All through the ages there have been spiritually endowed men and women—the mystics of the world—who have known conscious union with God, and who have brought the presence and power of God into their actual experience. Always there has been a Moses, an Elijah, a Jesus, a John, or a Paul, but none of them had many followers. None of them was ever widely known or his teaching widely practiced, during his own time or for years afterward. These spiritual masters devoted their lives to giving us the truth which has brought us to our present state of consciousness. The light that we have today is the result of the light which has come down through all time. There are many spiritual teachers who have left no record, and about whom we have no knowledge, but there are many whom we can identify: Moses, Elijah, Jesus, John, and Paul, mentioned above; Eckhart, Boehme, Fox, and others mystics of the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries; as well as the great leaders and revelators of more recent years. No one person has given the light to the world, but each of these great spiritual prophets has been a beam of light contributing to the whole light.

Joel S. Goldsmith
The Art Of Meditation, p4

Joel Goldsmith’s Sense of Humor. Pioneers Of Our Invisible Life going way back into the 40’s and 50’s.
I was invited to give a talk at a mind science convention with over a thousand people in attendance. Why they would want me I have no idea. But I went.

Now you must understand that these people have spent their lives thinking their mind is God and the first thing I told them when I got to the platform, is that their mind is not and never will be God.

After the lecture, a woman came to me in awe. She was troubled by what I had said. She began to tell me how I was very wrong and that mind was God. So I said to her; You mean your mind is God? She said yes, yes it is.

Well I said; I read in your local paper that you have not had rain in several months, so please use God and get us some relief. Just give me a minute, I’ll hurry up and go get my umbrella.

I once arrived at a class and the coordinator got me outside before I started and began to tell me that these students were advanced, and they would not need any talk about the nature of error so I could just skip that part of the talk.

I said; “Then why am I here?” Because if they have all fully realized that, they should be teaching me, because I haven’t.”

If you think for one moment someone can die on a cross for you and relieve you from your responsibility of developing your own consciousness, then you have not been paying attention to mankind for the past two thousand years.

That “natural man” is not under the law of God. . . That is what is wrong with this whole human race. It can go to church and pray from now until doomsday, and if it is not careful, the roof of the church will fall in on it.

Once the spirit of God has set you on a spiritual path, It will not let you turn back, even though there are rare exceptions such as Lot’s wife. She left the old city, the old state of consciousness, and then probably heard some bee-bop music and looked back to listen to it. That was her finish.

Every election day, when I see pictures in the paper of the candidates going to church to pray before the election, I think of what a quandary God must be in. Probably not one of the candidates is worthy of being elected, nevertheless, all of them are confident that there is a God that will see them through.

People are aways saying “Almighty God” and then in the next breath they talk about power in some person, place, circumstance or disease. How can God be “Almighty” and something else have power too?” Ridiculous isn’t it?

That is why I have often asked people, when they write me for help, to make the request brief. Just simply state; “I have a cancer, or a lump, or a problem, please meditate for me.

Do you know that they make it as brief as 22 pages long?” And forgive me, if any of you are here in this class that wrote them, they haven’t been read. No one that is busy with Truth has time to read 22 pages of lies, or deceits about illusions. So I don’t read them and they go right in the trash basket.

Everybody wants the fruit of the spirit as long as they can have it without the spirit.

The insurance companies must change. It is not right to call destructive forces an “act of God.” These are probably the same people that go to church for a half hour every Sunday. Imagine God being responsible for such things? Would you want that God around your child? Not in this life or the next.

Scripture tells us that the natural man receiveth not the things of God…We pray to be thinner or we pray to be stouter or we pray to have more, seldom to have less. We do pray for the very materiality which God is ignoring, and the prayer isn’t answered.

Yes. There was a letter in my mail yesterday, enclosing a dollar bill and asking me to please pray for companionship so that this lady could get a nice husband. And I had to write that for a dollar she couldn’t expect a very good one. You know a lot of people have prayed for husbands and gotten them and have been awfully sorry.

Courtrooms are a good place to keep away from.

Praying for our friends won’t do us much good, the Bible says. So if you must do some praying and forgiving, get a hold of a few enemies and do it. If you haven’t got any personally, why the government has.

I had the experience of answering a mother. I can be awfully cruel with mothers. I’ve never been one, so I don’t know what they’re feeling. This one called up and said,

“My child has a high fever, and it keeps getting higher, and I’m scared. Will you do some work for it?”

—”Sure I will, right away.”
“I don’t know how you can reach this child: my fears are so terrible. I’m sure I’m holding my child in bondage.”

—”No, I don’t think so. No, you go ahead and fear. Keep on fearing. In fact, why don’t you go in the next room and order a pot of coffee, and stay up all night fearing. Get it out of your system.”

“What? I thought my fears were holding the child in bondage.”

—”Oh, come, come. You knew all the time that God was the only power. What powers could your fears have? No, don’t cheat yourself.

I know how mothers feel about their children, cause I’ve heard all about it and I know how they fear for them, and I know it’s a pleasure. You go right back there and enjoy yourself. Get it all out of your system. She called back in about an hour and said, I don’t understand it, but I’m healed, and the child is healed.