November06StudyGuide

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - at THE INN OF CHICAGO - 11:00 A.M.

JOEL S. GOLDSMITH: THE 1964 LONDON STUDIO CLASS

“An Act of Worship and the Fruitage,’” Tape 2, Side 2

Let us return to the silence within ourselves, and feel that sea of Consciousness in back of our head, infinite ocean of Consciousness,

pouring Itself through and as our consciousness, appearing outwardly as form. As long as we do not get in the way with “I,” “me,” or “mine,”

that rhythm will continue to unfold harmoniously, and the outer appearances, the outer forms, will be harmonious ones, and we will be living

the spiritual life, we will be living ... the Fourth-Dimensional life. Now we have all been taught that if we accept that 2X2 is 5, even though no

one knows about it but ourselves, we will spoil our entire mathematical demonstration. Or, if in any way we try to change H20, we will not

have water but something less or more, even if no one discovers it but ourselves. But we

have been led

to believe that we can steal or

commit adultery or envy or jealousy or be biased, or that we can hate, and as long as no one finds out about it, that there is no punishment;

in other words, that there is no discord resulting. But we have all discovered that this is not true, that if we violate a moral or spiritual law,

even if no one knows about it, that we have set up a “karmic law,” we have put in motion a karmic law, or a law of “as ye sow, so shall ye

reap,” and that sooner or later our error will find us out and demand payment. We have come to look upon this as punishment, almost as if

it were punishment from God. As a matter of fact, I guess that most religions teach that the punishment is from God. Well, when the world

learns about the book THE THUNDER OF SILENCE, it will discover that this is not true, this is not punishment from God, any more than

calling 2X2, “5" and suffering from it is a punishment from God: it is a punishment from our ignorance, entirely due to our ignorance.

The

punishment ends in the very moment of our enlightenment.

... Now this we have seen, that to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul,” means to acknowledge God

as Omniscience, thereby to refrain from asking God or telling God or demanding of God. In other words,

to observe silence in the

presence of God.

It means to accept God as Omnipotence, which means never to seek a power of God, for there is no time or place in all

of history where a power is needed, in the recognition of the omnipotence of God, and the further recognition of God as Omnipresence.

For Meditation

: "The only error is the sense of God’s absence. The awareness of God does not dispel error - God Itself is the only

harmony." - J

oel, Wisdom #41.

For Study

: THE MYSTICAL I, Chapter 11.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 - 12:30 P.M.

VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE 2004 PHOENIX CLASS

"The Three Degrees," Tape 3, Side 1 (No. 0436)

So, you pursue your going to the meetings and listening to words, but it is the meditation that is doing the work, it isn’t the words and the

thoughts. Those are only auxiliaries, and you learn to have the words of the scripture that says, “Greater is He that is within you” (or She that

is within you, or It that is within you) “than that which is in the world.” This Presence that is within you is the perfecting of your experience; it

is the perfecting power. It’s the power that makes “the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth.” But

this power does not

contend with this world at all

, and we recognize, then, what the Master says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And the rest of that

statement is, “if my kingdom was of this world, my disciples would fight.” And, of course, that is what’s going on! There is constant warfare:

mental, physical, and political. Constant warfare. What is a hospital? It is a battleground; it is fighting disease. What is a law court? It’s a

battleground; it is fighting for human rights, or money, or something. What is the political arena? It’s a battleground of opinions and

concepts. It’s the arena of conflicting forces, and it is a

mental realm

. In metaphysics, there was only one mind, yet we had a carnal mind

and a divine mind. The carnal mind was the sum total of all this dichotomy, all this argument. It was “a term denoting nothingness,” and in

the early days of Christian Science, that’s all the healers did, they recognized any problem as mortal mind, carnal mind, as nothingness,

and they dropped it. But since radio and television and all of the computers, we are so over-programmed and over-fed by hypnotic

suggestion that now, we can’t be that simple, we have to rise above the mental level into the spiritual level, into “My kingdom;” and mind,

the physical and the mental, are one and the same. So, as Joel said, metaphysics, it will just not work any more: you have to go beyond

words and thoughts, into the realization of your oneness. If that realization of oneness doesn’t take place, the healing doesn’t take place,

because the healing is the

revealing

of the presence of God in you.

For Study

: Virginia's Monthly Lesson For November, 2006; Subscriptions for Virginia’s Monthly Lessons:

Leslie Lewis, 2440 Campus Rd, #488, Honolulu, HI 96822 (808)779-9817 llewis002@hawaii.rr.com

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 - at

UNITY ON THE NORTH SHORE

- 7:30 P.M.

VIRGINIA STEPHENSON: THE 1981 KERRVILLE CLASS

“Spiritual Creation and Prayer,” Tape 2, Side 1 (No. 4812)

In preparing for this class, I’d been studying and listening, pondering, and listening to Joel’s tapes, and as I listened to the Los Angeles

1962 Class (I believe), Joel made a statement that just hit me so strongly. He said that if we understood creation, we would understand the

nature of prayer. That just stood out to me in headlines, because it is true. To understand prayer, there has to be a spiritual understanding

of creation. We cannot have a material sense of creation and truly have a spiritual sense of prayer. We have to understand the nature of

spiritual creation, because prayer and healing is the revealing of the truth. What are we doing, in prayer, but correcting our false concepts

and getting that inner reassurance of the truth within our own selves that is bearing witness to the revealed truth. When that agreement is

experienced, that realization which is the agreement within us is experienced, the outer picture changes, because the outer picture is but a

mind-formation. So that we have to really examine what we believe, when it comes to the nature of creation.

... If the truth of the First Chapter of Genesis was taught in schools, as well as evolution, Darwin’s theory, you would probably find that

most of the violation of school harmony, the destruction of personal property or destruction to the individual person would cease; because

when man realizes his true origin, what he proceeds from, his estimate of himself changes, and as that estimate of himself changes, he

begins to live out and reflect in his outer experience this truth about himself. Whereas, if you teach a child that he comes from an Amoeba

or some lower form of life, and he is gradually evolving into man, he’s not drawing on his spiritual resources. In fact, he is ignorant of his

spiritual resources, and therefore, he has no expectancy of himself. So that it would seem very natural for him, sometimes, to live lower

than an animal. The true idea that is presented to a child of where he comes from, and who he is, gives him the spiritual resource upon

which to draw. So, we, if we believe in evolution in our thinking, and we come to a spiritual teaching, we have to open our consciousness to

consider spiritual creation, which is a revelation given to us by mystics who have seen and proved the truth about man and about God’s

universe as being incorporeal, spiritual, and perfect.

... That means a complete change of consciousness for most of us. We can’t look at spirit as cause and matter as the effect, because

spirit doesn’t produce matter

. Matter is one of the interpretations of mind, but it isn’t really the spiritual essence or substance and

activity of the Reality. Mind is but the way that spirit is seen by us, and if our mind is illumined, we see a more perfect expression of

material forms, which really aren’t material at all, they are mental, and behind the mind is the spiritual idea or the spiritual Reality. So, if our

mind is unillumined, that is, if we’ve never thought about creation or evolution, we have accepted the Darwin theory of evolution, starting

with the creative principle as imperfect and as material, and that therefore that there is a gradual evolving from imperfection,

which is an

impossibility

, because there is a law, always operating, of “like begetting like.” So, if we are to function with a spiritual principle, we have

to start with God as perfect Being and complete Being, that all that God has made is already complete and perfect and eternal and

immortal, and out from this perfection is the unfolding of creation. Creation is unfolding from the perfect Principle, which is totally evolved

and complete. ... So, if I’m going to really watch my thinking processes, because these are the concepts that are being imaged forth in my

human experience, I want to keep my mind stayed on God; I want to keep my mind held to a perfect Principle, which is expressing Itself,

unfolding Itself, and revealing Itself

Itself and

Itself, as Its universe, as Its many faceted activities of creation, of life. So, if we admit that

the Principle is perfect, then we know that all we have to do is come into agreement with that perfect Principle, because that’s all we can

do is to agree with it. Just like if we are studying mathematics, our realization of mathematics comes with first our agreement, and then our

understanding through agreement, and then the ability to apply that which we learn to our own mental activity. Thereby, we come up with the

right answers. So it is with God. His creation is perfect and eternal and immortal, and if we begin to understand His creation, and take it

into our consciousness, and come into agreement with it, there is a realization that comes. We have a realization, which we can say a

realization is a total agreement; and where there is that total agreement, then that which is imaged forth in our human experience, we call it

harmonious. It is perpetually unfolding its infinite nature, it’s never a static state ... .

For Meditation

: GENESIS, Chapter 1

For Study:

Review of Virginia’s GENESIS: Awakening From the Dream.

SIGNPOSTS

“God didn’t make human beings, and therefore, God does not service them.” -

Luella

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 at

THE INN OF CHICAGO

- 11:00 A.M.

JOEL S. GOLDSMITH: THE 1959 HAWAIIAN VILLAGE CLOSED CLASS

“Self - Purification,” Tape 6, Side 1

Now, I can tell you this: the very moment that you fully grasp the idea that all evil is impersonal, that very moment, your consciousness is

ready to be a transparency through which God appears, the Christ is made manifest. Your consciousness cannot be a transparency while

it is double-minded, while it has good and evil in it. It cannot.

... Even though this truth was part of my consciousness, and I was doing healing work with it, I didn’t consciously know it as a principle

until I’d been appointed First Reader of Christian Science services in a prison. My first Sunday at the desk was the most miserable

experience I ever had. SCIENCE AND HEALTH, every time I tried to read from it, wanted to jump up and hit me in the face! ... I had to hold

it firmly, I was so convinced that it was jumping up at me or trying to. I had some [spiritual] help after that, but it didn’t help. The second

Sunday was just as bad, and so was the third. I tried to figure out what was wrong, and I couldn’t; but the committee in charge of that activity

had told me that all workers in the prison must protect themselves, thoroughly, from “sin-filled thought.” So, every Friday night I began to

protect myself from sin-filled thought, and I kept at it steadily until Sunday morning. By that time, it was ready to eat me up! It was my own

evil mind coming back at me, what I was beholding outside. But after that third Sunday, I came to the next Friday night, I sat down to my

protective work, and then it dawned on me: “Protect yourself from ‘sin-filled thought,’ and man has no mind but God?! Where would the sin-

filled thought be? Man is pure; man is spiritual. Then this whole thing flooded me, that I was the fellow who was putting evil out there! And

you can imagine what happened later, when I learned that one of the men out there, at least, was completely innocent of any crime at all,

had been railroaded by an attorney and a judge. And here I was, protecting myself from his sin-filled thought!

When I became reader there, the average attendance of Science services was 8-11 men every Sunday. Few months later, we had 77,

and at the end of eighteen months, we had 200 men in the prison attending Science services, and there is only one reason. I spoke this

over with our Second Reader, with our soloist, our pianist, and our usher, and we went there, every Sunday, pure as pure. We went there

completely in the realization that the only men we were meeting was God in expression, the Son of God, the Temple of God, and that any

appearance of evil was just hypnotic suggestion, was just the belief in good and evil. That’s how I learned this principle consciously.

For Meditation

: JEREMIAH 17:5-8

For Study

: I STAND UPON HOLY GROUND, Chapter 11.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 19 - 12:30 P.M.

JOHN STEPHENSON: THE 2006 WAIKIKI CLASS

"Concept Or Reality," Tape 3, Side 2 (No. 0603)

Everything in this world is a manifestation of concept. [This] doesn’t mean that this world is illusory. In the mysticism presented by Joel,

and really in Western mysticism, there’s a difference between the idea that this world is illusion, “maya,” that it doesn’t exist, and the idea

that there is a spiritual creation here and now. So that everything that we are aware of exists in spiritual creation, but we are perceiving it

through a conditioned sense. That perception has personalized this impersonal, universal creation, and in personalizing it, it has given it

qualities of good and evil. Therefore, we have this whole sense of health and sickness, wealth and poverty, freedom and slavery. In “My

kingdom,” which is this dimension that we witness and experience through our spiritual faculties, through this mystical

, our attunement to

that allows us to experience this world as a reflection of spiritual creation.

So what does that mean? The idea that “all of this is illusion” I could never quite take, because how could we live completely in an illusion?

The experiences in this world, when impersonalized and removed from the material concept, become experiences of our spiritual identity.

They appear to be taking place in a material context, but that’s because our vision is still through material eyes. The experience, itself, can

have a spiritual component. Otherwise, we would not continually be being fed, being satisfied, being fulfilled in this life, if there wasn’t a

spiritual component to all that we are experiencing.

... There is a relationship to spiritual reality in everything we see in this world, and finding that relationship and going

through

the

appearance, into the spiritual Reality behind it, is what reveals the nature of creation and its perfection. That revelation, basically, conforms

the experience to the revelation.

When we experience a oneness, the mystical

, there is no “experience and experiencer.” That only takes place when we recall the

experience or when we anticipate an experience. The experience, itself, is in the now; and in that now moment, there is no past or present;

in that now moment, there can be no experiencer and experience: they are one.

For Study

: AWAKENING MYSTICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, Chapter 7.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 at

259 SKYLINE DR., CARPENTERSVILLE

- 7:30 P.M.

Class and Tape:

LUELLA OVEREEM: THE 1976 PHILADELPHIA CLOSED CLASS

"Omnipresence of Life/ Living In the Silence," Tape 1, Side 1

Listen To This Tape!

Everybody here, certainly, has had experiences of God. We’ve experienced God; we’ve had beautiful experiences of

feeling the

presence of God, and yet, you wonder why everything isn’t healed, or why, at least, there isn’t some more

progress being made. The thing

that we’re supposed to do is to meditate and have the actual experience of the presence of

God, and yet, the one thing that’s in the way of

it, the one barrier, is that we haven’t had the experience of the nothingness

of error. That’s the only thing that’s stopping you. If you are

having God-experience in meditation, and yet it isn’t bearing

fruitage, or isn’t bearing enough fruitage, that’s the reason, that you haven’t

realized the nothingness of error. That’s what

does the healing work. Everything already IS; God already IS. There’s nothing to heal, but

what does the healing work, what

brings through the fruitage isn’t something that God does, it’s our realization that appearances are

nothing. Until we can

actually believe it, accept it, the nothingness of appearances, we’ll go on experiencing the sins, diseases, and

troubles of the

world.

For Meditation and Study: