Recording 26A, “The Four Essentials of Healing,” is from the 1953 Second Hawaiian Series. This recording was not used as source material for any book.
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Part 1: Introduction
Session 1: Introduction and Overview (Recording 477B, “Infinite Way Healing Principles”)
Joel introduced spiritual healing as the natural outcome of a consciousness that has realized the core principles of The Infinite Way—the nature of God, the nature of individual being, the nature of error, and the nature of prayer. He presented healing not as a technique to learn, but as the fruit of realization. To review the key points in this recording, click/tap here.
Part 2: The Principles and Their Role in Healing
Session 1: The Nature of God (Recording 261A, “Nature of God”)
There are no special healing principles in The Infinite Way. They are the same as the foundational principles of The Infinite Way—the nature of God, the nature of individual being, the nature of error, and the nature of prayer. This session focused on the nature of God and its relationship to spiritual healing. To review the key points in this recording, click/tap here.
Part 2: The Principles and Their Role in Healing
Session 2: The Nature of Individual Being (Recording 120B, “Christ Realized Is the Harmony of Being”)
Because God is Omnipresence, every individual must be within that Omnipresence and share its qualities. Each individual is an infinite, eternal, unique, spiritual expression of God, and discord arises only from the false belief that we are separate from God, outside Omnipresence. The healing consciousness is one that realizes that every individual is one with God and already complete and perfect. To review the key points in this recording, click/tap here.
Part 2: The Principles and Their Role in Healing
Session 3: The Nature of Error (Recording 645AB)
People often ask how there can be evil in the world if God is manifesting as individual being. If God is infinite, and beside God there is nothing else, where is error?” This question led to a focused lesson on the nature of error and its role in healing work. To review the key points, click/tap here.
Part 2: The Principles and Their Role in Healing
Session 4: The Nature of Error, continued (Recording 264B)
Joel emphasized that the nature of error is a universal mesmeric sense, a universal hypnotism coming from an impersonal entity called “devil,” “mortal mind,” or “carnal mind.” The evils of this world are mental images in thought without power, substance, cause, reality, or law. They are appearances, illusions, not created, ordained, maintained, or sustained by God. In other words, they are nothingness. In healing work, we never try to overcome appearances. To review the key points, click/tap here.
Part 2: The Principles and Their Role in Healing
Session 5: The Nature of Prayer (Recording 171B)
The central theme of this session was that our healing work is prayer—not the prayer of petition, but the prayer that is conscious communion with God. We do not accept a material or mental cause for a disease or discord, and we never try to change an appearance. Our principle is that the infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent nature of God shows us that there is no reality to disease and discord. We recognize that God constitutes individual being, and nothing can defile it. Then we turn to prayer, or conscious communion with the divine, and it is in that true prayer that appearances, discords, and inharmonies can disappear. To review the key points, click/tap here.
Before we leave Part 2 of our study program, we review the four major principles we covered and how they relate to healing, so that we can anchor them in our awareness. In this recording, in the context of spiritual healing, Joel reviews:
In this recording, Joel does blend the nature of God and the nature of individual being, and he adds in treatment, or contemplating the truth, as a key point. However, despite the difference in presentation, if you have followed our study program, you will surely recognize that he is talking about the four foundational principles we have covered.
Joel points out that every treatment must in some way incorporate these four principles, but that eventually we will no longer need to rehearse them mentally in treatment. We will find ourselves in a constant realization of them, and we become continuous witnesses to God’s universe, law, substance, and being.
A very short summary of the previous sessions is given above, but you might find it helpful to review in detail the major points from the previous sessions in Part 2 of this study program. Links to the material for each session are provided above under “Review of Previous Sessions.”
In Recording 26A, Joel says:
“You may feel the desire to write an article—a metaphysical article, or an article on The Infinite Way, or on spiritual wisdom—and so I would like to tell you that there are four essential points that must be included in every treatment you give, and they must be found in every sound metaphysical article that is written.”
Now, you may not have a desire to write an article for publication. However, as an optional study activity for these two weeks, we suggest that in some way, you write about the four principles and their relationship to spiritual healing. This could be an “outline” for an article, or it could be a detailed lesson plan for new students. However you choose to frame it, take each of the four principles—nature of God, nature of individual being, nature of error, and nature of prayer—and make notes about the key points you would include for each.
If you are familiar with any spiritual healing approaches other than The Infinite Way, you might also want to include notes about how spiritual healing in The Infinite Way differs from those traditions.
Those of you who have an artistic bent might enjoy illustrating your notes.
Engaging in this exercise can be valuable for assessing and clarifying your understanding of how the four principles are the foundation for spiritual healing in The Infinite Way. As Joel says in the current recording,
“It has been my experience that writing helps to clarify an idea. That is, instead of just thinking about the idea, sometimes I write it out on paper, find that it isn’t satisfactory, tear it up, and write it out again, or just keep writing until whatever the idea is has clarified itself.”