A: All of these spiritual tricks … no, I meant to say all of these mental tricks are mental. They’re not spiritual; they’re mental. Even when they’re used by spiritually-minded men, they’re still mental, and they play a part in the life of every spiritual disciple who goes far enough only for one reason. In our humanhood, the body controls us and we are subject to its whims. When it has a little pain, it tells us so and that makes us feel sick. And it tells us when it has pleasure. It tells us when it’s cold; it tells us when it’s hot; and we don’t seem able to do anything about it but change the outer conditions to make it happy.
As we rise into the mental plane, the body does not have that much control over us, and usually we can tell it how to act and how to perform, and we realize now that heat and cold are not properties of the body. Heat and cold are properties of the mind. The body can’t tell when it’s hot or cold. The body doesn’t know whether it’s alive or dead. The mind of man does, and therefore, the mind can be trained to reach that point of development where, regardless of how cold the body is, the mind doesn’t feel it. Regardless of how much heat is placed around the body, the mind doesn’t feel it. A person of developed mentality can withdraw consciousness from any part of his body and have no sensation in that part of the body.
I have witnessed experiments where a man has withdrawn consciousness from one of his own—or his disciples, I’ve seen it both ways—and sent a hatpin all the way through the flesh, and not one drop of blood was drawn and not one single trace of pain. I have seen the same man take a 90-pound boy and stand on his chest, and he was 350 pounds, and then invite another person to stand on his stomach—on this 90-pound boy. The boy never knew a thing was happening. He was wide awake, but consciousness had been withdrawn from the body.
Now, I saw this man withdraw consciousness from his heart, so that doctors present could make every possible test known to medical science, and they had to pronounce the man dead. In a few moments, the man came back and told every single word that was said while he was dead. That is mental control. It is a form. It is taught in India as yoga. Not all yoga is mental control. There is a yoga that is physical control, a yoga that is mental control, and a yoga that is spiritual, but mental yoga teaches such a complete control of the body that you can virtually do anything with it that you want, depending on the degree of practice and determination. Moses had been taught in all of these things.
Now, when he was at the stage of leading the Hebrew people, he had no use whatsoever of these mental tricks. But how do we know that in the presence of the king, the emperor, Pharaoh and all his magicians, that he didn’t feel himself called upon to prove to them in their own language what he could do?
I remember an experience of that kind in New York when Father Divine was arrested, because they found that there was a fire department violation in a building that his followers owned, and at this time they were trying really to get Father Divine. So they arrested him for the violation. He had nothing to do with it and didn’t own the property, but he went to court, and the judge in his “judgely” manner fined him a hundred dollars.
So Father Divine made the remark, “Is that all?” And he took a bill out of his pocket—a hundred-dollar bill—and flicked it on the desk. And the judge got very mad. “That’s payable to the clerk over there, and I don’t like your manner! I’m fining you $500.” Well, he reached in his pocket, threw $500 out there, and he said, “Those are only numbers, your honor.” The judge got mad and fined him $500 more. He reached in and he said, “Your Honor, you can keep this up all day long, you know.” He says, “I manufacture these.” I’m sure it was a trick, too. I’m sure that he didn’t multiply hundred-dollar bills, but it was a trick he felt called upon to do under the circumstances, because he knew that the judge knew that he was innocent, and the judge was just being a party to that which he shouldn’t have been. Father Divine was taking that way of letting him know it.
How do we know? I told you last night Brown Landone could leave his body at will. He could travel any place, any time, be anywhere whenever he wanted to be, but he didn’t do it for tricks. He did it for only one purpose—to show the control that an individual has over his own mind, his own body, his own being.
I don’t know if you know the story of his passing, but I had been with him just a year before, and he was then making his will. Now, he was 98 years of age, and he hadn’t made a will, and I asked him why he was making it, and he said, “Because I’m leaving you next year.” There wasn’t a sign or any reason for him to, but the next year he called his secretary in one day and he said, “I’m leaving you.” And the secretary said, “Oh no, you’re not going any place that I won’t go with you.” He said, “You won’t go here with me.”
And he sat down on this seat, and he closed his eyes and he left, and that was the way he went at 99 years of age. He didn’t die. He didn’t pass on. He left. That was his control. Moses had that control. Enoch had that control. Elijah had that control, and I’m sure that Jesus had that control.
When these men are of spiritual illumination, they learn everything that’s to be known about the mind and the body, and they don’t use it for tricks. They don’t use it for show. They don’t use it to become known as a magician. But if there is an occasion when they need to use it either for their own sake, secretly or sacredly, privately for some demonstration of dominion, they can. Or, if there is some place where they feel the necessity of using it in public, they will. But ordinarily those of spiritual illumination do not do those things. You know, Jesus did it in the case of the fig tree.
And you can’t be spiritually developed without understanding the action of the mind and of the body and why these things take place, and then it’s only a matter of whether or not you want to give a little time to practicing them to perfect yourself in them, merely for the proof that it can be done, and then usually forget about it for the rest of time. And so it is more than likely that Moses was using what he knew for the purpose of convincing the court of his powers and that he had greater powers than the court magicians. It may have some other explanation, but that is one, and that’s the way I see it.
1This excerpt is from Recording #208, 1958 First Chicago Closed Class, Side 2: “Mysticism.” 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 all transcripts. The full transcript of this recording is available at www.joelgoldsmith.com or by calling 1-800-922-3195.