Trust Imagination

I’m very glad that you came tonight, for I have a story to tell you, and the one who gave it to me is here tonight. But I’ll prepare you for it first, for I’ve been teaching it for years and years and years. We can hear it and never apply it. Though I repeat it night after night, imagination is the operative power. It doesn’t operate itself; we operate it, ourselves. Quite often our training is in conflict with it, and we can’t quite bring ourselves to apply it.905 ¶1

We are told in the 118th Psalm, “the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.” Many years ago, sitting in the silence, thinking of nothing in particular, my eyes closed in contemplation, but not really thinking of any one particular thing, suddenly a stone appeared before my eyes, about that size, huge quartz. And here the quartz shattered, shattered into many, many pieces. I then took the new — a shemmigan thread, a good sign — into the human thread, seated in the lotus posture. As I looked at it, I saw it was myself. I was actually looking at myself. I became so emotionally lifted. As I looked at it, it began to glow. And then it beamed intensely, as I would say, the light of the sun. And then it exploded. And then I awoke in my chair, which turned that I had rejected it with my soul. I could not believe that I, myself, was the cause of the phenomena of my life. I thought he did it, she did it, they did it, the world did it, but certainly I am not responsible. These were things that happened because others are the causes.905 ¶2

And here I am looking at the stone which the builders rejected. This is marvelous, said he. It’s the reality of imagining lays, you find the truth. All things exist in the human imagination, and by that I mean the individual’s imagination. In your own bosom you bear your heaven and your earth, and all that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination, of which this world is but a shadow.905 ¶3

Christian or Jew, both are the same thing. The Jew is the foundation stone. It is the tree. Christianity is its fulfillment. It is the fruit. But the tree is Judaism. And all that it actually contains will come out eventually in a plan, a wonderful plan that was there in the beginning of time, and that we call Christianity. Blake said, “I know of no other Christianity and no other gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine art of imagination.” Many of the apostles used the other gospels. And the worship of God is using his gifts. And then he states, “God becomes as man, is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us, and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself, the divine body, Jesus.”905 ¶4

Now, as you are seated here, that’s all about you. Your own wonderful human imagination is the God of the universe. That is the one spoken of as the Lord Jesus. That’s the one. Is it really true? Well, you’re called upon to test it. Test it and see if it’s true. And I have a letter on me tonight. I really should read it, but I’m not going to. I should read it just as he wrote it, but I’ll tell you the contents of the letter.905 ¶5

This gentleman hasn’t been here in years. The last time I saw him was at the Ebell. Well, you know who’s been coming since the Ebell, how long that has been. He said, I must tell you this story. It may not make sense, but I must tell you, for it’s the first time that I have ever used my training according to the things that I have heard you say. I am a psychologist. And I have wasted years trying to talk people out of their mental problems when I could easily have imagined them whole and happy.905 ¶6

Now, here is the story. He said, a friend of mine, this lady, claimed that she was in many ways abnormal. She and her husband adopted a little baby girl, and something very strange went wrong with the child. The child was four years old and still could not speak, and a few words had muttered, regardless, though that is simply not intelligible. But in the four years talking to her, there was progress. Then one day she said to me, I do not feel any longer that I am abnormal. So now I say to myself, I am not abnormal. He tried to explain to her that that’s not quite the approach.905 ¶7

And then he broke the thought and he told me this story. He said, for instance, in my own case, I find a home that I want. I begin to imagine that I’m living in that home. And then doubt sets in. This is the result: that doubt materializes into a person. And that person has more money than I have and he buys the home, leaving me out in the cold. I know from that experience that every person in my world only reflects a mood in me. Everyone that I meet, whether I know them or a stranger, who buys the home that I wanted — when the doubt set in, the doubt materialized into a person. I didn’t know him, but he only reflects that mood of doubt in me. So he has more money and he buys the home, and I am out in the cold.905 ¶8

So I reconstructed a sentence for this lady, and I said, no longer must you say, I am not abnormal, you must now begin to say, I am perfectly normal. She said, I do not feel that. I said, I do not care whether you feel it or not. You must begin to persuade yourself that you are perfectly normal, by repeating within yourself, I am perfectly normal. The day she began it, the child went into a coma. So profound was the sleep that it was difficult to rouse her. She could not be awakened, and have them examine the child. But as she began, from his suggestion, to assume I am perfectly normal, within 24 hours the child awoke. They made the test in the medical center and found her alert and bright. She was only the out-pictured statement of that mother who adopted her. The mother began to feel, I am abnormal, so she adopts a little child, a little girl, and the girl for four years couldn’t talk. And when she began, it was all garbled, it made no sense. She only bore witness to that strange peculiar claim of the mother who adopted her. And when she changed the pattern of speech within her and said, I am perfectly normal, the child, by the medical clinic, found her not only alert but perfectly healthy and returning to a normal state in this world.905 ¶9

The whole vast world is yourself pushed out. That you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your own wonderful human imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.905 ¶10

Why? I found him. I found him of whom the prophets spoke. They spoke of Jesus. And the world is taught to believe he’s a man who lived 2,000 years ago and who was crucified. Humanity is man’s own wonderful human imagination — that’s Jesus, and there is no other Jesus, that is Jesus. He is buried in man; he is the dreamer in man, and he is dreaming this dream of life. What are we feeding him? Well, I’ll tell you what we feed him, because he is capable of anything in this world.905 ¶11

And listen to these words, from Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter, the 39th verse of Deuteronomy, and these are: “I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” There is only one creative power in the world. The one who kills is the one who makes alive. The one who wounds is the one who heals. And there is no other power than this one power. And that one power is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. There is no other God. He is buried in you.905 ¶12

And the day will come, he will awaken within you. When I trust it is now that I could turn you from this world of seeming reality on the outside to a world of imagination, so you actually live in your own wonderful human imagination. If you do, and you really turn into a being who believes in the reality of his own imaginal act, you are then on the verge of rebirth. It does not say when — he tells you, no one knows, not even the Son, only the Father. Don’t ask me when, said he, but I’ll tell you the signs of it: when you actually begin to trust your own wonderful human imagination, when you can sit quietly all alone, asking help of no one, and really believe that your imaginal act is a creative fact, and that in the interval of time necessary it’s going to externalize itself and become a reality in your world, you’re on the verge of rebirth. As you’re told, “unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,” even though the kingdom of heaven is within you. The kingdom of God is within you, and God is in his kingdom. Although he is in his kingdom, and that kingdom is in you, you can’t enter it unless you turn from this world of materiality — believing it is the cause, believing it is the reality — to live in your own wonderful human imagination. When you do, you’ll find yourself on the very verge of being reborn. So you’re warned: do not ask me when, I will tell you, not even the Son knows, only the Father. But I’ll give you the symptoms of it: when you can trust your own wonderful human imagination, that will be the symptom.905 ¶13

Can I stand here tonight and take any request? Nothing costs me anything, and it’s a joy, if it comes within what I call the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ask nothing of me that you would not ask for yourself. Do not ask me to hear any news in this world that you would not really want done to you, because, first of all, I could not do it. I use the golden rule; then, if it comes within the framework of the golden rule, it’s so easy. What would the feeling be like if it were true, that you are what you want to be, that they are what they want to be, that they have what they want to be? Don’t ask me how it’s going to happen. I do not know. The depth of your own being has ways and means that you, the conscious surface being, know not of. It knows exactly how to do it. So don’t ask how it’s going to be done.905 ¶14

So when doubt sets in, as he said in his letter to me — when the doubt set in, that doubt materialized in the form of a person who also wanted that home and had more money and bought it and left me out in the cold — I can tell from the uprising of moods within me that I’m going to meet certain people. And I do. The moods — you cannot suppress the moods. As Churchill says, the moods determine the fortunes of people, rather than the fortunes determine the moods. Don’t ignore that great man. He said that the mood actually determines the fortunes.905 ¶15

So I would catch a mood. Well then, catch the mood of your wish fulfilled. What would the feeling be like if it were true? Imagine the wish fulfilled. What would it be like? How would I feel if it were true? In spite of all things round about you that deny it, you walk as though it were true. And in a way that you do not know, and you need not know, it will externalize itself within your will, and you will actually receive it.905 ¶16

Listen to these words: “with God all things are possible.” That you will read in the 19th chapter of the book of Matthew. Now we’ll go to the 9th chapter of the book of Mark: “all things are possible to him who believes.” He equates God with the believer in man. All things are possible to him who believes, at Mark; with God all things are possible, at Matthew. So he equates the believer in man with God. Well, the believer in me is my own wonderful human imagination. What other thing in man but his reality, which is imagination, than belief? It’s the dreamer in man. I go to bed at night and I dream. The dreamer and the waking I are one and the same being. Can I believe, or am I going to allow certain doubts?905 ¶17

Now, he is a psychologist, trained to talk people out of their mental problems — put them on the couch, put them on the chair, and talk them out of it, and spend years — when he could easily, as he confessed, have imagined them whole and perfect and happy. But he said, I believe that I was, through my training, compelled to spend these awkward years, as anyone who works at a job spends his time in an awkward manner, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing. Then it’s simply a job, and you’re doing something that is, to you, awkward.905 ¶18

If you like it — like my brother Victor, who has made a fortune. The very smell of the ship, the very smell of the boat, the smell of his store, he loves it. He goes there in the morning, and the odor of his store — I can’t stand it — he loves it. He goes into the grocery store, and everything about it, he just loves the odor, all the combinations of the odors of the grocery store. He goes into his department store, all the things of the department store, that’s the odor, it affects him, he loves it. Goes to a hotel and the restaurant, naturally, is all in service, that affects him and he loves it. He so loves it, he’s in the mood of success. So fall in love with something that really excites you, and feel that you are already what you want to be. And I tell you, from my own experience and from this man’s experience, that it will work.905 ¶19

Now, here is a man who heard me years ago. He came home one day. I thought, now here is a man teaching people how to live correctly, and I had two books, they’re completely out of print, you can’t buy them. But I thought, if I could give them to someone doing this kind of work who is serious — he’s a trained psychologist — I’ll give them to him. So I gave him these books. I don’t think he’s read them.905 ¶20

First of all, they’re named after the mountains of Switzerland, in Zermatt and Oberland, but it’s all imagination. The man who wrote it, I presume he’s gone now, he was 94 when I last heard from him. But I gave him these books, they were new and completely out of print, you can’t get the books, you might find them in some second hand, but they were never popular books because they were very balloonist books. But he wrote them in the form of a dialogue, like a Platonic tale. He introduced five characters, and each one was a scientist, one was a philosopher, one was a mystic, one was something else, and they all discussed, and he had the central one, who was the mystic, explaining the phenomena and the cause of the phenomena of life. And so he wrote these volumes and I gave them to him.905 ¶21

I asked him the other night, because he’s here for the second time in years, and he mentioned the way — he told me about them — I don’t really think he really read them with understanding, or really read them, because it’s told like a Plato would tell a story, introducing characters, because the one person is speaking as the scientist, as the mystic, as the philosopher, as the atheist. He had them all present, only five characters. But the books are completely on imagination, and it’s called the Zermatt Dialogues and the Oberland Dialogues.905 ¶22

And I went down to the bookstore in Long Beach called Acres of Books, looking for them, and old Mr. Smith — he’s gone now, he was then in his 80s — and I was looking all over the philosophical department and other departments. Oh, he said, you wouldn’t find them there, you’ll find them under Switzerland, the mountain — he didn’t know the content of the book. Go over to the place and look under Switzerland, and there they were. So I found my two books, and I parted with him, and I gave them to him, in the hope that, because he is a psychologist, a trained one, that these were showing that causation is all imagination, that imagining creates reality. What am I imagining?905 ¶23

So they came to him, the embodiment imagination, and they said, but you haven’t eaten. And they were concerned because he’d been left alone and he had not eaten, and he said, “I have food you know not of.”905 ¶24

And the food is: what are you feeding your imagination, morning, noon and night? You read the morning paper and you react, and you don’t know one character there, any of them, and you react even before you get to the end of the page, based upon some biased reporter. But you react.905 ¶25

That’s what you fed the Lord, for the Lord is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s God, and there is no other God. That is the Jesus of scripture. That’s the Jehovah of the Old Testament. And he is housed in you. That’s why you are immortal. So you can drop right now, I tell you, it would make no difference to your immortality. Chop off your head, burn you, and turn it into dust — you are an immortal being. You cannot cease to be, because God became as you are, that you may be as he is.905 ¶26

And so you’re going through these with these strange peculiar diets. And we simply produce what we feed, what we feed upon. You can learn a lesson from the animal world.905 ¶27

When we were children we had ducks, chickens, all kinds of things that you have on a farm. And we were a large family. There were ten children, nine boys and one girl. And we had a father, mother, and grandmother, all living in our home. And mother would say to us, take, say, two or three ducks and put them away, because in two weeks I’m going to have a duck dinner. So you take the three ducks and you put them away, but she meant that you will change their diet, because when I was a boy fish was plentiful and cheap, you could bring in all kinds of fish. We had no refrigeration, so if it wasn’t sold in the evening, early evening, it rotted. So you simply either use it for strange bait the next day or you fed the animals, that is, the ducks. So we would take the fish, while we kept them alive, and fed the ducks on our fish. And they got fat and they were altogether healthy. But you couldn’t eat that bird until you took it and isolated it and put it in a cage by itself and stuffed it with meal, corn, sour milk, anything of that nature, and at the end of ten days that bird, having been fed only on, say, milk or corn or anything you had of that nature, the whole system changed. And so when you cooked it, it was like a milk-fed bird. If you didn’t do it, you couldn’t eat it, it’s all fish.905 ¶28

And I would know, I can see it now in my mind’s eye. My mother said, Neville, get a few ducks and put them away. And I, playing cricket and playing soccer, forgot it. But I remembered it was only about five days before, so I took the ducks and put them away, but five days was not enough to purge it completely of the fish. Well, you could smell that thing all over the neighborhood. On Sunday afternoon we’re going to have duck, and we knew we couldn’t have duck, because you couldn’t eat it. You look at a duck and you’re eating fish. So it repulsed everyone; of course we got a good spanking for it, because we didn’t do what mother commanded us to do, the time that she told us to do it.905 ¶29

Well, that is just like everything else in this world. You feed, as he said, I have food you know not of. You feed for a few days, a couple of weeks, on a changed mental diet. In this case, in 24 hours, when she took the diet that he gave her — I am perfectly normal — the child went into a deep, deep sleep, so profound that she could not be awakened without a struggle. And then the clinic said, why, she’s not only bright but she’s healthy, she’s completely right. She was simply the out-pictured statement that that girl lived with, when she said, I am abnormal, in many ways. You take a new diet tonight, and, just like the duck, it may take you a day, it may take you a week, it may take you two weeks, but if you actually persist in the changed diet, you will out-picture that diet, that change of diet, and your whole vast world will change.905 ¶30

We are the only beings to whom he gave speech; he actually became man. And this inner speech is a marvelous gift, and you can’t stop it, you’re doing it morning, noon and night. You go to bed talking to yourself, you wake in the morning talking to yourself, and whether it’s someone present or not, you’re still talking to yourself. You walk the street; some are obvious when they do it, but most of us are not that obvious, but we’re doing it anyway, we are carrying on little mental conversations with ourselves. But what are we carrying on — arguments, or are we boldly affirming and asserting that I am, and then naming what I want to be?905 ¶31

In her case, he gave her what she should say, and she argued with him, and she couldn’t say it, because — I do not feel that yet. Don’t wait to feel it, he said to her, do it now: I am perfectly normal. Because if you say, I am not abnormal, that’s not a creative thing towards your goal, in fact, it may be destructive. You want something positive, not something negative. Not, I am not abnormal — I am perfectly normal.905 ¶32

Then the child, the out-pictured self — so everyone in your world is yourself pushed out. Blame no one, don’t even blame yourself, just change the diet. They only reflect what you have been doing, and maybe still doing, and when you see it, you change the diet, and the diet is simply words, all within you.905 ¶33

So you assume that you are now the man, the woman, that you want to be. Walk in that assumption as though it were true. Live in it just as though it is true. And then, who knows, that diet may not take more than 24 hours. I’m quite sure it would not take more than a few weeks to project itself in a way that you do not know.905 ¶34

How do you know this little duck? And I’m speaking from experience, I’m not telling a story that someone told me — I was the one spanked for not catching those ducks the very day the order was given, and mother was a kind of a disciplinarian; she always kept her word. If she promised you a bicycle, if she gave you a bike because you would do something, she kept it. If she promised you a beating if you didn’t do something, she kept that too. She was a great disciplinarian.905 ¶35

I came back during the First World War. I went down on a schooner to what is now called the Virgin Islands; then they were owned by Denmark — Santa Cruz, and what is now Saint Thomas, and then Saint John. We bought them during the war, the First World War, that is, we in America bought them, but then I was a British subject, and I went down on a schooner to get cattle, because we didn’t raise cattle in Barbados and we needed the meat. And they had the dairy, all Danish — Denmark owned them. So there were dairy people, bought the cattle, put them aboard the ship, and started back for Barbados. And we were becalmed off Martinique. Martinique has a huge mountainous volcano. We were out of sight of the island, so they couldn’t rescue us, and there’s no radio in those days, no possibility of contacting the mainland. And there we are, simply drifting, stopped moving an inch in the course of a day, and the cattle are dying — they’re all dying. We were eight days late coming into Barbados, and all the cattle are gone, from the bilge and the lack of food, the lack of water. And I thought, well now, when I came home, they’d be so happy to see me, because they thought I was gone, because the submarines, the German submarines, were shooting at everything in the area, even a little schooner. So I came in, and I came home, they all greeted me with open arms.905 ¶36

By that very day, mother said to me, I don’t want you to go out in the sun, you’ve had enough sun on that schooner for these many days at sea — I must have been two weeks at sea and no possibility of any shade — burn to a crisp, don’t go out. Well, I had guinea pigs and I had rabbits, I had to go and see how my guinea pigs and rabbits were coming on, but she told me not to go. I think, it’s my first day home, certainly mother will not hold it against me. So I went out, disobeying her order. When I came back in, she said, did I tell you not to go out? Yes, mother. I thought, well now, after all, it was my first day home, she thought I was dead, here I am, resurrected — that didn’t pacify her at all. Took off that shoe and she whacked me. And she let me have it. She was the most marvellous disciplinarian. She promised you a watch, you got it. If she promised you anything, you got it — including the whipping.905 ¶37

So I’m telling you a change of diet, and in our case, we are the Lord, and the Lord feeds upon words, he is the Word. And so, what are you saying to yourself in the course of 24 hours? I am this, I am that. Change it, completely change it, and say within yourself, I am happily, blissfully married, if that’s my objective in life. Reason denies it, your senses deny it — I am blissfully happy — and steep as though it were true.905 ¶38

I can tell you that story from my own personal experience, it works that way. And when I told the details of how it happened, people saw the means employed, which I certainly didn’t manufacture, not consciously, and judged me harshly for telling the means. But, as you’re told in scripture, I have ways and means, ye know not of; my ways are past finding out. All you do is simply go on the new diet.905 ¶39

For when I found the girl to whom I’m now married, I’m blissfully happy with her, since the day I met her, back in 1936. I was completely involved. I wasn’t divorced, and in those days in New York City a divorce was out. It only became legal after the very, very, very wealthy Rockefeller got his outside, and then brought pressure to bear on the state to pass a decent, modest, normal, modern law, allowing people who cannot live together to separate and then seek a normal divorce. Prior to that, all divorces were simply collusion — all divorces, you paid someone to find someone, and then they signed these little things, you went before the judge, and they all knew, it was collusion anyway.905 ¶40

Well, here I am, completely involved in marriage, and I want to marry this girl. I met her the very first second I saw her, I said, she doesn’t know it, but she’s going to be my wife, she doesn’t know it yet, and simply I’ve slept as though we were blissfully happy. She on that bed, I’m on my bed — it wasn’t a sex act, it was simply, she was there in the room, in our lovely home, and I was in my bed and she was on her bed. So I didn’t make it an emotional thing of that nature.905 ¶41

And the girl who was my former wife, who refused — she even left the state so as not to be given a summons. One day I got a call from the court, telling me to come on down, they needed my advice. I went down to the court, wondering what am I doing, going to the court in the morning. When they brought her in, I pleaded her case before these three judges, and she said to me, after I got her off, that was a very decent thing for you to do, Neville, and I know you want a divorce, give me the papers. I didn’t have the papers on me, and she and I got into a taxi and drove to my hotel, and I gave her the papers. Now, that’s supposed to be illegal, so I’m told now, you can’t serve your own papers, I didn’t know that. Gave her the papers. And I got my divorce in the city of New York.905 ¶42

So I know it works, it took me one week to do it. That’s all it took, one week — I simply went sound asleep in the assumption that my wife was there, and it’s the girl to whom I’m now married and who bore us this glorious daughter, and it’s been since 1936.905 ¶43

So here, this heavenly state was denied me because I wasn’t feeding myself the right food. I have food you know not of, and the food are words, and you repeat them within yourself. What am I saying? As Blake said, “oh, what have I said, what have I done, oh, all-powerful human words!”905 ¶44

If man only realized what he is doing when he is talking, seemingly idly, to Oswald — who cares, who knows? The only one that cares, knows, and he is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. That’s the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New. And there is no other God, and he’s dreaming in you, and surely you want to awake. But you will awake the day that you actually move into the life of imagination, for you trust your imagination and live in it. You’re not far from the threshold of rebirth.905 ¶45

But I can’t tell you the day or the hour; no one knows but the Father, and the Father is your own wonderful human imagination.905 ¶46

I saw it so clearly: this is the stone that the builders rejected, but what the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone; it was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our sight. So I rejected the fact that I was the cause of the phenomenon of my life. I couldn’t believe it, I thought everyone outside of myself caused it. Then I realized, when I saw the vision — here is a stone, a quartz, and it fragmented into numberless parts. As he said, the one who bought the home, that’s a fragmented part of my own being. My doubt brought him into being; he materialized my doubt, a man, a person, and he bought the home I wanted because he had more money — I materialized that, it came out of me. So the whole thing fragmented me, and then, when it came together and formed itself into a man seated in the lotus posture, and I looked at it, I’m looking at myself, then I realized, I am the cause, he is the dreamer in me. One day he is going to awake from this dream, and when he awakes, I am he, and he and I are one.905 ¶47

This is the story I am trying to tell the whole vast world, because I know it’s true, and the day will come you will know it’s true — there is no other God than your own wonderful human imagination.905 ¶48

I still invite you, although I’ve told you to do it yourself, if you feel uneasy about it, to ask of me. For in the end, may I tell you, we are one.905 ¶49

Now let us go into the silence. Thank you. Good. Good. Good.905 ¶50

So on Friday, I’m going to show you the parallels between David of the Old Testament and Christ of the New. I know, trained as we are, it is the most difficult thing to separate our preconceived opinions from what we’re actually looking at, so I’ll give you the passages and quote them for you, and show you, that you may go home, take the same book that I am going to quote, and read it, but you’re still going to find it difficult, based upon your training, to separate your preconceived opinions from what you’re actually looking at. I’m going to show you it’s the same being. Not only from scripture — I have experienced it, so I know it is true based upon my own experience — but one would like confirmation from the written word. So on Friday I’m going to make that my task, to show you.905 ¶51

Are there any questions, please? No questions. Well, if there aren’t, until the next time. Good night.905 ¶52