The Potter's House

[...]is The Potter’s House. In the book of Isaiah you read, O Lord, thou art our father, and we are the clay, and thou art our potter, and all the works of thy hand. Here we see that the Lord, the father, and the potter are one.1223 ¶1

Now the word potter was defined in scripture as imagination. Here we are told it is to form a resolution, to determine — such as in the beginning, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness” — that is to form a resolution. Now we are told that that is the potter, and it is the father, and it is the Lord. Now in Jeremiah we are told, you went down to the potter’s house. First of all he said, “arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my word. So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, but he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.”1223 ¶2

For the justice covered at the potter, who is our father, who is the Lord, is our own wonderful human imagination. Now he is working with clay, and we are told that we are the clay. So I stand for a moment and I wonder, what am I imagining concerning myself, for that is the clay. Imagining is God in action, it’s the potter in action, it is the Lord himself, the father in action. Is my concept of myself what I would like it to be, or is it spoiled? I don’t discard it, I simply rework it into another vessel, as it seemed good to me, the potter, to do.1223 ¶3

Am I living as I would like to live? Do I have an income equal to my need? Do I have an income equal to the things I’d like to do, or am I limiting myself based upon what I think that I could do? There is no limit placed upon the potter’s ability to reshape that image. So will I now actually take the challenge and reshape the vessel? For the vessel is made of clay, and we are the clay. Will I, this very moment, change my concept of myself, my concept for those that are in my world? I’ll see them as I would like to see them in my world.1223 ¶4

Will it work? Well now, let us take a look now at the definition of imagination as given to us by man. Scripture defines it as God — scripture defined it as God the father, the potter who fashions everything in the world. But now we use it so loosely in this world. We are told that the simple apprehension of corporeal objects is present, is sense — that is, sense-perceived. This is, thou sayest, perceived: I can see you, and that you should speak, now I hear you — that is sense-perceived, and you are present, therefore that is real, they’re saying. What is absent is imagination. In other words, it isn’t real, it isn’t sense-perceived.1223 ¶5

Now we’ll take one of the senses, we’ll take the sense of smell. Since smell is a chemical sense, a contact is necessary for perception — you have to actually have a chemical contact to smell in this world. Now I ask you to join with me. Maybe you do not like flowers as I do. Can you smell a rose, and it’s not present — there aren’t any roses here, or in your presence — but can you now imagine a rose and smell it? I can. It’s so distinct. Well, if the rose is not here, when I smell it, why is its fragrance in the air, when it depends upon a chemical contact? You cannot smell anything in this world without a chemical contact. I go into the kitchen, I smell gas, and it’s not lit, but I notice I smell gas — it’s a chemical contact. Then I notice that the wind, leaving the window open, blew out the little pilot light. I turn it on and nothing happens — therefore I know the pilot is gone, and I light it. But I could smell that — that was a chemical contact. If I could not detect it, I could just simply become asphyxiated, if I’d lost that olfactory nerve and could not reach that chemical contact. But now, here, there’s no rose, and I can actually smell a rose.1223 ¶6

No, you say, well, what does that mean? It means so much to me.1223 ¶7

You can smell money — it has an odor unlike anything in this world, entirely different. You can actually take it and smell it. A money bag is more fragrant to the miser than all the flowers of the world — it’s a pleasant odor for him. Not to me — I need money, I have to have money to pay all the normal expenses in this world, but it’s not to me a fragrant odor. But I use this principle towards getting money, towards meeting all the obligations of life, for I am obligated, as you are.1223 ¶8

So I go down to the potter’s house, but I can sit in the chair, I can stand at a bar, I can do it wherever I am — I am right there in the potter’s house, for I found the potter. The potter is my imagination, and the potter is the father, the Lord God Almighty, and I found him. So I don’t have to go any place outside of where I stand to be in the potter’s house. And now I will see what he’s doing — so I see what I’m doing, what am I imagining, for that’s what he’s working on. So I went down to the potter’s house, and I simply saw what he was doing. What am I imagining? Is it a good image that I am forming of myself and my friends and things that I love in this world, or am I critical? Am I simply making a mess of the talent?1223 ¶9

I find quite often I am not using it wisely. I tell you that the worship of God is to use his gifts — that is the only way you really worship God. He gave you a talent — well, the talent is himself. It comes through, naturally, the five senses. I may be denied four of them, as many are born minus one, two, three, or maybe four. Most would have the sense of touch, but some are born blind, or they go blind, some go deaf, some lost a sense of sound, I mean speech — all these things. But nevertheless I can use, in my imagination, all these talents. Physically they may be denied me, but I still have an open door from within, and I can use it from within. I need not actually have them all open on the outside — if I’m born restricted, I can still call upon them from within, as I do now, to smell the rose.1223 ¶10

A friend of mine — she’s gone from this world now — in New York City, many, many years ago, I told a story similar to this tonight, and sitting in my audience, she said, well, now I’m going to test this, and in the silence she embraced a huge bouquet of roses. She lived in the towers, the Waldorf Astoria. So when she went home that night, as she went down the hallway towards her room, she detected a strong odor of roses, and she stopped at one door, thinking it might be there — it was permeating the entire hallway. She kept on going, and it got stronger and stronger, and when she opened her door, there were three dozen long Beauties on her bureau. The window was open just a little bit, and it came, bringing the odor through into the hallway. There was no note on it, but here were these lovely roses. The next day she was informed how it happened. That night, the English-Speaking Union gave a party for the present Queen’s mother, who was Queen Elizabeth, but not queen in the true sense of the word — she was George’s wife, she was queen while he reigned. And they had these enormous flowers arranged for the occasion, and at the end of the banquet — a thousand of them sat at this dinner — they wondered what to do with the roses, and their head waiter said, well, Mrs. Niemeyer loves flowers, especially roses, send three dozen up to her room, you either throw them away or find some way to use them wisely. And so Mrs. Niemeyer was given three dozen of these Beauties, which she certainly did not expect. But she thought she would try it, and she embraced it, in her mind’s eye, and she could smell the roses, and then came three dozen Beauties into her room.1223 ¶11

I have known people who will take money in the mind’s eye and actually feel it, and it’s not present, and smell it, and count it off — and then it happens just like that. Man is not completely confined to the little garment and the five senses to which contact is made with the world — he has imagination. Imagination is God, that’s the potter, that is the Lord, that is our father, and he gave us himself. And the only way to truly worship God is to use his gifts, and he actually gave me himself, because I can say “I am,” and that’s his name. Now I discover he is my imagination.1223 ¶12

So Blake said, “I know of no other Christianity, I know of no other gospel, than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.” And then he adds, “the apostles knew of no other gospel.”1223 ¶13

We are living in a world of imagination. If I say to the average person who believes in God, the whole vast world was created by God, we are living in a world of God, they would bow and admit to that. But let me say the world in which we live is the world of imagination, and they hold their hand up — wait a minute, this is real, what you imagine is unreal. And yet everything that we now call real was once only imagined. The clothes you wear had to be first imagined, the chairs in which you are seated, the building in which we are now housed — everything first had to be imagined before it was objectified and executed in this world. So what is now real to us, and seemingly an objective fact, was once only imagined. We had to imagine going to the moon before we did it. And everything here — involved in the potter’s hand — and that potter is your own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶14

Everything, well, that we call natural has an imaginal cause and not a natural cause — and not for cause, only seems — it is a delusion of the perishing memory. That’s the one thing that suffers when God became man — he had to completely forget that he was God when he became man, and so memory faded completely, but the reality remained, for he is man’s own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶15

Man is all imagination, and God is man, and exist in us and we in him. The Eternal Body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. We speak of it in the New Testament as Jesus — that is the Divine body, the Lord Jesus, your own wonderful human imagination. He is not on the outside — he is within, your own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶16

So if I should use the word God, the word Lord, the word Jesus, and in any sense whatsoever it causes you to think of some external existing presence, you have not found the true God, the true Lord, the true Jesus. If for one moment you hear the word, and out flies the mind towards some external object, either in time or space or both, you haven’t found the right Jesus, the right Lord.1223 ¶17

So you are told, “do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Then comes the challenge — “examine yourselves and see whether you are holding to the faith.” Well, now, the minute you hear the word Jesus and you think of something other than your own wonderful human imagination, you’ve failed the test — then you failed it, at that very moment, when you hear the word and something on the outside.1223 ¶18

I turned on the TV the other day, just out of curiosity — I was feeling around for the ball game, the football — and I stopped on one of these stations, and here is this man talking to undoubtedly enormous crowds, and he’s praying to the outside Lord Jesus. Huge ads in the paper, he’s calling on some being on the outside, and all this nonsense.1223 ¶19

There is no outside Lord Jesus. When he rises in you, he rises as you; when he awakes in your news, and when he awakes in you, he is the father, and you will know he is the father, for you are the father. And confirmation that comes before you, in the form of David — and David stands before you, and you know exactly who he is and who you are. There is your son, bearing witness to the fact that you are the Lord Jesus, that you are the father. This is the story of scripture.1223 ¶20

Now I ask you to use your imagination wisely and lovingly, on behalf first of yourself, and then everyone you contact in this world. I don’t care who he is, just don’t discard him — he can be refashioned. Read the story carefully, in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah. And the word Jeremiah means Jehovah will rise — he’s buried in man, he’s man’s imagination — and these are the first four verses: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, but he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to him to do.”1223 ¶21

He didn’t discard it. So — someone seems beyond repair? Don’t discard it. Test this power, this creative power — there is nothing more wonderful in this world, nothing more creative in man, than to believe a thing into existence. I can’t conceive of anything more wonderful than that, to believe a thing into existence.1223 ¶22

The late Robert Frost, the great poet, he said, “Our founding fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in.” They didn’t think that time would bring about democracy, that time would bring about the country that you and I love and enjoy in this world — they believed it in. They had an idea, and it was not anything that Europe had — Europe did not conceive this thing, it died with ancient Greece. The most difficult form of government in the world we have here, because we have freedom, we have all the freedom in the world, and we indulge ourselves beyond wealth — well, we misused it, really. But here, our founding fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in — and there’s nothing more creative in man than to believe something into existence.1223 ¶23

So do you know what you want? More? Then begin to believe it in, as you believe now that you can smell roses — believe it in. What would you see if it were true? What would you hear if it were true? Go to the end and dwell in the end as if it were true, and that’s what you’re doing when you do it that way — then actually believe in the power of the potter to make itself.1223 ¶24

All you and I are called upon here is to believe it, to believe in the power of the imaginal act.1223 ¶25

But to try to change circumstances before we change our imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of things — can’t do it — because the imaginal activity is producing things, and it will continue to produce the things that are related to that activity, unless I change the imaginal activity. I can change the things, for they only bear witness of my imaginal activity, and you do it regardless of your present circumstances. While you sleep, it is working; while you walk the street thinking of other things, it is working — you set it in motion. Believe in the imaginal act, believe it to be a fact, and in a way that no one knows, it will objectify itself in this world — it’ll become a reality.1223 ¶26

I am telling you from my own personal experience — we have just celebrated, our whole family, our fiftieth anniversary as a family in business. We started behind the eight ball, a way behind the eight ball, on borrowed money. But, as we are told in the hundred and thirty-third psalm, “behold, how blessed it is when brothers dwell in unity” — and I’m one of nine brothers and a sister, and we dwelt in unity. I left home at the age of seventeen to come to America, and returned only for contacts with the family, but it’s been now forty-nine years since I left my home. Those who left came only for educational purposes, and after they were educated they returned to Barbados, and the close-knit family of brothers just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary, and it really is the most fantastic, successful story.1223 ¶27

He’s a little tiny place, like the West Indies — I will not mention money, I mean the quantities of it, but when you have a business, and you double your stock, and then double your stock, and double your stock, and still pay on all the doubling of stock twenty percent at the end of the year to the stockholders, you are in business. We are satisfied here if we get six percent — any company here who is offering eight percent, you’ll find it gobbled up tomorrow morning — and it is all owned by our family, we have not gone public, and we pay our individual members — and I happen to be one of them, drawing the same amount as those who are actually there, but I am one with them, and they know it. I am one in spirit — that’s the only reality — so I get my twenty percent too, of the stock my father gave me, and he gave me everything that he gave them.1223 ¶28

We all shared equally when he departed this world — in fact he gave it in 1939 and lived until 1959. He was so confident that if he ever needed it, we would give it all back to him, but he gave it because, by law in the Indies, a man must outlive his gift by five years to avoid taxation. And so, in ’39, when the war broke in Europe, not knowing the outcome, he gave to his nine sons and his one daughter equal shares of everything he had, and then outlived it by twenty years. But he knew he would never want, because every one of us would put the whole thing right back into his hand if he wanted — but he didn’t need it, he didn’t want it — and it has been split, and split, and split, and still paying its twenty percent, because we think alike.1223 ¶29

And my brother Victor — at the age, but he was only nineteen — when he had this vision that imagining creates reality, and he saw a building on Main Street, and the building actually had over its marquee “F. N. Roach and Company.” Our name is Goddard, and my father’s initials are J.N. — Joseph Nathaniel Goddard — and he saw “J.N. Goddard and Sons,” and he never moved, on the morning when he went to work, until he re-read that sign and made it read “J.N. Goddard and Sons.” And on his way back home at night, “J.N. Goddard and Son.”1223 ¶30

And two years later that building was for sale, and a stranger — he had no money — a stranger came in, the day of the sale, and asked him if he wanted to bid for it. “But, I have no money and no collateral,” he said. “I will bid for it, I’ll get my lawyer to bid for it — if they know I am bidding for it, it’ll push it up, but I will have my lawyer, and he represents many people, so they will not know who is bidding for it.” And that day we owned the building. We had no collateral, trading back his money in ten years at six percent, and then, turned around, eight years ago, nine years ago, and sold that piece of property, which we bought — then, back in 1921, bought it for fifty thousand dollars — and sold it to the Bank of Nova Scotia nine years ago for eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, and there is no capital gain in Barbados.1223 ¶31

So that’s what he did. That’s how he thinks — he never waits for one moment, he knows what he wants — so he has the vessel in his hand, the hand is his own mind, and here he simply works on it, does exactly what he wants. And so he doesn’t care about rumors — what rumor doesn’t interest him — but so-and-so is doing it doesn’t interest him, he knows exactly what he wants and he goes blindly on.1223 ¶32

I’ll give you one little story. He could sense that war was coming — in the second world war, he sensed it coming. We’re a little island, and we needed all the help we could get, because only ships were coming in, and no planes flying in those days, there was no commercial flights, only ships, and the Germans, he knew, would do exactly what they did on a bigger scale, in the second attempt to conquer, and that is sinking all the ships that they could find. So what would we do for merchandise?1223 ¶33

So he went out and he borrowed enormous sums of money from the bank, until it was overflowing all of our warehouses — he rented warehouses and filled it.1223 ¶34

But he brought it in, not for human consumption — on the surface, he brought it in as merchandise for ships, because if you do not understand the law of the sea, you can bring in all kinds of things and put it in storage, and when ships need those supplies you simply empty your storehouses, and you pay no duty on it — it is duty-free merchandise, if it goes from the warehouse to the ship. If you bring it in for local consumption, then you pay the usual thirty or thirty-three percent on merchandise of that nature. But he knew the island needed it — if ships would not be coming, and they would need it.1223 ¶35

So after the war broke, and he had the merchandise there, and no ships are coming in, and there have been some, and he was filled to overflowing — well, you can carry the debt almost — stocked far in excess of a million dollars in stock, and paying the bank maybe seven or eight percent, unless you move the merchandise.1223 ¶36

So he went to the governor and asked the governor for permission to sell the merchandise to the local people, because they needed it badly. And he said, now I must first of all call a conference — so he called all the great leaders in business and said that Victor wants to unload the merchandise to you fellas, and they said, no, you’ve got him exactly where we want him — he brought it in to be sold only to ships, and he will sell it only to ships and to no one else, we’ve got it exactly where we want him — so you’ll be paying, honestly, maybe two million dollars, will be paying eight percent a year on merchandise that you can’t move. So he reminded the governor that his salary was paid by the local merchants, and that he was one of the biggest payers of taxes in the island — that is the family of the Goddards. And then he got the little light, to be reminded of these normal things.1223 ¶37

So he said, “Governor, you’re speaking to the government.” He said, “I know I am.” And then he said to the governor, “Have I had your last word?” He said, “Yes.” “Governor, good day.”1223 ¶38

And so my brother went out, and he called in his lawyers. He said, give me the legal — the legal definition of a ship — what is a ship, and I want the legal definition of it. So the lawyers say, brother, a ship is that which is seaworthy, that can take off the sea — and what you want is, can it take off to an island a hundred miles away? Well, if the captain has courage, it could go — it’s a ship, it’s seaworthy, and they can carry merchandise. So that’s the legal definition of a ship. That’s all I want to know, said my brother.1223 ¶39

So he took an ad, a huge big ad, the following day, and he itemized all the merchandise: “To anyone who has a thing that floats, and he is confident he can make an island, can come and buy this merchandise tax-free. Bring it only in cash, no checks, bring your cash.”1223 ¶40

We emptied all our houses in twenty-four hours. They came with their little boats — they couldn’t go a hundred — well, they couldn’t go three hundred yards to sea — but the legal name was, can it go, have you the courage to make Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, Trinidad — if you have the courage, you have a ship, come, you can buy it. They simply bought the merchandise, went out to sea, went back into the island, and sold it to the merchants, and the government was robbed of their thirty-three percent in taxes, and they all made all these little profits — they brought their cash out of their shoes, out of their trunks, out of all kinds of things.1223 ¶41

And he unloaded everything he had in twenty-four hours, and the merchants went wild — they called the governor, the government tried to get my brother Victor. He said to his secretaries, “I am busy, and you cannot contact me. I am not to be contacted, no matter where I am, you do not know where I am.” So the governor could not find the one who could give any explanation, while they unloaded all these things based upon that.1223 ¶42

So from that day on, they never tried to do anything with my brother Victor.1223 ¶43

He uses only the potter’s mind — he knows who the potter is, he knows who the Lord is, he knows who God the father is, and he knows he’s his own wonderful human imagination — that’s God.1223 ¶44

There is no other God — God actually became what we are, that we may be as he is. So God is your own wonderful human imagination. Let no one rob you of that and give you a false god — they’re always trying to give you a false god. And so, when you see anyone praying to something on the outside, he has a false god. When he has to go to a certain church to pray, he has a false place — that’s not the temple, you are the temple of the living God, and the spirit of God dwells in you, and that spirit is your own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶45

Now use it wisely, and to use it wisely you use it lovingly. Anytime you use your imagination lovingly, on behalf of another, you’re actually meeting God at that altar. Always use it lovingly — can’t go wrong, and things will simply flow and flow in your direction, all for the good.1223 ¶46

So, while I sleep here, thousands of miles away, my brothers, living in unity, are expanding my holdings. And so, behold what a blessed thing it is when brothers dwell in unity — that’s the one thing that my father instilled in all of us.1223 ¶47

He had no money, and so, we were nine boys, he gave us a football — we played soccer in Barbados — and so he couldn’t afford to give us each a Christmas present, he gave us something we could share together — a cricket set, two bats and the wicket, and a ball, or a football, a soccer ball — and so it was always ours, not mine.1223 ¶48

And he could not bear anyone to say, he is wearing my tie — my father would remind you, it’s not your tie or his tie, it’s all mine, I bought it all, it’s all mine. So in our home you always used to say, “the first one dressed is the best dressed” — because — take out — the first one — because you could never complain to your father that he’s wearing your tie — no, it was never your tie or his tie, it was always our tie.1223 ¶49

And so that was the way we were raised — so we were raised that way in unity, and that unity still prevails today.1223 ¶50

So if you have a family, try to instill that in them — to be unified. In that hundred and thirty-third psalm, it begins that way — behold, what pleasant a thing it is when brothers dwell in unity.1223 ¶51

So here scripture teaches who the Lord really is, but man doesn’t read carefully. “O father, thou art — O Lord, thou art our father, and we are the clay, and thou art our potter, and all the works of thy hand.” And now, “rise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I let you hear my words” — and then we see exactly how it’s done. He didn’t say, because he was the Lord, that he wouldn’t have a vessel that was spoiled — but your concept of a man may not be perfect, but that being conceiving is the Lord. So your concept of yourself is not the most perfect concept that it could be, but that being conceiving, which is yourself, is the Lord, that is God, that is the father.1223 ¶52

And if your concept of yourself is not what you would like it to be, don’t discard it — change it. Actually change it, and actually feel yourself to be — to be — to be. What would it be like if it were true — just what would it be like?1223 ¶53

I speak here so often about states of consciousness. Do you know what a state of consciousness is? It’s a mood, just a mood — what, with the feeling, would the mood be like if it were true? If I were the man that I would like to be, what would the feeling be like? I lived it through — how would I see the world, and how would the world see me? Well, that’s a mood, that’s a state — you enter that state and abide in it, dwell in it, and live in it.1223 ¶54

It may not come tonight or tomorrow morning, but if you remain faithful to that state, to that mood, it will actually externalize itself in your world, and you will move from wherever you are — if you don’t like what you are — to where you want to be.1223 ¶55

It works that way, because you know who the potter is, and you know where the house is, and wherever you are in this world, that is the potter’s house, for you are the temple of the living God, and the living God is the potter, and the potter is your own wonderful human imagination — so now you know who he is.1223 ¶56

So let no one lead you astray to a false god, to some other being — it doesn’t really exist. So when you hear the word God, the word Jesus, which is a marvelous word, don’t let your mind jump outside to something other than your own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶57

And see what you are doing to Jesus by imagining — or, simply, for one moment, stop, to observe what you are imagining.1223 ¶58

You say, you can’t see Jesus — no one has ever seen him, there’s no physical description of him in scripture. Why? We do not observe imagination as we do objects in space — we are the reality which is called imagination, so you can’t observe it, you observe the fruits of its activities. You see what is happening in your world, and when you see what is happening in your world, then you observe the fruit of the imaginal activity — but the activity itself you don’t.1223 ¶59

So — God the father, who is the Lord, who is the father, is like pure imagining in myself; you actually — it dwells and works in the very depths of my own being, underlying all of my faculties, including perception, but he streams into my surface life, least disguised, in the form of productive fancy.1223 ¶60

I catch him in the act, when I am daydreaming — I sit there, and I think of a friend, and I wonder what is he or she doing, and then I catch him in the act — that’s how you catch him.1223 ¶61

But you cannot see him, and you will never see him, and know him — really know him — until his son reveals him to you. And when his son stands before you — and his son is David — and when David stands before you, and there is no uncertainty as to the relationship, then you know who you are, and it’s all your own wonderful human imagination.1223 ¶62

Now I hope you know tonight who the potter is, and where his house is, and what the vessel is, and what the clay is, and I hope you’ll take it seriously, and try to become the perfect potter, who will not discard vessels that are spoiled, but rework them into the more perfect image, as it seemed good to the father to do. Now let us go into the silence.1223 ¶63