Reading back my comment, I think (as Mr Spiers agreed with) the most basic mistake is to accept any dominance of materialism, philosophical materialism, as the nature of this reality, a reality which anyway is temporal for each person (or spirit) here.

Am I right that there is a background conditioning about consciously or subconsciously accepting materialism as having signficant dominance with little questioning?

I think people don't tend to accept materialism as the be-all and end-all, yet it very often dominates their awareness and thinking.