As a young woman Mary Baker Eddy faced many difficult trials, including a forced separation from her only child. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes briefly about this tragic period in her life in her autobiographical book Retrospection and Introspection, in the chapter “Marriage and Parentage.” Yet, later in the same chapter, she points out that, “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (p. 22). She also says, “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man’s real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being” (p. 21).
To say that life in matter is a dream is a bold statement. Material life seems so real, with its history of pain and suffering. On the other hand, life in “the Science of being” can sound abstract, vague, and void of concrete evidence. But the deep personal sorrow Mrs. Eddy experienced impelled her to seek a deeper truth about life, and she came to understand that the only benefit to be gleaned from suffering was to turn one away from materiality toward the underlying spiritual truth of being. She writes, “The heavenly intent of earth’s shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 21).
Where did Mrs. Eddy find evidence that this true estimate of being is truly spiritual and displaces a false sense of being? She makes it clear in her writings that the only authority for her discovery was the Bible (for example, see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 126). It came to her as revelation from God, and she proved the validity of the discovery in present-day healing.
