A Teacher
Joseph S. Benner
The Impersonal Life: the indwelling ‘I AM’ as the true Self
The transmission
Joseph Sieber Benner (1872–1938) was an American businessman and New Thought author best known for the anonymously published devotional classic The Impersonal Life. Born in Akron, Ohio, on January 3, 1872, the son of a businessman, Benner spent his working life in commerce—holding positions at local manufacturing and banking firms and becoming chief owner of the Akron Printing Company—while pursuing an intense private interest in mystical and metaphysical religion.
He published The Impersonal Life in July 1914 under the byline “Anonymous,” and for years his authorship was not publicly known. The Impersonal Life (1914) is written as if dictated directly by the divine “I AM” speaking within the reader, instructing the seeker to still the personal self and recognize the indwelling Presence—the impersonal, universal “I AM”—as his or her true identity and the real source of life and power.
The book became a quiet but durable influence in New Thought and adjacent metaphysical circles, and its insistent “I AM” language fed directly into the later “I AM” Activity associated with Guy and Edna Ballard and the broader Ascended Master movement.
Benner wrote further works in the same vein, including The Way Out, The Way Beyond, Wealth, and The Way to the Kingdom, and issued a series of teaching papers. He died on September 24, 1938.
His contribution to the mind-power tradition is its most concentrated statement of the doctrine that the deeper Self is divine and that contacting it is the root of all genuine power.
What they gave
The impersonal “I AM” as true Self: Reframes personal identity as a surface over an indwelling divine Presence—New Thought’s “deeper Self” in its most devotional form.
- First-person divine voice: Pioneers a literary mode in which the divine speaks as “I” to the reader, making the teaching experiential rather than expository.
- Stilling the personal self: Teaches the quieting of the surface ego as the practical method for accessing inner power and guidance.
- Seed of the “I AM” movement: Supplies the language and orientation later amplified by the “I AM” Activity and Ascended Master teachings.
In their words
Sit quietly in a relaxed position, and, when wholly at ease, let your mind take in the significance of these words: “Be still!—and KNOW—I AM—God.”
The fact is, this “I” is yourself, your Real Self.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: the New Thought movement; the Christian mystical tradition of the indwelling Christ/Presence; Emersonian Transcendentalism’s “Over-Soul” and inner divinity.
- Influenced: the “I AM” Activity of Guy and Edna Ballard and the Ascended Master teachings; the devotional strand of later New Thought; modern presence-centered teachers in the lineage that includes Eckhart Tolle’s emphasis on the “I AM.”
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- The Impersonal Life1914
- The Way Out1930
- The Way to the Kingdom1931