Who is Joel Walzer?
The short version
Joel is a Pathwork® Helper and teacher, a University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism trained healer and teacher, and a channel (bringing through the wisdom of a spirit entity to help people on their journeys). Before 1990 he was an agnostic! In 1990, he discovered, and began studying, Pathwork®. In 1995, his channel opened and he has been a spiritual counselor since then. Because he was an agnostic for many years, one of his gifts in doing this work is being able to understand and help those who have doubts about God or their religious beliefs. Prior to 1995 he had been an attorney and a computer network manager.
The longer version
From agnostic to channel & Pathwork® Helper
Walking home from school one day as a freshman in high school, he became an agnostic; he couldn’t explain the universe without using God, but then he couldn’t explain God. So he became agnostic; but he was certain that there was no life after death or reincarnation or spirits. He figured if there is a God, what he/she/it cares about is whether he lives life ethically and not whether he goes to church, the mosque or synagogue, etc.
Many years later, in the summer of 1990, feeling very stuck, he took a workshop through a new age adult education center. Though the workshop was not in Pathwork®, the leader was a Pathwork® Helper (spiritual counselor and teacher) who assigned a Pathwork® lecture to read. It was amazing. It explained in a few pages why his life wasn’t working anywhere nearly as well as he longed for.
At this point, he was still agnostic and had serious doubts that the material was channeled; but got involved anyway because he knew in his heart the truth and wisdom of the material. Over the next couple of years he came to accept that the material was channeled and to believe in God; after all, if he could feel the truth of the material, why disbelieve its source?
The next major transition point came In the spring of 1995, when he was doing written meditation (aka automatic writing) during a class and he began writing about stuff that his “self” had absolutely no way of know anything about! He was channeling!
Over the course of the following weeks, he asked all sorts of questions, still not believing that his experience was real. How could a recent agnostic who didn’t believe in spirits be channeling?
Once he got over the shock and disbelief that he could, and should, channel, he realized he was really excited about the idea of contributing to others’ spiritual growth and God’s Plan in this way. So, over the next couple of months, he worked very hard to resolve the issues that kept him from accepting that the channeling was indeed real. And he finally started channeling for others.
As he began channeling for others he found he really enjoyed it and that the clients felt very positive about the experience and some had been profoundly affected. Being a channel requires a very strong commitment to your own purification process and is, in fact, part of that process, because the wisdom one receives for the client applies to the channel as well!
He continued studying the Pathwork® (see Modalities) and became a Helper. A Helper is the Pathwork® equivalent of a priest, rabbi or minister in that they are the spiritual leaders who do the teaching and counseling. But it’s not exactly like those clergy because any Pathworker can lead a Pathwork® service—you don’t have to be a Helper. Helpers primarily help people on their spiritual journey back to God. For Joel, it is very much like channeling; the difference is that when he’s channeling, he tries to get his personality out of the way and allow the spirit guide to speak through him while as a Helper he is also channeling but his personality, his outer self, is in relationship with the worker.
Becoming a healer
While a resident at the Phoenicia Pathwork Center, Joel met and took a healing workshop with Dr. Robert Jaffe (now known as Ibrahim). He was totally amazed by his healing skills and considered studying healing with him. Finally, he did enroll in his school which had changed dramatically from the workshop he had taken; it is now based on Sufi teachings and works directly with God and is even more amazing than it was back then. When you get out of the way and allow God to be the healer incredible things can happen! Joel uses the concepts of the Pathwork lectures as the basis for the work and integrates the Sufi healing to work energetically with the concepts. He loves teaching and giving healings to further people’s journeys back to their real self and God.