Joel S. Goldsmith

This popular, provocative teacher of mysticism has over 50 books, and 1250 recordings of his classwork available for study. His message is known as The Infinite Way. I agree with his basic concepts which are centered around attaining Christ-Consciousness, with a strong emphasis on spiritual healing. The experience of the Divine Presence in the individual consciousness is the primary goal, but it seems to me that Goldsmith deliberately over-simplifies. I think the reason he does not delve more deeply into specific issues that might hinder the accomplishment of that lofty goal, is because he has not really analyzed the complex human predicament, because he didn’t work through the challenge with all its varieties. “Spiritual” healing just came spontaneously to him; it was not a long winding development, and if it didn’t happen in certain cases, he just moved on to another case. For instance, in his book, The Art of Spiritual Healing, he acknowledges that sometimes a healing will not occur because it is more important for the individual to learn spiritual lessons through the issue than to be healed, and also that sometimes it healing does not occur because the individual can’t let natural thinking go yet, but in neither case does he dissect these issues, which have a lot of nuance and subtleties. He just dismisses them in a very cavalier way, as “error,” and says the person just isn’t ready. I think that if the Infinite Way, could incorporate aspects of Swedenborg’s metaphysical paradigm, particularly the concepts of spiritual causation, the collective spiritual consciousness, and spiritual influx, then it would blossom into a much more complex, detailed system; it can be more powerful, rational, effective, and far-reaching. The other thing he does not talk with much specificity about is what to do with the Christ-consciousness relative to any secondary ambitions one might imagine relative to social impacts. Once one becomes conscious of God Presence, what next other than being a healing practitioner or just realizing one’s own “manifestation” ? He disavowed the formation of an Infinite Way organization, so there is no lasting social legacy, nor any likelihood for one to arise. The “movement” is not a movement because it will never take any group identity, because Joel seemed to forbid that. Maybe he realized that The Infinite Way is too narrow to warrant a group identity, and its message is only sufficient to augment or be an auxiliary element in a wider metaphysical array. Or maybe we shouldn’t think about anything as an individually determined ambition because once we realize God within we will just sit and watch Him work? He focuses on the omnipotence, and omnipresence of God, drawing the conclusion that because God alone “is”, we are in actuality individualized embodiments of the Divine, but he neglects to explain our finite consciousness. If I am Divine, why am I not omniscient? He also states there is no other power than God’s power, but does not explain how our free will is other than nothing or “illusion.” Are we puppets? or, Are we God? Why can’t I do whatever I want? God alone “is”, and God is all-good, so how does evil arise? “God does not permit, tolerate or send forth evil.” (Practicing the Presence, p. 28) So, evil is only an illusion. Too easy, pretend evil doesn’t exist! Joel lives in the world of the Absolute, and we can too; the real world is not Real, so ignore it. In any case, there is much inspiration to be found in the teaching of Joel S. Goldsmith, and much to question, without too many answers. He will definitely make you think. And if you really think about what he is saying, you might actually find it a bit annoying, because it is very simplistic. At least, at any given moment he will drop some absolutes on the reader, leaving no room for nuance. His output is vast, so he will make qualifying statements in random recordings, which brings up another point: he never organized his thoughts before any speech, he just meditated to attain “God-consciousness” before hand, walked out on stage and let it rip. The tone was very authoritative and dogmatic, so he comes off as if he totally believes that what he is saying is completely Divine, i.e. Joel seems to see himself as a infallible revelator. He never says anything like: “it seems to me…”, or “in my opinion…” or “I think…”, which is fine, he can have that opinion of his own understanding if he wants to, but I don’t share his opinion. The crux of his message is to become completely convinced of the sole “Reality” of God, and that we are God also, then all our problems will vanish. My brain isn’t quite big enough to cram that idea inside, and I think Joel’s response would be that I am just victimized by “illusion.” Honestly though, I really do find his books very interesting and also, inspiring and helpful, because there is a lot of deep metaphysical ideas that you do not elsewhere find expressed in such blunt and powerful verbiage. By far, my favorite title of his is: The Art of Spiritual Healing. In my opinion, in it he really gets down to the nitty-gritty about his method off addressing the attempt to attain spiritual healing, and I definitely feel he is correct about many things. I whole heartedly recommend reading anything from Goldsmith, with a readiness to think.