WHAT DID MARK TWAIN SAY ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? Gerald Bergman, PHD, wrote about the time Mark Twain encountered a Christian Science practitioner—and set her straight: “On a vacation Twain fell off a cliff in Austria and ‘broke some arms and legs and one thing or another.’ After being rescued by local peasants, he searched in vain for a doctor. Finally, a Christian Science practitioner was located who was vacationing in the village. Unable to come immediately she sent Twain the message to relax because there was nothing wrong with him, and his feelings of pain were ‘imagined,’ therefore he needed no treatment. The practitioner, a large middle-aged woman with an austere face, later came to help Twain deal with his imagined broken bones. When trying to convince Mr. Twain that the pain he was then experiencing didn’t exist, she accidentally raked her hand on a pin in her dress, said “ouch” in pain, then tranquilly went on trying to convince Mr. Twain that pain doesn’t exist. Needless to say, she failed to convince Mr. Twain that his bones did not hurt and there was no such thing as pain. Fortunately, Mr. Twain survived, no doubt because he found someone who was concerned with setting bones instead of selling a dangerous pseudoscientific religious philosophy. Mr. Twain’s book is written to bring many chuckles, but the religion it discusses is about the serious business of death. Many tragic deaths have occurred due to [Mary Baker] Eddy’s teachings.”