The Seven Steps
In the late 1940’s Joel wrote The Seven Steps as individual letters to his followers. These were published in a small pamphlet and later became part of The Collected Essays by Joel S. Goldsmith. You will notice the Christian Science terminology still part of Joel’s work then – mortal mind, Divine Mind, etc. Over time, Joel stopped using those terms.
THE SEVEN STEPS
“There are Seven foundational steps necessary to the understanding of spiritual existence, and it is helpful to try to understand the Truth in the following statements:
THE FIRST STEP
‘Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven.’
When we catch even a small glimpse of this Truth, we start to see the meaning of preexistence and we can understand why it is that man was never born and in fact, that there never was a creation, but that all that is, is unfoldment within the Universal Consciousness, which is your individual consciousness.’
Dear Friend,
The first step in the understanding of absolute Truth is revealed in the statement: “Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” This reveals immediately the impossibility of there being a material body, once we have acknowledged Spirit alone as creator. This likewise eliminates mortal mind and all of its activities, character and nature, and all mortal existence that has beginning and ending, and leaves us with incorporeal spiritual man.
It is not sufficient to read these statements and agree with them, but it is necessary to make a specific application of them in all of the circumstances that arise in our human experience.
Actually, God is not a creator but is Universal Consciousness, out of which all manifestation is evolved. Were there a creator, there would necessarily have to be a tine of creation or beginning. Viewing Deity as Consciousness, the universal substance, and the universe as a manifestation of evolution of that spiritual substance enables us to see that individual life, evolved from universal Life, or the manifestation of infinite Life, was never created and can never end, but must forever remain as life manifested, as divine Being individually formed, as eternal Consciousness individually expressed.
To know that “mortality is myth” is to lose all fear of persons, circumstances or conditions. If a tree should seem to have snakes growing out instead of branches, we would not attempt either to materially or mentally to remove the snakes. This would be foolishness, but we would stand still and know that this was an illusion and that as such it had no power to harm us in any way. With this sane viewpoint, the appearances of snakes would disappear and the branches of the tree become visible again.
Now actually, this would not be a healing of snakes, nor would snakes actually disappear to make room for branches – an illusion would merely be dispelled. Disease or lack represents snakes where branches are. In the very place where the discord or lack seems to be, there is pure Spiritual Being, there is divine Life expressed.
The consciousness of the presence of Spirit eliminates the belief of matter; the consciousness of the presence of Christ dispels the illusion of mortal man; the consciousness of the omnipresence of divine Mind annihilates the belief of mortal mind and its activities and all its formations.
This represents the cornerstone of spiritual understanding.
Sincerely yours,
Joel S. Goldsmith
