Tonight’s subject is “The Shaping of the Unbegotten.” We are told in Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, the 5th chapter, the very first verse, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” So we must find out what God did. We are told he called a thing that is not as though it were, and the unseen became seen. If you’re taking biblical records, that’s from Paul’s letter to the Romans, the 4th chapter, the 17th verse. He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were.937 ¶1

The one who had the vision and I turn to one, that is, Blake. Blake said, “Many suppose that before Creation all was solitude and chaos. That is the most pernicious idea that could enter the mind, for it takes away all sublimity from the Bible and limits all existence to Creation and chaos.” Now listen to the next statement, “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of Creation which was an act of mercy.” Let me repeat it, “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of Creation which was an act of mercy.” No scientists today believe that; they think we came out of chaos, so that the whole thing began to evolve out of something that wasn’t. And here, one with the vision tells us eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of Creation, which creative act was a merciful act.937 ¶2

Now, what does he mean by it? Well, I have had the vision, and I know that Blake is telling the truth. For I am telling the truth based upon my visions. Everything in this world is forever. What you now see, what former people saw, what they are going to see, everything is forever. These are parts of the eternal structure of eternity. This body, this little lectern, this—everything in the world is but a little part of the eternal structure of eternity. It didn’t come into being at all; it always was—all the stars, everything, everything on earth, all part of the eternal structure of eternity.937 ¶3

Now he speaks of Creation as an act of mercy. Here, you are as a body and I am as a body, and all these bodies, everything; and then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” . And here, man is… man is part of the structure of the universe. But here is God saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and that is an act of mercy. So he takes man, as I would take a tree and say to you, “Let us make a tree and mold it into our image, after our likeness.” Let us give to it the quality that we possess, our creativity. It can’t create itself; it simply is a part of the structure. The whole vast world is simply the universe, and all part of the structure.937 ¶4

God is shaping himself now. God, the unbegotten, is begetting himself; and so he begets himself in me, he begets himself in you. When he completes the act of begetting himself in us, we are God. We are that which will now use the same structure to beget anything that we can conceive of. So God takes man, part of the eternal structure of the universe, and begets himself in man. When he begets himself in man, the state begotten is the one who begot it: God in man, or the thing that came out of man by God’s act is God.937 ¶5

Now I’m told, let the individual imitate God as a dear child, and I’m told everything is: “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of Creation.” So I’m going to create. It all exists, independent of Creation. Well, how could I do it? I can’t think of anything that then doesn’t exist. I think of you in unnumbered states of mind—when you like me or dislike me, you’re sympathetic or you’re unsympathetic. I can think of you in unnumbered ways. But I want to create something now. I want to create something that is lovely for myself.937 ¶6

So I bring you into my mind’s eye and then I bring another into my mind’s eye and then I have, in my Imagination, a little party—say, a cocktail party, a tea, a dinner. I control the imagery that I brought into my mind. You all exist in eternity. But I bring you, without your knowledge, without your consent, and I control the entire moment of time. Make it a minute or five minutes, anytime, not too long, I control it.937 ¶7

But I so arrange the imagery that it implies something other than what it was prior to the arrangement. I bring you all into my mind’s eye, and I allow you to hear something that is taking place. I allow you to see me as you would see me were things as I desire them to be. And so I am begetting something. I am actually shaping myself, the unformed, upon the formed. For all things in this world are already part of the structure of eternity—everything is. So I bring a being from the structure. I bring another breath, it’s a man; another breath, it’s a woman, another breath [...], and I so arrange them in my mind’s eye that when I put them into that form, then they see me as they would see me were my dream realized. It’s my dream I am begetting. So I am begetting on the structure of the universe that which did not exist before.937 ¶8

So you and I as living souls did not exist. But the structure, this garment, always existed. These garments existed, everything in the world existed, but these living souls did not. And God begot us, begot us just like himself, to be a creative being just as he is. So take the same structure, and then create and create and create. So be ye imitators of God as dear children. How did he create? Well, this is how he created: “He called a thing which was not seen as though it were seen and the unseen became seen.” That’s how he does it.937 ¶9

So let me go back and re-quote the brilliant Blake, and may I tell you, I can’t read anyone in this world that I would put even near him. I go back into the Bible; yes, he’s equal to all the great prophets of the Bible. He brought into our [...] today [...] understanding, and he said, “Many suppose that before Creation all was solitude and chaos. That is the most pernicious idea that could enter the mind, for it takes away all sublimity from the Bible and then limits existence to Creation and chaos. Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of Creation which was an act of mercy.”937 ¶10

Just imagine if God did not take that which is always eternal and through this wonderful intense desire on his part to create humans out of that which was, we would not be here as living sentient beings, creating, yes, miscreating but creating. If you miscreate unnumbered times, you can still create. A miscreation is still a creation. I bring war, revolution, all these horrible things of the world; it’s still creating. And eventually, he who has started and stopped that will bring us into his own likeness, and we’ll be one with God.937 ¶11

So just as he did it out of things that are eternal parts of eternity, that this body and this little thing here that will seemingly decay—and this will decay, the garment will decay, and all will decay—it doesn’t really. That’s the great illusion—it doesn’t really; it is forever. Everything in this world is a part of the eternal structure of the universe. And out of all these parts God then said, “Let us make man”—for we already existed, like hanging on that tree—“in my image.” We don’t make man out of chaos; man exists, it’s part of the structure of the universe. Well now, let us take man that’s part of the structure of the universe and let us now make him into our image, after our likeness.937 ¶12

And so he takes man and he makes man into his image. Now we go back into the Book of Genesis and see what he’s done with man. A word is used in the book, it’s called the tree, the tree of life. The man in some strange way is expelled because he may eat of the tree of life before he’s prepared. Well, if you have a concordance—I have James Strong’s Concordance; it’s an excellent biblical concordance—and the word tree is defined as “the spine, the backbone, the carpenter, the gallows.” Who is hanging on the gallows? It’s called the gallows, this word called the tree. It’s the gallows; it’s the spine, it’s the backbone, and it’s the carpenter; in other words, the builder, the potter, the creator, and there he hangs upon the tree. But the tree is the spine; it is the backbone.937 ¶13

And after unnumbered [...] on this called man, he brings out of this something that is entirely different: It’s himself. It is shaped because he is the unbegotten, and he’s shaping himself upon a form. Just as I would take the potter, and I would mold the clay upon some form and mold it to my heart’s desire, well, God is molding himself upon man. When he has completed the act as he desires it, there are three definite stages where he reveals the completed work.937 ¶14

He molds us and molds us and molds us, makes us ever more sensitive, ever more creative, and ever more like himself. And when he is satisfied that we are just as he is, he unveils his way. The unveiling of the work begins with the awakening of himself, and that is called the resurrection. He awakes within the individual in whom he has completed the work. That awakening, in the Bible, is the resurrection.937 ¶15

Then, after the resurrection, he goes through a [...], like a bird; and he’s born from above. He’s self-begotten because the individual who is born cannot conceive of being sired by anyone other than himself. He can’t for one moment when he awakens in the tomb of his skull believe that he’s other than himself. When he comes out of his own skull, he cannot have any feeling, any sensation, of having any father or mother. So he’s born—then he must be self-begotten. God is so begetting himself that when he begets himself, the thing begotten is God. And he comes out, just self-begotten.937 ¶16

Then comes a second stage where he has the experience of being a father. Until that moment, he didn’t realize that he was. And now, strangely enough, when he sees the symbol, which reveals to him fatherhood, there is no mother. He is the father of God’s only begotten Son. So he knows now who he is. It took the son to reveal to him who he really is.937 ¶17

Then comes the third symbol, and the third symbol where the entire veil that separated the two is torn from top to bottom. From the top of his skull to the bottom of his spine, he is severed in two. And then the 10th chapter, the 19th verse of Hebrews tells you the purpose of that severing of [...]. From that moment on, the two become one; they’re not two anymore. They were separated by a veil, and the veil was the body of God, having torn the entire thing from top to bottom.937 ¶18

And then, strangely enough, you see yourself. And may I quote Blake again: “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, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer” . At that moment, you see the being that created you and you are the very being who created you. It’s a self-creation. God begot himself on the mold called man. And at that moment, when you see it, after the splitting from the top to the bottom, you see this lovely liquid, golden light. It’s you and you know it. You say, “I know it is my very self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” And then you, as the very being who created it, you, as it, move up now in serpentine form right into Zion. So all go into Zion, all go into the New Jerusalem.937 ¶19

So Creation is an act of mercy. This is—you can’t claim [...] of a creator—it was always part of the eternal structure of the universe. As those who have taken certain drugs have seen a certain act and recorded it to those who would record what they were seeing, I am seeing a man emptying coal; and strangely enough on this level of my being he was always emptying coal. There was never a time in eternity he was not doing what he’s doing, though at the moment it seemed to be he’s doing what he’s doing because someone ordered coal only at that moment in time. And yet, he was always doing what he’s doing… part of the structure of the universe.937 ¶20

That we are here tonight, and if you could see it on a higher level, we have always been here. We’re all structures, part of the structure of the universe. But out of these structures, God, in his infinite mercy and intense longing, is begetting himself.937 ¶21

Now let me quote you the 4th chapter, the 12th verse of Job, “And a thing”—one book calls it a thing; the King James Version calls it a word; the New Bible calls it a thing; you can call it a thing or call it a word; I think a word conveys it—“a word was brought to me, it was brought to me secretly,” said Job, “Which mine ear heard in a slight manner.” It was brought to me, it was brought secretly, and my ear heard it in a slight manner. I wasn’t quite sure, but I understood what I heard, what he had told me.937 ¶22

And then the story of Job, in Job 10, he said, “You know that I am without guilt. Thou knowest that I am without guilt. Why then dost thou try by torture to extract from me a confession of guilt?”937 ¶23

You know I am without guilt—that’s man. Here is man. I know I didn’t do a thing to come into this world. But a priest tells me that I have sinned or my father and mother sinned because they begot me in this physical state. I know I didn’t do a thing; I found myself here. And then my parents must go to church and pay a certain sum of money to the church and confess their mortal sin because they express the normal, natural function of the body? Yes, millions do that every day of this world, and the church gets richer and richer as they are made to confess their “sins.”937 ¶24

So Job makes the statement, “You know I am without guilt, why then dost thou try by torture to extract from me a confession of sin?” And then Job goes through the entire picture of horrors.937 ¶25

But in the end of Job, the 42nd chapter, I think it’s the fourth or fifth verse, what in the fourth chapter he heard stealthily—a word came to him secretly, coming through the night secretly—and then he said, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” He has the experience, and he knows how true what he heard secretly was when he heard it, but he heard it so quietly; he only heard the word in the wilderness. To see is to know and to know is to experience, and so he knows it now by experience.937 ¶26

I can tell you what I experience and share it with you and then you can say “I heard it.” It was a secret that was revealed. I heard it, but I didn’t see it, I didn’t experience it, and therefore, I don’t know it. I will trust him or will distrust, but I heard it. Then comes the power between the hearing of the word and the fulfillment of that word, where now I’ve heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.937 ¶27

And may I tell you: I have had a taste of the power in store for all of us when God fulfills his intention. He’s begetting himself on us, actually begetting himself; and when he succeeds in begetting himself, we are he. When we are he, I’ll show you what will happen because it happened to me. I have glimpsed and I’ve tasted of this power and the structure remains forever and forever.937 ¶28

I came upon a scene, just like this, and it was all animated, all having or seemingly enjoying independent action. They all were at dinner. Dinner was being served. Birds were flying. Leaves were falling. Everything was in action, and it seemed completely independent of my perception.937 ¶29

Then at that moment in time, I knew that if I could arrest in me an activity that then at that moment, I felt everything would cease. So I arrested the activity and it froze. The whole vast scene; it was arrested. And through the window, a huge big black tree, a tree—the leaves were falling, they couldn’t fall, and they were arrested in space. The birds trying to fly, they were arrested in flight, and everything froze. And there I am observing this part of the structure of the universe. Anyone prior to that moment would have thought they were completely independent of anything external to themselves.937 ¶30

They could have ordered liver instead of duck. As the little Dennis the Menace said, “You mean that you can order anything in this world and you order liver?” They went into a restaurant, and the father had a wonderful menu before him and all of a sudden the father, who could never get it at home—because Dennis wouldn’t have it, the mother wouldn’t cook it—so in the restaurant he ordered liver. And Dennis’ remark was, “What, you mean you could have anything and you order liver?” Well, here in this restaurant they could order anything, and whatever they ordered, if it was possible to be served, they would be served. Their thoughts were completely free to do anything. And the birds started from one limb to another, and they were free to make the limb.937 ¶31

When I appeared upon that scene, appearing upon that scene, I knew that nothing was independent of my perception of it, for I froze the activity in me that allowed action to take place in this world and everything stood still. The bird didn’t fall out of the tree, which caused me after the experience to question seriously man’s concept of gravitation. For a bird in flight if arrested would fall to the ground. A leaf if arrested would continue unless some sudden current of air takes it out. But all the leaves that were falling remained just where they were when I arrested them, and the birds in flight remained spatially without falling to the ground.937 ¶32

The waitress—she was walking, and she walked not. Those who were dining, they dined not. Everything froze. He couldn’t carry that spoon from his soup. He couldn’t continue the action of soup to his mouth. And then, looking at them, amazed as I was, and then I released the activity in me, and they completed their intention. The diners dining dined. The birds, intending to fly, continued the action and completed their intention, and they didn’t fall to the ground. All things moved on to their intention.937 ¶33

So I tasted of the power that is in store for all of us when God completes his intention in begetting out of these permanent forms something other than this form. This is not the being you’re talking to any more than you are the being that I’m looking at. The Unbegotten is forming himself, shaping himself on these forms. [...].937 ¶34

He needs a form, and I need form to beget something else. So I bring you tonight into my world, I bring another into my world, and then I talk to these two in my world from a certain premise, which if true implies I’ve realized my dream. And so, I say to him, “You know what’s happened?” [...], but I am begetting something. I am using forms to form the unbegotten. Form what? Well, the Unbegotten’s name is I AM; that’s his name. And so I may be in need of a job. Well, the word job is something formed. I AM is unformed, the unbegotten. I want to beget something; I want to get a job. And so I bring you in my mind’s eye; I bring another one in my mind’s eye, and we have a little tête-à-tête. And then, whatever is taking place must imply I have what I want. When it implies, I am molded on these forms, myself the unbegotten, I’m begetting something. What am I begetting? I’m begetting a job.937 ¶35

So when I fulfill my act and I actually get the job, I am imitating my Father as a dear child. So, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” Imitate God! Just as he brought these entities into being by using eternal forms, then we take the same forms and we use them to bring in on a lower level what we want to bring into this world. So I want to bring in a job, not only for myself, bring it in for a friend, bring it in for another.937 ¶36

So I take anyone, ask him what he wants. Know what he wants? All right, then test my talent to take from these eternal forms what I think. If I arrange them in a proper manner and then lose myself into this state, I would produce out of it that which in itself it doesn’t have. So I take any gathering; you can gather anyone and gather it in such a manner that when it’s gathered together and the conversation starts, the conversation plus those present would imply something other. The something other is what you are begetting. So you are begetting something in this world. So man can beget anything in this world by using these eternal forms.937 ¶37

Let me go back to Blake. When Blake wrote this, it’s called the Vision of the Last Judgment, and Blake… I would put my head this night on a block that every word of it is true. Blake never had any ambition to be known in this world, only to transcend it, just to reveal God’s vision. And when he said, “The Bible and the four gospels and Revelation”—he did not mention any of the parts of the epistles, any epistles—he said, “The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Revelation, these are the eternal visions.” Then he mentions the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, the five books. Then he mentions, “Read all of them.” He implies without naming that these are eternal visions.937 ¶38

Now he said, “The Vision of the Last Judgment is not allegory; it is not mystery; it is vision.” And he tells you exactly what he means by vision as against a myth, as against an allegory. For he saw the entire play as described in the Bible unfolded before his vision. And he tells it, exactly these characters, they’re only states, but each state in God’s play becomes a person. They’re all personified. And so in this, let me now re-quote what I said earlier, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of Creation, which is an act of mercy.”937 ¶39

So I create from these eternal forms, and they exist forever. Now, God is actually in you, in me, begetting himself. As I stand before you, and this is not arrogance on my part, for I did not do it, and yet in another way, I did. For when he begot himself in me, I am he. And so all the suffering that I have gone through throughout unnumbered centuries up to this moment, which in his infinite mercy, he keeps from me, so I would have no memory of the past, all the suffering. “For whom God afflicts for secret ends, he then comforts and heals and calls them friends.”937 ¶40

So he puts us through all these sufferings. But, my Lord, the gift! The gift is the gift of creativity. He gives us himself. So when I beheld at the base of my spine, this golden radiant light—if you want to read it, read it in Ezekiel 1:27 and 8:2—here, I beheld it had the appearance of man; but at what appeared to be the loins, there was a glow of light that rose; and then, at what appeared to be the loins, going down, was light, just radiant light. That’s exactly what it is, right at the base of the loins, and you see it; and strangely enough, you know it is yourself.937 ¶41

It would take that liquid golden light to take the impress of what God imagines himself to be when he began to create you in his image. He held you in his mind’s eye and not a thing diverted him. But he had to bring you into that golden liquid state to take the impress of himself as he believed himself to be when he thought of you—all on the mold of man. And then you rose up, just like a serpent. Read the 6th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “In the year when King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a throne… and then above it was the seraphim.”937 ¶42

Well, the seraphim are described as the most celestial beings, the highest of God’s creation. Nothing compares with the wisdom, the might of the seraphim. They’re called fiery serpents with human faces, with a power beyond the wildest dream of man. And we do go up, just as you’re told, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” As Moses in the wilderness lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of man be lifted up; and you are lifted up, just like that.937 ¶43

May I tell you, when it happens to you, it will be just as I have told you, for it has happened to me. I am not speculating. I am speaking from experience; I’m not speaking from theory.937 ¶44

And so all these forms, every form in the world, are forever. As far as the body goes, it’s forever and doesn’t wear out. Let it be cut apart and be buried; it’s still forever. Everything this body has ever experienced, it will experience forever, all the bodies.937 ¶45

But in it all, God is begetting himself, actually molding and shaping himself, the Unbegotten, upon a form called man. So, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now we are told, listen to the words—is this the plural of majesty, “Let us make man… after our likeness”? Well, that’s the plural of majesty.937 ¶46

Or is it that God actually consults some divine society? Well, you can resolve it. Listen to the words in the 6th chapter, th 4th verse of Deuteronomy—the greatest of all commandments, said he. When asked what is the greatest commandment, he quoted Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” Here, we find a compound unity. The word is, “Hear, Israel: The Lord”—that is Yod He Vau He, that’s Jehovah—“our God”—that’s Elohim, that’s plural—“is one Lord.” “One” is Achad. It’s spelt in a way that you would almost hear the word “Zion.” It’s Achad, yes, Aleph, Beth, and Daleth. When you see it spelled and you are trying to use your Imagination, you can almost hear “Zion” coming out.937 ¶47

But here is a compound unity, one Lord, maker of unnumbered gods. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God”—our Elohim—“is one Lord.” So did he consult with those whom he had already brought into the divine council? Well, you be the judge. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Either the plural of majesty or we go back to the greatest statement, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.”937 ¶48

But you take me seriously this night and create as your Father is creating you. He is creating you on the mold of man. And you take man and be an imitator of God as a dear child. Create a lovely image of yourself by bringing into your mind’s eye men, and so arrange them at a party that they are seeing you as they would see you were you now the man that you want to be. What would you like to be? So then arrange them. But if you were the man that you would like to be, would you have a certain circle of friends who would congratulate you on that achievement? Bring them all into that picture and let them see you as such a man. When you see them seeing you as such a man, you are actually shaping yourself on the forms that are forever. You are bringing in and creating as your Father created.937 ¶49

Now let us go into the Silence.937 ¶50

The title is Poor Brother Donkey. As you know by now, the New Testament is only the fulfillment of the Old. So the central figure in the New Testament makes the claim, “I have come only to fulfill Scripture.” And the only Scripture known at the time was the Old Testament. So the passage of the Old Testament concerning this donkey, you read in the ninth chapter, the ninth verse of Zechariah. The word Zechariah means “Jehovah Remembered.” And the passage is this: “Lo, your king is coming, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and sitting on an ass.” Now, in the New Testament, in the twelfth chapter of John, it is written, “Jesus found a young ass and sat on it. As it is written, Behold, now in the New Testament, your king is coming, sitting on a ass.” Well, that was the music that brought him in. Are you all ready now? Well, I hope it didn’t disturb your thoughts. When you make a mental picture of this, you think of a donkey, don’t you? And year after year, in the great pageantry of the Christian faith, here is the donkey. And from the pulpit, we are told that the Lord came riding into Jerusalem triumphantly. And they spread all the palm leaves before him. And he came triumphantly and victoriously into Jerusalem, riding on an ass. Tonight, I will show you what the ass is.936 ¶1

Francis of Assisi, they call him now Saint Francis. He was not a theologian. He was a very rich, handsome, young man. And he had a vision. And the vision changed his life completely. Those who are changed by a vision must walk by faith. To the mile of doubt, he so believed in the vision, that he took the bulk of it and gave up all of his wealth, including the clothes that he was wearing and stood in the nude. The bishop of Assisi gave him a prop to cover his nakedness. He died at the age of 43, and he believed his austere life was the cause of that short life. I do not go along with that, for I go along with Scripture. There is a season for everything—a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to laugh, and a time to cry. Forty-three years was enough for the work he came to do. But on his deathbed, he asks forgiveness of poor brother donkey, my body, for all the hardship which I caused it to suffer.936 ¶2

The donkey is the body that you are wearing. Scripture tells us when you find it, it’s a wild ass of a man. It’s into the words of the 16th chapter of Genesis. And the angel of the Lord said unto Hagar, “I will so multiply your descendants that they cannot be counted for multitude, and you shall bear a son. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man, and every man’s hand against him.” It’s a man. And when you, the individual self, descend, for you are the son of God—we are the sons of God who came down into this world of death—and we penetrated these bodies and annexed their brains. And then we had to actually confront all the vicissitudes of this annexation. We took upon ourselves these wild asses, these bodies, with all of the passions of the body, all of the weaknesses of the body. This is the only ass on which the king rides.936 ¶3

Behold, your king is coming. He’s in you now. It is the Lord, and his name forever and forever is I Am. He has no other name. That’s the Lord’s name. And he’s riding this animal. He has to ride it until it becomes humble. In the Bible, meek means not to grovel on the floor, but to become self-disciplined. Possibly the most important and the most difficult thing in the world for man to become, is a gentleman. You may become a dictator, a king, or a queen. Hitler was a dictator. Stalin was a dictator. In my book, they were not gentlemen. The most difficult thing in the world for a man is to become a gentleman. And for a woman, to become a lady. I know nothing more difficult in the world. And that’s what the book means by meekness: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That is the humble person. Not groveling, no. Your head high, for you know who you are. You know who the king is. You know where he dwells. And he dwells not in space or in time, he dwells in you, as your own wonderful human imagination. And you’re ever on guard as to the use of this being that you are, which is your own wonderful human imagination, your consciousness. So here he is coming, and he is humble, but he is victorious. He is triumphant as he comes riding on an ass.936 ¶4

So when Francis asks forgiveness of poor brother donkey, and then he states it quite clearly, “My body, for all the hardships I had caused it to suffer.” How could you spare any clearer? and more beautiful than he did. It was his body. He denied his body the warmth it needed. He stood in the nude and was told by the bishop. He would not eat what the body needed. The body needed to be clothed properly, to be sheltered, and to be fed properly. And he thought the denial of these things would make him closer to God. No, you aren’t closer to God by denying the body these things—the essentials of life. And today we have all kinds of cults in the world concerning diet. We are warned in scripture, “Food will not commend you to God. You’re no worse off if you do eat, and no better if you don’t.” It is not food. It’s simply taking this body of yours with all the passions of the body and bringing it under control. Actually controlling the body. But you don’t deny it its normal, natural, essential things in this world. As Francis did. But he learned a great lesson. And you and I can learn the lesson from him. Most of us have indulged alright. You can only learn by possibly overdoing something, as he did it in the other direction.936 ¶5

But the donkey spoken of in scripture is the body that you are wearing. This is the coat of an ass, the young ass. You penetrated it, and you annexed the brain. And then from then on, you aren’t pretending that you’re a man. You really are the son of God. But you aren’t pretending that you’re a man. You’re so identified with it, it’s become a temporary portion of your soul. As Blake said, “Man has no body distinct from his soul. That cold body is a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses in this age.” So this is now a temporary part of the soul. It’s only temporary. But while we wear it, it is actually the soul. It’s not something aside from you. You feed it, clothe it as yourself. I said I’m going to take some food. I’m going to take a drink. I’m going to buy a suit and wear it. I’m speaking of myself, the body, but I am wearing it and I’m eating. I’m doing all these things until the day will come when I will take it off for the last time.936 ¶6

I don’t take it off in death. I am instantly restored to a body just like this, only young. When I say young, I don’t mean an infant. I mean young, about 20. And here I find myself in a world just like this, with all the problems that I thought I would leave behind, just like this. And I go through life as I go through it here, learning my lessons and still trying to overcome and bring this body into subjection. I make it obey me. I make it certain that I can ride it, as I will ride the ass, the donkey. In time, I will take it off for the last time, and then I will ascend to where I was prior to my descent.936 ¶7

But when I go back, I am not the son of God. I am God himself. He came down for that purpose. We are the sons. Collectively, we make Christ. The word Elohim is plural. It means God. “Let us make man in our image.” In the likeness of God, may he live. So the son came down. And he has put a bound. He has put a limit. I’ll leave it to the peoples of the earth, according to the number of the sons of God, as you read in the 32nd chapter, the 8th verse of Deuteronomy. He’s put bounds to the people, according to the number of the sons of God. Although the promise to Hagar was that she could not number her descendants, for multitude, nevertheless, it’s still a number. They cannot exceed the sons of God. For if God’s son did not penetrate the body and annex the brain, the body couldn’t live. The body couldn’t breathe. That is the breath of God, the very spirit of God, when you say, I am.936 ¶8

And so when the work is completed, and what is the work, it transforms you into God the Father. For the body of God is a living form, a transforming form, and through union with him, he fashions us into the image of himself, who is God the Father. So his name forever is I, and so he came down, and for reasons which I think one, as you dwell upon it, to begin to grasp. You took the limit of contraction upon you when you became man. Having worn it for a while, you will break it in vain, and then you will ascend into expansion. It’s a constant contraction and expansion. Contraction and expansion. And so the day will come that your consciousness will expand beyond anything known to mortal man. And that expansion will take you into the actual being that you and I call God the Father. You are awakened one day to know you are God the Father.936 ¶9

They said of him, “Are you a king?” He said, “You say that I am. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world.” Now read these words in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel. “David shall be their prince. David shall be prince among them. I, the Lord, have sworn it.” David shall be prince among them. I, the Lord, have sworn it. If he’s a prince, then his father is a king. David called him, “My Lord.” He called him, “My Father.” I tell you from my own experience, the day will come, you will know that you are David’s father. He will stand before you, and you will know without any uncertainty, you’re looking into the face of your son. And he is your son, and he knows you are his father. You are the Jesse spoken of. A Jesse simply means “Jehovah exists.” You will know that God does exist, for he is the father of David. David being the sum total of humanity. Having played all the parts that man is capable of playing, you will awaken—awaken from the dream of life. And you will encounter your son. And your son, only your son, can reveal to you who you are. And that son is David. And you are God the Father. Do you not yet know it? But I tell you, you will know it. And I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. I am telling you what I know from experience.936 ¶10

David is not of the flesh. God is spirit, his son is spirit. The whole drama is a supernatural drama. It did not take place here in this world of flesh. So let me quote now Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “And Abraham had two sons, one by a slave, born according to the flesh, and one by a free woman born through a promise. The children of the slave are in slavery with her. The child of the free woman is born of new Jerusalem, Jerusalem above. She is our mother.” Everything from the womb of woman. Is the child born into slavery, and the womb of a woman in scripture is Hagar. He tells you this is an allegory. Like a parable, it’s a story told as if it were true, leaving you who hears the story to discover its fictitious character and then extract its true meaning. So he tells you the story of Abraham is an allegory. He had two sons. One by a slave, Hagar, and then one by a free woman, who was Sarah. And the one by the slave, bore children into slavery. More than you could number. Look at the people of the world. Three billion plus.936 ¶11

And then the one by the free woman, she only bore one. Only one son. So that your son is my son, and our son will be every person’s son who awakes, that will prove to us the unity of life. If my son David is your son, then you and I are one. So hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. There can only be one God, the Father. And therefore, one son. But God the Father became fragmented into the unnumbered sons, as became God into this world of death. He will return, individualized, no loss of identity. And yet, wearing the form of God the Father. And we will go back knowing we are one. Yet, I will know you as my friend, and individualize as you are, but I will see you in the form of God the Father. I know you, still know you, as my friend.936 ¶12

So here is the mystery of scripture. It’s not secular history. Man insists on reading it as secular history, and it is not. It is completely supernatural. The whole thing is a vision. A delightful, glorious vision. A vision that cannot be logically proved to anyone. I can prove things of earth, but I cannot prove these things of scripture. I have experienced scripture, and I can share my experience with you, but I cannot prove it as I could things of earth. So here we are told, the two sons: one is of the flesh. And it makes a man a slave, and the other sets the man free, when he brings into birth the other one, called the Christ.936 ¶13

Now listen to these words in the third chapter of Galatians: “And the promise is made unto Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say offspring, referring to many, but to one. And to your offspring, which be Christ.” I quote it accurately from the 16th verse of the third chapter of Galatians. The Christ is the offspring of David, of Abraham. Abraham is the father of the multitude. We are all the descendants of the multitude. But a true Israelite is not a descendant of Abraham after the flesh, but the elect of God of any race or nation. We are called, one by one, are incorporated into the one body, who is the Father and God of all. And that incorporation into that body, that body becomes our body. And he in whom I am incorporated is the Father of David. And therefore then, David is my son. So I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, “Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.” And so David finds him. And David cries unto him, “Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.”936 ¶14

Now we are told David hides in us. The day will come. You will expand to the point where it can explode, and David is released, and as he’s released, he stands before you. And here, you’re looking now at the mystery of mysteries. God kept his promise. It is his purpose to give himself to us, his sons, as though there were no others in the world—just you and God’s son. And God’s son is David. And so when you look into the face of the son of God, and know him to be your son, then you know who you are. There’s no other way you’ll ever know. I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you’re God. You won’t believe it. Not really. But you will have to the day it happens to you. When it happens to you, there is no doubt, and no argument in the world, but to persuade you that you are dreaming, or that it’s some strange hallucination. It is simply a vision that you cannot let go.936 ¶15

So the man who is changed by vision must walk then by faith through the mile of doubt. And so he is faithful to the vision in times of trouble. It doesn’t matter what happens into the world. You know what happened to you, and it sustains you through everything in this world.936 ¶16

So the donkey spoken of, that acts, but every year, year after year, in the Christian faith, we dramatize it. And yet, the ass is the body that you wear. That is where the king is riding. And he’s riding in triumphantly into Jerusalem. But the Jerusalem above, and the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother…936 ¶17

Now, we are told in scripture, Zion, Jerusalem, City of David, Bethlehem, are synonymous terms. In the 87th Psalm, you will read: “Zion, and in Zion it is said, This one and that one were born in her. And that one was born there, and all these are recorded, for the Lord recalls his people and registers his people.” Every one that is called, and we are called one by one to be born out of Zion. And Zion is not in the Near East, in spite of what we read in the papers, in spite of what many believe. Zion is your own wonderful skull. That’s where you are born from above. That’s the Jerusalem from above. She is your mother, and she is free. And when you are born from above, you are set free. As you are brought into slavery when you are born from below through the womb of a woman. For when you are born from below, you penetrate into Esau.936 ¶18

And as you are told in a strange way in scripture, “And Abraham was put into a deep sleep, and darkness fell upon him. And the Lord said to him, ‘Your descendants shall be enslaved in a land that is not theirs for four hundred years. Then they will come out with great possessions,’” possessions being the world itself. Because when you come out, you are God himself. And there goes a hole in you when you come out. But for four hundred years. It has nothing to do with 400 as we measure years. In the Hebrew alphabet, every letter has a numerical as well as a symbolic value. 400 is the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Tav. Its symbolic value is that of a cross. This is the only cross that God ever wore. This is where he is crucified, and this is where he remains crucified until the journey is completed from the moment of penetration until the very end is called the privilege of the Son of God.936 ¶19

And in the very end, you are told, “Be perfect now as your father in heaven is perfect.” And that word “perfect” is telios, which means to have a definite goal, a definite aim, and to complete and, well, not only to complete it, but to follow closely to the nth degree the original image. You simply must fashion within yourself that original image, which is God himself. But who is doing the fashioning? It is God who is doing it, molding you into his own image, and it takes the journey, this pilgrimage of ours, through hell, for this world is hell. This is the world of death. But at the end, when we reach the end, we break the shell, our own wonderful skull. It’s all done in a supernatural manner, and you’ll hear the explosion. But it all settled. You’re looking at your son.936 ¶20

Who would have told me, a man born in this century, that I am the father of one recorded in scripture as having lived 3,000 years ago. And I am not talking of any reincarnation. It has nothing to do with any reincarnation. I am individualized, and I came forever and forever towards an ever greater individualization. And so do you. So, no reincarnation. Here is a drama. We came down into a state of sleep, a state of complete forgetfulness. And then comes the end. At the end, memory returns. And the one that I’d completely forgotten, didn’t know that I was his father. I read the scripture and thought of him as an ancient being, some patriarch of the old, old world, a thousand years B.C. And then to discover that I am his father, that I, a man in the 20th century, am the father of one who is supposed to have lived forever. One thousand years B.C., and I know from experience, I am. I also know that you are too. But you do not know it yet. And you must know it. And one day you will know it.936 ¶21

And then, you and I will meet in eternity as the one being. For in the end, there is only one being, one spirit, one Lord, one God, and Father of all. And may I tell you, one body. You wear the body of God the Father, and I wear the body of God the Father. And yet I will know you, and you will know me. And in that day, there will be nothing but love. Nothing but love. For we have brought under control these garments that we had to wear. For these are the slave garments. These are the garments where one’s hand is against every hand, and every man’s hand is against me. Isn’t that true of the world?936 ¶22

You think you have a friend, to find it isn’t. I think a man’s greatest possession in the world is a friend. I can conceive of anything greater in the world that I could ever have than that of a friend. Money can go. All things can be taken from me, but a friend—if I can get on that phone and call a friend, if he really is a friend, he will come to help. I have had experiences of that, and I know what a friend is in this world. And I can tell anyone what it is to have a friend. If you haven’t a friend, well, try to find one. But first, become a friend. First, become the friend, and you’ll have friends. But I can’t conceive of any greater possession in the world than that of a friend.936 ¶23

As I can’t conceive of any greater accomplishment in the world for a man than to become a gentleman, and a woman to become a lady. To be a dictator, to be a billionaire, these means nothing. I cannot—I’ve met many of them—not dictators, but I’ve met many very wealthy people, and I cannot put them in my book as gentlemen or ladies. I may be somewhat among the few—maybe there are others who have great wealth who are gentlemen and who are ladies—but I haven’t met them. I’ve met wealthy people, very wealthy people, but I cannot, in my book, call them gentlemen and call them ladies. Yet, I know many gentlemen and many ladies who are not wealthy, but they are gentlemen and they are ladies. Under any circumstance, they are gentlemen and they are ladies. And they may tonight doing a job that is menial, but they are gentlemen.936 ¶24

So, the ass of scripture is the body that you are wearing. This is the one the king is riding, and eventually, he will ride triumphantly and victoriously into Jerusalem. And you will find as you ride into that state, you are the king of kings, and your son David is prince forever, among all, as told us in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel: “For I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will not take back what I have said. I, the Lord, said he, have spoken, and David shall be their prince forever.”936 ¶25

It comes as a surprise and as a shock to those raised in the Christian faith, as I was, to discover David to be the Christ. David is the Christ, and the one in scripture called Jesus is the Lord himself. It’s a drama. It’s a play. He is simply dramatizing the story of God himself. And he has that one son. And David is the essence of humanity. He symbolizes the whole vast field of humanity. If you took all the men in the world, and all of their experiences, and fused it into one single whole, that concentrated time into which it is fused, if personified, would come out as David. That’s David. And there is no doubt in your mind when you look at him. How on earth can you look at him with certainty? But you will. You will not have to, for one moment, ask. Ask nothing. Memory has returned, though it had suffered from total amnesia. And then, suddenly, the whole thing is returned, and you’re looking into the eyes and the face of your everlasting son, and he’s David. Yes, the David of biblical fame.936 ¶26

So, Francis was right when he asked forgiveness of poor Brother Donkey for all the hardships he had caused it to suffer. You don’t have to go through that. I did it for 7 years and tore my body apart. I became, knowing nothing of nutrition, and those who go on diets, they know nothing of nutrition. They’re not scholars who studied it, and they would take any little suggestion and go on it, as I did. I was told to become a vegetarian, so I became a vegetarian for my soul’s sake. When I went into a restaurant, I was a dancer in those days, I would ask the waiter, “Does the soup have beef stock?” Well, he would say, “Yes.” But I’d say, “I can’t take it.” What kind of soup in this world is there without a beef stock? Plain water. But all soups have some kind of a meat stock, chicken stock, if you have good soup. But I would say, “No, no soup.” I wouldn’t even eat eggs. No fish, no fowl, no meat. As a result, dancing as I did, I simply became a thin little thing and I lost all of my strength. Seven years of strict, strict vegetarian, I tore my body apart. It has never really been rebuilt, and I was strong and strapping prior to this experiment.936 ¶27

But I believed what I read and what I was told, and I tried it to discover in the end that was not the way. It was not diet, it wasn’t anything that I did faithfully for 7 years. It was a blind alley, and I, who knew nothing of nutrition, denied this body of mine what it needed badly. And I could well afford to give it what it needed, but I didn’t have the intelligence to know that I was doing the wrong thing. And so I did it as a blind fool. But I could tell you tonight, and I could not persuade you. If you are a strict vegetarian, you’ll say, “Well, maybe he didn’t know.”936 ¶28

A friend of mine ran an advanced age on sunflowers, as though she were a parrot. The parrots eat them, parrots can thrive on them, but she couldn’t. So, she just simply dropped from sheer exhaustion and they just picked her up on the streets of San Francisco. She was gone. Though she was advanced, I must confess, she was advanced in years, but she tore her body down to all these silly little diets that people give each other.936 ¶29

Now, I am not an authority on any diet. Today, I simply eat for pleasure. I eat what I think I would like to enjoy. I feel that this body has a palate for a purpose, and I should exercise it. And so, I simply look at the menu and I pick out—not because of price—I blind my eyes completely to price and pick what I want. And when I feel like a martini, or a double martini, and two double martinis, you may tell me it’s no good for me. I will say, “Bring me my martini. Bring me whatever I ask for.”936 ¶30

Now, as the time for my departure has come, it doesn’t make any difference now. I’m like Paul: “The time for my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. And henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” Now, righteousness in the Bible, you’re told that Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. The man who fulfills that which is placed upon him as an obligation, as he fulfills it, it’s a relationship. Then, in biblical terms, he is accounted righteous.936 ¶31

I tell you a story. It’s a true story. It’s in scripture, but not as a story. I have brought it to life through experience in the story. I share it with you. I ask you to keep it alive. It will be reckoned unto you for righteousness. You keep it alive.936 ¶32

The only Christ that ever lives is in you. He is buried in you, and he will rise in you, and the only God of scripture is in you too. That’s God’s apartment. God himself entered death’s door with those who entered it. And death’s door is not in the cemetery. Death’s door is your own skull, Golgotha. That’s where he’s buried. God himself entered death’s door with those who entered, and he lay down in the grave with them in visions of eternity until they awake and see the linen clothes that the female had woven for them. Yes, this is the linen clothes, the body that I wear that my mother wove for me, my earthly mother. And one day I will awake from the dream, as I have awakened from it. It’s an entirely different body than in which I am clothed. Face, yes. Hands, voice, but not the body. And that cannot be described. To tell you that you have a body of light, a body that is altogether alive, a body that you can’t describe, that is all power. And yet, its form, I can’t describe it. I can only tell you of my experience in it, and what it does when you wear it. It’s all love, and it’s all life. And yet, you will recognize it, and know me to be your friend. And yet, I am wearing then the garment of the risen Lord.936 ¶33

And I will not, for one second, take back one word that I’ve told you. And no one in the world, or all the world, could in any way force me to take it back. Because I’m telling you what I know from experience—it is the truth. And our Bible is the greatest book in the world, but it is not secular history. It’s divine history. And one day you will experience it. And when you do, you are at the very end of the journey. And then, you are not restored to life as all are, to those who are not yet born from above. You will simply take off the garment for the last time, and you are one with the risen Lord. And you are the risen Lord.936 ¶34

Now don’t forget who the donkey is. And treat him well, as you should treat every animal well. I know in my own case, as a boy, if anything that annoyed my father, it was when the animals were not well-fed and watered. He would fire a man on the spot if he came home at night and found they had not fed and watered his animals—the donkeys, the horses, the sheep, the goats, everything, the cows. He could not stand having one animal being abused. Yet, he had a slaughterhouse. That was alright with him. He slaughtered them for human consumption, but not to abuse them. You get all these things, but you could not abuse an animal.936 ¶35

He would bring an old mule, I see it now. That mule served him through the day and through the night. If 1 in the morning a ship came in and needed something urgently, had not a thing in cargo for the island but needed something for the crew and my father would go off and get the order and fill it and the old mule would be awakened from its sleep and harnessed to deliver the things. And when that mule came to the end of its day, daddy said….936 ¶36

Few are teaching this wonderful principle; many others will join, so I thought tonight a certain point should be clarified, because you’re going to get this question over and over again. “Do you not believe that a man called Jesus Christ walked the earth?” You’re going to get it and you’ll be up against it if you do not know how to answer such a question; for the whole vast Christian world believes in a man, a man, and they will pin you down and try to get an answer, yes or no. Just like saying, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” if you try to answer yes or no to such a question.932 ¶1

So here, we’ll turn to scripture, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” . “Thy word is truth, and his name shall be called The Word of God.” How do I reconcile it? Here, “his name”…that’s a person…but I’m speaking of a word that will set a man free.932 ¶2

We are told in scripture in the 6th of John, “And this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” . As you read it you think it’s a man and you say he sees the Son…instantly you think of a man. Well, why? There is not an error but it has a man for its agent, that is, it is a man. There is not a truth but it has also a man for its agent. It takes man to express either a lie or a truth, because God is man…and there is only God. So when we come to this story in scripture concerning Jesus Christ that is called the truth, well then, they say, “Don’t you believe a man, one man, a unique man, was born say four B.C. or say one B.C.?” And then you’re called upon to answer that question.932 ¶3

Well, first of all, you cannot answer it yes or no. But you answer it in this way: it is not a man—Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation. It’s a plan.932 ¶4

Here we turn back now to one of the saddest and yet poignant statements in the entire Bible. You read it in the Book of Samuel. Samuel loses his son, Absalom. And here, when they bring news, the battle is on, he always inquires about his son. Now the son revolted against him, tried to take over the kingdom. Then finally he said, “Tell me, how is it with the lad Absalom?” When he gets the news, he puts on a coat, covers his head, takes off his sandals, and sits in the gates of Jerusalem and weeps, and they can’t console him. Then that cry of his: “O Absalom, Absalom my son, my son! Would that I had died instead of thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” .932 ¶5

Well, here is a forecasting of a great story. It’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, which we find in the New Testament. Now, there’s only God, nothing but God. Here now we find in the New, God the Father does that which David longed to do: He longed to give his life to restore his son. David couldn’t do it; only God could do it.932 ¶6

So then in the words of Blake, put into the mouth of Jesus, “Fear not!”—speaking now to humanity—“Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Wouldst thou love one who had never died for thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist” .932 ¶7

So God dies; he empties himself completely of his divinity, and doesn’t pretend, he actually becomes man. He becomes man, every one born of woman. But, while he walks in this forgetfulness as man he has a plan. He has prepared a plan for himself to return, bringing with him the redeemed…every one redeemed.932 ¶8

But strangely enough, everyone here must be told the story of redemption. The story of redemption is Jesus Christ—the story is personified and man has taken the personification and made an icon out of it. He has taken the great vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction itself, and the agent that expressed the great truth for the truth. So man, an individual, it takes man to express it. Suddenly out of the nowhere this story that is eternal unfolds in him, and he tells the story.932 ¶9

Now, you are told, this is my Father’s will, everyone who sees the Son and believes in him…well, to see the Son, the word “to see” and the word “to know” are the same in Greek. So if tonight I paint a word picture and show you the plan of salvation, you are seeing the Son because you will know it. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you will believe it. So you’ll find the statement that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him. You may understand what I talk about…I hope I can tell it so clearly that everyone can follow, that everyone will understand what I intend…but not everyone will accept it and they will reject it. So not everyone who sees it clearly in his mind’s eye could follow it, they can’t believe it. It’s the most incredible story ever!932 ¶10

So Jesus Christ is not a man, he is not a person; he is the plan of salvation. The plan…so what is that plan? The plan is that the individual hears a story that there is not only one birth in this world—for flesh and blood, which is this, cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; that that which is of the flesh is of no avail, only that which is of the Spirit. And my words are Spirit. So if I tell you a story and only one…932 ¶11

But tonight in this audience many have fulfilled what I’ve told you that I myself experienced. So if many have duplicated it right to the very end, and going off into other aspects in scripture fulfilling the Word in themselves, well then, it is the truth. “You will know the truth and truth will set you free.” No man is going to set you free…this man called Neville is simply the agent expressing truth.932 ¶12

If what I tell you is true, you should if you accept it. It’s not enough just to understand it. I hope I can make it clear and you can understand it, but after you understand it, comes acceptance of it, belief. So you believe not in Neville; you believe in the truth that he is expressing from this platform or from his books. If you believe it and I lied, well then, you can’t prove it…you’ll simply be misled. And oh, the pain that is promised in the Book of James for the teacher who lies and sets his following amiss in this world; people don’t realize what is imposed upon the teacher if he dares to lie and mislead those who would trust him.932 ¶13

I know I am telling you what I have experienced so it can’t be a lie. I have actually experienced it. In the audience tonight many have experienced it: The birth; the discovery of the Son of God who is David; the splitting of the temple which is one’s body; the ascent of the Son of man into heaven; and then the descent of the dove upon that individual who has gone through Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is simply the story of salvation.932 ¶14

Now, man will not accept that—when I say man, I mean the majority. They don’t want that. They want a person on the outside as a personal Savior, and tonight many of them who are facing the inevitable departure form this world are hoping to meet what they call their Savior. Their Savior is simply a plan of salvation and the plan is God himself, for when it unfolds in you it is God unfolding…and you and he are one.932 ¶15

So here, they will ask you the question because you started to teach it and you will continue to teach it, and they will insist on the yes or no answer, and you just can’t do it. Will they come with you and then let you reason with them? And now start it in this manner, “You believe in scripture?” Well, you’ll get the affirmative answer, “Oh, yes!” Well, we’ll turn now to the 11th of Matthew. If you think Jesus Christ is a man of flesh and blood, we’ll turn to Matthew. He’s now talking of John the Baptist, “Of those born of women none is greater than John the Baptist; yet I tell you the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” .932 ¶16

Now, is Jesus Christ flesh and blood? That’s what you want? Then he is not greater than John the Baptist if you admit that, for these are the words of the one you call Jesus Christ. They aren’t your words; they are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, he said, no one born of women is greater than John the Baptist. Well, if you insist that Jesus Christ is born of a woman and therefore is in this world as flesh and blood, he tells you he is not greater than John the Baptist. He also tells you, the least in the kingdom then is greater than he. Well, if he is no greater than John the Baptist and the least in the kingdom is greater than John, then he is greater than Jesus Christ…if you insist that he is a man of flesh and blood. Isn’t that clear?932 ¶17

So, just bring your Bible up and expose the words of God to man. It is an entirely supernatural drama. It hasn’t a thing to do with any child that came from the womb of a woman. This is entirely different; it is out of an entirely different area. It’s born from above…man comes out of his own skull…that’s the birth from above.932 ¶18

There is a peculiar and wonderful hidden-ness of Christ in the gospel of John. You’ll find it in the 6th chapter, the 8th chapter, the 18th and 19th chapters. Let’s just give you highlights: “Isn’t this Joseph’s son? How is it he has just said, ‘I came down from heaven’?” He is Joseph’s son in the eyes of the hundreds of millions of people in the world, but he doesn’t make that admission. He said, “No, I just came down from heaven” . Heaven is above. Well, how can he come from heaven and he is Joseph’s son…we know him?932 ¶19

Now they ask him a question in the 8th of John, “Who is your father?” He said, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me you’d know my Father” . And if you really knew me in the true sense of that word, you wouldn’t ask, because you would know that if you knew me you would know God, for he and I are one. That’s what he’s saying in the 8th of John. “Only I know my Father whom you call God; but I know my Father and ye know not your God.”932 ¶20

So you find the hidden-ness of Christ all through John…not seen by mortal eye. But you can grow to see him by knowing him as it is explained to you that Jesus Christ is the plan of salvation and not a man, though it takes a man to express that plan. Only man can express either truth or error. So everything in this world is God and it takes God to express it, no matter what it is.932 ¶21

So here comes the other one. He stands now before Pilate and Pilate said to him, “Who are you?” and he refused to answer, he gave no answer. He said, “Where are you from?” No answer . Then he said to him, “Do you not know I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?” Now Jesus answers—man now is expressing truth—“You have no power over me unless it were given you from above” . That same word “from above” is the word “anothin” defined in the 3rd chapter “you must be born from above” . He said, “My world is not of this world. I am not in this world.” The drama is unfolding in an entirely different age, an entirely different world. It isn’t here at all. So I share with you what I know from another world, an entirely different world.932 ¶22

Now, let me share with you what was shared with me this week. This lady writes, “Last Sunday night I felt your presence so strongly in my home. It was so strong I sat down expecting to see you. All I saw was simply lights, like fireflies, lights, lights, lights, but I didn’t see you. And then I went to bed and this is my dream. I dreamt that I saw my tape recorder, the wheels going over and over, and I was waiting for the end of that little end. Then I remembered your teaching and you said if I could arrest the activity in my own mind as I observe anything that the thing observed would freeze. And so I thought I would try it. I arrested the activity in my Imagination and the scene stopped and it was frozen. Now this is what happened, Neville. As I arrested it, something in me opened and expanded above my head. It was my head but above, and it simply opened and expanded. Then when I once more decided to let it go by releasing the activity, it closed. As it closed, I contracted and then it started. I did it several times. I stopped it and started it, stopped it and started it, but every time something in me opened and expanded. I could not start it with the open and expanded state; I had to first close it and contract to get it started. Then I awoke. And at the moment I was disappointed because I did not stop and start people…it was simply a wheel. And then I realized in a flash the significance of the symbolism of the wheel, and then I was elated and sat down to write you this letter.”932 ¶23

The wheel is “divine union” as you will find it in Bayley’s Lost Language of Symbolism. Here, it’s a foreshadowing of her divine union with herself. There’s only God, God in the eternal state of existence, God in procession, and God in return. And here is a foreshadowing of her return to union with herself. She’s been into the world and she’s played her part. I can tell her, from this you’ve tasted of the power of the age to come.932 ¶24

That’s the power that you and I exercise in the new age. It’s something so far removed from anything known to man. Man here hasn’t the slightest concept of power. They’re frightened of their own little devices and they think they’re going to blast the whole universe apart with their little firecrackers.932 ¶25

You might have seen yesterday’s L. A. Times…the scientists are meeting at Cal Tech. These are the astrophysicists who dwell upon outer space with all their concepts of what makes it all go and how did it come into being. They do not agree as to the origin of it, but they agree quite a lot on its structure.932 ¶26

Now these figures are staggering…they claim we have in our universe 100 billion galaxies and each galaxy contains 100 billion stars. Yet, they admit that no matter how they search, there is no evidence that there is anything comparable to our small little system in the whole vast universe. The only thing in this whole vast universe that could cradle this biological experiment called man is right here with our small system of a sun and these planets. The only thing in the planet that could do it is earth and we’re on it. This solid little piece called earth, so small, a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars; and only one solar system could actually cradle this experiment called man…and we’re here.932 ¶27

If you dwell upon it, you should feel so proud, you should feel so great that this whole vast infinite universe can’t contain it. And it was all done to produce this one, this one little system…an orgasm of God. The orgasm of man, under the microscope, billions in the attempt to reproduce the likeness of the man, and only one comes out. Well, here is God’s orgasm…and one comes out…one system that could actually cradle the grand plan: His experiment to make man in his own image.932 ¶28

Nothing in this world could do it but God himself becoming man: So, “Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me” . “If God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist.” So he actually becomes man and there is a plan of salvation, and the plan is called Jesus Christ.932 ¶29

Churches have organized around it, personified it, and made a little god, and stuck it on the wall. That is not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s eternal plan of salvation…and that plan has to be expressed by man. Well, who knows? No one knows the authors of the gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are anonymous. No one knows who they are. They are actually relating their own experiences, that’s what they’re doing. They are telling you exactly what they experienced. So when they personify the plan they call it “the Son,” they call it Jesus, they call it Jesus Christ, they call it the Lord. It is all of this, but man, not knowing this, he can’t discriminate between the state and the occupant of the state, and so he takes the state and personifies it and worships the personification. But Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation.932 ¶30

So here, you’ll be asked it. For, I’ll be gone and you will carry on and you’ll tell it. They’re going to ask it of you: “Don’t you believe that a man called Jesus Christ was born of Mary, and lived, and they crucified him and did all these things?” The answer to that is no. That Jesus Christ…you are now the witnesses of this plan, for many in this audience have witnessed it. You’ve been born from above; and you’ve found David who calls you Father; you’ve been split in two; and you’ve ascended; and the dove has descended. You’ve had all these experiences, so you are witnesses to the truth of God’s word.932 ¶31

Now, as witnesses you are the fruit of the tree on which Jesus Christ as God’s eternal plan was crucified. His plan was crucified upon the eternal tree. Now they’re looking for that tree out in time and space. All the scientists are looking in the laboratory for it. But as Blake so beautifully stated: “The gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree; but their search was all in vain; there grows one in the human brain” . That’s where he is nailed. That’s where Christ or the plan of salvation is embedded; that’s where it is engrafted and there it grows.932 ¶32

As it grows it erupts into these major events, one after the other, until finally you reach the climax. After the climax, which is the descent of the dove, you simply linger to tell it to encourage your brothers…for we are all one. Then you depart, not to be restored to life in this terrestrial world, but you enter “that age” called the kingdom of heaven, where you exercise a power beyond the wildest dream of man. Everything known to man is as nothing compared to the power you will exercise when you enter there, for you are simply returning to yourself, divine reunion.932 ¶33

“I came out from the Father”—and I and the Father are one—“I came into the world; again I am leaving the world and I’m returning to the Father” . There’s only God the Father. And this is not some accident, this fall is not a disgrace, this is no…not a thing was wrong…it was a plan to create and expand the creative power of God. For, there’s no limit to expansion; there’s only a limit to contraction. He placed a limit and the limit is man. He took the limit of contraction and that is man, and that’s the limit of opacity, it is man. Then comes the unfolding of this in man and then there is no limit to translucency, no limit to expansion.932 ¶34

So here, Jesus Christ is God’s plan of salvation. That plan is offered to man that he may see it clearly in his mind’s eye. When he sees it clearly in his mind’s eye, he is looking at “the Son of God,” God’s plan. He may reject it, alright, that’s his privilege. He may reject it and if he rejects it, well then, he does not believe it. And throughout the entire gospel of John and practically the entire teaching of Jesus simply is all about faith and the belief in himself the whole teaching. You either believe it or you don’t believe it. He tells you a story and it’s all about himself, that he is expressing truth and truth is personified as a man.932 ¶35

But it’s not the man that you should worship, it’s the truth. You simply hold onto the truth, for the truth will set you free . For if you accept the Word of God and abide in it, well then, the Word abiding in you, which is the plan, will make you free. So you’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free.932 ¶36

But you first must know it, and then having seen it clearly in the mind’s eye you can say, “Oh, silly…I want the wisdom of this world. If I could only find out what he knows to make his millions, I would delay this for a little while. Come back tomorrow. I will simply take the millions first”; not knowing, “O foolish man, your soul is required of thee tonight” . Just tonight, so come back tomorrow. I’ll put it in your lap in the next little sphere for you. And so, your greed of today you’ll have it tomorrow, but you start shining shoes for it.932 ¶37

And don’t think for one moment that we do not move from here in a noble part into such other parts. Don’t think for one moment…any more than the actor playing today’s king on a stage doesn’t play tomorrow’s culprit. He’s simply an actor cast in roles and so we are the actors. “God only acts and is in existing beings or men”. And so you’re cast in role after role, the role best suited for the work yet to be done in us. So regardless of what we do now and the position in the social world or the intellectual world or all of these other worlds, we are cast in our appropriate role. This I see as I meet people. And it’s all perfect, everything is done perfectly. God planned it as it has come out and as it will be consummated.932 ¶38

So to you who are teaching it now and to those who are going to follow, you mark it clearly: you’re going to be asked, “Don’t you believe in Jesus Christ as a man whose mother was Mary?” and they’ll ask all these questions as I have been asked over the years. A gentleman about, I think just before I closed last December, he was here and he sat just there, and he took issue with me when I was trying to explain just what I explained to you tonight. Well, it was in conflict with his concept of Jesus Christ. He has him as something on the outside of flesh and blood. And he’s never been back since.932 ¶39

But that is fulfillment of the 6th chapter of John, “That’s a hard saying and they left him, never to walk with him again” . I am only fulfilling scripture. You tell the truth as you’ve experienced it and those like this gentleman will not walk with me again. He cannot walk with me in that atmosphere when my concept of Jesus Christ is simply the personification of truth; and that truth is God’s plan, his eternal plan of salvation. That truth must be expressed by a man, yes, so a man comes, expresses it; but leave the man alone and hold on to the truth. As you find the truth you hold the truth, but you just let everyone else go. But do not let go of the truth and the truth will engraft itself upon you, and then it will unfold within you.932 ¶40

Then you will know who he is, because when he unfolds within you, everything said of him is now experienced by you and you know who you are. What is said of him is that he is God; then you know who you are. If only to God this thing happens and it happens to you, then you must be he. You have no other conclusion. If it is to God that David said, “My Father,” and he says it to you, well then, you must be God. If it is to God that the temple is struck from top to bottom, and it was his body that was split from top to bottom, well then, it is to you.932 ¶41

Then the whole Bible opens up differently…and you will see the wisdom of Blake when he said, “Rivers, mountains, cities, villages all are human for in eternity all are men.” So last Monday when we brought out that the great mountain that was divided, it’s called the great Mount of Olives, but it is man that is divided. It is my own body that was divided, and one part moved northward, one part moved southward after it was split from east to west. So all the mountains become man and you are that man. You are the river Jordan, you are everything in the Bible…there’s nothing but man. And so, the mountains, the villages, the cities all are human.932 ¶42

When you enter into their bosoms you walk in their heavens and their earths, as in your own bosom you walk in your heaven and earth. And “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” . So this whole thing is unfolding within you. So all the mountains of the scriptures are all within you…whether you call it by this name or that name or the other name…all the cities, all the villages, Jerusalem, it’s all in you and every one is personified. And so, you will come to Jerusalem as the bride, do you not? Coming down at dawn like a bride, the great Jerusalem. So each is simply personified…and there’s nothing but man.932 ¶43

So I want to thank this lady for her marvelous letter to share it with us. I can tell her from her experience that you have tasted of the power of the age to come; and because the vision of the wheel is simply divine reunion…going back into your own being out of which you came. You can’t return until the work is finished…but you would not have had that experience were you not on the last days. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *932 ¶44

We are told that God became man that man may become God. And you may think that you are the man and God is the other that became you. Tonight I would have you reverse that: you are the God that became man that man may become you. If I understand scripture correctly and if my visions which parallel scripture are accurate, and I know they are, I tell you that what I just told you is true. Then we are told in the 82nd Psalm that we shall die like men: “I say that you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O princes.” So we were the gods who became men that men may become as we are. So here we find ourselves today in the world of men. Now we are told, the day will come that we will tell posterity…posterity will serve us and tell of the Lord who wrought it…who actually brought about the deliverance of man. So you and I actually became humanity that humanity may become as we are. This I do know from my own personal mystical experience. So reverse it, don’t think that you are some little worm and then God became as you are that you may be as he is. You were God and therefore you are God. You became man that man may become you, and that you is God. So you take the whole thing and reverse it and then you’ll have an entirely different feeling about it.931 ¶1

I know from my own experience…I can’t bring out the details, but I do know that my visions are true…they parallel scripture. There are certain passages you wonder what on earth does it mean? I know in the end the whole thing will be revealed, for I made everything because I loved it. When I say “I,” I mean we. We made everything because we loved it…and then we became everything to raise everything to our level, to glorify everything in this world. I know in the 22nd Psalm when we are told that he wrought it (at the very end of the Psalm) yet it begins with a cry of despair: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That I am crying unto myself. For I came down and completely forgot who I am and assumed my creation to raise it to the level of what I am. But in the very end I cry out “I have wrought it!” and the whole thing is done.931 ¶2

I will tell. Posterity will serve me. Men will tell of the Lord to the coming generations, to those that are yet unborn. It doesn’t mean another generation; it means to the gods who came down, who are not yet born from above to discover that they did come down and assume human nature, and then raised it, and then they wrought it. They accomplished exactly what they set out to do.931 ¶3

The drama begins not with the birth; the drama begins with the crucifixion. That’s how the entire drama begins. Told in the gospels, it begins with the birth and ends with the crucifixion, but that is not the story. It begins with the crucifixion, which is the union of God with man, and it ends with the resurrection, where he raises man to the level of himself. Everyone will be raised to that level, because we the gods came down. And so, in the divine society, “I say ye are gods, sons of he Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men”—just as everything dies in this world—“and fall as one man, O princes.” Then having become man, we will actually assume the entire nature of man, the horror that is man, and then raise him to the level of love.931 ¶4

In the end there is nothing but love. So I take upon myself the nature of man with all that is man. Well then, you look around and see what man has done, is doing, and is capable of doing. That’s what we took upon ourselves, that nature. Not some little particular man called Jesus Christ did it, but the nature of man we the gods took on. And then we raise him to the level of ourselves which is God who is infinite love.931 ¶5

Now in the 42nd Psalm, many years ago…so I can’t tell you other than to say that the beginning is the crucifixion and it did not begin in the year one A. D. I cannot pinpoint it, not now, but it was the beginning when this union took place between us the gods. For the word Elohim, the very first word that we find in the Bible: “In the beginning God,” that word is Elohim. It’s a compound unity, it’s a plural word. We are the gods that make up God. So, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So in that beginning the gods did it.931 ¶6

On this night many years ago in the 42nd Psalm, I relived it. When you relive scripture it is not a memory; memory becomes actuality. It’s something that you re-enact. It’s not something that you remember; you simply all of a sudden play it. But as it’s told in the 42nd Psalm it’s told as a memory: “These things I remember…how I went with the throng to the house of God.” But when I went with the throng, I wasn’t remembering it, I was re-enacting it. Well, if you take the 42nd Psalm, it would be a thousand years B.C. if you took it chronologically. And that night I became man. For then I heard the voice from the depths of my own soul that “I am God in the act of waking” and that I re-enacted the union with man and I was the crucifix. I was the one who actually whirled in space and time, my hands vortices, my feet vortices, my side a vortex, my head a vortex and I was life itself who was sucked into man. I was not man waiting for it, I was that which came into man and took upon myself the cross that is man and bore it so that I will then lift man up to my level.931 ¶7

Then in this picture, who would have thought that in the unfolding of the drama and everything that is ever made is love. No matter what it is, it is love. The most horrible thing in the world was made in love. And so here, when this night that I broke the shell…and then 139 days later when it was revealed to me by the only one who could ever reveal it that I am the Father, I didn’t become the Father at that moment. I was always the Father, but came down and took upon myself the cross that is man to raise it to that level.931 ¶8

And here in the 22nd Psalm, “Deliver me, deliver my soul”—he asks why?—“Deliver my soul from the power of the dog.” He asks to deliver “my darling” and the word is translated “my darling” in the King James Version and “my life” in the Revised Standard Version. But if you take the word, it appears twelve times in scripture. The first time it appears it’s in Genesis and you read it in the 22nd chapter of Genesis, in the second and sixteenth verses, and here is the translation: “your only son.” That’s what the word means in Hebrew. Instead of saying “my darling” which completely hides it, or “my life,” which completely hides it, “Deliver my only son from the power of the dog.”931 ¶9

Now that night when I exploded and kept my promise that I would not leave my Son in hell…as you’re told in the 16th Psalm, “Thou wouldst not leave my soul in hell” . And the word translated “hell” means “uncovered, to disclose, to reveal, to take off the cover.” You would not leave me uncovered, but you will reveal to me—then I in turn will reveal you, for the Father will never be known save the Son reveals him. So the Father does it all. And it takes the Son…if he is uncovered he will reveal the Father to himself. For, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” . But the Son cannot reveal the Father unless he is uncovered. So this moment was a complete explosion of the uncovering of my Son, who in turn revealed to me who actually died as I became man. I became man, and then in a moment of time I uncovered my Son who would reveal me as God the Father.931 ¶10

So I didn’t become God the Father, I was always God the Father. And purposely clothed my Son within myself, and then played the part perfectly of man, and then unveiled my Son that he would reveal me as God the Father. So he makes the statement, “Deliver my darling”…in other words, deliver your only Son from the power of the dog.931 ¶11

Now this night in question when it first happened, I could hardly believe that this could be so altogether spiritual. But I know I made everything for its purpose and everything was made in love. These two men stood by my side, handsome men, about forty years of age, and my Son David a lad of about twelve or thirteen. They looked at him with such concupiscence, there was a lust beyond measure because he was so beautiful, and they wanted him more than they wanted anything in the world. I reminded them of his victories over Goliath…and here before me was the head of Goliath…the same imagery of scripture. I told them what he had done to the giant Goliath. David kept on looking at me and he was actually leaning on his left side against the open door looking out on a pastoral scene. If he looked leaning to the left side, then I was to his right . He said, “Thou art to my right” so I should always be saved for the Lord sitteth on my right. And I was seated and he was standing, leaning against the open door looking out on a pastoral scene…and I was to his right. So the imagery is perfect.931 ¶12

We are the Lord that came and assumed human form and play all these parts. Then in time we lift the part that we are playing up to ourselves, individualized. But before we actually descended into this world we were gods, we were the Elohim. It took all of us to form the Lord. And then we deliberately planned the play…to come down into our own creation and redeem it, and redeem man.931 ¶13

So we are not man being redeemed, we are the Lord redeeming man. You dwell upon it. It may seem arrogant. And when I tell it to a large crowd not conditioned to hear it, they say “What madness! What sheer madness he’s talking about!” Yet I mean what I am telling you. I know what I’m talking about. We are the gods of that 82nd Psalm of which Thomas Cheney said, “The meaning has long disappeared. It might have had some perennial meaning to those who heard it and who wrote it, but it has long, long ceased to have meaning for the world.” And here was a man who was the editor of the most scholarly of the higher criticisms of the Bible, Thomas Cheney, for he was the editor of the Encyclopedia Biblica. He said, “Of all the Psalms this is the one that is the most confusing, for how could it be that God has taken his place in the divine assembly and in the midst of the gods he holds judgment?” .931 ¶14

And then comes the agreement of the gods: we agreed to descend and dream in concert. Then the One, made up of the many proclaims, “I say you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.” So we are the princes, the gods who make up the God who came down into mortal form to raise these forms to the level of ourselves.931 ¶15

And man has completely reversed it. Today you read a prophetic book and it’s all about mechanisms. More and better mechanics, so instead of plowing the field with a hoe, we now do it with a tractor. Instead of moving across with a little wheel barrow, we take a missile now and we go to the moon, around the moon, going all over the place with greater and greater and more wonderful mechanisms. But no one is telling of a lordlier humanity: of that which came down into man, and could not return until he was born from above, and then tell of this being that he’s going to raise with him out of the skull of this mortal man. But no one writes about it, no one tells of this spiritual birth from the skull of mortal man; they only tell of greater and greater mechanisms.931 ¶16

And yet, the story is the eternal story: that God became us in the most literal sense. But this man…I am the God that became this…and now the union is so complete that I feel that I am this, and I will lift it with me right up into the level, completely individualized. We are the gods coming down. What we will do tomorrow, who knows? Will we again come down into another element called the animal world? For, we are animal too. Will we again come down into the plant world? Will we again come down into the mineral world and redeem everything that we have created? For, we are the gods who actually came down into man and took upon ourselves the cross that is man and now raises man to the level of God. But we can’t leave the unredeemed.931 ¶17

So when Tennyson said in his poem called The Play, “Be patient, our playwrite will show in some fifth act what this wild drama means.” So I will not be satisfied just to take one section of Creation and redeem it but the whole of Creation. And so, this has been quite the challenge, but I have wrought it. And so you’re told in the end of this wonderful story, “It will be told, posterity will serve him and men will tell of the Lord to coming generations, and proclaim that he has wrought it.” Proclaim it to the yet unborn—meaning not the little children coming in, but to those who are not yet awake within this world—but the same God not yet awake within the skull where he emerges from it.931 ¶18

So I tell you, you are infinitely greater than you think you are. You and I were together in eternity. Now, eternity is not the domain of the timeless as some would indicate, like in today’s paper they said it was a timeless “timeless state.” No, it is the domain not of the timeless but of the everlastingly, the enduring, that which is forever and forever…that is eternity. What cannot forever endure ceases to be. We cease to imagine it and it vanishes. But you and I are eternal beings who came down into time. And as Blake said, “These things of time build mansions in eternity.” “The ruins of time,” he called them. So everything dies here, but everything dies, and yet they all build mansions in eternity. So not one thing has ever happened that was out of kilter, not a thing. It was all in order.931 ¶19

This morning’s paper, you must have read it, where the pope said, “A man should not go against his conscience, but his conscience must be educated to conform to the doctrines of this church.” Of all the nonsense of the world! Mustn’t go against his conscience, but it must be educated to conform to the doctrines of the church, and he sets himself up as the doctrine, the one who is the criteria of all that is right and wrong.931 ¶20

Let us get back to scripture and stop all this nonsense about the outside world. Hasn’t a thing to do with these little things that are passing away. Go back to scripture.931 ¶21

Now, who would have thought for one moment in reading that passage if you just took it as I have quoted it “Deliver my darling from the power of the dog,” who would have thought that it meant anything. It doesn’t mean a thing…and yet when you it happens to you, you know exactly what it’s all about and you wonder what is it all about? I made—and you and I together made—the bull, we made the mule, we made the harlot, we made the homosexual, we made the lesbian; we made everything in this world. You know why?—because we loved it. We would have made nothing that we did not love. And so why this…in the very end of the drama should stand to my right these two men? And look with such lust upon my only begotten Son…in the fulfillment of the 22nd Psalm, “Deliver your only Son from the power of the dog.” The word “dog” means “a male temple harlot.” That’s what it means. So deliver…and they were looking with such concupiscence…and I simply loved them but warned them of his victory over the giant. Here was the giant’s head before me completely severed from the body. And here he leaned against the open door looking out on a pastoral scene.931 ¶22

So everything is in order. They had to be there at that moment when I broke the tomb and did not leave my only Son in the grave. “Thou wilt not leave thy only Son in the grave” as we are told in the 16th Psalm. He makes the statement, “You will not leave me in the grave” . The word translated means “in this world of death.” Well, this is this world. I will not leave it in this world…I’ll take him with me, for he’s played the part perfectly. For “I have found in David”—the Son of myself called Jesse, which is I AM—“a man after my own heart who will do all my will” . Well, he did all my will. He played every part that I played, because I wore the part of man. And the sum total of all the parts that I played is David. And he is so beautiful because he is made up of everything I’ve done. It took everything to form David. If one little part was left out, I couldn’t have David. And so I’ve played every conceivable part in the world, for it takes everything to produce David. “Thou wouldst not leave thy loved one, thy Holy One, in the grave,” in this world of death. No, I will not.931 ¶23

So in that moment when I broke the grave and he stood before me, resurrected, redeemed, and I take him now into my heavenly state with me, that glorious being.931 ¶24

So we take everyone, we take ourselves, but we take with us our only begotten Son into this heavenly state where without speech we share in eternal wisdom. And no one writes of that; they write only of the more and more wonderful mechanisms of the world.931 ¶25

So condemn no one in this world, no matter what he’s ever done. You have played that part or you are going to play it or you are playing it. And every part in the world God created. By God I mean we created, for we are the gods who came down. We are actually God who came down and assumed human nature…not any particular little thing but human nature, and this union was real, and that was crucifixion.931 ¶26

So the night when I led them in procession to the house of God, I can feel it even now. I can’t tell you the ecstasy of the vortices. There were six, like the Mogen David, the great cross or the great Star of David. Not five but six: the side was one plus the hands, the feet and the head. And this complete suction into man, but I was the being coming in. So I came in unto man and took upon myself the cross of man, for I was the cross.931 ¶27

So you’ll find in the story, especially in the works of Paul, everything was the cross. “I have preached nothing but the cross. I have preached Christ and him crucified.” Well, you are Christ. He is now in you because he has already been unified with the body that you wear.931 ¶28

But if you have the memory and you will when God remembers, he doesn’t remember as man on this level remembers. It’s all actuality; it’s a re-enactment of the drama. So this night in question it was a complete re-enactment of the drama when the voice said within me, “In the act of waking.” At that moment “in the act of waking” I felt the re-enactment of the first act which was the crucifixion. So, far from the crucifixion coming at the end of the drama, the crucifixion comes at the beginning and the resurrection comes at the end.931 ¶29

Now you dwell upon it. You may think tonight not practical, but, may I tell you, it’s far more practical than anything I could tell you. Oh, I could tell you how to become better if you want to be better, how to become richer if you want to be richer, how to become this…that’s simple. But this, if you dwell upon it, you transcend all these things that all die. All these things disappear.931 ¶30

You’ll read in tomorrow morning’s paper someone and we invariably say if a man dies who was a normal person who leaves no estate, they don’t mention him in the paper, unless you pay for the little announcement or some mortuary pays for it. But if you die and you leave money, oh, it’s always mentioned. If you leave a home and it’s a normal house, no one…but if you leave a house that is a quarter of a million, they tell you of the house and the value of the house. Everything seems to have a tag on it in this world. You read the morning’s paper and you will see everything that has any so-called ballooned figure is always mentioned. Now if you really want to be mentioned in some obituary, make a billion. You’ll always be mentioned as one who had a billon who died…but you still die. You die as men whether you have a billion or you have nothing. But if you really want an obituary then leave a fortune or do something violent.931 ¶31

But if you really want to awaken, listen to what I have told you this night. I am not flattering you. You and I are the gods who came down, literally came down. We are not less than we were before; we are greater for having come down and we have redeemed this section of creation which is man. For man forms an eternal part of the structure of creation. And now we came down, became man and redeemed man. But we can’t leave the other parts unredeemed. So we will redeem everything in our world, so that in the end there is nothing but God…but one thing at a time. So now we have proven we can come into the world of death and overcome death. Everything in the world, I don’t care what it is, we created and we will redeem.931 ¶32

So God, something other than yourself, didn’t become you. You are God that became your own creation that is man and then you raise man to the level of yourself who is God. You dwell upon it. I am not making this up; I’m telling you what I know. And everything in the world, whether you be the thief or the one who is robbed, whether you be the bull of the world or the harlot of the world, whatever you are, we made it, and loved it when we made it. And we have played all the parts and the end, the quintessence of all the parts, is that eternal beloved being called David. He is the essence of everything that we have ever played. We take him with us for he is our only begotten Son and we take back the Son, because the Son revealed us to ourselves. Without the Son we would never know we were the Father. So we were the Father before we came down; we are the Father as we return, and we are conscious of being the Father only because our Son David that we brought forth as a result of what we did reveals us to ourselves.931 ¶33

So David died and was buried, but we would not leave him in the pit. “Thou wouldst not leave me,” said he, “in hell”—in the world of death, in the grave. So we don’t. And may I tell you, when it happens, it’s a terrific explosion, as though you actually exploded the whole skull, and then he stands before you because he was buried there. Then, as you look at him and the relationship he is the quintessence of all you’ve ever done. And then in time you take him back into the heavenly sphere, which means “eternal, the everlasting, enduring state.” Certainly not a timelessness, as the world would think. An absence of time would be stupid. It’s a living, living world!931 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *931 ¶35

Now are there any questions, please? No questions?931 ¶36

[...] if tonight it should seem spiritual, do not be disturbed. May I tell you that such nights are far more important than other nights…should it seem the unpractical side. We are told in the 1st Epistle of John, the first chapter, “And this is the message that we have received from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” You read it in the 1st chapter of the 1st Epistle of John…I think it’s the 5th verse.927 ¶1

Now is this a figure of speech or is this literal fact? I’m telling you from experience it is literal fact. Now what does it mean that God is light? There are three statements that are very firm in scripture concerning God and defining God. This is one. Another is God is love. Another is God is spirit. Well, here we have God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. You follow me closely, the final gift of God to man is himself. God has given himself to man, but God is a revealer. Man’s not able himself…[interruption…] let us continue. God’s act in the most literal sense, he became us that we in the most literal sense may become God.927 ¶2

Now God is defined as light. As I have told you he is a revealer. I know myself only as I know the revealer. So I read carefully what is said of the revealer, and then to what extent has he revealed that in me? For he is awakening in me, he’s awakening in you, he’s awakening in everyone. So is he really the light of the world? Here is one who makes the statement, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” . “And here is the light that cometh into the world that lighteth every man that comes into the world.” Is it really true?927 ¶3

Well, back in 1926 when I was twenty-one, it was a Saturday night, and several hundred young boys and girls gathered at the club in Larchmont, New York. I did not join the crowd because I was the guest of the manager, and he didn’t think that I should join those who were members and the guests of members. And so, I retired early and turned the night light on and began to read a book. Then, the next thing I knew the sun is up. When I went to bed it must have been nine; the next thing I knew the sun is up high in the sky, the light is burning, and the book is on my chest. I knew from the page I had not gone more than a page or two before I fell into a deep, deep trance, because the book had not been disturbed. In the course of that long interval of, maybe, ten or twelve hours I hadn’t turned over, because the book was on my chest, just opened this way. And then I woke to find I am cataleptic, a bit frozen but conscious. And I had returned from this experience: I became an infinite sea of vibrant liquid living light. There was nothing but myself. I was the light of the universe. Not one being existed. I was the light of the universe—no planets, no suns and moons, only light, infinite, a shoreless sea of light—and I am the light of the world. So I can say from experience that this claim is true.927 ¶4

When God awakes within man, he will know that these claims defining God are true. That he, the man in whom he awakes, is the light of the world, and if God is light, then he must be God. The whole thing awakes within man. And after this happens, may I tell you, every claim made in scripture concerning God he finds unfolding in himself. It comes like a tree unfolding. That God is love…he stands in the presence of a being who is infinite love, then he is embraced by love and he becomes one with that body. It’s human. It’s man. And he knows he is love, infinite love. From then on he has no other feeling but that body that embraced him.927 ¶5

While he is, as I am now talking to you, I am wearing but a small portion, a small part of myself; just a spark of an immensity of my own fiery being. So I know from experience that I help and I teach and I do all these things more when I sleep than when I wake. For now when I sleep I pass beyond the world of dream into a world of Spirit-waking. And I know that the thoughts, the imaginations, all of these visions of many are but fiery darts shot from my own fiery self. And I know it from experience. So I tell you that within us that same being is waking, and when he wakes we are the very being who awakes within us.927 ¶6

And we become, for an interval, the new lamp of the world. But not here, but there, beyond the world of dream. For, here it is always he is rejected. “He came to his own and his own received him not.” He came into the world and they knew him not, and even his own brothers did not believe in him. And so, on this level it is always the same story. But he knows in whom God awakes who he is.927 ¶7

When he rests, as the world would call him asleep, he passes beyond the world of dream into the world of spirit-waking. From his fiery being he shoots accurately into the minds of many, those that he wants to stir and change to accept the message that he’s brought.927 ¶8

Now here, let me share with you what was shared with me. The lady is here tonight. She said, “I had this wonderful experience. There was a huge, huge circular and raised platform and you were in the middle. All around in the circle, many rows, were people. In the first row were the deformed, they were all deformed, crippled, and while you instructed you took them one by one and instantly they were made whole. They got up, moved towards the back, and departed, every one. I came in with a little girl, little child,” she said, “in procession and sat in the back. I noticed a Madonna made of marble or stone, and suddenly as you taught and instructed all, all things are being animated, it, the stone statue, became animated. And I can’t describe our thrill. And that was it.”927 ¶9

Then she said, “A few weeks ago I had this one, which is similar. I saw a hospital and you were a doctor. But in this hospital there was no surgery or drugs administered, but all came to you to be cured. As they came in, they were all cured, without drugs, without surgery. And it is my dream that such a hospital be here.” She is here tonight, and may I tell you, no, it is not here. It’s not on this level at all.927 ¶10

This level is for a purpose. This is the level of educative darkness. This is the level that you and I, infinite beings that we are…for when immortality took upon itself mortality it only put itself into a very small, little part of its infinite self. And that is what we see here. You are an infinite being, for you are God. Everyone is God. There is no one who is not God, but here just a spark in the immensity of our own fiery being is present. And because ultimately we are one, when one awakes and passes beyond the world of dream, he fires his arrows into the minds of all to stir them, just to take that spark and let it blaze.927 ¶11

And suddenly, all that is said of God in scripture—and what is said of God is said of Jesus Christ; that is God personified in scripture—and all that is said of him you are going to experience. It need not be said of you and a new Bible written. It’s there, it’s permanent. You don’t need any credit on this level at all. But all that is said of him you will experience, therefore, it is said of you. And you ask for no recognition, because it was not granted then, it’s not going to be granted now. That’s part of the play. Even his own brothers did not believe in him, and he came to his own people and his own people received him not. He was in the world and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. And that is the story.927 ¶12

So much is said of light in the scriptures. He enlightens every man that comes into the world, but everyone, because without this spark you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t live. God actually became us that we may become God, and so God is awakening within us, unfolding. Everything said of him is unfolding in us. And the day that you are all light…and then all love…and then comes all Spirit, that no mortal eye could see you. For when you are born from above, although it is not here in this world, the witnesses to the birth are mortal; and they see the sign of your birth, but they cannot see you, because you are spirit. They talk about you as though you were not present. They speak of you in the most incredible terms, “How can he have a baby?” And you take the sign in your own arms and embrace it and hold it in the most endearing manner. Yet, they cannot see you because God is spirit. No one can see you who looks through mortal eye. So the witnesses to the event that God is spirit are mortal and cannot see him. But you know from the experience that God is spirit. That was a sign of his birth now into his own region. So you know that the definition of God that God is spirit is true. That God is love that is true. That God is light that is true. And you’ve experienced the three definitions of God.927 ¶13

Then you still find yourself confined to this little tiny garment, a small little portion of yourself. In this world you can teach and help unnumbered. Ask for no acclaim, no recognition, nothing, just simply teach it. But night after night as you fall asleep you pass beyond the world of sleep, of dream. And from that other world of spirit-waking you shoot your fiery arrows into the minds of those who follow you. And there you stir them, stir everyone, and then awaken them as you have been awakened.927 ¶14

For someone shot it into your mind. At some time in your life you heard the same story, and having heard it, and slept in the world of dreams, someone who told it who knew it from experience shot the arrow into your mind and stirred it into a flame. Then he awoke in you, the same being, for there is only God. There is nothing but God in this world. So God is awaking in everyone. And there is no race in God, no sex in God, no color in God…it’s just God. But he is light.927 ¶15

So when we speak of darkness and light, is darkness a thing or is it the absence of a thing, like a hole in a sock? Would you call a hole in a sock a thing, or is it the absence of that portion of the sock? And so, I’m speaking of light, actual light, real living pulsing light. So he has not a thing to do with the pigments of skin. I wear all garments, black, yellow, pink, red, every garment of the world I wear. I am not more in one garment than I am in another garment. In Christ there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no free, no male, no female, just one. So he’s one in all. So he’s in everyone and he awakes in all.927 ¶16

When he awakes, everything claimed of Jesus Christ you in whom he awakes will know it’s all about you. It’s not another at all, it’s all about you. And when the day comes that you close your eyes and leave and depart this world, you have shot your arrows well and they will awaken. They may forget you in time, doesn’t really matter. The eternal story is told and recorded in the gospel. And so, you depart having played the central part. Your name may not be recorded here. It’s already recorded in eternity. You are God himself. That’s the being that you really are.927 ¶17

On this level, we can take it now and go from here to any fulfilled dream in the world. You are going to live the life that you have imagined, you know? Imagine well because you are going to live the life that you have imagined. You start imagining this night the most glorious thing in the world. No matter how wonderful it is, it’s nothing compared to the being that you really are, it’s nothing. You couldn’t conceive of anything in this world that would come near the being that you are. This is simply a little, tiny section of your infinite being. While you are here in the world of Caesar dream nobly, dream lovely dreams. And why shouldn’t you? You can realize everything if you are willing to imagine that you are it now. So you begin to imagine that I am the man, the woman that I would like to be. And regardless of what happens tomorrow or next week or next month, you persist in the assumption that you are already that which you want to be. And may I tell you, you will become it right now in this world of flesh and blood. It will all vanish, yes, but why not prove it?927 ¶18

And if you begin to taste the power that is latent in you, that you can conjure out of the deep things that seemingly are impossible by simply assuming that you are now that which you want to be, and if you dare to do it and persist in it and then it becomes a fact, then you’ll know this thing, at least this portion of it, is true. The Promise you will take on faith. I tell you from experience it is true. I have experienced the fact that God is love. I have experienced the fact that God is a father.927 ¶19

Who would have thought that one born in the year 1905, and my friend born in 1911, that we in this Century, from humble backgrounds—no background, no social, intellectual, financial backgrounds—and that we in this Century would actually experience the fact that God is the Father, and that we are the Father? Well, how could anyone have that experience and ever in any moment of time forget it?927 ¶20

“I will tell of the decree of the Lord:” said David, “he said unto me ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’” . Here he’s talking to David and calling David his son, and telling David that you are my son and therefore, naturally, I am your Father.927 ¶21

Who would have thought that anyone in this 20th Century would actually awaken to the point of being the father of one who historically is supposed to have lived 1,000 B.C., when he and I have no memory of anything beyond that little moment in time? I began to memorize when I was four, maybe three, so I can go back to when I was three. Certain things I can remember when I was three. Maybe he can go even further, but he can’t go beyond that, and yet, here we go 1,000 B.C. into the same memory. Memory jumps over 3,000 years and here we were the ones who decreed that “You are my son, today I have begotten thee.” And we were the ones, the immortal being, who took upon ourselves mortality to test our own infinite power; and then became a small, little part of ourselves, a little spark of our immense, enormous fiery being. And then, it flames and flames. Then fatherhood becomes once more part of our consciousness, and David stands before us and calls us Father. So I say, this is the thrill in store for everyone.927 ¶22

So when my friend saw this healing, I can tell you from experience…it was 1946 when unnumbered sat before me as I came by and as I walked by without effort every one was made perfect. For at that moment I was lifted up and a heavenly chorus sang my ascension. The word they used, “Neville is risen! Neville is risen!” As they sang out, every one before me was made perfect in harmony with the perfection springing within me. That is in store for everyone in this world.927 ¶23

And in the end, we are all gathered into one being, only one being…and yet without loss of our identity. For, there is a friendship and a friendship would have to accept the existence of others. So God’s name is plural. It is a unity: It’s a one made up of others. So all these will one day be gathered into one, and that one is God, and yet without the loss of any identity. You and I will simply rejoice in the experience, this fantastic experience where you and I deliberately went out, as you’re told in the 15th chapter of the Book of Genesis.927 ¶24

He said to Abraham, “For a surety your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved there for four hundred years; and then they will come out” freed from that land of slavery . So the 400 years is as long as I wear this garment of the cross. Four hundred is simply the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is a cross and its numerical value is 400. It’s called Tau. And here is Tau, on this I am crucified. While I wear this garment I am enslaved, enslaved every moment of time while I’m here. I have to prepare the food, eat it, wash the dishes, do all the things of man, and perform all the normal functions of a man. Isn’t that slavery when God is housed within him? All the normal functions of a man I must perform daily whether I be king or serf, isn’t that a slave? And so, as long as I wear the garment of the cross I am enslaved.927 ¶25

But then “I will bring you out.” And he will bring everyone out. Why? Because he’s bringing himself out. It was only God who made the decision and only God who fell into this wonderful world for a purpose. As you’re told in the 82nd Psalm: “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 princes” . Well, if we are called princes, then the Father is the king. On our return from the journey he gives us himself and we are the king. We return as the Father. We go out as “sons of the Most High” and his final gift to us is himself, and we come back as God himself.927 ¶26

Because he is love, we know that much. He is spirit, we know that much. He is everything that is claimed of Jesus Christ in the gospels, and everything claimed you are going to experience. Light, yes, infinite light, and you know it. The last is Father and that you know when his son calls you Father. So, everything that is said of him you are going to experience.927 ¶27

Leave the book just as it is, don’t try to change it. I stand amazed, yet I cannot be disturbed about it when I read all the great scholars on this book. Today, I took the word light and went through my book on the word light. It’s amazing that the great scholars they cannot see it. They think it is a figure of speech, it can’t be true. It couldn’t be taken in a literal sense and so they try to give it every kind of interpretation. And these are the great minds of the day, men who are masters of the ancient tongue, but they know nothing because they haven’t had the experience. But I tell you it is literally true. All the precepts of Jesus Christ must be accepted literally. It will be experienced in a region so remote from that which man knows or even conceives, that you can’t even think of it. But there it does happen and you will know that you are the central character and the whole thing is unfolding within you.927 ¶28

On this level, you dwell on what I’ve told you this night. You’ll find it will pay off in tremendous dividends, really. You get to the point you feel that a wish is already fulfilled. You get to the point that as you wish, you feel “Oh well, thank you, Father.” Even though you know you are the Father, you can still address him as though it were another, but an intimate self. He who sent me is with me, he never left me; but, if you see me you see him who sent me, for we are one. I and the Father are one. And so, you can actually have a wish, and then say “Thank you,” and wait for its appearing in this world and it will. It will happen right in this world.927 ¶29

Now the same lady who wrote me this story concerning the hearing, she said, “I made every physical effort here to get a seat to see Burton. I called the agencies, I called friends who I thought had influence, I did everything. I said, what am I doing? Here I know this law. I made every human effort to get a seat, I can’t get a seat, and so I simply assumed that I sat right in that audience in marvelous seats and I saw the show, and enjoyed it thoroughly. A friend of mine, who is a writer in New York City, he called me and asked me to be available on a certain night that he is coming west. Well, where do you think after dinner where did we go? We saw Burton. I made every physical effort to get a seat. All the agencies I called, I sought them out, I called friends, I did everything; went to the box office, not one seat available. So I simply remembered what I’d forgotten and assumed I sat in the audience and I’m looking at Burton. Then, all the way, 3,000 miles away, a friend of mine who’s a writer is coming west, he wants me to be with him for the short interval that he’s here, and so we go to dinner and we go to see the show.”927 ¶30

He might have gotten it in New York City, and, of course, they’ll say, ‘After all, out of town you can get it.’ They keep certain seats…they’re always justifying everything in this world. You’ll find it no matter where you go. But she didn’t ask for justification, she simply assumed she was seeing it though everyone said no. And then 3,000 miles away one comes to take her to the show.927 ¶31

So, don’t despair. You can be anything in this world that you want. In fact, you’re going to be what you’re imagining anyway. Man is imagining? He’s going to live it…I don’t care what it is. Morning, noon and night you can’t stop imagining, because the candle has been lit. As Job said that the candle upon my forehead…he speaks of the spirit of God as a candle upon his forehead and it’s lit. When it was lit by light, I walked through darkness. Alright, you’re moving through a world of darkness moving towards the fulfillment of all that you’re imagining, so imagine the best. Everything in the world is yours for the taking. Take everything.927 ¶32

In the end, you’ll come to the end and the end is God. The beginning was God but the end is God. For “I am the beginning and the end, I am the first and the last, I’m the Alpha and Omega.” So if the beginning is God, the end is God. So he can only bring out himself; he can’t bring out another. So out of himself comes all that goes to make God. For the name is a compound unity, it is Elohim. In the beginning God, Elohim, and that is one made up of others. And out of it comes all—you and I and those who come out. In the end, we go back as God, but this time we’re the Father…called as sons princes; and go back as the king. And that is the journey of everyone in this world.927 ¶33

So here, I tell you from my own personal experience that the story is true. I have experienced that definition of God, that God is light. So, when in that first chapter of the first epistle of John he claims, and he uses the plural, he said, “We will tell what we have heard from him and proclaim it to you that God is light and with him there is no darkness at all”. He is speaking as though he had only heard it, that he had not yet experienced it. That’s the way it’s worded. “We will tell what we have heard from him and then we will proclaim it to you.”927 ¶34

Now, in the gospel of John it differs somewhat. He puts these words, which undoubtedly are based upon his own personal experience, into the words of the central character and makes the central character say, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not be in darkness but will have the light of life”…because, he identifies light now with life. There’s something within man. He is all light and that light is life. He animates and starts things moving, just as this lady saw the statue. It’s dead, it’s made of marble, made of stone, but as everyone moved from their deformed state into a perfect mold, a perfect form, and walked away in a gay mood, then she became animated and began to dance, the Madonna. You animate everything.927 ¶35

For in the end you’re going to discover you’re extracted from this body of yours and all of these bodies are parts, eternal parts of the universe. You are buried in them. These are sepulchres and they remain dead. While you wear them they are animated, they seem alive, but, really, they are all part of the eternal structure of the universe. And you, the princes who fell as one man and then fragmented into all these parts, you are brought forth and brought forth as the king. For the one who fell was the king as princes. Then he gathers himself together and he’s only one being, and that one being is the Lord God Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ. And you are he. It doesn’t make sense. Don’t expect it to make sense on this level, but I tell you it is true.927 ¶36

For I know for a long while now, night after night, you fall abed and you move beyond the world of dream into a world of spirit-waking. From there you shoot your fiery arrows and they never miss. So someone will bring me a message, “I saw circles after circles after circles and a little, tiny circle in the middle, and then an arrow entered it.” I was thrilled that she brought back an [...], for that is exactly what has happened to me. I never miss! The smallest, little circle that is made and there your message penetrates. There it sets ablaze what was already there. So I tell you, your imaginings and your visions and your dreams are fiery arrows shot by a being who is all light.927 ¶37

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *927 ¶38

[...] on a different level tonight. Believe me, you will find it a far greater lesson. You’ll sleep this night and your wishes, as you wish them, you’ll find them coming into being. They will if they are within the framework of love. If you ask that someone else be hurt, no, that is not within our sphere whatsoever. If you ask for anything that you want, perfectly alright. If it is at the expense of another, in my world there is no other, so we cannot accept it. But if it is for anything that you want, perfectly alright. But to ask for something at the expense of another, well then, don’t ask it of the speaker. But all the things in the world that really are lovely would hurt no one if you got them. How would it hurt anyone if you became wealthy? How would it hurt anyone if you wanted to be famous and you became famous? How could it hurt anyone? But not at the expense of another, no one need be hurt in this world for the individual to get what he wants, but no one.927 ¶39

And so, in the end, you’ll find we really are one. There is nothing but God, there’s only God, and he’s playing all the parts. And so, you want to play a very wonderful important part? May I tell you, the chorus is always ready. The whole vast world is your chorus. It will all be moved when you step forward and play the part…won’t hurt them because they only reflect you. Everything will simply mirror the being that you are.927 ¶40

There is nothing perceived which cannot be duplicated in fancy; consequently, the world perceived always resembles our private fancy, and is, therefore, so far as the evidence goes, imaginal in character. Here is a graphic example. I suppose everyone here, unless our sense of smell is impaired, knows what it is to detect the fragrance of a rose. Now, smell is a chemical sense and depends upon contact for perception…but do you need the contact? Can’t you reproduce that fragrance in fancy? I do not need a rose to detect the fragrance of the rose. If this very moment I wanted to smell, all in my Imagination, that of a sweet pea, that of an Easter lily, I can discriminate between all of these odors. And everyone should be able to do the same thing. So if I can discriminate between these objects, then I say they do not exist independent of Imagination on some level or levels. They exist imaginatively. I’ve had the experience of such fragrance and they are now in existence, imagined, and I can call upon it from my memory of that experience and bring it back and duplicate it in fancy. So if I can duplicate it in fancy, then is this world different from my imaginal world? It isn’t.926 ¶1

Well, William Blake in 1820 printed a very small short little work of his. He called it The Presence of the Divine Angel and in this he said, “Man is all Imagination. God is Man & exists in us & we in him. The Divine Body of Man is all Imagination. The Divine Body is Jesus: we are his members.” He doesn’t separate the members from the body, for the body is one. As we are told, “There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of us all.” Only one body, we are his members.926 ¶2

Now as we read of this imaginal body containing all beings, and we are all Imagination, can we really prove it? I can prove, as I’ve just done to my own satisfaction, that I can reproduce and duplicate any perception in this world that I have ever encountered. I can duplicate it. I see you and if I’m interested, I don’t have to have you physically before me to think of you and to reproduce you in my Imagination, as you and I can now reproduce our living rooms. I don’t have to be physically there to see the contents of that room, and how I left them when I was there. I left them arranged in a certain order and in my mind’s eye [...] the entire room, and every room within my apartment, it’s all vivid. Yes, the cutlery, I can see it, the plates, everything. Well, I can reproduce without being there to actually see them and perceive them.926 ¶3

So here, we are on solid ground when we start from the premise that this world is a world of Imagination and that Imagination does create reality. Therefore, there can be no fiction in the true sense of the word in this world of ours. For, if I can imagine a state, I create it. I create to the extent that I can drench it with feeling. To me “prayer” is simply imagining drenched with feeling. So, I want something and I imagine it, and then I drench the thing with feeling. Then it seems to objectify itself and becomes real in my world.926 ¶4

Well, if I have evidence for a thing, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks. If I can reproduce my image in my mind and make it take on form in the outer world, does it matter what the world of rational minds thinks? So they tell me, “Oh, that’s all hallucination.” Well then, go kick it. If it’s all hallucination, go kick the thing that was only yesterday an image in my mind and is now a fact. So you go and simply throw it away…it’s all just a little nothing. Everything in the world…you say to them, “But everything in the world was once only imagined. There isn’t a thing in this world we now call true that wasn’t first “only” imagined…the dress you wear, the suits we wear, the building in which we are now housed, the chair in which we are seated, everything was once only imagined. And so he says, “only Imagination” and yet the whole thing starts from there. It all starts from God and God is all Imagination; the source of all phenomena is divine imagining.926 ¶5

Now, let us turn to the great work the Bible, the 82nd Psalm, which is considered by scholars the most difficult Psalm in the entire 150. Thomas Cheney, who is the editor of the most scholarly of all biblical criticisms The Encyclopedia Biblica, and in this work he said that the ideas might have been and maybe are today perennial, but the outward forms have long since ceased to be understood, and that it’s the greatest challenge to the historical Imagination of any interpreter. Well, in my voluminous work (at home) the Interpreter’s Bible—there are sixteen volumes, twelve for the Bible and four for the dictionaries. So in this, the one who wrote the exegesis is professor of the Semitic Department of the University of Toronto, and in it he said, “In truth, we do not know very much about this Psalm, and I can only trust that my guesses are not wide of the mark.” He only hoped that his guesses are not wide of the mark.926 ¶6

Well now, here is the essence of the Psalm: “And God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment; I say, ‘Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.’” That last passage is a footnote in the Revised Standard Version, which is the literal translation of the Hebrew. It is not as we read it and are familiar with it in the King James Version and even in the Revised, for they do not change it save in a footnote stating it is the literal translation. So one man falls carrying all men, and the men who are about to be carried are gods.926 ¶7

Now the word that puzzles them is a single word, Elohim, which means “God.” It’s also a plural word, translated in the first and sixth verses both as God and gods. “And God has taken his place in the divine council,” that word is Elohim. “I say ye are gods,” that word is Elohim, same word. It’s a plural word—it’s a compound unity, one made up of others. So it takes all the gods—therefore all humanity through all the generations—to form the one. The one is not something distinct and separate from the many. That one is the presence of which Blake spoke; the unity has a presence.926 ¶8

And so, we are all fallen into disunity, into division. We will now return, one by one, into unity, into complete regeneration…having fallen into generation where things die. But we return not collectively; we return singly, one by one, into the divine society. That body is being formed. So the presence is being formed by the return of the fallen man, who carried with him all gods. So it’s not that we are…and then another one called the Lord. It takes all to form the Lord. So we are told in that great Shema, the great confession of faith of the Hebrew, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” And never forget it, keep that in mind all the time; for everyone is simply the Lord.926 ¶9

So we can say that God risked…he has risked and has to rescue himself. He’s not rescuing a man; he’s rescuing himself. He deliberately took upon himself the nature of man…not a person…the nature of man, the beast. Then, he became by that act of assumption the pattern man on which the nature of man is molded…and that pattern man spoken of in scripture is Jesus Christ. So God became man that man may become God. So he didn’t take upon himself my person called Neville; he took my nature. Having taken my nature, then be became the very type on which I am really molded, and he raises this energy, this animal energy called man to divinity. So it takes the gods to do it.926 ¶10

Now, he prepared a way for his return; for the only one being redeemed is God. He has to rescue himself, because he has risked and now he has to rescue himself. But he prepared the way before he fell, for no one took his life, “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to life it up again.” So no man killed God or group of men killed God, for he can’t die. But he experiences death by entering the arena of death, which is the animal, and takes upon himself not the person but the nature of man. Then he takes that energy and transforms it into his own likeness.926 ¶11

Now God is the great artist and lover. There is no artistry with such love as that which will actually perfect its work over the centuries, over the ages into that which is his own image…for that is his purpose. He’s the artist to transform that into his own image, that’s his work. “For he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” That day is the unveiling of his work in you. He raises you to his own level, and you and he are one. So, that God in you, called in scripture “the Father,” one day you will find him. But you won’t find him as something external to yourself…you will find him as yourself.926 ¶12

So he sets up in the beginning the only one way of return; there aren’t two ways. So if anyone ever tells you there must be another way, there is only one way: “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life” . There is no other way, no matter what people will tell you. You follow the pattern. As you are told in scripture, “Follow the pattern of the true words which you heard from me” , and then he describes the pattern. Well, I’ll tell you from my own personal experience the pattern…and there is no other pattern.926 ¶13

When he begins to unveil it in you, he first begins with resurrection, which is followed instantly, that same moment, by birth from above. Then a passage of months, five months, and then comes the discovery of his Son, who calls you Father. That Son is not Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is God the Father. That Son who calls him Father is David of biblical fame. Then will come that moment in time when the temple of his body, which is your body now, for he has woven himself into you and now he unwinds himself as you. You’re told the curtain of the temple was flesh and it split in two from top to bottom; then you see the blood of the Savior—golden, liquid, pulsing light—and then you fuse with it, and like a serpent up you go into heaven. Heaven being within you and not there in the sky, it’s all within you. Then, you wait another interval of time, this time two years and nine months, and then a seal of approval is placed upon his work. That comes upon you in the form of a dove. The dove descends upon you and smothers you with love, kissing you all over your head. Then you know that that Holy Spirit has descended, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the work is done.926 ¶14

You linger for a little while to tell it to your brothers…for all are brothers in eternity…and you tell it to encourage them that “the way,” as foretold in scripture, has been completely opened. The first came through, risen from the dead, followed by a second, a third, a fourth, and then unnumbered come through…all…because not one will be lost, for something would be lacking from the body, the presence of God. And it’s all taking place within your wonderful human Imagination. It doesn’t take place in any outside [...], all taking place within you. That’s why I ask you for your dreams, for your visions. Share them with me so that I may help you to show you where you are on the path. Some of the things that you would not discuss publicly…it doesn’t matter…we will discuss them with the individual privately if they are of a nature that would be shocking. But I take it that none of us should be shocked, not in a room like this. But nevertheless, some may consider it too shocking a thing for discussion from a platform.926 ¶15

But I’ll take one now. I have two tonight, one from a gentleman, one from a lady, and both are here. We’ll take his first. In this dream, he said, he got a job which took him to Paris, and the manger said to him, “Go and shave and clean up. Get yourself ready to start.” We went into this bathroom and there he proceeded to change. As he shaved, he finished the job, looked into the mirror to see if he had done a good job, and while looking he noticed long wires coming out of his right ear. He pulled one out and it became many, many feet as he pulled it…they were all wires. But he noticed that they were not coming from his ear, they were coming from his neck below the collar, all these long, many, many feet coming out of his neck from below the collar. Then he woke, wondering if it had significance.926 ¶16

This dream was followed a little while later by this dream. “I found myself in a white robe looking for a name. There was a long, long list of names, very long, and I was going through the entire list of names to find the name, or maybe a second name, or a third name. But as far as I’m concerned it was a name, one name…but there might have been two or three that I was looking for. When I found one, I put an asterisk next to it because this one was singled out to receive a truly great honor. And then I woke.”926 ¶17

Well, I can say to him concerning the first, you go back and you read the 28th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, the 12th, 13th and 14th verses. Also read the 52nd chapter, 2nd verse of Isaiah. Then go again to Jeremiah and read the 6th through the 8th verses. And you will see that the yoke placed upon the neck of man was made of iron bars. They were called stiff-necked people, who would not listen to the Word of God as spoken by the prophets. So they had to remain servants and slaves, because they would not heed the Word of God. But came that moment in time that yoke was broken on their necks and they were set free. Now, in that 30th chapter of Jeremiah, the question was asked and answered, “Can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands drawing himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why does every face turn pale? There was never a day like this” . There has never been a day like it, for he has broken the iron bars from off his neck. Now they were given to the plural—and their necks—but they give you a footnote: it means your neck. It’s an individual drama, where in pulling these wires out he is loosing himself. What better description of the fact that this whole drama is realized in the first-person, present, singular state. It is first-person, singular, present when you realize it. He’s drawing his own bars from his neck, taking his own yoke off, for now he listens to the Word of God.926 ¶18

He now practices repentance, which is not confessing to any being on the outside of yourself but making a decision within yourself to change radically your way of thinking; to change radically your attitude towards another who displeases you and represent him to yourself as one who pleases you, and persuade yourself that what you now perceive is true. For if imagining creates reality and I practice repentance, which is only a radical change of mind, I will take anything that displeases me and then change it mentally. Then persuade myself of the reality of the change, expecting it to simply mold itself in harmony with what I’m doing in my mind’s eye. And it can come through a man or a woman or a group who will now bear witness to my repentance. For, as I have changed my attitude toward them, they must change their attitude toward me. We loved him, we are told. Why?—because he first loved us. So it always starts with self. I want them to be some way different, well then, I must start it first. I want them to be loving toward me and mine, well then, I must start to act and I must initiate it. As I do it, I am practicing repentance—for “Now the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel.” And this gentleman has certainly seriously been practicing repentance in his business life, his family life, his social life, from all the letters that I have received from him. It is no wonder he could now take the yoke that kept that stiff-necked being along the road where he would not listen to the Word of God.926 ¶19

When it comes to the white robe that he wears, and going through the long list to find the name, for that name had been singled out to receive a great honor, I can say to him you are looking for your name on that list, and you found it. You are about to receive the honor, and the great honor is for God to unveil himself in you. That’s where you are now. As far as I interpret scripture, you’ve reached the point where you do not know you are carrying the child, but you are. At any moment it could unveil itself within you, and then you’ll bring forth the Christ child. And then you’ll know the true mystery of the Christian mystery, the true meaning of it.926 ¶20

Nothing is so well concealed as the goodness of God. Look into the world, all this fabulous world of ours, murder, rape, crime every moment of time, and how can God be good? How can he be loving? How can he be gracious? Because there is nothing so well concealed as the goodness and the grace of God. It isn’t revealed until the very end of the road. We are told in Jeremiah, the 23rd chapter, the word is translated anger, but it doesn’t mean anger, because the word means “to breathe with great force.” It’s forceful breathing, and the word “breath” is Spirit, both in Hebrew and Greek. So you could say, “The Spirit of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.”926 ¶21

The latter days are these days when you come to “the end.” Others will go on, stiff-necked, no time to hear one thing concerning the mystery of God. They have enough to live on, enough to pay rent, enough for raiment, and so what? Time enough for that; well then, don’t try to change them, leave them just as they are. As you’re told in the end of Revelation, “Let the filthy be filthy still.” If they are complacent and feel that they know it all, and so they have the only true religion, leave them just as they are. Death, as we all must die, will be a blessing, because it will force them to modify, in some cases radically, the ideas that they championed while they were here. They will find no angels there to meet them if they are Christians. There was no Jesus Christ standing on the outside to meet them. But they will find themselves restored to life in a body same as before but new, unbelievably new, unaccountably new, in a world just like this. A world that is real just like this, terrestrial, and in an environment that is best suited for the work still to be done in them. And so, they have to modify all their beliefs that they held and championed while they were here. It will force it out of them. And so, leave them just as they are, because all will pass through and all men will go through it. By men I mean generic man will pass through the experience called death, and find themselves restored instantly, not waiting, in a world just like this. And they will grow old there too. They find themselves not a baby but a person twenty years old. If you died at 100, you’re twenty. It’s something you can’t quite reason, you can’t rationalize it; but experience convinces one who sees it all the time.926 ¶22

And here is something, you’ll always recognize the other one, and may I tell you, you recognize him if he wears a black skin and left here wearing a white one. You’ll recognize him if before your eyes he puts on four or five different masks. You’ll still know the identity behind the mask. You’ll know your mother, your father, your brothers, your sisters, your friends, regardless of what they wear. You know the identity, and the mask will be nothing. But they will wear a mask as you’re wearing masks here now, best suited for the work that is being done; for he started it and he will not stop it until he’s executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. And that was his original pledge to himself: “Let us make man in our image.” He will not stop it until the image is formed. When it’s completed, he unveils it and you are he.926 ¶23

For, the gods descend and the gods will ascend, but “no one has ever ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven.” So the gods descended, falling as one man, and then came division and this broken unity into these numberless parts. All will be gathered together, one by one, and up we will go in that spiral manner: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” …just like this. So when people will tell you, oh, that’s myth, I’m not denying on this level you must see it through the eyes that they look; but I tell you, when you experience it, it’s literally true. On this level no. When you experience it in the depth of your soul, it’s literally true.926 ¶24

You and I cannot even climb a pole, the average person who comes here couldn’t climb a pole, and yet you will go up that spine of yours like lightning and nothing on earth could duplicate it. You do it, just like lightning you go up, that fiery serpent that you are. Yet I know that possibly many of us here can’t even support our weight. Put a bar beyond our reach and lift me up and let me hold it. How do I know I’ll even be able to support the weight? I doubt that I could even support it, or if I could, not very long. And yet, you’ve got infinite might as it unfolds within you, for you were that before you came down deliberately.926 ¶25

When you return, God the presence has expanded beyond what it was prior to the descent. It reached a limit of contraction in taking the nature of man, but there is no limit to expansion. So when we expand and ascend, God expands, and the whole expands by our return. For, we bring back with us all that we experienced and that is tremendous power added to the already existing power of God and his wisdom. So, God is ever expanding, forever and forever; and intervals designed on a certain plan for further expansion use the fall into a state like this, then the recovery period.926 ¶26

So here, it’s all in your own wonderful human Imagination and I say to him as a brother, because we are brothers, you are right on the verge of it from what you have just experienced.926 ¶27

Now, we have the lady’s story. The second part is an interesting part, which seemed to confuse her after so wonderful a first part. We will not go into the first part publicly, but I will say to her, you have conceived with the Holy Spirit. Nothing could be plainer than your vision, nothing. But, as in the case of Mary, she told no one and pondered these things in her heart. For whom could she turn to? In her case, unwed, that’s what the story will tell you. In your case no husband, and therefore how could you conceive unless you went outside? But the conception is with the Holy Spirit, and it’s a beautiful story as you described it in your letter. She wondered, “The same night, why should it be followed by a thing like this?”926 ¶28

She’s standing awake in her own living room and what appeared at first to be a wharf rat came bouncing through the door into her place. And she said, “In my nice clean place, a rat? No!” She got down on her knees and started looking for it, and she spotted this little thing in the corner, and it wasn’t the brown thing that it was when it came through…it’s a white little animal, just a white little animal. At first she called it Kitty. [...] didn’t respond to that, for it’s not what she saw in the beginning but the same animal, only it’s a little one now and white. Then it came bouncing out at her, and she caught it with her right hand, and it stuck its teeth into her thumb. She took it to the door. She said, “I can’t keep it here so I’ll get rid of it, and so I will throw it into the field.” She used the word field, and threw it out. Looking at her thumb where he had punctured it…and yet it wasn’t hurting and it wasn’t bleeding now. But she had the impression while it was there that it was sucking her blood. But now there was no hole and there’s no blood. She said to herself, “I must show this to Dr. Neville.” And then she woke.926 ¶29

Now, the universal language of symbolism is not understood. If you have, for instance, if you have Bayley’s The Lost Language of Symbolism, may I suggest that you read all about the mouse, the white mouse. You’ll see in that that Cinderella made a mantle for herself from the skins of field mice—you threw it into the field—to hide her glory, to conceal it. Well, having conceived of the Holy Spirit, then you saw the limit of creation, the smallest, the mouse. In symbology, you’ll find the youngest who has put on the mouse…the biggest that God has created and the smallest; he encompasses the all. So here, having now conceived the most glorious thing in the world then you find the mouse. Apollo always kept in the temple the white mouse. So he took upon himself the limit, became humiliated, and the mouse would be the symbol of that. Not that you are going to be humiliated, but you carry with you this wonderful secret, and you walk the earth with those who are not interested, and you know you’ve conceived of the Holy Spirit. In the eyes of the world you will be just a mouse and you’re quite willing to carry that with you, knowing what you really carry within you. In time you bring forth the whole, because Cinderella had to take off the mantle made of mouse skins to reveal her glory. And all these stories are true, but they’re told…they’re universal stories…no one knows who the author of Cinderella is, no one. The same story is told in every language. So I’ll tell you, my dear, I’ll tell you congratulations, for we are brothers in eternity.926 ¶30

Now, to come back to our original thought tonight, you dwell on what we told you earlier, dwell upon it, that nothing appears to us in perception, but nothing you want it to be, which cannot be duplicated in fancy. You take anything and try. You cannot say that there’s one thing that you cannot duplicate in fancy if you ever perceived it. And that thing exists as something imagined. You can’t discuss an object that does not exist on some level or levels of Imagination, can’t do it. You dwell upon this and identify your own wonderful human Imagination with God. And because all things are possible to God, and God calls a thing that is not now seen as though it were seen, well then, you can imagine a state that is desirable and you can call it, too, call it into being by assuming that it’s done. If you dare to believe scripture that whatever you desire, believe you have received it, and you will, you are going along the right path. You are taking the Word of God literally as you are invited to do, for his every precept must be accepted as true.926 ¶31

Well, if I’m told, “If you dare to believe a thing, it will come to pass,” can you believe it? Well, if reason will deny it, and I go with reason rather than with my Imagination, well then, I’m going with devil rather than God. For devil is simply doubt, that’s all that it is, the doubter. “You’re the Son of God, well then, turn it into bread. You’re the Son of God, well, cast yourself down and the angels will lift you up. You’re the Son of God.” All of these things are a challenge, a doubt, or the doubter speaking to the Son of God. So here, you try it tonight, and try practicing this wonderful art of Imagination. I promise you that you will prove it in the testing, even if you started out to disprove it. You must be sincere about it to disprove it, and far from disproving it you will prove it. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *926 ¶32

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, says, “I see that you observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.” Now here we are, this crowded week of observing these different days, and this is the season, and naturally it is the year. What did Paul give to the world? What he gave to the world is this: that the Spirit of God and the human imagination are one. He said, “We did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may understand the gifts bestowed upon us by God.” Here is the One that became the many, that the many may become the One, for “One must be All, and comprehend within himself all things, both small and great” . Everything in the world – “All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, within my imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” So, we are told that: I, if I be lifted up, I will lift all men and draw all men unto me. Now we are told he is lifted up, therefore all men are already redeemed! But they have to experience it within themselves. They are already redeemed, but in this world of mortality – this must be now, I would say, repeated within the individual, for he must contain and experience all within himself. There is only God in this world. “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.”925 ¶1

Now let me share with you a story that was given to me last Friday night. This lady’s husband’s name is Ray. When I use the word Ray, I am speaking of her husband. She said, “Last year Ray said to me, ‘It’s going to cost a thousand dollars to put on a new roof. We need the roof, but it will cost a thousand dollars.’” She didn’t say they could not afford it, she said, “I saw the new roof. Right then and there, I saw the new roof!” Then she said, “I was working at my sewing machine, it’s an old one, but it was adequate. It did the job, but I would like a new one,” she said, “and so I imagined a new one. Here is the old one, but I imagined a new one. Then I was putting away my tape recorder, and I felt, ‘How heavy this thing is! I would like a new, lightweight one.’ I put the old one away – the heavy one; but I thought I would like a new one that is light of weight. So, I put away the new one that was light of weight.” Then she said, “Ray said to me, ‘My new shoes hurt.’ He had just bought them and they were hurting. Well, I wanted him to have shoes that did not hurt. I did that in my imagination. All of this was last year. Then came the turn of the calendar year, and we had a robbery. No, they didn’t steal the roof, but they took the other movable objects, and this past week I got a settlement from the insurance company for two thousand and fifty-odd dollars. I now have my nice, new sewing machine. I have my nice, lightweight tape recorder. Ray’s shoes do not hurt. And there is money for the roof, with much, much, much left over. Now, who instigated the robbery?”925 ¶2

Now on Friday, you will hear, if you go to service, the Seven Words on the Cross: three taken from Luke, three from John, and one from Matthew and Mark, it’s the same one from Matthew and Mark, which is the fourth one: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” That is the one taken from these two Gospels. But the first one used on the Cross is from Luke, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Everything is moving under compulsion. No one sees the invisible causation. No one sees the invisible imaginal act that is putting pressure upon everyone who is bent in a certain direction to perform the needed act to produce the imaginal act that is completely unseen by the world. Here, “Every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It is a delusion of the fading, vegetable memory.”925 ¶3

Now, in her letter to me she said, “These things I remember. They were all last year, but I remember them.” In her case she is blessed that she can remember when Ray said to her, “It’s going to cost a thousand dollars to put on the new roof,” and “I saw the new roof, even though at the moment he thought he could not now afford a new roof. When I used my sewing machine, it was adequate, it was good, it did the job, but I would like a new one, and I saw a new one. And when I put away my tape recorder, it was all right, it was adequate, but it was heavy when I put it away. I thought, I’ve seen all these nice new, lightweight ones, and I would like a nice lightweight one, a good one. “Now,” she said, “I have all of them. I have my nice new, lightweight recorder, my new machine, Ray’s shoes that do not hurt, and the roof will be a new one. The money is there and much left over.”925 ¶4

So, the first cry on the Cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” They are all asleep, moving under compulsion. And men and women unwittingly – most of them, some wittingly – are setting the whole thing in motion. And they simply move. So, someone given to the feeling of getting something for nothing, he takes the recorder. If he sells it for anything, that’s profit. It cost him nothing. No matter what it cost her, whatever he could get for it was sheer profit. If he goes out and finds something that he stole and he could move it quickly for $15 and one gets a bargain, he made $15. It cost him nothing; his investment was nothing. And there are those in the world who think that way. They are all passing through the furnaces.925 ¶5

So, the first word on the Cross – a “word on the cross” does not mean a single word; it’s a completed thought. So, the shortest word is: “I thirst,” but there are two words. The next one, from John, is, “It is finished” – there are three words. All right – still it is one word when you take the seven words. So, the first word is from Luke, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” And then comes Luke’s second, then comes John’s first, then comes Matthew and Mark, then come two from John, and then Luke completes it, “Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit.”925 ¶6

This little punctuation mark has been pushed around in the second word on the cross, which is from Luke. And the thief turns to him and asks him to have mercy on him, and he said, “Behold, I say unto you, ‘Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’” Well, you can alter the punctuation and put the comma after ‘today’, but no, leave it just as it is, “Behold, I say unto you, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”925 ¶7

This is, now, Resurrection. “And I, when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me” – for all things are in my own wonderful human imagination; and I am all imagination. So, when I am lifted up, I draw all. At the very moment, I draw them all with me. But they individually must have the experience that I have had, but they are already redeemed because I took them up with me. Because, “All things exist in the human imagination,” and any one who is resurrected – but he can’t be resurrected and leave behind him any part of himself, so, the whole world is raised up with him. I am telling you from experience, the heavenly chorus sings when this thing takes place. They sing the fall – the actual fall into division, and the resurrection into unity. They sing it out, and then the regeneration through resurrection from the dead. They actually sing it out, and the words, “It is finished” – I heard it, but I didn’t sing it. The heavenly chorus sang it.925 ¶8

When I walked by and everyone was made perfect because I was perfect, and then at the very end, the chorus sang out, “It is finished,” that was the sixth word on the cross. And the last One is when this garment comes off, and that is the 31st Psalm, the 5th verse, “Into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” Complete the verse: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Faithful God.”925 ¶9

That was the Promise in the beginning: I would fall into division and become fragmented, dwelling in all, that not a thing in this world could be apart from me because how could I be apart from something that I am going to influence? Because – “All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle.” If I am not penetrating you now, I couldn’t see you. You couldn’t hear me if I did not penetrate you and you penetrate me. So: “All things by a law divine In one another’s being mingle.” So, when I am lifted up, I take with me my entire universe – my whole vast world – knowing that everyone that is now shattered in that world will have a repetition of the same experience. For, One fell into division, and then resurrected into Unity, bringing all back together into The One.925 ¶10

So, in her case, I can’t tell you how thankful I am that she shared it with me, that she could now actually feel that the robbery which seemed at the moment such a shock – she lost the tape recorder, she lost this – all the movable objects, and then came the settlement from the insurance company for two thousand and fifty-odd dollars, which replaced these with the new ones – all the light ones, and enough to put on a new roof, and then some still left over. So, “Father, forgive them.” Yes – the thieves are thieves – it’s your Self “pushed out” anyway.925 ¶11

Here someone tonight is accused for stealing maybe what? A little cup or a saucer. And yet the bank where I bank – the United California Bank – they are still looking for the internal thieves who stole fifty million dollars last year from their subsidiary in Basel, in Switzerland – fifty million dollars! And they know it is all on the inside, it can only be on the inside by trusted employees. They think they can bring it down to six – six trusted employees! They can’t quite put their fingers on it because in Switzerland they have all these strange hidden accounts. But they are missing fifty million dollars. So when someone goes into the bank and holds it up and gets a thousand dollars, and we balloon the whole thing – the other thing is “hush-hush.” Here is a bank in Illinois a few months ago that lost close to seven million dollars, and they still can’t quite put their finger on how it happened on the inside. No one came in and robbed them. And we speak of the little shoplifting on the outside, and the poor little girl goes off to jail, or the little boy goes off to jail. I am not condoning it. If you could stop the embezzlement from the inside, your dividends would jump from their present little three percent or four percent to twenty percent, if you could only stop it from the inside.925 ¶12

All things happen really in the true sense of the word, from the inside. So, every so-called act in the outer world that seems a cause in itself – may I tell you, “Every natural effect has a spiritual, imaginal cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It’s a delusion” – of what? “– the fading memory.” Man can’t quite remember. Luckily, she remembered when Ray said, “We could use, and need, a new roof; but it would cost a thousand dollars, and so that is put into the future.” She remembered when he complained the new shoes were hurting. In her mind’s eye she revised it instantly, at the moment – the roof and the shoes. When she worked on her machine, she revised it. It was adequate, but she said, “I have a new machine – sewing machine.” And putting the heavy tape recorder away, she wanted a new one that was light of weight, and she revised it, and she got in her mind’s eye a lightweight, new tape recorder. Then she goes home one day to find the house had been robbed. She had carried insurance, so she brought in the insurance people, and here they paid her the two thousand dollars, which replaced all these things in a new way.925 ¶13

So, I tell you, the story is the greatest story ever told. There is no story like it. But Christianity needs forever and forever to be saved from secular history. It is not secular history. It’s the history of your own wonderful human imagination. God and your own imagination are one. They are one. You are an Immortal Being. You cannot die, because you are all imagination. When you actually know it from experience, then you can wipe your tears. Nothing can pass away. You may not see them with the mortal eye, touch them with the mortal hand, but they are in a world just as real as this – just as real, continuing the journey until they reach that moment in time when they are resurrected, and then the scattered body begins to be collected and they are gathered together into one. So: “… One must be All, And comprehend within himself all things both great and small.”925 ¶14

And you are that one that actually fell, and then, in falling, you became fragmented. You became divided into the unnumbered parts, and each seems to be independent of you as you look out on it. You are only looking out on your Self “pushed out.” And your whole vast world must make real your unknowing imaginal acts, or your knowing imaginal acts.925 ¶15

I ask you to trust this teaching. Believe in your imaginal acts. You may not see it tonight or tomorrow; but believe in it. Actually assume the most glorious thing in the world for yourself or any aspect of yourself. Trust it. And that imaginal act, if it takes a thousand or ten thousand or a hundred thousand of your projected selves, will use them to make that thing become real in your world.925 ¶16

As she said in her letter to me, “You may call it imagination, or some may call it thought, but this I do know, having remembered what I did last year, I can say it does produce reality.” And I’ve told you time and time again that – IMAGINING CREATES REALITY – that all the objective facts in the world are produced through imagination. There isn’t a thing that you can name in this world that wasn’t first imagined. But you can veto it the minute you imagine it. You can say, as she could have said, “We can’t afford it,” and stop it. She didn’t say, “We can’t afford the thousand dollars for the roof,” she saw the roof, and it was new. But she didn’t see the robbery. That’s the means.925 ¶17

Let us turn you now to the 55th chapter of Isaiah: “My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than yours.” This is the chapter where you are told, “My word shall not return unto me void, but it must accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” So, “My ways are higher than your ways.” Don’t concern yourself with how it’s going to be done, for the same voice who spoke these words said this in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, the 39th verse: “I, even I, am He. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, I heal; I do all these things, and none can deliver out of my hands.”925 ¶18

He is playing all the parts. And if one is basically inclined to steal, he will use him to produce the necessary means to get the money to put on the roof. So she comes home, and there was a robbery. All the things have been replaced with new ones and better ones, as she desired them. At the moment, it seemed to be a shock, but she set the whole thing up in motion, for she’s the one who spoke those words, “I kill, and I make alive, I wound, and I heal, and none can deliver out of my hands.” For the Spirit of God and the human imagination are one; and there is nothing but God, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And so, if all things are made by Him, is there a thief in the world? He’s playing that part! Is there a so-called hero in the world? He’s playing that part. A coward? He’s playing that part. He is playing every part in the world, and it all adds up to produce the unseen imaginal acts of men.925 ¶19

So, you are alone, and you think, “No one sees me and this means nothing. It’s only my imagination.” And you carry on your lovely imaginal act. And so, that’s it – not knowing that you are actually producing tomorrow’s effects in this world. And when it comes into the world, that natural effect has an unseen, invisible, imaginal act as cause, and not a natural cause. “A natural cause only seems, it is a delusion” – a delusion of what? Of your fading memory. You don’t remember when you did it. So, when confronted with your own harvest, you can’t quite believe it. You can’t remember when you did anything that could actually be like this. I didn’t rob myself! I never thought for one moment of robbery to get the money. No, but I did see the whole thing done. And there are thieves in the world –all over the world, and they are all played by God! There is nothing but God. “God only acts, and is, in existing beings or men.”925 ¶20

Now, let me find that Actor, because God only acts, and He is in all existing beings or men. Well, I’m a man. I’ve got to find that Actor, for the thing that I see reflected in the mirror when I shave in the morning is a mask. That’s persona. Now, who is wearing that mask? I am. You simply say, “Neville,” and I turn around and say, “Yes? Here I am,” but who is the Being that is there? I am. That’s my real name. But the mask is called “Neville.” But I will say, “I am Neville.” So, the wearer of the mask called “Neville” responds. That Being in that mask, behind that mask, that no one sees is God!925 ¶21

And now the whole vast Christendom will celebrate this victory of God, that he actually died – literally died. But God’s first attribute is Mercy. “And God turned Death into Sleep; and then rose the sexes to work and to weep.” And so all the sexes rose en masse when God died. He buried Himself in humanity and died, and then His first attribute – Mercy – turned it into sleep. That is what Blake meant when he said: “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act of mercy.” That was the merciful act: to turn death into sleep.925 ¶22

And God is dreaming this dream. One day He will awake. And when he awakes, he resurrects, and then he gathers into his own Being all his scattered beings. So, all are gathered together. When I depart this time, may I tell you, I am taking everything in the universe with me. And “I, when I am lifted up, I will raise all unto me.” Read it in the 12th chapter of John. Not one can be left, because all things exist in the human imagination. But it’s not raised up until He who is scattered is awakened to Unity. And then He draws into His own Being all that was scattered. So, they sing his fall into division, and his resurrection into unity – His fall into the generation of decay and death, and his regeneration into the resurrection from the dead. So, when he actually is raised from the dead, he gathers all into his own Being. And they are all with him. No matter where he goes, he has the whole vast world raised up. He hasn’t left one behind him.925 ¶23

But everyone shattered in the world will have a reproduction of that drama in themselves. So, what is now being dramatized as a memorial this week – for this is really a memorial, this is simply a great memory, a remembrance of what God has already accomplished. And so they are perpetuating it through Good Friday. Then comes the burial on Saturday. Then comes the Resurrection on Sunday. But the whole thing is done! It’s all done; only to be repeated in the individual, and then the individual who is seemingly scattered becomes the unit, and he draws his vast world unto himself, and he is resurrected. So, the One becomes the many, and then the many become the One. So, whenever one is raised, he takes the whole vast world with him, even though it seems to be left behind, and every aspect that seemingly is behind becomes the unit, and then it raises up. So, one must be all. That is the story of the Christian mystery: One must be all!925 ¶24

So, the first cry on the Cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” And they do not know what they do. They go blindly on under compulsion, executing the unseen imaginal acts of humanity. And they move under compulsion.925 ¶25

I told the story, and I was severely criticized for it by a lady at a dinner party one night when Fred Bailes, who is now gone from this world, gave a party at the Ambassador Hotel. And I had told this story about two weeks before to one of his great – I would say –contributors who would come and always write a huge big check at the end of a year or the end of a month to keep that going. And she was most critical that night. I didn’t feel well that night at all. And she said, “You know, I can’t quite understand how you could take the platform before an audience of twenty-six hundred, a thousand who could not get in – they were all overflowing at the Fox Wilshire, and tell what you told about your wife” – this was my first wife. I told a simple story to explain that everything in this world must be forgiven, no matter what it is.925 ¶26

When I met the girl who now bears my name and who is the mother of my daughter – the very first time I met her, I knew she was going to be my wife. She didn’t know it, but I knew it. I said to myself, “She doesn’t know it, but she is going to be my wife.” We sailed for Barbados six months later, and she met my mother and met my family – met them all. They all loved her. That was back in 1936. In New York City, because of the archaic law that is now past, you couldn’t get a divorce unless she was insane for seven years or for adultery, and that’s all. The orthodox Christian churches had sewed the whole thing up so that it made life miserable and made everything simply a burden to all. When I met her, I had just such an entangled background. And here it’s New York City, the most archaic city in the world concerning such laws. I went to bed and slept as though I was happily married to the girl who now bears my name. I did not have any physical emotion with her: just that she was sleeping there, and I am here, and it’s blissful. I did that for one solid week.925 ¶27

Then comes a telephone call from the court one morning, telling me that I must come down to this federal court on Tuesday morning. Well, I was groggy, it was early in the morning, and in those days I didn’t rise as early as I do now. And so, I just said, “All right,” and I hung up. Well, on Tuesday morning that I am supposed to be there, I made no effort to go there. And about 9:30 the phone rang. It’s the court, and they said to me, “You are supposed to be here in court this morning. We meet at 10:00.” And I said, “What on earth am I supposed to be in court for?” They said, “Well, it happens that your wife is arrested, and we thought maybe you could throw some light on the reason for her arrest. That’s why we are asking you to come down.”925 ¶28

Well, I wasn’t shaved. I simply threw myself into some clothes, and off I went in a taxi down to the court. I got there just as they were bringing her in. A man whispered into – there were three judges – into one judge’s ear that I was in the audience. The judge asked me to take the stand. “You don’t have to swear, but will you please take the stand and throw some light on the behavior of your wife? She tells me you have been separated now for almost fourteen years.” I said, “Yes.” “Is it a religious reason why you have been separated?” I said, “No, none whatsoever. We knew we were wrong the very first day we got married. We knew it was completely a failure right away.”925 ¶29

Then he read the case. She was picked up for shoplifting. They went to her home and found other things in her home. He said, “What can you say for this?” I said, “As far as I am concerned, I don’t think that really she is a shoplifter. As far as I am concerned, she just moved under compulsion. Take into consideration her age. She is eight years my senior, and she is passing through a certain emotional state. And do be lenient. We have a son who lives with me, and I don’t want anything to happen to his mother that would cast any shadow on his life. He is a wonderful boy. He is in my charge by law. He is in my home, lives with me, and I don’t want anything to happen to her that in any way would reflect upon my son.”925 ¶30

The judge said, “You know, in all my years on the bench, I have heard no plea by one for another who has every reason in this world to get her committed, because that in any other state would be enough for a divorce, and yet he pleads for her.” He sentenced her to six months, and then, on my plea, he suspended it. She met me on the outside, and said, “Neville, that was a very decent thing to do. Give me my papers.” She knew I was looking for her. My dancing partner had told her I was looking for her to serve the papers and therefore to be scarce and move out of New York City. So, she did. But she had to commit the act, and they had to call me and ask me to throw light upon that. How could I condemn her? Who was the actual cause of her shoplifting? I! I slept as though I were blissfully married to the girl who now bears my name, and I had to get the evidence. I had to get some reason to bring the action. And here, my wife actually gave me the papers. I said, “I don’t have the papers with me.” She said, “I am driving home to your place right now, and you can give me the papers.” That is illegal to serve your own papers, but she drove up to my hotel where I was living. I went to my room and came down to the lobby and gave her the papers – did my own serving! Now that is an illegal thing in this world. Then I got my divorce in the City of New York, then I could marry the girl who now bears my name.925 ¶31

When I told that, I told it only to tell people of that one word, the first word on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They are all moving under compulsion, and the unseen causation is hidden from the world. They do not know who is “treading in the winepress.” And I was “treading in the winepress” to be happily married to a girl who was not then engaged to me. I couldn’t be engaged to her under the circumstances. And then my wife behaved in such a manner that it made it real and natural for me to do what I did. How could I blame her?925 ¶32

So, the first word on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do” – they have to do what they do. I had to fall into division and fragment my being into the unnumbered parts called humanity, and then rise into unity, and gather all my scattered members together and rise as God Himself. That’s the story. It is God who fell, and God who rises. So, I know from my own experience that nothing dies. Those who have not had the experience here – all right, they are restored in a world that is terrestrial just like this, and they continue their journey until that moment in time when they are resurrected. And Resurrection is resurrection into Unity. And the outpictured world – the whole vast universe – it’s himself “pushed out” – is gathered together then, and they move up. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me. See it? This is the mystery of which we speak here night after night. You are not some tiny little thing just pushed out. You are the Whole. “One must be all.” And the day will come; you will find that you really are the All!925 ¶33

So, not one person in the universe could be outside of you when you are resurrected, because as you are raised up, you raise all with you. And each will have the experience of being raised up, and all eventually will be The One. And in that day, “they shall be one, his name one,” as we are told in Zechariah. But Blake tells it so beautifully in his “Dream of Nine Nights,” called Valla or the “Four Zoas.” And then he tells the story of the falling into division, and when they are all gathered together, this one man they call Jesus – and they in him and he in them – live in perfect harmony in Eden, the Land of Life.925 ¶34

Well, you are the Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection they are going to celebrate this coming Sunday. You tell that to the priests, and they will slap you, or tell that to any minister – because they are sound asleep. They do not know who the Lord Jesus Christ is: I tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ is buried in you, and He is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And when He is raised in you, you will raise all in this universe within you. That is the story.925 ¶35

So, I want to thank my friend for sharing with me her experience, and being big enough to remember. If man could only remember his imaginal acts! She remembered when the roof needed repairs or a new one, and the cost was excessively high for them at the moment. She remembered her husband complaining about the pain the new shoes caused, the weight of the tape recorder, and then working on the machine – the sewing machine, and it was adequate – it was good, but she would like a new one, and then came out of the Nowhere a robbery and took all these movable objects, and then came the insurance that sent the check for two thousand-odd dollars that replaced all the movable objects and paid for the new roof with much, much over. So, she can actually say, “Forgive them, Father” – those who took it. Did they not do her a favor?925 ¶36

And yet, they are thieves in their own eyes, and thieves in the eyes of society, and they are. Do you know who played the part? God! And do you know who actually made them do what they did? The lady who wrote me the letter. Now she knows the words in that 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, “I, even I, am He, and there is no God beside me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” So, no matter what happens, if we only had the memory we could trace it to a forgotten imaginal act on our part! Now let us go into the silence.925 ¶37