Recording 492A, “Infinite Way Healing Work” was not used as source material for any book.
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Previous Sessions in The 1962 Manchester Closed Class
In the first session of the 1962 Manchester Closed Class, titled “The World Is New,” Joel reflected on the statement, “The world is new to every soul when Christ has entered in.” He taught that to bring that Christ into our experience, we must consciously open our consciousness, seeking only to have the Christ “enter in,” that is, seeking to consciously realize the Christ that already indwells us and is our true identity.
In the second session, titled “The New Man,” Joel taught that there is only one true God, and Its name is “I Am.” This God cannot be named, visualized, or embraced in thought; it is the God of whom you can only say, “‘I Am’ is His name.” That “I Am” dwells in every individual; It is the Christ of which Joel spoke in the first session, the very being of you and of every individual. You can turn within to It and find truth, spiritual wisdom, and the fulfillment of every need. But to come into the full consciousness of God as “I Am,” to be reborn as that “new man,” the Christ, we must die to our human, mortal sense of self.
In this third session, “Infinite Way Healing Work,” Joel carries forward the theme of developing our consciousness and taking further steps toward realizing the “I Am” within the context of healing work. He sets forth two principles essential to Infinite Way healing work—first, there is only one power, and second, all evil is impersonal—and he emphasizes that we develop a healing consciousness by conscious, constant practice of these.
Review of Some Key Points and Quotes from the Class
We Can All Become Spiritual Healers
Joel begins the session by recounting the growing interest in spiritual healing and pointing out that spiritual healing is not restricted to a chosen few; rather, we can all become spiritual healers.
“Each one of us, everyone on the face of the globe, has the same consciousness; everyone can attain to the same healing ability; each one can go as far as anyone else.”
Joel points out that every teaching has its own spiritual healing principles, and says there is a foundational tenet that sets Infinite Way healing apart:
“Healing is not done by what truth you know, but by what measure of spiritual consciousness you develop. The truth, the words, the principles—these are merely given to us for practice so that we may develop a consciousness, and it is the consciousness that does the work.”
Some people are born with a natural healing consciousness, but most of us have to develop it. We can investigate any or all the teachings on spiritual healing and choose the one that resonates best with us, the one we feel we can work with.
Infinite Way Healing Principles
In The Infinite Way, we develop the healing consciousness by learning, practicing, and realizing a few principles. The first is that there is only one power.
“The Infinite Way works from the basis that there is only one power. There’s nothing unusual about this, nothing unique about it. But the difference in The Infinite Way is . . . that when you accept the principle of one power, you immediately stop using the power of God, or the power of mind, or the power of Spirit, to do any healing work for you. Once you accept the principle of one power, you now must develop the consciousness set forth by the Master in the statement, “Resist not evil.” We do not resist evil. We do not overcome evil. We do not rise above evil. We do not uncover evil.
“In the recognition of one power, and that power Spirit, there are no powers to overcome. There are no laws to overcome. There are no errors to overcome. In the acceptance of one power, there is nothing to do but rest. ‘Ye need not fight; stand ye still.’”
The second principle is the impersonal nature of all evil.
“All evil—whether in the form of sin, disease, lack, limitation, or death—all evil is impersonal. It is an impersonal belief in two powers, and therefore, it is not in and of itself a power, or a person, or a condition. . . .
“As long as we individually accept the world belief in two powers, we demonstrate two powers, sometimes good and sometimes evil, and sometimes a combination of good and evil. But from the moment that we accept God as Spirit, God as infinite Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, from that moment on, evil begins to lessen in our experience and finally drops away. It is a matter of developing the consciousness through the actual practice of this truth.”
How to Practice
Joel is specific about how to practice the principles of one power and the impersonal nature of evil:
“At every appearance of discord, any form of discord, physical, mental, moral, financial—it makes no difference—at any and every appearance of discord, it is necessary that we, each one of us individually as students, take our stand and recognize: there is but one power; since God is Omniscience, God already knows our need; since God is Omnipotence, there is no other power; since God is Omnipresence, there is no other power right here where I am, except the power of God.
“And thus we can say to any form of discord, ‘Thou couldst have no power over me, except it were given thee of God. Thou couldst have no power over me, for thou hast no power.’ Only God in the midst of me is power; only Spirit is power, only spiritual law is law. And if there be any universal beliefs of material laws or mental laws, they are now nullified and dead.”
This can be difficult because you are giving up the age-old human belief that you can appeal to God to overcome, remove, or destroy a discordant condition or a power. You are holding to the truth that first, there is no such God, and second, there is no such power to be overcome. God is the only power. The human mind has not accepted this, so you must individually accept it, and you can only do that by practicing it with every temptation to believe and accept an appearance, whether in your experience or another’s. You succeed only when you constantly and steadfastly refuse to accept appearances. This can take a long time because it is a challenge to eliminate from our own belief systems the teachings that have been ingrained in human consciousness for hundreds of generations. Joel says:
“Now you have to resist that [the temptation to reach out for God], in the realization, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t need a God to do something to that which has no existence. I have to know the nonpower of this appearance.’ And gradually, you train yourself not to think of God as just a great power over other powers; you train yourself to the acceptance of God as Omnipotence, meaning the only power.”
If you saw 2 x 2 = 5 written somewhere, you would recognize it as an error, but you don’t have to do anything about it because you know 2 x 2 = 4. Because you know the correct statement, you don’t give any power to the incorrect one. You know that
2 x 2 = 5 is not a reality or a power. Once you know the correct statement, you are free of the incorrect one. Joel continues:
“It is in this same way that you will never have to fight sin, or disease, or lack, or limitation. You never will have to fight evil; you never will have a devil to fight if you know the truth. What is the truth? The greatest truth of all is that God IS. And if God IS, that must forever end the fear of any appearance unlike God, because to be God, God must be Omniscience, the all-knowing; Omnipotence, the all and only power; Omnipresence, the only presence. …
“The place whereon I stand is holy ground because of Omnipresence. It’s holy ground because of Omnipotence. It’s holy ground because of Omniscience. Right here, where I am, is the all-knowing Intelligence that has created this entire wonderful universe. Right here where I am is Omnipotence, the all-power.”
These universal claims of a selfhood apart from God and the belief in two powers are so persistent that none of us is entirely free of them. The basis of all evil, regardless of its form, is not “your” wrong thinking, or “your” sins, or “your” ignorance. It is universal belief, and our ignorance of truth makes us victims of it.
We must have a conviction that God IS
Joel says that we must have a positive conviction that God IS—not a hope, a belief, or faith. We must have some experience that gives us an absolute conviction of our own that God IS. No one can do this for us. We can’t know what God is, but we can know something of the nature of God, and we know that for God to be God, God must be all—must be Omniscience, must be Omnipresence, must be Omnipotence.
So again, we practice. Joel says:
“At every appearance in this world, whether in us, in our animals, our pets, our birds, in our newspapers; at every appearance of discord, there must be a conscious remembrance: ‘Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, here where I am, there where thou art.’ until that moment of conviction comes which enables us to say, ‘Whereas before I was blind, now I see.’”
Joel said that the greatest truth is that God IS. And where is God? God is omnipresent, and “the kingdom of God is within you.” So we can rest in the assurance that within me, within my own being, there is Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence. We live, move, and have our being in this until it is realized in us.
Appearances are illusions
A spiritual healing practitioner never fears an appearance, never gets anxious or tries to have God do something, never loses their poise, but realizes within, “Father, this could have no power unless it came from Thee. I can rest in the assurance of Thy grace.” The practitioner does not use God to overcome evil, truth to overcome error, the power of God to do something to the power of evil, or the power of Spirit to do something to the power of matter. No appearance moves the practitioner. They know that all appearances are without substance, cause, reality, or law.
There is no need to fight appearances. They are illusions. You don’t get rid of an illusion; you simply recognize it as an illusion. Joel says:
“Once an individual has attained the consciousness of Omnipresence, they can look at any form of sin or disease without being shocked, and just realize, ‘It’s an illusion,’ and then not fight it, not resist it, not try to overcome it, settle down in peace. . . . It’s an illusion; it has no law to sustain it; it has no substance out of which it could be made. An illusion is just an imaginary nothingness, appearing to be something.”
“In relaxing and in resting, the healing takes place. In refraining from fighting evil, in refraining from trying to overcome an illusion, in refraining from trying to use God-power, the healing takes place.”
Again, Joel advocates practice:
“You must eventually become convinced that the presence of God realized is the answer to every problem; that where the Spirit of the Lord is, . . . where the consciousness of God’s Presence is, there is liberty, freedom, health, harmony, purity. . . . Therefore, our function is to attain this consciousness of God’s Presence. The way we do this is that in the face of all appearances, we make the declaration: ‘Omnipresence,’ or . . . ‘Emanuel, God with us.’ . . . In that moment that I can remember: ‘Emanuel, God with us,’ or the word ‘Omnipresence,’ that’s all that’s necessary, because in Omnipresence, there’s no [other] presence to be removed, no presence to be overcome, no presence to be destroyed.”
Joel emphasizes that all there is to a healing consciousness is the absolute inner attainment of the realization of the nonpower of any and every appearance. In Omnipresence, there is no discord. So again, we practice:
“You must take such [passages of] truth as I have presented to you today, and you must embody them in your consciousness. You must work with them and face every appearance with them. You must be able to say, ‘I shall not fear what mortal mind can do to me because it’s not of God; therefore, there’s no law in it. I shall not fear what mortal man can do to me, for there is no spiritual law or life in him. I shall not fear what mortal conditions can do to me, material conditions, mental conditions, for there’s no law of God in them.’”
“‘God is not in the whirlwind.’ You don’t have to use the word ‘whirlwind’—God is not in the cancer, God is not in the consumption, God is not in the paralysis. God is not in any mortal condition. . . . Know the truth that God is not in the whirlwind, and when a whirlwind presents itself to you in any form . . . ‘Know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ Know that God is not in the evils of this world. God is not in mortal man or mortal mind. God is not in the minds that plot, and plan, and scheme. And as you know this truth, you deprive them of the power to be evil.”
The universal belief in two powers is so strong that it hypnotizes us into believing the appearance; we believe what we see. Our function is to get dehypnotized, to wake up. We do this by knowing these specific truths until they become so much a part of our consciousness that we automatically respond from truth instead of having to bring it to mind consciously.
Practice develops the healing consciousness
Your developed consciousness is the healing influence, and the state of your consciousness depends on what you take from the books and recordings, incorporate into your consciousness, and then practice. Do not leave spiritual wisdom in the books; use it to develop your own consciousness. Eventually, you will be able to face any appearance and rest in the truth: “God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. There is no power in these appearances. In Thy Presence is fullness of life. There is no God in the whirlwind.” Then, you find your peace.
In Jesus’ healing work, there was no praying to God for a healing, no battling the disease or the error, no condemning a sinner. He did not judge, criticize, or condemn. He forgave. If you do not forgive, you revert to the belief that evil, error, and sin are powers. They are not powers; they are appearances.
Every time you open your consciousness specifically to the realization of the presence of God, you are in the presence of God. As Joel says:
“By knowing the truth, by consciously remembering the truth, by living and moving and having your being in the truth morning, noon, and night, and letting every appearance out here hit up against your consciousness while you say, ‘God is not in the whirlwind’ and then sit back quietly, resist the temptation to fight, and ‘stand ye still’—in that realized presence of God, the appearance, the illusion, will be dissolved.”
Recommended Practice for the Study Period
The clear message in this recording is that to develop the healing consciousness, we must practice the spiritual healing principles, and Joel offers specific ways to practice. Over the two weeks that we study this lesson, an appropriate way to absorb and realize the message would be simply to practice as much as we can.
Sometimes, we hear an inspiring class such as this one, and we appreciate and acknowledge the truth presented. But sometimes, we “leave it on the tape.” We don’t remember to practice what we were taught, or we practice only sporadically. We might have good intentions, but somehow, they do not translate into consistent practice.
If this is the case for you, it can be helpful to come up with ways to remind yourself to practice, ways to remember to bring to mind your version of “Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience” whenever you see an appearance of discord or evil.
Of course, the best reminders are the ones that actually work for you, so you may have to experiment with a few before finding them. A few suggestions:
Set your intention each morning.
Before starting your day, say aloud or write something to the effect of “Today, I remember: No matter the appearance, God alone is power, presence, and intelligence.” If you write it, put it somewhere you will see it frequently. You could even put it on your phone lock screen or in whatever you use as a daily calendar or planner.
Use a trigger phrase.
Create a simple phrase that will help you instantly recall the truth. For example: “Only God is present here,” or “No other power,” or “God alone IS.” Keep it simple and easy to remember, and repeat it silently when any discord arises—like a spiritual reflex. You can write these phrases and place them around your home or workspace, or in your car—wherever you are most likely to see them. Some people post them on the device they use to get their news, and they take a moment to align their consciousness before they turn on the device or read the news notification.
Use a physical anchor.
Create or designate a wearable item—for example, a bracelet or ring—as a physical anchor. Every time you touch or see it, let it signal: “Remember the truth” or whatever phrase captures the spirit of the message for you.
Use a phone reminder or wallpaper.
Set a recurring phone notification that says something to the effect of: “There is no other power,” or “Remember Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience,” or “Where is your consciousness? Are you practicing?” or “See through the illusion.”
You may also consider changing the wallpaper on your phone, tablet, or computer to an inspiring image or a message that reminds you to practice.
Pair practice with everyday actions.
What everyday actions have the potential to present a compelling temptation to stray from the truth? Every time you are about to engage in that action, stop for a moment and practice. For example, every time you go to check on or watch the news, stop for a moment and practice. Every time you receive an email or text that could be disturbing or provoke fear, practice.
Reflect at the end of the day.
In the evening, gently review: “When did I remember the truth today? When did I forget, and how can I remember to respond differently next time?” This keeps your practice alive and growing.