In Science and Health Mary Baker Eddy says, referring to eyes and ears, “that only through dematerialization and spiritualization of thought can these faculties be conceived of as immortal” (p. 211). Since we seem to have a material body with its related faculties, how is this “dematerialization” of thought accomplished?
—A reader in Colorado, US
A1: Most people believe that the faculties are like recording devices, informing us about what is going on “out there in the material world.” But an arresting statement by Mary Baker Eddy points to what is really going on: “The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased” (Science and Health, p. 318). These material senses are actually originating, not just recording, the picture of the material world that we then believe is reality.
A little analogy has helped me understand this concept: If everyone were wearing sunglasses with blue lenses, there would be a general consensus about “this blue world.” Someone would need to take off the sunglasses to see the world as it really is—not blue! The physical senses are like those sunglasses, only everything we see through them looks like it’s material. Thus we say, “This material world.”
