Editorial November 15, 1952 Issue

SOUL'S EMBODIMENT

Helen Wood Bauman

In her presentation of Christian Science Mary Baker Eddy frequently links Soul and body. And she says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 200), "Whoever is incompetent to explain Soul would be wise not to undertake the explanation of body." To begin with Soul in the explanation of body is to begin with consciousness, for Soul is the Principle of conscious individuality. Soul is God, the one infinite divine consciousness, and it emphasizes such characteristics as beauty, bliss, sinlessness, and immortality.

We sometimes speak humanly of a soulless individual, meaning one who is literal and materialistic, lacking in sensitiveness to beauty and goodness. Mortal man is soulless in that the corporeal senses which constitute him are not cognizant of spiritual substance. These senses are the embodiment of mortal mind, Soul's opposite, and have no relation to Mind's immortal conscious identities, which are the embodiment of Soul. For that reason the physical body is unreal, is simply the counterfeit of the real body, the spiritual identity which is man's. But human beings who cultivate and demonstrate spiritual sense approximate their spiritual self, whose senses originate in Soul.

The real man, God's immortal image, is incorporeal in that he is physically bodiless; but he is not bodiless, spiritually speaking. Indeed, Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 280), "Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient material form, man has a sensationless body; and God, the Soul of man and of all existence, being perpetual in His own individuality, harmony, and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities in man,—through Mind, not matter." Man's "sensationless body," his conscious spiritual identity, is not confined within limits of material space. It manifests omnipresence, because Soul is omnipresent. It embodies the harmony and immortality of Soul, its faculties and abilities. So we see that while we must know ourselves in Science as actually physically incorporeal, we must not think of ourselves as spiritually bodiless. Rather, we must recognize our real body as our individual, indestructible reflection of Spirit, a formation of Soul, and not of matter, but still a definite, individual, conscious formation.

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