A: And the answer is that you can only accept an answer in proportion to your own spiritual development, because you cannot accept something higher than your own state of consciousness. I don’t know whether Jesus walked on the water, but I do know that it is possible to walk on the water. I do not know if the Red Sea opened for Moses literally, but I do know that it can. I do not know whether cakes were baked on the stones in front of Elijah, but I know that it can take place. And I also know that all of these things have taken place.
Now this brings us to—well, let us call it just this point, “nothing is impossible.” Everything may be impossible to you or me, but nothing is impossible. The reason is that God is the doer, not you and not me. As long as it would depend on you or me to walk on the water, I’m sure it could not be done. As long as it would depend on you or me to make manna fall from the sky, I do not believe that it could be done. But this I know: that when we rise to certain states of consciousness, things transpire through us that could never happen on the human level of consciousness.
This is an experience that actually happened in the home of one of our students. It is a home of means, but the husband not being interested in the spiritual teaching, it was necessary for the wife to get from her husband whatever monies she needed for any spiritual purpose, whether it was the buying of books, or going to classes, or anything else that she wanted. She had to go to her husband. He had no objection to this, but she had to feel it, that this really should be her demonstration, not his demonstration. And an experience came in their home for which she was very grateful. One day, she sat down to meditate—and remember there’s no one else in that home but herself and her husband and the help—and she thought, “I must give an expression of gratitude more commensurate with this experience, and I certainly don’t feel that I want my husband to pay for it. This must take place through my own consciousness.” And she dismissed it with that.
A few days later, she went to her handkerchief case, where never in her life had she placed any money, and she found in there the exact sum that she had decided on as the gift that she wanted to make, and all in American currency. Well, she hadn’t placed it there, and so she spoke to her husband to ask if he had placed any money in her drawer. He said, “certainly not,” that any time he wanted to give her money, he would gladly give it to her, not hide it in her handkerchief case.
Now, I would not be able to remember how many times we have had stories brought to us of students who found money in their pockets, or students who had experiences of what you would call the supernatural phenomenon, such as I’ve just described. Some of it you might count, you might discount. Knowing the people involved; it is impossible to discount all of it.
In the same way, as you watch the healing works, you see things sometimes that you would no more want to tell another than you would want to try to fly without wings, because it comes absolutely in the realm of the ridiculous as far as the human mind is concerned. And let me tell you of a couple of these.
A man who formerly played in a symphony orchestra became deaf and was no longer able to hear. When he was examined, he was told by ear specialists that his eardrums had wasted away; that he had no eardrums. And one day, he was sitting on a beach with a member of his family, who was a spiritual student. She wrote a note to him and said, “Why don’t you turn to the Spirit for health, for you surely could receive it.” And he spoke to her and said, “Then heal me. You’ve been a student a long time. Heal me.” She went into meditation, and instantly he heard. And from that day to this, that man hears, and yet the doctors insist that he has no eardrums—but he hears.
Now, I have a student who was the young bride of a young man—his mother was one of our students. And, she was a surgical nurse, working with doctors in surgery, and she went blind—the cause I don’t know. But she was eventually declared permanently blind and received her blind allotment from the government. In the course of time, she became interested in this work, and wrote asking for help. And it was a very short time afterward that she saw and saw everything clearly. She went back to the hospital, applied for her job, and was given her job. She went into surgery again as a surgical nurse. But twice a year these nurses have to submit to physical examinations, and at the time of this physical examination when they were testing her eyes, the doctor said to her, “Why, child you’re blind! You can’t see a thing!”
“Well,” she says, “I can. I can see everything, and I can read everything.” “Oh,” he says, “You’ve memorized the chart. That’s all.” But she says, “I’m working in surgery, and I see everything.” “Oh no, you’ve just memorized. Oh, that’s an impossibility.” “Oh” she says, “I can see perfectly,” and she went on to prove to him that she could. But he said, “In spite of that, I don’t believe it, and I’m not going to permit you to go back.” And he didn’t. She was discharged.
But soon after that, her husband was transferred to another city, and she made an application to a hospital there. To this very day, she is acting as surgery nurse, in spite of the fact that they say she cannot see a thing and is blind.
And I have one more such case to tell you that is of the very first woman whom I taught and placed in the practice. She had a daughter, who, at five years of age, sneezed and broke the cords of both eyes and was blinded. Within a year, her eyes disappeared entirely. They—what would you call it—“dissolved into dust” and just blew away, so that there were only two empty sockets.
I was in the family as practitioner to both the mother and the father. One day the mother said, “Don’t you think that this child’s eyes could be restored; that her sight could be restored?” And I said, “Frankly, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not far enough along to know whether someone living could do it, but it would be worth experimenting with. And if you’d like, I’d take the case, but on one condition: don’t hurry me, don’t nag me, don’t give me any money, don’t put me under any feeling that I’m working hopelessly or against time or money. Just leave it with me to work with as my own unfoldment takes place, and let’s see what does happen.” And eleven months later, the child opened her eyes and had two brand new eyes, and still has.
Now I can say all of these things to you for only one reason. Those of you who have been through class before or have heard my tapes know that I make no claim to any healing power. I don’t believe that anyone has healing power, I believe definitely that when we attain the consciousness of the non-power of that which is claiming to have power and reality, that healings take place. Not by virtue of us, but by virtue of that fourth-dimensional consciousness which is there. And so it is that I can speak absolutely impersonally about the feelings, knowing that anyone who attains any measure of this fourth-dimensional consciousness can do the same.
In 1921, I was given three months to live. I had what is, even to this day, known as an incurable disease, “galloping consumption.” There never has been a cure found for it. And the doctors told me that the most I could hope for was three months. And so, I decided that since I had to remain in business to keep it together and preserve its assets for my family, that I would keep on with my work, since there was no medical hope in any event, but that I would seek help from a Christian Science practitioner, which I did. And in three months, I was completely healed.
Now a couple of years ago when telling this, somebody doubted it so positively that they were willing to bet everything they had that it was a wrong diagnosis, and that I had never had such a thing, and if I had, couldn’t be cured. And I agreed to submit to x-ray examination. And the x-ray examination reported this: that I have only one lung, but that I have a wall of muscle around where the other lung should be, and that this wall is my lung. Where did it come from, and how did it get there? Only after submitting to spiritual treatment.
And so there you have it, that if this spiritual treatment can produce something that operates in place of a lung, if it can produce new eyes, if it can produce new flesh, tell me why it can’t produce any of these miracles of Grace—manna falling from the sky, the Red Sea opening. Because this we learn in the practice that transcendental consciousness governs every effect. You can even make an automobile run without gasoline, if you are sitting there in transcendental consciousness. Pilots have flown when their planes weren’t functioning. Anything and everything can take place, not by your understanding or mine, but by the grace of God because when that grace of God or transcendental Consciousness is functioning, it governs everything in the physical, mental, moral, and financial realms.
And so it is that the little that I know about the human history of Jesus does not indicate that he walked on the water literally. But, if he actually was as high in consciousness as we have reason to believe, he certainly could do it, because it is not an impossibility. Nor is it an impossibility for food to appear, or clothing to appear, or any other phenomenon of nature, because in the last analysis, you will find that all phenomena is governed by the fourth dimensional consciousness. Therefore, it is only necessary that we rise into that consciousness where it can take place, because on the human level, we can’t grow new eyes. On the human level, we can’t make miracles; we can’t bring rabbits out of hats. On the human level, we cannot do any of these miracles. It is only if we transcend the human, into a state of consciousness which is divine, fourth-dimensional, spiritual. Then anything is possible because anything is possible to God. Do you think it strange that God could set a table before you in the wilderness? Do you think it strange that God could have water coming out of rocks? No!
1This excerpt is from Recording 377A: 1960 Melbourne Closed Class, “Miracles—Product of Attained Consciousness.” It is posted with kind permission from the Estate of Joel Goldsmith, which holds the copy protection on the recorded classes and the copyright on the transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available at www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.