Circle of Christhood
The Study of Joel Goldsmith's Infinite Way
Below you will find these topics:
Teachers: How to Find
For Advice on Practitioners or Teachers
Expectations for Students and Teachers
How Do We Find Our Teacher
No One Needs to Impersonate Joel
Some Promote Other Teachings
July 7, 1963 Hotel Talk
TEACHERS - HOW TO FIND
Infinite Way Teachers
All Infinite Way teachers meditate and can teach you to meditate.
Infinite Way teachers understand God Contact, have had illumination experiences and are able to impart the principles.
The Nature of God and the Nature of Error are taught in EVERY class.
IW teachers understand the difference between the spiritual and the material world and do NOT mix them together.
Finally, IW teachers only teach with Joel's tapes and books.
IW teachers do not sue or look to courts to settle disputes.
If you need help regarding finding a teacher or determining whether a teacher you have heard of will meet your needs, please contact Tina tsmendeloff@yahoo.com 860 481 0455 or Scott skonter@cox.net 714 832-1863. They are both very familiar with those in the work.
Keep in mind, when you ask a Practitioner a question about The Infinite Way, you are asking them to "teach" you. Practitioners are then teachers as well.
Teachers May Charge
Joel instructs teachers on his Teacher tapes to charge for teaching. (Without an income, teachers must find other means of support.)
The charge is up to each teacher. We do not have ordinations, or certifications so each student must determine the qualifications of the one they choose to have as their teacher. Please see this page for "Expectations of Teacher and Student."
Some teachers give classes, some work individually and others do both. Teaching fees vary by teacher and each person will have a unique style and approach. Take your time to find the right teacher.
Classes are often $10.00 - $50.00 per hour of class. Fee for day-long classes average about $35-$100+ depending on how many hours of class are scheduled. Some class days only have two or three hours of class. Other classes are 8 to 10 hours long. Each teacher is an individual and gives classes according to their guidance.
Tape 509 is very good about describing what an IW teacher should do in a class.
Billing is a very uncomfortable task for teachers. Most teachers do not bill. Please be sure to send the teacher the appropriate amount when you use their time. Be respectful of their phone bill, their time and their openness and flexibility. Remember, that if they are able to heal and teach, they have spent many years preparing and continue to practice meditation and study much of every day. As a token of respect to them and this work, please be sure to reward them with a gift of gratitude.
For Advice on Practitioners or Teachers
If you are new to The Infinite Way, please contact
Scott Konter skonter@cox.net 714 832-1863,
Tina Mendeloff tsmendeloff@yahoo.com 860 481 0455 http://www.freewebs.com/tinamendeloff/
Jasha Salter 310 472-3677 http://www.freewebs.com/jashasalter
You may also call The Infinite Way office and ask for Sue Ropac or Geri MacDonald. We are not affilliated, but we hold to the same standards and practices.
(If you are a student of The Inner Kingdom, you should consider Geri and Sue your teachers.)
Expectations for Students and Teachers
Expectations of Students:
- Students choose a person to be their teacher and ask permission to be a student.
- A student is respectful of the teacher's time realizing that even writing emails with questions to be answered, constitutes asking for instruction. This implies a teaching relationship that the student must recognize and take responsibility for.
- Students must obey the instructions of the teacher, always checking the Within of our own being.
- A student may not lie to the teacher -(it ends the relationship).
- Spiritual student and teacher is a holy bond, more sacred than marriage in its commitment and honesty. The love exchanged is impersonal and unconditional.
- A student knows the student/teacher relationship is not personal or social.
- A student is diligent in studying and meditating.
- A student strives to honor the sacredness and secretness of their study and teaching relationship, and does not discuss their relationship with others.
- A student has only one human spiritual teacher at a time (this means a personal teacher and Joel would be acceptable - but not two personal teachers for each has individual consciousness). Every individual has an individual consciousness and this may cause misunderstandings and/or difficulties for all.
- A student does not look to the teacher for emotional support, sympathy or material supply.
- A student realizes that there will come a day when they may need to leave the teacher in order for the Comforter to come to them. (This is not always a physical separation. It may be that the student and teacher become colleagues at a given experience of illumination for the student.)
- A serious student realizes that his/her teacher has spent decades studying, meditating and healing. For this, gratitude must be expressed beyond class tuition. An on-going relationship invites tithing and support.
- It is unacceptable to expect something from the teacher for nothing.
- When a student wishes to move on, he should ask the teacher to be released.
Expectations for Infinite Way Teachers:
- An Infinite Way Teacher has waited to be called. This means, not only have they experience illumination, but they have also experienced an annointing. There is never a mistake about these experiences.
- (They may be imagined by those who "desire" to teach and they may be mentally created. However, the truth will be known both by the teacher and the student. Only those annointed and illumined are able to impart Spirit.)
- INFINITE WAY teachers teach only with Joel Goldsmith books and tapes
- Teachers usually have experience running a tape group and use Joel's tapes in classes as the foundation of the curriculum.
- Teachers are able to impart the understanding of the principles of The Infinite Way and explain what the principles are, especially the key ones: The Nature of God and the Nature of Error.
- Infinite Way teachers do not confuse students by making/selling personal taped lessons or other their personal writings.
- Infinite Way teachers must help all who ask and show readiness.
- Teachers have experience living the principles and healing, usually at least ten years of study, meditating and tape work.
- Infinite Way teachers meditate, can teach meditation, and impart consciousness.
- Infinite Way teachers do not seek students, but wait for students to find them.
- Teachers may announce their class, but not advertise.
- Infinite Way teachers do not look to students for their supply. (Some give away what students pay them if they are supported by other means.)
- Infinite Way teachers continue their own study and practice of The Infinite Way, listening regularly to tapes, meditating and doing healing and World Work.
- Infinite Way teachers operate from love. Lessons are guided by Grace and are never personal or intended to control the student.
- Infinite Way teachers understand hypnotism/mesmerism and mind control. It is forbidden to ever impose themselves on another's consciousness.
- The goal for all teaching is to bring the student to a personal understanding of their individual, true identity and to experience the relationship of oneness with Our Source.
Note: Questions and comments are welcome in the Guest Book.
How Do We Find Our Teacher?
There may come a day in our Infinite Way studies when we decide that we would like to have a living teacher help us meditate and experience Joel's promise of a God contact. Many have asked the official office of The Infinite Way for referrals, and they are told that there are no teachers or practitioners but Geri MacDonald or Sue Ropac. This is also not what Joel intended. The tape catalogue reveals scores of tapes for Teachers, Practitioners and Tape Group leaders. Joel envisioned that the message would grow. It needed to grow to spread. To spread, it needed helpers who could heal and guide new students. All of the turmoil has caused this official response. It does not have to be this way.
Perhaps in a class you will meet someone further on the path who is devoted to Joel and just studies his tapes. You may find someone in one of their classes with more experience, with a bit more understanding than you, someone who has had illumination experiences and who knows how to meditate as Joel did. It is worth the chance.
Joel had over 5,000 students when he left. He had over 250 practitioners (see the "25" tapes) and more than 12 teachers. It has been 42 years since Joel left but there must be some out there taught by Will Hoff, Daisy Shugamura, others who feel it appropriate to follow the Letter to Norman instructions. There is also a listing of contacts on this site.
Know that your teacher does exist and you will find him/her. Meditate and ask to be led to the one that is to take you further on the path, the one that will help you achieve your communion with God. Until you meet, study the tapes. Spare no expense in time or money to hear the words Joel left for you.
Please read what Joel has told us on tape #164::
"The demands came from other cities, other places, and finally foreign countries until this Word has spread around the entire Protestant world. Now, you can understand that a principle like this, being a universal one, if it is attractive to you and if it fulfills something in you, must, of necessity, be desired throughout the world. And, therefore, it could never be possible for any one man to satisfy the demands around the world for such a message, Even with all the books that we have written, even with the Grace of God which has published these books in the English, American editions, British editions, Holland-Dutch, German, now going into the Danish and still further within a short time.
"No one can satisfy that. So in each city there must be those equipped to carry on this work. And so it has been that in quite a few cities some have developed capable of carrying it on. One of the qualifications necessary for carrying it on is spiritual healing. Some, against my advice, have attempted to carry on without the ability to heal and have found that it doesn't work. People aren't interested in a philosophy of words unless it can be backed with demonstration.
"And so it is, those who have prospered in carrying on this work in other cities have prospered not because they have a message to tell about, they have a message to demonstrate. And by demonstrating in their own experience, they are able to demonstrate it in the experience of others. And so it is that this work must now be carried on by those equipped, by those willing to devote themselves to that activity. "
We invite anyone who is in tune with what we are saying about the legacy of Joel's work and is a teacher or practitioner to contact us. We are happy to help students find those of our household. Please write us by using the Guestbook provided.
No One Needs to Impersonate Joel
Joel was a very successful teacher. He traveled and led a very interesting life. It has been a temptation to try and copy him, make a career of teaching and selling study materials. Interestingly, Joel received most of his income from healings and gifts of gratitude, not from his books sales. Emma owned the tape department and paid Joel a royalty on each tape. Emma later gave the tape business to her daughter, Geri MacDonald. Many have come and gone who think that The Infinite Way is a great way to get added income. Do not be fooled.
Joel tells us to go out into the world and be lawyers, teachers, artists, musicians, shop-clerks, tradesmen – to be in the world and become transparencies for this truth in your own individual way. There really was no need for more “Joels” taping and publishing. Joel completed the message, there was nothing to add to The Infinite Way.
In 1950 letter above, Joel wrote of the natural desire for students to go out and preach the Gospel. We do not do this in The Infinite Way. We do not impose our consciousness on another. We do not heal without a direct request from the patient, and we keep our spiritual journey sacred and secret. Those called to help others in The Infinite Way are found by the student, practitioners do not seek patients and teachers are not to seek students.
Some Promote Other Teachings
"The Infinite Way evolved through the consciousness of Joel S. Goldsmith in 1946. The Infinite Way was not something that just happened. It was the fruitage of all of Joel's years of study and practice; the fruitage of that unswerving dedication to the principle that God consciousness is the consciousness of individual man and can be reached through thoughtful meditation upon the truth."- Lorraine Sinkler
There are many people claiming to be teachers of The Infinite Way. Almost all of these people sell their recorded lectures about The Infinite Way and some have also written books.
Joel left very few instructions. His message was of freedom, but why is it so difficult to follow the simple request/urging in his letter to not make Infinite Way recordings or book? (See Joel Instructions-Letter to Norman on this site.)
Joel knew that more truth was sure to be revealed in coming ages, but it would be known by other names, the names chosen by those with more to say.
Before Joel's transition, he was told in meditation that the message of The Infinite Way was complete and that he would no longer be needed on this plane. There was nothing more to add to The Infinite Way. This did not mean that teachers could not explain the principles in classes, or that they would not share their personal understandings of the principles and how to live them. It also did not not mean that there will not be more revealed when the time is right.
Eileen Bowden addressed the principles and their use for children and parents. Virginia Stephenson did Bible work for students. Lorene McClintock was given a lesson on love and forgiveness. However, many others have presented The Infinite Way message incorrectly and stated that an "inner guidance" led them to do it.
It would be an expression of spiritual integrity if those with new revelations just begin their own movement. Then those who seek Joel will get Joel. Those who like the teachings of new revelators will know that their message is not The Infinite Way and grant students the ability to discern how they are different.
What we have to keep in mind is Christian history. The Bible has been mistranslated, rewritten, didacted and obscured books of the Bible have been altered or removed, the book that Jesus taught from has been lost. This is simply Error operating to veil the message.
We have to put Joel's instructions into the context of the future. Future generations deserve to have Joel the way we do, original and authentic. If the first generations after the revelator make changes, even subtle ones, what will happen decades after decades? We should feel a responsibility to the message and do our part to maintain its integrity.
This is not to say we are to be unthinking zealots. It is meant as a loving guidelines for us.
Joel learned by experience with Mrs. Eddy's message of Christian Science, that a teaching brought forth by a particular person needs to remain intact. Students need the clairity of a singular direction. Joel wanted to add to Christian Science when he had his unfoldments about Error and meditation. His changes were not welcome. He was asked to stop his letters. This lead to his leaving Christian Science. In 1947, The Infinite Way, his first book of revealed principles was published. We see how wisely Grace operated in this case. Joel's experience led him to ask the same of his students. Basically he said, teach my lessons or start your own movement.
How can there be a justification to excuse ignoring Joel's request? You will hear that Joel's family allowed it, or gave limited permission. You will hear that the "times" have changed and so modern students have a new outlook. You will hear students describe that an "inner guidance" directed them to tape or write. You will hear accusations that those who support Joel's instructions are deifying him. You may hear some repeat Lorraine Sinkler's statements (recorded on tapes) that if Joel were here today, he would have changed his mind about this directive.
We each have to decide who is right and act accordingly. There is such depth to Joel's work. As our consciousness evolves, we hear new things on the same tapes we thought we learned and knew. We watch the same evolution from one decade to the next. The Infinite Way continues to evolve and unfold for us.
Year after year, the message also unfolded for Joel. So, we cannot rest in the early works thinking that we have it all. The principles are all there, but Joel shared higher and higher consciousness as he grew in the work. His final tapes are the most illumined.
Often there are contradictions, seemingly contrary statements, but when we take them within, and as we evolve in consciousness, new light shows us that there are no contradictions at all. We finally understand what Joel calls, "spiritual double-talk."
Some students/teachers will imply that we are all revelators of the Truth and so have every right to say what we want, where we want and when we want. The Truth, according to them, is Absolute and so manifests in all of us equally. Each of us then, has every right to do what we want when we want. Obviously, for them Joel is not an important mystic, just another author sharing his philosophy. (This is, once again, simply Error operating through ignorant individuals unfamiliar with The Infinite Way.)
Consider: Does a student deify their professor when they follow his instructions? When they honor his formulas, his theories? If we play the composers symphony according to his notations on the score, are we worshipping the musical composition?
Our mind is an instrument of awareness, discernment and understanding. We are designed to use it. Don't let those with another agenda, usually personal, change what you sense is correct.
Lorraine Sinkler (Joel's respected student who took over all of his classes around the world), in her taped classes, mocked the civil law which protects the publishing rights of an author's words in correspondence. She implied that civil law is fallible while spiritual law is not, implying that when it guides an individual, they can do what they are led to do including breaking the law (or in her case, going against the legal judgment. See details under "Lorraine Sinkler" on this site.)
Consider the following: The copyright law was created as a fair way to protect authors from having others gain from their creations - the words, poems, lyrics they wrote in letters. It makes perfect sense to an intelligent, fair-minded person that the physical letter is the property of the recipient since the writer intended them to have it. This physical property can be lent, sold, given away. However, what is written cannot be pubished except by the author. This seems totally correct and is the law.
Joel never, ever advocated that we do not abide by human laws. He paid taxes although he felt them unnecessary spiritually. He did not advocate for conscientious objection to war. (How much better for a truth student than a normal citizen to become a soldier. Spiritual soldiers are protected on the battle field and know they are not risking their lives. They understand that we cannot "die.") Joel paid into Social Security although he never cashed a Social Security check. He taught us that we are citizens of our country. For the benefits we receive, we follow the laws and rules, like them or not.
In the Sinkler vs. Goldsmith court case, the judge determined that Sinkler could not publish Joel's books as religious free expression. Against the wishes of his widow, Emma, Lorraine chose to read her book to classes. (See this site listing Sinkler, Emma, Solomon). "Mysteriously" the book exists for sale as a photocopy of the final Harper-Row galley proof. It circulates among those loyal to Sinkler and has been for sale on Amazon's secondary market for $700. Since the court determined that Sinkler could not publish the book of Joel's correspondence to her, there were only two sources for that manuscript, the publisher and the author. It makes no sense that the publisher released the proof copy for dissemination. There would be only one other source. Without Sinkler's cooperation, the pirate copies could not exist. (See more detail under "Lorraine Sinkler.")
Does this sound like the behavior of disciples of Christ? Disciples of Joel? I can only give you the information and let you decide for yourself what is correct.
Please remember and keep in mind that inharmony in The Infinite Way is simply Error operating. Error operates in this world when it is not consciously dissolved. Error's job is to divide and cause discord.This is simply what Error does. Scorpions bite. Dogs bark. - Error divides and wastes time. We just have to get used to it and learn to treat it. Error has no power. We must remember this and realize it. We, students, are called to rise above any erroneous appearance and recognize the Christ of an individual. Spiritually, we are all perfect and of one heavenly household. We bless and forgive while we keep our eyes open to recognize Error when it appears. (Please use the Guestbook for any questions. We want you to understand Error correctly. It is fundamental to the study and practice of The Infinite Way.)
To be strict and precise about Joel's instructions is not deifying him or worshipping The Infinite Way. It is listening to the directions of the revelator of a holy message whom we have decided to follow and emulate.
Joel has given us the steps we may each follow to become a light in the world as he was. We asked for a teacher, prepared for a teacher, and were given Joel. If we believe him, we should listen to him even if our mind wants to rebel and have its own way.
The following students call themselves, "teachers" but they make/made tapes and sell them or write about the Infinite Way, interpreting it and trying to add their personal impartations. Some teach that A Course In Miracles is to be studied along with The Infinite Way.
The list includes: Sinkler, the Stephensons, McClintock, Bowden, Blessner, Causey, Muhl (did rename her teaching to clarify that it was not Infinite Way), Catala, Crawford, Harper, Universal, Overeem, Johnson, Lazdowski, Miller, Muirhead, Owen, Ponga, Poteete, Powell, Simonsen (distributes tapes of others in IW and lists other authors on site), Titshall, Larisan. (Corrections will happily be made if any stop selling tapes or publishing their teachings.)
Larisan, the owner of www.spiritualhealingfellowship.net, states: "Principles and important clues leading to the recognition and acceptance of Reality have been further clarified in recent time, through the teachings of Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Joel. S. Goldsmith, A Course in Miracles, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and others. Through extensive investigation and acceptance, the teachings listed above have been proven to contain the identical principles leading to the relaization of love, peace, and freedom." (Emphasis by Larisan.) Joel tapes are assigned to students, copied and sent for free (donation suggested). We are reminded that the tapes are copyrighted and legally must be purchased in the original form.
Virginia Stephenson states that Emma Goldsmith gave her permission to make tapes. Question: Did Emma Goldsmith have the right to give that permission after Joel made his wishes so very clear?Who has the right to give permission when Joel is not physically present for consultation?
Lorene McClintock states that Geri MacDonald gave her permission to publish and sell Infinite Way tape recordings. Certainly, this was legal, but was this in keeping with Joel's directions?
Lorraine Sinkler was not given permission to publish her personal correspondence with Joel by Emma Goldsmith nor Geri MacDonald. This first lawsuit divided The Infinite Way.
Joel did not want to give Lorraine (or anyone else) permission for tapes or books (as stated in the Letter to Norman) not because he lacked confidence in her, but because he knew it would open the flood-gates of commentary on his work. If he allowed one, then he must allow all. Look at the above list and see how most WERE given permission by someone "official", but Lorraine was not.
Can we say that there was something personal against Lorraine? Perhaps, or was it something personal FOR the others? We do not know. But, none of it is fair, and none of it is what Joel asked for.
Also, keep in mind that all of this turmoil is just in the few decades after he left. If we use our imagination and think forward to the coming decades and centuries, without this direction/rule of no tapes, what is in store for The Infininte Way in the future? How many more are to come and put their mark on the work?
If Joel was the revelator, if Joel’s consciousness brought forth The Infinite Way, if Joel's consciousness is what lifts us, is that which guides and directs us on this path, then whose consciousness is so high that they can make changes? You decide.
From the July 7, 1963 Unedited Hotel Talk
