Joel gave several beautiful classes on world work and topics related to world work. Since Joel’s recordings are still under copy protection, we have obtained permission to post these recordings for your online or telephone listening. Each recording will be available for listening at any time for one month after it is posted. There is a list of previously posted recordings at the bottom of this page.
To hear the recording by telephone, call
1-641-715-3900, and enter the extension number 828754, followed by the pound sign (#). After you enter the extension number, the introduction to the recording will begin, followed by the recording itself. The telephone number and the extension number will always be the same, even as we change the recording each month. Depending on your telephone calling plan, the call may or may not incur a charge, so it is a good idea to check whether your plan covers calls to the 641 area code. Even if you usually participate in the tape group by computer, the telephone option is convenient when you would like to listen to the recording but for some reason do not have access to your computer.
You can listen to this recording from the Sanctuary page. To listen by telephone, call 1-641-715-3900 and enter 828754#.
This month’s recording, 506A, “Past and Present Civilizations,” is from the 1962 Cape Town Class. It was not used as source material for any book.
Preview of the Class
Joel begins this class by saying that ancient and modern civilizations alike arose and fell because those in the ruling class brought them down through their greed for material things – power, wealth, decadence, and sensuality. They did not know God aright; they did not understand the nature of that which they called “God”—how or why It functions, and what we must do to experience Its functioning.
They did not know God aright because in past civilizations, nobody revealed the nature of God to the world. They revealed the word “God,” but not the nature of God or the possibility of experiencing God’s presence, and those who had some degree of this understanding had limited ability to spread the spiritual truth. Today, a few million people already have some degree of that awareness, and with current technologies, spiritual teachings can be easily shared with millions. This is the glimmer of hope that might prevent the repetition of the downfall of past civilizations because there is a far greater opportunity for people to discover the nature of God and spiritual power.
The world has been trying to get a God of Spirit to do something to a material universe, and until we discover the nature of God as omnipresent Spirit, we will not discover that this universe is a spiritual universe. Joel asserts that there is only one remedy to all of man’s troubles, and that is knowing God aright.
We must begin to understand God as Spirit, as incorporeal being, as consciousness, and eventually realize that the nature of man is the image and likeness of that consciousness, governed by the law of its creative Principle, God. There is not a God and a man. There is no such thing as God’s life and man’s life. There is no such thing as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man—these are one! God is, and God is as man. God appears as individual being; therefore every individual being is the life, mind, soul, and spirit of God individually appearing. Whatever God is, the individual is.
You can’t claim God as your personal selfhood apart from another, but you can claim God as your Selfhood if you are willing to acknowledge that God is universal Selfhood. If you separate God and man, or separate the life, mind, and soul of God from the life, mind, and soul of man, you have a world as it was when civilizations were lost, because man had no contact with God, and found other ways to amuse himself and take the path to destruction.
When you realize yourself to be in God, you begin to live within yourself in inner communion, and that leads you to find a communion with every other soul on the face of the globe. Then you always recognize God as the center of every individual, the life of every individual, and you would no more desecrate the life of any individual than you would desecrate your own life. Every good we do unto each other, we are really doing unto the God-being. Every good we withhold or every injury we do to another, we are really doing unto ourselves.
When even a few individuals live from the awareness of one infinite divine Presence, they become a leaven in human consciousness. True civilization is spiritual, not material. It is the conscious awareness of God’s presence and the activity of the Christ realized within, which is the essence of world work.
The recording will be available for listening through March 31, 2026.
February 1-28, 2026
Recording 8804: 1956 Holland Closed Class
“The Word Made Flesh”
January 1-31, 2026
Recording 507B: 1962-63 Princess Kaiulani Open Class
“1963 New Year’s Message”
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