A: Effect is anything that you can become aware of, whether it’s in the form of thought or thing.
Now, there is somebody called “I.” In my case, it’s I, Joel. In your case, it’s I, Mary; I, Bill; I, somebody else. There’s always an “I”—I who am the knower, the one who knows.
That which I know is an effect. That of which I become aware is effect. The sun, the moon, the stars—these are effects because I can become aware of them. Therefore, they are forms which I can become aware of. Body is effect; weather is effect; climate is effect; money is effect; crops are effect; trees are effect; flowers are effect; animals, vegetables, minerals are effect; buildings are effect. Everything that I can become aware of is an effect.
Once you begin to understand that, you’ll understand the next big principle of The Infinite Way: that an effect has no power; that all power resides in the I that governs effect. And if you want to see how that operates, you can start with your body. Here are these two hands, and I say to you that they have no power. They can’t give; they can’t withhold; they can’t pet, and they can’t punch. All they can do is stay right there, forever and forever and forever. I have the power to move them. Therefore, there is no power in these hands. I am the power that functions arms and hands.
One of these days you will realize that this is true of the heart, the liver, the lungs, the digestive, the eliminative, every single part of your body. You will find out that these have no power over you. The heart can’t kill you, and no organ or function of your body can make you ill. Why? Because they are effect, and they do not control you. You control them.
Now then, oh, this isn’t true out in the human world. People have accepted the body as if it governed them, and they wake up in the morning and the first thing they know, “Ah, my foot hurts me. Oh, my head hurts me.” And then they let themselves be governed by what the body has told them, instead of waking up with the first thing, “Thank you, God. You took good care of things during the night, and I’m sure You can take good care of them during the day. So God, here we go, You and I and my body.” And then you are governing. You are in control, and one of these days that control will be absolute.
Now, those of you who have had experience in metaphysical practice have undoubtedly had cases where people ate bad foods and got ptomaine poisoning, or others who either accidentally or on purpose swallowed a poison, and you were called for help, and the patient was quickly restored. Proving what? The poison had no effect over the person except in their ignorance, because the moment the case came into your hands, your knowledge that poison had no effect nullified it, and the healing took place, whether the poison was in food or whether somebody deliberately swallowed it or accidentally got the wrong bottle in the medicine chest.
But all of us who have had years and years of experience in this work have had many cases of that kind, with either ptomaine poisoning, food poisoning, or drug poisoning, and have proven that the truth we knew had dominion, not the poison.
Now, the same thing is true in infectious and contagious cases. In the human world, the infectious and contagious case has power until the doctors give it some greater [material] power and remove it. But in our work, we have proven that no matter how infectious or contagious it was, that the very moment the metaphysical practitioner came on the scene, the infection and the contagion disappeared, and it was proved that it was no power.
Now, the reason is that effects are not power. All power is invisible. If you can see it, hear it, taste it, touch it or smell it, it isn’t power. But I, the invisible Being, am the law unto all effect. I, the invisible presence and power of God, am the law unto all effect. Nothing can in any wise enter my consciousness that defileth or maketh a lie, for I am the law unto all effect. That doesn’t signify a mental control. I don’t go around mentally proving how effective I am over pieces of matter. No.
That, of course, is one of the things that’s delaying progress at Duke University. They are trying to take the human mentality and make it power over matter, whereas, if they would teach their students to sit back, be quiet, be a vacuum, I would come through and do it for them. They haven’t learned about that yet.
That’s the secret of our work. That’s why we don’t have to give mental treatments. That’s why our healing work is not the projection of human thought. I brought this out last night. That is why in meditation I never think of you. Even if you and I are alone in the room, and you say, “Meditate with me,” never do I permit you to come into my mind. You sit over there where you are, and I’ll sit here, and I will keep myself in line with the inner thing which is God, and the moment I feel this attunement, you feel it.
I didn’t do it. I didn’t project my thought at you. I didn’t put any thoughts into your head. I didn’t try to lift you. I did nothing except ignore you. I went to God. I went to the center of my being and made my contact, and because you had brought yourself there and made yourself a part of my consciousness, whatever of truth came into my consciousness, came to you.
Now, that’s how we do our healing work—without words, without thoughts. I get myself released into the realization, “I and the Father are one. The place whereon I stand is holy ground. All that the Father hath is mine, here and now. The kingdom of God is within me, ‘closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet,’” Now I get quiet, and I don’t think of you, and I don’t think of a patient, and I don’t think of their disease, and I don’t think of their name. I drop you completely out. I make my attunement here, and then comes this wonderful feeling of peace. And then I get word, “I feel better,” or “I had an instantaneous healing,” or “I’m not quite as well; keep on.”
And so it goes, either instantaneously or after ten years. If you stick with me, you’ll get well. As the fellow said, “I’ll get you out of jail if it takes 30 years.” But I can heal you, if you just give me enough time. But it isn’t because I do it—I mean I, Joel—because I don’t, and I don’t know how healing is done. I don’t know the difference between healing a cold and healing a cancer. I really don’t. Don’t let anybody think that that’s false modesty. It really isn’t. I know nothing about the healing process. I don’t know how it takes place. I don’t know what takes place. I don’t know the difference between healing one form of error or another, so whether it’s physical sickness, mental, moral, financial, family—they’re all one and the same to me, and the process is: get still and come out of that world belief that there are two powers. First, get the realization of one power that is “closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet,” right where I am, and then settle there until this peace comes upon me. Then you’ll find that regardless of the name or nature of the ill, it will yield. Sometimes in the first treatment, sometimes in the thirty-first—but it will yield.
Now, the reason is that effect has no power. The effect on every organ and function of the body is [brought about by] I—not the personal I, Joel, but the I that I really am. And the way that’s brought into effect is by getting the “Joel-I” out of the way, in the realization that Spirit is the one and only power, and then waiting for that to come.
Now, once you get to that point, you’ll see that that is your protective work, too. Nobody can influence you by their thinking. You don’t respond. Whether it’s an individual malpracticing or whether it’s a nation malpracticing, whether it’s a whole nation putting out propaganda, or whether it’s a whole air full of subliminal perception, you will never respond to it. Never, as long as you know that no power operates on you. The only power there is, is the Spirit of God in you which operates out from you. That changes your whole life.
1 This excerpt is from Recording 212A: 1958 Second Chicago Closed Class, “The Mystical I.” 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.