A Teacher
Joel Goldsmith
The Infinite Way / spiritual healing through realization
The transmission
Joel S. Goldsmith was an American mystic, spiritual healer, and author who founded The Infinite Way, a contemplative teaching that grew out of his background in Christian Science. A former practitioner, he moved beyond formula and technique toward a mystical emphasis on the direct realization of the presence of God (“the activity of the Christ”) as the sole reality and the true agent of healing.
His many books, including The Infinite Way and Practicing the Presence, present meditation and inner stillness rather than affirmation as the path. Goldsmith’s significance is as the most explicitly mystical and nondual figure in the New Thought deep cuts.
Where much of the tradition emphasizes using the mind to attract or heal, he taught the relinquishment of personal effort in favor of recognizing an already-present divine reality—closer to contemplative mysticism than to manifestation mechanics.
He thus marks an important inflection within the lineage: the turn from “mental treatment” toward silent realization, anticipating the nondual-spiritual register that later interweaves with manifestation teaching.
What they gave
The Infinite Way: Founded a contemplative, mysticism-centered offshoot of the metaphysical tradition.
- Realization over technique: Shifted emphasis from affirmation/treatment to silent recognition of divine presence.
- “Practicing the Presence”: Popularized contemplative awareness of God as a healing and living practice.
- Nondual inflection: Brought an explicitly mystical, non-effortful current into New Thought.
In their words
This listening is the art of meditation, in the learning of which we come to a place of transition where truth leaves the mind and enters the heart. In other words, there is no longer merely an intellectual knowledge about truth; but truth becomes a living thing within our being.
There is no peace; there is no rest for those who are seeking outside their own being. The kingdom of God is within.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy); New Thought; mysticism and nonduality; Christian metaphysics.
- Influenced: contemplative New Thought; spiritual-healing mysticism; nondual-inflected metaphysical teaching.
Revelations they taught
Their Practices 1
Essential Works
- The Infinite Way1947
- Practicing the Presence1956
- The Art of Meditation1956
- The Thunder of Silence1961