Recording 17A provided source material for several chapters in the writings:
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With this class, we are moving into the part of the “About Body” study program that deals with spiritual healing. Many of us have at one time or another sought spiritual healing help for a physical claim. This class, and others that will follow it in our study program, will help us learn more about how to handle physical claims for ourselves or others.
In this class, Joel provides answers to questions about the body. They are not directly asked by students, but may be questions that we might have about the body and healing.
This summary is provided simply as a reminder of the content of the class. To download or print this summary, click/tap here.
Physical healing, or healing on the physical level of life, is accomplished through medicines, surgery and other material means. Some metaphysicians hold physical healing in disdain, but that is unwise. In absolute truth, there is but one Consciousness, and It is spiritual; it is Spirit Itself. But there are different states, or stages, of consciousness. One is the material state of consciousness. Another is the mental state of consciousness. There is no material or mental consciousness; there is a material or mental state of consciousness.
In the material state of consciousness, there are laws of matter, and as long as one is in that material state, those laws cannot be ignored. They hold the issues of life and death. No one can deny that aspirin has healed millions of headaches, surgery has prolonged the human sense of life, and some medicines and diets have given health, longevity, and peace of mind to those on the material, or physical, level of consciousness.
The 19th century brought a greater awareness of the mental state of consciousness. Until that time, because the body was believed to be material, all remedies were material, and the causes of disease were material. When the idea was introduced that there are mental causes for physical diseases, materia medica denied that there could be a mental cause or mental remedy for a physical disease. Even so, Christian Science, Unity, and New Thought flourished with their healing practices and eventually, materia medica could not ignore these healings. Today, the mental healing of physical disease is called psychosomatic medicine.
There is no way for disease to enter the body except through the mind. In and of itself, the body has no intelligence. It can’t tell whether you are getting wet by sitting in a bathtub or standing in the rain. Yet you won’t catch cold in the bathtub, but you might if you are out in the rain. The belief is different for each circumstance. In and of itself, the body cannot contract a disease. If you remove mind or consciousness from the body, you have no ability to be well or to be sick.
The body reflects the state of consciousness of the individual. If your consciousness is sufficiently materialistic, you can receive great benefit through material means. If your state of consciousness is more mental, you can derive great benefits through a mental approach to life. But if your consciousness rises to the spiritual, both the physical and the mental are subject to your spiritual consciousness. On the mental level, your body is subject to your mental consciousness. On that level, thoughts tend to become things, and the thoughts we hold in mind tend to manifest themselves on the body. If you have studied metaphysics, you know how completely the body is subject to the mind, and you have seen it in healing. The practitioner knows the truth and your body responds. The healing takes place because the body is subject to the mind, and the mind can control the body. There have been people with paralysis or a serious disease who have overcome it through sheer will power.
As you rise into the spiritual, both body and mind respond to the Spirit. For example, when Spirit touches the consciousness of an individual who is overly sensual or lacks integrity, that type of thinking disappears. A person who has sensual or greedy tendencies or has a lust for power cannot correct it by trying not to be that way. The tendency can be repressed to some degree by exchanging one type of thought for another, but it is really overcome when the Spirit Itself touches that individual’s thought and dissolves the erroneous state of mind. Spirit, the state of Christ-consciousness, can change the whole nature of the person.
In healing work, it is important to understand the meaning of “real” and “unreal,” or “reality” and “unreality.” “Real” or “reality” pertains only to that which is spiritual, eternal, immortal, infinite. Only that which is of God is called real, or reality. You cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell reality. When we see a healthy person, or what we call a good or moral person, or a normal, healthy, harmonious situation, we are apt to think of that as “real.” When we see the sick or the sinning, we are apt to call that “unreal.” But there is no more reality to good health than bad health if the state of health can change.
Since reality pertains only to that which is spiritual—of Spirit, Soul, or God—it requires the soul faculties, the inner awareness, to behold reality. The unreal, or unreality, is anything—whether to our sense harmonious or inharmonious—that is not permanent, not God-governed, not God-maintained and God-sustained. Almost anyone who is willing to be a student of spiritual truth can attain a measure of spiritual discernment, or the ability to perceive reality, if they have the desire for that level of awareness and are willing to study and practice. Spiritual discernment comes through the understanding of “reality” and “unreality,” and that begins with understanding God. If the word “God” does not resonate with you, you can use one of the many synonyms for God to make God real to you, such as divine Mind, universal Consciousness, universal Life, Truth, Life, Law, Cause, or Creative Principle. If you can use these words to bring yourself to a point where you grasp some measure of God, reality, you are ready for the healing work.
When we speak of sin or disease as unreal, we do not mean nonexistent; we are denying their existence as a part of God or reality. So never say, “Oh, it’s unreal,” or, “It’s untrue,” or, “It never happened,” unless you understand that it is unreal, untrue, and never happened in the spiritual kingdom. Then you have accepted the premise of spiritual healing: All sin, disease, lack, and limitation are unreal. They are no part of reality. In meditation, when you contemplate God and have even the slightest touch, you find that there is no trace of sin, sinful desire, sinful thought, criticism, judgment, or condemnation. There is only love. You are completely enveloped in love, and from then on, the loving part of you comes more to the fore in life, and that “mortal” part of you—the sinful, critical, condemnatory, judging, impatient, and impure—tends to fall away. It can become so totally unreal that it never enters our consciousness again.
Christ Jesus saw this unreality of evil when he said to Pilate, “Thou couldest have no power over me, except it come from the Father.” Jesus understood the temporal power that Pilate had, but he also knew that in his own consciousness of reality, temporal power could not be exercised. When he was arrested, he did not resist, and he even healed the soldier whose ear had been cut off by Peter. Later he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” He was seeing through the human activity and seeing it as unreal; that is, not a part of the eternal, the immortal, and the everlasting. He could heal and even come forth from the tomb because he knew that all forms of evil are unreal; that they have no power; that they cannot maintain or sustain themselves in the face of spiritual truth.
The vast majority of ministers, rabbis and priests are sincere students of God, lovers of God, seekers of God. Most of them live their lives as close to God as their understanding permits. So, if God were a healer of disease, why don’t ministers and rabbis and priests have a monopoly on spiritual healing? Because most religious teachings accept disease as a reality. They accept both evil power and good power, and usually give more power to evil than to good. When a magazine writer asked priests, rabbis, and ministers why God does not prevent or stop war, disease, and other human calamities, they replied that the power of God is not for this world, but for after death; in this world you take care of yourself. Yet, some Episcopal ministers do healing work. Most of them learned the healing art from Science and Health. Some other churches have adopted The Infinite Way as the textbook for teaching ministers how to heal. But the clergy who cannot heal are those who have accepted the existence of disease and believe that they can pray to God to remove it. That can’t be done.
If God could remove disease, God would do it long before you could pray for it. There is no God that can heal disease and won’t, nor is there a God who waited until Jesus came along to start a healing ministry. What kind of a horrible God would that be? In the kingdom of God, there is no disease. God maintains and sustains Its kingdom intact, harmonious, healthful, complete, perfect, spiritual and whole. There is no defect in God’s kingdom. God has not given disease to this world and has never decreed death. Jesus and others like him revealed that disease, sin, and death are no part of God’s kingdom. They are not real; they have no substance or law; and they cannot stand in the face of that spiritual understanding. The moment you touch the hem of the spiritual robe and catch this inner light, you too will witness that in all of God’s kingdom, there is no sin, disease, death, lack, or limitation. Whatever comes to our attention in those forms is no part of reality, no part of the kingdom of God. In proportion as this inner light grows in you, you will experience those things less and less.
In the healing ministry, we speak of disease as “a claim.” We don’t call it consumption, cancer, or paralysis. We drop those names and call it “a claim,” “a belief,” “an appearance,” or “an illusion.” Changing the name clarifies the truth, and since healing work is an activity of our consciousness, unless these things are clear to us, we have no activity of truth in our consciousness to bring about healing. If you were driving in the desert and saw water ahead on the road, you might stop your car, thinking you could not go through the water. But if you realized that it was an illusion, you would just drive on. It is the same in healing work. As long as you have cancer or consumption or tumor or paralysis or a cold or grippe or flu, you are stuck: “How will I get rid of it? Is there a God that can remove it?” As long as it remains “a disease” to you, you can’t do anything with it. But when you come to see that it does not exist as disease but as illusion, you have the first step in its healing.
In this recording, #17A, Joel explains the meaning of “real” and “unreal” and “reality” and “unreality” as those terms are used in The Infinite Way. He addresses this topic in many of his books and classes. With permission from Acropolis Books, we have provided excerpts from two of Joel’s books that are particularly clear on the subject. To view, download, or print this document, click/tap here.