Joel Goldsmith was an innovator in getting out his message of mystical truth. He taped his classes when few people had tape players to listen to them. He did not follow conventional wisdom. He followed his inner sense of what God had in store for him and what it was he was to give to the world. If you listen to his message, either from his books or from his taped classes, you will hear a message of freedom. He showed us the essence of freedom in Truth. Would Joel have used the Internet and social media to get his message out? I believe he would. And what about us today who teach from his material? Would he support this kind of teaching and using modern media? Here is what he told students about expressing these principles of truth.
“And so it will be with you. You will not have to write articles on the Infinite Way that sound as if I had written them. They will be articles on truth and they will contain this same truth, but it will be in your words, in your thoughts, in your state of consciousness, and it may be newer and fresher for your time. Do you see that?”
(1954 Portland Practitioner Class, Tape 2 – Side 1 “Flesh and Flesh”)
“I myself will not interfere in any student’s activity… The reason for this is that the moment one person has any authority over another person, or any responsibility for the activity of another person, you have organization, whether or not you incorporate it legally. The moment there is a head to anything, there is organization, and the very moment that one person is responsible for another, there is organization, and the only way that the message of The Infinite Way can be kept pure is for every individual to be responsible to himself or herself in God, and to be sure that their authority reaches nowhere at all outside of their own being. Even in helping other students to set up their own tape groups or other activities, no authority and no responsibility accompanies such an activity. Do not ask anyone to consult you about anything, but if anyone consults you of their own free will and accord, then your relationship to them could be advisory, but never authoritative, and never disciplinary. The moment anyone is asked to consult you we have an organized activity, and this we must not have, because this alone constitutes the purity of the message, in that each one is responsible only to the Father within.” (From a personal letter to a student.)
When The Infinite Way was given to me in 1946, and then the thought of publishing a book was presented to me, I immediately rebelled at the very thought of it, because I felt that my activity was so successful as a Christian Science practitioner that surely there should be no reason to interrupt this activity and undertake something new, more especially something that would involve carrying a whole new message to the world. Eventually, however, this work was undertaken. Now, right from the start, probably everyone with whom I came in contact knew something-or-other that was wrong about my work or my approach, or my way of teaching, etc. One, of course, suggested that I never mention Christian Science, or Unity, or New Thought, and others felt that it would be good advertising to keep mentioning these. Others felt that I should never mention politics from the platform, but sort of act as though politics really did not exist at all. Others felt that I used the words God and Christ too much, and that the message would be much more acceptable if I refrained from these words. The original manuscripts that are actually the foundation of our book were bitterly opposed by many. Then the fact that I was so idealistic and did not charge for healing work and did not demand a specific fee for lecture work convinced others that my work must fail because of a lack of financial support, because it was so evident to them that nobody will give any money unless they are continuously hounded for it. When the subject of tapes was introduced I had the most bitter opposition of all, and I was told point blank by some of my very top students that I was going to ruin the activity of The Infinite Way with these tapes. The point that I would like to make is this… I paid absolutely no attention to any of these remarks, not even to take them seriously enough to think about them. I was receiving my instructions within, and my guidance, and my protection, and my supply; why, then, should I pay attention to “man whose breath is in his nostrils”?
(From another letter to a student.)
“…there must never be an Infinite Way organization, because the moment there is, there is either an individual, or a board of trustees, or a board of directors, and then they become the deciding factor as to where you shall live, and when, and what you shall do.”
(From a letter to a student.)
“Be assured that if I made any rule that would in any wise stop the progress of any one of our teachers, that teacher would go right on developing, if not inside The Infinite Way, then outside it, because no one can control consciousness. No one can make rules for consciousness. An individual will break out of any rule the moment his consciousness it prepared for it…”
(From a letter to a student.)