Recording 551A is the basis for Chapter 9, “The Simplicity of the Healing Truth,” in A Message for the Ages. While this recording is no longer available for listening on this website, if you are a subscriber to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you will be able to listen to it there. The additional study material for this recording will continue to be available here on the Goldsmith Global site. To purchase this recording or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.
We are in the part of the “About Body” study program that deals with so-called disease and with spiritual healing. In this class, Joel addresses more issues about the body, disease, and healing, including:
Note: At the beginning of this class, Joel references “the Letters of 1964.” These are collected in the book Realization of Oneness.
This summary is provided simply as a reminder of the content of the class. To download or print this summary, click/tap here.
In The Infinite Way, there are specific principles which develop the mystical healing consciousness. They are based on this: God is infinite Consciousness, and man and the universe is this Consciousness formed, or expressed. Since God is incorporeal Spirit, man and the universe are incorporeal spirituality. You have never seen God with your eyes, nor have you ever seen man, a tree, or a flower as they truly are. You have seen only a finite concept of God’s creation. That concept is built on the universal belief in two powers, so it is sometimes good and sometimes bad, but these concepts are not creations of God. When you look at an individual, you do not see them. You see a concept that you have formed in your mind. In meditation, you might reach a high enough consciousness to see them as they truly are, but that happens only when you have risen above the mind and are beholding with spiritual vision.
God is Consciousness, and this entire universe, including man, is that Consciousness formed or expressed, having the same substance, quality, quantity, nature, and character. Against this, we have “this world,” which is a state of hypnotism. When an individual is hypnotized, he can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell whatever the hypnotist puts into his mind. If he sees himself in a fire, is there be a fire and is he burning up? No, the substance of the fire is hypnotism.
The healing principle of The Infinite Way is that since God is universal, infinite Consciousness, formed or expressed as individual man and the universe, this is a spiritual universe. And since every appearance of error is the product of a hypnotism caused by a belief in two powers, there are no such things as cancer, consumption, poverty, unemployment, or sinners. In proportion as you see such things, you are hypnotized, and you are seeing forms of hypnotism. When you are dehypnotized, you will see individuals and the universe as they truly are.
In the purely human state, germs appear to cause diseases. But a metaphysician who is dehypnotized not only does not catch those diseases, he heals them. He knows that germs can’t be destructive because God never put anything into His universe to destroy it. In Infinite Way healing work, the only cause for an erroneous condition is hypnotism. The error is not in the patient’s thought, but in the universal belief in two powers. That belief is so strong that it is hypnotic; it makes you see pictures that are sometimes good and sometimes evil.
You are not responsible for any of the troubles that you have had in your life; you never created them. You have been a victim of the hypnotic, universal belief in two powers presenting itself as erroneous persons and conditions. When you can recognize hypnotism, you are no longer hypnotized, and after that, you do not have to do anything to the hypnotism. Your treatment consists first of knowing the truth that Consciousness, which I am, is the cause of this entire universe, including man. Second, you must know that any appearance of materiality—even the “good” appearances—are a state of hypnotism. When you know this, you do not have to get rid of the appearances. If you got rid of them, you would still be hypnotized, and hypnotism would take another form. You have to lay the axe at the root, which is hypnotism.
To become dehypnotized, you must be “in the world but not of it.” Unless you keep yourself separate from the world, you will be a part of the world hypnotism. The day comes when you live your life separate and apart from people, except when you are revealing truth to them. But you do not live in their lives, for so many lives constitute an hypnotic, unreal experience, based on the belief of good and evil, and you might accept that hypnotism at its face value. Some suggest that we must even stop being philanthropic because that is indulging another form of world hypnotism. But Joel does not advocate that. He says that if somebody asks us for bread, we do not give them a stone. We help them at their level of consciousness without accepting their state as real and always knowing that we are helping only at that level.
The nature of error is that it is a state of hypnotism. So, we do not try to correct or improve any appearance or change a person’s health. There is no health in God; there is eternality, and nothing disturbs eternality. Since I and My Father are one, I am eternal and infinite. When you heal someone, you have not made them any better than they were. They are simply showing forth more of their divine Selfhood. There are no amounts in Spirit, either. There is only infinity. Dollars do not represent supply; if you spend them, they start to multiply again. You cannot stop the flow of infinity as long as you recognize that God is infinite Consciousness, continuously expressing Itself. There is no God that responds to prayers for things. If you understand God as the infinite Consciousness of this universe, which means that It must be your consciousness, you can pray the prayer of communion with your inner Self. Seeking nothing, you acknowledge the infinite nature of your consciousness appearing as infinite, harmonious form.
If you take a piece of paper and cut out a cat, a dog, and a man, you still have nothing but paper. The substance, quality, and life of the cat, dog, and man is the substance, quality and life of paper. When there is no longer paper, there is no longer cat, dog, or man. Similarly, the substance of this world is hypnotism, and when you are rid of hypnotism, you are rid of sin, disease, death, and all forms of limitation. The only way to get rid of hypnotism is to recognize it. If you are presented with a picture of sick or sinning mortal man, you turn to the truth of the nature of God and His creation, or “My kingdom,” and the nature of “this world,” which is hypnotism, and you dismiss the picture. That hypnotic picture disappears and harmony appears. Knowing this truth makes you free, and while at first you accept this truth intellectually, as you continue to work with it, you become less and less hypnotized. You do not “get rid” of hypnotism, or overcome it, or struggle with it, or look for a power to do something to it. You merely recognize that the substance and fabric of this world is hypnotism, and then you drop it.
If you saw “2 x 2 = 5,” you wouldn’t struggle to overcome it. You would merely say, “That’s a mistake.” You wouldn’t do anything else because there is nothing else to be done. Once you know it is a mistake, it can’t fool you. So, when a claim is presented to you of any nature, all you have to do is recognize, “No. That is neither person, place, nor thing. That is a state of hypnotism.” You are not fooled by it, and you recognize it as a lie. And because the one who came for help united themselves with you, they wake up and say, “Oh, it was a lie.” The healing truth is not complicated. The difficult part is reaching the state of consciousness that can recognize a lie. You are in the healing consciousness when you are not frightened by the mention of an atomic bomb, cancer, consumption, polio, paralysis, blindness, or deafness; when you can say, “Oh, that’s a lie.” But as long as these appearances make you want to do something about them, you are hypnotized. You are accepting a lie as if it were a fact.
The spiritual path is not about what’s wrong with the world, for there is nothing wrong with the world. But what is wrong with my concept of the world? Am I seeing man as a mortal, or am I recognizing Christ incarnate? The simplicity of the healing truth is that there are only two things of importance: the nature of God and His creation, and the nature of error and its creation. Just as God’s grace can appear in infinite forms, error can appear in infinite forms, all of which are hypnotism. We are not psychologists or doctors. We are those who have received the revelation of the nature of God and the nature of error. God is what I am, and “My kingdom” is the expression of the Consciousness which I am. All contrary appearances are a lie; they are pictures produced by hypnotism with no substance or law. So do not try to overcome them. Stand still and recognize them as a state of hypnotism and watch what happens to the picture.
It is difficult to understand this message if you approach it from a metaphysical background or if you are steeped in orthodox beliefs because you cannot see that God can’t “do” anything. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. All that God has been from the beginning, God is now. God cannot heal a disease, because God never permitted a disease. When we are healed, we merely come into the awareness and demonstration of the truth that has always been. An Infinite Way practitioner does not overcome, destroy, or get rid of evil, but recognizes every appearance as the product of a universal hypnotism and dismisses it. There is nothing else to do. This is the secret of our healing work, and success comes when you know these principles exactly and thoroughly and never deviate from them. You must stand fast on the nature of God and My kingdom, and the nature of evil and its world, until you develop such a consciousness that you are no longer fooled by appearances. In the past, you may have been fooled by fires, tidal waves, volcanoes, epidemics, and poverty. But now you can lay the axe at the root and say, “You will not fool me again. I know that the fabric of this world is hypnotism. There is no law to any of its pictures. The only law there is, is I AM, for I am the law.”
Nobody has peace, prosperity, health, or love to give me, for I Am is the only good. Love cannot come to me until I love. If I want abundance, I must give. If I want friendship, I must be a friend. Why? Because I already have all that the Father hath, so there is nothing left to be “out here.” I must open out a way for the imprisoned Splendor to escape.
You can see the simplicity of The Infinite Way, but you can also see that it can be difficult to practice it. It is a matter of self-training and self-discipline. You can’t indulge yourself in the world and expect to practice this. You’ve got to keep yourself separate from the world so that nothing destroys your developing awareness.
When we previewed recordings for this study program on body, we found several classes in which Joel teaches some wonderful lessons about the body, but covers other topics as well. We chose not to use these classes for our weekly sessions, but to post the best of them from time to time as “Additional Offerings for Study.” We offered another of these recordings as a complement to our study, recording #97A, from the 1954 Portland Practitioner Class, titled “Our Real Identity and Oneness.” It provides an interesting lesson on the spiritual body and the material concept, and how to experience more of one’s eternality. This recording is one of two sources for Chapter 5, “Our Real Identity,” in Awakening Mystical Consciousness.
While this recording is no longer available for listening on this website, if you are a subscriber to the Joel S. Goldsmith Streaming Service, you will be able to listen to it there. To purchase this recording or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.