How to Heal, Part 2
Adelaide Closed Class, 1958
1958
Joel S. Goldsmith
Tape 203B

Good afternoon. I was a little bit concerned that when our students in other parts of the world hear these tapes they weren’t going to believe really and truly that they were our classes, because there was no any drilling on them and no streets being dug up, no fire wagons going by. But I see outside that’s taken care of today, the old familiar landmarks will be on our tapes. And they’ll say that’s an Infinite Way class. [Joel comments to a lady in the class, “it won’t be necessary, it won’t be necessary. I think our students would prefer to hear the noises.”]

There is something a little bit different is taking place in this class. In the eleven years that I’ve been teaching the message of the Infinite Way, we have never had a book devoted exclusively to the healing work. And each time that it has come to my thought to have such a book, that which guides me says, “no.” And the reason is that if you concentrate exclusively on the idea of healing, you have to lose the very thing you’re seeking. Whereas, learning the principles, catching the entire vision, you have a background for healing and then healing becomes just a part of the picture. And that’s the way it should be. In other words, just as the Master taught that you are to take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink, so he might have gone on and said you are to take no thought for your health but seek rather the Kingdom of God and let all these things be added unto you. And so it has been that in our work, as you read the writings or hear the recordings, you gradually develop a consciousness of Truth. Sometimes you become aware of specific principles. At other times, you’re not so aware of the specific principles but you know the general motif. And healing automatically fits into it.

But evidently the time has come for a book, because that which is taking place here this week is very evident, very evident to be a book, and a book which will concentrate on the healing principles. So do not be surprised that along about 1959 or 1960 if you receive notice of another book on the subject of spiritual healing and then recognize your own class.

Now, we come today to a statement that must be clearly understood in your mind. It can be misunderstood and has been misunderstood. But let no one in this class misunderstand when I tell you that all healing is a result of individual consciousness. Your individual consciousness or mine or someone else’s. In other words, healing is not dependent on God. Healing is not dependent on what you might call or have heard as God consciousness or Christ consciousness, unless you think in terms of your consciousness as God consciousness or Christ Consciousness. In other words, if you at this moment had a problem, and you were given the choice of practitioner to go to, out of all the world and out of all time, your thought would immediately jump to Jesus Christ. And you would go to him in the complete assurance of receiving your healing.

But why is this so? Why, if it is God that heals or if it is God consciousness or Christ consciousness, why do you particularly need Jesus Christ? And your answer is because Jesus Christ has, so far as our conviction goes, proven to have the greatest degree of unfolded and realized God Consciousness. Now, if you were told you might not have Jesus, who is next in line. And if you know your Scripture, you will immediately say, “John.” For undoubtedly John so completely approaches Divine Consciousness that I doubt that anyone knows where Jesus leaves off and John begins, or vice versa. In other words, they are two men with but one consciousness and that one the Divine Consciousness. And so it would be that you would probably seek John. I would next. And then if you had to go from there, your thought might go to Peter, to Paul, because they demonstrated in their healing work the tremendous capacity, the tremendous depth of their spiritual capacity, of their spiritual awareness.

And so, the answer to the healing problem is this. The healer is individual consciousness. The healer is the consciousness of any individual who has attained some measure of Christ consciousness. And the measure of it, that is the measure that they have attained, determines the degree of the healing work.

Now, where this is sometimes misunderstood is that there are those who might be lead to believe that this gift of healing or Christ consciousness is a personal thing and therefore belongs to some person as such. And that, of course, would be introducing egotism. No one has in and of himself the healing consciousness. Only in the degree that they have embodied the One Divine Consciousness as their individual consciousness through the understanding that “I and the Father are one, and all that the Father hath is mine.”

Now, by the grace of God, then, God’s consciousness becomes your individual consciousness. But how? Because now we come to that place: how do I attain it? How do I achieve it? How do I go from becoming a businessman, a salesman to becoming a spiritual healer? How do I go from becoming a housewife to becoming a spiritual healer? And there is where we all need this guidebook—the Bible. For in it is this Word of life. In it is the pattern that we must follow if we are to achieve Christ consciousness.

At every step of your unfoldment, remember that you could make no progress without the grace of God. That is, of your own self, regardless of how determined you might be, regardless of what zeal you might put into it, regardless of how much faith you might have, if you at the same time haven’t an element of Divine Grace, you will achieve nothing but the intellectual knowledge of the letter of Truth.

So it is that you have to give recognition to the fact that you did not bring yourself to this study. That something impelled you. That something that impelled you is within you. It is that which determines that this is the year for your opening yourself to this message. And perhaps out there maybe 200, 300 who would be ready to open themselves next year or the year after or the year after that. Be assured of this, if all of these people out here were in this room or in our presence, it would benefit them nothing. Their physical presence would not give them the secret or the consciousness of this work. If I thought that it would, I’d place great big ads in the newspaper, promise to give away silken hose free, and have them here and then convey to them Christ consciousness. But it won’t work. The impulse must be within the individual. Then, then, it is that when the student is ready the teacher appears for them.