One day an urgent call for healing came to the home of Mary Baker Eddy. Mrs. Eddy asked one of her helpers, Emma A. Estes, to go to the man and pray and heal him. Emma’s initial hesitancy dissolved when Mrs. Eddy told her, “You have only to be a transparency for Truth” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. II, p. 103). Emma obeyed, went to the man and prayed, and the man was healed.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy explains this concept of transparency in these words: “The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality—much error—in order to become a better transparency for Truth” (p. 295).

How do we lose materiality in order to become this transparency? Similar to washing a window so that we can see through it better, we need to “wash” our thinking. Whatever muddies it up—states of thought such as envy, hate, fascination with the body, selfishness, fear, doubt—needs to be faced and overcome. A spiritualization of thought needs to take place. How do we do this? By replacing each material emotion or trait with a spiritual quality.