Browne, in her own inimitable style, again defies convention in this uniquely informative compilation of diligently researched facts and personal accounts about the premise of a female divinity - namely, the Mother God (also known as the feminine principle). Spanning time, from the earliest beginnings of humankind when ''Goddess worship'' was at its peak, to the current era with its myriad beliefs and religions, Sylvia takes us on a journey of discovery, where she discusses the suppression of the ''Mother Goddess'' by the male-dominated politics of modern-day religious dogma. Using a combination of historical data and poignant and heartwarming stories that reveal the power and miracles attributed to the Mother God, Sylvia leads us from the question of ''Does She exist?'' to the logical, fact-based conclusion that She does ... and then shows us how to call on Her to help us in our everyday lives.