Imaginal Acts Become Facts

Tonight we will discuss states. When we open the Bible and read the story as it’s given to us, we may think we are talking about people that lived, individuals, persons that are as we are, but it’s not. So the characters depicted in the Bible are not the individuals named. They are simply states signified by those names. For instance, the name Moses, or the name Abraham, or the name — well, any name that you find in scripture — they are not individuals as you and I are; they are simply a state of consciousness through which the individual, you and I, the immortal being, we pass through these states. The word Moses means to be born. It’s the old perfective of the Egyptian verb to be born. Abraham, the father of multitudes. We start there, moving through states, and you and I pass through these states towards our own redemption. We come to the end, and that state is personified in scripture, and men take the personification and worship it as a person, stick it on the wall, and then cross themselves before it and genuflect, not knowing that these are states.849 ¶1

So we must learn to distinguish between states and the individuals who pass through these states. These states are eternal. They are forever. You are an immortal being, and you move through states. The states remain permanent forever. You pass on. We change states; the states do not change. We change states, but we, the individual, we are forever. It’s like moving through a city — the city remains, but we pass on. To think that because we have left the city, the city has ceased to exist would be stupid. The city remains and we go on. We pass from one state to another state, and finally we come to the end. That end is described in scripture as Jesus. But that’s a state. You are the immortal being passing through states, and when we come to the very end, you are in that state.849 ¶2

It was predetermined. It was shown to all of us before we started — shown us in the state called Abraham. We saw it all in detail. And if we entered it reluctantly or not, who knows? Paul tells us that we were made subject unto futility, not willingly, but by the will of him who subjected us in hope. And the hope was that we would obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God. So we were told that it was not altogether a willing subjection on our part, but we kept the divine vision, as Paul said, in time of trouble. And so we continue on the journey.849 ¶3

In this world, you and I can create states, but the spiritual states are eternal. We create a state here — it’s not eternal. We create a state to deliver individuals forevermore. I create a state. Somebody asked me: will you, in their name, hear what they would like to be? All right. So that I must create the state, knowing that he is now in a state that he dislikes. I must distinguish between the being and the state that he is in. So I see him unemployed. All right, so he’s unemployed and he wants to be gainfully employed. There’s nothing wrong in that. So I represent him to myself as one who is gainfully employed, who has more than he’s ever had before. To the degree that I am self-persuaded that he is what I have now imagined him to be, to that degree he will actually become it. I move him out of one state into another. But that state into which he fell remains for anyone to fall into it, and all can fall into it at the same time for that matter. He’s not the only occupant of the state of being unemployed. There could be millions being unemployed, and there could be millions who desire to be out of it. Many who are unemployed have no desire to be out of it — they prefer to be on welfare. That’s their desire, perfectly all right. But if someone desires to be gainfully employed and to leave the state of being unemployed, you and I can create that state. Well, how do I create the state? By using my imagination.849 ¶4

Imagination is not a state; it’s the human existence himself. You are all imagination, and God is all imagination. You are God, and God is actually within you as your own wonderful human imagination. Now these permanent states of the soul, these spiritual states, they remain. You and I pass through them towards our own redemption. But in the interval, we meet a friend, and the friend is in need of help, and the help is to move him out of the state. I can give you money, but as Peter said, “silver and gold have I not for thee, but such as I have give I unto thee.” And he creates a state and takes the man from being a beggar who’s always begging on the corner and puts him into a state where he jumps up in joy. He’s now employed, not begging for money. So he didn’t give him coins — he simply gave him a new state of consciousness.849 ¶5

So I take you as an individual. I represent you to myself as the one that you would like to be — the one that I, if I were in your state, would like to be. I make it fit within what is known as the golden rule: “I do unto others as I would have them do unto me.” If I were in that state, would I like to be in some better state? Certainly. Well, then do it to another. And so if he asks it of you, you simply represent him to yourself as being gainfully employed. Or if he’s unwell, as being well; or if he wants to be married and he can’t find the proper mate, then, in your mind’s eye, you assume that he has found the proper mate. Whatever it is, if it is a normal, natural request that is not in conflict with your own moral, ethical code, you create a state — and then you lift your individual into that state.849 ¶6

Well, how do I do it? I carry on a conversation mentally with that friend, from the basis that he is in that state. He tells me how happy he is with his new job and how much he is making. I see him in my mind’s eye, radiant. Well, then am I self-persuaded that this imaginal act is a fact? Do I really believe in the reality of what I’ve done? Do I believe that imagining creates reality? I do. Well, then to the degree that I am self-persuaded, he becomes the embodiment of what I’ve imagined him to be. These are states. So man must distinguish between the individual and the state that he is in.849 ¶7

So Blake said, “I do not consider the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of the sleep into which the soul may fall in its deadly dreams of good and evil, when it left paradise following the serpent, the serpent of generation.” So we came down to experience death, for this is a world of death, where everything appears, it waxes, it wanes, and it disappears. So everything dies in this world; no matter how long it seems to live, it dies eventually. So we come down into the world of death, and the last enemy to be destroyed, or to be overcome, is death. I enter death and then conquer death to prove that I cannot die. I am an immortal being, for I am all imagination, and I cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die, which is my own wonderful human imagination, and that is God himself.849 ¶8

There is no other God. He actually became as I am, that I may be as he is. So God became man. He’s not pretending that he’s a man — you can’t pretend and influence anything here. You’ve got to completely become man and forget you are God. And that’s what you have done. You are the God who became humanity, that humanity may become God. So these are states.849 ¶9

If man knows it, well, then he can forgive every being in this world for what he has done, because he only expressed the state into which he unwittingly fell. He could fall into the state of being a thief and enjoy that state. He thinks he’s doing fine, much better than if he went to work every morning and pushed a little button — he’s making more. So he thinks he’s fine. Then comes the inevitable consequences of that state. Is he willing to pay the price of going into that state? Well, usually he is unwilling. He doesn’t regret the state. He wonders, what did I do wrong to be caught? There isn’t a thief in this world who is regretful of the fact that he was a thief. No — what did I do wrong? So when I do it again, I must be more aware of what I did formerly that Paul took me into the arms of the law. They’re only regretting what they did wrong, and they’re trying to find out what they did wrong. It’s a state.849 ¶10

So everyone in this world is in a state. If I know that, I can lift him out of the state if he requests it. I don’t go around looking for people to lift them out — if anyone requests it, it’s a very simple technique. You ask of me something that I would ask of you, were I in your state. And so you ask it of me: what does it cost? Nothing. You’re told, “Come, eat; buy wine, buy milk, without money, without price.” It costs nothing — you simply create the state. And the state that you create, you put your brain into it. What would it be like if it were true? What would the feeling be like if he really could tell me now that he is the man, or she is the woman, that they would like to be? Well, then, persuade myself that they’re telling it to me. Listen as though I’m hearing their voice. See them as though I’m actually seeing them in the flesh, and then go about my business — go about my way, confident that that thing that I did will work.849 ¶11

So Blake said, “I had dinner last night with Isaiah, and dinner with Ezekiel. And I asked them, ‘Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so make it so?’ And they said, ‘Yes — in ages of imagination.’” But today you are capable of imagination of anything. If you can actually believe in the reality of your own imaginal act, then these things will become facts in your world. But they are states.849 ¶12

Now, we said — I know that many people have painted, say, the Furies as three women. We have it in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the three witches. He said, I have painted them, as you know — I’ve painted these as men, three men, the Furies, and not as three women. But you must remember that mine is vision and not fable. So you can sit down to write something, and it’s fable — it may have a bit of truth in it. The three are there, yes, but they’re not women. In vision you see them as men. Men can fall into that state of fury; a woman can fall into the state of fury. But when you see it in imagination, they are men. When you see these characters just as they’re painted in scripture from beginning to end — all these are states. When you encounter the state, it looks like a person.849 ¶13

When I stood in the presence of Abraham, it’s a man — a majestic man, about 6'4", 6'6", this handsome, wonderful man looking into the distance. But the distance was not in space, it was in time. He was looking into the end of what he saw. He saw the end, and therefore that end justified all the means, for when he comes out at the end, he comes out as the author of the script. He comes out as God himself. And everyone is going to come out as God. So we pass through in this little state called man, and we think, how miserable — we begin and then we end and that’s it. But it’s not so. Everyone comes out in the end as I am. But I am completely awake, and that is God.849 ¶14

So when you meet all these characters of the scripture, they look — they’re persons. But you will know, if you see it all in your mind’s eye, they’re all states. States personify, and we have taken the personification for persons. We have taken the gross perent for the ultimate sense intended, and the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction itself. And so man has taken scripture as secular history, and it’s not secular history — it’s divine history, and these are the eternal states through which all of us pass. And when we come to the end, we are Jesus.849 ¶15

Now, in the end, what seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, and eternal death. But divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus. In the end there is only that final state, Jesus only. You fulfilled the law, you fulfilled the prophets. Having fulfilled all the prophecy and all the law, for you saw it now differently, and you fulfilled it. In the end there is Jesus only. Well, who is Jesus? The Lord God Jehovah. And you are actually redeemed in that one body, and you are the Lord God Jehovah.849 ¶16

It seems so stupid to tell you, who have but what — threescore and ten years in this little earth of ours — that you are one with the creator of the universe. It doesn’t make sense. And they’ll go out and say, “Now, that man is mad.” But may I tell you, from the beginning of time, all men — visionary men — were accounted madmen. For I see these things — I can’t deny them in my mind. Where do you see them? I see them in my imagination. That’s where I see them. Where did I see David? Where? But in my imagination. Where did I see the Christ child, the symbol of my birth from above? It had to be in my imagination. Where do I see these worlds into which I step and talk with people who the world called dead? And I can’t persuade them that they died, because they’re not dead. And so I say, you know, you died. And they say, who’s dead? I said, I didn’t say you’re dead, I said you died. Well, that doesn’t make sense to them, and they aren’t aware that they’ve died, because they’re not dead — they haven’t died. Well, I can’t deny that they’re not dead; I’m talking to them, they’re talking to me, and they’re flesh and blood and they’re real, as we are real.849 ¶17

And yet I can’t persuade them that they went through an experience that we, left behind in this section of time, would call death — that we buried them, went to their funerals, and they can’t believe it, because they are not dead. And you’re telling them that they died. If a thing died, if it’s dead, how can you talk to it? How can it be actually an animate body, responding intelligently to all that you’re saying, when it hasn’t died? Not to itself, but to you — with memory alert. You know it died, and you’re trying to persuade it that it has actually moved into another time slot, and it’s not here. It is an entirely different time slot, and that time slot need not be consecutive with this — say 1973, when you meet him, he died in ’72. No, it could be the year 3000. 3000 is now existing. The year one is existing. All these are still existing, and you can step here and find yourself in the year 1000 when that is necessary for your unfoldment.849 ¶18

Don’t think for one moment that you’ve outgrown the year 1000. Take the writers of today — have they outgrown the year where Shakespeare lived? Then why aren’t they writing like Shakespeare? Have they outgrown the beauty of that age, when we translated our ancient scripts into English and now we have the King James Version, that majestic monument to English literature? Well, who is doing it today? Who is writing Shakespeare today? Are the Beatles writing Beethoven? They begin with a B, all right, but it’s not Beethoven, it’s not Bach, it’s not Brahms. So have they outgrown these great giants? No, that age could be upon greater age for what they need when they slip from here to find themselves exposed to real music, real, wonderful, creative things.849 ¶19

So it is not a progression one way. All this thing is a close, is a theater, and it’s all flows. You step off the garment here and you find yourself awake. It could be in the same time, start beyond this moment, but the chances are it will not be until that very end.849 ¶20

And when you come to the end, you will only know you’re at the end when the son of God calls you father. And as you read these stories, the son of God is David. “I said unto him, you are my son” — and there it is. So when David stands before you and calls you father, and you know he is your son and he knows you are his father, then you’ve reached the end.849 ¶21

The end is the complete awakening of your own wonderful human imagination. That’s what the whole vast world aches for — the awakening of God within him. And God within man is man’s own wonderful human imagination. That’s God.849 ¶22

So we have the permanent spiritual states of the soul through which the individual passes to his redemption, and then we have states that you and I create to deliver men from their present state into which they’ve fallen. So we fall into a state of being not wanted, and feeling sorry for ourselves — that’s only a state. The individual in that state is one with the individual who sits on a throne. There’s only one God, so that “I” is the same.849 ¶23

Now, may I tell you, there is no loss of identity. You will never lose your identity — it will never cease to be, and it will never change. You aren’t absorbed. You are an eye, and that eye is that sense of awareness, and forever and forever you are individualized, and you tend forever towards ever greater and greater individualization. There’s no absorption in this, yet you are that one, and you are passing through these states towards the awakening of that one, and you are that one. But these states, told as persons in scripture, you pass through them.849 ¶24

Now, when you come to the end, you come right into David. David is the resultant state of your journey from Abraham to Jesus — he is the resultant state. So when you reach the end, you awake as the Lord, and he has a son, and the son is David, and David is the symbol of humanity. You’ve gone through the entire gamut of man.849 ¶25

And may I tell you, if you know your scripture, everything — every crime in the world possible to man — is described in the Bible openly. There isn’t a crime, you name it, that is not described in the Bible openly. Man goes through them. He doesn’t have to — he can discriminate and not fall into one if he knows their states. But you sit down and you listen to a certain story — a man who is prejudiced, and he poisons your mind, and you fall into that state and accept his prejudiced mind, and then you’re going to pay the price of that prejudice. Eventually you will. You don’t have to accept it. You go into a restaurant, you don’t say, “Bring me what the chef wants to get rid of tonight.” Bring me a menu, and then you order. Maybe he only has that one order that you want — no one else wants it, but you want it.849 ¶26

I went into a restaurant back in New York City a few years ago. It was early, I grant you — it was only 11:00 in the morning, but I had no breakfast, it was brunch. And I took some friends into the Hilton Hotel, and I went to this Borbin Room. Well, it was Sunday, and I don’t dress up on Sunday — I went in with an open shirt. Well, New York hasn’t quite caught on to California when it comes to wear, and I saw the head waiter, all stuffy, and he said, “What up?” in this very, very heavy accent. Well, I have an accent too, so I couldn’t criticize him. But here he is, with this very, very heavy accent, and he’s criticizing my appearance because — I had on a jacket, yes, but my shirt was open at the neck, and I’m taking five people in to brunch. So — all right, so I buttoned up the collar, and he gave me a table off the wing, not to be seen by those who were coming with ties and shirts. And then I said, “All right, I want clams.” The waiter, when the waiter took my order — clams. I said, “Yes, I want clams. I don’t want bacon and eggs, and I don’t want the usual breakfast that you think you’re going to serve everyone. I want clams for breakfast — bring me clams.” So he delayed and delayed, and finally he brought the clams. And I said, “Come back here, please — this isn’t charity, I’m paying for it. Bring me — I want some horseradish, and I want a little Tabasco sauce.” Reluctantly he goes and gets that. But that’s what I wanted — I’m paying for it.849 ¶27

Well, in life, do the same thing. You just don’t go in and say, “Throw me a tie.” You select one — maybe out of a hundred, a silly little thing that you put around your neck — but you still want one tie, and you want to pick it.849 ¶28

The same thing is true of these states. Don’t let anyone poison you and throw you into a state, because you’re going to pay the price of that state. We’re only moving through states, but they are a permanent, fixed number of states, and the Bible records them. Every character in that Bible is a state. And you start with Abraham and you come out at the end, and the end, as you’re told, is Jesus.849 ¶29

Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad. “And you know our father Abraham?” Well, you’re not yet fifty years old — how could you know Abraham? Or how could Abraham know you? He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”849 ¶30

I am precedes anything that I have ever been. I must precede whatever I claim that I am. I can say “I am” before, and I must, before I say “I’m rich” — riches did not precede me, I am; then I can say that I am wealthy. I create wealth, because I am is the only reality, and I create that which I assume that I am. So if I assume that I am this, that, or the other, I create it in my world.849 ¶31

Well, I can assume it not only for myself, I assume it for another, if it comes within the framework of the golden rule — I will do it. If you ask me to say that he is definitely in his will, and it’s a very, very big estate — will you, for me, hear that he’s dead? But don’t ask it of me — go to someone else and ask him, but don’t ask it of me. I could not assume that he’s died because you are in his will. No, go to someone else. And someone said, “You know, thrift is a marvelous virtue, especially in an ancestor.” And so it’s right — well, I’ll go along with that, especially in an ancestor. Well, I still would not wish him to die, because I am a descendant ordained in his will. I use this technique, this law, and it works beautifully.849 ¶32

May I tell you, imagining creates reality. Imagining created these eternal states. And then we go through the states from Abraham to Jesus. When we come to Jesus, you awake — that is God awake in you as you. And God is the father of humanity; humanity is the son of God. But the son, personified as a single being, is David, and he comes out as David.849 ¶33

Now, the ancients have painted eternity as an old man. It’s not an old man, it’s David — eternity is the eternal youth. I wouldn’t care what artists will tell me, I have seen it, and I tell you, eternal youth is the personification of eternity. Eternity — it’s not an old man at all. The Ancient of Days, yes — the image of his son, and the son the image of the Ancient of Days. You are the Ancient of Days, that the son and the father are one. “I and my Father are one.”849 ¶34

So tonight you can set yourself free, and set your friends free, if you really believe what you have heard. If you believe — you can’t see the state, but it is personified if you saw it in your imagination. Everything in this world is a state, and if you saw it in imagination, you’ll see a person. You may call this one Moses, call that one Abraham, call that one Jacob, call this one Peter — all these are states. Pilate, Pontius Pilate, that’s the state. All these are states, from beginning to end. It’s not secular history. And when you come out, you are beyond it all. But you went through the gamut, and you bore the flesh the allotted time. You took that burden upon you.849 ¶35

And, as Paul said, in the end, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” “Therefore let no one bother me, for I now wear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Everything is on him now, because that’s the very end of the journey. When you awake, he said, “It pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” When the son is revealed in you, then you are God, because the son reveals you as the father, and God is the father, but it takes the son — no one but the son can reveal the father.849 ¶36

And until David comes, you will never know God — you’ll not really know him. You’ll worship him with something on the outside, like an oversoul or some impersonal force or something of that nature. No, God is a father, and he has a son — humanity is his son. But humanity, collectively fused into one single being and personified, comes out as the eternal youth, David. I mean David of biblical fame, the great psalmist, whose father in scripture is called Jesse. And Jesse means “Jehovah exists.” That’s what the word actually means.849 ¶37

So Jehovah exists. You exist, don’t you? You know that you are. If, this very moment, you suffer from amnesia, you will still know that you are — you may not know who you are, and where you are, and what you are, but you know that you are.849 ¶38

So Jehovah exists. And then comes the awakening of this being who fell asleep in the beginning, for this whole thing is the dream of God. God himself entered death’s door, the human skull — that’s the holy sepulchre — and lay down in the grave, and he’s dreamt this dream, and in the end he will awake, and you are God, completely individualized, and yet you’re God. And the same thing will happen to everyone — everyone is going to see David, and therefore that will show the unity of humanity, for all will be the father of David. But you can’t be the father of my son and not be the very being himself that is the father of that son. If you’re the father of my son, then you and I are one.849 ¶39

So this is the story of scripture. But man takes the platform, and he has no vision — he’s never had a vision. And when you tell him of your visions, he laughs at you, because to him this is secular history, and he’s waiting for his little Jesus to come on the outside, and he hopes that he will come soon, that he’ll be here to meet him and greet him, put his hand into his and shake it. But he’ll wait forever if he wants that kind of a Jesus, because there is no such Jesus — he’ll wait forever to find these characters on the outside; they’re all within. And when he finds Jesus, when Jesus comes, he comes from within, and he awakens within as the one in whom he awakens. That’s the coming of Jesus — that’s the parousia spoken of in scripture. It’s not the end of a world, it’s the end of the individual’s journey. That’s when he comes.849 ¶40

So God himself came and comes into human history in the person of Jesus, in you, in me, in everyone. So he’s continually coming.849 ¶41

So if I see it now, as it really must be seen, I see a play in eternity, and the play is without reference to its position in time, without reference to its duration, without reference to its repetition. It’s like a standing order, something to be done absolutely and continuously. And that play is going on in eternity, and it’s actually unfolding itself within man, who is in time.849 ¶42

So here in time, while we are in time, the play erupts, and then I know exactly who I am. I was taught to believe the whole thing took place 2,000 years ago. Then to discover it isn’t so at all — it has no reference to position in time, and no reference as to duration. It’s a standing order, something to be done absolutely and continuously, and it’s always been done within us. And then we have moved out of the time slot into eternity, enhanced beyond the wildest dream of man by reason of the experience in this world of death.849 ¶43

For these are the states, and you can forgive every being in this world if you can only discriminate between the individual and the state he occupies. Take him out of a state and put him into another state — as he puts him into another state, he expresses the contents of that state and will completely forget he was ever the other.849 ¶44

The great writers have seen it, but if they haven’t had vision, they’re writing fable, and they will simply mix it up. But when you write from experience, from actual vision that you’ve experienced, you may not have the talent of a Shakespeare, but you’re telling exactly what happened to you, and that’s vision.849 ¶45

When I speak of vision, I do not mean to stand here and think of my home — I see it in my mind’s eye, that’s not vision. Vision is just like this — this is vision. When these things happen to me, it’s just like this: I’m in a world just as real as I am here now. It is not anything that is bare thinking of something — I’m thinking from it. The whole thing is right before me. The child, solid and real. David, solid and real. The splitting of the body from top to bottom. The dove is descending upon my head, upon my hand, and coming to my face to kiss me. All these things are real, just like this. That’s vision — has nothing to do with what the world calls, uh, hallucination. And those who can’t even spell the name will tell you you’re hallucinating. You ask him to define it for you — tell me exactly what you mean — and he’s all silent, but he would mumble and mumble and mumble, “That was a marvelous hallucination.” And they tell me they don’t even dream.849 ¶46

Well, I am telling you what I have experienced. I have reached the end. The whole thing is now an accomplished fact within me. He, in the depth of my own being, who revealed himself as myself, has wrought it. The very end of the 22nd Psalm: unborn tomorrow will know that God has wrought it in him. No praise to me as a man called Neville, or what — but the drama unfolded itself completely within me, and I speak from experience when I speak of these characters of scripture. And so I cannot now get down on my knees and bow before anyone named in that book — they’re all eternal states of consciousness. And you are the important one. You, as you sit here, when you say “I am,” that is the God of the universe. That is the God passing through these states, and eventually he will come out in the end as the Lord, the father of humanity, who is David, that is the son.849 ¶47

So when you meet someone, as you go through life, and they need help, it doesn’t cost you anything other than one little moment in the exercise of your talent, which is the gift of God to you, which is himself, which is your own wonderful human imagination. And you simply create him in your mind’s eye, whether he be 10,000 miles away. You bring him into your mind’s eye and see him as he would like to be seen by the world, and you see him as you would like to see him, and you carry on a mental conversation with him from the premise that he is now already the one he wants to be. And to the degree that you are self-persuaded that he is, that he becomes — you don’t have to raise one finger to make it so.849 ¶48

You plant the seed — what do you do after you plant the seed? You leave it. You don’t dig it up every morning to see if it has a root, you leave it. A seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive, and if it dies, it bears much fruit. And so you put the seed into the ground of your own wonderful human imagination.849 ¶49

Now, bear in mind, “the vision has its own appointed hour it ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late.” Not for that seed. One seed may take 24 hours, another may take, like a hen’s egg, 21 days. A little lamb takes 5 months, a horse takes a year, a human being 9 months. So each seed has its own appointed hour — so don’t be concerned.849 ¶50

You did the work; all you need to do is simply leave it alone, and don’t raise one finger to make it so, and don’t discuss it with anyone else, or with the one who asked of you. If they keep on bothering you by saying, “Well, when—” don’t answer them. You planted it, you did what they asked you to do, and that’s all that you can do. If they’re anxious about it, then let them bring about their own mental miscarriage.849 ¶51

What do you do after pregnancy? There is no such thing as a little pregnancy — pregnancy, and then in the fullness of time the child is born. So in the fullness of time, what you did in your imagination will be born. So leave it alone — every imaginal act grows into a fact.849 ¶52

So go about knowing that there are only states in this world, and you, the immortal you, cannot die. I am telling you from my own personal experience, you cannot die. Cut off your head now — you will find yourself restored to life in a terrestrial world just like this, and have no knowledge that you died, to those here, because you’re not dead. Because a man is not dead, he knows he didn’t die. And it’s the most difficult thing to persuade anyone that they died.849 ¶53

Oh, I’ve tried it several times — stepping out of this garment into this world, a world just like this, meeting friends I know intimately, friends whose funeral I went to, others I saw a month before they died. They knew it was terminal, that they’re going to die. I meet them and they are 40 years younger. And you can’t persuade them that something happened in their world and that they died, because — “you’re crazy, how can you say I died when I’m alive? I’m not dead.” You say, “You’re not dead, but you died.” Well, that’s an insane statement to the average mind.849 ¶54

So what can you do? Leave them alone until they pass through the states, and in the end they will awake. But you’re not going to crow — you told them, in the end, if what you told them is true, they will know it’s true, because not one word of scripture will be broken, not one bone is broken. This is the revealed truth, and revealed truth is the body of God, and not one of his bones can be broken. All will be fulfilled.849 ¶55

But it will do you a great deal of good if you will bear in mind, when you meet anyone, he is only in a state. If he’s in a state of arrogance, all right, let him be — you don’t have to actually play his little part for him. If he wants to feel that he’s important because of the accident of birth, or the money that he acquired, let him be. You go about your own wonderful way.849 ¶56

So here tonight, if I have taken from you the historicity of scripture, I haven’t robbed you, because it isn’t historically true.849 ¶57

Anyway, you can search from now to the ends of time and you’ll find no evidence to support the historicity of the Bible. Swipes have been made, a tremendous effort — Albert Schweitzer, and he came to, uh, the conclusion that there is no historicity of Christ, and he named his book In Search of the Historical Christ. He was an honest man, a humble, simple, wonderful scholar, Albert Schweitzer. But it’s not because of what he said — I am telling you what I’ve experienced. And you never find any so-called burial place of David, or Abraham, or Jacob, in the Near East. No matter what archaeologists bring in, they are eternal states within the consciousness of the individual.849 ¶58