True Life, The.
As Lived and Taught by Mary Hayes Chynoweth.
1890--1906 Semimonthly, monthly, quarterly
Eden Vale, CA.
Editor: Mary Hayes Chynoweth (1825-1905).
1/1, December 1, 1890-10, 1906. 26pp., sent without charge.

Noted in Notes and Queries, January 1900: "For a better, higher, and more spiritual life. The light of God is a necessary to all unfoldment. Harmony essential to progress." Chynoweth (1825-1905) was a spiritualist and healer. She was born in Wisconsin, where she was known as a medium under the control of an old German doctor. She later became wealthy (she claimed to have made $8 million) from her visionary discovery of iron mines and began calling herself "a Bible Spiritualist":

"I am not a spiritualist in the common acceptation of the term. I believe in many things that the spiritualists do not believe in, and I do not believe in many things that they believe in, as materialization for instance. I believe in spirit communion, but I would say that I am a Bible spiritualist. I believe in the Bible spiritualized and I believe in Christ's life and works, or rather, I have a knowledge that that life can be lived."

"For thirty eight or thirty-nine years I have been influenced," said Mrs. Chynoweth, " but not by the spirit of a human being. I am not to be classed as a Spiritualist, as Spiritualists are generally understood. I have never joined any society, have never had any one with me in my work. I know that I am controlled to do and say certain things. Of what I have said and done there are many witnesses, and they give their testimony. When the power first controlled me I was a skeptic. I doubted immortality, and did not believe in the bible. I had not read the bible, and yet the first time I was controlled to speak I spoke in a strange tongue. I quoted Scripture in that address--texts that I had never seen. I am now a Christian, and I call this power that controls me the influence of the Holy Ghost. Some people might call that a sacrilege, but I cannot help it. I assume nothing, I claim nothing, I can do nothing by myself, but when controlled I cau work miracles, even as Jesus Christ worked miracles. That might be called sacrilege, too, but I say it in all reverence. I am merely telling you what I know I have done when controlled and what many people can testify."

She moved to California in 1887 where she started a 700 acre colony and sanitarium called "Edenvale Colony" in Santa Clara County, living in a 109 room mansion (which later burned down), and later, in San Francisco, created the Church of the New Life whose members were required to subscribe to her "articles of faith" while she cured by the laying on of hands. The journal was devoted almost exclusively to stenographic reproductions of her inspirational talks.

University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; University of Michigan.

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