A: And what is the basic point of the entire Infinite Way? What is its major discovery that sets it apart from every other metaphysical teaching in the world? The fact that no error is in your mind; that evil is not personal. This entirely sets The Infinite Way apart from every metaphysical teaching and from every psychological teaching, because we do not uncover the error within you. There isn’t any. You are the temple of God. God is your mind, so how could there possibly have gotten any error into your mind, which is God?
So unless you recognize that this sin, selfishness, unkindness, hate, envy, jealousy, malice is not out here—is not in you and is not in me; but that it is the universal or carnal mind, an impersonal belief in two powers—unless you see that, you have no possible way of doing Infinite Way healing. You can do lots of other kinds of healing, but all Infinite Way healing is based on two major factors: that all evil is impersonal; is in and of the carnal mind, the universal belief in two powers; and that this carnal mind isn’t a mind. It is nothing but a belief in two powers, the arm of flesh, or nothingness.
Until you impersonalize evil and then nothingize it, you have no place to go in The Infinite Way. This is all embraced in the 1959 work—nine months of it. In every single tape that was made in 1959, this point is emphasized over and over and over again: Evil does not exist in me—or as Paul would say, “I find no sin in me, merely a sense of sin.”2 In other words, I am not a sinner, but I do feel this universal sense of sin tempting me.
Just imagine if you were a witness to the Master facing his three temptations in the wilderness and you were to say, “Jesus, those temptations aren’t outside of you. They’re inside of you.” Think how you would have made the Master feel, accusing him of those three evils. And I would feel just as badly if you accused me of being evil, even if I were tempted at some moment with a sense of evil.
Now, the first point that every Infinite Way student must learn is this: Evil is never personal. You are never sinful. You are never evil. You have no hate, envy, jealousy or malice in you. Even if it seems to be pouring out of you, it still isn’t in you! It is still in and of the carnal mind, of which you may at the moment be a victim.
That is why it is so ridiculous when we have an epidemic of flu, and then some metaphysician says, “I guess the evil must be in me.” Here it is so self-evident that it’s an epidemic, spreading all over the world, and some smart metaphysician saying, “I guess it isn’t out there in the world; it’s in me.” Of course not! No evil is in you! All evil is in and of what we call “carnal” or “mortal”
mind. But this is not really a mind. This is only a universal belief in two powers, and it has no law, no substance, no cause. It never was ordained of God and therefore must fall of its own nothingness. So never again talk about “an image in my own mind.” An image in the carnal mind? Yes, as long as you follow it up with, “Ah, but the carnal mind is not power.”
Now, in that 1959 work, you will also find that I’ve traced for you the reason for all of the error that is on the earth today. It all had its beginning when the word “devil” or “Satan” was first misunderstood. When the word “devil” or “Satan”first came into being in whatever its original language may have been, it meant “an impersonal source of evil.” It was only in some later generation that “devil” or “Satan”was personalized and became an enemy of God.
Now, when it was impersonal, it was no enemy of God, because it had no person or personality in whom or through whom to work. Therefore, it could have no enmity. It was an impersonal nothingness. As soon as an individual recognizes that anything is of the devil, that should instantaneously mean their healing, because being of the devil, it is impersonal. And not only that—the devil itself, being mythological, has no entity, identity or law, and so it should really be a simple thing to say to any form of error, “I know thee who thou art. Thou art of the devil.” and then snap your finger at it, because if it is of the devil, it is impersonal, meaning it has no person in whom, on whom, through whom to operate.
Now, once the devil became personalized as enmity against God,you’ve had all of these thousands of years of a battle between good and evil, when in reality there is no battle between good and evil. Good is infinite, and evil is nonexistent, and therefore, there can be no battle between them. So in order to have a battle, you first must personalize evil. That gives you a battle. And remember that without personalizing it, there is no battler. There is no one to battle or to combat.
Now, Paul changes the word “devil” to “carnal mind,” but he makes the mistake of making the carnal mind enmity against God and thereby personalizes it. And what happens to Paul? Every week he gets beaten. Every week he gets thrown into jail. Every week he is pilloried; every week he is put in the stocks. He just meets carnal mind every week of the year, and he ends up dying in prison. Of course he did it to himself. He built himself a carnal mind as enmity against God, and he woke up every day starting out to do battle. …
Now after many, many centuries, Mrs. Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, invented a new term for “the sum total of all evil.” She called it “mortal mind.” But she so thoroughly understood its nature that she said, “The term ‘mortal mind’ is a solecism. It is a term denoting nothingness.” And on the strength of that statement, her practitioners did such miraculous healing work that within 30 years there were 3,000 established churches all over the world and all legalized to do spiritual healing. … And all of it was based on that: The carnal mind, or mortal mind, is a term denoting nothingness. It is the sum total of all error, but it is a term. It isn’t an entity or an identity. It’s a term, and it’s a term that denotes nothingness. …
Now, if you can see the word “devil” or “carnal mind” or “mortal mind” as being an impersonal source of every claim of evil and then say, “So what?”—in other words, “I’m glad I have you out there in nothingness”—and then drop it, you will find that instead of trying to overcome mortal mind or rise above it or destroy it, you will have done that very thing by declaring its nothingness. …
The nature of error is always impersonal and universal, and it is always without law. Now remember, it has no person in whom, on whom, or through whom to operate, and therefore it operates in us individually and collectively only in accordance with our agreement that it is a power; that it is a presence; and that it is personal; and the very moment we lend ourselves to such a statement as, “Is the evil within me?” we have made our own little private carnal mind and then set out to battle it.
You remember last night’s lesson—that the height of our work is attained in the realization of “no power.” We do not need a power, not even a God-power, to destroy our enemies or our sins or our diseases. We need only the realization of truth. “Ye shall know the truth; ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”3 So you don’t need a God-power. You need only to know the truth. What is the truth? “I in the midst of me am mighty, almighty. I am God-endowed, God-empowered. God has given me dominion. Therefore, the carnal mind, mortal mind, devil—all of these—are without power, for all the power there is in the world manifests itself in and through me.” God has endowed us with spiritual power—not to be exercised or used, for it isn’t that kind of a power. It is a power that brings us forth into manifestation and maintains and sustains us without conscious effort.
Now, the moment you use your mind, or the moment you use your thought, or the moment you use truth or attempt to use God, you are outside the realm of The Infinite Way. The Infinite Way is a realm of realization:
I and the Father are one. All that God is, I am, and all that appears to me as evil, regardless of its name or nature, is the carnal mind, mortal mind, or nothingness, the arm of flesh, and is not to be battled, not to be fought, not to be overcome—just to be recognized as impersonal nothingness.
But that big word is impersonal, because it means without person; without a person in whom, on whom, through whom to operate. So never again bring evil as being in your mind or in the mind of your patient.
1This excerpt is from Recording340B: 1960 First London Closed Class, “Beyond Time of Space; I, Unlimited Being.” 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 from The Infinite Way Office website or by calling 1-800-922-3195.
2 Romans 7:17.
3 John 8:32.