Tonight’s subject is “The Pattern Man.” Paul, in his final letter to Timothy, -- when he felt that he was about to depart this world, he wrote Timothy, and he said: “Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” Paul’s Letters were written twenty-odd years before any other part of the New Testament. The earliest Gospel is Mark; that came twenty-odd years after the Letters of Paul. It was in Paul that the entire story unfolded itself. Paul said: “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, I did not confer with flesh and blood.” To whom would he turn? And he spent his last days, as told us in the Book of Acts, expounding the matter to them, “trying to convince them about Jesus, then from the law of Moses and from the prophets. And some were convinced by what he said, while others disbelieved.” He found the Pattern. Like every one, we are looking for a man, -- some strange being coming out of space to save humanity; and he was one of those who looked for a man. Then he found it was not a man, but a pattern that was buried in man; that God had prepared the way for His sons to return, and the “way” is buried in man as a pattern. When that pattern unfolded in man, then the one in whom it unfolds realized Who the Coming One really was.1138 ¶1

If you take the 39 books of the Old Testament; although they are written across the centuries, they form one book, and events that are widely separated in time are welded into a pattern, and that pattern unfolds within the individual, forming what we call in Scripture “Jesus.” Jesus, then, is the pattern. I call Jesus the Pattern Man. The first one to use the word “Jesus” is Paul. The first one to use the word “Christ” is Paul. He speaks of Jesus Christ. Well, “Jesus” has the same root as the word “Jehovah,” -- the Lord God Jehovah, the same root as that of Jesus; and the word “Messiah” and the word “Christ” are one and the same. So, when he speaks of Jesus Christ, he is speaking of the Lord God Jehovah and His Messiah.1138 ¶2

Now, where did he find it in the Old Testament? In the Second Book of Samuel, the 7th chapter, we read these words: “Go to my servant David, and say to David, ‘When your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, --’” which is a euphemism for “Death” -- when you are dead and you are buried with your fathers, your forefathers, “‘I will raise up your son after you, who will come forth from your body, . . . I will be his father, and he shall be my son.’” Here He tells David that He is going to raise up a son that will come forth from his body, and that He the Lord will be the father of that boy. That son will call Him “Father.”1138 ¶3

Now, everyone was looking for the physical descent of someone called David, because they did not understand the great mystery of Scripture. David symbolizes Humanity. The whole vast world of man is symbolized as David, and he will raise up out of man That which will be the Son of God. Well, you are a man. I am a man. Regardless of our sex, generically we are all Man, whether you be male or female; so, I will raise up out of Man a son that will come forth from his body, but I will be his father, not the man out of which he is raised! I, the Lord, will be his father.1138 ¶4

Well, how on earth would you know this unless it happened to you? You can hear it from others, as they heard it from Paul, -- as you are hearing it from me.1138 ¶5

In the early church Paul was known as the Apostle, -- not just an apostle, but the Apostle, as though there were no others, because Paul -- whoever Paul was; but Paul is that state that everyone must reach. When he reaches that state called “Paul,” then it happens in him, and he is sent to tell it. So, he tells it, hoping to convince those who will listen to him, concerning this great mystery. “And some were convinced by what they heard, while others disbelieved.” He used Scripture to persuade them. He showed them in Scripture what he really meant. As it unfolded in him, then he took Scripture, and this is what it meant.1138 ¶6

For in me something was raised, but it wasn’t another; it was myself. I found myself buried in myself. When I rose in myself, I came out of this thing you call a man; so the son was raised out of man, which is David.1138 ¶7

Now, that which came out is my very Being! I came out. And then in time -- in the not-too-distant time after coming out, here I found Humanity personified as the David out of which I came. And Humanity then became my son, but I then was the Father. He simply raised up Himself out of Man. It was the Father who was buried in Man. He raises up out of Man Himself. So that man who was raised can say, “I and my Father are one.” So, “when you see Me, you see the Father,” for: “I and my Father are one.” We are not two. First there is a father and then a son, and then it is David. -- The whole of humanity personified will come out as David.1138 ¶8

So, the pattern is buried in man, and God has prepared the way through that pattern for Himself to return. It was God Who came down into humanity. It is God who actually became as we are, that we may be as He is, because it is God who is buried in man.1138 ¶9

Now you may say: “Will he suffer as I have suffered?” Well, we are told in Scripture: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Well, someone said to me: “After all, he bore my disease, and he took upon himself my infirmities? It is I who suffer. I am suffering -- not any other.”1138 ¶10

And they repeated it: “I am suffering.” Well, who do you think God is? What is His name forever and forever? Is it not revealed in Scripture, “My name forever and forever is I AM”? And when you go to the people of the world, called Israel, and they ask you: “What is His name?” say to them: “I AM. That is who I AM. This is my name forever.” So, you say that you are suffering, and not God? You have a false god when you say, “I am suffering, but He is not.” Who is He? His name is I AM. He isn’t pretending that He is you. If He pretended that He is you, that would be God masquerading under a veil of flesh -- masquerading as a man. He’s not masquerading as a man; He became man -- actually became as you are, that you may be as He is.1138 ¶11

So, when He raises up His son through the body, it is you that He raises. And to show you that you are God, He has one more marvelous experience. There are four Mighty Experiences: The first one, He raises up in you as you. That one is simply one side of the coin. The same night that you awake within yourself is the night that you are “born from above.” As you are told in Scripture, “You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless you are born from above. You must be born again.” So, that is told you. So, the first night that you awake within yourself, that same night you are “born from above.”1138 ¶12

Then He unfolds in the next great drama which comes about 139 days later -- in my own case it did; so I would say approximately five months later this thing happens, when actually you realize what came out. He raised himself, because it is God. If God is a father, then God has a son. Then you find His son; and in finding His son as your son, -- now you know who He raised up. At first you are aware of being John, if your name is John. And that’s who came out. Then, five months later, when He raises up now His son and you are the father of that son, then you know who actually He raised. He raised Himself as you! So, there is only God buried in Humanity; therefore there can only be God to be raised. And if God is a father, He has to raise up His son; so the son is made to say in Scripture, “Thou wouldst not leave my soul in hell.” “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.”1138 ¶13

So, here out of man comes the meaning of His promise: “I will raise up your son after you, when you lie down with your fathers.” I will be His father, and He shall be my son! So, when you are raised up, you think then: “Am I now the son?” No, not yet. You are the Father, but you do not know it yet; and then 139 days later another explosion of the mind, and this time He raises up the son. But He first raises Himself. You are the Self. Then He raises the son, and you are the father of that that He now raises. Therefore, you are God the Father!1138 ¶14

Every one is going to experience it! I don’t care what you have done or what you are planning to or what you are doing now; it’s irrelevant. You may have a dream that you are a billionaire, -- well, that is all right. It will all pass away. It means nothing. You may have the dream of being the greatest scientist in the world and bring something into the world completely unknown to man, and receive all the plaudits of the world. It will pass away. It means nothing.1138 ¶15

This is the only reality: God redeeming Himself. God ventured into death. This world is the world of death. Everything dies. It appears, it waxes, it wanes, and then it vanishes. Everything in this world comes in, grows, wanes, and disappears. But that which I am talking about is forever. Eternity came down into Time and buried itself in Time -- in man. And He is buried in man. Then in the fullness of time He redeems Himself through a pattern.1138 ¶16

So, Jesus of Scripture is the Pattern Man! The eternal pattern. There is no other way to the Father. He said, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life; no man cometh unto the Father, except by me.” There is no other way.1138 ¶17

So, when people tell me: “Can it be in this religion, or that religion, or the other religion, or in something other than this?” I reply: “There is no other. There is only one way to the Father, and that way is through this Pattern Man. And Jesus Christ is the Pattern buried in every man.”1138 ¶18

Well, Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah -- God the Father. And Christ is His Son, the Messiah called David. And David calls him “Father,” calls him, “My God,” calls him, “my Lord.” So, he said, “How did David call me? He called me in Spirit.” “Well, what did he call me? He called me, ‘my Lord.’” Read it in Scripture. “What think ye of me?” And they answered, “The son of David.” The son of David, -- “Then why did David In the spirit call me, ‘my Lord’? If David thus calls me, ‘my Lord,’ how can I be his son?”1138 ¶19

He is my son, and he symbolizes Humanity, for I, the Pattern Man, -- I am buried In every child born of woman, regardless of his race, regardless of his nationality, regardless of anything -- I am buried in every one.1138 ¶20

And in every one, in the fullness of time, I will rise, and will awaken in man as the man in whom I awaken. He will know it at that moment when I awaken in him; he will simply know that something happened. He will know that he came out of his own skull, which was to him a tomb. He came out of that skull, and he was “born from above”; but he is bewildered. He tries to tell others, and they have no ears to listen to him, for to them he has some strange hallucination. It’s not what they were looking for. “So, don’t bring me any nonsense,” they will say.1138 ¶21

Thus, he spent every day from morning to evening just simply expounding the matter to them, trying to testify to them concerning the Kingdom of God, trying to convince them concerning Jesus. Well, they never heard of Jesus, for the word “Jesus” came into the language only through Paul. But he knew “Jesus” meant “Jehovah.” He’s trying to convince them of the reality of this Self-existent Being called Jehovah. He named it “Jesus.” YOD HE YAU is the root of it. And then some were convinced by what he said, because he used Scripture. Well, the only Scripture he could have used in those days was the Old Testament, for there was no New Testament.1138 ¶22

The first books of the New Testament are the 13 Letters of Paul, and they preceded the next book of the New Testament by at least twenty-odd years, which is the Gospel of Mark. That book was written twenty-odd years after these Letters of Paul. And Paul’s first letter is Galatians. In Galatians he tells us, “When it pleased God to reveal His son in me --” The preposition is “in,” not “to,” -- but “in me.” “-- I did not confer with flesh and blood.” To whom could I turn? A Freudian? To one who studied with Jung or one who studied with Adler? What could they tell me? What on earth could any man in this world tell me if he is going to rationalize based upon his concept of Jung or Adler or Freud or any other doctor? They do not know.1138 ¶23

Well, here, the whole thing is buried in man. So, just imagine someone who knew his Old Testament backwards, he had committed it to memory, he knew it; a learned man was Paul. And then he studied and studied but couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find the answer as he studied it. But, then, it erupted within him. That tree had never yet borne fruit, and suddenly the Tree of Life began to unfold within him, and the fruit unfolded within him. Well, he is the Tree of Life, and he is bearing fruit, -- he is bearing a son; and the son is Humanity calling him “Father”.1138 ¶24

I say to you, what I’ve told you tonight and will continue to tell you to the ends of time, -- I see no other reason for my being here, other than to tell my experience. I was sent, as he was sent, -- whoever he was. He was called by the word “apostle” because he was sent. That is what the word “apostle” means; one who is sent. You don’t volunteer. You don’t do it for yourself. You can’t send yourself. You are sent. You are called and sent. So, to be called is also to be sent. I was called into that assembly and sent.1138 ¶25

At the moment, I did not know why I was sent. I only knew I was sent. Then came the experience thirty years later. That’s why I was sent, in preparation for the experience, that I simply may take the barnacles off this ship and set it once more straight, even though there are only a few to hear it.1138 ¶26

What does that matter? There were only a few who heard him, if you read Scripture carefully, -- just a few. At the end of his days, he spent the time in his own little home from morning till night; and those who would come, he simply took Scripture and showed them where what happened to him was foretold In Scripture.1138 ¶27

But no one reading Scripture could have seen it that way, for trained as they were, they were looking for a man -- some unique man to come from without, and were told that, by some miraculous, fantastic way, was the leader of men, and that he would save man, -- as Hitler said he would and as Stalin said he would, and Karl Marx said he would. They were all “outside” saviors. There is no “outside” savior. The Savior is within you. He is buried within you as a pattern; and when the pattern unfolds, it is not another unfolding, it is you unfolding. He unfolds in you as you. You are the one who finds himself awakening within your own grave, which is your skull. It is you who comes out of that skull like one being born. It is you who stands before Humanity personified as the son called David, and he calls you -- not another; he calls you “Father.”1138 ¶28

Then you read Scripture, and in Scripture David calls God “Father,” fulfilling what God said he would do. He said, “I will raise up your son after you. He shall come forth from your body. I will be his father, and you [sic] shall be my son” ; and then David is made to say: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: he said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.’” So, the whole thing unfolds, and you go back and read Scripture -- you have read it before. How on earth could any man ever have understood it until in the fullness of time it unfolded within him? When it unfolded in a man, that man knew what Scripture intended all along. Then you tell it to those who are still looking for some external savior, and they are still looking for him; so they turn their backs upon you, and they will not believe you.1138 ¶29

This is a repeated pattern over and over and over. Some believed -- a few believed, but others disbelieved. I’ll find that until the ends of my days.1138 ¶30

He returns to Timothy and tells Timothy to “follow the pattern of the sound words --.” He took the entire 39 books and events widely separated in time, and he brought them together to form the pattern. He found some in the early parts of Genesis, and then some in the Book of Samuel; then he found some in the Book of Psalms, in Jeremiah; he took these patterns and wove them together, and they all unfolded within him.1138 ¶31

There was a promise in the beginning. He found that in the early parts of Genesis. He promises a child -- a child that would prove something. That’s the son coming, just a son. Then he tells you: “Here’s another sign: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” That is in the Book of Exodus. And, then, that happens to you. “To me in this same manner?” Yes, it’s going to happen to you. It happened to me. Like a fiery serpent I was lifted up; and here is something that recorded it thousands of years ago. The whole thing is contemporary. It is an eternal drama that is taking place. One is drawn into that eternal drama, and then it unfolds within him.1138 ¶32

I like to repeat it in this manner: If you can conceive of an action -- a simple action that is forever taking place, like an eternal command, -- something to be done absolutely and continuously. It’s like -- well, the imperative passive mood; something that is done absolutely, but at the same time continuously, without reference to the completeness of the action or the incompleteness of the action, without reference to its duration, without reference to its repetition, without reference to its position in time. It is simply taking place in Eternity. And then you are drawn by this like a magnet; and as you are drawn into it -- because it is a simple act talked about in Scripture, the action unfolds within you, for it is already in you. You are drawn into it, and it unfolds within you. You are the one having the experience. You don’t see it as something on the outside. You are experiencing the action.1138 ¶33

And when the whole thing unfolds within you, you go back to Scripture, and then you see that this is what was said anyway. This is what was prophesied would happen, but you thought it was going to happen to another. I thought it happened two thousand years ago to one called Jesus. Now I see that Jesus is a pattern. Jesus is the Pattern Man buried in every man; and when that pattern unfolds in man, man is Jesus!1138 ¶34

Well, Jesus is the Lord, -- the Lord God Jehovah. So, there is no room for another god. There is only God. So, when asked, “What is the greatest commandment in the world?” he replied: “Hear, 0 Israel. The lord, our God, the Lord is one. There is no greater commandment.” You can’t have two gods -- only one. But one God becoming us unfolds in us, and we are that one God!1138 ¶35

So, in the end, we are all one; for if the same son calls you “Father” that called me “Father,” are we not one? You are not going to have another son. You are going to have the same son -- the identical son calling you, “Father.” Well, if he calls you, “Father,” and he really is your son, and he has already called me, “Father,” and I know he is my son; then you and I, though we differ in identity, -- we still are one. We simply are only one. “Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.” There can’t be a second god, or other gods. But in the end, everyone in this world will form “one body, . . . one spirit, . . . one Lord, . . . one God and Father of all.”1138 ¶36

Now, this is far more important than to tell you how to make a million, which is a simple thing for you if you really want it and you are willing to give the time to it. Those who came here tonight, thinking that that would be part of tonight’s talk, -- then for your benefit, I will tell you a story. I have repeated it unnumbered times, but I will tell it again if you are here for that purpose:1138 ¶37

Your own wonderful human imagination is the being that I speak of when I speak of God. When I say, “God became as we are, that we may be as He is,” I am speaking of your imagination. And you cannot get away from your imagination. “And by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” That’s your imagination.1138 ¶38

There isn’t a thing in this world that you see now and call it a fact that wasn’t first only imagined: the building; the clothes you wear; the chairs on which you are seated; this little mike; -- everything was first only imagined, and then executed.1138 ¶39

Well, if all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made, -- good, bad or indifferent, try to find some other maker than your own wonderful human imagination. Try to find it. You may say: “Edison did it” -- in his imagination; “Einstein did it” -- in his imagination. Show me one other instrument other than the human imagination that conceived anything in this world, and that is God. “If all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” then you conclude that He must be the human imagination. So, I tell you, your own wonderful human imagination is the God of Whom I speak! That is the Being that actually will awaken within you.1138 ¶40

But, now, to get things in this world, assume that you are. “All things are possible to Him.” Assume that you are the man that you want to be -- or the woman that you want to be. And, although at the moment of your assumption your reason and your senses deny it, if you dare to persist in that assumption as though it were true, that assumption -- in a way unknown to your rational, conscious mind -- will harden into fact. It knows how to actually build that series of events necessary to make it so in your world.1138 ¶41

If you really want to be what you call “secure”, -- say, in finances, dare to assume that you are secure, and live as though you were; sleep as though you were; and then it will happen in your world that will cause you to leave your present environment and move on into the state that you have assumed.1138 ¶42

If you wait for things to change before you dare to assume, you will wait forever. Circumstances cannot change of themselves. You change them by changing your concept of Self. To attempt to change the world before you change your own imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of things.1138 ¶43

Now, you say: “Well, I am reaping these things in my world, and I didn’t make them.” No, -- you have forgotten the blossom time. What you are now reaping is simply the fruit of some forgotten blossom time. You have a very faulty memory. We all have. We can’t remember when we set in motion what we are now reaping as a harvest; but everything in our world was once planted as an imaginal act, and it has not a physical cause, -- it has an imaginal cause. Every natural effect in this world has an imaginal cause, and not a natural cause. A natural cause only seems; it is the delusion of a faulty memory, because man cannot remember the blossom time when he actually set it in motion.1138 ¶44

If you will try that, then if you came tonight to hear something more practical, then that is the practical side of this teaching.1138 ¶45

But may I tell you, I consider that what is most profoundly spiritual is most directly practical. For, if you really give all your attention to this pattern, “and set your hope fully on this unveiling of The Christ you,” it will be far more profitable than seeking to become rich in the world. If this thing should only unfold within you, then the world is yours. You don’t have any desire for the fantastic claims that people make in this world.1138 ¶46

So, if you really give all your attention to the hope, as Peter said, -- “Set your hope fully upon the glory, upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” If Jesus Christ is already in me, as told me in the Letters of Paul, then I can only wait for the unveiling of that Jesus Christ within me. And this is the hope that makes it wisdom to go after the burdens of this long, dark night of time.1138 ¶47

So, you find yourself in pain, find yourself limited by some infirmity for a little while; bear in mind: “He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our diseases.” And His name is I AM. So, when you say that I am doing it all by myself and He is not bearing it with me, remember: His name is I AM. And I AM, which is the real name of God, became as limited as you are, and now bears your infirmities and your diseases; and He does the suffering.1138 ¶48

But in the end, He will awaken in you as you, and you will be the Lord Jesus; and your son will bear witness of your fatherhood, and He is the Messiah in Scripture, as told us in Samuel and told us in the Psalms. And when you meet him, his name is David. You are the Lord Jesus, and David called you -- the Lord Jesus -- “my Father.” He calls you, “my Lord.” He calls you, “my God,” for that is the story of Scripture.1138 ¶49

Man has been completely educated out of it and he brings his prefabricated misconceptions of Scripture to a message of this nature. Well, it doesn’t dovetail with what he has been taught; therefore, he goes away saying, “I didn’t hear it,” or “I don’t care for it.”1138 ¶50

He still wants his external god to whom to pray; and if his prayers are not answered, then he will say to himself that God did not think it wise to grant his prayer, -- in spite of the fact that we are told whatever we ask for will be granted. He didn’t say if it was good for you; he just said you should ask for it, but he made this statement: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you will.” Read it in the 11th chapter of the Book of Mark. “Whatever you ask, believe that you have received it, and you will.” “If we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know we have obtained the request made of Him.” Read that in the First Epistle of John, the 5th chapter, 15th verse.1138 ¶51

These are statements made by the Awakened Man. Therefore, if the prayer is not answered, you are praying to a wrong god. But if you know that the God to Whom you pray is your own wonderful human imagination, then instead of begging, you appropriate. You appropriate the state; so I call it the subjective appropriation of the objective hope.1138 ¶52

What is my objective hope? Well, I appropriate it subjectively. I “go within” and I simply appropriate it. I simply assume the feeling of my wish fulfilled. I appropriate it; and if my wish fulfilled were true, how would I see the world in which I live? And then do everything to make me see it as I would see it if it were: see the people in my world as I would have to see them, and let them see me as they would be compelled to see me if what I am doing is an actual external fact. If they know me and I know them, and something happens in my life that becomes public knowledge, -- well, then, they would know it. Then let them see me as they would have to see me if it were true.1138 ¶53

So, the subjective appropriation of the objective hope is prayer. You don’t beg any one. Don’t ask anyone. You simply appropriate it.1138 ¶54

For, if He is in me, where would I go to ask Him? As we are told, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Then test yourselves to see if you really realize it. Put yourself to the test. If I say, “Jesus Christ,” and your mind jumps on the outside to something other than yourself, you have failed the test, for you are told: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? -- unless, of course,” said he, “you fail to meet the test!” Well, you have just had the test. So, when I use the words, “Jesus Christ,” and something on the outside comes to you, you have failed the test, for Jesus Christ is in you.1138 ¶55

If I go to Him in my prayer, where would I go but to myself? He became as I am, that I may be as He is. He actually became me. He is in me as my own wonderful human imagination, for “by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” so I go within and appropriate the state. So, the subjective appropriation of my objective hope is my prayer.1138 ¶56

And having appropriated it, I drop it, as I would the seed into the earth. The seed must fall into the earth and rot before it can be made alive. Well, just drop it, and then in its own good time it will come into harvest.1138 ¶57

It takes an interval of time between my appropriation and its fulfillment; so having done it, I drop it, and go about my “Father’s business” appropriating other states -- not only for myself, but for “myself pushed out,” which I call “others.” For, in the end, there is Only One.1138 ¶58

One day we will know that you and I are one, for you must be the same Being that I am, though we are individualized, and we will remain individualized. But you must be the Being that I am, because you are the Father of my son. How on earth could you be the Father of my son and not be as I AM?1138 ¶59

So, I will know you -- know you in Eternity as who you are, a friend; I will know you as my brother, but I will also know you as God. Every one, in the end, I will know as God -- the Only God, but I will know them as my brother and know them as my friend. All will be God.1138 ¶60

Not one will be lost, -- in spite of all that is said to the contrary. There is no hell waiting for you. There is only an infinite body of Love -- an infinite body of Perfection, which one day you will wear; and wearing it, nothing can remain in your presence that is imperfect. As you walk by -- as you glide by, everything will be molded in harmony with the perfection that is springing within you.1138 ¶61

You do not need a realm called Heaven. You are Heaven. The body you will wear will be perfect, and in it presence nothing can remain imperfect. And that’s Heaven! So, if you went into the hell of hells, it would be automatically and instantaneously transformed into Heaven.1138 ¶62

So, you don’t need love; all you need is the Body of the Risen Lord within you. And when He rises within you, that body is an infinite body of Love and Perfection.1138 ¶63

So, here the Pattern, I know from experience, is buried in man. It’s the way of escape from the world of death into the world of Eternity. And that Pattern was built into man before the foundation of the world.1138 ¶64

He prepared the way for His own escape; end when the time is fully come to depart this world, as Paul said, “The time for my departure has come. 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,” and now Paul is about to depart.1138 ¶65

But in his departure he spends his time from morning to evening expounding the matter to them, trying to convince them about Jesus, trying to testify to the Kingdom of God, and using Scripture to support his argument -- both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. And some believed what he said and some disbelieved; and everyone who comes into this same state of consciousness where the Pattern unfolds within him is going to find the same crowd, some believing and some disbelieving, until one day it happens in them; and they too will be confronted with those who will believe them and disbelieve them.1138 ¶66

And it will go on and on until the end when all are redeemed.1138 ¶67

When all are redeemed, it is by the one Pattern; so I say there is no other way of redemption. When people tell me diets will do it or meditation will do it or this other -ism will do it, or some other savior, -- there is no other savior. The Savior is a Pattern, and the Pattern is in man, and it’s called in Scripture “Jesus.” There is no other way. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “No one comes to the Father, except by me.”1138 ¶68

The one speaking in these quotations is the Pattern Man, and until this Pattern unfolds in man, he remains in the world of death. Well, when it unfolds within him, he is that which unfolds within him. He is the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah. And because He is the Father, there must be a son; and the son stands before him, which is the sum total of Humanity with all its experiences personified, and that infinite beauty is called David. He is the David of Biblical fame, and he calls you “Father.”1138 ¶69

Now let us go into the Silence.1138 ¶70

Last night after the meeting a lady asked me if I would touch on what I said earlier about who saw Him. He appeared first to Peter, and then to the Twelve, then to five hundred, and then to James, then to the Apostles, and finally to Paul. Well, I will touch it just briefly, for her sake.1138 ¶71

When He appears, it is simply the man in whom the Pattern has awakened. It is that man, whether you can him by a Biblical name or by any other name, -- anyone in whom the Pattern of Redemption awakes is that man called “Jesus.” But you may know him in this world as George or Peter or Neville, or any other name.1138 ¶72

I know in my own case they must now start. It has already started. Those who see me in spirit as the Being that I am claiming that I am -- I am claiming it only because it has happened in me. I am not speculating. I am not theorizing. The whole thing has unfolded itself in me.1138 ¶73

There is a gentleman here tonight whose wife had this experience this week and wrote me this letter. She says, “I had this wonderful experience where you gave this banquet. It was beautifully done and very formal. On your right sat one who seemed to have been, or should have been, an apostle. He was well dressed. I sat to your left. I knew the truth of what he was saying, but he was hysterical, because it struck him funnily. He told you that he had a dream that you were Jesus Christ, and then he started to laugh in a strange, disbelieving manner; and he kept on laughing as he repeated the dream that he had.”1138 ¶74

She said, “I knew that the dream that he had was true, and in spite of the fact that it was a dream, he didn’t think it true. He disbelieved it completely. But I knew it was true.”1138 ¶75

Well, that’s Scripture. She is a lady. In the end of the Book of Luke it is the woman who comes to the Apostles, and it is the woman who said, “He is risen,” and the apostles thought it an idle tale, and they did not believe it. There’s your story. She believed it, and she was not judged among the apostles. He was judged among the apostles, the man who sat at my right, the honored position at the table, and did not believe it.1138 ¶76

The apostles named in Scripture were not sent until after. They were told, “Remain in the city until you are imbued with power from above.” They had not yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit; so they could not be sent.1138 ¶77

So, they are coming. One after the other are coming to make that number. First He appears to Peter. Well, I told you who was Peter in my case -- a little girl 8 years old, Maylo. She was the one who saw the thing in detail. Then came others. Now they are gathering.1138 ¶78

No bragging about it. If it happened in me, it happened in me. There is not a thing I’ve done to warrant it. It’s Grace. It is a gift -- unwarranted, unearned. It is God’s gift. Grace is God’s gift of Himself to man which man did not earn. He did not merit it. It’s a gift. So, no one can brag.1138 ¶79

So, if it happened in me, which it has, I cannot brag; but I do know there must be witnesses to confirm that it did happen in me. And his wife -- he is sitting right here; his wife was one who actually witnessed it this past week.1138 ¶80

Are there any other questions, please?1138 ¶81

26-Jul-1968 San Francisco Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed. But to unravel from the truth of Scripture, the interpretations placed upon it is really quite a task, for people think in terms of the end of the world when they think of the end. That is not what Scripture teaches. When I speak tonight of the end, I mean your end, the individual’s end, in the journey, when he leaves this world of death and enters the world of Eternal Life. Tonight I will share with you what I have experienced – what I know from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. If it is in conflict with what you’ve been taught, I will not apologize. It doesn’t really matter. If you’ve been taught to believe that there will be an end, and the whole world will blow up, then that’s your problem at the moment. That is not my vision. My vision is that God became humanity – every child born of woman; and no one can fail, but no one. And God rises in man individually, and there are signs of the end of His journey through this world of eternal death.952 ¶1

The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of the life of Christ. When I use the word “Christ” I am not speaking of a little Christ on the outside of you. If there be any other Christ, other than that Christ who is crucified within us, who now and continues to rise in us individually, he is a false Christ. And blind teachers speak of Him as coming from without. I tell you, He comes from within. And when He arises from within, He rises as you – not something coming from without – He rises as you, and you will know that you are Christ. And Christ is God the Father. There are signs, but it comes suddenly upon you – no shadow to let you know it’s going to happen tonight or tomorrow. No, it comes like a thief in the night. You never know. No one knows the other; no one knows the day – only the Father, the One who is rising within you. But no one knows, other than He who is rising. He erupts within you suddenly, and you are He.952 ¶2

Now, here we are told, in the last chapter of the book of Daniel, the voice is speaking to him, and it tells him: “If your name is written in the book, all those whose names are written in the book, they are the redeemed.” Daniel asks the question, “How long to the end of these wonders?” And he answered, “A time, two times, and half a time.” When he tells Daniel, Daniel says, “I heard, but I did not understand;” and he said to Daniel, “Close the book and seal it until the end.” So the book is sealed – completely sealed – until it erupts within us.952 ¶3

Now, what on earth? He doesn’t tell him when he starts to count. It is a time, two times, and half a time. The Ancients looked upon a year as a time, and the Ancients thought a year to be 360 days. So, three times three hundred and sixty, and half of a time, which would be a hundred and eighty, comes to one thousand two hundred and sixty days.952 ¶4

We find that in the 11th chapter of the book of Revelation. When the witness comes into the world, he will prophesy for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. But it begins, as we are told in that chapter, with the birth of the Child. “And she brought forth the child, and the child was caught up to the throne of God, and she fled into the wilderness, and all things were prepared for her by God for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.” The Old Testament does not tell us when the count begins, the New tells us when it begins. It begins with the birth of the Child.952 ¶5

Now, believe me, I am telling you what I have experienced. I had no knowledge that this thing was so literally true. I was born and raised in a Christian environment – a Protestant environment. I was taught to believe that almost two thousand years ago a unique experience took place and they tell it as secular history – that a woman called Mary, not knowing a man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and brought forth a physical child. That’s what they tell you. The child rose and became a teacher and taught in the world. That’s what I was taught, at least. And his name was Jesus. May I tell you? It is not true! I will tell you the story as it actually takes place, as I experienced it.952 ¶6

May I tell you that you individually, male or female, you are Mary, and birth to Christ must give if you in blessedness for now and ever more would live? Until Christ be formed in you, well, then, you remain a man of flesh and blood, going through all the horrors of the world in this world of death. You are to bring forth God, and that is the sign of your own birth as God, for “unless you be born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” No one can.952 ¶7

And this birth, which I was taught as a child took place two thousand years ago – yes, it took place two thousand years ago, but not as I was taught it. I’ll tell you exactly how it takes place.952 ¶8

You are walking this earth as you did this day. You least expect it, because you were taught – as I was taught – it took place two thousand years ago. And you go to sleep as I did in 1959 in this city across the street at the hotel called the Sir Francis Drake. I spoke in the morning to an audience of maybe a thousand people. It was an open meeting – no charge, a voluntary effort, and a thousand came. The morning of July the 20th 1959, this is what happened.952 ¶9

On Sunday – this was the 19th – a friend of mine joined me for an early dinner at the hotel at 5:00 o’clock. We went upstairs and I called Beverly Hills to speak to my wife and daughter, and he was a friend of my wife and daughter; and we simply spoke. He was working at the Fairmont as a checker. He said, “I have to go early because I have to be up early to check the waiters in and the food in.” So he left early, and I retired. I must have been in bed – oh, before eleven.952 ¶10

It was a normal day, just like today, and at four o’clock in the morning a vibration is in my head that I have never felt before – the strangest vibration. Every bone in my head is rattling, and I entertained this thought. I thought, “Well, now, this is it,” meaning – this is my exit from this world. This must be a massive hemorrhage as they describe a massive hemorrhage. Instead of that, I found myself waking. Here I am, waking – waking, but when I completely awoke, I am in my skull, and my skull is a tomb. It is an actual tomb, and I am in my skull, and the skull is sealed. There is no opening. I am fully awake, as I have never been awake before – as though I had been sleeping for unnumbered centuries, and now for the first time in this long, long sleep, I am awake. I arose, believe it or not – I am not a little tiny thing, I am the same being that I know myself to be, and I rise, and I stand within my skull. Here is this little thing – I only wear a seven hat – so it’s not this. It’s a skull, it’s my skull, but I awaken within it. I am fully standing in my skull, and I know I am sealed in.952 ¶11

But I also have an innate knowledge and I know that if I could push the base of my skull, something would give, and I did. I pushed it and something rolled away, leaving a little opening. And I took my head and pushed it at the opening and squeezed it through – inch by inch; and when I got this much out, I then pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull. And here, when I got out, for a few seconds I was on the ground. Then I rose and looked back at that from which I had emerged. It was this body. It was ghastly pale, and the head was turning from side to side as one in recovery from a great ordeal. I looked at it, and here I am standing, and then the most unearthly wind – you can’t describe it, it’s a peculiar wind. You hear it, it sounds like a hurricane. It sounds like some peculiar storm. For a moment, I thought it originated to my left, so I turned from the body that was going this way – just the head – and looked over to the corner. As I did so, thinking, “Is it coming from there?” it is still in my head, but it is divided. It is here and it’s still in the corner. I looked back – I could not have been diverted more than a few seconds – and the body is gone. It disappeared, but in its place sat my three elder brothers. My oldest brother Cecil sat where the head was. My second brother Victor sat where the right foot was. My third brother Lawrence sat where the left foot was. They do not see me. I not only see them, I can read their thoughts. Their thoughts are objective to me. They are as objective as you are. Whatever they think I can see it, I hear it and see it. But to them, I am invisible; I am not present.952 ¶12

My brother Lawrence was the most disturbed by this peculiar, unearthly wind. He got off the bed where the body was – but the body’s gone now. He started towards the same corner because he thought it came from there. He made not more than one or two steps when his attention is attracted by something on the floor, and looking down, he announced, “It is Neville’s baby.” My brothers Cecil and Victor said, “How can Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point. He lifts the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes from the floor and places it on the bed. I am still invisible to them and I lift that infant wrapped in swaddling clothes – lift it up in my invisible hands, far more powerful than any hand in this world, and this heavenly smile breaks upon its face as I ask it, “How is my sweetheart?” To me, it was the most glorious infant ever conceived, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” And it broke into the heavenly smile, and the whole thing dissolved.952 ¶13

That is the sign – the first sign. You start counting from there now. This happened on the morning of the 20th of July, 1959 when the woman in me – which is the woman in every one which is called in Scripture, “Jerusalem from above,” “Zion;” this is the Great Mother that brings forth to freedom. You start counting from that day.952 ¶14

I’ll give you the next event. It was the sixth day of December of the same year, 1959. This time I’m back in my home in Beverly Hills. A vibration similar to this started, but strangely enough, it is not at the base of my skull – it’s at the top of my skull. It increases in intensity, and when it reaches the apex of intensity, I felt my head explode. As it exploded, here I am, seated in a modestly furnished room, and there, leaning against the side of an open door and looking out on a pastoral scene, is my son David of Biblical fame. There is David! And there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between David and myself. It’s David, and I am his father, and he knows I am his father, and he also knows he is my son. I am looking at him, drinking him in. You’ve never seen such beauty – well, you can’t describe the beauty of David. And while I am feasting upon my son, a lad of about 12 or 13 – the whole thing dissolves.952 ¶15

Turn the calendar, now to the 8th day of April 1960. Again, I retire without any thought in mind that something is going to happen this night. I didn’t know what the next sign was. I knew these two had happened, but I didn’t anticipate them because I was never taught them. I didn’t see them in Scripture. I didn’t foresee it; it just happened. On the morning of the 8th of April, a bolt of lightning – out of the blue – it struck me, and split me in two from the top of my head to the base of my spine – and here I am, parted. Two halves of the being called Neville; his whole body is parted right down the entire spine – every little thing is split in two. At the base of my spine is a body of golden liquid, living light. I contemplate it. As I contemplated it, I fused with it, and then, like a serpent of spiral light, I actually moved up my entire body right into my skull. I went up like a spiral of lightning into my skull. My head vibrated as no one could conceive. It was just simply that everything shook as I got into that head. Every bone began to rattle. That’s the 8th of April.952 ¶16

Then for two years and nine months, no vision – a few, but not the important ones, then, came the morning of the 1st of January 1963 – on that morning, suddenly my head became luminous. There was no circumference; there was no limit – completely luminosity. And floating above me about twenty feet is a dove – a beautiful beige dove. But it’s floating; it is not flying. There is no motion of wings, no motion of the body – just floating as a duck would float on water. And here it is above me about twenty feet. Why I did it, I do not know, but automatically I raised my left hand and held this index finger. As I did this, the dove slowly descended upon my finger. I brought it to my face and it smothered me with kisses, all over my face, my neck, and my head. To my left was a lady – a lady, I would say, in her thirties – I would say, dressed in the Arab costume, and she said to me, “The bird,” – she didn’t call him a dove – “The bird – they avoid man, because man gives off the most offensive odor, but it demonstrated its love for you, he penetrated the ring of offense to show his love for you.” And then he came down to demonstrate it. Here is the woman talking and this bird is still kissing me, remaining upon me; and then the whole thing comes to an end.952 ¶17

Now, go home and compute it. The 20th day of July 1959 to the first day of January 1963 and it comes out to one thousand two hundred and sixty days. No matter how you try it, you cannot bring it out to one thousand two hundred and sixty-one or one thousand two hundred and fifty-nine – one thousand two hundred and sixty days. And this was written in Scripture one thousand years B.C. in the book of Daniel – confirmed and told us in the 11th chapter of Revelation when you begin the count. You begin the count of the one thousand two hundred and sixty days on the day of the birth of the Child.952 ¶18

Now, what is the child? The child is only a symbol of your birth from above. “And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” A sign! You didn’t bring forth a child – that – a sign, and the witnesses came to bear witness to the child.952 ¶19

Now, Scripture does not state that they were brothers. Tradition has it that they were brothers. You will find in the Encyclopedia Biblica that the three kings were brothers, they were brothers called the king of India, king of Persia, king of Arabia. Casper, Melchion, and Belshazzar. I do not say that everyone has to have three brothers in order to have them as witnesses, for I know from my own experience down south that many have had it who do not have brothers, but they have had their witnesses to the event.952 ¶20

Only in my own case, I was sent, and therefore I had to fulfill the pattern because back thirty years before it happened, back in 1929, I was taken in spirit into the Divine Assembly. I was first taken before one with a quill in her hand and a huge ledger – it was a woman – an angelic being. She asked me no questions. She simply looked at me. As she looked at me, she turned the ledger and with the quill in her hand, she either wrote my name in or checked it off, or she wrote something. That’s all that I could see.952 ¶21

From there, I was taken before the Risen Lord – Infinite Love. As I stood in His Presence, He asked me the simplest question in the world: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment, Infinite Love embraced me. Our bodies fused, and we became one body, one spirit. He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.952 ¶22

At that moment I was one with Him, then I was taken before Infinite Might – the same being, a protean being – it’s God, but God Almighty. And here, He said to me, “Time to act,” as He sent me into the world.952 ¶23

I had no idea that it would take thirty years between that moment in July of 1929 and July 1959. Again we are told: “And at the age of 30 he began his ministry,” and you think it’s a man. No, the one taken into the body – incorporated into the body and sent − must fulfill that pattern. He is the Pattern Man sent into the world. He tells it as it unfolds in him. Others then follow. It doesn’t have to be the identical pattern. From that pattern, you unfold. Every one unfolds. I’ve recorded it just as it happened to me.952 ¶24

So, I tell you, these are the signs of the end. It hasn’t a thing to do with the world coming to an end. You and I entered this world, the world of death, and God in His Infinite Might, Who became us, awakens within us, and these are the signs of our departure from this world.952 ¶25

For God was, in the beginning, a father. If God was a father, and God became me for the purpose of actually becoming me – giving Himself to me – well then, I must be a father! Then where is my son? Where is my son, if I am a father? It’s David. That is what I’ve been sent to tell the whole vast world: that they have been misinformed as to the Son of God. Jesus Christ is God the Father. He’s not God the Son, he is God the Father; David is his son.952 ¶26

David is set up in the beginning of time and actually interwoven in the skull of man. One day it explodes, and he who was interwoven in man stands before him and calls him, “father” in fulfillment of Scripture – the 89th Psalm. “I have found David, and he has cried unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.” In fulfillment of the second Psalm: “And I will tell of the decree of the Lord,” – this is David speaking – “He said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.”952 ¶27

Now we are told in the most fantastic chapter possibly in Scripture – and this is the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes and the 11th verse is considered the most difficult for any scholar to unravel. Now listen to it carefully: “And God has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” He has put eternity into the mind of man.952 ¶28

Well, then, what is this that He has put into the mind of man? The word in Hebrew is Olam. We can spell it in English: O-l-a-m. You go to these cemeteries in the Hebrew world and you’ll see “Beth-olam,” the House of Eternity – no hope of resurrection, the House of Eternity – eternal house. Some call it “the world.” The King James Version translates the word “Olam” as “the world.” The Revised Standard Version translates it as “eternity.”952 ¶29

But here is the meaning of the word. In the 17th chapter of the first book of Samuel, the word appears three times, verse after verse. And here comes King Saul, the choice of man. Here comes David, who is the choice of God, and David appears, and the king is enamored with the beauty and courage of this youth. So he turns to his lieutenant, Abner. He said: “Abner, whose son is that youth?” And Abner replies, ‘As your soul liveth, O King, I cannot tell.’ He said, ‘Inquire whose son the stripling is.’ No one knows. Now comes the stripling, youth, David, with the head of Goliath in his hands, and he stands before the king – and he turns to the youth David, and he said, “Whose son are you, young man?” Now the words “youth,” “stripling” and “young man” are defined from the Hebrew word, “olam.” The word “Olam” means a youth, it means a stripling; it means the young man.952 ¶30

What did God put into the mind of man? Did He not put David? Did He not put His son? “He so loved you, He gave His only begotten son.” He put David into the mind of man, that youth; and when your journey is at an end, and you depart this world of eternal death, there’s an explosion within you and only in the end do you know what God did. He so loved you; He gave Himself! For David is His son. Now when David, God’s son, calls you “father,” then you are God! There’s nothing in this world but God – nothing but God. So, here concealed – God put it into the mind of man, but so that man could not find out from the beginning to the end what God had done. Only at the end will he know what God has done. And, then, the brain explodes, and before him stands this heavenly, heavenly youth – David.952 ¶31

Now, who would tell me a man born in 1905, in this year that I am the father of one that Scripture describes as having been born and lived one thousand years B.C.? Now, isn’t that nonsense?952 ¶32

Now, listen to the words in Scripture: “And Christ said to those who listened to him, ‘what think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?’ And they answered, ‘The son of David.’ And he said, ‘Why then, did David in the spirit…’” – listen to it carefully: “…in the spirit, call him, My Lord.” If David thus called him, “My Lord,” how can he be David’s son? “My Lord” is the term used by every son of his father; he always referred to his father as “my Lord.”952 ¶33

He is telling you in the same, wonderful, mysterious way who he is. He is God the Father, and His only son is David, and David called him “father.” He found him. Everyone who finds David is God the Father.952 ¶34

I don’t care what pigment of skin you have this night – I tell you, you will find David, and he’s a blond, blue-eyed lad. The blackest man that I know in this world – and I was born and raised among Negroes – tonight is the father of David and he lives in Los Angeles, and his name is Benny Gould. He had the identical experience that I had. I said, “Benny, be honest with me. Tell me, what does he look like? Define him for me.” Benny painted the most wonderful word picture of his son David.952 ¶35

So I am telling you, it’s a mystery. God moved into the brain – into the skull of every man. Now you could take this skull of mine tomorrow, in the not-distant future, this little thing is going to die. It could be tonight, or come tomorrow. What does it matter when it comes? It will die. They will turn it into dust. But now, having had the last signs, I no longer am restored to life to continue this journey. I will instantly wear my body of glory – that heavenly body.952 ¶36

Those who have not had the experience will be restored to life, in spite of the fact that their body has been reduced to dust.952 ¶37

I can describe it, but I can’t explain the mystery. There is no death. A man drops here. He is instantly restored in a body just like what he was before, in a world just like this – terrestrial, to continue the journey, until he reaches the Signs of the End. And he matures there as he does here. He grows old there as he does here, and he dies there as he does here, to find himself once more restored to life to continue the journey. And he continues until the Signs of the End, and when the Signs of the End come – I have just described them to you; these are the signs of the end.952 ¶38

No, the stars will not fall. You are told in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 13th chapter of Mark, when they asked him concerning: “What are the signs of your coming?” And he tells them: “As the lightning comes from the east and goes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man.”952 ¶39

Now, you read that and you think: What is this? Is it going to burn the earth up? No. That was foretold in the Old Testament, but not explained, any more than he explains it there.952 ¶40

The 14th chapter, the 4th verse of Zechariah: He stands upon the Mount of Olives; he’s on the Mount of Olives. It only appears twice in the Old Testament – in the 14th chapter of Zechariah and the 15th chapter of Samuel, and he tells you that the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, and the one side will move northward and the other side will move southward; and that is the coming of the Son of Man. That is the day of the Lord, when you are split right down.952 ¶41

The whole drama takes place in us. This is the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives is split from the top to the bottom, from east to west. One moves northward and one moves southward, and then the Son of Man is raised up like the serpent in the wilderness, right into Zion – right into Heaven.952 ¶42

Well, who would have understood it until it happened in some one? So, he said, “Seal the book – close it up until the time of the end.” And the time for the wonders to come to an end will be one time, two times, and half a time. Add them together: one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.952 ¶43

Who would have thought that this unfolding within a man – and this is told centuries and centuries ago – that even though we have changed the calendar – for we have a thirty-one-day month and a thirty-day month and a twenty-eight-day month and a twenty-nine-day month? But in spite of the change of the calendar, it comes at one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. And yet, the Ancients did not have this calendar. They took a year as twelve times thirty. There were thirty days to a month. So, three times three hundred and sixty days, and then a half of a year – a hundred and eighty days comes to one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. We changed the calendar. We have January with 31; and depending upon the so-called year – every four years there is leap year, we have a 28- or 29-day month. We go back to March the 31st; then we have April 30; May 31, and so on. But in spite of the division, and the change of the calendar, mine came out in this century to one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. Put it down. Make a note of it and then go home and check it. It is the 20th day of July 1959, and it ended on the first day of January 1963. If you add it up: one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.952 ¶44

So, He sent me into the world as the Pattern Man to unfold it and tell it, and tell everyone, these are the signs of the end of your journey.952 ¶45

When these signs appear, you’ve come to the end. Until they appear, you cannot die. The world will call you dead, but nothing dies. You are restored to life, and strangely enough, in a world terrestrial just like this, in a body that is new, but unaccountably new. If eyes were missing, or arms are missing, or feet are missing, they are not missing, they are restored and you are new – not reborn, no, not reborn – just new, about twenty years of age, and you continue the journey in a world just like this: marrying, growing older and dying, just as you do here, until the end when these signs appear. When they appear, you are at the end.952 ¶46

So the appearance of the signs – no matter when you drop, you are clothed then in your heavenly body. It’s a body most glorious body that one could conceive. You can’t even envision it.952 ¶47

I can tell you what I felt like. When I clothed myself in it only for that fleeting moment in ’46, before the event, I was given the privilege of tasting of the body I would wear when this little garment falls. It’s a body of light. It’s a body that has life in itself. And strangely enough, you don’t have to ask anyone how to use it. It’s innate knowledge. I didn’t walk − I glided. I didn’t need the sun, the moon, or the stars − any natural light. It was light unto itself. It illuminated as much as I wanted of the world that I wanted to observe. You could have increased the intensity. It is power. It is simply a body that is alive in itself. You are not an automaton. You are not some body that is animated from without; you are a life-giving spirit. And as I walked by, these who were waiting for me – blind, halt, withered –952 ¶48

You’ll find this an interesting series, for so much has happened since we were here a year and almost 10 months ago, so we have to incorporate all the things that have happened, those I’ve met across the country, and those who come to the lectures in L.A. Tonight’s subject is: Who am I? That is the eternal question.709 ¶1

If I told you who you really are, you wouldn’t believe me; but I will tell you how you’ll know one day that you really are the Being that I am going to tell you that you are. If I tell you now that you are the Lord Jesus Christ, you would not believe me, and you would think that I am blaspheming; and yet I am telling you the truth. There’s only one way you will ever know it, and there is only one way another will know it of you. In the 16th chapter of the book of Matthew, a question is asked, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elias, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets of old.” And he said unto them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” He accepts the confession of Peter, but warns not to say it or to express it to another until he has first re-interpreted this popular concept of Messiah in terms of his own experience; but he said to Peter, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, He has revealed it.” No man can tell you, to persuade you, that you are. I could stand here from now to the end of time, and you are not convinced; but I’ll tell you this night how you will one day be convinced. There’s only one way you will ever know you are Christ Jesus, who is God the Father, and that is through His son David, who will call you, “Father.”709 ¶2

There is a poem by Browning; he calls it “Saul.” It’s based upon the First Book of Samuel, the 16th chapter, the 14th through the 23rd verses; and in this, Saul is laid low with an evil spirit, and David restores him to health by playing and singing to him. Then David becomes a prophet, and prophecies the coming of Messiah; and then he says to Saul: Oh, Saul, it shall be A face like my face that shall receive thee; a Man like to me. Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand like this hand Shalt throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!709 ¶3

He paints a word picture of the one Being that is going to reveal to a man who has lost his mind, for Saul had lost his mind, and did not know who he was. This very moment, if you know a family, I am one of a very large family: nine brothers and one sister. If one of my brothers this very moment became the victim of total amnesia, and the rest of us stand in front of him and try to persuade him that he is our brother, he’s not persuaded. If I brought all of my friends who know him intimately and tried to convince him that he is of a certain family, of a certain identity, you could not persuade him.709 ¶4

If I tell you that you have forgotten who you are, that travelers from Eternity pass into bodies of flesh and blood and forgetfulness, travelers to Eternity pass to the Father, and remember. Now, this is exactly what is going to happen to you one day. In my audience in L.A., as of today, there are over twelve who have had the experience. One day an explosion will take place within your head, and when the whole thing settles, as it were, standing before you will be David of Biblical fame; and there’s no uncertainty as to the relationship. You will know that David is your son and he will know that you are his father, in fulfillment of Scripture, the Second Psalm. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day I have begotten thee.” You will never know that God gave Himself to you in any other way than the one way, when His Son calls you “Father.” When he calls you “Father,” you will know who you are. And then you could tell it for the rest of Eternity, and no one will be convinced until they have this experience concerning you.709 ¶5

Now I tell you, there’s only one body; that body is the Lord Jesus Christ. “There’s only one spirit; there’s only one hope, only one lord, only one faith, only one baptism, only one God, Who is the Father of us all, Who is through all, above all, and in all.” This is how you will know that the man who dares to claim it really is what he claims.709 ¶6

Now, let me give you the experience of two ladies from L.A. I know what I have experienced. I could write it, as I have; I tell it to others, not convincingly because it seems, as I told you earlier – it seems blasphemous, for you and I have been trained from infancy that a man who lived two thousand years ago was the Christ, and only the Christ, and no one else is Christ in spite of Scripture that tells us, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” If you are perfectly honest with yourself, you will say, “No, I don’t know it at all”; but read it in the 13th chapter of 2 Corinthians, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” And he who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord, and that he shall change our lowly bodies to be of one form with His glorious body? Well, now, here are the two experiences: A lady finds herself in a large interior; the entire front is glass. There are marble columns, and it’s very sparsely furnished. There is but one chair, and she finds herself seated in it. Looking through the glass, she sees a carriage self-propelled come into view. A door opens automatically and out steps from this door the speaker dressed in normal clothes, wearing an Inverness cape. I came into the place where she was. I ignored her; I showed no recognition of her, but began to speak on “Power” Infinite Power. And she looked, and she said, “Why, this is Neville, but it is God! It is Neville, and he is God!” and she kept on repeating this. Then I came to the end. I still did not recognize her; I paid no attention to her just proclaiming Power. Then she said as though by appointment the carriage came into view once more. I turned and re-entered this carriage and vanished. The whole thing vanished. It was sheer power.709 ¶7

When I was sent to do the work I am doing, it was Power who commanded me. I was first embraced by Infinite Love, and I fused with him; but while I’m one with Love and it’s Man, the Risen Lord I was taken before a being who was Infinite Power. Now, you might think it’s another being. No, God plays all the parts. God is a protean being, like Proteus, the legendary sea god in the service of Neptune: he could assume any shape, any form anybody in the service of the One who sent him. So Infinite Power is the same being who is Infinite Love and we are told in Scripture that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. So, in seeing me speaking only of Power, and Infinite Power, she knew who I was. I could tell her from now to the end of time, I could not persuade her. She would have to have it shown to her by the only Being that could show it, and that is God. For God speaks to man through the medium of dreams, but He reveals Himself through the medium of vision, as told us in the 12th chapter of the book of Numbers. So, had she not had the vision herself, I could go from now throughout time, and I could not really persuade her of the truth of what I’m talking about.709 ¶8

Then another lady said, “I came upon a scene. It was an enormous scene, and every type of person was present, all different nationalities; and strangely enough, they heard you in the tongue wherein they were born. And you are simply standing, not in the water, but standing on the beach; but at your back was an infinite body of water, a huge lake, but you saw no shoreline. And there you were, clothed in a white robe, and you were speaking to the entire crowd. I knew you were Neville, and yet at the same time I knew you were Jesus! And there was no uncertainty in my mind. I knew, ‘This is Neville’ and I also knew, ‘That is Jesus’.”709 ¶9

Now, that seems insane, but I know from experience everyone in this world is the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s only one body. You do not lose your identity. You remain what you are. You are John, you are Mary, you are Peter; you remain the individualized being that you are, and yet you are Jesus! Yet, you are God! And everyone is destined to be all God. There’s no room in Eternity for two gods, no room in Eternity for another. But you and I, separated from God the Father, in the sense only of losing memory as to who we really are, that is the separation. If this very moment I cannot remember who I am, I haven’t gone any place, but I certainly am separated from the being that I knew myself to be. So, when I say that we are separated from God, I mean it in that sense.709 ¶10

So, separation from God is at once a tragedy and a triumph. It’s the “Fall,” and yet it is the beginning of a new creation. And this separation, which is now incarnation and complete incarnation, is essential to individuality – a complete incarnation which will now entail complete forgetfulness of the Being that I am when I drink that “cup of forgetfulness.” He said, “Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given to me?” The drinking of the cup is forgetting who I am, and believing that I am a little being of flesh and blood.709 ¶11

Everyone came out from the Father. He said, “I came out from the Father, and I came into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” So, coming out from the Father is simply forgetting the Being that I am, and believing myself to be this fragmented being, seeing billions of us, and I am now at war with my fragmented self, not knowing that everyone I meet is my very Self “pushed out.” There is no other!709 ¶12

Until this experience happens in man, when it happens in a man, he does not go and shout it from the housetops, he tells it to an intimate circle. And in that small circle, still only a very few will ever really know it, those who have had the experience of meeting him in an entirely different world, for this drama is not secular. This drama of Scripture is a supernatural drama. There is no secular history in Scripture; the whole thing unfolds within the depths of the soul of man and everyone is destined to have this experience.709 ¶13

When the question is asked: Who am I? You cannot ask it of any one, save to one like a Peter; but Peter has the revelation, not from a book, not from reasoning. He didn’t sit down to rationalize the picture. It was unveiled to him from within him. So the voice said: Flesh and blood could not have told you this, but my Father who is in heaven, and Heaven is within you, has revealed it, has unveiled it in a way that you saw the truth of what you now declare. So I accept your confession. But now, then, let me re-interpret this concept that man holds concerning Messiah. It’s a false concept. They expect Him to come from without; and He never comes from without. He comes from within.709 ¶14

And He comes so suddenly that no one is prepared for Him. It comes “out of the blue,” as we are told in Scripture: “just like a thief in the night.” When He comes, no one is expecting Him. I know, in my own case, these four major things in my life were certainly not expected. The first, one night in this city, and that was the birth from above. Now, we speak, and we are told in Scripture: “Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” Well, I had no concept, none whatsoever, that that birth was literally true. I thought that was simply a figure of speech: that I, a big man, grown man, the father of children and I must be born again? Well, I acted like Nicodemus: How is this thing possible? How can I, a man, a natural man, enter once more into my mother’s womb and be born; when at the time that I was reborn, right in this city (San Francisco), my mother was gone from this sphere. Now, how could it be?709 ¶15

I didn’t realize that day, which was in 1959, that that drama was literally true until, within me, the whole thing began to unfold when my whole head became the most intense vibration, and I found myself awaking, awaking from a long, long sleep. And where did I awake? I awoke within my skull! My skull was a tomb, and it’s sealed; and then I came out of it like a child coming out of the womb of a woman, and then the entire drama of Scripture confronts me. Here the wind, as told us in the 3rd chapter of the book of John, when he tells Nicodemus: “You must be born again.” And that word translated “again” is the Greek word “an-o-then,” which means “from above,” that is, from God, literally from above; not from the womb of woman below, but from the Womb of God above, which is the skull of man. That’s where the Real Man began to dream this strange, peculiar dream of mine. And that’s where man will awaken. And out of that tomb man will come! So, he awakes, and awakening is the Resurrection. He awakes from the long, long sleep; it was so profound, it seemed like the sleep of death for you are in a tomb, and you know it’s a tomb, yet you know it’s your skull. And out you come!709 ¶16

Then the wind – a peculiar, unearthly wind – you feel it and you hear it. Your attention is diverted from that body from which you’ve just emerged. You are only diverted for a matter of seconds and when you look back, the body is gone, in fulfillment of Scripture. “Where have they taken the body?” The body’s gone! But in its place you’ll find three men. In my case, they were my three older brothers. There they were where the body had formerly just a few seconds ago lay. They, too, are disturbed by the wind and one, who is now gone from this world, arose and started toward what he thought was the cause of the disturbance. He took not more than a couple of steps when something attracted his attention on the floor and, looking down, “Why,” he said, “it’s Neville’s baby!” My other two brothers said, “How can Neville have a baby?” With this, he doesn’t argue the point; he lifts the evidence. He lifts a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes and puts it on the bed; and then I lift the little infant, and in the most endearing terms I said, “How is my sweetheart?” The child had the most heavenly smile. As it broke into this smile, the whole scene dissolved.709 ¶17

That was the first of the major acts. Then came the other three mighty acts to complete the four sides of man. So, I know from my own personal experience, I am not theorizing what is in store for every child born of woman. It doesn’t even matter if those that you know beyond the veil do not have this experience. They’re not dead! Nothing dies in God’s Kingdom. They are restored to life, instantly restored. That I do know from my own experience.709 ¶18

No reincarnation, they are restored; and they are young and new, same bodies in a world terrestrial, just like this, and unaccountably new – I can’t describe it. How can someone drop at the age of 90, withered and shrunken, in pain; and when you see them, within a matter of moments, they are only 20 years old? They are not little babies. They are young, unaccountably new. No limb is missing. If they had a limb missing, it isn’t missing. If they had hair missing, teeth missing, legs missing, it is not missing. If they were blind, they are not blind. The body is restored but not resurrected. Resurrection differs completely from restoration. All bodies are restored. It’s a miracle. And the Being is still continuing in a world just like this. Those who are resurrected do not enter that world. They are in Heaven. They are one with the body of the Risen Christ without loss of identity. And everyone who is restored, and all are restored, they continue in a world just like this one, with the same problems. They marry there, too, and they are just as afraid of dying there as they are here; and they die there too, to be restored again.709 ¶19

And this restoration goes on until they awake in the tomb of their own skull, and when they have the birth from above. So, who am I? The very one spoken of in Scripture. You ask that question, “Who am I?” And the answer is: I am the Lord Jesus Christ! But you don’t know it really until you experience it. But I promise you; you will experience it. Not one can fail for the simple reason it’s God, and God alone, who is playing the part. He is playing all of the parts.709 ¶20

So when David comes into your world, there is no other way that you will ever know that you really are the Lord Jesus Christ.709 ¶21

Now, listen to the words carefully. No one asked him the question. The Sadducees, who are called the scientists of his day – they did not believe in the Resurrection; so they said to him, to trip him up: “Master, Moses said that in the resurrection a man’s wife …” First of all, he paints the picture. He said Moses said if a man is married and dies leaving no offspring and he has brothers, then the second should marry the widow to raise up offspring for his brother. Well, there were seven brothers. The first one married and died, leaving no offspring, and the second took her. He died, leaving no offspring, and the third took her. Finally all married; all died, leaving no offspring, and then she died. Now, tell me, whose wife is she in the resurrection? And he answered, “You do not know Scripture, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are they given in marriage. Those who are accounted worthy to attain to that Age, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they are sons of the resurrection. They are sons of God, and the Son of God is one with God, for I and my Father are one. But those who have not attained to that Age, they continue marrying, and they are given in marriage.”709 ¶22

So, here is an entirely different concept from what is taught concerning what is your future. Your real future is Jesus Christ. There is no other body. There is no other spirit. One being, fragmented.709 ¶23

Now, see how it was told us in the Old Testament. It’s the 82nd Psalm. “And God had taken His place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgment. And I say, ‘Ye are gods, all of you – sons of the Most High.’ Nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O ye princes.” It is said by scholars that this is the most difficult passage in the entire Bible to understand; that if at one time the ideas were perennial, they no longer are understood by the scholars of the world because it can only be known through vision.709 ¶24

One man – now listen to the words: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” Therefore, who fell? The One Man. He fell for a purpose – nothing wrong. Not a thing was wrong in that fall! If I put you in garments of passion, as you are – these are all garments of the animal world, filled to overflowing with passion – and then I tell you under threat of death you must not entertain one concupiscent thought, you never convicted me. If you tell me the result of my concupiscence is death – well, then I must die.709 ¶25

But nevertheless, “I say, ‘Ye are gods . . .’ and you are going to die like men. You will fall as one man, O ye princes.”709 ¶26

So, the One Man is scattered, like a rock being broken and fragmented. And every one now is to be gathered together in the same One Being – one body, but glorified by reason of the experience.709 ¶27

Well, now, Scripture tells us, I didn’t do wrong in the fall. Our priesthoods tell us that we did wrong. Well, then, listen to these words: If disobedience drove me out from the Father and caused me to lose the identity of my own being, which is Jesus Christ, and believe myself to be a little animal, then what are these words doing in Scripture, from the 11th chapter of the book of Romans: “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that He may have mercy upon all.” So, if disobedience drove me out, the cause of my disobedience was the One who clothed me this garment of skin, for He put me in an animal body, and then threatened me with death if I entertained a concupiscent thought. Well, how could I help it? What man in this world, if he has any red blood in him and is healthy, could have helped it? Even if you went to the extreme and emasculated yourself, you still would entertain the thought. If you are impotent, the thought is still there. While the energy is turned down into generation, you cannot help it.709 ¶28

When the curtain of your body is torn in two from top to bottom, and then the energies are reversed into regeneration, you can take all the world and expose them in the nude before you, and there is no desire. You couldn’t entertain a concupiscent thought. But until that moment – when you are turned down into generation, then you are condemned to death by reason of the fact. He Who first told me I must not eat of this is the One who said to me He made me disobedient. “For he consigned all men” – consigned all men “to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” So, in the end, all return – all are forgiven, and everything is perfect.709 ¶29

Man, when he’s down, can’t believe that. He wants to punish, he wants to hurt; but then you’ve never stood in the presence of Infinite Love. You cannot be in the presence of the Risen Christ and feel any emotion but Love. It’s impossible to feel anything but love, and you are looking right into the face of the Risen Christ. He asks a very simple question: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And automatically, as though you were divinely prompted, you answer: “Faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of all these is love.” At that moment, He embraces you, and you fuse, and you become one with the Risen Lord. And he who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.709 ¶30

Are we not told: “If I have been crucified with Him in a death like His, I shall certainly be one with Him in a resurrection like His”? So, the Crucifixion is over for all of us. The Resurrection is taking place, one after one, after one; and not one will fail. So, all have once been crucified with Christ – everyone. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” So, His Crucifixion was our crucifixion! Now the Resurrection has started; and one after the other, He is being awakened within the tomb of their own skull, and the drama unfolds within them, and out they come. So, in the end you shall only be the Lord Jesus Christ.709 ¶31

So, when you are told in Scripture they saw the law personified, they saw the prophets personified in Moses and Elisha; here is Jesus transfigured before them. And when their eyes were opened, it was Jesus only; for Divine Mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus – only that one body. And, yet, you do not lose your identity; but those who have the vision will see you and know you, but still know that you are Jesus. They will know you, and still know that you are God and the Power of God. “And Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”709 ¶32

So, this question is not something that man can answer. Flesh and blood cannot tell you that you are Jesus Christ. I could stand here and use every argument in the book, but you will still be unpersuaded. You will go out saying, “That man is either insane or it’s sheer blasphemy,” for it’s in conflict with what the churches have taught you. But I am not speculating, I am not theorizing; I speak from experience. I tell you what I know from my own personal experience. I did not read it in a book, I was not taught it by a man. It simply came by a revelation of Jesus Christ in the same manner that you read it in the very first chapter of the book of Galatians. And Paul said, “I did not receive it from a man; neither was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” And he tells you, there is no other doctrine, and he made this claim in a statement of Scripture before the Four Gospels were written. In fact, it was not only written before the Four were, but it was an already established school of thought. The earliest book in the New Testament is Paul’s Letter to the Galatians; and no one dates it later than 52 A.D., and yet our Gospels go anywhere from 70 A.D. up to 95 A.D. So, a generation after Paul’s letter appeared instructing the Galatians – and then came his Thessalonians, and then came his Corinthians; and these all predated the Gospels.709 ¶33

So, I know that the story of Jesus Christ is the story of every child born of woman; that we all fall together, and all will rise in our own good time. He calls us, one by one by one. In the meantime, He tries us in the “furnaces of affliction,” as we are told in Isaiah: “I try you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake I do it. For my own sake I do it, for how should my glory be given to another? I will not give my glory to another.”709 ¶34

You have to become Him to receive His glory. And the day will come that we will take off these garments of flesh and blood and put on the body of glory, which is yours. You took it off for this experience, and you came out of Heaven to have this experience. You’ve had it, and you’ll return glorified. And that’s how The Infinite Being expands. There is no limit to translucence, to expansion; there is only a limit to contraction, and man is the limit of contraction. Man is the limit of opacity, but the day will come that you will break the shell; and then you will add to the glory of the Body of God; for your glory adds to that glory, and it all expands and expands beyond measure.709 ¶35

Now, this may be a little different from what you had last year, or even in previous years; but this is based upon the experience of the last year and ten months. Not my own personal experience, for they go back to 1959, but I mean this confirmation from those in the audience.709 ¶36

Now, a lady will have the experience in this manner: She will follow the pattern, not of Abraham, but she will follow the pattern of Sarah. And Sarah was too old to have a child, for it is said of Sarah: “It has ceased to be with her after the manner of women.” In other words, she would be incapable of conceiving a child and carrying it to fruition, as you’ll read it in the book of Genesis. So, a lady has it in this manner. I could give you a dozen from my audience in L.A.; we will take one.709 ¶37

She has two brothers. She hasn’t seen these brothers in forty-odd years. She has a landlord, whom she looks upon as a younger brother. She was away from home one night, a thing she rarely does unless she leaves the city; but she was in the city and someone was distressed and asked her to “please sleep here tonight.” But she said, “I’ve got to go home first of all and tell my neighbors where I am because they depend upon me. They are elderly ladies.” She said, “All right, but do promise me that you’ll come back.” So she did. She said, “I’m in a strange home with a strange person in a strange atmosphere, and here I am in the wee hours of the morning, when I feel this peculiar breeze and vibration in my head. It increases in intensity. When it reaches the apex of intensity, suddenly here come my two brothers that I haven’t seen in over forty years, and my landlord. My oldest brother said, ‘But she is too old to have a baby.’” Well, they all agreed, but he picked up the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and put it in his sister’s arms. Now, this lady is 77 years old – a retired schoolteacher of L.A. It comes in her case as it comes to Sarah – too old to have a child, but this is not a physical child. This is a supernatural experience. So, she heard the words: “But she is too old to have a child” when the infant was raised from the floor and put into her hands.709 ¶38

After that, she found herself in a canyon where she lives. Unlike my experience, she’s in a canyon – the rugged side of a canyon; and here comes this blond, blue-eyed lad. And said, “I did not have to ask him, ‘Whose son are you my lad?’ I knew he was my son, and I knew he was David of Biblical fame.” She’s had every experience but the dove, and that takes nine months and two years after the third mighty one. She will have it, because she’s had the first three. So, a man differs in this work from a woman. She takes the pattern of Sarah and he takes the pattern of Abraham – but the identical picture as related in Scripture.709 ¶39

So, you dwell upon it tonight, even though you cannot completely accept it. You dwell upon it: Who Am I? Is he telling the truth? Does Neville know what he is talking about? Has he really had these experiences? Ask – just ask, and see if you cannot get from within yourself an answer to the truth of what I am talking about. I tell you, the answer will come.709 ¶40

In some strange way, God will answer, for God is not a being afar off. God is within you. He is never so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. God cannot even be near me. Why? Because His name He gave to me. Well, what’s His name? I Am. Can you find anything that even is – well, you can’t say “I am near”; it’s the One; it’s the root, it’s the very center of your being. My hand is near, my head is near; my friends are near. But I can’t say, “I am,” and entertain this word “near.” And I Am is the name of God forever. If “I Am” is His name forever, well, then, He cannot be far off. In fact, He cannot be even so far off as to be near, for nearness implies separation. That is who you really are; and that Being which is “I Am” – that’s God! That’s the Lord Jesus Christ.709 ¶41

And when He asks: “Who do you say I am?” – he could have said, “You are the Power of God,” for the word “Christ” is defined in Corinthians as the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. One day you will have the experience, and you will see someone who has made the claim – without boasting; and you will come upon a scene, and the scene will unveil itself before you, and you will know her claim, or his claim, is a true claim, for you will know him to be Jesus, or know her to be Jesus, and you still will not think it is not the being you know. There is no loss of identity, and yet – Jesus. And you come back to your waking state here, and there is no uncertainty in your mind as to what you’ve experienced. And who did it? God-within-you did it. God unveils Himself within you.709 ¶42

Now, let us go into the Silence for a moment, and then have questions and answers. Good. Now, are there any questions, please?709 ¶43

Any other questions, please?709 ¶70

Did you hear the question? It’s an interesting question.709 ¶72

Well, I think the time is just about up. I’ll take one more.709 ¶80

Whenever you and I use our imagination unwittingly, we are asleep. We have to awake to God’s Law and His Promise. We are told in the very first chapter of Genesis, “And God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And it was so.” Here we see the Law of the Identical Harvest, and you and I will not in Eternity violate it. We try to. Man has tried through the years to break this law. We are told, “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” “Therefore, do not grow weary in well doing,” for if we persist in it, in due season we will reap if we faint not, or lose heart.698 ¶1

Now, everything brings forth after its kind. If you really believe that you are the child of God, you will rest confident in that knowledge – in that seed, knowing that it can bring forth no more – no less – than God. If I really believe what Scripture teaches – “know ye not that ye are the sons of God, sons of the Most High? Nevertheless, you will die like men, and fail as one man, Oh princes.” – I will accept that. As a son of the Most High, what can I bring forth but God? Whatever He was prior to my being planted – for I am planted in death. All seeds must first die before they can bring forth. This is the great mystery. So, if I’m His seed, His sperm, His son, His child – whatever you will – then I’m quite willing to go through this Eternal world of death, knowing in the end I must emerge as Eternal Life – as God Himself.698 ¶2

In the meanwhile – while I am here – don’t try to violate the law. You can’t do it. Man has tried it, and he only produces a mule. We have taken – well, the horse and the donkey. We have millions of them in the world – mules. We cannot produce in the mule that which can bring forth its kind. It’s sterile. It’s impotent. I have seen the crossbreed between the lion and the tiger, but it, too, is a mule – beautiful to look at, but it is impotent; it’s sterile. I have seen birds that men mated. Normally they would not mate, but men forced them into mating and they have brought forth beautiful offspring; but the offspring is a “mule.” It will not reproduce itself. So, God has placed a limit to man’s mis-creation, so that you and I may speak in the world of Caesar of man’s evolution, and we think it’s part of God’s creation. It is not part of God’s creation. God finished it, and it’s perfect. The seed contains within itself all that parents have contained. If the seed is of God, well, then, it can only unfold as God. I can see evolution related to man and his affairs. Instead of digging the earth with my hand, I turn to a hoe, and then from the hoe, I turn to a plow, and from the plow to a tractor. Well, I can see the evolution in that, concerning the affairs of man. Instead of moving across a body of water on a raft then I took a sail, and then I took a paddle, and then I took a steam, and now we take atomic energy, and instead of walking a distance I know I can fly and move almost as fast as man can imagine, so I can see the evolution in the affairs of man but not in the creation of God.698 ¶3

So, in the beginning it was established that all things will bring forth after their kind. [Someone enters the room a little late]. All right, come right in. We’ve only just started, trying to establish in us the awareness of God’s Law; that we cannot violate it, we can’t change it − to awake, as we are told. “Awake, O Sleeper, and rise from the dead.” So, Paul equates death with the sleep of man, when man is unaware of what he’s doing. So, when we are told in Psalms – the 44th Psalm: “Rouse thyself. Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” – it’s addressed to God-in-man. Well God-in-man is man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So, every time that I imagine, and I am unaware of what I am imagining, well, then, I will not recognize my harvest when it appears in the world, will deny I had anything to do with it, but if man is as I think and I know he is – all imagination, and if God and man are one, then God is all imagination. So, we say 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 eternal body Jesus. We are His members.698 ¶4

So, everyone can imagine. The thing to do is to become aware of what we are imagining, and put no limit to the power of imagining. Do not put any limit to God’s power. Here is a simple, simple example. This friend of mind down south, Benny Gould − a friend called him and said, “You know, our little daughter, six months old − the doctor says she will not live the week; that she now has meningitis, and the crisis is now.” My friend Benny, instead of sympathizing with this father − he bawled him out. He said, “Didn’t you tell me that you are a good Christian? You go to your Baptist church, and you consider yourself a good Christian? I don’t go to the Baptist Church. In fact, I don’t go to church, but I consider myself a good Christian. What are you doing accepting the verdict of the doctor? Why can’t you now accept the teaching of Scripture and believe in your heart that the little girl that I saw a matter of moments after she was born is now alive and thriving?” After he bawled his friend out, Benny put the receiver up and then sat down and heard that man’s voice, as though he called him on the telephone; and the he heard the man tell him that the child has miraculously recovered. That’s all that Benny did.698 ¶5

That night a lady had a dream, and because it was related to Benny, she called Benny the next day and told Benny the dream, and this was the dream. She said, “I had a strange dream last night, Benny. I dreamt I was in a hospital, in the lobby, and two nurses were discussing a certain case of a friend of yours, a little girl, and one said to the other, ‘But who paid for the operation? Who paid the expense of the hospital?’ And one nurse said to the other, ‘Benny did.’” That was only a dream. Well, Benny did pay for it – not in dollars and cents, he said the price. The price was that he represented the father to himself in a different way altogether, not complaining, not feeling sorry, not feeling sad at heart, but he heard that man’s voice with a joy in it telling him that the little girl had recovered miraculously. That’s all that Benny did. Well, that’s paying the price. You are told, “Come, eat and drink without price. Buy milk – buy it all without money.” Well, the price that Benny paid was to exercise his talent wittingly, knowingly, on behalf of another, and to do it lovingly.698 ¶6

So, every time you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you are actually mediating God to that other. So, if you become awake, you are awake to God’s Law. You can’t violate it. “Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” And, then, we are asked to not give up; if it seems long, wait anyway, because the harvest will come. In due season we will reap if we faint not – if we do not lose heart.698 ¶7

So, anyone here tonight who has a problem – I don’t care what the problem is, the problem will yield its own solution. You don’t have to discuss the means. That’s not the solution. If I needed money, knowing the right people – knowing people of money, knowing people with means – that is no solution. The solution is having what I want in this world. That’s the solution. If I were unsheltered tonight, what’s the solution? Knowing a friend who has a huge mansion with rooms not occupied? That’s not my solution. My solution is to be sheltered. So, no matter where I sleep, I sleep as though I am sheltered. If I were in need of raiment, I would sleep as though I am well clothed. I am in need of money, I would sleep as though I had all that it takes, that I am affluent. I will do it in that manner.698 ¶8

If I know what I am doing well, then, “faint not.” I did it. I planted it. Well, now, in due season I will reap it. So, every man should become awake to this law. So rouse yourselves. “Why sleepest thou, Oh Lord?” Well, His name is “I Am,” so are you aware of what you are doing? I am speaking, then, to you. “Why sleepest thou, Oh Lord?” And just to be addressed as “Lord” – and I mean it when I say I address you as “the Lord,” for you are the Lord. If you are a son of God, you can’t develop in any other way, other than into God! So, we are destined to grow up into Him, the head, Jesus Christ the Lord. If I grow up into Him, the head, well, then, I am He. So, then everything, then, said of Him I must experience. So, here I must awake to the Being that I really am – not just to hear it, but to really believe it to the point where I act upon it.698 ¶9

Well, if all through the day I act upon it – do you know that even in dream you’ll act upon it? A dream, supposedly is something where man’s imagination – rather, his attention is the victim, and not the master. It follows all the phenomena of Life, but in dream you will get to the point that you do not find yourself the victim; you find yourself guiding your attention. And you’ll find yourself, in dream, modifying and changing a situation. The normal person in a dream doesn’t. He simply – his attention is the very slave, and follows everything, one after the other. But when you become awake here, you take it into the depth of your own being, in what the world calls sleep.698 ¶10

So, when I say “Awake, O Sleeper,” I’m simply appealing to everyone here to awake to God’s Law. For it is a law established in the beginning – the Law of the Identical Harvest. You can’t plant one thing and reap another. You could now sit here tonight in the assumption that you are – well, exactly as you want to be. I would not define for what you ought to want; I will ask you: What do you want? When you know exactly what you would like to be, and you deliberately assume that you are it, you’ve planted that seed. And in due season you are going to reap that harvest. Therefore, if you’re going to reap it, reap it wisely by planting wisely. But all day long you’re doing it anyway. Man is doing it, but he’s doing it asleep; and therefore when it comes into being and he harvests this marvelous – well, whatever it is, he doesn’t recognize that he had anything to do with it. And the purpose of life is to become awake – to wake everything in this world. So, I know exactly what I did. I sat down and I dreamed myself as affluent. I dreamed myself is this, as that, as the other, and having done it, I have confidence in God’s Law. No man can divert it. I can’t plant one thing and reap another. You see yonder fields? The sesamum was sesamum; the corn was corn; the silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man’s fate born. So, I can sit down and actually do it.698 ¶11

Here, Marion Anderson was denied the right to sing in the famous hall in Washington. She was not a member, and she was denied the right. She did not oppose it. She didn’t fight it. These are her words. She said, “They had a right. These are the Daughters of the American Revolution. That was their right. They are all members of that club. They are proud of it. Why shouldn’t they be proud of it? I simply would like to have sung in that hall. So, what did I so? I didn’t fight it. I didn’t argue it. I didn’t tell the press. I made no issue. I simply in my imagination sang in that hall. I stood on that stage and sang to a full house –an appreciative house. They loved all that I did, and I was invited to sing in that hall.”698 ¶12

Now you will say, “Well, Mrs. Roosevelt heard about it, and she then took issue with those who were the members, saying, ‘After all, this is tax-exempt property, and all of this is something that is on the backs of the taxpayer, and I feel that we should occasionally open the doors to some great artist.’” She might have given them any argument, and she was then the First Lady of the land. You will say, “Now that’s why they invited Marion Anderson.” I say, “It was not.” Mrs. Roosevelt had to act as she acted because Marion Anderson acted first, and if one could only see what she did – not what Mrs. Roosevelt did; she was only the means to the end. The cause of the entire thing was one who did not argue, who did not protest, who did nothing; who, in her own heart, simply imagined that she had done it. And if you do it this way, you don’t have to fight in this world. You don’t have to argue with anyone in this world. Just do it. I have seen people say, “No, it can’t be done. I am not going to let this go.” Well, all right, it’s your privilege. It’s yours. If you don’t want it, unload it. And then someone who really thought of something far bigger than they could have conceived imagined it. Then they come, asking the very one to whom they turned and said, “No, it can’t be done, and we do not wish any part of it” – then they came and they got far more than in the beginning they were willing to take for it. I know these cases. So, you don’t have to argue. You don’t have to fight. You simply know what you want, and if you had it, what would it be like? How would you feel if it were true? What would you see in the world mentally if it were true? How would your friends see you if now you were the man, or the woman, that you want to be? Well, then, let them see you. That imaginal act – letting them see you, as they would have to see you, were it true – is the imaginal act being planted. So, you don’t have to rush it, dig it up and see if it’s growing. You did it in confidence that God’s Law never fails.698 ¶13

“Let the earth bring forth vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And it was so.” And “As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.” Now, the seedtime is when you imagine a state – that’s the seedtime. That’s when you sow. And, then, in due season, you’re going to reap exactly what you sowed, so do not be deceived.698 ¶14

You can’t sow the unlovely act and expect something other than the unlovely act to appear in your world. You can’t do it. If you want someone in this world to be big in your world, treat him as though he were; not by flattering him, but in your mind’s eye treat him as though he were big. Think of him as important if you want him to be important. I know, in my own case, my family had really no financial, social, intellectual or any other background of mention, but my mother did not allow her ten children to know that. And if any of us did anything that Mother – well, she wasn’t exactly ashamed of it, but she thought it could be better, and it was something that we really should not have done, she would then say to us, “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?” She made the name important. It had no importance whatsoever, but she made it important. So, she treated us as though we as a family were important. The result is that she lived long enough to see her family grow into importance in the community, all pulling their weight and being very important in their community.698 ¶15

Now, you can start it with any family in this world and treat the family as though they were important. Unfortunately, our parents think they are doing the right thing when they compare us to a neighbor and find us wanting. “Why can’t you be like So-and-So?” Right away it implies you are not as good as – and, so, if that’s the seed she is planting for the child, the child has to do that. But if you will take any child, and then – not flatter it, no – but in your mind’s eye see it as important, and treat it in your mine’s eye as though it were. See it successful. I read here, oh, maybe eight or ten years ago the famous men in the theatrical world whose mothers always looked upon them as most important. Clifton Webb was one whose mother, from the time he was a little baby, treated him as most important, and they mentioned about eight or ten or twelve of them. Each rose to stardom in the theatrical world, because they had mothers who treated them in a different manner. And, so, the story came out in the magazine I read. I know it’s only based upon a single law, if the mothers knew it. Well, whether they knew it or not, that’s how they acted, and it’s simply putting into effect God’s Law.698 ¶16

So, when I say, Awake, O Sleeper, I mean that we are asleep if we are not aware of what we are doing – we are asleep. So, “Awake, O Sleeper, and rise from the dead.” And the sleep in most of us is so profound, we might just as well be dead. But become aware of the Law, and become aware of the Promise, and the Promise is that you are a child of God! As a child of God, you can’t grow into anything in Eternity other than God. You can’t possibly become anything but God if you are a seed of God. So, if you believe it – if I believe that I truly am, as the 82nd Psalm tells me that I am, “Know ye not that ye are gods, sons of The Most High?” – all of you, not a few, no little elect, but all of you. Then he tells us what we must first encounter in order to do it. “You now will die like men. You will fall as one man, O princes.” Well, if I am a prince, then my father must be a king; and if I am destined to become and take his place, then I must become one day, king – king in my own mind’s eye, and if he’s a father, I must become father. And that’s the entire story of the Scriptures.698 ¶17

So, to become aware of it is, then, begin to act upon it. You’ll find yourself acting upon it consciously, deliberately. You refuse to accept the negative suggestion of the press, TV, radio, or a friend; you will not accept it, any more than Benny did. Benny simply put the receiver down, brought his mind upon the same voice, but changed the conversation. And it was confirmed in the not-distant future. That entire thing changed in the outer world to conform to what Benny had done in the inner world, all in his imagination.698 ¶18

So, this is simply becoming awake, rousing the God- within-us. And then, one day to your – well, surprise is not a good word for it because you are so shattered by the experience – that thereafter you can’t rub it out of the mind. In my own case it happened in ’59 – almost ten years, and, yet, every moment of time I dwell upon it. I could hardly believe that this thing was so literally true – God’s Promise to man – that every child born of woman would one day actually discover that he is the Lord Jesus Christ! And when it happened to you, and the whole thing begins to unfold within you like a flower, one after the other – well, I can’t tell anyone the thrill. You don’t boast, within you like a flower, one after the other – well, I can’t tell anyone the thrill. You don’t boast. You don’t brag. You’ve not a thing to brag about, because the whole thing was contained in the germ, in the seed, in the sperm, of God; and it was placed in you. Well, if the whole of God is contained in His seed, and the seed is in us, when it unfolds, how can we brag? We can only be thrilled beyond measure, and be filled with awe and praise and thanksgiving that God so loved me that He actually became me, that I in turn may become God! And, so, I dwell upon that and let it happen. It unfolds like a flower.698 ¶19

So, to everyone, no matter what you are tonight, you can start tonight to plant the world differently, but do dwell, above all things, upon the fact that you are the child of God. And as the child of God, you can only grow into the likeness of God – into God Himself! You have no other way to go. But we are warned in Scripture, it’s going to be quite a journey. But Paul said, “I consider the sufferings of the present time not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Not to us – the preposition is “in.” It is revealed in us.698 ¶20

So, all the sufferings, as told us quite clearly in the book of Genesis – we have three major manuscripts from Genesis known only by letters: the letter J, the letter E and the letter P. No one knows what they mean, but we’ve given meaning to them. We speak of the J as the Jehovahites, we speak of the E as the Elohim, and we speak of the P as the Prophets. But no one really knows if whoever put the J, E and P there really intended that, but scholars have given that meaning to these letters. That’s all we know concerning the authorship of these manuscripts. But in the E it does not begin with the first verse. The E manuscript begins with the 15th chapter; it begins with civilization – with Abram, and Abram complains to the Lord that he has no offspring, “and one born in my house of a slave will be my heir.” And God said to him, “That man will not be your heir, but your own son will be your heir,” and then God caused a profound sleep to descend upon him and then said to him, in sleep, “Your descendants shall be strangers, sojourners in a strange land, and there they will remain enslaved for four hundred years, but when they are brought out, they will have much.” An abundance will be theirs, but they must first go into slavery for four hundred years.698 ¶21

Well, the four hundred years is not four hundred, as you would measure years. Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has, not only a numerical value, but a symbolic value. And four hundred is the last letter, the 22nd, which symbol is a cross. It is Taw, and the numerical value of the cross is four hundred. So, I will wear the cross of man – this is the cross that I wear. It’s four hundred years; it is a far, far longer time than that. Blake – time and again he said, “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years dazzling around Thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is myself, Oh Lord, my Redeemer and Creator.” So, he always speaks of the vision of his deadly sleep that lasted six thousand years, but in Scripture it is called 400 years, because they are speaking of the symbolism of the number and of the symbol called the cross. So, as long as I wear a body of flesh and blood, I am wearing this cross of 400 years. So, as long as I do it, I am enslaved. I am enslaved by this body, by its passions, by its ambitions, by its needs. I have to bathe it, shave it, wash it; and then it has all the normal functions. I must take care of the normal functions like a slave. I’m a slave of the body! The day will come, at the end of my long journey, that I will take off the body of flesh and blood and put on my body of glory, which will not need any of these cares whatsoever, for it will be spirit, and not flesh and blood.698 ¶22

So, I’m quite willing to accept what Scripture teaches me. Yes, I am a slave here. I know it, and I will continue. But while I am a slave, He awoke within me – completely awoke within me, with all the symbolism in Scripture surrounding me. And then came the next one and the next and the next, and the whole Scripture begins to unfold within the man who is still, as yet, a slave, as told us in Scripture. Then comes that end of the journey when he can say, “It is finished.” And the whole thing is done.698 ¶23

For, here, not only these Four Mighty Acts become yours, but so many lovely passages of Scripture, in the interval they are yours – to feel yourself one day lifted up and to hear a heavenly chorus sing – unearthly chorus, and here it is singing, calling you by name. When I wrote the story and called the little thing “The Search,” I was persuaded by the one who read my manuscript to use the pronoun he and tell it in the third person. But I did not hear the chorus say he, I heard the chorus call my name, Neville. And they said, “Neville is risen, Neville is risen,” and how can you take that simple little phrase, “Neville is risen,” and repeat it – this enormous heavenly chorus singing it, and get out of it what they did, I could never tell you. They never used other words, and yet the melody – the change – everything about it – the majesty of all that they are singing on three little words! And, then, I found myself clothed in a body of light. It seemed to be a body of air and light. I didn’t stand on the ground, and I didn’t walk. I glided. I did it automatically, as though it was an innate knowledge of what to do, and I came upon an infinite sea of human imperfection: blind, lame, halt, withered – all of them, and I knew intuitively that they were waiting for me. And as I came by I had no compassion – none whatsoever. I didn’t stop to inquire. It was obvious that this one was blind, that one was lame, that one had no arms, that one was missing some other limb, and, yet, strangely enough, as I glided by, I did not raise a finger to change them, but they were automatically changed in harmony with the perfection I felt springing within me. Because I walked by as the Perfect One, everyone had to be in harmony with me, and everyone was made perfect. And the chorus is singing. And when the eyes came out of nowhere and fitted into these empty sockets, and when arms came out of nowhere and fitted into the empty socket, and legs, and everything was made perfect at the very end of this enormous journey, then the chorus exulted, and they cried out, “It is finished.” From repeating, “Neville is risen, Neville is risen,” in their own marvelous way, now they change it to, “It is finished.” And then I felt myself actually condense into this little garment here called Neville. I was actually the most imprisoned being imaginable, from that wonderful exalted state of freedom.698 ¶24

So, I can’t tell anyone what’s in store for you – that body of glory when you put it on. I simply tasted of it for that moment, that right coming through the Caribbean Sea from Port of Spain to Mobile, Alabama. We were at sea about seven days, and this happened one night while I was at sea. So, I know exactly the feeling of the risen body – that feeling of the glorious body, where everything that you touch or see must conform to you because you are perfect. “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” And, so everything in your world is going to be changed. You don’t stop to change it; you don’t do a thing. It simply changes as you go by. So, everything in Scripture, you, one day, will prove literally – prove it to be true, but not on this level. You are going to prove it in some remote area of your own soul. So, first of all, believe in His Promise. Believe that you really are the Son of God, and as the Son of God, you cannot grow up into anything other than God – not in Eternity. But while you are enslaved in this world, in a place that is really not home – everyone feels a stranger here. They try build something to feel secure – to feel not a stranger, but they are still strangers, and all through the day and night, they are leaving, dropping out, and departing out from this sphere – leaving you behind. Then you’ve got to depart and leave others behind. The whole thing is a strange world. It is not home. So, we are strangers in a strange land, enslaved in the strange land. Therefore, while we are here remember His Law – the Law of the Identical Harvest, that you can’t fool God, so “be not deceived. God is not mocked, whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.” And, then, because you are going to reap it, do not grow tired – do not grow weary in well doing. Do it every moment of time, though you do not see the immediate harvest; do it anyway because you cannot fail to reap that harvest.698 ¶25

So, do it. Spend a little moment every day, and deliberately plant loving thoughts, loving seeds. Bring before your mind’s eye those that you know as friends. Represent them to yourself without their knowledge, without their consent, in some lovely manner. When they conform to that in the outer world, you don’t need praise. You don’t need to tell them, “That’s what I imagined for you.” You know. You have the satisfaction of knowing what you did; therefore they will conform to it, and you will see them, and you will reap it, and you’ll have the satisfaction, without having them feel obligated. If you tell them what you did, they will feel almost obligated to do something for you in turn. You don’t want anything in return. You simply do it because you enjoy the doing. And as you do it, it becomes more and more a habit, and every moment of your conscious life you’ll be doing it, instead of wasting your time with all the unlovely and negative things. You ignore that and do it deliberately in the loving things.698 ¶26

And when you read in the book, that 40th Psalm “In the volume of the book it is written about me.” Believe it. It’s all about you. Man doesn’t know it, but the whole book is about the individual, that’s your biography. So, in the volume of the book, it is all about me. Then when you read it, you will realize it’s going to unfold in you and, and you’re going to scream it from the housetops and tell everyone without boasting – because it’s about them, too. Everyone can speak in the first person, present tense. It’s all about me, and then one day he’ll experience it and know it really is all about me. And the book was simply a foreshadowing. The whole thing was a blueprint – a prophetic blueprint of your life. And you enter the world of death, that world of slavery. So, when Blake, in his greatest of all poems – he said, “The poem is not mine. The authors are in Heaven; they are in Eternity. I’m only the secretary. It was dictated. It came to me twelve, twenty and thirty lines at a time, and what should have taken a lifetime of labor came in no time at all.” That is his great poem “Jerusalem.” First of all, he begins it by first stating the theme. He tells us “Of the sleep of Ulro! And of the passage through Eternal Death and of awaking to Eternal Life.” Then he says, I in them and they in me – all in One. Here it is “the sleep of Ulro.” What is “the sleep of Ulro”? But we pass through Eternal Death, he makes that statement – but we will awaken to Eternal Life. He’s quite willing to admit it’s going to be a hard passage – a difficult passage, but because we are the Seed of God, we cannot fail, and one day you will erupt, and it’s God erupting – all in you, and you are He.698 ¶27

If you dwell upon it, I tell you from my own experience what it will do for you. You will not be arrogant, but you will meet not one person in this world that you will bend the knee to. You refuse to accept any being in this world as an aristocrat beyond you by the simple descent of the flesh. No, the only aristocrat that you will admit is the aristocracy of the Spirit – no other aristocracy whatsoever, no line of the flesh, for you are not flesh. You are wearing a garment of the slave – that’s flesh, but you are Spirit. You are the child of God, and God is Spirit. That is the only aristocracy that you will admit. And the day will come that you will prove it to yourself, and you will enter a heavenly sphere, and, strangely enough – from my own experience – when you enter this sphere consciously you’ve always known them! You know them more intimately than you know anyone here on earth. When you meet the Brotherhood, you know them more intimately than you know anyone here. I knew my mother, my father, my brothers, my friends, my wife, my children, and yet I know none of them as intimately as I know my Brothers in Eternity. And they are all Eternal beings.698 ¶28

So, when I take this off for the last time, there will be no waiting between the taking off and the putting on of that garment which, for one fleeting moment through the night, I was allowed to wear. I tasted of the joy to come that one night in ’46 coming through the Caribbean. So, I know exactly what is waiting when they say, “Neville is dead.” Far from dead, he will be clothed in his glorious body. Yes, the little garment will be dead, and they will cremate it and turn it into dust, and what they do with it, I don’t really care. I only hope my wife will be wise enough not to allow the morticians to burden her with all kinds of nonsense, keeping a little urn alive and paying rent on it. I told her, “Just have a little fun. The law demands that you’ve got to put it in a box. Well, get the cheapest box in the world – any box. They will burn it up anyway. Get the cheapest little box and burn it up, and don’t you pay rent on the little ash. If they will not allow you here to dispose of it, well, then, make some excuse and say, “Well, it must go to Barbados,” and then they will allow it. When it goes to Barbados, they will throw it into the sea, or throw it in the dust. That’s where it belongs – right there in the dust! But don’t make some little icon of it – no place where you can go and say ‘This is Neville,’ for I’m not there at all. I’m clothed in my glorious body, a body that is eternal – it’s immortal.698 ¶29

And I know what the body feels like, and I know what it is to be in it. I can’t describe to anyone the exaltation of just wearing the body. You feel infinite power, and yet you are man. You are a man. And here everything turns into beauty as you glide by, and you need no light, you need no sun, you need no moon, you need no stars, for you are light unto yourself. Not a blinding light, but a radiant light – enough to illuminate anything you want in this world as you go by. There’s no need for the sun, no need for the stars, no need for the moon, no need for any external light. You are the light of the world. That I do know from my own experience.698 ¶30

So, here tonight, when I say, “Awake, O Sleeper, and rise from the dead,” I’m appealing to you to become more and more aware of what you are imagining, for as you become more and more aware of what you are imagining, you are awakening. And, so you become every moment of time aware, and you refuse then to allow your imagination to entertain the unlovely things in the world, and you simply put it on the lovely. You do it, and that moment that you do it you plant it, and then you have confidence in God’s unbroken law that it must come up, that you may harvest it. In due season it will rise, and in due season you will harvest it. It’s a law established in the very first chapter; read it in the 11th verse. It’s stated so clearly and so perfectly that no man can break it, and then it is captured in the last verse of the 8th chapter: that as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest shall never cease. So, seedtime – you have it. Every time you imagine anything, that’s seedtime. And the harvest must follow; it can’t precede it. So, you have seedtime and harvest established forever and forever as long as the earth endures. And you are the one spoken of in 8th chapter. It is to you that the whole thing is addressed, for the whole thing is about you.698 ¶31

Now, let us go into the Silence. Good. Now, are there any questions, please?698 ¶32

Yes, Betty?698 ¶43

Any other questions, please?698 ¶46

The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus, and Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. Prophecy is over. What people call prophecy today is simply a little nonsense called fortune telling. You can use all the little –isms in the world; but true Prophecy is over, and that is in the Old Testament. The New Testament fulfills it, but that is the life of Jesus; and Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. So, the climax has been reached. It’s been done, for all the Promises of God find their “Yes” in Him. So, in everyone everything said of Him, the individual will experience; the whole thing is unfolding in man – in every child born of woman. It’s not written so that you could read it as you would the alphabet. It wasn’t intended in that manner. As this theologian said to Blake, “You need someone to elucidate your ideas,” and Blake said to him: “You ought to know that that which is grand is necessarily obscure to weak minds, for that which can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care. And the Ancients considered what was not too explicit as fittest for instruction, because it rouses the facilities to act.” Then he asked the theologian: “Why do you think the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only mediating to the understanding or reason?” So, the Old Testament is simply an adumbration; it’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. They are sketches, and the sketches are done in an overall picture, leaving out the particulars, to rouse the faculties to act.697 ¶1

Now, here we will take, say, as many as we can get in tonight in this hour. Genesis is the “seed” plot of the entire Bible. It begins: “In the beginning God”; and it ends on this note: “In a coffin in Egypt.” “In the beginning God” … “in a coffin in Egypt.” Well, who is in the “coffin”? A man, and his name is Joseph, the dreamer. The Bible has only one source of dreams. All dreams proceed from God. So, then, who is Joseph? The Prototype – the prototype of God. Well, God is Man. You are a man. [Thou art a Man:] God is no more: Thy own Humanity learn to adore, God appears, and God is light, To those poor souls who dwell in night; But does a human form display To those who dwell in realms of day. [From The Everlasting Gospel and Auguries of Innocence William Blake] God is man, and you’re a man. You contain the whole drama within you, and the whole drama will unfold within you. So, “In the beginning God” . . . “in a coffin in Egypt.” Now, the entire Bible – here is the “seed” plot. How does it end? The end of Revelation: “Come, Lord Jesus.” Here is the fulfillment, for all of the Promises of God find their “Yes” – their fulfillment in Him. So, Come – Come, the fulfillment of all these Promises in me!697 ¶2

Now, here, everything in this world – every child, every chair, house or tree – I don’t care what object you see – everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. God speaks to man through the medium of dreams, and unveils Himself through the medium of vision. Well, here, a lady has this experience. She said, “I found myself in the strangest, darkest area – it was so dark – jet; and here, in spite of the darkness, I am holding in my hand what appears to be almost the shape of a shoebox. It could be a small coffin; but because it was so small, I thought of it in terms of a shoebox. Yet, it did resemble a little coffin. And in the darkness, I knew that I was in it. I was in it! But I didn’t understand. How could I be in it when I am looking at it and I am holding it in my hand? And here is a little tiny shoebox or a coffin, and I am in it! And in my dream, I turn over and as I turned over, I seemed to turn towards the light, and the light was blazing. And as I turned towards the light, the light seemed to illuminate me in the sense that I understood and then came a relief – a peculiar relief, because I knew what I was. Prior to that, I didn’t know what I was – who I was; I only knew that I was in it, and then I knew beyond all doubt that I was Joseph, and I could not get out of that box until I became Jesus.”697 ¶3

Now she came to me with this dread, and she said, “What on earth could that mean?” Well, you go to any one without the knowledge of Scripture, and what would they tell you? And here is Scripture: “In the beginning God” . . . “in a coffin in Egypt.” But he exacts a promise that they will not leave him in Egypt; they’ll bring him out. Now, God is being formed in man. Here is the Unbegotten forming Itself in man; and when it is completely formed, it comes out. And who comes out? The Lord Jesus Christ! There is nothing but Christ; so He comes out.697 ¶4

So, here is this lady – a perfectly lovely lady. She’s married; she didn’t have a child, but she adopted one. They live happily in their sphere with this adopted son; so she’s a normal, natural person, having a simple dream; and she turns to ask, “What on earth could it mean?” Well, here is Scripture. She is actually seeing Scripture in an adumbration. It’s a foreshadowing, but not in detail. It leaves out the details – leaves out the important points, because if it didn’t – well, then, we could not be roused. So, we are roused to find out, what on earth does this mean? And you begin to speculate. You begin to stir within you. And, so, “If it can be made explicit to the idiot, it isn’t worth my care.”697 ¶5

So, here, every one – and who is that box? What is the box? This [indicating the physical body] is the box; this is the elongated box – the coffin in which God is buried. He’s buried in every one born of woman. And one day He will come out of the box. Who comes out? God. So, He’s buried in the box, and He’s buried as a man. You’re a man. I’m a man. We are Man – generic Man. And after all the unnumbered blows that society gives us, we simply emerge from this box, and we emerge as the Lord Christ Jesus. It frightens people. But may I tell you? Don’t be scared, and don’t be cynical about it, because you are going to have it anyway. You only delay it by your cynicism. So, if you’re a cynic – all right, be one, if you must be; but I tell you, you are only delaying the inevitable – the inevitable “birth” of God-in-you.697 ¶6

What does it matter if you own the earth and you didn’t have this? You are building on sand, for you are going to leave everything you build behind you – but everything! You’ll depart this world, maybe tonight, and leave everything behind you but the unfoldment of Scripture within you. The only purpose of life is to unfold the Promise of God! And so, the entire Promise is contained in the Old Testament, and you come into the world to fulfill it. And only to the degree that we have fulfilled Scripture, have we really built anything, for we can only take the fulfillment of the Word of God. Everything else is left behind. I don’t care what name you call yourself, what position you occupy in the world – the presidents of the world, the kings, the queens, the czars – they all vanish and leave no trace behind them. All they take with them is that portion of Scripture they have fulfilled. That’s all they are taking, and they take no more. So, you either believe it or you don’t believe it.697 ¶7

So, here are the prophetic sketches. We will take a few. Who would believe this sort of a statement: “Can a man bear a child?” Now, the Lord is asking the question of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Can a man bear a child?” Well, the obvious answer is, No, he can’t do it. “Then why do I see every man with his hands drawing himself out of himself, just like a woman in labor? And why is every face turned pale?” Jeremiah 30:6 “How can a man bear a child?” Zechariah 14:6 “Oh, of the day—there was no daylight.” So, now, it’s just simply stated in the 30th chapter of the book of Jeremiah and dropped – just dropped. It’s an adumbration; it’s a foreshadowing. Now, that book was written six hundred years B.C. Who knew that it really was intended one day to be fulfilled in man?697 ¶8

So, you and I are walking the earth, just as we are today – not understanding, not knowing a thing about it. There it is, and so we read it, and people speculate, and we wonder, “What on earth is he talking about? Was Jeremiah insane? So many statements that he made seem insane. Was he insane? And here they are considered words of God. And then we are told not to add to it.” “Do not add to the Word of God, and do not take from it”, for the Word of God will prove itself in performance. And don’t take from it; leave it just as it is, whether you understand it or not. Well, men not understanding through the centuries – they altered it. And now today it reads: “Can a man bear a child? Why, then, do I see every man with his hands on his loins just like a woman in labor?” It hasn’t a thing to do with any loins! The word in Hebrew is “khawlets”, and it means to draw oneself out of oneself, using one’s hands. That’s exactly how it takes place! But man, not understanding that has said, “Well, now, we’ll just change it,” so they changed the meaning of the word. But fortunately for us, we do have the original word and the original meaning of these words, and they didn’t make sense. They didn’t make sense then; they do not make sense now. It only makes sense to the one who has experienced it; and when all of a sudden you awake within yourself, and when you start moving out of your skull, you actually use your hands and pull yourself out of yourself, just like a woman giving birth to a child in the fields.697 ¶9

In the ancient days, they didn’t go to the hospital. There weren’t any hospitals. You were in the fields when the child was delivered; and you took your own, formed being – you formed it within yourself, and with your own hands you pulled what you formed within yourself out of yourself. Well, you form this within yourself, and the body of man is the Womb of God; and He forms Himself within man, and then pulls Himself – that which is formed – He pulls it out of Himself, just as a woman pulls the child out of her womb – that is, primitive woman did. Today we go to the hospital, and you are put into a sleep; and when you awake, you’re told you have a child, and you know nothing of it. But this Book was not written when you went to the hospitals and you had sleep imposed upon you. You were in the field when suddenly it became necessary to take out of your own being what you had formed within your being.697 ¶10

Well, this is the grand miracle! How did it form in the skull of man? How did man, who is God – how did God form Himself – the Unbegotten, forming Himself within Himself – within a mold called “man”? So, here, that is an adumbration, isn’t it – a foreshadowing? But it does not give it in detail. It purposely leaves out all the little – I would say – things that the rational mind could hang onto, leaving man to live by faith. Can he really live by faith? So, here, the entire Book is nothing more than a blueprint. It’s the foreshadowing of what every child born of woman one day will experience.697 ¶11

Now, what came into the world? Let me show you in this manner. I’ve told you in the last few days what you are destined to be. I tell you what I’ve experienced. You may believe me. You may doubt. It doesn’t really matter. As far as I am concerned, it really doesn’t matter! It does matter to you if you believe it. And I will show you to what extent I mean, it does matter to you if you believe it. I tell you that I’ve been “born from above.” I tell you that there’s only Jesus in the world. Everyone who is “born from above” is Jesus Christ – everyone. Now, you can see a man, but you don’t believe it. Why did you see him? Well, he is “born from above.” To leave it on this level, all right, it makes no difference; you have to actually have the experience of seeing him on the level above, and know the truth of what he is talking about. Now, why is that important? I’ll show you why it’s important.697 ¶12

A lady just dropped dead – yesterday, really, when the call came through. The last time I saw her was the last Friday in June; and sitting at the table were four enjoying a very nice, simple lunch. She said, “Oh, what a strange feeling!” and the head fell over, and she’s gone from this world. And, so those who know her – well they regret the departure of Marta; but Marta is free. Marta is not restored to life; Marta is free. I’ll tell you why Marta is free. Six months ago Marta had the vision of the carriage coming up, self-propelled and I got out; and when I came into this room where she was – and she was seated she knew that I am the being you know I am. I am Neville. And I was clothed in power – sheer, almighty power – just power. I began to speak on power and while Marta sat and looked, she said, “Why, he is Neville, and he is God.” And she kept on repeating audibly to herself: “He’s Neville, and he’s God. He’s Neville, and he’s God.” Well, here, Marta actually saw God, clothed in power, wearing the face of a friend – the one she knows as Neville. I said, “There is only God in this world; He wears all the faces.” So, she saw the power of God wearing the face of a friend.697 ¶13

Now listen to the words: “I call you no longer servants. I call you no longer servants, because the servant does not know what his master is doing. I call you friends. All that I have heard from my Father, I have told you.” When you see Him, and see Him as a friend, you are set free. How? In the 8th chapter of John: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” The truth of what? That two and two make four? No – “I am the truth.” “I have told you all that I have heard from my Father,” and “I am the truth.” Now you see me. You see God wearing as a “garment” power, sheer power; but you see a face, and the face He’s wearing is your friend. “And so I call you no longer a slave, for slaves do not know what their master is doing; I call you friends.” And, so, you see a friend, and the friend sets you free. So, Marta, by that one vision of six months ago, today is not restored to life; she is set free. You can only see it in vision; you can’t see it here. Here you see a man, with all the weaknesses of the world; but in vision, He unveils Himself in vision. So He unveiled Himself, and He was wearing the body of a man; yes, but the body was sheer Almightiness – all Power. And, then, He wore the face of Marta’s friend – the same Being; so she knew the truth of what I taught. So, she said, “I am your friend, for all that I have heard from my Father I have told you.”697 ¶14

So, she saw the entire drama gathered together into one marvelous picture. The self- propelled carriage comes up. Out steps this Being called Neville. He comes in and begins to proclaim the power of God, and he’s clothed in power. The first appearance of God to man is power, almightiness, called El Shaddai. “I made myself known unto Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai. By my name, I Am, I did not make myself known.” He made Himself known as “I Am” to Moses first; but to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He appeared only as Power – sheer power. And strangely enough, the night that I stood in the presence of Infinite Love, when He embraced me, and then I heard the cry “out of the blue”; and then I found myself before Might – sheer Almightiness; and He wore, as she saw me wearing it, an Inverness cape – the One who commanded me to go into the world and tell it. And His words were: “Time to act!” He wore an Inverness cape, and He was Infinite Might. There was no compassion in that Being; and one second before I was embraced, and I was one with the Body of Infinite Love. And, yet, when I was commanded to go, it wasn’t Love that commanded me – it was Might – Almightiness. Now, she didn’t know this; and yet when she saw me, the face wearing Infinite Power – here was Neville, and he was all power. Well, it was Power who sent me. Love didn’t send me. Love embraced me, and I became one with Infinite Love, but it was Almightiness that sent me into this world to tell the story – to tell the story of Might – the story of Power. And, so, when she saw me this night, I was wearing the same cape that He who sent me wore; therefore the words are: “He who sees me sees Him who sent me.” If you knew the One who sent me, then you would know me; and if you knew me, you’d know the One who sent me. Who sends me is the One that I resemble. When she saw me, I was wearing the same thing that He wore when He sent me. Now, this is a strange, peculiar mystery, but it is true. Every word I tell you is true.697 ¶15

So, Marta tonight– this simple, sweet lady, my age who worked up until the very day – she went down to Laguna to the Art Festival, and it is a perfectly marvelous festival that meets every year. The four of them enjoyed the festival, and on their way back stopped in to have a simple Mexican meal; and there is no alcohol stronger than beer in these Mexican restaurants – and so, a glass of beer – she’s not a drinker. And sitting there with the simple little meal and a glass of beer, she said, “Oh, what a strange feeling!” and then her head began to move towards the table, and she’s gone suddenly. And Marta did not find herself, I know, restored to life in a world like this: no, Marta is as free as anyone can be. She’s obtained the glorious liberty and freedom of the “sons of God,” because she saw the vision six months before. She saw the vision of God clothed as man – clothed in Power, wearing the face of a friend – the one called Neville. And then as she saw me, she said, “He’s God, and yet he’s Neville; he’s God, he’s Neville!” because there’s only God in this world, and He’ll wear every face in the world.697 ¶16

And, so, tonight as you tell the truth as you hear it from the depths of your own soul, tell it based upon, not speculation; tell it based upon experience. Well, then, tomorrow you could be worn, clothed as Power; and he who sees you in the garment of Power – but sees you, and you are his friend – he sees a friend clothed as Power; and, therefore, he is set free. That’s how God frees them in this world. Now, it doesn’t make sense on this level; but, I tell you, it is true! And, so, should I drop a tear for Marta? No, Marta has been set free. She’s not restored to life to continue the drama and the horrors and the sorrows of the world. So, everything in Scripture is true. Everything is true. So, I ask you to believe it. I have been set free; so it doesn’t make any difference to me, as far as I am concerned, but it makes all the difference in the world to you whether you believe it or not. If you believe it, as Marta did, then you will have a similar vision. I may not be the one used; someone else who tells you a similar story, based upon his own experience, for I’m only telling you what I’ve heard in the depths of my own soul – what I’ve experienced. So, having told exactly what I have experienced, my face is used among those that come to me. But others could come in my footsteps and tell you of a similar experience, and maybe their face will be used, because all faces are the faces of God! He is a Being of infinite faces, and every face is His face. So, do you really believe the story as you’ve heard it? If you do, as she did, you may this night encounter a similar experience; and then when the story comes to its end in this little world of Caesar, instead of being restored to life – no, you aren’t restored, you are set free. You are in an entirely different world, the world of Heaven, above it all.697 ¶17

So, here: “In the beginning God” – there’s only God; “in a coffin in Egypt.” And that “coffin” is every little form that was formed in the womb of woman. Now, here is a little adumbration. You read it in the 4th chapter of the book of Galatians: “And Abraham had two sons. One was by a slave, and one was by a free- woman. Now, this is an allegory.” Well, if this is an allegory, what on earth are the priesthood and the ministers and the rabbis of the world doing when they teach this story as history? Listen to the words: “Abraham had two sons; one was born of a slave, and one of a free-woman – and these are Paul’s words: “Now this is an allegory.” Do you know what an allegory is? It’s a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover the fictitious character of it and learn its lesson.697 ¶18

Well, if the story of Abraham is an allegory – now listen to these words as the New Testament opens: “And this is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Well, if the story of Abraham is an allegory, then what is the genealogy of Jesus? Listen to it carefully: Read the 4th chapter of Galatians, which is the earliest book in the New Testament. That came first. It was written long before the four Gospels. That was the Gospel, and Paul claims it to be the Gospel – “my gospel”; and he said, “Any deviation from this, let him be accursed, because: “This came to me, not by man – I was not taught it by a man; it came by revelation.” Now, he tells you the story is an allegory, because that was revealed to him. The whole thing was an allegory. Well, if it’s an allegory, can it be history? Can it be secular history? No. Therefore, if Abraham begins the whole drama in the story of Matthew, culminating in Jesus Christ, and that story is an allegory, then what is the culmination? It doesn’t mean it’s untrue, but it’s not as the world believes it to be true. So the world believes it to be secular history, and it is not; it’s supernatural history.697 ¶19

The whole thing is completely outside of this sphere, just as my coming into view in a self-propelled carriage into the presence of a woman, and I unveil myself to her. I unveiled myself as the Being that I’m telling everyone in this world that I am. But you choose an individual, and you unveil yourself to that being. I know I’ve been “born from above,” therefore I’m one with the Being called Christ Jesus, and he is God. So, in this moment of time, I took Marta. In the depths of my soul I knew Marta had just a matter of moments in this sphere; and here was Marta’s faith, and so I unveiled myself in that picture. And she had no doubt – no uncertainty in her mind – she’s looking at God and she’s looking at Neville – the same Being, and yet it’s man; it’s Neville, and it’s God. And she awoke, and there was no uncertainty on this level. Reason begins to analyze it and tear it apart. Luckily for her, she wrote the whole thing down and then said, “Now, Neville, I don’t understand it, but this is what happened. When I saw you, I knew you to be God – I had no doubt. I had no uncertainty. As I talk to you now, I know you are Neville, and you have all the weaknesses of the flesh; and still I know that was true.” Well, that was Marta; and she goes, enjoying lunch with three friends. So, that moment of departure, she simply found herself in Heaven; and Heaven is the last – the final union of man with God. So, that’s where Marta is now.697 ¶20

Not only that, listen to these words: In the 9th chapter of 1 Corinthians, when they questioned Paul concerning his claim that he was an apostle, he said, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?” He said, the indispensable prerequisite for apostleship and freedom from this world of death was to have seen the Lord Jesus, and to know it. And that’s what Marta did. He states it in the first verse of the 9th chapter of I Corinthians: “Am I not free?” Freedom depends upon seeing and knowing the Lord Jesus. You can see Him, but not know Him. You can walk the street as Him, seen by people, but they don’t believe it. They do not know it. To see and to know are the same, so they didn’t really see. Well, had they really seen him, they would have known him. But Marta saw me in the true sense of the word; and having seen, she knew me, for the words “see” and “know” in Greek are the same. To see Him in the true sense of the word is to know Him. So, had you really known me, you would have known my Father; but you know neither my Father nor me, for had ye known me, you would have known my Father. So, you have seen me, but you see me what? As the carpenter or the carpenter’s son?697 ¶21

So, in the very, very end, He appears, and they did not recognize Him. They thought he was a carpenter. This is after the Ascension. And then they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us when he interpreted to us the Scriptures? He opened our minds and interpreted the Scriptures, and did not our hearts burn within us?” But they didn’t know Him! At the very end, He was still unknown – unseen by those who followed Him all through life. But an individual really believes it – and the whole thing is determined from within, based upon faith; and so, the only one who really believes it will be singled out; and a drama similar to that will unfold, and he will see, or she will see Him. He’ll be wearing the face of the friend – the body of a man, and the body will be all power – sheer Almightiness; and she will know, or he will know, she stood in the presence of the Risen God! And she saw Him as a friend; and so seeing Him as a friend, she is set free, and he is set free – free from the world of sin and death, no more returning to this world at all.697 ¶22

And I don’t mean reincarnation. The Bible does not teach reincarnation. It teaches restoration, but not reincarnation. You are restored. Everyone is restored in a body that is unaccountably new – wonderfully new, in a world just like this; and you move on, playing the part that you must play, until that work is done in you. When the work is done in you, then He is formed in you; and so you will actually be telling the story that I am telling you now. The day will come that you will become so hungry, not for food – as you are told in the book of Amos: “I will send a famine upon the world. It will not be a famine for bread, nor a hunger nor a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the Word of God.” And not a thing in this world can satisfy that thirst or that hunger but an experience of God. So, Marta had to have a thirst – a hunger to experience God; and so I told her what I had experienced, and that God and man are one. She believed it, and she had to come to the point where she could experience God as a friend. “So I call you no longer slaves, for a slave does not know what his master is doing; I call you friend, because all that I have heard from my Father I have told you. In other words, all that I have experienced from my Father, I have told you. I haven’t held one thing back.”697 ¶23

There isn’t a month but what I get invitations from people, little groups, saying: “You certainly must have something more than you tell publicly. Would you form a class? We’ll pay anything you ask.” And they are willing to pay any price for an exclusive class of, say, twenty. I have not one thing I could tell a class of twelve, twenty, or one, that I haven’t told you! I have not a thing that I have kept back as a secret. I have no secret. So, I couldn’t possibly, unless I was a liar – if I formed a group as an exclusive class to tell them something I haven’t told publicly, it would be only to make the dollar that they’ve offered me. It’s quite a temptation. When twenty people get together and say, “I’ll give you one thousand dollars each,” – so twenty thousand dollars, you say how long the class will be – one week, two weeks – well, it’s quite a temptation not to take the twenty thousand dollars in two weeks. But what could I tell them and live with myself that I haven’t told everyone in the world?697 ¶24

I tell it to my maid. She comes home once a week, every Monday, and she’s like a member of the family. When Doris comes to the house, we discuss. When I hear some statement from her that is on the negative side, I jack her up; and then I will spend five, ten, fifteen minutes with Doris. I’m paying her, mind you; so I am simply stopping her doing the work she is supposed to do by telling her something. What more could I tell someone else than I tell Doris? I can’t find anything that I’ve held as a secret. “All that I have heard from my Father, I’ve told you.” So, I have not a thing that I could give to any private class that I cannot give, and haven’t given, to the public class. No private class, none whatsoever.697 ¶25

But there are those who believe you have a secret that you haven’t yet revealed, and it’s something they can put their fingers into and claim that they had something that no one else had. Well, I don’t have that. So I call you friends. I called Marta a friend. I called Marge, with whom she was when she dropped dead – and Marge had a similar experience; only Marta saw it was God – he’s Neville, and he’s God; but Marge, with whom she was when she dropped dead, saw me as Jesus standing on the beach, facing this enormous crowd of people, all of different faiths, and I am speaking in a language they all understood, yet they differed, but each heard me in the language of his own tongue, and she said, “Why, he’s Neville, but he’s Jesus!” It seems the height of blasphemy to say this, but I am telling you what I know from my own experience. But it doesn’t take place here. Jesus as a man never walked the face of this earth – not here. The Bible has no reference to any man that ever walked the face of this earth. It’s a supernatural drama unfolding in man. So every child born of woman is the Jesus-to-be; and that is simply a pattern unfolding within him. He is the Pattern Man. And when it unfolds, he knows who he is. He tells it to his friends; some believe him, some don’t. The majority will not. He tells it to his family, and they laugh at him. As you are told in the 7th chapter of John: “His brothers did not believe him,” and they turned from him. They did not believe him. No one believed him, save a very few – just a handful; and at the very end of the drama he walked with them and said, “What is all this ado about?” And they said, “Haven’t you heard?” and they began to tell him, but they thought he was the gardener. They still did not recognize him!697 ¶26

But the glory to me this night is that Marta recognized it here, and that today, by that recognition, she’s been set free. Free as the wind – no more restoration to life in the world of Caesar; and the same thing is happening – will happen eventually to Marge when Marge falls from this world – the same thing. And every one will have it who really has faith in what I am talking about and they will see me because I will have the urge to unveil myself. He unveils – self in a vision, and reveals Himself in that manner. He speaks in a dream, as Marge had the dream of the box like a little coffin, and she knew that within it she was there and she was Joseph. She knew she couldn’t get out of that box until in that box she became Jesus, for only Jesus resurrects. And so, he resurrects. Who resurrects? He is designated “Son of God” in power by his resurrection from the dead. So, only Jesus resurrects; so she has to actually form herself into Jesus to resurrect, and everyone who resurrects as Jesus. There’s not a thing in this world resurrects, but Jesus! So, even though your name is John or Mary or Peter, when you rise from the dead, you are Jesus without loss of identity of being Mary, being Peter, being Neville, or being any other name. This is the mystery.697 ¶27

Now, these mysteries of the Bible are not matters to be kept secret, but they are truths that are mysterious in character. It’s difficult to convey them to the rational mind. The mind stands still before the mystery of God. You are trying to rationalize it. You can’t do it. So, here, the entire Old Testament is an adumbration – a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. It is like a rough sketch. That’s why, when Paul said to the Galatians – he said: “Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?” He’s asking them: Have you forgotten? Let me ask you only this: “Did you receive the spirit by the hearing of the law or by faith? Are you so foolish? Having received it, the Spirit by faith, are you now returning to the flesh?”697 ¶28

Are you going to see Jesus as a being of flesh and blood? He’s not flesh and blood; He’s not of this world – “I am not of this world.” “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” Are you going to see Him of this world? “Oh, foolish Galatians!” you saw Him “portrayed” – go to a play and see the drama unfold before you. Do you really believe what you see as the fact; or are you going to extract from it, like the allegory, and take from it what it really intends to tell you? So, here is a play unfolding before you. That’s not the fact; that’s the allegory. Now, try to extract the meaning of the story as you saw it unfold before you, for it was portrayed before you. Then said he: “From now on, I consider no one from the human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard Him thus no longer.” So, he believed in a physical Christ, as the whole vast world does; then when the light came to him and the whole thing unfolded within him, he couldn’t see a physical Christ. He said, “I regard no one from a human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” Read it.697 ¶29

So, here, you and I are the One Being, wearing this cross [indicating the body]; and from this cross we will rise and when we rise, we are the Lord Jesus Christ. And then dramas like the one I’ve told you will take place, and you will set free those who believe it. “And everyone who believes me now,” he said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The truth? Well, what truth must I know? He said, “I am the truth.” The truth? Well, what truth must I know? He said, “I am the truth,” – in other words, “Know me. I’ve told you who I am, and the day will come that I will unveil myself to you, and you’ll know me; and therefore you’ll be knowing the truth, and that truth will set you free.” You will actually know me as I have told you I am; and in that day you’ll be set free the minute you know me. For the minute I unveil myself before you, I’ll be wearing the body of a man, for God is man. I’ll be clothed in that of power, for He is Infinite Power. But I will wear my face, and my face is your friend. And, so, I will be your friend, and call you no longer a slave, for the slave will not know what I am doing; but I will call you a friend, for I’ve told you all that I’ve ever heard from my Father – all that I’ve ever experienced in the mysteries I’ve told you. So, then, you are my friend, and you will see me as I’ve told you that I am; and in that moment that you see me and you believe it, because you have no uncertainty within you, you are set free!697 ¶30

So, when your little moment comes in time to depart this world and you drop the body, you are not restored; you are free. You are a child of God – immortal, wearing a glorious, glorified body in the Body of the Risen Christ. Everyone is going to have it. We can only postpone it by our cynicism and our – well, unbelieving attitude towards it. It’s the most difficult thing. I’m not saying it’s the easiest thing in the world to grasp, but it’s true. Every word of it is true. And can you conceive of anything worthwhile dwelling upon, other than this?697 ¶31

It doesn’t deny the world of Caesar. Oh, in the world of Caesar you can have anything you want – but anything you want you can have! It’s all here for the taking. If you dare to assume that you are now what you want to be, and do not fail in the assumption, you’ll get it. If you walk as though you were what you would like to be, you’ll get it. Here is a friend of mine in L.A. He comes to all the meetings, a handsome, wonderful lad of about 40 years of age. He says, “In my office this perfectly lovely girl, she serves all the different gentlemen who are in the office and we all love her. One day she came into my office, and she spent twenty minutes telling me of the horrors of this world, where there are so few eligible men for marriage, and so many jerks – millions of jerks and so few eligible men. So, after she poured it out for twenty minutes, I didn’t say a word to her; she left the office, and I sat there for a few minutes, and I heard within me – I heard her tell me that she had met the man – the most glorious man that ever walked this earth, and they are dating and – oh, she’s just walking in the heavens. I did it at that moment. On my way home, driving on the freeway, I did it again. The next morning when I was shaving, I thought of her, and I did it again. Well, in ten days I had no confirmation of it. She still came into the office bringing the papers; and as she came in and she still seemed to be gloomy, I did it again. Well, ten days went by, and all of a sudden she came in, and here is sheer ecstasy! She spent one-half hour of my precious time telling me of the man of men in this world. They are dating, and they are dating night after night. Why, there’s not a person in this world comparable to this man.”697 ¶32

Well, what did he do? He simply used his imagination to give her what she wanted. She wanted a man, not a jerk; so he simply got a man. And, now, as far as she is concerned, he is just the best man in this world. Well, I closed on this very last Friday in June; so I do not know if it is consummated or not – I don’t know. But they are dating every, every day; and as far as she is concerned he is the only man in the world. But who did it? My friend, his name is Ray Lee. He sat down – he likes her as a friend, and all the men in the office – they like her. She has worked in the office for a while. It’s an advertising office. And Ray, knowing this principle, he figures, “All right, we’ll forget all of the people in this world that she thinks are no good, and I will now see that she has a perfect man.” And that’s all that Ray did. On his way home, he did it; next morning when he was shaving, he did it; and he was reminded by her gloom that something must be done more than what he did, so he did it again. So, he did it maybe four or five times in that interval; and in less than two weeks, she finds an angel on earth. Of course, he may not always be that; but, nevertheless, at the moment, he is all that he wanted her to find.697 ¶33

You can have anything in this world – I don’t care what it is, if you’ll apply God’s law. And God’s law is simple: Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will. Well, if you believe that you’ve received it how would you feel? Just how would you feel? That’s the feeling – catch it! Catch that feeling, and don’t let it go! You have found Me; well, don’t let Me go. Let all the others go, but don’t let Me go. You have found salvation in that mood. That mood, were it true, would save you from all that you formerly had but you didn’t want. Now, this mood will save you. Catch this mood, for that’s the mood that will save you – and walk in it. That belongs to the world of Caesar; but while we are in the world of Caesar, why not use it? And use it wisely; use it lovingly.697 ¶34

But I am trying to get you beyond the world of Caesar to something that never passes away, because the most glorious romance in the world today must come to an end, and death will end it. You love your child, and you’ll die this very moment for your child. If you and your child were held by some monster in the world, and they said: “One of you must die,” no father in this world would hesitate for an nth part of a second, who loves his child, to say, “Take my life.” He couldn’t for one moment, if he were a father who loves his child, hesitate to say, “What are you asking about?” You don’t ask those questions; it’s just, “Take my life.” What does it matter? “But promise me as a man and save hers. Don’t take hers – you can’t take both. You take my life.” You wouldn’t hesitate if you loved someone. Yet it has to part; either you go first or she goes first; and every man worthy of his name wants himself to go before the ones he loves. He doesn’t want to say “Good-bye” to one here that he truly loves. He wants to go first.697 ¶35

But it has to be a parting in the world of Caesar, but not in the world of Heaven. There is no parting. It’s an immortal body. It is a body that is forever, and relationships are forever; they are not parted. And it is harmony, and one body holds it all: one lord, one body, one spirit – without loss of identity.697 ¶36

So, here, while we are here, even though we know we’ve got to part, you go into a building or you go into a city, and a building that you knew and loved – where is it? It’s gone. I go to New York every year. You can get into a taxi and say, “Take me to So-and-So.” “That’s gone, Sir.” “Well, I’ll tell you what – take me to that restaurant.” “Why, that’s gone, too, Sir.” Then you get another restaurant; after a while, you think, “What’s left?” You had better stick to something that you think is left, because you mention this hotel… that hotel is gone; and I’m not kidding. I mean from experience, I lived there for years and years. I came to New York City in 1922, and I have lived in New York City. I knew every square inch of it. And here, these lovely hotels where I used to go to dinner and different restaurants– well, that hotel is gone now, that restaurant is gone, and they are all gone. New buildings are in their place, yes but you don’t know these buildings, and you don’t know the personnel of the restaurants. They are all gone.697 ¶37

So, not a thing is permanent in this world. It all vanishes. But while vanishing – all right, you have to live in the world of Caesar, apply His law, and have all the happiness that you want in this world. Don’t let anyone tell you that any limit is placed upon the power of belief. There is no limit placed upon it. But don’t forget the Promise. Dwell upon the Promise for that’s the only important thing in this world: When you awake and you are God, without loss of identity.697 ¶38

And, may I tell you? No matter what you might think of yourself today, as a man – and you know every person in the world can be improved in his body, in his face – I am telling you, when you see the face that is your face, there is no room for improvement. There is no room for improvement! I don’t care what you may think of yourself today, or what anyone in the world may think of you; there is no room for improvement. That face is God’s face! It’s perfect, and yet it’s your face; and everyone will know they are looking at you, and yet, it’s your face, and there’s no room for improvement. It’s God’s face!697 ¶39

And the body is man, and you may wear the garment of power, or you may wear the garment of wisdom, for both are the definitions of Christ. “Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.” In the case of these two: I wore the garment of Power in one, and I wore in the other the garment of Love, for that is God’s true garment. But you don’t wear it because you’re simply a man in the eyes of Caesar, and a very weak, limited, fragile person. Now, let us go into the Silence. Good.697 ¶40

Now, are there any questions, please?697 ¶41

For instance, I find greater belief among strangers than I would in my family. Among my family, I have no belief whatsoever. My wife, yes, my wife believes. My son, no – as far as he is concerned, this is all stupid. My daughter, she is believing; but like all these young girls today – she is 26, a college graduate– and no one is more stupid than your father when you’re 18; and then by the time you are 24, it’s amazing how quickly he became wise! In four short years he became so wise; but at 18 he was the most stupid person in the world, because she knew that I couldn’t pass any examination that was given her to enter college. I would flunk any college examination; and so, therefore, she catalogued me right away as stupid. And the wisest people she ever knew, which were in college, were the teachers. Everyone was simply a giant in her eye; but all of a sudden, they became just normal people; and then her father, who was stupid – well, she doesn’t voice it, but I know that she has changed her attitude.697 ¶44

But my brothers and my sister at home, they can’t give me one word because they don’t believe one thing I say. First of all, Neville is simply one of the boys. Well, I am one of the boys – I can’t deny that. And so, what on earth is he talking about, because they all believe in the historicity of Scripture. I tell my sister it isn’t history, not secular history. It’s Salvation history. It’s eternal history but it’s not secular history.697 ¶45

Well, my sister is a pillar of the Christian church – the Anglican Church. She contributes, not only her time, but her money. She gives generously to the church – supports the old men’s home, the old women’s home – all the homes; and she is the most generous one because she has it. She has oodles of money, and she gives generously to the church. But she also gives her time to the church, and she’s always in the church Sunday morning, whether she feels well or not; her husband has to drive her to church, and she goes. She has to be in church. So we get together and over the morning’s breakfast, she doesn’t want to discuss it; but something will always come up to – you know – prompt some little thing. But it’s an irritant as far as she is concerned. That will disturb her, and she doesn’t want to be disturbed. She’s satisfied that Jesus is a man, as she was taught not as she discovered from Scripture or from a vision, but as she was taught by her ministers. And they are just as blind as my sister.697 ¶46

And as far as my brothers are concerned, they have made all the money in the world that they want or they need and don’t disturb them. As my brother Victor said, “Look here, you are interested in what is going to happen after this world. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I came into it, and I made a good world of it. I came here without knowing what I am supposed to do, and I did a darn good job,” said he. “Well, when I go into the other world, I’ll do a good job, too.” So, that’s his concept. So, “just don’t bring up any of these things because I’m not interested.” So, when I go home, I leave them alone – only to fulfill Scripture. This whole thing is fulfillment of Scripture. “His brothers did not believe him.”697 ¶47

I have an Aunt – she’s 92 years old. The family supports her. She lives in Jersey. She and I, when I was just a boy and the visions began, she thought herself one marvelous, wonderful Christian. She couldn’t let her daughter marry the son of the devil, not because he was a Christian, but of a different denomination; so he was the son of the devil. So, they got married anyway. And here is this Aunt of mine, and one day I said to her, “Don’t you know that Jesus had brothers?” because I knew that she believed in the literal word of the Scriptures. She said, “Our good Lord had brothers?” And she just got up and ran out of the room. She couldn’t be in the presence of the devil who was her nephew! So, when she came back, I said, “Do you have a Bible?” “Yes.” I said, “Go and get it.” She brought it in. I said, “Open it up. Turn to the 6th chapter of Mark and start reading.” Well, you only get to the third verse when they name the brothers: James, Joses and Simon and Judas, and “his sisters are with us this day” – plural; and when she read it she took the book – and she could have eaten it, because I made her see what she hadn’t seen before. She wants the literal word. Well, read the literal word. He had at least – at the very least, it was a family of seven. And, so, she wants to believe in this strange, peculiar rigidity. No!697 ¶48

A man came to my meetings every night when I lectured in L.A. until one night when I said, “I am Mary.” I said, “I am Mary, and birth to God must give, if I am blessedness for now and evermore would life.” And he said from the audience – he was in the first row – “You don’t look like Mary to me.” I said, “May I tell you that you are Mary, too? You call yourself a man.” He’s a Green Beret – always wore his green beret; he’s from the Green Beret Regiment, and very proud of it. He always wore it, even though he was in the meeting – he never took the hat off. I said, “You are Mary; and just as I gave birth to Christ, you must give birth to Christ or live in hell for the rest of eternity, for the only salvation is to bring forth Christ, and you will give it.” He never came back. After the meeting, he came forward and said, “You know, I want to tell you something, Neville; you do teach some of the truth, but not all the truth.” I said, “Well, thank you very much.” End of tape recording697 ¶49

22-Jul-1968 San Francisco The Bible defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” “What is seen is made out of things that do not appear.” Faith does not give reality to things that are not seen. It is loyalty to reality that makes things appear.463 ¶1

Can I see the facts the world sees and still believe in the unseen state? If I can remain loyal to the unseen state, in some way I will get confirmation of it. “… ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” This is not Jesus Christ talking to a disciple on the outside; it is I talking to myself. “If all things are made by God, and without Him is not anything made that is made.” Then where is God? In my Imagination! You aren’t called upon to make the things. All things already are. The whole, vast creation is already finished; I am only becoming aware of it. Any state that I can imagine can be occupied. The whole thing is finished, and all I do is adjust to it and “feel” myself there until it becomes natural. You don’t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to the unseen reality that gives it objectivity.463 ¶2

You can revise the past. We, you and I – are here, born by the Grace of God, and yet we dare to put a limit on the power of God. Our “sin” is our doubt of God. “Some men see things as they are and say: Why? I dream things that never were and say: Why not?” Sen. Ted Kennedy used this quotation in his eulogy of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy without giving credit to the author, however Sen. R. F. Kennedy was known to quote it many times, giving credit to G. B. S. I know that I must be whatever I am in Imagination. So don’t treat this principle lightly. You truly move yourself into states mentally, wittingly or unwittingly. A bridge of incidents will develop, over which you will pass until the state is fulfilled like pure imagining in us, and that He works in the very depths of our soul, underlying all of our faculties, including perception; but He streams into the surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy, like a daydream – just a simple daydream.463 ¶3

I think of someone who is maybe a thousand miles away. Well, that act – that perceptive act, unseen by any one– that was God-in-action. Well, can I believe in the reality of that act? Can I represent him to myself as I would like to see him in the flesh? Can I see him successful? Can I see him – well, as I want to see him, and believe in the reality of that unseen state? If I can remain loyal to that unseen reality, I will have confirmation that he is the being that I am assuming that he is. Someone will write me or maybe I’ll meet him in the flesh, but in some way I will get confirmation that what I think I see in him or desire to see in him, and persuade myself that I do see in him, that it will come to pass.463 ¶4

Now, one day, in reading the 14th chapter of the book of John, having been told that Christ is in me, and here is Christ now speaking to the disciples, (well, if he is in me, what is he trying to tell me? He is speaking to the disciples) he said: “You believe in God, believe in me also. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you? Would I have told you that I go prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye shall be also.” Well, it came to me as I read it, from some peculiar intuitive depth, that I am not talking to a disciple (something on the outside). I’m talking to myself! This whole conversation is something within myself.463 ¶5

I take the body called Neville – this visible thing that is weak and limited and fragile, and I’m talking to it. You can’t go; you’re limited. It will take time to get there; it’ll take money to get there. Maybe you can’t afford either the time or the money. But it will take me – if I’m Imagination – to go any place in this world without money, and I don’t need time. I can sit in a chair and put my body, cumbersome as it is, on a chair or on a bed, and if I am all Imagination, and God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination, then I can be any place in this world that I desire to be. So, I can go and prepare a place.463 ¶6

So, I tried it. I tried assuming that I am where reason would deny it, my senses deny it, but I remained in that state until it seemed natural to me, just seemed natural. Well, then, I went there. And, then, I opened my eyes upon the world that I had shut out, and it was a shock to find myself back in the chair. Well, I if I analyze it, it seems stupid. What I did – it seemed real while I did it, and then one second later, here I am on my chair, and everything I see in my room denies that I did anything that the world would call real. But I did it! And, then, in the not-distant future, I was forced across a series of events, which led up to the fulfillment of that state.463 ¶7

Now, I did it on a very cold winter night in New York City. I had brought out my first book, called Your Faith is Your Fortune, in the month of February in 1941. It was so cold – twelve or fourteen inches of snow on the ground – and I expected in those days simply a voluntary offering on the part of those who came. And many came just for contacts. They didn’t care what I had to say. They came to meet people, and they would go out for their coffee klatches and all these things after the meeting. I didn’t care. It was a crowded house – over a thousand people – in a little old church off Times Square. I expected that night, when I brought out my book, Your Faith is Your Fortune, that there would be the usual thousand, and this night because of the weather they couldn’t get through the snow, I think we had a hundred and fifty people, and there was a certain personal disappointment, because here was my first effort in bringing out a book. And, so I had my books there and a hundred and fifty came, not prepared to buy the book, and so, we packed up at the end of the talk.463 ¶8

When I went home that night the snow was, as I say, twelve or fourteen inches on the ground, and it was cold. When I got into my bed, I did this thing almost absent-mindedly, but I did it, and I knew exactly what I did. Barbados, where I was born, is a little tropical island in the West Indies, and I assumed that I was actually on my bed in my mother’s home that I knew and loved so well. And to prove that I was actually there, I just imagined the world relative to that position. I saw the world – not from my place in New York City, I saw it from Barbados. So, mentally I saw the world as I would see it if I were in Barbados. I thought of my place in New York City, and I saw it two thousand miles to the north of me. I thought of other places, and they were all related to where I am assuming that I am, and I fell asleep in that assumption.463 ¶9

When I awoke the next morning, the snow was even higher, and I am not in Barbados, I am in New York City! Well, time progressed. The war in Europe was on. England was at war. No ships were plying the Atlantic. They were going down faster than they could build them, and we were almost at war, and then came the month of August, and I received a cable from my family saying: “We didn’t tell you, because we knew you couldn’t come to Barbados. There aren’t any ships,” (and certainly in those days there were no planes) and they said: “Mother is dying. She’s been dying for two years, but now, this is it, and if you want to see her in this world once more, you’ve got to come now” – I mean, now.463 ¶10

I received that cable in the morning, and my wife and I sailed the very next night.463 ¶11

One ship was leaving at midnight, the “Argentine,” and we sailed in late August for Barbados.463 ¶12

And there I went to Barbados, the last place in that world that I intended to go. In fact, we had planned to go to Maine for a vacation. We were going to close that month and go to Maine for five or six weeks, and then return to reopen sometime in October. But all plans were changed to fulfill what I had done in an idle moment because of disappointment. But it taught me a lesson: not to use this law idly, not to use it to escape, but to use it deliberately because you cannot escape from it. A series of events will mold themselves, across which you will walk, leading up to the fulfillment of that state. And so here I put myself, just to escape from the cold and the disappointment of the evening, in Barbados of all places. Then something happens, and I am compelled to make the journey, the last place in the world we intended to go. And we sailed at midnight, and got there four and a half days later on this “Argentine” ship. (It was an American ship, but it was called the “Argentine.”) Mother dies, as they all said she would, and I returned to the States with the knowledge of what I had done and began to teach it.463 ¶13

And in that audience of, I would say, a thousand, they all began to apply it, with tremendous success.463 ¶14

Then, where is God? If “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that is made” then where is he? I knew exactly what I did, and I know what happened. Well, if I can trace what happened to an invisible cause (what I did) and repeat it, and tell that story to others, who can take it and try it and repeat it, well then, I have found causation. And if all causes spring from God, then I have found him. I have found Him as my own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. There isn’t a thing in this world that wasn’t first imagined. Now, here you aren’t called to make the thing. Things are. All things in the world are. “Eternity exists, and all things in Eternity independent of creation, which was an act of mercy.”463 ¶15

You can’t conceive of something that isn’t!463 ¶16

As a result of this in 1941, it was 1949 that I gave a series of lectures in Milwaukee, and the head chemist at Allis-Chalmers came to my meetings. I made some statement using a term that is a scientific term, and the word was “entropy.” Well, I might have used it, not as the scientist would have used it, but I had my own concept of what the word meant and my definition of it, and I said I can change the past. If I can make something, I can unmake it. Whatever I can create, I can un-create. Whatever I can make, I can unmake. He said: “You can’t do it. For we use entropy in our laboratory every day, and entropy means the past is unalterable; you can’t change it. If the past could be changed, I wouldn’t know what I am doing in the lab…” He said: “All day long I receive little samples of water from all over the world, because we make these huge turbines. And from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – all over the world – they send samples, because the water passes through certain mineral deposits and carries with it whatever is in that mineral, and, so it cakes. We have to analyze that water and then bring up a solution, because we made the product.”463 ¶17

And I said: “I don’t care what you say. I know what I’ve done. And you can undo the past. You can change it.” “It can’t be done.” I said: “As far as I am concerned, the whole vast world is finished. Creation is finished, and I am only becoming aware of it. Well, I need not confine myself to what my senses see and what reason allows and what wise men tell me I should accept. I can imagine a state. I can’t see it with my physical eye, but I can imagine a state, and that state imagined is. I can imagine a state that is in conflict with the facts of life. And the facts, you say, are, and they can’t be altered. I can imagine a state that would undo the fact. Well, that state exists. If I occupy that state it will undo the so-called fact you say is fixed forever.” Well, he questioned my sanity, but he was an awfully nice chap. His name was Professor Imhoff. He was the head of the department of this chemical setup. So, while he was a very wise and gentle and kind person. I returned to New York City, and he sent me the “Scientific News Letter,” dated October the 15th, 1949, in which he said: “Now, Neville, I apologize for having said what I did. This man is far greater as a physicist than I am as a scientist. He is Professor Feynman, of Cornell University, one of the outstanding physicists of our day in speculative, theoretical physics; and this is his letter. And he wrote in this little letter, which was printed in the magazine, a story concerning the positron, a little particle that is produced in atomic disintegration. It’s like the electron, but differs in this respect. It is positive in its charge instead of being negative. Now, these are the words of Feynman, they are not mine. He says: “The positron is a wrong-way electron. It starts from where it hasn’t been, and it speeds to where it was an instant ago. It is bounced so hard its time sense is reversed, and then it returns to where it hasn’t been.” (Now, this is Feynman, this isn’t Neville.) Then he goes on to say: “When a little electron is moving speedily in space if it is bounced, it’s deflected, but continues on its course. But if it is bounced so hard, then its time sense is reversed, and it returns to where it hasn’t been.” “Now,” he said, “on the basis of this, we must now conclude that the entire concept that man held of the universe is false. We always believed that the future developed slowly out of the past. Now, with this concept which we have seen and photographed, we must now conclude that the entire space-time history of the world is laid out, and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.”463 ¶18

This is 1949. That Professor, Richard Feynman, who is now at Cal Tech in Pasadena received the Nobel Prize last year for that paper. They held it up almost twenty years, for this is 1968 and he got it in 1967, and the paper came out in 1949.463 ¶19

I didn’t know it as a scientist. I knew it as a mystic. I see it. I can’t explain why; I only know everything is. The whole thing is finished, and all I have to do is to adjust to it. If I know what I want for myself or for another, I adjust to it, because the thing is. Well, if I adjust to it and it feels natural, when it feels natural, then I open my eyes upon this world that I have shut out for that purpose.463 ¶20

As I open my eyes, I am turned around. I have actually been where reason would deny that I have been there; and then, as I open my eyes, I have been speeding with the speed of light from wherever I have assumed that I am to where physically I am. Now I am so shocked to find that I am not actually there, but I am here physically. My time sense is turned around. And now, I move across a bridge of incidents – a series of events – that compels me to move towards the fulfillment of that invisible state. And when I get there it is not invisible, it becomes visible. It throws itself on the screen of space, and the world calls that a fact. And they stand amazed at that, because that to them is real. Prior to its becoming objective, it was unreal. So, I tell you: faith in unseen reality. You don’t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to unseen reality that is the secret of faith. So, when he tells us: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” by faith, we understand that the world was created by the Word of God, so that “things seen were made from things that do not appear…”463 ¶21

Now, let me share with you this story. A friend of mine living in L.A. came many years ago from Pittsburgh. So in ’66 she returned to Pittsburgh and met the few friends who are still in this world. Many have departed. There was one lady she speaks of as Betty. Well, Betty married this man, and his name is supposed to be Matthew. Well, Matthew was suffering from a certain disease, which led progressively to total deafness. In the interval, it is accompanied by dizziness, and retching. What the name is, I don’t know. She told me, but I am not familiar with these medical terms. But it is something that is incurable as of today. No doctor knows how to arrest it, and it progressively moves towards total deafness.463 ¶22

In the meanwhile, it is a most painful condition that accompanies it, and these horrible dizzy spells, and then the retching. She told the story as I told it to her, how you can revise the past; that in spite of the fact that he is moving towards the inevitable total deafness, it need not be. They can go back and change the past to the point in time – which was fourteen years before – when this thing began to show in his body. He didn’t believe it. She said to me: “He would ask me a hundred and one questions concerning it, not because he wanted to be cruel, but he is a rational being, a very intelligent person, and it didn’t make sense. Because it didn’t make sense, he discounted it; but Betty thought: ‘”I will try it.’” “Now, she said, “It was a very difficult thing for Betty and myself, because my parents were both deaf, and Betty’s parents were both deaf, and we were raised in the environment of deaf people. We had to learn sign language to communicate with our parents. So, Betty had the experience of deaf parents, both of them, and I had the experience of deaf parents, and to be confronted with this picture – it was a horrible, horrible picture. Betty said to me: “I will do it every night,” and she took a simple little sentence: “Matthew” (she called him Matt) – “Matt is hearing perfectly.” That’s all that she did. Meanwhile he’s getting worse and worse and worse. A year went by, and he’s still progressing towards the inevitable end of total deafness, when in his business he had this excruciating pain from ear to ear, and he cried out. Well, they rushed him to the doctor and the doctor gave him an injection to alleviate the pain. Then the doctor said: “You can’t go back on the job right away. You must go to your room and rest for a while.” Well, in the room, he dozed, and went into a little sleep and when he awoke, he was hearing perfectly – hearing perfectly! He was sent home early that evening. He usually arrives at 6:00 o’clock. When he came home on the early side, the wife greeted him with the usual: “Oh, what’s wrong? What happened at the office today?” and he replied: “Betty, I am hearing perfectly.” He used the identical word that she had, night after night, heard. All in her imagination, she heard him say: “Betty, I am hearing perfectly.” So, she heard her own name called by her husband, Matt, and he confirmed it by saying: “I am hearing perfectly.” Then he said: “I believe, I believe, I believe!”463 ¶23

Now, that is a year and a half ago. She said: “In the interval we never breathed it, did not mention it in our letters. I communicate constantly, but I did not for one moment state anything further than I did when I was there in the flesh and told her of a principle,” a principle which you could call by any name. We call it God. Well, God is one’s own marvelous human Imagination. That’s God! 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. And all things are possible to God.463 ¶24

You and I– here we are, fashioned by the grace of God, born by the grace of God, and we dare to put a limit on the power of God! Here we, the creature born by the grace of God, and then we tell God (or tell ourselves) what he can’t do. And therefore, give to God, who made us and brought us into the world…and now we give to him the sin against the Holy Ghost, which as far as I see it is man’s doubt—the only thing that cannot be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is man’s doubt in the power of God.463 ¶25

You might have heard the late Senator Kennedy in one or two of his political speeches. He was very fond of quoting this passage from George Bernard Shaw – in fact, his brother Teddy, in the eulogy in New York City quoted it. He didn’t give credit to George Bernard Shaw, but his brother had done it time and again, and therefore people knew, those who heard him, that it was not Teddy’s or Bobbie’s – it was George Bernard Shaw. And this is the quote: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’” Why not? The world tells me it can’t be. Why not? Are not all things possible to God? And did not God become me, that I may become God?463 ¶26

Well, if he became me, I can’t dissect the body and find him in an atom. I can’t find him in the brain. I can’t find him in any organ of the body. Therefore, where is he? Just where is he? I am told in Scripture he has a name, and this name is his name forever and forever, and the name defined is: “I Am.” Well, that’s the core of my being. I can’t put it aside. I sit down to imagine. Who’s imagining? I am. I have never been able to put “I am” out there and look at it. It is the being perceiving, not the thing perceived. It is the being making, not the thing made. It’s the being creating; not the thing created. And man stands amazed at his own creations – and forgets the creator. He falls in love with all the things he makes, and he forgets completely the maker; and the maker is “I Am.” There is no other maker. There is no other God.463 ¶27

So, when I found that out, I knew that when I went to Barbados, I was actually sleeping in my mother’s home in a bed that I knew well, and it was warm. I could feel the warmth of the tropics. I could detect the odors of the tropics; they differ from the northern world. All the things that are related to the tropics, I detected. Well, who is doing it? I am. I can’t get away from it. Is that God? Yes. Well, he didn’t take a train there. No, there aren’t any trains. He didn’t take a plane? No, there were no planes then. He didn’t take a ship? No. He simply was there. Wherever I assume that I am, I am there. And, so, if I can assume that I am elsewhere, to the point that someone like my sister actually sees me there, well, I must be wherever I am in Imagination.463 ¶28

One day I had occasion, while in New York City, to assume that I am being seen by my sister, whose son was desperately ill, age 17, and riddled with cancer. No one knew what was wrong with him until they opened him, and then he was too far-gone. The whole body was completely riddled at the age of seventeen! And they say that if you are young when you develop this, then like all young things, it grows. If you are developed to the age of sixty or seventy, the chances are you won’t die of it because things aren’t building then. You are only marking time. But youth is growing. Whether it be a good cell or a bad cell, it simply grows rapidly. So at the age of seventeen he wasn’t feeling well. They wonder: what’s wrong with the boy? And someone suggested going in and taking a little look on the inside. They thought it might be some appendix or some peculiar thing there. So they opened him up and sewed him back – not a thing they could do. The whole body was simply gone.463 ¶29

Well, to comfort my sister, I thought I would put my body physically in New York City and assume I’m in Barbados. I’m in my nephew’s room, and when my sister enters the room she is going to see me, and not her son. I actually assumed that I am there. I am occupying the same space that my nephew Billy occupied, and then when I felt it natural, I assumed that my sister came in. She came in, and she came over and she looked, and she couldn’t see anyone but her brother, Neville.463 ¶30

I came out of that silence. I came into the living room where a friend, by invitation, had arrived for a cocktail, because I had said: “Drop by at the cocktail hour – it’s around 5:00 o’clock, and we’ll have a drink.” I went into the silence around 4:30, and I didn’t come out until maybe after 5:00 – 5:15 or 5:20. So when I came into the living room, she said: “Neville, what’s wrong with you? You are always so gay and light. Why do you seem so heavy now?” and I told her what I had just done.463 ¶31

Eight days later (we had no air mail coming, but had to depend upon mail by the sea), eight days later I received a letter from my sister. She said: “Neville, I don’t understand it, but this very moment I went into Billy’s room and I could not for the life of me see Billy. I am seeing you. I walked right over to the bed, and I looked at my son, and he is not there, and it’s you! And you’re looking at me and smiling. And I could not – I tried and tried and tried, and Billy was not there; it is you. I don’t understand it, Neville. If you have any knowledge or anything about it to throw light upon this, tell me.” That same lady was there eight days later, and I brought her letter out that I had received that day and showed it to her. So I had two witnesses: my wife and this lady. So, I know that I must be wherever I am in Imagination.463 ¶32

So I tell you: don’t treat it lightly. You can put yourself in prison, and find yourself committing an act of which you are totally unaware, or accused of something of which you are not aware, and going to prison. People put themselves there. People put themselves out of it. People don’t realize. Not a thing is happening by accident. It’s all by unseen causation.463 ¶33

So you actually move yourself into states emotionally, and dwell in them just for a split second. And you jump back – or you think you jump back. You did. But the bridge is now about to appear, and across the bridge of incidents you walk, leading up to the fulfillment of what you did unwittingly.463 ¶34

So, this is what I mean by faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” You hope for it? Well, now, the assurance is faith. Faith is not going to make it so. Faith is loyalty to the unseen reality. You know what you did? Well, now, that’s unseen by mortal eye. Now, you remain loyal to that unseen reality, and see how this bridge of incidents is woven, and you do not consciously devise it. No man can consciously devise the incidents necessary to lead you to the fulfillment of what you’ve done. Well, this is what I mean by faith.463 ¶35

The very substance of what the world calls real is unseen. It’s unseen reality. The whole vast creation is finished, just as Feynman said, and he got his prize for it. So he got the fifty thousand dollars for that which I said as a mystic, but you can’t give a mystic money, because he has no standing in the community. Feynman has standing. He teaches physics at Caltech, so he could say the identical thing in his own words, and they say: “Isn’t this marvelous?” And so, he has a paper on it, now a book on it, and a title to it, so he has all the titles. And because I am the unknown, and in the eyes of Feynman not educated by his standards, no formal education – but what I see, I see, and I can’t deny it. What I experience mystically, I can’t deny. So, I am speaking from experience; I am not theorizing. He goes in and he theorizes. He experiments, yes, and succeeds occasionally in taking a photograph of the so-called unseen little particle and he has enough photographs to prove the existence of the positron. And then comes his wonderful honor – fifty thousand dollars, and all that goes with it.463 ¶36

But I tell you, in spite of all the books that are written, with all the great titles signed behind his name of the author, the book of books is the Bible, and no one knows the authors. They are all anonymous. No one knows who’s Peter, who’s James, who’s Matthew, Luke, Mark, John – no one knows. They are anonymous and they remain so. The characters – no one knows if they ever walked the face of the earth. I tell you that they didn’t. Those who wrote it – they did, but the characters are anonymous. And the characters of Scripture are all eternal states through which man passes. They are states – eternal states, not historical states. It’s not secular history. It is salvation history.463 ¶37

What I have told you so far as of now, in the past week (I gave you five, and tonight is the sixth) it’s all based upon what I’ve experienced. And I tell you: everyone will experience it. Not one can fail, because if one failed, God failed. And He isn’t going to fail. So, let the fool say in his heart: there is no God, like this book, God is Dead and all that nonsense. Let them have fun. He wrote that just to make money. And of course, because the title caught on, especially today, he made oodles of money out of a title, a title with a book full of nonsense. But he’s not alone; he has a lot of company.463 ¶38

I tell you: you have faith in God, but don’t look outside to find him. You aren’t going to find him out there. You are going to find him one day by a series of mystical experiences. And when they happen to you, they will happen in the first person, present-tense experience, and you’ll know who God is! You’ll know that you are, for God’s purpose is to give himself to you as though there were no other in the world, just you. Well, if he gives himself to you completely, there can’t be you and God, just you, and you are he. And the whole plan is set up, and when it begins to unfold within you in a first person, present tense experience, I can’t tell you the thrill.463 ¶39

Now, when you depart this world, you are not restored to life, as all people are who have not had the experience. You instantly put on your body of glory, and you’re in an entirely different age, a different world altogether. And all the others wait for that moment in time when they, too, have the experience. And then when death comes following the experience, they instantly move from the body of decay (for this is decay) into a body that is immortal, a body of glory. So, that is for everyone in the world.463 ¶40

And may I tell you: don’t try to argue with anybody who tries to give you all the reasons of Caesar why it can’t be. They put you in a little furnace and bring out a few little ashes and say: that was the man. Therefore, he can’t survive, because that’s it. Well then, let him have his little fun. It’s perfectly all right. Let him be amused. Don’t move; let him be amused. He’s such a wise person! So wise in his own council and so wise in the eyes of fools. He can only be wise in the eyes of fools; so don’t argue with him. Leave him alone just as he is.463 ¶41

So, he will find himself – when men call him dead – restored to life, and he will be totally unaware how on earth it could happen. But he’s so blind anyway; he won’t even recognize it. He will take it for granted, as we take breathing for granted. We take all the normal functions of the body for granted, and yet each function is a miracle. You put a little of bread in your mouth, and suddenly by a chemistry you do not understand it is no longer bread; it’s blood and bone and tissue. And what you can’t incorporate into your system and use wisely, you expel. Even the act of expulsion from the system is a mystery. And yet we take all these mysteries for granted, and the whole thing is oh, well, we call it nature. That covers a multitude of nonsense. Nature! Define it for me.463 ¶42

So, I tell you tonight, you take your dream – your noble dream, not only for yourself, but for others. What do you want? Ask them. Now, don’t argue the point what do you want? Well then, in your mind’s eye dare to assume that they have what at the moment their reason and their senses deny and everything about them denies; but you remain faithful to the assumption, and your assumption relative to them. Though false at the moment, if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. Now, you try it.463 ¶43

I could give you unnumbered cases, but why repeat them over and over? Every case history in the Bible has been repeated now for two thousand years, and they still hold up, but they are all to encourage man to test God – to try him. “Come, test yourself and see.” You are not asked to test another. In the 13th chapter of II Corinthians: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourself and see, unless of course you fail to meet the test.” Well, if you fail to meet the test because of doubt and lack of faith, well and good. You might go and say: “It doesn’t work.” It’s perfectly all right. So, it doesn’t work for you because you did not believe it. He puts no limit to the power of belief. “All things are possible to him who believes.” So can I really believe at the moment that I am trying to believe, everything tells me it can’t be done? Can I ignore the facts of life, and then persuade myself that it is done and live in the end as though it were true? I tell you: if you try it, you will be able to write me and give me fantastic stories.463 ¶44

But in the end, it is God’s Promise that concerns me. Oh, to teach you the law is marvelous, teach everyone the law because you are living in the world of Caesar. You must pay rent, you must eat, you must shelter yourself, you must have clothing – all these things in the world of Caesar are essential, so teach man the law, that he may fulfill all these things. But don’t neglect the Promise. And God’s Promise is to give himself to you. That’s his Promise that he will actually give himself to you!463 ¶45

Before he made the Promise, God was the Father, so when he succeeds in giving himself to you, though you are now in the female body, when he gives himself to you (and you will not find it strange) you will one day awake, and you are the father, even though you may now be the mother of a dozen children. And in the day it will not seem strange to you that you are father, God the Father. And if he has a son (because he has to have a son if he’s a father) and then that son is going to call you “father” (he is not going to call you “mother”) he will call you “father” in the fulfillment of the 89th Psalm, because Scripture must be fulfilled in man. So, man’s purpose in life is only to fulfill Scripture.463 ¶46

But in the meanwhile, Caesar demands. He demands taxes. He demands this; he demands the other. Well, give Caesar what is Caesar’s, but don’t fail to keep alive the Promise of God, and dwell upon it. Now let us go into the Silence. Good. Now, are there any questions?463 ¶47

Well, Marta has had this experience. I tell you that God actually, literally became man, that man may become God. Every man that is “born from above” knows that he is God. But I could tell you from now to the ends of time, and you will only see me as an arrogant fool. You will never actually believe me until you have the experience to confirm the truth of what I say, because words could not persuade you. You have to actually have the experience.463 ¶50

So Marta, this night, finds herself in this huge, big interior. The front is one sheet of glass, and on the inside are huge, big columns like marble columns. It is very sparsely furnished. She sees one chair, and she takes the chair. She is seated, then, out of nowhere comes a carriage that is self-propelled. There aren’t horses, but it looks as though it should be drawn by horses. The door opens automatically and I step out, wearing an Inverness cape. (You know what the Inverness cape is.) I come forward into the interior of this place and, without showing any recognition of Marta, I began to proclaim the power of God. And she said, as she looked at me, I was clothed in sheer power. It wasn’t a merciful power, it wasn’t compassionate – it was simply power. It was creative power. And I am simply talking of power. And she said to herself: “Why, it’s Neville, and he is God!” and she kept on repeating to herself: “He is Neville and he is God; he is Neville and he is God.” And, then, without any further recognition of her, I completed the proclamation of power, turned, and then, as though by appointment, the carriage came into view. The door opened automatically, and I stepped in and vanished. The whole thing vanished.463 ¶51

So, here she saw God clothed in power, wearing the face of a friend. Her friend is Neville. Scripture tells you – and it’s the foundation by which man is set free – when Paul was accused of not being an Apostle, he said: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen the Lord Jesus?” So, he laid it down as an indispensable prerequisite: to have seen the Lord Jesus in order to be set free from this bondage to corruption and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. Then, in the book of John, he said: “I no longer call you slaves, for a slave does not know what the master is doing; I call you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you.” So, here she saw a friend, but the friend was wearing power. It was God’s power, and she knew it was God. So she is set free. She is not restored as the world is restored when they die. She is set free from this age, and Marta is now in her glorious body. She has met the qualifications for freedom.463 ¶52

But I can tell you from now to the ends of time… I could have told Marta, as I did, but not until Marta had the experience, could Marta ever believe. So, they laughed at Paul, because how can you share these experiences with man? You can’t do it. Man has to have the experience.463 ¶53

And the lady who was with her, whose name is Marge, had the experience of seeing me on the beach, standing with my back to an enormous body of water. There was no land beyond; it was simply an endless body of water, and I was speaking to an enormous crowd of people, all of different faiths, different persuasions – yet each heard me in the tongue wherein they were born. And as she came upon this scene (she knew that it’s Neville) she sees Neville, but she also knew he was Jesus, so she has had a similar experience. Only Marta called it God, and she called it Jesus, because she knew she was looking at her friend Neville, but she’s also looking at Jesus.463 ¶54

So, I tell you: in the end there is only one body, and that one body is Jesus. “One body, one spirit, one lord, … one God and Father of all.” So, in the end, all are Jesus! All are God! All are the Father! I can tell you in words, but I can’t persuade you. I have to desire to persuade you against your will. I know the day will come when you will actually have a similar experience and others will see you in that role, and have an experience and be convinced that you are God.463 ¶55

Now, it frightens people to say that. They want some little God on the outside, and I say everyone is God. We are told that in Scripture: “I say, ye are gods, all of you, sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, oh, princes.” That’s in Scripture, and yet you read it and say: “Oh, it doesn’t really make any difference. That isn’t right. That was wrong. When God dictated that, or inspired the prophet to write it, he must have been drinking. Well, how can that be?” And, so, the prophets – that is, the great scholars – cannot quite understand that passage, the 82nd Psalm. They can’t get it. So, because they can’t get it, it isn’t true.463 ¶56

Well, we go through life that way. You will find people all over the world – if they can’t understand something, it just isn’t true, it’s not good, and they will set themselves up as the criterion of what ought to be. Their moral and ethical code is the only code that should be adopted. If they don’t smoke, no one should smoke. If they don’t drink, no one should drink. If they are celibates because nature allowed it, no one should know anything about sex. You find these people writing these things for us after nature has outlawed sex in their life. So, when they hit the age of eighty, because they are impotent, everyone should be. And they write laws and say they were divinely inspired.463 ¶57

If today, eating meat on Friday is right (it was always right) and, yet for centuries it was wrong and a mortal sin – but now it’s all right, well, if it is right today, it was always right. Now, if a man can marry today…and eventually they will say the priests can marry, it wasn’t always so that they could not. If you read Scripture, it speaks of Peter’s wife, and yet the present Pope claims that he is directly descended from Peter, the first Pope. Well, if the first Pope was married, then what’s wrong with marriage, when the very first command to man is: “Replenish the earth; multiply and replenish the earth.” That’s the command. So, what’s wrong with multiplying and replenishing the earth? Yet some Pope, who undoubtedly was impotent, just said that no one should marry. If he can’t perform the act, no one should perform it.463 ¶58

All right, we have Pope Alexander VI. Have you ever heard of the Borgias, Lucretia and Cesare Borgia, brother and sister? Well, they were his children, and he was Pope Alexander VI, and their name is associated with poison. If they didn’t like you, you were in their way politically – poison them. They were the Pope’s children. Go back and read history. You can find this in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Pope Alexander VI was the father of Cesare Borgia and Lucretia Borgia, the youngest ever given the cardinal’s hat, at the age of nineteen. Talk of nepotism!463 ¶59

Well, now, all this is history. You don’t have to be afraid of it. These are facts. Well, if it was right then, it’s right now! Because God’s Word cannot be altered. These things are not in God’s Book at all. These are the traditions of men. And we read in Scripture that to keep alive the traditions of men, you go against the Word of God. That’s what he tells you. So, find out, is it Scripture? Or, is it something that a man wants to impose upon society?463 ¶60

Now, you take what we have tried to tell you tonight, the story of faith, and try to live by it. You’ll prove it. You won’t disprove it, not if you realize that you are the operant power. It doesn’t operate itself. You are the operant power. And, then, you will find an easier way of living in this world, and then put your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the unveiling of Christ-in-you. Now, the time is up. Thank you.463 ¶61

16-Jul-1968 San Francisco Tonight’s subject is There Is No Other God. You find this in the First Commandment in the book of Exodus, the 20th chapter. “I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me,” followed by the Second: “Make no image, whether on earth, the heavens, or below the sea.” No image! Now, if I hear the word, “God,” do I make an image? If you hear the word, “Jesus,” do you have an image? If you have any image other than “I Am,” you are violating the Commandment. “I am the Lord.” Well, that could be translated: “I am the I am,” for the word translated, “The Lord,” is the same word which is: “Jod He Vau He” and: “When I come to the people of Israel, and I tell them that the God of their fathers has sent me, and they ask me, ‘What is his name? What shall I say?’ ‘Say to them, I am has sent you. That is My name forever, and by this I shall be known throughout all generations.’” My own name: I am. So, “Make no graven image unto me,” and those who know thy name put their trust in thee. Now, these are the commands of Scripture.459 ¶1

If I really believe it, I can turn to no other. I can turn to nothing in the world, but to God; and God became me, that I may become god. So, the very core of my being is I Am. Before I say, “I am a man,” I am. Before I say that I am rich, poor, known, unknown; before I qualify it, condition it, put anything upon it, that core is God. That’s I Am!459 ¶2

Now, “Why call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?” Now, he puts no limit on this power, none whatsoever. “Whatever ye desire, when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will.” He does not say it’s good for you or it’s bad for you. It’s entirely up to man to make the choice. Do I know what I want? Well, if I know what I want and I believe this and trust wholly in God as my own wonderful human imagination, then I should change my outer world to conform to my imaginal activity; so Israel’s delivery from Egypt, from the house of bondage, is your own wonderful human imagination delivered from the facts of nature. You see the facts, you hear the facts, but I don’t like them. I will admit I must have had something to do with externalizing the things that I dislike; so in my ignorance I imagined all kinds of things. I thought I could get away with it. I thought no one saw me, that no one would know what I’m imagining when I’m alone, for no one is around. I am not speaking, I am not talking to any one, not writing it down; it’s a secret – it is my secret. It’s all my imagination, so can’t I indulge myself? I pass someone on the street and say, “Oh, what a face!” I said it all within myself, and then I heard some news of someone else, and I was envious of what I heard. I heard it, and I became envious of what I heard. It’s my own wonderful imaginal activity. I fail to recognize my own harvest when they appear in my world, but I cannot deny there’s a law that supports every phenomenon in the world. Therefore, be not deceived, for God is not mocked. “As a man sows, so shall he reap.” And I am sowing – morning, noon and night by what I entertain in my imagination, for that is Christ Jesus. Man is all imagination, and God is man and exists in us, and we in Him, and the eternal body of man is his imagination, and that is Jesus himself, and we are his members – one with the body of Jesus, and that is our own wonderful human imagination.459 ¶3

And one day, it will awaken like a flower, and we shall see what we did in our darkness, in our ignorance. No condemnation, for we have paid the price while we acted unwisely. So, there’s no final judgment when you and I are brought before some external being to be judged for what we did. We are paying the price morning, noon and night, as we walk the earth. I read this unlovely thing, I read this lovely thing, and then suddenly I realize, Why, I did it myself! I planted it. No God on the outside gave it to me in response to a prayer; my own imaginal activity did it. No one rewarded me – no reward! I simply set it in motion. I did it, wisely or unwisely. I did it, willingly or unwillingly; but I did it. And so everything comes into my world because I, in my moments of imaginal activity – and I don’t stop it; I’m doing it morning, noon and night – I set them in motion.459 ¶4

So, if I am really free in the sense that I have been delivered from Egypt, it means that my imagination is so controlled – and I am one with it, that I refuse to accept the “facts” of life unless they conform to the ideals that I want to enjoy in my world. So, I hear something of a friend of mine. He is unemployed. So, he’s unemployed – that’s the fact. Well, am I really free? If I am really free from the tyranny of Egypt – free from the house of bondage, having heard what I heard, I will now represent him to myself as gainfully employed. Now, the facts deny it, but I will remain faithful to my assumption as though it were true, confident that imagining creates reality, and therefore, if I persist in my assumption, it will harden into fact.459 ¶5

Well, having done it and proved it over and over and over, having shared what I have discovered with others, to see them doing it over and over – then you become indifferent as to what others think. If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what another thinks – if they tell you that you are stupid to believe that an imaginal act will harden into fact? You mean that you have nothing in this world – but nothing! And you dare to assume that you have – not only that you have, but you have what you want, and that others share it with you, and they know that you have it; and you’ll sleep this night on an empty stomach in the belief that you’ve been well fed? That you sleep this night as though things were as you desire them to be, when every fact of life during the day denies it? Well, that’s what we are called upon to do! We are called upon to trust Him – to put our trust in Him.459 ¶6

Who is He? My own wonderful human imagination! I don’t say his imagination – not his. “I Am” is his name. It’s first person present, not “I was;” not, “I will be,” but “I Am.” But suppose I have imagined it and it hasn’t happened? Well then, what are you doing now, saying that I once imagined it and I am not still imagining it? In other words, if you call me by my name, you say, “Well, Neville”, I’ll respond. If I’m running away from something of which I am ashamed, I will still in some strange way show that I do respond to that name. Well now, I’ve put a name on “I Am.” I Am – and you name it: healthy, wealthy, known – whatever it is you desire in this world. Why forget it? Why forget what you’ve put upon the name of God?459 ¶7

For the name of God, and the only name of God, and the everlasting name of God is “I Am.” He has no other name. Now, the Christian world will speak of Jesus Christ, but the minute you say, “Jesus Christ,” you make an image, painted by the churches of the world after two thousand years, in violation of the Commandment: “Make no graven image of me.” There is no personal description of Jesus in Scripture, but none! Can you write a biography of a man – any man, and not in some way give away just what he may look like? Can anyone write the biography of Lincoln or the late President Kennedy, and not say something about his personal being? You can’t do it. Yet, here is the greatest in the world, and not one word of his personal being is mentioned in Scripture. Was he tall? Was he short? Oh, I know there are priests in the world who will tell you he was five feet one. They have found some kind of a shroud. They’ve just found the bones of Peter! And all this nonsense in the world – this is not Scripture. Scripture is a psychological drama. It is supernatural, completely supernatural. It hasn’t a thing to do with any person who walked the face of this earth. And the living reality of the world is Christ Jesus. But Christ Jesus is your own wonderful human imagination. When you say, “I am,” that’s He!459 ¶8

Now, of course, the Christian will say, “The Lord Jesus Christ is my Lord,” meaning external to himself, and he worships that; but you will say, “Adonai,” or “Jehovah.” The Adonai Elohim – that’s my God. And something external, in spite of the Commandment, and both are totally unaware of the fact that Jehovah and Jesus are one; and Jehovah and Jesus, both being one – and what is one? I Am. I Am – that’s the oneness of the universe. Well, if I can get through any one’s head, and he completely believes it and trusts in it, and is willing to die rather than turn to a false god, he cannot fail. You will say, “Well, then, when is it going to happen, for I imagined it?” Well, here are the words of Habakkuk: “The vision has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower; if it be long, well, then wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late” – It’s like planting a seed. Well, don’t dig it up every day, just plant it in confidence that it contains within itself the powers to externalize the contents of itself, whether it be a grain of corn, a grain of wheat, or the sperm of a man. It will bring forth whatever is contained within it. And, so, all things bring forth after their kind.459 ¶9

So, if I dare to assume that I am the man I want to be and I define it – I don’t modify it, I don’t limit it. I dream of the kind of a person that I want to be. Now, it need not be based upon the assumption of another or upon any recommendation of another, because if I discuss it with another, he will say, “Well, you know, you should have money.” Well, it’s not my desire in life. I have to have money to live, yes, and pay Caesar’s world, but that is not my goal. Here recently, a man down south died leaving a personal fortune of seven hundred million dollars. You have heard of the name, his name is Ahmanson. We have his theater down south, a lovely theater – I’ve gone into it – something new in the Music Center. He owned the entire stock of the largest insurance – that is, home insurance and loan company in the country – it may be in the world with assets in excess of a half-billion dollars. He has all the stock; it’s his. He left it to his wife – his second wife of a few years, and his son by the first wife of 18 years. Now, that man thought that if you didn’t work eighteen hours a day making money, you were no good. He didn’t contact his people; in years he never made any contact with the managers of the different branches. He remained at home; he didn’t want that personal contact. He was aloof. Just money money – money – money! Well, I tell you, he didn’t take it with him! And, so, to give all of your life to the building of something that you can’t take with you – and you so love it and you can’t take it – that’s why we are told: “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and all these things will be added.” “For your Father knows you have need of all of these things.” But put your heart completely on a goal that will be taken with you. So, we are told, “Set your hope fully upon the Grace that is coming to you at the Revelation of Jesus Christ.” If anyone would ask me tonight to advise him as to what he should want in this world, I would quote that passage: Set your hope fully upon the Grace that is coming to you at the Revelation – “the unveiling – of Christ.”459 ¶10

Well, who is He? Your own wonderful I-Am-ness! Christ is God the Father. Well, if He is God the Father, He has to have a Son. Don’t tell me you are a father and there is no son to bear witness of your fatherhood. So, is He really a father? Is He really in me? Yes, He’s in thee, and He’s a father. Well, where is it said in Scripture that Jesus Christ is a father? Did it name his son? Yes, it did, if one reads it carefully. “And so he turned to the crowd and he said, ‘What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?’” For the New Testament begins on the statement: “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David.” So they answered, “The son of David.” And he then asked a very simple question: “Why, then, did David in the spirit call him, Lord? If David thus called him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” Well, every son of the ancient world referred to his father as, “my lord.” He’s telling you David is his son. Well, now, chronologically, David lived – if I take it chronologically, as a secular history, David lived one thousand years before the Advent. Well, how can he be his son? Because it is not secular history! “Before the world was, I am.” – “Before Abraham was, I am.” And when the world shall cease to be, I Am. Therefore, he is not something that came into this time slot at a certain point in time. He was before the whole vast world was. And he was a father before the world was. And who is that son? David.459 ¶11

David is the sum total of all humanity. For to the Hebrew world, history consists of all the generations of men and all of their experiences fused into a single whole, and that whole is called Eternity. And Eternity – the Hebrew world is “Olam” (O-la-m); it’s translated: “Eternity.” Now, in Scripture, David stands before the king; and first he asks his lieutenant – he said, “Abner, whose son is that youth?” Listen to the sentence carefully. He’s not concerned about the lad; he’s concerned about the lad’s father. He said, “Abner, whose son is that youth?” And the lieutenant answered and said, “As you so liveth, O King, I cannot tell.” He said, “Inquire whose son the stripling is.” They inquired, no one knows. And then David stands before the king, holding the head of the giant Goliath in his hand; and said to him – “He said, ‘Whose son are you, young man’? And he said, I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite.” Listen to it: in each case he’s inquiring about the father; so the answer comes back: “I am the son of Jesse.” Well, Jesse is any form of the verb “to be.” He’s telling the king: I am the son of Him Whose name is “I Am.” That’s who I am, the son of the One Whose name is “I Am.” Well, who is “I Am”? “I Am” is the name of God forever and forever; so he tells you he is God, for David calls him “Father.”459 ¶12

Now, if Christ became me, as Scripture teaches, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless of course you fail to meet the test!” Well, if He is in me, than I, too, must be a father, for He is a father; and if I am Christ, I have to be the father of the same son. There can’t be another son – not a David, but the David. Well, David does come – one glorious explosion in your head, and when it all comes down and the dust is settled, here before you is this glorious boy as described in the book of Samuel. Here is David; and he’s calling you, “Father” and there’s no uncertainty as to this relationship: you the father, and David the son. There is no other way that you will ever know that you are the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah, unless His only son calls you, “Father.” And that’s how Scripture unfolds within us, and everyone is going to have the experience. So, have no other God, but God. Do not turn to any outside God. They do not exist; they are false gods. If there be a Christ other than He who is crucified within us, who actually rose and continues to rise in us, that Christ is a false Christ; and that Christ, all the priesthoods – and I mean all denominations: Protestants, Catholics, and the Rabbinical world – teach as an external god. Any teaching of an external god is a false god. There is no external god. “Make no graven image unto me.”459 ¶13

So, here – to have no other God, we are asked by Scripture to put it into practice, for I must fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me. The only purpose for being is to fulfill Scripture, for everything in my world is going to vanish. If I owned the earth, I will leave it behind me; and eventually everything is going to vanish and leave not a trace of ever having been present. But this reality I cannot leave behind. So, I only can take with me that portion of Scripture that I have fulfilled. So, to what extent have I fulfilled Scripture? To what extent am I living by Scripture? I must live by it.459 ¶14

So, you find yourself free – free of the horrors of the world when you really have only the one God – not two gods. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” – not two. That is the great confession of faith of the Hebraic mind; but do they mean it when every Friday night in Temple they say it – and it’s a beautiful thing when it’s intoned in the Hebrew language; it’s beautiful, it moves you; but those who hear it and give the response, do they believe it? – When they believe that something outside of Self is their security? Take from me everything, but don’t take from me my name that is God. If you don’t take from me and rob me of the feeling that I am, then take all the little things for these are only shadows. I’ll rebuild it. I will rebuild everything as you take it from me. So, I grant you the right to take it from me, but don’t take from me the knowledge that I am the One that men call God, — not Neville, not any little thing that you can tag but just simply my awareness – when I am aware of being, and this wonderful human imagination, that is God!459 ¶15

Now, is there anything I can’t imagine? No. I may not believe it’s possible to do it, but don’t tell me I can’t imagine. I can take any one in the world and tell them a little story. The story could be fantastic; incredibly they will follow me if I use language that they can understand. Let me use the language that they use, and let me come down to their level and find words that they understand, and tell the story. The most incredible story in the world – they can follow me. They will follow me how? In their imagination! As I tell the story, they will follow me, and they will know exactly what I’m talking about; so let me tell it with understanding, for they can do it. What is impossible to a man who can understand? So, he begins to imagine the state.459 ¶16

Now, let me show you in a simple way – how this thing is done, because in the world of Caesar we do depend upon our senses, and we give reality to things based upon the sense – the sense of touch, the sense of sound, the sense of sight; and we give reality to it. So, we employ these. Imagination is spiritual sensation. Now, I don’t need the actual object before my senses or to touch it with my hand at the moment. I can imagine it, but can I touch it in my imagination? Well, see if you can’t touch it now. Think of a tennis ball. Just think of a tennis ball. Well, it’s out where? Can you bounce it and hear it? Bounce it in your imagination, and hear it. Can you hold it? Can you feel the texture? Can you smell it? All right, you’ve done that much. But you will say, “That’s all imagination; that is unreal. It doesn’t exist.” All right. Now, take a baseball. Do the same thing to the baseball. Does it bounce? No, it’s harder; it doesn’t really bounce in the true sense of the word. Well, does it feel like the tennis ball? No. Does it smell like it? No. Well, if you can discriminate between these two substances – these two objects – well, then, they must exist. You can’t discriminate between nothings. If one is nothing and the other is nothing – well, then, you discriminate. You can only discriminate if they exist. They exist, invisible to mortal eye; but they exist. Now, everything in this world exists in the same way. If you bring it into your mind’s eye, it exists. All it needs on your part is the acceptance of the reality. Can you believe that it’s real? If you can agree that it’s real to the degree that you are self-persuaded that it’s real, it will become real.459 ¶17

Now, when men like our late President and the late Churchill and the present Anthony Eden will make these bold statements – if you tell people as they listen to you, who said it, they are inclined to accept it because the men were prominent when they lived here. And, so, here, Mr. Hoover – he sent me an autographed copy of his address that he gave in the City of San Francisco the last time he spoke at the G.O.P. Convention and he said that nations with its many forms of government, its revolutions – all the things concerning a nation – “The rise and fall,” he said, “could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the minds of men.” Now that is Mr. Hoover. If I said John Brown said it, all this is silly; but a man who sat in the White House – and, although he only held it for four years, I do personally feel he was a very able man – a man that was far, far greater than present history has ever given any account of – a really great man. And he said, “The rise and fall of nations (or the rise and fall of families – the rise and fall of an individual) could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of that individual or that family or that nation.” Change those ideas – you don’t have to fight; it will go down if you put it down. It will go up if you rise up to it.459 ¶18

Now, Churchill said, “This is an age in which the fortunes of people are determined by their moods.” This is not an age where people think, “Well, now, give me something first and then I will feel happy about it.” No, he said the mood determines the fortunes, rather than the fortunes determining the mood. Now, that is Churchill, a very practical man; and here he is telling the entire world who will listen to him that a mood – if you hold a mood – well, what is a mood but an imaginal state? How would I feel if this moment I desired some intense wonderful thing and I had it? But how would I feel? Well, that’s a mood. Churchill tells us: Catch the mood, and the mood will determine the fortunes. Don’t wait for the fortunes to react to the mood, but catch the mood and make the mood become causative and produce the result in the outer world – the fortune.459 ¶19

And, then, Anthony Eden made the statement that: “An assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.” It’s denied by the evidence of the senses; reason denies it, but he tells us, “If I dare to assume a thing…” – and he said this at the Guild Hall in London when he was Prime Minister. It was his duty to address all the heads of the different aspects of the Commonwealth on this day at the Guild Hall. And they were having difficulties then with Russia, and he was calling upon the entire Western World – speaking to the British people but calling on the Western World to change their attitude; for, unless the attitude is changed, you cannot change Russia; and if you are always going to be suspicious of her, and treat her as though she could never be trusted – well, then, you are going to have similar things multiply in the world. All you have to do, he said, “Assume that they are reacting as you desire them to react; and if you persist in that assumption, it will harden into fact.” Well, I have tried it. I have tried it with some person in my world that seemed stubborn in their attitude towards – well, another, or even self.459 ¶20

My wife, when we were first married, she worked at the Music Hall, and the man who was her boss – a Russian, would keep her after hours. He wouldn’t come to work until noon; she came to work at 9:00, and her hours were from 9:00 until 5:00; but he didn’t come until 12:00, and he liked to work late at night, and just as she was about to go home, he would call her into his office and say, Billie, I want you to do this, that, and the other, — and delay her dinner by an hour and a half, two hours, or more. And she resented this attitude of this man; so I said to her, “Why, Darling, as long as you are going to act this way towards him, he has to respond in like kind. You know the law; he doesn’t. So he makes a fortune, and you don’t make a fortune, but you are an artist.” She was a designer for the costumes that appeared on the stage of the Music Hall for eleven years. So, I said, “Talk to him as though he had praised you for your work. This morning when you go to work” – we were only five blocks from the Music Hall where we lived on 55th Street – “as you walk down Sixth Avenue, make a mental picture of him walking with you and hear his voice” – it’s a distinctive Russian voice – “and have him in his own broken English tell you how thrilled he is with your designs – so much so that he wants to use all of them, but the budget does not allow it; yet he wants to use every one you’ve brought down. How would you feel if he wanted all of them, and not take just two or three and send you back to your office to bring another four or five; but he wants everyone that you have submitted?” She started doing it. Do you know? It wasn’t 24 hours that his attitude changed towards Bill, and remained changed because she changed it.459 ¶21

So, we have that in Scripture: “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Our love of God is response. Well, your love of any one is response, unless you know what you are doing and you set it up in motion. And, so, if you want someone to respond, you have to start it first. So, she started it with him – Leonidov and to this day – of course, she hasn’t worked there in years – but to this day when we go back, if we go to the Music Hall, he is all praise and joy. He could not be nicer and, yet, for eleven years he was, in her eyes, the devil! Well, this is life. And it’s entirely up to us. What are we going to do if I have no other god? The minute she spoke of him as causation, she had another god and he had the power to do what he was doing, and he had no power because the very day she changed it to the real God, he had no power.459 ¶22

He could only reflect the activity of her own mind. So if I think, now he can fire me – then, I’ve given him a power he doesn’t really possess because the world is yourself “pushed out.” The whole vast world bears witness of the being that you are; for you are God, and God is a protean being. He’s playing all the parts – good, bad and indifferent. So, it’s entirely up to us what we are doing, that we conjure in our world the different ones that bear witness to what we are doing. They reflect the activity of our mind. So, if you have no other god, life will be so marvelous for you. You can’t begin to believe or to understand how free you are! Yes, in the world beyond this – in the world of dream, you still catch yourself in the world of dream not responding like some automaton. You find yourself breaking it and changing it even in the dream. When you get to the point where in dream you are in control, and your attention is not – I would say –the victim, but it is actually the one under control of you, then your whole vast world will change.459 ¶23

Now, all I can ask you to do is try it. Just simply try it, and don’t say one thing is too difficult or this one is impossible. Here is a chap. His best suit he tells me: “It was my best suit. I liked it. I sent it to the cleaners. I always liked the job the cleaner did; and when I call for my suit, the pants were missing. After two or three days of intense search all over the plant, he couldn’t find the pants. My wife began to bawl him out. I said, ‘Don’t do that. I really believe in this law.’ The man said to me when I made my third visit, ‘I want you to sign this. I’m insured and I will get a new pair of pants for you to match the suit.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want a new pair of pants; I want my pants. I just want my pants. I will not sign it – no signing.’” He said, “On my way down the freeway to work, I took my imaginary hands – I didn’t take my physical hands off the wheel; I’m driving down the freeway doing 65 miles an hour, but in my imagination my hand is on the pair of pants. I can feel the texture, as you just did it with the ball. I can feel the pants. I’m actually feeling it. I did it all the way down to the office. That night on my way back, I rode wearing the pants; I could feel them on my thigh, and my hands could feel the texture of the piece of cloth. The next day, the man calls my wife to say that in delivering a suit, that the pair of pants were under the pants for that suit.” Someone had hidden two pants on the one, but it happened that his were the hidden one. And they found the pair of pants!459 ¶24

Now, you will say, “Well, that’s a mere coincidence.” There is no accident in this world. Don’t think that one thing happens by accident. There is no sure thing. All things have causes. Everything in the world begins with some cause. Well, now, he redeemed his pair of pants by not accepting the evidence of the senses. You can do that with everything in this world – I don’t care what it is. But we are the operant power. It doesn’t operate itself. If I know what to do and I don’t do it, it doesn’t work itself! I have to actually operate this wonderful principle in my own wonderful human imagination. So, I can’t pass the buck. You get to the point, as my wife – years ago – said to me, “You know, the one thing wrong with you, Neville – you can’t trust anyone but yourself.” I said, “I trust everyone, but I don’t ask any one for help, if that’s what you mean.” I will trust them, because – they are myself “pushed out” – and I do trust myself. But why must I turn to another and ask another, when God is not another? He is centered in me, as my own wonderful human imagination. And wouldn’t it be far better for me to suffer in the interval to discover God than not to suffer and never discover Him? Always passing the buck? Asking this one, that one, or the other one? No! I’ve got to stand on my own feet.459 ¶25

In fact, my dancing partner, when Bill and I got engaged back in 1936 – she said to my wife: “You know, I’ll tell you one thing, how to keep him. Wear a dress that resembles the Bible. He’s always reading it.” She heartily disapproved of my interest in the Bible. To her, the theater and all the things of that sort were far more interesting; but for me to sit home and find interest six hours a day, seven days a week, in reading the same book – the Bible – well, I haven’t exhausted it, and I could not in eternity. It’s the Word of God. It’s ever fresh; day after day, the Book is fresh. And yet, the sixty-six books, I’ve read them over and over and over; and I read them with the Concordance – both the Hebrew and the Greek, and it’s ever a fresh book. When people say to me, “Have you read so-and-so?” I say, “What so-and-so?” “Well, it’s the best seller.” “No, I haven’t, and please don’t give it to me. I have no time to read it.” So, they are always forcing books upon me, but I don’t have time to read them, because I never exhaust the one Book, and that is the Bible.459 ¶26

Now, it may seem insane to take one book over the two thousand years and still make it modern, but the Bible is contemporary. It’s not an ancient work; it’s forever! It’s contemporary. These characters are eternal states dwelling in the imagination of man, and the day will come when you will meet them, and you will know they are states; but when you enter the states, they become animated. You animate the state of Abraham, and here is Abraham; but it’s a state, but suddenly it takes on to you flesh and blood. It becomes an animated being, and it is Abraham. You don’t have to ask any questions as to who are you? – You know when you enter the state of Abraham, which is the state of faith. All these are states – eternal states; which is God’s drama and man passes through states, as he passes through cities. If I pass through a city, the city doesn’t cease to exist because I passed through it. It remains for anyone to pass through.459 ¶27

Well, the same thing is true of states. I pass through the state of poverty. When I pass through poverty and rub it off and assume, while I’m poor, that I am rich; then when I become rich, poverty hasn’t ceased to be, any more than the state or the city ceased to be. It remains a state for anyone to enter it. When you know this, you can forgive every being in the world. He fell into a state, and people say, “He’s poor.” He isn’t poor; he’s in a state of poverty. He can get out of that state. While he’s in it, assume that he is free. Assume that he is now wealthy, or whatever he feels would be security; and while he is in that new state, the other one ceases to be to him; but it remains a permanent state for any one, knowingly or unknowingly, to fall into it. Therefore, when you know this, you can say with Blake: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be everyone a state of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” It falls right into a state and remains in it, and then the state externalizes in his world. When you know this, you are as free as the wind, and you will not go to sleep at night in any state other than the state of your desire. You just would not.459 ¶28

And, yet, people will say, “Just give me five more minutes, because I so love the feeling of being unwanted.” Haven’t you known people that way? I knew a man in New York City during the Second World War. He hated Roosevelt – hated him! And the man said to me quite innocently – he came to my meetings; he said, “When I shave in the morning, I tell him what I think of him. I spend every minute that I’m shaving my face telling him what I think of him, and it isn’t pleasant.” I said, “Why do you do this?” “Well,” he said, “you know, if you go to a Broadway show tonight and spend ten dollars for a seat, you couldn’t get the kick in the two and a half hours for ten dollars that I get for nothing in ten minutes in the morning. I get all my emotions aroused, and they are flaming because I so hate the so-and-so.” He says, “Who do you think you are? A king? You put your son, who is not a soldier, and make him a general.” And he’s telling all these things. Well, Roosevelt wasn’t hurt; he was hurt. He offered Roosevelt gifts that he did not accept. If I give you a gift and it’s not accepted, who is stuck with it? I, the giver! I offered it and you didn’t take it; so I’m stuck with it. So, he offered these things to Roosevelt, and Roosevelt didn’t take them; so he was stuck with them, and his world simply went this way. He was an only child. What possessed him to dislike a man he’d never met – but people do that. And people will not get out of the mood; knowing the mood is causative, they still stay in it, and “eat worms,” as it were – just revel in it for a while, not knowing that it’s going to come to pass. And when they least expect it, the harvest will appear. They will not recognize their harvest, and they will deny they ever planted it or had anything to do with the planting of it, but it had to come just as they did it, and that’s the law.459 ¶29

So, here, take this seriously. Find out who God really is. I tell you from my own experience, He is your own wonderful human imagination. And that wonderful human imagination is the Eternal Vine – the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are His members. And the Lord Jesus Christ is one with the Lord Jehovah. They are one, and the name of both is “I Am.” That’s God! Well, can you say, “I am”? A little child when it’s born, before it can see anything or know anything, it must first know that it is. Its little hand comes up, and it doesn’t even know that its hand is its own, and it looks at it for a second and then it falls, and it wonders, “What has happened? Where did that something go?” It doesn’t know it’s its own hand – eventually, if it stays long enough for it to look at it; but before it can identify a hand, it must first be; and it is saying, without using words, “I am.” Every one is saying, “I am,” for that is the breath of man, because that’s God-in-man. Without God-in man, there is no man. And God’s name is Himself; and therefore, everyone, even the moron, is saying, “I am.” One who suffers from total amnesia is aware of being, even though he doesn’t know who he is and what he is and where he is. He still knows that he is. Well, that’s God.459 ¶30

Now, we start on that premise and build the structure that we want in this world of ours. Now, let us go into the Silence. Now, are there any questions, please?459 ¶31

Are there any other questions, please?459 ¶34

Tonight’s subject is Power. I do not mean the power of Caesar, I’m speaking tonight of the power of God, for here in this world of Caesar I think all nations would admit that this land of ours is by far the greatest power in the world of Caesar: economic power and military power. And here we are, against a tenth-rate nation, and find on our hands the longest war in our history. We say we have an objective and that we have the means to achieve it, but we are unwilling to use the means that we have. Well, then, modify the objective to fit the means that we are willing to use. That belongs to the world of Caesar. If we do not modify the objective to fit the means we are willing to use, then cut bait and forget it, and forget the so-called “saving face.” But I am not speaking of that kind of power. I am speaking of the power of God, which is called in Scripture, “Jesus Christ.” Paul defines Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Here we find wisdom and power exalted and personalized as God’s companion in the creation of the world. That power is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s the power of God! That is Christ. As far as I am concerned, that is Jesus Christ of the Scriptures.91 ¶1

Now, tonight we are talking about this power. The earliest gospel is Mark, and the first words we find on the lips of this power are: “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Now, the word repent as we use it in the world is not what Scripture means when we use it here. We mean to feel remorse, regret. That hasn’t a thing to do with the word repent. It’s the Greek “metanoia,” a radical, but radical, change of attitude, a radical change of mind. Can I see an objective, and then everything tells me: well, I can’t realize it? Well, do I have the power to realize an objective? I tell you, we have; we have the power. Well, what is the deeper meaning of power but effectiveness in achieving one’s purpose in life! Well, so I have a purpose. Do I have the power? I tell everyone: Yes. You can imagine the end, can’t you? Can you imagine what it would be like if it were true? Can you feel what it would be like if it were true? Well, then, that is power! Now, can you be persistent in it? Can you remain faithful to that end as though it were true? Now, I don’t care what the objective is. You have the power to achieve it if you know this power is the power of Christ. For all things are possible to him.91 ¶2

He is personified in Scripture. Let us go back and see how they first personify him. You’ll read it in the 8th chapter of the book of Proverbs, the 22nd verse through to the end, the 36th verse, and these are the words: “God possessed me in the beginning of his way, the very first of his acts of old.” One translation has it: “He created me.” That’s not a good translation. I can’t say I create my capacity to think. I can develop it, but it was with me in the beginning. I can’t say I created my capacity to imagine; it was with me. I may not imagine correctly, but it was with me. So, God possessed me in the beginning of his way, the very first of his acts of old, before He brought forth the universe, before he laid out the foundations of the earth, I was beside him like a little child. I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, delighting in his inhabited world. Now, my sons, listen to me, he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who misses me, injures himself. All who hate me love death. You read these words in the 8th chapter of Proverbs.91 ¶3

Here he is personalized as a little child, God’s companion in the creation of the world. When you read it, it doesn’t make sense, but I tell you from my own personal experience, having practiced the art of repentance and having experienced the birth from above with the little child, I know exactly what the prophet meant when he was inspired to write those words.91 ¶4

One day you will encounter this creative power in you, personified as a little child. The whole vast world has completely misunderstood it and thinks it is a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes that was found by the shepherds two thousand years ago. That’s a sign of the birth in man of the creative power of God. So God is actually bringing forth his creative power in man, and when it is brought to birth in man so that man actually becomes part of the creative power of the universe, the sign of his birth – the sign of his awareness of it – is that of a little child. So, here I was like him; I was beside him like a little child when he brought forth the universe. So, as in everyone, in bringing me forth as part of the creative power of the universe, the sign of my arriving at that point is symbolized in the birth of a little child. When I find the child, I have found life. Now I have life in myself. I’m no longer an animated body; I am a life-giving spirit. If I miss it, I injure myself. “All who hate me love death.”91 ¶5

Now, this world is the world of death. So you tell the story to the world, and the majority would rather have the building across the street or this building – something to them that is secure – than to know of a power. Take the building away, destroy the building, but leave me the power to recreate it. Don’t take from me the creative power, but take all the things I create. The world would rather have the things created than the power to create. And so “Those who hate me, they love death.” They are in love with the whole vast world that decays. Well, everything that is built today gradually fades. It comes into the world, it waxes, it wanes, and it vanishes. But leave me the power to bring anything into this world, and take from me – if you will – anything that I bring into the world. But don’t take from me the creative power, that I may actually create anything in this world.91 ¶6

Now, what does he mean by repentance? It means this: it tests the individual’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. I see someone, and they are behind the eight-ball financially. They have to pay rent, they have to buy clothes, feed themselves, and maybe they have obligations to society – others to feed, others to clothe. They may be a father or a mother. And I meet them, and they are not employed. Now, it tests my ability to put them into the state where they are gainfully employed. I bring them before my mind’s eye, and I represent them to myself as gainfully employed, and to the degree that I am self- persuaded of the reality of what I am seeing and hearing and doing – to that degree they become exactly what I am doing, all in my imagination. Well, if tomorrow or in the immediate present they actually conform outwardly to what I am doing inwardly, I have found the creative power.91 ¶7

I try it again with another one. I try it with yet another one and I keep on trying, and it works. Well, then, I tell it, and ask everyone who will listen to me and believe it to try it. See if you can’t exercise that same power in you. It’s not a different power. There’s only one Christ. There aren’t numberless little Christ’s running around the earth, only one Christ, and that Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. So, if I exercise my Imagination and it proves itself in performance, and then you exercise your imagination and it proves itself in performance, it’s the same imagination – individualized as Neville, individualized as you, regardless of your name. Then you share it with another, and you tell it to others. Well, if I can tell it to the point where they are persuaded to try it, and in trying it, it proves itself in the testing, then we have found him.91 ¶8

So when you read in Scripture, “I have found him,” – found whom? “I have found the one of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’” Well, the word “Jesus” simply means what “Jehovah” means; it means “salvation.” It means, “to save.” If I save someone from poverty by putting him into a state of affluence, well, then, that’s Jesus. I am exercising the same power. If someone is unwell and I represent him to myself as being the embodiment of health and he conforms to it, then that’s Jesus. He saved him. From what? From being unwell! Well, if I try it and try it and try it and it proves itself, what does it matter what others think? What does it matter what anyone thinks about what I am talking about? I only know that it proves itself. It works. Well, if it works, then try it.91 ¶9

So this is the power of which I speak, not some peculiar little thing on the outside. You don’t buy it. It’s innate. You exercise it. So, you are told to repent, in the beginning of the exercise of the power, and when you reach a certain degree of intensity, that power is born. It is born in you and then personified as a little child, and you actually feel yourself coming out of your own skull. And here is a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and it is your child. Now, you didn’t form some little child in your head. The child is a sign of your birth from above. It’s a sign of your arrival into the creative stream of God. You are now one with the creative power of God, and there’s only God, nothing but God. “Man is all Imagination, and God is man, and exists in us and we in him.” The creative power of God is man’s Imagination. That is actually Jesus Christ himself. There is no other Jesus Christ. So all of a sudden you find that this is what the world is talking about. They have put him on the outside and made some little god of him, when he is housed in everyone.91 ¶10

Now, let me show you from my own experience what I know about this law. I can waste power in the world of Caesar. We’re doing it by the billions every year with our little war and all the nonsense we have in the world. This power you can’t waste. You can misuse it, but you can’t waste it. I can misuse it every moment of time by imagining unlovely things about people, unlovely things about myself, and I can use it hatefully – but I can’t waste it. I’ll show you why you can’t waste it.91 ¶11

One night, many, many years ago, I suddenly became aware of two beings. I am the one perceiving them so there are three, but I am the perceiver. Here above me stands the most beautiful woman imaginable, an angel – an angel of beauty and of everything. She was lovely! And below me was the most monstrous thing that man could ever conceive, covered with hair like an ape, but it could speak. It spoke gutturally. I looked at it, and then it looked at me and pointed to this beautiful, angelic being, and it called this woman, “Mother.” Well, I was so annoyed with this monstrous thing that I pummeled it. It gloated. It loved violence; it fed on violence. Every time I was violent, it became stronger. And this beautiful thing, glowing…but this one is calling it “Mother.” And suddenly, as I was beating this thing, I realized: why, this is the embodiment of all my misspent energy, as this other one is the embodiment and personification of every noble thought I’ve ever entertained.91 ¶12

I looked at this thing; I had no one with whom I could swear. I felt a compassion I have never known before. I looked at this monstrous thing and realized it is but the result of my own misused energy. It never should have been given birth. And I said to myself, “I’ll redeem you, if it takes me eternity.” I pledged myself to redeem it, and do you know what happened? At that very moment, before my eyes, the whole thing withered. The monstrous thing, the embodiment of power – horrible-looking thing – it all got smaller and smaller and smaller, and left no trace of ever having been present. But as it got smaller and smaller and disappeared, the energy returned to me! I felt infinite power. I felt like I would have done anything for the power to return to me. It wasn’t wasted; it was misused, but not lost. “Nothing is lost in all my holy mountain.”91 ¶13

So, you can’t lose the power. You can misuse the power, but you can’t lose it. But you are confronted one day with a monstrous thing like that. I knew exactly what I did. You won’t wait to redeem him. At the very moment that you pledge yourself and you mean it, “I’ll redeem you if it takes me eternity” – at that moment that monstrous thing withers. It gets smaller and smaller, and this other one glows; it becomes radiant like a star. She is the embodiment and the permanent personification – getting ever greater – of your own wonderful thoughts. Every lovely act of yours feeds her. Every ignoble act of yours feeds him, and they walk with you. This one whispers the lovely things, encouraging you to be noble, and this other one whispers the violent things. If you are at the crossroads as to what you should do, this one wants to be fed. He can only feed on violence, and this other one can only feed on the lovely, noble thoughts of man. And man creates them!91 ¶14

You see your own creation, and it’s all the same power of your own wonderful human Imagination. From then on, you know who you are. You are a creative power, and you go out to change everything in your world to make it conform to something lovelier. And you don’t do it on the outside; you do it on the inside. You do it all in your Imagination. Imagination is God, and there is no other god! His name is “I Am” forever and forever and forever. That’s God!91 ¶15

And yet, when you do meet the personification as your own Imagination, you see a man, and that man is Infinite Love. You will also meet him in another garment, and he is Infinite Power. He is Infinite Wisdom. And you will realize that the being that you really are is a protean being. He plays all the parts. When you meet him, his fundamental being is love, but he also is power, and you see him as power. And he also is wisdom, and you see him as Wisdom. And you don’t have to ask any questions as to: “Who are you?” It’s so obvious that you stand in the presence of Infinite Power, or Infinite Wisdom, or Infinite Love. And you know the truth of these statements of Scripture when it says, “God is love.” You stand in the presence of God, Infinite Love – and it’s a man! Our scientists tell us of an impersonal force. This is not impersonal. This is very personal. God is a man. “Thou art a Man God is no more Thy own humanity learn to adore,” For everything here is God, and God being man, his every attribute is personified. So when you meet God as power, it’s man. Meet him as wisdom − it’s man. Meet him as love − it’s man.91 ¶16

So I tell you, this power of which I speak is right here in your own wonderful human Imagination. Don’t turn to another. Don’t turn to anything on the outside. It’s all within. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” And God is in his heaven. If I turn within, where do I turn? I turn to my own wonderful human Imagination, and then I imagine what I want as real in my world and persuade myself that it’s true. To the degree that I am self-persuaded, it becomes true. It actually clothes itself in what the world calls reality, but the reality is not the visible thing they see. The reality is the unseen state, which I have imagined. You take the oak. Cut it down. It renews itself by the invisible state. The little lamb – you slay it with the knife, but the reality of that lamb, that form that is forever, is unseen by man.91 ¶17

So, here, in this wonderful world of ours, you have the power. You don’t need financial power. That won’t do it. You can’t buy health. You can’t buy respect. Oh, you can buy it for a little while, but they don’t really respect you. Let the money go, and they don’t respect you. You don’t need anything in the world of Caesar to buy what you want. “Come,” we are told, “buy it without price, without money.” When he says, “Buy it without price,” then, you see, it’s not Caesar’s coin that you use. You use your own wonderful human Imagination.91 ¶18

I’ll give you this story. A friend of mine down south, he went to this barbershop. There were four barbers. He went to the boss barber first. And after about three visits the barber couldn’t take him this day, and he took the fourth one – the last chair. He rather liked the way this man cut his hair. He got to talking to him, and he realized the man loved barbering – he loved it. That is all my friend needed. “You really love it?” He said, “I just love it. I wouldn’t do anything else but cut hair. I just love it.” Now, this is what my friend did. He imagined that man the head of the shop. He didn’t consult him, he didn’t consult the boss barber; he didn’t consult anyone – just this one. He liked him. He imagined that he was the head of not this shop, but a shop. Six weeks later the barber decided (the owner) to unload the shop. How he raised the money, my friend never told me, but he bought the shop and moved from the fourth man, the low man on the totem pole, to the boss barber. In the last year, this one so loved it he came here to this city about two months ago. There was some meeting here, a contest among barbers. He brought two of his barbers with him. One was committed and couldn’t come that day. He brought two. They took back – out of five prizes, they took back four. He won two − a first and a second, and two of his barbers won two seconds. He just entered another contest of the entire region (that is, the seven western states) and he won it, plus a thousand dollars. The big plaque is now on his wall, all because of my friend’s use of Imagination!91 ¶19

This man has a terrific control of this power. He is an advertising agent. About, I would say, in the early part of this year, his boss said to him, “This is our best account, and I don’t want to lose it. But you know the industry today. It’s on the skids, and we must do something to pull it out.” Well, he sat down and said, “If imagining creates reality, my only problem will be to face these men who believe themselves so wise, and persuade them to let me go all out with my campaign from the premise that it is already an accomplished fact. I can’t advertise that this thing is possible. I’ve got to say it has been tried and proven in my ads.” He worked out the entire thing. When these twenty men, all multi-millionaires (for this is one of the huge industries of the world, this is an international industry) – when he worked the entire thing out and presented it to these twenty men on the board, they thought themselves above all this. They were ethically above all things. Their moral code would not allow it, but my friend persuaded them that this is how the law operates, that imagining creates reality. “So if you want something created, leave it to me. I will take your desire and make it something that is already a fact. You voice it.” The first quarter of this year that industry not only arrested the motion downward, but turned it around, and their profits – not their gross – their profits for the first quarter of this year were seventy-five million dollars more than the first quarter of last year – seventy-five million more. I am speaking of a net profit. Now these wise men, with their wonderful ethical codes − they allow it! They saw the money in the bank. They saw all these things, and their so-called ethical moral code went through the window because they saw another principle, which they did not know. His competitor (I saw the letter) – his competitor in the advertising field wrote the boss, my friend’s boss. He said, “You know, I take my hat off to you. You use a principle that we have always used in our work,” (which was a darned lie; he never did it at all). He said, “I know exactly what you did.” He’s trying to fish him out to find out what he is doing, and in this letter he makes the claim that he actually knew and had always used it, “And no one can work for our concern unless he is aware of this principle and lives by it. We aren’t concerned about his religious background. He may be a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or an atheist, but he has to live by this principle.” Well, I saw that letter. The man was fishing, just fishing to get the one who really conceived it to come forward and tell him what he did.91 ¶20

Well, here is the same one in the barbershop. He goes there every Saturday morning by appointment, and the boss barber waits for him right on the dot. Every Saturday he is right there for this chap. He loves him, and he took him from the low man on the totem pole and pushed him right up. He realized the man likes cutting hair. That’s what he likes; he just loves it. All right, then, be the best. If you like it, be the very best in the trade.91 ¶21

Tell me what you want. Maybe you want to be a wife, or “give me a home.” What’s wrong with that! My mother never went to work. She just had ten children and lived at home with her full complement of servants. My sister never worked, so she lives at home with her servants. My wife worked until I could afford to keep her. The day I could afford to keep her, I said, “Now, you stop,” so she stopped. That was almost two years after we got married. Two years afterwards I could afford to keep her, so, “From now on, you don’t work,” and so she hasn’t gone back to work. So, tell me what you want, and then let me persuade myself that what you really want, you have. To the degree that I am self-persuaded you have it, you’ll get it. If I can’t persuade myself, then I have failed, but I haven’t misspent the energy, because I tried it lovingly. So, any time you use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you use it wisely. Even if you didn’t succeed in producing the results that you were seeking, you used it wisely.91 ¶22

You will not, then, encounter the monster that I did, but the chances are, everyone in his unknowingness built that monster, for everyone has started to misuse the energy, and it forms itself into this horrible, horrible thing. Did you ever sit down and wonder, “Where on earth did that thought come from?” It wasn’t a lovely thought. It came from a thing that you build, that misspent energy, a monstrous being that one day will meet you on the threshold and confront you, and you have to redeem it, because Christ must be redeemed. And although he is the redeemer, he also is one to be redeemed because he is only energy. He’s power. Infinite creative power is Christ, the power of God.91 ¶23

So the power of which I speak is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God. So when I tell you that “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, and we are his Members.” Well, everyone can imagine, therefore all are members of the one body. So this is that one spoken of in the 8th chapter of Proverbs: I was beside him like a little child. “Find me, and you find life. Miss me, and you injure yourself. Hate me, and you love death.” So, the one who finds him is born from above, and “unless ye be born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” And the birth from above is simply symbolized in that of a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes. It’s not some little event that took place two thousand years ago once and for all. It is taking place!91 ¶24

You start it with repentance. Repent, and believe the story of the Gospel. And “to repent” is simply to challenge you, to test you. Can you take a man from the lowest point in the barbershop and make him the boss? Can you represent him to yourself as one who is really in charge, who loves it and you love him? Well then, try it! So, he loved him, brought him into his mind’s eye as the one who really was important in his life, and the man simply rose suddenly to the highest place in his shop, and now in the entire western area has won all the prizes. And this one, in his advertising agency, he can write his own ticket today. The boss said to him, “What do you want?” The boss gives him – well, I would say three or four times a year – a huge big unsolicited bonus check. He wants to keep him. My friend has no desire to quit, but the boss is so eager to hold him, he gets one bonus after the other. And my friend? All right, he’ll take it. Why shouldn’t he?91 ¶25

So, I ask everyone here to try it. Don’t just listen to it, but try it. You are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. And so when I know what I should do, well, then, I do it! Go to sleep tonight. All right, how am I sleeping? In what state of consciousness am I sleeping? As someone who is unwanted? All right, then I’ll rise tomorrow to find myself unwanted. Ignore the facts of life and assume that you are wanted. Ignore the facts of life and assume that you are affluent, and see how things work in your world. It will all come your way. You are creating out of a power that is infinite, and you don’t need any contacts in the world. You don’t need to know the right people or anything else in the world. All you need to know is Christ, and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination! What else do you need to know but Christ!91 ¶26

So let no one tell you: he’s out there and he looks like this. There is no personal representation in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ. Not one little thought is mentioned concerning what he looks like. Yet our churches have hundreds and hundreds of paintings, no two alike. Each tells you that is what Jesus looked like. He looks just like you. As you are told in Scripture, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know this much: when he does appear, we shall know him.” Why? “We shall be like him,” just like you when he appears. So, let no one tell you that he looks other than you, because that’s not Christ. And yet in spite of the 2nd Commandment, “Make no graven image unto me,” we have all these little indulgences that people buy, and they bow before it. And they call that Christ, something made with the human hand, and then they forget the maker and worship the thing made. Don’t forget the creator! The creator is your own wonderful human Imagination. Whatever you create is less than you, the creator. So, you can create a fortune. All right, they take it from you – you can create another one. So, whatever you can make, you can keep on making it if they take it from you. This is the power of which I speak.91 ¶27

I am not speaking of any earthly power. Many a man this night – last year I was in Barbados for a few months, and my brother (who has made quite a fortune) was talking about these men, and he didn’t realize what he was saying. He mentioned five men, all multi-millionaires, and he got through telling me how they worked so hard and they did all this and had all this money. I said, “Vic, you admire them?” “Why, certainly! They’re powerful.” I said, “What’s powerful? You just painted five biographies for me, word pictures of five men. The last one you painted is only sixty-three years old. He has, you tell me, about twenty-five million, and they have to tell him when to eat. He doesn’t know – doesn’t know his name, doesn’t know anything. And, all of a sudden they put the food in his mouth, and they say, ‘chew,’ and he chews, and he keeps on chewing forever until they say, ‘swallow,’ and he swallows. And you call that a man? So, he has twenty-five million. So, what! And the others – they gave all their time toward making money, just making things, and everyone you have mentioned and defined for me, I wouldn’t put my worst enemy (if I had one) in his place. So, he has money, but he is totally unaware of the fact that he has one nickel. So he has twenty-five million, and that’s what you call a man? That’s not my concept of a man. I am telling you something entirely different, Vic. You have lots of money, and it may never happen to you. So you have millions, too. Do you want to be like that? All these fellows are demented. They gave their entire life to the making and amassing of things, and they started to worship things. Don’t you start worshiping things! You start worshiping God and only God, and God is you own wonderful human Imagination, and don’t you forget it. So, this building is yours. Suppose it burns tonight? So what? You know what you did to build it. Build another one. Tomorrow you may have the whole thing burn flat. So don’t be concerned about what you have accumulated as things in the world. Find God and worship only God, and God is not on the outside. You’ll never see him on the outside.91 ¶28

You will see himself within, because can you see “I Am”? You can see, “I am a man.” You see the man reflected. You can say, “I am a poor man,” and see the man reflected in the eyes of those who know he is poor. And you can see every concept you hold of self – but the conceiving being you don’t see. That’s God! My concept of myself may be this, that, or the other. The concepts will be reflected in society, and men will tell me who I am conceiving myself to be – but no man knows who I really am! I, the conceiver, they don’t know, but they know what I’ve conceived myself to be. My bank balance will tell the banker what I have conceived myself to be in the financial world. All these concepts – men will see concepts, but they can’t see me, the conceiver. Well, don’t forget the conceiver – that’s God! And that being is your own wonderful “I-Am-ness.” That’s God, and there never was another! There never will be another.91 ¶29

So, God is bringing forth his own being, because he is buried in us. And he is bringing it up into the stream of creativity, so that the same one being – God – is infinite in potential. But God is not infinite in actual fact, because then he would be dead! He couldn’t expand. He couldn’t go beyond what he is. So, God is ever expanding. There’s no limit to expansion; there is only a limit to contraction. He took upon himself that limit when he became Neville. That was the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity. Now, he breaks the shell by my exercising within me the law of repentance. And so I exercise my Imagination, and then he breaks the shell. There’s no limit now to expansion, no limit to translucence. There was only the limit, which he placed upon himself, which was the limit of death – which is opacity and contraction. So God is infinite in potential, and everyone here is going to join that wonderful stream of creativity and be one with God!91 ¶30

Now, when you hear it, don’t just hear it and forget it. Try it. Put it to the extreme test, and then tell another, and have the other tell someone else, and spread the good news. This is called “the Gospel,” for the word gospel simply means “good news.” It’s the good news about God: how God became man that man may become God. Well, if God’s name is “I Am” – I know I say, “I am.” It’s the core of my being. I can say, “I am sick,” but I can get over sickness. But I can’t get over being “I Am.” I can get over being rich and become extremely poor, but I can’t get over being “I Am!” So he actually became the core of my being. That’s the center.91 ¶31

Well now, that’s my being. Well, if that is God, and that’s my being – well, he became me! God actually became me that I may become as he is. He took upon himself this limitation that I may become what he is (which is infinite) and expand forever.91 ¶32

So, you try it tonight. Try it with anything in this world. The unmarried, if you desire to be married – what symbol in the world would imply that you are married? A little band? In this western world a little band around this ring finger – not around any other finger – around this finger. It doesn’t have to be the biggest aspidistra in the world, just a plain little gold ring. If you wore it there, it would imply you’re married. Sleep tonight as though you wore one. Don’t put your physical thumb on it; put your imaginary thumb on it, and feel it in your imagination. You can do it! Feel a ball. Can you feel it? Then feel a piece of silk. Feel this, one after the other. Can you discriminate between all these different sensations? If you can discriminate between this and a tennis ball and a baseball and a piece of silk, then you can’t discriminate between nothings. They must exist. Though unseen by your eyes they still must exist! So, if I can discriminate between these unseen objects, these objects, though unseen, must be real. Well, now take that and put it there, but feel when you wear it, that you are proud of the one who put it there. You don’t have to see what he looks like. When it’s put there, you’ll be proud of his name, to bear it, and you’ll be proud of him. Just put it there.91 ¶33

Do you know why I know that? My wife did it. She did it! Actually, she did it. One day she was in the presence of a so-called sensitive, and this one said to her, “Why did you take off your wedding ring?” She said, “I am not married.” “Oh,” she said, “don’t fool me. You took off your wedding ring.” She said, “But I’m not married.” She said, “I’ll even tell you his name,” and she started off with Neb –Neba – Neva – she didn’t quite get it but she was coming very, very close to it. She was actually sensing what my wife in consciousness was feeling. When I first met her, I wanted her. The very first day I knew her I wanted to marry her, but I was entangled. Was I entangled! But, by this law, I disentangled myself. Without hurting anyone, I disengaged myself from all these complexities so that I could actually legitimately say, “Will you marry me?” But in the meanwhile she was wearing the ring. I hadn’t yet put it there, but she allowed me to put it there and slept as though I had put it there.91 ¶34

So I tell you unmarried ladies, if you desire to be married (maybe you don’t) – if you do, that’s the way to do it. And he’ll come out of the nowhere. You don’t have to go and buy anyone or try to meet the right people. Usually when you try to meet the right one, he’s always the wrong one. So don’t go searching. Those who go searching for love only make manifest their own love-less-ness, and the love-less never find love. Only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it. You draw them; they come to you.91 ¶35

So here, this is the power of which I speak: the power of the universe. The power that created and sustains the universe is resident in you as your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God! Don’t forget it. I know it’s difficult, when man has been trained to believe in an external God. And he goes to church and gets on his knees and he prays to an external God. And he goes home at night – maybe he does say his prayers, and he gets down on his knees and prays to an external God. All right, maybe that’s a nice thing for someone to do, but I tell you: he isn’t out there at all. You won’t be criticized for it, but he is within you – very personal, may I tell you. He is very, very personal, and within you.91 ¶36

When you are told in Scripture, “Of the Rock that begot us, we are unmindful,” and that seems to be all a figure of speech, but how true that thing is! One night sitting in the silence (rather, it was an afternoon) I was thinking of nothing in particular, and suddenly before my eyes came this force. It was an enormous force. As I looked at it, it fragmented itself, broke into numberless little pieces, and then it reassembled itself. As it reassembled itself it was not into a force, but into a man seated in the lotus posture. I’m looking at this man, all seated now, perfect man. As I looked at him, I’m looking at myself. Here I am, the perceiver, observing myself seated in the lotus posture, in this deep, deep meditation, and as I become aware that I am looking at myself, it began to glow, and it glowed and glowed and glowed. When it reached the intensity of luminosity it exploded, and then I returned to this level. Where did I see him? Within me! That being is meditating this. This is but a projection of itself in the world. And when he wakes within me, completely wakes, I am he. God actually became me that I may become God! And he’s put me through all the paces, allowing me to make all the mistakes, to make a monster like the thing that I talked about earlier. I made that, and I made the lovely one, and he allows it in his meditation. He is the dreamer in me, and he is dreaming this, and dreaming everything that I dream in this world. And when he awakes, this will cease to be, and I am he and he is God!91 ¶37

So, I tell you, go out and try it. Begin tonight. I’ll make you this promise; if you try it faithfully, he will not fail. Now, let us go into the Silence.91 ¶38

Good. Now, are there any questions, please? Make it a full evening.91 ¶39

July 19, 1968 San Francisco Tonight’s subject is “Live in the End.” I daresay that everyone here would say, “Yes,” to the statement of Scripture, “With God, all things are possible.” I don’t think you’d be here if you did not believe in God, and the God to whom all things are possible. But maybe we stop right there, and we separate man from God, and my purpose is to show you that we are not two, that we are One – that God actually became man, that man may become God. So, let us, now tonight, give you my reasons for my claims.462 ¶1

We turn to the book of John – the Gospel of John, and we are told that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Well, that’s a mistranslation. The word translated “among” is the Greek preposition “en,” “within.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt within us” – “in us.” John used the plural “us” for the nature whereof we consist, that the Word of God, which is defined in Scripture as the creative power of God and the Wisdom of God, did not take upon Itself some one person among men, for then that one assumed would have advanced, and no more; but Christ, to save all, did not make this man or that man his habitation, but “dwelt in us.” That same creative Word that created the universe, and sustains it, dwells in us! Therefore, “with God all things are possible,” and therefore with Man all things are possible.462 ¶2

So, he states it in one book, Matthew, “With God all things are possible,” but in Mark he states it, “All things are possible to him” – meaning man – “who believes.” Can man believe? So, this Creative Word is in us. Well, what is this Creative Word? It’s your own wonderful human imagination! That’s Christ in man. 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 Christ Himself the divine body Jesus; and we are his members. So, when you say, “I am,” that’s He.462 ¶3

Now, can you believe that you are now the man that you would like to be, though at the moment of your assumption, reason denies it? And your senses deny it? Can you really conceive a scene – a scene, which if true, would imply the fulfillment of your dream? Just imagine it. Certainly you can imagine it, but the problem is: will you believe it? Will you believe in the reality of the thing imagined? If I could this very moment imagine myself into a state – any state at all – and dwell in it, well now, what is “dwelling in it”? Well, I’m dwelling in it. Well, that’s Christ! And that is the resurrecting power of the universe. So, if I remain in a state, I will resurrect it and objectify it in my world. But I have to select it and enter the state.462 ¶4

If the spectator could enter into any of these states in his imagination, approaching the state on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought – what would it be like if it were true? How would I feel if I were now the man that I would like to be? How would I know that I could become it? Well, first, as I assume that I am it, let me think of my friends – those who really would rejoice with me were it true. Let me imagine that I am seeing them in my mind’s eye. How do they see me? If what I am assuming is true, they should see me as I am seeing myself, and if they are friends, they should rejoice with me. So, let me now assume that I am seeing reflected on the face of a friend that which, if I saw it, would imply he sees in me that which I have assumed that I am. Will that work? Try it! I tell you, from my own personal experience, it works.462 ¶5

As we are told in Corinthians, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test.” Now we are challenged. He says, “Come, test yourself and see.” Well, this is how I test myself: If Christ is in me, and all things are possible to Christ, then I must find out who he is. Well, I have found him as my own wonderful human imagination, and because he dwells – not only in me, he dwells in us – everything is possible to everyone in the world. And, so, you help man best by telling him who Christ is. You could give him all the things in the world that he needs, he’ll come back for more tomorrow unless he knows who Christ is. You can give the entire world to any one of them: they’ll spend it – waste it – if they don’t know who they are. But tell him who he is – and he doesn’t need anything more than the knowledge of who he is and the application of that knowledge, for we are the operant power. It doesn’t work itself! I can tell you that your imagination is Christ, and maybe you’ll believe me, but unless you actually take it to the point of working upon it and operating it, it means nothing.462 ¶6

Well, if, this night, I really believe it, I would not allow the sun to go down in my sleep unless I feel myself right into the situation of the wish fulfilled. It need not be a wish for myself; it could be a wish for a friend, for everyone in the world, because Christ dwells in all, and Christ is the true identity of every man, then everyone must be myself “pushed out.” There can’t be another if God is one, therefore, I tell myself, as the seeming other, what I would do if I were you, and instead of giving him the thing that he needs physically, tell him how to get it for himself. What would you feel like if now you were the man that you want to be? How would you see the world if things were as you desire them to be? Now, this is what I mean by “living in the end.”462 ¶7

Robert Frost, just the year before he departed this sphere, wrote this story for Life Magazine; and he said, “The Founding Fathers did not believe in the future” – what a shock, that they did not believe in the future! They “believed it in.” He said, “We are always imagining ahead of our evidence,” and the most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in. They had no evidence to support their claim to democracy. They were under a king when they threw the king away and began to simply build a concept of the future. They did not believe that the mere passage of time would bring them that dream; they believed it in, and these men believed implicitly in the Word of God. And they believed that if I know what I want when I pray, believe that I have received it, and I will. Well, if that precept is true – literally true – to be accepted literally and fulfilled literally – well, then, what am I doing not believing? I should actually know exactly what I would like to be, and, discovering what I would like to be against what I seem to be, dare to assume that I am it! And my assumption, though false, if persisted in, would harden into fact. That I know from my own experience, and I know it’s a law, therefore, if someone is not becoming the man that he would like to be, and they tell me, “Well, I once imagined it and it didn’t work,” then what are you doing now and still not imagining it? If imagining creates reality, what are you imagining? For, if Christ is the only creative power in the universe, and I identify Him with my own imagination, well, then, my imagination is creating reality. So what am I imagining? Pick up the morning’s paper, and I am fed with everything I should not feast upon – all the horrors of the world, all the negative states of the world; after having read it for an hour, then I must either regurgitate or in some strange way rub it out, because I can’t go through life feeding upon such nonsense. But if I really know what I want, what you want, what we want, and persuade myself that we have it – if my premise is sound that imagining creates reality, I should in the not-distant future hear you tell me that it’s worked for you, and another one tells me, and I in turn tell you, and go through life sharing this marvelous news to others.462 ¶8

So, I say, live as though it were true – just as though it were true. That passage of Shakespeare – we have been taught from the primal state that he which is, was wished until he were. Here we find it in Caesar, “He which is was wished until he were.” He wasn’t born Caesar, the king, but here was an ambition fulfilled, because he was wished into it. He desired it, lived in the state, and everything reshuffled itself to conform to that state to which he was faithful. I see it in my immediate circle: those who you would not even think for one moment would become prominent, but they desire to be prominent; those who desire to be successful, as they conceive success – no two see success in the same manner. Some see it through the eyes of wealth, others through rising in some profession, others in some other manner – well, whatever they conceive it to be, they now realize it, if night after night they sleep in the assumption that they are now what they would like to be.462 ¶9

So we go back: if the Word is truly the Word that creates the system in which we live, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “By Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” – no, not even the so-called unlovely things, for if all things were made, he has to be responsible for the unlovely things as well. So, we are told in Scripture, “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal,” – I create the blessing; I create the curses, but, now, I must choose life. Choose the lovely things but don’t say there’s another creator, for if there is another creator then we are in conflict. So, my own imagination can conjure unlovely things if I dwell upon them, or the lovely things, but there can’t be two gods. There can’t be two creators. And if I can find that Creator and identify Him with my own wonderful human imagination, then I can’t pass the buck. I can’t turn to anything and blame it for the things happening in my life. I know many of us are not discriminating, and when we see our own harvest, we don’t recognize it. We can’t conceive that we, in some strange manner, permitted these things to be entertained by us. But we did! It could not have come to pass in any other way.462 ¶10

So, if I believe it and accept it – well, then I will live by it, and then when I know what I want for anyone – and this goes for everything in this world. Well, then, now – this very instant, you desire happiness in marriage. You say, “Well, there’s not one person in my world that is eligible. I know no one.” You don’t have to know anyone. All you have to do is to decide within yourself what you want. Now, what would you do if it were true? Would you wear a ring on the one finger that would imply that someone placed it there? One that you admire? Well, then, wear it there. Don’t wear a physical ring. Put it on just as though he had placed it there, and sleep feeling that which you are feeling is real. Don’t say, “It’s all imagination.” Certainly it is, because all imagination is Christ, therefore, it’s all reality. So, when you say, “That’s only my imagination,” well, you are just saying, “That’s only a thing called Christ when you treat imagination that way.” Is there anything in this world that wasn’t first imagined? Name one thing or point at one thing in this world for me that is now considered to be real that wasn’t first only imagined. What is now proved was once only imagined.462 ¶11

Therefore, this is a true statement, “All things were made by Him.” And He is your own wonderful human imagination. All objective reality is solely produced through imagining. The clothes you wear, the chairs on which you are seated, this in which we are now placed – everything was once only imagined. Now tonight, find out exactly what you – not what they think you ought to want – what you want. Ask no one’s permission. You don’t need any one’s permission; you only need your own decision. What do I want? Now, what would it be like if it were true? Now catch the mood, and try to give that mood all the sensory vividness of reality – all the tones of reality, and then sleep in it just as though it were true. And then await the inevitable. The inevitable is that you are going to resurrect it and objectify it on the screen of space, and then the world will call it real, and they may not believe you. It doesn’t really matter.462 ¶12

If you tell them it came to pass because you simply imagined it – no, they will point to the series of events that led up to it, and they will give credit to the bridge of incidents, across which you walked towards the fulfillment of that state, and they will point out some physical thing that was the cause. No, the cause is invisible, for the cause is God, and God is invisible to mortal eye. Who knows what you are imagining? No one knows, but you can sit down and imagine, and no one can stop you from doing it, but can you give reality to the imagined state? If you do, yes, a bridge of incidents will appear in your world, and you’ll walk across some series of events leading up to the fulfillment of the imaginal state. But don’t give causation to any physical step that you took towards the fulfillment of it.462 ¶13

You imagine yourself having a marvelous business, and then comes the day a building is for sale and you haven’t a nickel towards it, and a total – not a total stranger, but a man comes in and asks you quite in a friendly manner, “Are you going to buy it?” And knowing you don’t have a penny, you say to him, as would a friend to a friend, “With what?” And then he says, “Well, I have money. It’s only in the bank drawing nothing.” You say, “Well, I have no collateral.” But he says, “I’ve watched you. You are an honest person, your family – they are honest – I think they are. Would you like me to buy it for you and get my lawyer to bid for it? If they knew that I am bidding, they know that I have money, they will bid me up, and so I’ll get it at the very lowest price by getting a lawyer who represents more than one client, and they do not know whom he represents, and he’ll bid for it. Are you willing to take it, regardless of the price?” and you say, “Yes, I’ll take it, but I have no collateral.” “All I need is your signature that you will simply pay six percent of whatever the price is, and then reduce that principal over a period of ten years. Agreed?” “Yes.” “Well, then, sign this, and we’ll see if we can buy it.”462 ¶14

That day you own the building, and you don’t have one nickel when you own the building that day! You only had your signature on a piece of paper. At the end of 10 years you repay the man his principal; you reduce it every year, pay him six percent on the remaining principal, and reduce the entire thing at the end of ten years. The man died twenty years later and leaves you $150,000 in cash, tax free, and a couple of homes, many personal belongings. In the meanwhile, you continue in that business, and it multiplies and multiplies, and that year was 1922 – and 1924. This is now 1968. That building – I’m speaking factually – that building in 1924 is now gone. He paid only $50,000 for it. It was repaid and repaid. A bank – three years ago bought the property – the building was rotted – bought the property for $840,000 in cash, and no capital gain – from $50,000 to $840,000. Meanwhile, the business has expanded into all the other islands, so that today you couldn’t buy them for $15,000,000.462 ¶15

All in imagination! And this goes back to the imagination that preceded this man’s offer to buy the building; for the young man, seeing this building and entertaining the thought that the present owners deceived his father, and through deception got him out of a partnership – a junior partnership. And he was moved – not to get even, but to prove that he really had something within him and could be a success in spite of this deception. So, every day he would see on that marquee, not their name, but his own family’s name, and he would see it in his mind’s eye, because you could not take their name and transliterate it and make it spell this man’s family’s name, but he saw it. In his mind’s eye he saw that name, which if true would imply the family owned it. He did it every day, twice a day, for two years, and then came this sudden – out of the nowhere, and the whole thing was made possible, and today they are all over the islands, and they have no partners. They have never taken in one partner, never sold one bit of stock outside of the family ownership. All by imagination!462 ¶16

Now, I know what I’m talking about because I’m a member of that family. I am speaking of my own family. This is not hearsay. I know it. My second brother, Victor, in whose imagination this whole thing began to bloom – and he still works all by imagination, he knows what he wants – and then, after having decided in himself, “That’s what I want, and that’s good for the business,” he then, in his mind’s eye, appropriates it, and then lets things happen. As told us in Scripture, “The vision has its own appointed hour, It ripens, it will flower; if it be long, then wait, For it is sure, and it will not be late.” Read that in the book of Habakkuk. Here is the true translation of that passage in Habakkuk.462 ¶17

So, when you know what you want, remain faithful to that assumption, and the assumption, though at the moment it is denied by your senses, and denied by reason – if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. Are we not told that God calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and then the unseen becomes seen? He calls everything from the unseen into the seen in this simple manner, for He is the resurrecting power. So, if I assume that I am, I don’t have to have evidence to support it – I assume that I am. Am what? Well, I name it, and having given it a name – given it form, given it definition – remaining in it, I resurrect it. And if it takes a thousand men to aid the birth of that state, a thousand men will play their parts, and I don’t have to go out and look for them, any more than my brother had to go out and look for this man. He would not have known where to start looking for one the day of the sale. So far as he is concerned, he had done it in his mind’s eye, and he allowed everything to happen, and he comes right in like a joke. He really thought it was a joke, and he said to this man, “Are you fooling me? He said, “No.” He said, “Well, then, wait. Let me call my father. He’s at lunch.” He called him on the wire. He said, “Daddy, come on up. Leave everything and come.” And then he said, “Now, you tell my father what you told me.” My father’s name is Joseph, and my father said, “You really mean it?” He said, “Yes, Joe, I mean it. I’ll have him bid today. You put your signature here and your son Victor put his signature – that’s all I need.” That was a lifetime friendship. So, when that man died, he didn’t owe my brother Victor anything. He so loved the friendship and the feeling of – well, decency, that he had with my brother Victor, he gave him $150,000 in cash, and that was tax free, and the homes – everything was tax free. And that building which he bought for $50,000 was sold three years ago to the Bank of Nova Scotia. They tore it down and built a lovely structure, but they paid our family $840,000 for that building, and there was no capital gains tax. The whole thing was simply free.462 ¶18

So, I know what I’m talking about. All I need from you is the acceptance of it. Will you believe it? Will you believe that with God all things are possible? Will you believe that all things are possible to man? Well, you can prove it in the not-distant future, but you are the operant power. It will not work itself. If you dare to assume this very night that you have a better job than you now hold or that you have a larger income – you may be fired tomorrow. Don’t be concerned! On reflection, you’ll see it was necessary to move you towards the fulfillment of your assumption. You could be fired! And I wouldn’t bat an eye if you told me tomorrow, “Well, I did what you told me. You know what happened? I was fired.” I have seen that. It takes someone to fire you to get you into a better job. I have seen that time and again. I wouldn’t go out and quit the job. You may be promoted in the job, or you may be invited by some other concern that is competitive to join them – I do not know how it happens; I only know: if you remain faithful to the assumption, it’s going to happen, and you are going to be promoted towards the fulfillment of the state that you’ve dared to assume that is yours. I could tell you unnumbered stories of this nature.462 ¶19

So, here, I say: dwell in the end. The end is where we begin, for if I’ve seen my name on the marquee, that’s the end. I don’t wait for the incident to take place in my world to move from one to the other to another, leading up to that; I dwell in the end. So, if I go to the very end, what would it be like were it true? A health case: not how it’s going to become better, but you go to the end, and you say to someone who isn’t well – in your mind’s eye you say to them, “You know, I’ve never seen you look better,” and have them say to you, “I’ve never felt better.” Well, now, that’s confirmation for what you are seeing. You say, “I’ve never seen you look better,” and hear them say to you, “Well, I have never felt better.”462 ¶20

But you may say to me, “I can’t hear people.” Oh, yes, you can! You can hear anything you want to hear. You don’t have to hear it audibly. Listen this very moment. You may not be able to whistle a tune. Maybe you can’t carry a tune in any manner whatsoever. You can’t play an instrument, you can’t whistle, you can’t sing. Well, can you now imagine that you are hearing The Battle Hymn of the Republic? Listen! Can’t you hear it? Can’t you augment it a thousand voices, ten thousand voices? Did you hear it at the funeral of Senator Kennedy? Did you see it on TV? Wasn’t that moving when the organ began to peel, and suddenly that lovely soft voice singing it, and the whole thing became – well, the whole vast TV world was filled with it. I doubt there were very many dry eyes when he got through singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Well, I can’t sing; I can’t whistle a tune, but I can just right now stand here and listen and hear the entire thing swell. If I try to duplicate it with my voice, I couldn’t do it, but I can hear his voice as he sang it.462 ¶21

You can hear anyone’s voice; you can hear the speaker’s voice. Tonight, alone, you can hear my voice, and you can put upon my voice what you want to hear, and I, unknown to you, will find myself telling you, “Something will happen to confirm what you’re hearing.” So, you can do this for good or ill. I advise you: Do it for good. But the choice is yours. You can hurt and you can bless, but don’t hurt. Use your imagination always lovingly on behalf of others. But to tell you that you could not do it to hurt is stupid, because you can hurt. It’s entirely up to you. So, you imagine what you want. Believe that you have it, and see how it works in the world. Those who scoff at it – well, let them scoff. Five years from now, when you are on the top, they may be working for you, and may even have forgotten that they sat in the same audience with you when you heard and believed, and they also heard, but they didn’t believe, and so, you moved on, and they remained behind. That’s life.462 ¶22

But there’s only one creative power in the universe. Scripture names that power as God – Jesus Christ, the Lord – the same Power. Because there aren’t two Gods, there aren’t two Lords – there’s only one. And that one Christ dwells in us. He did not appropriate a single man, as the priesthoods of the world teach. They tell you of a single man, and they single out a man that differs from all men. He isn’t dwelling in this man or that man. His desire was to save humanity, and so He dwells in us – not in that particular man. He didn’t become this one man – dwelling in one man. Let no one tell you that the Christ in you differs from the Christ– and let them name any man they want. He cannot differ. If there is a Christ other than that Christ who is crucified within us, and who rose and continues to rise in humanity, he’s a false Christ. And the teachers who teach of an external, objective, different Christ are false teachers. Christ is within, and He rises within. “So, you go out and put it to the test. Put it to the extreme test. Christ in us—not ‘out there’—is the glory.”462 ¶23

So, this word of which I speak – and the word, by the way – its true definition is, “meaning.” In the beginning, there was meaning to the whole thing, and that meaning was with God, and God Himself was the meaning. There is a purpose, there’s a plan behind it all. He planned everything as it has come out, and as it will be consummated. And the purpose of it all is to awaken in us, so that we and he are one. So, He actually became us, that we may become God. It seems incredible, but it’s true. That’s the purpose of life: to take humanity and lift it to God so it becomes God. So, He became man, that man may become God.462 ¶24

Now tonight, you need not confine it to yourself. Take a friend, without the friend’s consent – without the friend’s knowledge, and lift him up. Do you know a friend who is unemployed? Well, then, see him as gainfully employed, and don’t tell him, that you may brag tomorrow. Don’t boast. Just see him gainfully employed. Here is a friend of mine in L.A., and this man was unmercifully bawled out by his supervisors, and told that he was no earthly good, and they are considering letting him go. They are going to fire him. Well, the man had no support outside of the job, and he had a family. He told my friend. Well, my friend lives by this law, so he said to him, “All right, go your way.” He didn’t tell him what he was going to do. He sat quietly at his desk and heard the man tell him that they praised him beyond measure for something that he had done. It wasn’t 48 hours that they had a complete reversal of their attitude towards this man in their praise for something he did in the advertising world. But the blow left its mark, and he said to my friend, “Yes, they’ve reversed it, but I don’t feel easy on the job, because they could not have said the unlovely things that they said and forgotten them, so it will come back, and I’m going to quit. I have no money. I’m giving them two weeks’ notice. I am going to ask them to give me one week of the two, that I can get myself together and maybe take off a few days and just get my thoughts in order.” Well, at the end of two weeks he didn’t have a job. My friend – when he told him what he was going to do – my friend knew he could not afford to quit and not work, so he saw him gainfully employed and earning twenty-five percent more than the present job. He took off the second week. When he came back at the end of the first week, he came into my friend’s office and said, “Only yesterday I got the offer, and I start Monday. I do not lose one day’s salary, and I start at twenty-five per cent more than I received on the past job. What did it? My friend’s imagination, a loving use of the imagination on behalf of a friend! Had he gone without that imaginal state, he would have walked into the place, and the man would have said, “We have nothing,” or, “We can’t use you,” “Why are you quitting?” He didn’t ask anything; he simply wanted the man. So, if you precede your visit by an imaginal act, they will see you as you see yourself. If you walk in knowing that you’re no good, they will see you exactly that way. But if you walk in the assumption that things are as you desire them to be, they are going to see you that way. And this is life.462 ¶25

Now, what greater claim can anyone make than to acclaim that he is God? And when He claimed it, they said, “He is blaspheming, for here is a man, and the man claims he is God.” The 10th chapter of John, “And he said, ‘Is it not written in your law, I say ye are gods, sons of the Most High?’” If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came, would you say of the one that he anointed and sent into the world that he is blaspheming? Do you know of any greater claim in the world than for a man to identify himself with God and walk as though he were, and not be ashamed to admit it? He doesn’t go bragging about it, but he knows in his heart he is one with God, for if his imagination is God – and he imagines – well, then, that’s God! And if he imagines a state and it comes to pass, then he knows the creative power that is God. He doesn’t have to brag about it and be ashamed of it. He sleeps in a noble state, because he is one with God. Well, let everyone take that attitude, and the world will change – not be beaten, but you can take the whole vast world, if they feel themselves slaves, and give them the world; they will want it again tomorrow. Unless a man has self-respect, you can give him all the money in the world, and it means nothing. That goes for the individual, it goes for a family, it goes for a race of people; it goes for a nation. As our late President Hoover said, “The rise and fall of ideas will determine the rise and fall of men, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of communities.” So, tell me the idea that a community entertains of itself, and I’ll tell you that community. But now change that idea of itself, and you’ll change that community.462 ¶26

Let a family feel important in itself – it doesn’t have to have a background. Who has a background? So, you can go back far enough, and almost everyone who now claims importance would be ashamed of that background. So, don’t go back; start just where you are. And don’t pay anyone to look up your family tree, because you are going to pay them to forget it. Just, all of a sudden, start right now and assume the dignity that is God. That’s your real background – it’s God, and so assume it! And, then, with that assumption – and if you have children, I hope you do – well, then, instill that into the child. Instill it into all within the environment, and have them feel important.462 ¶27

I have no background, judged by human standards – either intellectual, financial or these things – we made it. But Mother instilled in us, when we did something of which she was ashamed she would say to us, “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?” Well, we didn’t know. That must have been very important, because Mother said, “Have you forgotten that you’re a Goddard?” Well, I never heard that we had any background, but all of a sudden you begin to feel that you must be important. So, Mother instilled it into our mind’s eye. She made the name important, so today it is important. Where we are, in the business sense, in every sense, it’s important; but Mother did that, and she married a man who had no background, and took his name, but she made it important.462 ¶28

All right, who has any background? As far as I am concerned, I refuse to accept the aristocracy of any being in this world, other than the aristocracy of the Spirit. What other aristocracy? Give me the aristocracy of the Spirit, but don’t come to me with any physical descent. I’m not an animal. I’m not a horse, where you develop it by one horse after the other. I’m God! We are all God! You can’t go back beyond God. So, if that is the start of all of us, well, then, that is our root, and, so, claim it now. At any point in time, claim it, and you’ll find yourself being washed clean of anything you might have thought the family tree held. You don’t have any family tree. The true Israelite is not a descendant after the flesh, but the Elect of God, of whatever nation. That’s the man of God. So, you simply dare to assume that you are that man of God, and then apply what I’m telling you tonight. And, may I tell you, in the not-distant future – in the immediate present – it will work. If you don’t falter and do not change the assumption – if you remain faithful to the assumption, it will harden into fact, because imagining creates reality. It does!462 ¶29

Now, let us go into the Silence. Good. Now, are there any questions, please?462 ¶30