Tonight we will play the part of Judas. What was it that Judas betrayed? Judas betrayed the Messianic secret and the place where Jesus might be found…a most important role in the great mystery of God. “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will. Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised” . If God brought to Israel a Savior as he promised, who do you think he brought? Now listen to these words from the 43rd chapter of Isaiah: “I, I am the Lord… and besides me there is no Savior” . So if God brought a Savior to humanity, he brought himself. Now he names himself as Jesus. The word Jesus simply means “I am.” In all the great I AM statements—“I am the vine, I am the door, I am the shepherd, I am the bread”—he’s declaring, “Unless you believe that I am (is) he, you die in your sins” . Man must believe that “I am” is the Lord. So he’s brought to Israel—“the man who will rule as God”—a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. Now, when you say “I am” you don’t think that is Jesus, do you? You hear the word “Jesus” and you think of someone outside of yourself. But no, when your say “I am” that is Jesus, but sound asleep and buried in you. One day he will awaken, and when he awakens within you instead of being the son of God you will be God the Father.869 ¶1

That is the transformation that is for you, for you ventured into this world of death. You and I came down into the world of death and took upon ourselves these garments that die. They get old and they wither and they die, and continue dying, and everything dies. Yet God is the conqueror. But he sends his sons into the world and when the sons conquer by the power of the Father, they return as the Father. So, “Beloved, we are now the sons of God; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, and see him as he is” . It does not yet appear, for I’m a son of God. But how when God appears I will know him? I will know him because I will be just like him.869 ¶2

And now he reveals the great secret to the entire world, the great Messianic secret: when we use the word Jesus Christ, begin to separate it. As you’re told in the very end of the Bible, “Come, Lord Jesus…and his Christ” . Christ is the Messiah. Christ is the great Son who reveals you as God the Father…and that Son is David…whether you ever heard it before or not. I cannot resist the power that tells me to tell it and tell it and tell it, for man has completely forgotten the mystery, and they’re telling all kinds of things that are not related to this mystery. They speak of Jesus as a little man who was born and who lived 2,000 years ago, when Jesus became humanity, which is God himself. You say “I am,” well, that’s God and that’s Jesus. But he’s God the Father and that’s the great secret of the Christian faith: to reveal the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.869 ¶3

Well, the fatherhood of God is Jesus in man: “Do you not realize that Jesus”—yes and his Christ—“is in you?” . And did not the Christ call him Father? Did not David call him the Lord? This is a mystery. If David were not in me then I would never know that I am God the Father. One day he comes out of me and stands before me, and I know exactly who he is even before he calls me Father. I know the relationship: and only then do I know that I am God the Father. But I also know that everyone in the world will one day have the identical experience, and there is only one God, one Father; therefore, we all are the one Father. We are members of a body which shares in this wonderful promised end of all things—everything resolves itself into the one, and that one is God the Father.869 ¶4

So he reveals the Messianic secret and tells you where you might find him. Who? Find the Lord, the Lord Jesus. Well, where will you find him? You’ll find him in heaven and “heaven is within you” . “If anyone should say, ‘Come, look, here he is or there he is, don’t believe it” for “the kingdom of heaven is within you” . When you find it, the journey is over! And then your heart goes out to every being in the world that is your brother, we’re all brothers. We aren’t going to become the sons of God; we are now the sons of God. We are going to become, by God’s wonderful gift, God himself. God is able to give himself to all of us, to each of us, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you…just God and I. Believe that and the most incredible story ever told man becomes possible. Then not only possible…by reason of the unfolding of the “pattern man” in us, who is God, who is Jesus, we know that it is true. The whole thing unfolds within us and we know we are God the Father.869 ¶5

And that is the story of the Bible. The Old Testament is an adumbration, a foreshadowing; but the New does not spell it out completely…it still is a rough draft. When Paul writes us of his letters, the books are the thirteen letters of Paul, preceding by at least twenty years the first gospel chronologically speaking which is Mark. And yet no book spells it out…they don’t spell it out completely. It’s a rough draft…the whole thing is a rough draft. It is not a complete exposition of the great mystery. I have tried my best to tell it more clearly than I think it has ever been told before…just how it unfolds within us. How we actually come to the full realization of ourselves as God the Father, that there is no other God and there is no other being.869 ¶6

That God actually sent his sons into this world. He chose us in himself before the foundation of the world, and we came to perform a certain job. Then we will say at the very end “And now Father, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do…now return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was”. It was a glory, radiating the glory of God as sons; but when I return I return as God the Father. He actually transforms his sons into himself and gives us his own Son, whose son is God’s Son, and he calls us Father. So we are God the Father. That is what we return to by reason of the adventure in the world of death, for this is a mystery of life through death.869 ¶7

So here, when I take the Bible in my hand and I read it, the thirty-nine books of the Old is a foreshadowing. Paul makes the statement, “Follow the pattern of the true words which you heard from me”…a pattern of the true words. I take the thirty-nine books and there is a pattern in it. Not every word has significance, not every verse, not every chapter. It is all a wonderful story, but there’s a pattern in it. I will follow the pattern of the true words, but Paul does not spell it out. He makes a statement, “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, then I conferred not with flesh and blood”; but he does not spell out how God revealed his Son in him. The first to use the word “Christ” was Paul…by twenty years if you take it chronologically. You first find the word in the Book of Matthew, but Matthew came twenty-odd years after Paul wrote his letters. So the word Christ is the word Messiah, which really means “contact,” which really means “God has touched him.” He’s touched this son, and this son has now become God the Father. He touches one son after the other in his own good time. He descends upon his son in bodily form as a dove, and when it remains upon that one on whom it descends, that one has been touched, there is contact. That contact is now the gift of the Holy Spirit. God now gives himself to his son.869 ¶8

And then the Son stands before him—not this one, but God’s Son who he decreed as his Son, the one that represents the whole vast world of humanity, called David. David is the personification of all the generations of men and all of their experiences, fused into a single whole, and personified as an eternal youth. That is David. So when he stands before you and calls you Father, and God called him “my son,” and he calls you Father, then you know who you are. Everyone is going to have that experience.869 ¶9

So that is the great secret that Judas betrayed. He betrayed the Messianic secret, and told where you might find Jesus…Jesus being God the Father. You’ll find this in yourself, for he is there now and your breath is his life. You couldn’t breathe were it not that Jesus was within you. He is within you and his being within you caused you to live. One day he will awake within you and his rising within you is the most glorious experience in the world. As he rises within you, you have been saved from this world and have been transformed into God the Father. That is the story of Christianity.869 ¶10

Don’t look for Christ to come on the outside. I know hundreds of millions are waiting for him to come and change the world. This world is not going to be changed; it’s the world of educative darkness. It’s a schoolroom and you do not change a schoolroom into a home. Heaven is your home; this is a schoolroom and here we are. One day we remove ourselves by reason of this gift of the Father to us, and as he gives himself to me I awaken from the dream, awaken in the grave and come out.869 ¶11

Everything said…now the pattern of true words…he said, “Follow the pattern”—what kind of pattern?—“the pattern I laid down for you. These are the true words that you heard from me”…and then he tries to spell it out. He spells it out in the thirty-nine books, quoting the books one after the other, but he doesn’t quite completely expound it. He doesn’t and no one does in scripture. But as Blake said, “That which can be made explicit to the idiot isn’t worth my care.” So maybe they, too, felt the same way as Blake did. Why spell it out so that everyone by reading it could read an a-b-c. No, that which causes a man to struggle within himself will force him to make an effort, and maybe that is what is necessary, to search the scriptures and ask, Why? What? Where? When? Ask all these questions and then find out he is all within you; that God, actually, literally became humanity that humanity may become God.869 ¶12

And, in becoming God the Father, you do not lose your individuality. You are not only a member of this wonderful body that shares in the purposed end of all things, you are the body. You are the Spirit animating the body. Yes, a member…and yet you are the whole. For in God there is no division; God is one and we are one. So all of us together…and not one will be lost. No matter what our fellows are telling us tonight about how you’re sinning and you’re going to be lost, it is not God’s will that one be lost. If it is not God’s will that one be lost, then one cannot be lost. Why?—because God is in him. He couldn’t say “I am.” If he’s a moron, he still knows that he is. He may not know who he is, where he is, what he is, but he cannot stop knowing that he is. That’s God when he says “I am.” That is he.869 ¶13

So here, in this wonderful unfolding picture, what courage one should take from the message of scripture! It’s good news; it’s not good advice. They’re all giving good advice—try to be this, try to be that—all good advice. Let the world give good advice. The gospel means “good news,” the good news of salvation. That God actually became his sons in the world and transforms his sons into himself, so they all rise as God the Father.869 ¶14

Not all the sons came out as told us in the prodigal son story. One remained at home and complained that he didn’t have anything. He didn’t know that he had all. You may have all in the world and if you don’t know it you could die of starvation for the want of a dollar. Pass the bank that holds a billion dollars of yours and not knowing it you couldn’t cash a check. You would simply die of starvation not knowing it. And the whole is yours when you become aware that you are God the Father. You too will say, “I and my Father are one”. I and my Father are one, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine.” In the meanwhile, while you remain in the garment after the great resurrection, you teach it and help everyone that comes into your world.869 ¶15

And I can’t tell you my thrill when I get letters from you quoting scripture. If you don’t actually quote scripture, your letter is simply one hundred percent scripture. Now here is a letter from a young lady…she’s still in school, she’s majoring in music, and she wants to be a composer, that’s her ambition. In her letter to me, which she gave me last Friday night, she said, “I have a very dear friend of mine, he’s much older than I am and I’m very fond of hm. I wanted to give him something very, very special for his birthday, which was last September”…which was really this month but a couple of weeks ago. “I didn’t know what to give him. I didn’t think it had to be something material; it could be something that I said, something that I did of which he would be proud…or it could be material. I was dwelling upon what I could give him when I fell asleep. At two AM in the morning I woke with this vivid memory of what I had dreamt. I dreamed that I was sitting on my bed and in my room were my mother and father. Mother was in front of me and father to the left. My father spoke and said, ‘Well, here are three records. You may keep two and give him the third, and he will so love it he will play it over and over. He will never tire of playing this record.’ Then a sheet of music was given to me and the sheet of music was the sheet of music from which the record was made. I noticed that the composer’s name was Elam.’” She spells it E-l-a-m. Then she said, “I noticed that the title of the composition was ‘Christ.’” You could not in eternity grow tired of the mystery of Christ.869 ¶16

Now, the composer was Elam; it really was O-l-a-m. If you look it up, it is Ion Lamed Mem which means “something that is hidden, something kept out of sight” and it means “the lad, the youth, the stripling.” It is translated “eternity”: “I have put eternity into the minds of men yet so that man cannot find out what God has done until the very end”. He put eternity…well, he put that eternal youth into the mind of man, which youth is his Son. It’s the sum total of all the experiences of humanity fused into a single lad and personified as David.869 ¶17

And so here, David was the author, the composer of the music. What was he composing? It was all about himself. It was Christ, for he is the Christ of scripture. The Lord is Jehovah; Jesus is the Lord, and that is God himself. Come, Lord Jesus and his Christ (and his Son). They are all in man. Separate the two: Christ is not a title as the world thinks; that is the Son. Jesus is the savior and there is only one savior. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior, and besides me there is no savior”. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior. Read it in the 43rd and 45th chapters of Isaiah. So here, this young lady, still in school studying music, desirous of being one day a great composer, and she found who really composed. She found his title of the composition and it was simply “Christ.” You can’t exhaust the subject of Christ, it is forever and forever. Man is forever misunderstanding it.869 ¶18

Crowds and crowds will go to different ones in this world and they will tell you all about some little man who was crucified on a cross by Jews. Now let me quote you one simple statement in the Book of John, “You know not whom you worship; we know who we worship, for salvation is from the Jews”. Now, if you think a physical Jew no! An Israelite is not a descendant of Abraham after the flesh, but the elect of God of any race, any nation, of anyone in the world. That’s the true Israelite. It’s from the Jews…well, the Jews’ real book is the Old Testament. You came into this world as the son of God for one purpose: to fulfill the Old Testament. “I have come to fulfill scripture,” he said. Only as scripture is fulfilled in me have I accomplished his work. And “This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ”—put a little “and” between it, Jesus and his Christ—“whom thou hast sent”. I’m only here to fulfill scripture.869 ¶19

Now, all the actions and they’re all mystical actions, every event that I experience in my mystical experiences is foreshadowed, or seems to be foreshadowed by a word in the Old Testament. It is predestined. It’s all there, all written through his servants the prophets. Now, it’s not page after page. In fact, the chronological order of both Old and New is not truly the chronological order. Here, in the New we begin with Matthew…and Mark came before Matthew. The letters of Paul came before the four gospels. So it is not chronologically exact, but canonically, as our early fathers of the church arranged it…they placed it in that order. But that is not the true order of the unfolding of the picture anymore than in the Old Testament.869 ¶20

So, as you read it, there is a certain pattern: “So follow the pattern of the true words which you heard from me.” I have given you from my own experience what he is telling you. He’s writing this letter to Timothy…the 2nd letter that he wrote to Timothy…and he’s telling Timothy not to deviate from what he heard from him: this is the gospel, this is the good news of redemption, the good news of salvation, and don’t deviate. But he doesn’t spell it out. Now, I’ve spelled it out to you. I’ve told you in the best way I can just as it happened to me, and I’ve given it to you actually chronologically.869 ¶21

The resurrection comes first. The crucifixion comes in the very beginning of time. When I came out from the Father and came into the world I was crucified on this body…and so were you. We’ve been crucified on these bodies all through the journey. The crucifixion begins the journey. So Paul said, “I know only Christ and him crucified”…so it begins with the crucifixion. But the real drama of redemption begins with the resurrection. After the resurrection comes the birth. After the birth, comes the discovery of the fatherhood of God and the Son David who is the Christ. The words of David, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord, he said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’”. Now comes the fulfillment of it: the Father is now trying to find him and he is lost in a maze. “I have found David and he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation’”. Who found him? The Lord found him. The Lord found his own Son, and then the Son revealed him as the Lord.869 ¶22

At that moment he thought he was a little tiny man, a man walking in a world of death and he knew that death was inevitable. As he approached the inevitable end, he prepared for the inevitable and made his will to those he loved. If he had anything to leave, he left it to those he loved. And so, he knew he had to go and the whole vast world even those that he now loved would follow him and leave what he left them, if they still have it, to those not yet born. And he thought that was life. Then, all of a sudden he finds he is God the eternal Father. What a gift! That God actually gave himself to his son. God actually became man that man may become God!869 ¶23

One day you will know it by this betrayal of the great secret, the secret of Messiah. He not only tells you the secret but he tells you where you might find him. Where would you find him?—where the tree grows. You find him in the garden. “And the gods of the earth and sea sought through Nature to find this tree, but there search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain”. That’s where the tree grows…there you are going to find him, right in the garden, and he is the Tree of Life itself. One day the whole drama unfolds within you the individual, and as it unfolds within you, you awake, and you are God the Father.869 ¶24

You and I who were sons of God before we came down, as told so beautifully in the 82nd Psalm, when we return we are God the Father, and yet we have not lost our individuality. We have added to God the Father and yet remain individualized. I can’t tell you the joy, the ecstasy in store for all of us on our return to God the Father as God the Father. “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again I am leaving the world and I’m going to the Father”. This time I’m going to the Father as the Father.869 ¶25

So God’s gift to us is Christ, who is his Son that is David. Christ’s gift is the Spirit of Truth…and the truth unfolds within us. As it unfolds within us, we know who he really is: “I have found in him a man after my own heart, who will do all my will”. Now, listen to these words, “I have come to do the will of him who sent me.” Here, God in man is not yet awake, so he’s speaking, “I’ve come to do the will of him who sent me.” He knows he has to do that will, for that’s David’s will, and that is God’s will through David. He said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me. I have come only to do the will of him who sent me”. Well, what words are these but the one who said, “I have found in David the son of Jesse”—and Jesse means “I am”—“one after my own heart who will do all my will.” He does all the will and that is Messiah who does all the will.869 ¶26

But when I am through as the son called man, I awaken having done it all; and then humanity put together, personified as a single eternal youth stands before me, and now I am no longer of the world of death. I’ve been redeemed as God the Father! So he redeems us. He doesn’t bring us back as his sons; he brings us back as himself. So we came out into the world in the grand experiment, the grand adventure.869 ¶27

Was it proven before or was it something that could have failed? Just imagine that it could have failed…what would it be if we knew in advance that it had to succeed? But when the time had fully come, the cheers went up, hosannas went up that it had happened, and if it happened in one it will happen in all, for the grand adventure proved itself. But if I knew in advance it had to succeed, what would it matter? I tell you, he didn’t know in advance that it would have happened. But he chose us in him for the experiment and gave us in victory himself. So we return as God the Father and that’s who we really are.869 ¶28

I’m speaking from experience; I’m not theorizing, I am not speculating. Jesus is in you as your own wonderful Imagination. When you say “I am,” that’s Jesus, that’s the Lord. But he’s buried there. One day he will awaken, one day he will rise; and then all that is said of the Lord in the Old Testament, that he is the Father of David and chose him to be his Son, will now stand before you and you are his father and he is your son. So when the adventure is over and it’s victorious, you are God the Father. What a glorious concept…that God actually gave himself to me, to you, to all of us! And I know from experience that because it has proven itself in performance it cannot fail in anyone. It can’t fail! Not one can fail. Not a Hitler, not a Stalin, not any monster in the world can fail, because it has been proved the resurrection is a fact. All will come out; everyone returns not as the son of God—which is glorious enough—but as God himself. That is my message to you.869 ¶29

And this sweet young lady, who in her desire to express herself in a loving manner towards one she admires and respects, she said, “He is many years my senior, but I respect him and I love him, and I wanted so much to give him something that was really precious to him and to me. It could only be really something that I said that he would think precious, something that I did…it could be that intangible or it could be something material. Then came my parents”—symbols of the creative power. They were not physically there…this is all in Spirit…they only represented her own creative power. Your parents are simply symbols of that creative power, and here the father spoke of “three records.” Well, they are symbolic or symbols. There were three who stood before Abraham, who pronounced the coming event of the child only they were not called records they were called men…the same symbolism. For everything contains within itself the capacity for symbolic expression and significance. Then “Keep two for yourself, but one you give him, and he will so love it he will play it over and over and over. He will never tire of hearing it.” Then a sheet of music and she notices the name: it is Olam…Ion Lamed Mem…the eternal youth composed it, and the title of the composition is “Christ.” He’s talking about himself.869 ¶30

No man in this world writes anything but about himself. You read anything written by a man, what is he writing about other than himself, his own thoughts, his own feelings, his own beliefs. You think he’s detached from it? Read the tripe of some of these books that sell one million copies and they’re all publicized. Read the nonsense in it, he’s only writing about himself. He has acquired the ability to write. Anyone can do that if they apply themselves. Go to school and simply master the technique of writing. But when you start writing, what else can you write about other than the thoughts permeating your mind? You think you are detached from your own thoughts, but you aren’t detached from your own thoughts, you’re writing all about yourself. So Olam, the eternal youth, was the composer and the composition was titled Christ. It’s all about himself. And you could never in eternity tire of listening to this incredible story of Christ.869 ¶31

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *869 ¶32

You take comfort from it…God has prepared the way for his sons to return. I’ve told you the way. If I said “I am the way” that does not reveal anything. If I say “I am the truth, I am the life” they are true, all these statements are true, but it does not explain. In telling you exactly what I experienced, I have told you “the way.” That is the way of the son returning to the Father. He has prepared the way for his sons to return and to return as God the Father.869 ¶33

Now are there any questions, please?869 ¶34

We are told in scripture and this is the 9th chapter of the Book of Mark, “All things are possible to him who believes.” There is no limit set upon the power of belief. Then in the 19th chapter of the Book of Matthew we are told, “With God all things are possible.” So here we see God equated with the believer. In other words, you seated here tonight, you believe you’re here, don’t you, and you believe you are what you think you are? Well, that is God. All things are possible to him who believes, and with God all things are possible, so God is equated with the believer. Well, I believe I’m here, I believe I’m in this room, but can I go beyond what my reason and my senses dictate? Because all things are possible to him who believes, must I limit my power of believing to what reason dictates and what my senses dictate? That’s entirely up to me.868 ¶1

Will I really believe what scripture teaches, that all things exist in the human Imagination? For if I believe it has to be in my Imagination. If I go beyond what reason now dictates it can only be my Imagination that could take me. Well, if all things now exist in my Imagination, can I go beyond what at the moment my reason dictates and my senses dictate?868 ¶2

Now, here we just had this eruption in the Christian world concerning the little icons, the little nonsenses that people have made over a thousand years and worshipped. Now let me turn you to the 115th Psalm, “Your idols are silver and gold. They have eyes, but they do not see. They have mouths, but do not speak. They have ears, but they do not hear. They have hands, but they do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and no sound is heard in their throat. Those who make them are like them, and those who trust in them are like them.” Now you may make a million dollars a year and trust in the little icon that you place—made by human hands—in the front of your car. You might have read it in today’s paper, this very famous actress, and she, in her Rolls Royce, had a little accident. The car was smashed; she was injured, but not fatally. She attributes her life to the little St. Christopher. She’s just like the one who made it and sold it to her, but she doesn’t know it. So you have a million dollars, so what? Don’t judge anyone by their little possessions in the world. They got it by belief. Well, they do not know who to believe. They do not know that their very being is the one who created everything in this world. She believes it was her little silver or gold (she could afford gold), a little gold medal, that saved her from a fatal accident. Not a thing saved her but her belief in that stupid little thing that is man-made for profit. She bought it not knowing who really was the one in whom one should trust. So all things are possible to him who believes. With God all things are possible. So here we equate God with the believer.868 ¶3

Well now, you certainly are a believer…when you go home tonight you expect to find the place that you left, and sleep in, and expect to rise in tomorrow morning. You believe you will, so you do believe. You believe you’re clothed right now. And so, this capacity to believe is God and there is no other God in the world. Your own wonderful human Imagination is God. There never was another and not in eternity can there be another.868 ¶4

Now, can we go outside of the restriction that we ourselves placed upon us? What restriction?—the body that I wear, the body of my senses, the body of my reason. Reason tells me that I’m here and I’m not elsewhere. Reason tells me that I have so much and no more, and can’t get any more unless I make a physical effort. But I could wish I had more, couldn’t I?868 ¶5

Well, let me tell you what faith is. “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” Faith is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. “I wish”—that’s a hope, that’s a wish. Now, faith is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope: what would it feel like if it were true? Just how would it feel? Can I assume that state? That assumption is faith if I really can believe it. Can I believe in the reality of my assumption? I assume that I am what at this very moment my reason and my senses deny, but can I really believe it? For all things are possible to him who believes. Can I persuade myself that though my reason denies it and my senses deny it, that my mere assumption makes it so?868 ¶6

Blake in his wonderful Marriage of Heaven and Hell said he had an intercourse with Isaiah and Ezekiel, and he asked them if a strong persuasion made a thing so. Isaiah replied, “The poets”—that is, the prophets; they were the poets—“the prophets believed that it did, and in ages of Imagination a firm persuasion moved mountains. But many people are not capable today of a firm persuasion.” They can’t believe it…yet everything in this world was once only believed. What is now proved was formerly only something that one desired and believed. The building, the clothes I wear, everything here was once only believed, and then it came into being.868 ¶7

But you will say, “Man made an effort.” I’m not denying that. Let man make an effort: you believe that you are and you name it. It may take a million men to prove it. Alright, so they’ll work for you without knowing they’re doing it for you. You don’t have to persuade them to do it. You assume that you are what you would like to be, and then let the whole vast world, which is yourself pushed out, go to work to make possible that which you’ve assumed that you are, and you will become it…for all things are possible to him who believes. I don’t have to go out and make the physical effort. I go to the end…that’s where I start in this world.868 ¶8

As we are told by the late Robert Frost, “Our founding fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in.” And the most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in…to believe it in. That’s what scripture teaches. He said, “Our founding fathers did not believe that the mere passage of time would produce this country as they desired it to be.” They wanted some wonderful democracy, not a monarchy. But sitting down and waiting for it and hoping it would come wouldn’t do it. They had to appropriate it and so they believed it in.868 ¶9

How did they do it? Well, faith is the appropriation of the hope. How do I appropriate it?—the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I would like to be and I name it, say in San Francisco. Well, I can’t afford the time, I don’t have the time, but I would like to be there. I don’t have the money, I don’t have this, I don’t have that, so I sleep where I slept last night because I can’t afford it. Yet I am told to ignore the present moment and dare to subjectively appropriate the objective hope. Your objective hope is San Francisco. Well, if I really appropriate it, where would I sleep this night? If I really am in San Francisco and I fell asleep, though physically here, how would I see the world? Would I not see it through the eyes of one who is sleeping in San Francisco? Would I not fall asleep and see the whole vast world as I would see it if I were there? That is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. Now I wake tomorrow morning and I’m in Los Angeles. But all of a sudden in my sleep things happen, and I’m compelled to make the journey whether I have the money or not. I will make that journey to San Francisco where I have appropriated that subjective state, which is nothing more than my objective hope.868 ¶10

So here, all things are possible to him who believes and with God all things are possible. We don’t question that second statement, because man believes that God created the world and God does all things; but he doesn’t equate God with himself the believer. And the Bible teaches man to equate God the creator of everything with himself who has the capacity to believe. Belief need not be determined or restricted by the evidence of our senses. It need not rest where my reason dictates, I may go beyond it.868 ¶11

But everything in this world tells me I had to go outside of reason. This little light tells me that sometime man had to go outside of lighting a candle and lighting a little oil lamp and lighting a little gas lamp and finally came to this. Now he goes beyond that. He will go beyond it to the point where he doesn’t need any light, for he is the light of the world. He’ll go outside of everything in this world and he is God who is the light of the world, who is infinite love, who is infinite power, who is infinite wisdom. That is what he is expanding into, these states, breaking through the barriers of reason, breaking through the barriers of his senses.868 ¶12

So here this night, take the challenge. The Bible challenges you: “Examine yourself, to see whether you’re holding to the faith. Now test yourself and see.” Test what? Test Jesus Christ. Well, who is Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God…that’s who Jesus Christ is. As told us in the 1st letter of Paul to the Corinthians, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and I am called upon to test it. Will it work? Well, doesn’t cost you anything…just try it.868 ¶13

Now, we are told that God, who is my own wonderful human Imagination, speaks to me and speaks to you through the medium of dream, and reveals himself in vision. One night it was shown me so clearly how to do it. I found myself in New York City on 5th Avenue at the turn of the century in one enormous mansion. And here in this mansion there were two generations, but they spoke of a third. The third was invisible…that was the grandfather. They spoke of grandfather or father depending upon which generation spoke. Here, this enormous mansion…everything that money could buy is in the mansion. This is what they said—I am invisible to those who are present—and they said, “I remember what grandfather would say while standing on an empty lot. He would say, ‘I remember this empty lot.’ Then he would go from there and he would build in his mind’s eye the most fabulous building that he wanted. Then he would say, ‘I remember when this was an empty lot.’” He remembered when it was and it still is, but he would build in his mind’s eye what could be done with this lot. In his mind’s eye he constructed the scene. Then the scene shifted and came back and repeated itself. “I remember when”—and here’s this fabulous building now, an actual building is standing there, and he said, “I remember when this was an empty lot.” Scripture teaches that if the dream repeats itself, it means that God will shortly bring it to pass. It was teaching me the most marvelous technique.868 ¶14

Who was the grandfather?—I was the grandfather. I was also the second generation and the third to pass it on to other generations. This is how you do it. You stand in a barren state (you have nothing) and say, “I remember when it was barren.” If you say I remember when it was barren, you are implying it is no longer barren. You construct in your mind’s eye exactly what you want for the scene, and it comes to pass in that manner. Out of the nowhere this thing happened within me telling me exactly how this law works. Go and tell it to everyone who will listen to you.868 ¶15

So they have nothing in the world, but nothing, what does it matter? If all things are possible to him who believes and the one to whom you speak is a believer, he can believe. He may believe the most stupid thing in the world but he can believe. He can believe in that silly little thing called St. Christopher’s medal…but he can believe. It’s a stupid little thing. Forty of them have been demoted, but it served a purpose. Now they’re coming to the point where they’re trying to get over to the sheep that what they formerly believed to be outside of themselves must now come into themselves and now believe in self. That’s what he’s trying…to bring man into the fold. It took a long time, one thousand years believing in the nonsense. I think he’s very big in this day and age to bring it now to the point where the individual who comes to church doesn’t have to cover your head any more. That is not necessary and yet for all these years it was necessary. Was it ever necessary? You don’t have to believe in St. Christopher saving you when you go on a journey. Was it ever necessary? Maybe it was. Maybe man in his child-like state couldn’t believe in himself, and he had to believe in something created by the human hand. So he created out of silver and then he made it out of gold that was more precious, so those who could afford it bought the gold and believed in it. Well, it produced results: belief produces results. But did it produce it? No, the believer produced it.868 ¶16

“All things are possible to him who believes, and with God all things are possible.” Now we equate God with the believer. Well, what is God’s name?—his name forever and forever is I AM. Don’t you know that you are? Certainly you do. Knowing that you are, don’t you say that “I am”? Before you can say John, if your name is John, you say, “I am John.” I say, “I am Neville.” I may not always say “I am” but if you say, “What’s your name?” I may say “Neville.” But before I said Neville, I was aware of being, and then I place upon this awareness of being a name called Neville. So I didn’t have to repeat the words “I am,” but I was actually aware that I am. That is God and that is the believer, the only God in the world. There is no other God, none whatsoever.868 ¶17

So, all things exist in the human Imagination, all things, not just the good things, all things. Listen to the words, “See I am he, 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 no one who can deliver out of my hand.” Read it in the 32nd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy . Who can kill but God? We say, “I did,” well, that’s God. “I killed him,” well, that’s God’s name. You killed him because you didn’t know who you were. You hurt…that’s God…because you didn’t know who you were. For, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there’s none that can deliver out of my hand. See now that I, even I, am he; and there is no god beside me.” There is no other God.868 ¶18

As you are seated here you have the capacity to believe and you do believe. You may this very night believe the most stupid thing in the world, but you believe it. And may I tell you, it’s going to work.868 ¶19

The one we speak of as God is our mightier self yet our slave for purposes of his own. “He waits upon us as indifferently and as swiftly when the will in us is evil as when it is good.” He conjures images of good and evil just as though they’re equal. The same being that is now my mightier self is my slave; and allows me to imagine anything in this world, and he projects it upon the screen of space, and I experience it. I actually come upon it and don’t even realize that in my thoughtless moment I planted the seed. Here I’m confronted with my own harvest and I don’t recognize it.868 ¶20

So here is the being that you really are: the God of scripture is your own wonderful human Imagination. There never was another God and not in eternity will there be another God. When you say “I am” that’s God.868 ¶21

Well, can we go out this night in the deep, deep conviction that we are what we would like to be by assuming that we are? That assumption is simply the appropriation subjectively of the objective fact…and that is faith…and without faith it is impossible to please him. So I walk as though it were. When I go home tonight I will ride home with my friend by sight. We will pass certain streets, certain familiar objects and go home. Well, when I walk by faith I do not walk by sight; I walk by an invisible setup. Now how would I see the world if it were true that I am what I would like to be? I set that up. And that’s when I walk by faith, ignoring completely everything in my world, no matter what it is, that would deny that state. Then I walk by faith and not by sight. As Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “Let us walk by faith and no longer by sight.”868 ¶22

So we all know what it is to walk by sight, we know our way home if we go by sight, but we’re called upon to break the spell and go outside of the sight and walk by faith. So what would it be like this night if we, as we are seated here, were now the embodiment of the man, the woman that we would like to be? I tell you it is possible to do everything that you want to do.868 ¶23

For the believer—and you’re a believer—and God of the universe are one…they aren’t two. All things are possible to God and all things are possible to him who believes…so they are equated. So don’t now divorce yourself from God. Well, who is God? Say “I am,” that’s he.868 ¶24

“Unless you believe that I am (is) God, then you’ll remain in your sin.” Sin is called “missing the mark.” You’ll miss the mark—the mark is simply a goal in life, that’s what the mark is. You’ll miss it because you do not believe that you are already the one you would like to be. It’s just as simple as that. I’m not saying that it’s the easiest thing in the world, no, I would not tell you that; but I tell you, you and I must practice.868 ¶25

If I took the greatest violin in the world and put it in the hands of a great artist, he could lift me to the nth degree of joy, in the hands of the artist. Put the same violin in hands of one who cannot play, he’d drive me insane. Lock the doors, and I would really rather die than continue to listen to what he’s doing with that violin, the same violin. Out of the same violin one brings the most beautiful harmony and the other brings the most horrible discord, same violin. So, I kill and I make alive out of the same instrument. That instrument is my own wonderful human Imagination. I can make all the discords in the world until I learn to play it. Here we are in a world I call educative darkness learning to play the instrument which is God; and God is your own wonderful human Imagination.868 ¶26

Now reason’s going to deny it, I know, so what? You’ll simply assume that you have it. And you may say, I don’t know anyone in this world who can give me, say, $10,000. I have no relative who is alive that could ever mention me in his will; I have no one to whom I could turn, so what? Are all things possible to God? Yes! Oh, you’ll say yes to that right away. Well, do you believe that God is your own wonderful human Imagination? “Oh, hold it a minute, no, I can’t believe that, because God is all love and I can imagine the most unlovely things in this world. I have and still do, so that couldn’t be God.”868 ¶27

Then, therefore, God is not all powerful. If you can imagine something that he cannot, because of your own stupid concept of what God is, then he can’t produce a discord. He is not as good as that violin…he can’t produce a discord, and if you can produce a discord you transcend him. You can hit, even by accident, a chord that is beautiful, well, you did it, it’s a harmony; and then you strike a discord, but he can’t strike a discord, you are greater than God because he can’t hit one. Well, you can’t be.868 ¶28

Therefore God: “I kill, I make alive; I wound, I heal; and none can deliver out of my hand.” All things come out of me, whether they be harmonious things that give me joy or the most frightful discords in the world. No matter what I do in a discord, when I really learn the instrument I can resolve it into a dissonance. I can take any discord if I know how to play, which I do not, but if I knew I could resolve it into a beautiful dissonance to the ear that is trained to appreciate a dissonance. So everything can be resolved, even though in our learning we make the most horrible mistakes in the world.868 ¶29

So don’t condemn yourself for anything that you have ever done or that you’re doing or that you may do. Learn to play this instrument. The instrument is God himself and that instrument is your own wonderful human Imagination, and there is no other God. There is no other creative power in this world.868 ¶30

What is now proved in the world was once only imagined. I went in to my tailor and I said, “Let me see a few suit lengths.” Louie—he’s been my tailor for thirty-odd years—so he brings me out these things. He knows I like conservative colors, so he brings out simple things. I picked out this that my wardrobe needed and something else, I picked out three, and then using his Imagination he took the material and executed three. But it first had to be imagined before he could cut the cloth. He didn’t take his scissors and start cutting cloth hoping something would come out…he imagined it. When I go to my dentist he looks at my mouth and sees what ought to be there instead of what is there. Well, I’m not saying it’s going to grow out of my mouth. He has to first conceive what ought to be there, and then he goes about his business of doing what he feels ought to be done. But it first had to be imagined. So everything in this world had first to be imagined before it could be executed into what is called a fact in this world. You can imagine and that capacity to imagine is God. That is God himself.868 ¶31

Now we do not observe imagining as we do objects, because we are the reality that is named imagining. We don’t observe it; you observe the thing created. I observe this room—this was once only imagined—but I don’t really observe the creative power that is conceiving it all. I only observe the things created…but not the creator.868 ¶32

It takes one being to reveal that creator. You’ll never know him until that one being, which is set up all in scripture, appears before you and calls you Father. Then and then only do you really know who you are…that you are God the Creator. For here stands his only begotten son before you, and when he stands before you at that very moment, not a split second past it, then for the first time in this long, long pilgrimage you know who you are. You are God, God the Father. Here he stands before you, this beauty beyond the wildest dream of man. As he stands, he knows that you are his Father, and you know that you are his Father, and you also know that he is your son. So you’ve gone through the entire gamut, coming towards that point, and when you arrive at that point, you know the creative power of the world is your own wonderful human Imagination.868 ¶33

From whom would you keep that knowledge? No one! Not everyone will accept it; they’d rather have the little icon. I’m quite sure tonight this Italian actress, if you saw it in this morning’s paper, who had this accident in her wonderful Rolls Royce, maybe a $40,000 Rolls, and she attributes her recovery from the accident to the little icon that man made with his hands. Well, she’s not alone. There are a hundred million tonight who will not give up the little medal. I saw where Cardinal McIntyre confessed that he had put his seal of approval on the reverse side of this little medal by the tens of thousands. Undoubtedly, they all received his blessing when he impressed on the reverse side this approval of the cardinal. On one side is a face that never existed, St. Christopher never existed, and he approved the reality of that which is not. He is a cardinal, speaking with the authority of the prince of the church. What nonsense! Stupid, ridiculous nonsense! But he can’t retract it now, it’s all done. His own cathedral is no longer a [...], and here this saint never existed and they go blindly on in his nonsense. But it works, why?—because they believe.868 ¶34

Well now, it’s time for man to stop believing in something and start believing in the only reality in the world which is his own wonderful human Imagination. Stop all the outside icons, outside gods. “You shall make no graven image unto me” …that’s the Second Commandment. Yet they go blindly on making all these graven images outside of ourselves. “Make no graven image unto me and thou shalt have no other God beside me.” Beside whom?—beside me, literally. You mean my own being? Yes. But I didn’t have anything when I was born. I have no education, I have no money, no social background, not a thing, so how could I believe? Believe…but go outside now of your reason, go outside of your senses, because all things are possible to him who believes and with God all things are possible. So the believer in you…well, who is believing…I am and that’s God.868 ¶35

Now, can you go outside of your senses and believe what your senses deny? Try it! Put it to the test…put it to the extreme test. And then if it proves itself in performance, what does it matter what the world thinks? If I have something to testify to what I have done, does it matter what anyone thinks? Here I have proved by my own testing that this thing works. Well then, I have found him.868 ¶36

Having found him I will share him now with another. So I will go to Philip and I tell Philip. Well, who is Philip?—the “lover of horses.” Well, what is the horse?—the mind. He loves how the mind functions. So I will go to Philip and I will tell him. So he goes and he tells Philip, and Philip wonders, “Who did you find?” “I found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets spoke.” They spoke of him. Who is he? He is called the Messiah. Where is he? “I will take you to him,” and then they take him. But they can’t find a man. I will tell you who he is. I’ll take you this night to see who the Messiah is. I have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote: Jesus Christ, the Messiah that was promised.868 ¶37

Well, take me to him…I’ll take you to him: now say “I am”. “I am.” That’s he. “Oh, you’re silly, Neville.” No, I’m telling you the truth…that’s he. Say “I am” again. “I am.” Now say, “I am secure, I am wealthy, I am free.” “But I’m not!” I’m not saying what you are now based upon your senses, I’m asking you to repeat what I said. “I am free, that I am secure, that I am known.”868 ¶38

All that you would like to be make it now a subjective appropriation of the objective hope. Now, reason is going to try to tear from you what you have just done, but I ask you to play the little game with me. Go through the door and walk as though it were true. Sleep this night as though it were true.868 ¶39

And if you do this night, you couldn’t go to sleep seeing the world as you saw it last night; you have to see it differently. If this day, factually, someone gave you a check for $20,000 and you deposited it to your account, you would not sleep tonight as you slept last night, would you? You couldn’t; you have $20,000 that you didn’t have last night. Well now, tonight without waiting for it to be fact, go to bed as though it were true, just as though it were true. Put him to the extreme test: if all things are possible to God and if all things are possible to him who believes, and you can believe, can you believe that? Try to believe it! I’m not saying you’ll succeed the first night, because you’ve been so trained to accept only what reason dictates, only what your senses dictate that you may find it difficult, almost impossible, to believe what really you could believe.868 ¶40

This morning coming through from the deepest, wonderful experience, here was a series like shadowy beings. The first one was blind and could see nothing in the world. And I’m the wearer of all these things. The second one could see what the first one couldn’t; the third could see what the second one couldn’t; the fourth one could see and hear and do what the third one couldn’t. I woke actually saying to my friend, Bob Crutcher, “Why, Bob, I have just seen a series of events that with your talent to write…this is not for TV, this is for movies…you could write this story with your talent. And I’m telling you exactly what you’ll get for it, you’ll get $300,000.” I woke actually thinking of my friend Bob with his talent to write and with my vision, put my vision—don’t give me a penny of it, I don’t want one nickel for it—I’m telling a series of them—as you put it on, you see what it is allowing you to see.868 ¶41

When an actor plays a part, he must feel to some extent the part that he’s playing, and try to identify himself with the character that he depicts.868 ¶42

Well now, all these were characters…all these were simply shadows, and I, the perceiving one, took one after the other, and I was limited by the state that I perceived. As I took it on I couldn’t see; the third one, I went beyond this one; the fourth, beyond that; the fifth, beyond…a series of them. Bob has the talent. And I heard someone say, “Well, $300,000 for a movie for that” and I thought of only one person, my friend Bob. I woke screaming, “Bob Crutcher you’ve got to do it.”868 ¶43

Well, I mean, that is something that really is part of our world. Here is my wonderful friend a writer, he has all the ideas, I know he has them, but this is something that came to me from the depths. Here’s a series, something not done by any man: that man is simply restricted by what he wears. To play a part I must feel the part, and then to the best of my ability I must actually feel myself to be the character that I’m depicting. Well now, if the thing is blind, I’m going to feel myself all over the world and feel things. Then all of a sudden I put on another garment and it isn’t blind. Well, I can see so I don’t need the feeling. Then I put on another garment…and all of these were a series of garments. As I came from the depths of my being, this interrupted my depth just for a moment, because I was coming back from a tremendous depth of my being where something entirely different takes place…nothing in this world…something outside completely. But I was interrupted by this series, and here I was thinking only of my friend Bob Crutcher. I was just about to tell him when I woke that the series is for a picture. It would be a fantastic picture, never mind if they will believe it or not. There are a few in the audience who will catch it, who will see he’s only playing a certain part.868 ¶44

Now the part need not be something that was given you at birth, you could pick it up at any point in time. You could now play the part of a wealthy man when it was not given you twenty-four hours ago, and you never had it before, and suddenly it’s a part. It’s only a part and you play it. Well, what would you see if it were true? And you play that part just as though it were true.868 ¶45

This is scripture. All that I’m telling you tonight is from the Bible. “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there’s none that can deliver out of my hand. I, even I, am he…and there is no God beside me.” Read it in the Book of Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter. There is no other God, no other savior. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel; and besides me there is no savior,” the 43rd of Isaiah .868 ¶46

But man will not believe it, he thinks that’s crazy. But these are the words of God revealed through his prophets in the Old Testament.868 ¶47

The New is the fulfillment of the Old, and he comes in and he fulfills it all. He tells you, “Whatever you desire, believe you have received it, and you will.” That’s the fulfillment. That’s how easily you apply it…for the assumption, though false and denied by your senses, if persisted in, will harden into fact.868 ¶48

I am telling you, you are God; there never was another God and the being in you is God. You and I are one because there’s only one God. There aren’t two Gods, there’s only one. So in the end you will know that you and I are one. You will know it by this wonderful Son.868 ¶49

But I’ll tell you the next time of another revelation: not the Son revealing the Father, but the Father revealing the Son. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *868 ¶50

This morning’s subject is the secret of the sperm. Last December hundreds of scientists met in Montreal and read their papers to each other. And after the entire world printed what they had to say. Fortunately for me the Los Angeles Times carried it daily. I must confess every one really fired me! But one in particular interested me. This scientist read a paper on the sperm. He said “The sperm remains as much a mystery today as it was when man first became curious about its nature.” And then he made this little statement: “The sperm somehow easily passes through the surface of an egg, although the outside of the egg has no holes in it, either before or after fertilization.” Well, that fired me.866 ¶1

On the morning of the 19th of February I was lying in bed quite early thinking of this strange mystery of the sperm and wondering all about it. And suddenly I felt myself detached from this body. I was not in my room, but I was in a room and the room was sealed. There was no entrance, no exit, just a sealed room. But as I entered it, it became alive, it became animated. Then I thought of my bed, my body, and in one moment I am back on my bed. I thought of another detachment. I’m in an entirely different room but it’s also sealed. How I got in I do not know other than I simply imagined myself away from my body. I did not single-out the room, the room was completely sealed – no entrance, no exit.866 ¶2

Then I thought: There are these unnumbered states of consciousness. You can’t number them. You can liken each state to an egg. And every state remains just as the egg until fertilized. And the presence that fertilizes the egg is simply our consciousness. We must be in it to activate it, to animate it. You could this very moment single-out any state and by the use of your imagination imagine that you’re in it. You’d be in it. Think this very moment of your living room or any room in your house. Take an object, a familiar object in your room and bring it as close as you can. If it’s really here, well, then you can’t be here in this room. As you become intense about it, concentrated on it, you are really where you are imagining yourself to be. For man, being all imagination, he must be where he is in imagination. Well, what have I done then? I’ve fertilized it. I’ve actually made it real. And in a way that I do not know I am going to go there. But now you will say naturally I’m going to go there today. It’s my home. I use that only to illustrate a point.866 ¶3

You could take any place, no matter where it is, any part of the world. If you did the same thing to it that you would now do to your home you will find yourself compelled to move across a bridge of incident leading up to the fulfillment of that state. You don’t devise the means, but there are so many little facets to this wonderful art of imagining. I’ll tell you one to show you the danger. But if one wants one thing above all things in this world, and they are willing to sacrifice their moral, ethical code, in fact every code, it also works. That’s why I warned you in my last book I could only aquaint you with the law and leave you to your choice and its risk. And I mean risk!866 ¶4

I called this lady a friend. She is a friend. I’m not here to judge anyone in the world. And she is my friend living in New York City. When she was a young girl she was as poor as a church mouse. She had nothing. Her only claim to recognition was the fact she descended physically from the Adams, our presidents. And she was very proud of that fact. Very proud. But she had no money.866 ¶5

The one thing she wanted above everything in this world was money. And I don’t mean a few hundred thousand dollars, I mean money in the true sense of the word. To the disgust of her parents she used to always pretend she had fabulous fortunes. She is not, may I say, a good looking lady either in form or in feature. Nice in many other respects, but you could never accuse her of being a beautiful woman. But nevertheless she dreamed this state and she just simply wanted money. At a party one day she met a young man, just a few years her senior. He had money, multiple millions. She had nothing, she had a physical line leading to the Adams. He had oodles of money, his line led to one of the bishops of New York State. I’ll not say this to in any way discourage you in your admiration of some bishop or some man of the cloth, but his grandfather was a bishop in New York State. He knew all the lovely parcels of, well, real estate. Where tomorrow, if he could hold on to it, what it would be worth. And so here’s a bishop of the church, instead of taking care of his flock he was taking care of his pocket. And he left millions to this man’s father who in turn left it to him.866 ¶6

My friend only wanted money. And so in no time flat they got married. And then lived for 21 years in intimate hostility. Really. Sordid beyond measure. I wouldn’t dare discuss it from the platform. So at the end of these 21 years they called it a day and divided the millions. She still wanted more millions. She could open Tiffany with her diamonds and her jewelry. Still wanted more.866 ¶7

She had a little cousin who always worked for a salary. But he got in on the ground floor when our huge big operation of the day were being organized. Saved his money; he was a bachelor, he lived alone and very frugal. And he bought a little bit of this stock, a little bit of that, never touched it. It split and split and split and split. Year before last he had the presence of mind to die. The only member of his family that would ever see him was this lady. She knew, in some strange way, he had money. She would bring him home for an occasional dinner, would call him on the phone, so when they found his Will she was the only member of the family named in the Will. He had other first cousins, but they were above it all. They came from the Adams. And he must be on the outside or something, but he was not what they would cultivate. When the Will was read my friend and my friend alone got it. The last estimate, they are still finding it, he put it in this bank, in that box, in the other box, well over a million the stocks and bonds are worth. And she got it all.866 ¶8

Now her cousins aren’t speaking to her because she got it. The price she paid for money I hope that no one here will be willing to pay. She could have had all the millions she now has, plus happiness. She could have. If she only knew the law.866 ¶9

You want it, but you condition it. You want it with dignity. That statement of Millikan: “I have a lavish, steady, dependable income consistent with integrity and mutual benefit”. That’s our great Millikan, he was a poor boy too. And he grew tired of his poverty. And the story as told me by the one who interviewed him after he got the prize, the Nobel Prize, in this cosmic rays studies, and he said to her, the interviewer, “I was a poor boy, raised in a nice environment. My father was a traveling minister, he had no money but he gave us good books. We were always playing games. A strong body and a strong mind. But he had a code, a decent code. And so I wanted money, but I wanted it in this manner. So I locked myself in a room one day. I did not have even a glass of water for 16 hours. And in that interval I repeated over and over and over to myself this thought that I wrote out: I have, in the present tense, I have a lavish, steady, dependable income consistent with integrity and mutual benefit”. Well, he certainly earned it. He had all these things when he died. He had the respect of the world. He gave to the world as much or more than they gave to him. Yes, he had millions, but look what he gave to the world. That’s how he wanted it.866 ¶10

My friend could have done something similar, but no, she wanted money. And she was willing to pay the price, any price, and how she has paid it! So I warn you, yes, you want something and the thing that will fertilize it is your own wonderful human imagination. But to get exactly what you want, occupy it. I find one of the great fallacies of the world is perpetual construction, deferred occupancy. We know what we want but we leave it out there and hope that the passing of time will make it. It won’t do it. I have to occupy it and make there here. I make then now. And dwell in it just as though it were true. And if I dwell in it just as though it’s true, though one second later the phone rings and breaks the spell or someone calls me or I wake from it, I have fertilized it. You go into the state and you fertilize it. I may not recognize my harvest when it comes in due season; it will come. It may not come tonight, it may not come tomorrow, but it will come because I’ve fertilized it. I went into a state, occupied it, and the whole thing becomes fertilized.866 ¶11

For every egg has it’s own appointed hour. And it ripens and it will flower. If to me it seemed long, then I must wait, for it is sure and it will not be late.866 ¶12

These infinite states of the world are waiting for occupancy, waiting to be fertilized by us. That’s why we must become so extremely discriminating. Know what you want and do make it conform to your code of decency. Your wonderful ethical code. You don’t have to in any way tarnish that code, you don’t, to get what you want in this world. But men are not aware of that and they’re quite willing to tarnish it a bit to get what they really want in this world.866 ¶13

So here, this secret of the sperm, is God’s creative power. Now don’t be shocked if I tell you that that sperm is only the symbol of Jesus Christ. For by him all things are made. And without him there is not anything made that is made. In him is life. There is no other life. In him is life. Well if I go into a place and suddenly it becomes animated, then I must be he. Prior to that I thought he was on the outside, in some other place. And suddenly I find myself in a room and the room is sealed. Well how did I get into it? You’re told in the Scripture he suddenly appeared among the disciples after the resurrection and the door was closed. That’s a cue given to all of us. It’s not a man, it’s a supernatural power in man. That supernatural power is your own wonderful human imagination. If you’re willing to believe it you could today set out to transform your entire world.866 ¶14

But above all things become extremely selective. Don’t just compromise, don’t. Extremely selective. The state is there. The tarnished state is there and the untarnished state is there. Everything possible is there. Why do we read these words in Scripture? “He has made everything for its purpose. Even the wicked for the day of trouble.” If there were no wicked in the world then creation isn’t complete. I don’t have to be wicked, but the state is there. I could enter the state and be as wicked as the state allows. I am not the state, I am the fertilizing power animating and making alive that state. That’s why Blake said in his wonderful vision of the last judgment: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil. It falls into these states unwittingly.” You, knowing the law, don’t fall into a state unwittingly, enter the state knowingly. Go right into it if you want to animate it and make it real. And you go into a state not just for yourself alone, but for your family, your friends, your — well, anyone in this world. And just leave it. After you have fertilized it, what can you do? Let it grow. Fertilize the egg, don’t tamper with it, just let it grow. For you’ll single out a state today, it’s a state of consciousness. You enter it and clothe yourself with it. And let it grow.866 ¶15

When I exhausted every human channel to get out of the army I turned to the only God in the world. And that God is my own wonderful human imagination. In 1942 in the month of December this direction came down from Washington, D.C.: “Any man over 38 is eligible for discharge providing his superior officer allows it”. If his superior officer, meaning his battalion commander, disallows there is no appeal beyond his battalion commander. You could not take it say to the divisional commander, it stops with the battalion commander. This came down in 1942 in the month of December. They gave a deadline on it. This will come to an end on March the 1st of 1943. So anyone 38 years old before March the 1st, 1943 was eligible. All right, that is Cesar’s Law. I got my paper, made it out, they had my record, my date. I was born in 1905, on the 19th of February. So I was 38 years old before the 1st of March of 1943. So I was eligible. Turn it in to my battalion commander, who was Colonel Theodore Bilbo. His father was a senator from Mississippi. I turned it in, in four hours it came back “disapproved” and signed the colonel’s name.866 ¶16

That night I went to sleep in the assumption that I am sleeping in my apartment house in New York City. I didn’t go through the door. I didn’t go through the window. I put myself on the bed. I went right into my home that I knew so well, but I conditioned it. I could be there on furlough, a two-week furlough. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be there honorably discharged, not dishonorably, honorably discharged and a civilian in this country. So I slept in that assumption. At 4:00/4:15 in the morning here came before my inner eye a piece of paper not unlike the one that I had signed that day. On the bottom of it was “disapproved”. Then came a hand from here down holding a pen and then the voice said to me “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.” It scratched out disapproved and wrote in a big bold script “Approved”. And then I woke. I did nothing.866 ¶17

Nine days later that same colonel called me in. He said “Close the door, Goddard.” “Yes, sir.” He said “Do you still want to get out of the army?” I said “Yes, sir.” He said “You’re the best dressed man in this country, who wears the uniform of America,” I said “Yes, sir.” “You still want to get out of the army?” “Yes, sir.” Yessed him to death as I sat before him. He said “All right, make out another application and you’ll be out of the army today.” I went back to my captain, told him what the colonel had said, made out another application and he signed it and that day I was out of the army, honorably discharged. That’s all that I did. I went right into my home as a discharged soldier of our army and I’m a civilian. I slept that night in my home in New York City though physically my body was in Camp Polk, Louisiana. That’s how it works!866 ¶18

There is a state. I entered the state and fertilized it. No one was hurt and the colonel, when I went through the door that evening, he came forward and he said “Well, good luck, Goddard. I will see you in New York City after we have won this war.” I said “Yes, sir.” And that was it.866 ¶19

I share this with you to tell you how it works. This is not good and that is wrong. We are living in a world of infinite possibilities. You become discrete, you become selective. You know what you want. You hurt no one, but you must turn to God. And God is your own wonderful human imagination. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” And they answered “We choose the Lord.” You are witnesses against yourself that you have chosen the Lord. We are witnesses against ourself, for the Lord’s only name is I AM. Well, who was actually assuming that he was, in his own apartment 2,000 miles away? I AM. I am assuming I am where physically I am not. But the reality of me is not this; the reality of this speaker is his imagination. And I must be where I am in imagination. So the body was in Camp Polk, the reality of me was in that apartment of mine in New York City.866 ¶20

You will take this story and multiply it thousands of times. But here, while you are here, I would like to make it so clear that you and you alone are responsible for your own selection. I can teach you the law, that’s the law in the nutshell, what I’ve just told you, but I cannot get behind you and say “No, not that, take this.” I can’t guide your ship. I must leave you to your choice and warn you it carries a risk unless you take your wonderful code and surround it. Take your choice and make it fit your lovely moral and ethical code. You will not have to compromise.866 ¶21

So this is the secret of the sperm. You aren’t going to find it under the microscope. You aren’t going to see it go through. It is all imagination. This whole vast world that seems so real and solid and independent of our perception of it is all within our imagination. And so you single out the state that you want to activate. You go in under that state and know it as yourself and it becomes alive. Then you return to whatever you’re doing in the world of Ceasar, and that egg has been fertilized. And in a way that you do not know consciously it will simply develop, break the shell, and come forward as a fact in our life.866 ¶22

You try it today with a friend, a friend in need, someone who has no job or needs more income because of obligations. Try it. And you need not tell him that you’ve done it; leave him alone and have the satisfaction of seeing your friend with a nice job and making more money. Do it with everything in this world because you have the power and the right. The power is your imagination.866 ¶23

Paul describes Jesus Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God,” for this is not — this is creative power. Because here is a man who has all the power in the world. He can say no from now until the war is over.866 ¶24

So when it happened to me in nine days I wrote a friend of mine who was my age, who was just as eligible, and I wrote him and I told him what I had done. He never answered my letter. He’s a Freudian. By Freudian I mean he studied with Freud. He was steeped in the so-called facts of life all based upon sex. He knew nothing of this higher level. So I told him what I had done. He got out when the other millions got out after the war, because he used to come to my meetings in New York City. And he said “You know, Neville, I like hearing, I like listening to your talks. But you know what I do? I hold the seat and put my feet right down into the carpet to keep my sense of the reality and the profundity of things. You take me out of this reality, you mustn’t do that.” So he likes the reality. He was in the army, he wanted to get out and couldn’t. And I’m unreal and I got out. So I’m sharing with you the real reality.866 ¶25

If Freud only knew of these intensities of creation on higher levels compared to this level here, well you can’t – these incredible intensities on the highest level when you’re creating and you create all within yourself. You don’t divide an image, they’re to create, it’s all within yourself. And compared to this level or this level is like simply, well two out of season slugs. That’s this level. But on the higher level it’s all intense, fantastic creations. And there you see the vortices that bind man on his body. There you see unnumbered, you could never count the unnumbered vortices that ran creation. And there they are gathering intensity, or rather density, to make what they are gathering apparent in this world. They are already apparent at the higher levels, but to make them apparent here they gather density.866 ¶26

So here in a very simple way, imagining creates reality in the most minute form. There isn’t a thing in this world that is now real to us that was not once only imagined. So today start controlling your imagination and do not entertain even the idle thought because no one sees it. Read the 8th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. They thought no one saw it too. It says “Son of Man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing? Everyone in his own chamber of imagery. And they say no one sees us. The Lord has turned from us.” There’s no Lord on the outside of him, you know what you’re doing, that’s the Lord seeing. He knows exactly what you are doing because you and he are one. God became man that man may become God. So the house of Israel said, “Let us go into our chamber of darkness with all of these abominations and create because the Lord doesn’t see us, he has forsaken us.” They forgot the Lord. The Lord is your own wonderful human imagination and there is only one Lord. So you sit in the silence for a moment and you think, well, I can’t be seen, I can imagine unlovely things about that one, the other one. Don’t for one moment think the Lord doesn’t see it because you see it and you and he are one and he is creating at that very moment and you’re bringing out of your own leap the things that you are fertilizing.866 ¶27

Now about a week ago I suggested a certain technique that I learned from my old friend Abdullah. Sitting physically in one place and assuming that I am physically seated in another place. And I go from place to place. After awhile it becomes so easy and then you can open your eyes at the place where physically you really are not and when you do so you open that eye with a shock. If I am seated in a big chair in my living room and imagine I’m seated in the bedroom, when I want the shock I open my eye while I’m imagining I’m seated in the bedroom. If I open my eye when I imagine I’m seated in the living room where the body was in the beginning there’s no shock. But there’s a shock to open your eyes where the body is not because it seems so real to you. And this is how you exercise this talent. Go into any state.866 ¶28

So in essence, this being the last day, I brought you many things I have heard and experienced in the last year. Bringing stories of my friend “Crutcha”, stories of others, my own, but really the base hasn’t changed. I can’t change the base. The base is still imagining creates reality, that God and man are one. “And all that we behold, though it appears without it is within in our imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shell.” So when one takes off this little garment, where are you going to go? They are in the only reality in the world in their imagination. And they live in a world of imagination. And the day will come they’ll take it off on this level forever for they’ll rise completely into an imaginative world where everything is subject to their imaginative power.866 ¶29

So here this is educated darkness for the purpose of learning how to create. And you aren’t being judged if you create something unlovely, but create. But why create something unlovely when you know you could in some wonderful way still get your goal and put it into a lovely frame. You need not take away your wonderful ethical code. Within the framework of your code you can put your picture so you will never be ashamed of what you’ve accomplished. So many today in this world, they wouldn’t discuss how they got what they have; they wouldn’t, they are ashamed of it.866 ¶30

So if you have a goal like Millikan, take Millikan’s wonderful statement and repeat it over and over until it becomes a part of you. That’s all that he did, so he told my friend, and things opened for him. He was the one person who could see there was a potential in this study of cosmic rays and so he devoted himself to it. And while he gave his all to that, the world was looking at him and then money started pouring in to him. So he died a noble soul, one that was honored. And anyone he left behind, like his sons, his daughters, and those related to him are proud of the fact that they had a man called Millikan who was part of their physical descent. Are there any questions, please?866 ¶31

[...]the great artists of the world, no matter who they are in the world they are on this level. And what I speak of here is an entirely different level–when you experience this separation from this world and that experience I call religion. Religion is the devotion to the most exalted experience that one really has realized in this world. He is simply devoted to this reality that reason may deny, all other things deny, but he knows he has experienced it.865 ¶1

Now let me share with you this night…I see two ladies present of the three the Bible suggests or tells. Here is one that is truly sheer heaven. This lady is very, very much the lady…she’s very feminine. She said, “It was the night of January 24th, on Tuesday night, this past month. She said it had rained all day, all into the evening; finally it stopped. It was very, very still…a strange quietness permeated the atmosphere. I was alone in the den. Bob (who is her husband) had gone to bed, and I had turned off the TV. All at once something turned or opened in my head, and a voice spoke to me. The voice said, ‘I am faith, hope and love.’ Then in a little while, a deeper voice, a deep, glorious masculine voice, a voice I had never heard before, and not the voice that I had just previously heard–and it said within, ‘I am the Father.’” She said, “I was so emotionally touched that I burst into tears and I cried and cried.”865 ¶2

The shortest sentence in scripture, “Jesus wept.” At the very end of the drama, the one who was supposed to be the rock on which the whole would be now established denied the entire story three times before the cock crowed. And when the cock crowed he remembered all that was foretold him, and then he wept bitterly. Not until one had experienced it. Now to a great experience one thing is essential, an experiencing nature. For it is only from an experiencing nature that the furnaces of affliction can refine the essence of faith, hope and love.865 ¶3

Here this lady…I turn now to the 48th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “Now you will hear things that you have never known before…from of old your ears have not been opened. But I tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another”.865 ¶4

You think your ears are open. Maybe they are so perfect you have perfect pitch. I have known a few friends in my life with perfect pitch. Eleanor R. was one. A friend of mine, who goes by the name Dolores, she was another. I could be in the far, far end of the room and I’d go to the piano, strike any note or any chord, she could name it instantly. Eleanor R[...] could do it. I don’t care what you did on that piano, or on any other instrument for that matter, strike any note, instantly. As though I said to you “a” and you strike “a” or call back “a”, or I would say “I love you” and you would say “I love you”–it was just as easy as that, from any instrument in that orchestra, for Eleanor R. and for my friend Dolores. So here we think because we have this ability that our ears are open. O ur ears are sealed, sealed to the heavenly voices, completely sealed to an entirely different world.865 ¶5

So I tell you God is love. God is faith. God is hope. “Let us make man in our image”, that’s the initial hope, faith that it can be done, and it takes love to do it. Even though to us the ones that are put through the furnaces of affliction to us it seems to be hell. And yet, he first turns us into a responsive being. He turned man into a living soul that man could respond. For without response there could be no action on us…and so, only as I can respond. And then comes this moment of silence when she hears from within herself “I am faith, hope and love.” Then a voice so deep, so glorious, so masculine—and I say she’s so feminine—and this voice is saying from within herself, “I am the Father.”865 ¶6

Now, how could you ever tell her, at this moment, that she does not now incarnate God, and that God radiates from her own wonderful human Imagination? Is there a man in the world so wise that he could persuade her that she doesn’t incarnate God when she has had the experience? She knows today from her own experience, the truth of scripture. And there is no priest, no cardinal, no arch-bishop, no one that could by any degree in the world argue her out of her own wonderful experience.865 ¶7

Now here she sits, a lady unknown to the world, really, and yet she’s experienced what the great giants, judged by human standards, have not experienced. I tell you scripture is true. And the day will come that she will have a further experience not only of the voice speaking from within her as it has—it said, “I am the Father”—this voice will reveal from within her that she is the Father. And there’s only one way that she will know it, when God’s only begotten Son stands before her and calls her Father. The day will come…and I can’t conceive that it’s far off with this experience…when David will stand before her and call her Father. And then she will know, “I have found David and he has called unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation’”.865 ¶8

You would think a lady so feminine could never have the experience of being father, yet I tell you, in this dimension of which I speak we are above the organization of sex. We’re not male and female as we are here on this lower level; we’re completely above the organization of sex. And there’s only God…and yet God made up of many. It’s a compound unity, one made up of many, and all are the father of the one and only begotten son, who is the quintessence of all the experiences of men, personified as David. David will call her, Father. And she will know that the voice that spoke within, although she knows it now, is declaring the eternal truth.865 ¶9

So when we say God is love, I’m not using words, this is not a conclusion reached philosophically, this is all revelation. You stand in the presence of the risen Christ and he incorporates you into his body. There aren’t two anymore, just one. And now he incorporates her and she is one as I am one. Then he incorporates another and another, and one by one by one we are gathered into the one body, the one Spirit, and we’re all the Father. There aren’t numberless fathers in the end. All in the beginning, yes, we all fell and called ourselves “the fathers.” Then we are gathered one by one into the Father.865 ¶10

So the voice said, “I am the Father.” I can’t tell you my thrill when I got that letter. She told it to me in person and I asked her to write it. And that is the letter.865 ¶11

So here, to have a great experience there must be an experiencing nature, there must be. For only if I have an experiencing nature can the furnaces through which we must pass refine the essence of faith, hope and love. And when it happens, you can’t restrain that outburst of tears. Jesus wept. The outburst…and Peter wept bitterly when he saw the truth of all that he had heard. But he heard it intellectually; it had not yet moved him emotionally. And when the whole thing came to pass in him, well then, he wept bitterly. So everyone will one day have that experience.865 ¶12

I know how true it is, for I’m speaking from experience. You stand in the presence and answer in the words of Paul, “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” And then you’ll be embraced by man…it’s man, it’s infinite love, and that man is God. Today we speak of an over-soul, we speak of some impersonal force, and scientists get more and more abstract in their concepts of this creative power…and this creative power is man. Hasn’t a thing to do with any over-soul or any intangible force, it is all man, and speaks with the voice that I speak with now. You hear it in the tongue in which you were born. Were you German, you would have heard it in the tongue wherein you were born. Were you Swede, were you anything, whatever is the natural tongue, you would have heard it in that tongue. It is all, yet it is human, and one being. You stand in the presence of an infinite God that is man. It’s all love.865 ¶13

So I tell you, I can’t tell my thrill, my joy, in hearing it from an audience of this size… how fast they’re all awakening in this room. Now it may come to you in this manner.865 ¶14

Now here is another, we’re told in the Book of Genesis, the doubling of a dream means that God has fixed it and that it shall shortly come to pass, the doubling of a dream. Now, she said, “Neville, while you were gone”—I was gone for two months and I closed the 16th of December and opened, as you know, last week, the 16th of February—“in that interval I had this experience. I’m in an enormous mountainous country, and here in a very deep valley runs a river. On the banks of the river I noticed three stone elephants. As I look at them they become animated, the three elephants become alive. Then enter the river and swim down the river. While still in my dream I say to myself, ‘This is the second time I have dreamed of stone elephants. Only a couple of weeks ago I dreamt of stone elephants, but instead of being formed when I saw them, I looked at the mountain and out of the mountain that’s solid granite came three elephants. They came out of the mountain. But the mountain was just as solid and still as they were, the ones that were formed, and they came out. I remembered this is my second dream of stone elephants. When I woke, I realized it was my third dream.”865 ¶15

And the first dream, I do have the letter at home, so that she was not exaggerating concerning these dreams. For I have the third letter at home. In this letter there are two. The first letter she said, “I saw elephants, many of them, at the mating season, and they were all in the creative act. I saw the little ones and these big ones, at the mating season, all in the creative act. So here, three times I saw the picture of elephants.”865 ¶16

Now, there is a language of symbolism that is universal. You will find this in The Lost Language of Symbolism by Bayley. The elephant, whether it be in Africa, in China, in Europe, or here, in the depths of the soul the elephant is a symbol of the creative power and wisdom of God. Well, the creative power and wisdom of God is defined in the first chapter of Corinthians as Jesus Christ. You read it, “And Jesus Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God”. In this case, it’s symbolized as an elephant. So what did she dream about? We are told that God speaks to man through the medium of a dream and reveals himself in a vision. Here, is a dream so vivid it borders on vision. For in the dream she remembers that there was another dream that was similar. So this is more than a dream, it’s bordering on a self-revelation which is God revealing himself in her.865 ¶17

What is the revelation? That the creative power is now known to her and she will, in the immediate present, have tangible proof of the fact that her own wonderful human Imagination is Christ Jesus. For all things are possible to God, and by the exercise of this power she can prove this is the creative power of the universe. For here it came and shortly it will be proven. She must have some objective in this world, either for herself or some member of her family or for something in this world…and because all things are possible to God and she’s found God symbolized here in the creative act, for this is the creative act; then comes turning stone into something alive. So something seemingly is dead in her world, but it doesn’t matter. The power is not there, not in space, not in the stars, not in teacup leaves, not in anything outside of your own wonderful human Imagination. There is nothing outside of your own wonderful Imagination. “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” To prove it, they were all dead, they were made of stone. Is there anything more inanimate than stone, more dead? And so she looked at it and her beholding it and it became animated, became activated, entered the stream of life and started now, here in this wonderful mountainous area. All through scripture and he speaks from the mountain. When he reveals something fantastically marvelous, he takes them into the mountain tops. When he would transfigure himself, into the mountain he goes. Here in a mountainous area it is all revealed to her, the creative power of herself.865 ¶18

For I repeat, God the Creator and our wonderful human Imagination are one and inseparable; therefore, he can never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. It can’t be another; you can’t turn to another. You can’t lift your eyes and pray to any outside God. You can’t cross yourself and hope that someone outside of you sees it. It’s all within you.865 ¶19

Now she knows, as my other friend knows, she incarnates God, and God radiates from her. In what manner, in her own wonderful human Imagination. What are you imagining? If it is a painful thought and it hasn’t yet caught fire within you, and you imagine something disastrous has come to pass, no matter what it is, it will all come to pass. There is nothing in this world but what it was once first imagined.865 ¶20

On the 19th day of December…I think it was the 19th or the 19th of January, I do not have the papers before me. It was in a magazine called the National Observer. But it was in December that they printed a picture of this demolished railroad trestle, and here a train is suspended, that is one of the cars is, and the engine on the ground, and the whole thing is broken. A huge section of it…and two sections separated by an enormous width…and these cars demolished and one pushed over the ledge. Someone in Virginia…now this happened in Idaho, in Ruben, Idaho. Here in Springfield, Virginia, a reader of the paper saw the picture and thought, “That’s strangely familiar” and remembered “Well, I simply drew this picture.” Nineteen years before he made a pen and ink sketch of that picture. He took a picture of it and sent it in to the National Observer. When they saw it, it was a duplicate practically of what actually happened this past year. It was nineteen years before that he had conceived it and he said, “All out of my own Imagination. I had no model that I used to draw it. There was no record. I had no picture, no memory image of such an accident, I simply conceived it.” Out of his own Imagination he drew this thing in a pen and ink sketch, had it framed at home, and he’s kept it through the years, his own creation.865 ¶21

He said to editor, “Isn’t it strange that my picture out of my own Imagination so closely resembles the actual”—and he called the one that happened here “the actual.” What is the actual? His is the actual; this is the effect, this is the world of shadow. He drew the actual and we saw what we called the actual—it’s only the effect, it’s only the shadow world. I have that picture at home. It appeared in December of last year as a single picture of the fact, and re-appeared with its duplicate preceding it by nineteen years in the January issue of this last month. I didn’t see it. A friend of mine buys it only for the crossword puzzle, and seeing it, knowing what I teach, that imagining creates reality, she cut it out and mailed it to me. That meant nothing to her as a picture, but she said, “Neville teaches this, that imagining creates reality and that everything in this world is only the effect of some imaginal cause. And no matter whether you know it or not, it had to be preceded by an imaginal act.”865 ¶22

And here, nineteen years before the so-called event, this man out of his own Imagination draws a pen and ink sketch and had it framed. He loved it. It’s a marvelous picture. And here is this railroad trestle demolished with the hanging cars, those on the ground, everything…even to the trees surrounding it, all the pine trees. Nothing was left out from that original to the so-called fact, that we call a fact. So I say to this lady, you have touched in the depths of your soul…and you say on three occasions…and I have your two letters. One you have given me the double vision, and in one you gave me the single. I say you’ve touched the creative power of God, and no one in this world can take it from you. It has grown within you to the point of revealing itself in vision. You’re beyond, now, turning back. You can’t turn back.865 ¶23

Those who have not had the vision can turn back. And they are likened to those on whom the seed fell and then they quickly, eagerly took it, but then the cares of the day came, and they were just as though it fell upon thorns, and it was all snuffed out. Then there are those…it fell on the highway and they find it and it grew like this. Someone says, “Oh well, it would have happened anyway,” and they conceded, “Well, maybe it would have…strange coincidence.” And that goes to seed. In your case, my dear, you can’t turn back. There is no power on earth that can turn you back to any orthodoxy in the world now, for you have seen the symbol of the creative power of God, starting with the creative act, and then you turning stone into something alive, and then into the stream of life.865 ¶24

You now know you can take something that seemingly is dead—a condition of health, a condition of someone who is unemployed, a condition of something that is barren, it’s stone—and in your own mind’s eye you represent it as something alive and real and wonderful. What you want in place of what you see, and turn what you want into something alive to supplant the thing that you saw. You have that power now.865 ¶25

The other…he’s not here…and his is on another level. Here he sees a home…the window display, the door display, and something strange about both window and door. There’s a radiance that comes from it, a glow, and it radiates a certain distance. Then someone from a group–he doesn’t recognize anyone from the group–but someone said to him, “When you enter the house, how can we know that it is you who actually is doing the bidding?” and he replied, “I will do what is necessary, but no matter what I do, you will still say, ‘This is a trick.’” And then a voice spoke from within him and the voice said, “I have powers I know not of.” The voice doesn’t address him as another by saying, “I have powers ye know not of.” No, “I have powers I know not of.” Now, he said, “As I began to awake from it all, there was the house, the windows and the doors. I saw it differently.”865 ¶26

But, you see, he had not yet entered it. He has powers he knows not of, but he has not entered the state of consciousness to exercise it. He still knows when he enters it and things happen, it is he who will say, “Well, it would have happened anyway.” These are not others…there is nothing but self in this world. So those who questioned him and said that when it happens how will we know? Well, he answered in the affirmative, but there was a doubt. When he enters that new state of consciousness, he will still not be quite sure that his imaginal act was the cause of the phenomena that will confront him. So here, there are different levels of the revealing of God in man.865 ¶27

The first part was this fantastic “I am the Father.” In the not distant future she will know it in the most intimate manner. Not a voice that is a masculine voice when her voice is so feminine. Not a voice speaking from the depth of her soul, “I am the Father.” But she will know she is the Father when the only begotten son stands before her and calls her, Father. In the meanwhile, she knows she incarnates God the Father, for she heard the voice within herself, and he now radiates from her own wonderful human Imagination. She knows that I am faith, I am hope, I am love. She’s read it in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, she’s heard it from platforms, but she knows it now, where it really is: It’s not in the Bible, 13 Corinthians, it’s within her, that’s where.865 ¶28

The wonderful revelation it is, I am faith, I am hope, I am love. Now she’s heard it said, “I am the Father.” “He who has seen me has seen the Father. You ask me to show you the Father? Have I been so long with you and you have not seen the Father? He who has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one. Had you known me you would have known the Father, for we are one”. And they thought him another. She knows now who the Father is. Now she knows these are the words of Jesus Christ, therefore, she knows who Jesus Christ is. That Jesus Christ is not a character 2,000 years ago; Jesus Christ is her own wonderful human Imagination, declaring itself to be the Father.865 ¶29

She heard it coming from within herself…a glorious masculine voice. Now she’s going to see the one who called him, Lord, call her, Lord. And she’s going to stand and see David appear before her, and David will call her, Father. So David in the Spirit called me Lord. If he called me Father, how then can I be David’s son when he calls me, Father? She’s going to have that experience and she’s going to know all that I have said from this platform is true.865 ¶30

So I repeat, we will not know the truth, not in eternity, until we experience it. After we have experienced the truth we cannot deny it, anymore than we can the humblest evidence of our senses. So she will know the ultimate and the ultimate is when she, herself, is revealed as God the Father and that there is no other God the Father. There is no other God, but he is father, and that’s his final revelation to man. That he is power, yes, that’s his first revelation, Almighty God, El Shaddai; his second revelation, I AM, that’s my name forever. So we are told, “My name is in you. Listen. Take heed and harken to his voice, for my name is in you.” She knows now the name is in her, for it came from within her when she heard “I am the Father.”865 ¶31

She knows now that the ear was open, as you’re told in the 40th Psalm, “Thou hast given me an open ear.” And may I tell you, when this passage is quoted in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, they do not quote it in this manner, but now he quotes it, “Sacrifices and offerings thou didst not require, but a body thou hast prepared for me.” She felt the body prepared with its opened ear. That phrase, “Thou hast given me an open ear” is now quoted in the 10th of Hebrews as “a body thou hast prepared for me.” So now she has felt that immortal body that cannot die, and she heard with its ear. For first the ear was opened–something turned and opened in her, and then she heard. So he said, “From of old you have not heard,” and man thinks he’s heard. These wonderful ears within that hear such tones that have been played. Like the deaf Beethoven, but he heard tones of this age. He was deaf and still he could hear within himself these tones. This is not the ear of which I speak. This is not the body of which I speak. I speak of an entirely different body, the body that has been prepared. And she has been put through the furnaces.865 ¶32

So, judge not from appearances. You will see the lady…her husband is known, very well known in his profession…and she goes as his wife. You would say unknown only by the reason of the fact he is known…and yet in the eyes of God, here, the body has been prepared for her to the point of the ear being open. And all those who are now being be-medaled and building monuments to them, and giving all kinds of honors, they’ll make their exit to continue in the world of the deaf, to continue in the world of the dead. Nothing really dies, but this world is a state and the state is as dead as this world. But she will enter the world of life, for the body has been prepared and the ear is open.865 ¶33

So I say to everyone, take me literally and test it…especially the lady who told me her story concerning the elephant. Being a mother of many she has her problems, because all mothers have problems. If you’re a mother, you say you never sleep…not [...] from then on. You hear it all through the infancy stage, and then there’s always that desire that they have and they can’t realize and they turn to mother. And so, she had the opportunity now of granting their wishes by the exercise of the only creative power in the world, her own wonderful human Imagination.865 ¶34

So let them turn, doesn’t really matter, let them all turn, for the simple reason they’re all yourself pushed out anyway. There’s nothing but you made visible. And so, in her case let them all come. Do it effortlessly. You don’t burst a blood vessel to do it, you do it in faith. Well, you’re patient, you can wait. If they’re anxious, you won’t be anxious with them. You’re patient, you heard it, you’ve seen it clearly, and now you go in confidence that it’s done. So you rest in confidence that it’s done.865 ¶35

So here, your faith, if you believe it, is justified not by any argument in the world but by an experience. Let them come and argue. As someone said, “You ministers are making a frightful mistake. In your pulpits you’re arguing for Christianity and no one wants to hear your arguments. Does this thing work? Well then, share it with the rest of us.” You can get in that pulpit and argue forever. So you are telling me what you believe and you make a confession of faith, and you confess to me what you believe. I’m not interested. Tell me why you believe it.865 ¶36

Now these two ladies can tell why they believe in Christ. One knows from within herself—“I heard his voice, and the voice said to me exactly what is written in scripture that he said and now recorded as the written word.” Here, I’m a witness to the invisible word, the Spirit of what we see there in the written word—“I am the Father.” For you read these words in the 14th of John, “I am the Father. He who has seen me has seen the Father, for I am the Father.” You read it in the 10th of John, “I and the Father are one.” So you read them in John…well, she’s heard them in herself. Now she knows where the true Spirit is, where the scripture really is. So there are the two witnesses–the external witness of scripture and the internal witness of her Spirit.865 ¶37

I tell my other friend she has touched and seen the power within herself. She has animated the seeming dead. What you saw is the symbol of the creative power and wisdom of God, and the wisdom and the power of God is Jesus Christ; and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. So take it and go out and try it with everything in this world. Try it using these three virtues. For our whole vast [...] rests upon these virtues. Out of the three virtues comes our civilized world: Faith, hope and love.865 ¶38

So someone wants some- thing, imagine that they have it. And have confidence that in its own good time it comes to pass, in a way that you need not devise. And you need not in any way tell anyone what you’ve done, you simply know what you want and feel it, and have faith. That’s how the world was raised by the word of God. Through faith we understand the world was created by the word of God .865 ¶39

And to all I say, set your hope fully upon this grace, for the extravagant grace of God is the sole hope of man. What is that grace? That he gives himself to us, individually. He gives himself to me as though there where no other in the world, just the two of us. And finally, not two, just one…and I am he. When that comes, his son stands before me and calls me, Father, and then I know I am he. Then I know who I am. That is his ultimate, extravagant grace to man—to give himself to man.865 ¶40

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * [...].865 ¶41

Don’t argue with anyone. Let those who want to feel that the Holy Spirit [...], perfectly alright. You’ll notice in every morning’s paper that someone contradicts the wise man of the day before. You might have seen yesterday’s L. A. Times, where Einstein is now being challenged by Professor Dickey, who’s on here to give these two lectures at Cal Tech. He challenges him seriously concerning his concepts of his general theory, not his specific theory, but his general theory of relativity. And the wise men are listening to this Mr. Dickey as they listened to Mr. Einstein when he challenged Newton, when Newton challenged the one before him, and they’ll go on and on. Each will dethrone the other. And in the end, the whole thing will be as so much foolishness in the eyes of God. In the end, all the wisdom of man will be just so much foolishness in eyes of God. And you’ll stand, that is, we will stand because we’re all one, amazed at our stupidity as we wrestled with phantoms, with shadows. I tell you scripture is true. I know it from my own experience, I have experienced scripture.865 ¶42

Note in lecture professor is spelled incorrectly. It is Dicke.865 ¶43

God’s almighty power and wisdom express themselves most characteristically in the acceptance of what the world calls weakness or foolishness. So I ask you, “Do you know what you want?” and you say, “Yes, I know.” And then I ask you, “Do you know what it would feel like if you had it?” and you reply, “Yes, I think I do.” Then I tell you to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Then you may say, “Well then, after that, what?” I say, “Nothing…just assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and live in that assumption as though it were true.” You may question my sanity, but that is the best channel for God’s almighty power and wisdom to express itself. You find yourself behind the eight-ball and you apply it and then it works. You may not have an occasion to apply it for another year, two years, three years, but do you remember what you did?864 ¶1

Now this is the whole story: I tell you that you really are the Jesus Christ of scripture. Tonight we’ll take one section of the unfolding story. He is baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove; and knowing scripture he interprets that to mean that he is the Son of God, clothed with power, clothed with the Holy Spirit, which is the power and wisdom of God. So now he is the power and wisdom of God. Then we are told that he was moved in Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And then he hungered, for he had not eaten and he had nothing to drink in forty days and forty nights…reminding one of the story of Moses on the mount for forty days and forty nights. Well here, now we are told that someone stands before him in the form of an adversary, an accuser, and the first one is, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread”. He replied, quoting only scripture, for “he comes to fulfill scripture” and he has just fulfilled scripture in the descent of the dove. Now he’s wrestling with himself. This whole drama is taking place within the individual and it is wholly subjective. There is no outside objective tyrant; it’s all within himself. He is questioning…what he knows from scripture is happening to him. He knows from scripture because of what has just happened that he is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Well, if I am the power and wisdom of God, I am testing myself. So it’s now put in the form of an adversary that seemingly comes from without when the whole thing is from within, for he’s all alone. So anyone who records it in scripture, like the evangelists, would have to be told it by the one who had the experience…for no one was present. It’s all taking place within the individual.864 ¶2

I know from scripture what has happened. I interpret scripture to mean, well, then I am the elect, I am the chosen, I am one who is now as of this moment the Son of God. Being the Son of God I am his creative power and his wisdom. If I am his power and his wisdom, then turn these into bread…and he answers, “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”. His hunger is not for bread, but for every word. His hunger is for the hearing of the Word of God with understanding…that is his hunger.864 ¶3

Now, the same conflict is taking place within himself and he’s asking himself, but it seems to be coming from without. He takes him now to the pinnacle, “Cast yourself down, for it is written”—now the adversary is quoting scripture and he quotes the 91st Psalm. The first one was the 8th chapter of Deuteronomy. Now he quotes the 91st Psalm, “For it is written that he gives his angels power to lift you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.” He replies (also quoting) “It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Now comes a third and final temptation. He shows him all the kingdoms of the earth and said, “All these are yours if you will bend down and worship me.” Again he quotes the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy and he comes back with this, “It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve”. Then the adversary departed and he’s left with himself now…and now starts the great ministry.864 ¶4

Well now, who is the Lord my God that I should worship and the only one that I should serve? That’s what man must discover. I tell you from experience who it is: I tell you it is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s the Lord your God. It is one with the God that created the whole vast world. The finest or the richest definition of God given to us in scripture is as “The Father of the Lord our God.” I discovered I am the Son by experiences of scripture, but the Son and the Father are one. The Father is defined as power in scripture and so is the Son. Paul defines him as “the power of God and the wisdom of God”. Now, in the story as told us in the Book of Mark, at the very end, the high priest said to him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” He said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power”. Power is capitalized…it’s the name given in this passage to God. The name was given first “the Blessed”… “Are you the Son of the Blessed?”…“the Blessed” is the name given to God. He is called Blessed; he is called Power. So he can easily say now, “I and my Father are one”. I am one, for I am the Power, I am the Blessed; and he’s called in Luke, “the Wisdom of God.”864 ¶5

Now here is this being that is everything that is said of God…but it just happened within. The whole thing that God is unfolding is himself, so that all the characteristics of God belong to him. But now he’s puzzled. It has just happened…all these…now he’s putting himself to the test. It is told in scripture as though another being appears…as in your own mind’s eye you’re questioning yourself. You are in conflict with self. If this thing is true, well then, I should be able to do anything in this world, for all things are possible to God. But I must not tempt the Lord. I must not tempt him therefore the only way is to trust him. I do not say, “If you really are God, well then, you do it”; that is “you must not tempt the Lord your God.”864 ¶6

So again, let me repeat what I said in the opening, God’s almighty power and wisdom express themselves most characteristically in the acceptance—now that’s most important—in the acceptance of what the world calls weakness or foolishness. For, it is foolishness for me to believe when I am in a camp and we are at war, and it’s a brutal war, and I know by the traditions of men that I was not given a certain time interval. Like going to jail for six months, and at the end of six months and possibly before, but the maximum would be six months, for that is my sentence…could get off a few months for good behavior. But in the Army you don’t get off for good behavior, you are in for the duration…and we are in for the duration, and we are at war, and it’s a horrible war. But you don’t want any part of it. You firmly believe the scripture. You firmly believe who Jesus Christ really is and he is your own wonderful human Imagination. He is God, one with God, and all things are possible to him. But you can’t compel him: He will act only as I imagine the wish fulfilled. I cannot compel him to do anything. I can trust him. And so I sleep as though I were where I would be if I were honorably discharged and out of the Army. I do everything in my mind’s eye that I would do were it a physical fact…and then go to sleep. Then comes a vision, the very thing that I was denied comes before me and it’s all crossed out, and when the Colonel said “Disapproved” the hand of God said “Approved”…wrote it in bold script. Then the voice said to me “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing!” Then I awoke and in nine days I was honorable discharged by the same Colonel and back in my home in New York City.864 ¶7

Now, I remember what I did. So a few years later confronted with a similar problem where I am now in an island and can’t get out. But to quote the words of Paul in his letter to Timothy, he said, “I know whom I have believed.” I remember whom I have believed. I couldn’t go to any higher echelon, I couldn’t appeal to any higher state in the Army, it rested with my colonel, and I couldn’t pull any strings. But I knew exactly what I did, so I can say with Paul “I know whom I have believed.” And that change in tense is very significant. I know exactly what I did and I’ll do it again. So when I was told I couldn’t get out for months to come, I assumed once more I am where I would be if my dream, my desire now were true; and I slept in that assumption as though it were true. The next day the phone rang and here was confirmation of what I had desired and what I had put into practice.864 ¶8

So then I knew from actual experimental faith the one that I believed. Go out and share it now with the whole vast world. But I must start with that one solid Rock: That you will worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Well, the Lord your God is your own wonderful human Imagination. If you’re going to serve another, then you don’t know God. If you think, “Now he told me this morning, ‘I’m going to take care of you. You just trust me…I will promote you, I’ll get behind you, I’ll do all these things for you!’ and my trust is in him, the boss, and he’s a wonderful man. He told me that “You know, you just do what I tell you, work for so much now, and eventually I will get you more and more” and my trust is in him,” then you don’t trust in God. You don’t trust in the real God when you put your faith in anyone outside of your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God and there is no other God. This is the only God.864 ¶9

So if I think “I know the right people,” that’s a false god. If I think “I have enough security,” that’s a false god. Maybe you aren’t old enough to remember, but I was in London in 1925, dancing for 100 pounds a week and that was $480 U.S. We had these offers to go to Paris, go to Germany, and I said, “Well, pay me in American money…that to me is solid…or pay me in pounds.” The pound was worth four dollars and eighty cents. They said, “No, you’ll take it in Marks or take it in Francs.” I said, “Oh, no you don’t.” You got your money and you got it in a wheel cart and you rushed as fast as you could to buy a few loaves of bread…billions of Marks. They printed it so that they didn’t have enough paper. Paper was more valuable than the thing that you had called money. That…and people put their trust in that. I went over on a boat with this German family from Milwaukee and they had enormous securities in Marks and they thought themselves very, very rich. They were American by adoption, but they were Germans by birth. They lived here through the years, and their son was born here. So we got together, a nice friendly party, ten days across the Atlantic in those days, and they thought themselves very, very rich. Before they got back they were poorer than church mice. Everything was completely wiped out…but everything wiped out. So, that’s a false god. Your boss, that’s a false god. I don’t care what it is outside of yourself, that’s a false god.864 ¶10

And so the third temptation is when he stopped. There was no more conflict within the mind of the one because he’s all alone. There is no devil, no Satan; Satan is only my own doubts. And so I can’t believe it…here is man who by the grace of God was born…believes that things are not possible to God. He, born by the grace of God, now gives to God the feeling of impossibility. So Blake said wisely in his Vision of the Last Judgment, “Satan”—now he personifies the same doubt in the mind of man—“Satan thinks that sin displeases God. He ought to know nothing displeases God but unbelief and eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Nothing displeases God but unbelief. “Unless you believe I am he, you die in your sins”. If I actually believe that I am the one that formerly I thought to be without, I will continue missing the mark and die in missing the mark.864 ¶11

And so the last temptation, “All these will be yours if you will worship me. It is written” said he, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shall thou serve.” Well, am I serving him and him only? If I do, things should come to pass, for there’s no other channel that he will accept than confidence and trust in him. So I’ll believe in him 100 percent. Go to bed this night…and I need x-number of dollars. Alright, there’s no one to whom I can turn, no collateral, nothing, but I have to have it. Can I believe in him…knowing that all things are possible to him? Can I turn to him in absolute confidence and trust and assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and for a moment mentally act as I would act were it true? And sleep regardless of all the people in the world who are dunning me to pay off…ignore it completely? I cannot devise the means, I do not know how it’s going to work, but I must actually trust his power and his wisdom, and sleep as though it were true. Then in a way no one knows and I could not have devised it works.864 ¶12

Well then, I must always remember whom and not what…this is a person. I’m a person, I am trusting myself, but in the depths of my own being, for I know whom not what I have trusted. I know whom I have believed and that is now assured knowledge. Here, the present knowledge indicates my past trust and all of a sudden it happens. This is how this wonderful principle works.864 ¶13

So I say, no matter what you are this night and how you are behind the eight-ball, the nature of that eight-ball, can you actually meet that third test? There are three tests given. The first is the hunger not for earthy things but for the hearing of the word of God, can you become that hungry? Well, that’s his first test. The second test, when “Cast yourself down. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” I was on a marathon one night in New York City, six hours on radio from midnight until six in the morning with a panel of five and a moderator. This professor said to me when I was speaking of Imagination creating reality, he said, “If that is true, turn this pencil into yellow.” It was a black pencil or a white pencil but it wasn’t yellow. I said, ‘All right, bring me some yellow paint. I’ll do it right away, turn it right into yellow for you. Bring me some yellow paint and that’s a simple matter.” But no, “I want you by your Imagination to simply imagine that thing is yellow.” I said to him—and he had told all of his pupils in his school that he would be on all night and he’s going to get this man. I said, “You know, you are the scoffer of the Bible. ‘Scoffers will come in the last days saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?’” He was so embarrassed and so annoyed he said, “I’m no scoffer.” I said, “Oh, yes you are. You’re scoffing at scripture, and I tell you, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” He said, “Are you my God?” I said, “I didn’t say that. You must find him. You find the Lord your God because you’re tempting him and you don’t know it. You haven’t found the Lord your God…but you’re a professor in your college…perfectly alright. But one day you’ll find him and you’ll find him when you are all alone. You’ll find him after a great event when you are revealed to yourself as the Son of God…and the Son of God is the power of God and the wisdom of God. You will know that if you are the power and the wisdom of God you should be able to do all things, for all things are possible to God. And the Son and the Father are one.”864 ¶14

So you will now confront yourself and the adversary will say, “Turn it into yellow.” Within your own mind you’re going to say, “Well, let me take myself together, let me imagine this thing that is now white before my eyes, let it turn into yellow, and you know it’s white. You haven’t trusted at all. So I can say, “I want a yellow pencil tomorrow, or a yellow pencil instead of this” and trust him implicitly, and someone tomorrow that you admire, or if you didn’t admire, you would not want to offend, will say, “You know, I saw the loveliest yellow pencil and I brought it for you.” You wouldn’t want this and turn it away. And so you say, “That isn’t turning it into.” Well now, again you come down and you haven’t quite met the test. Trust him implicitly because everyone in the world is a hand of his. Everyone in the world aids what you have assumed. I don’t care what it is. It may take one million in this world to play their parts to actually bring to pass what you have assumed that you are or that you have. Don’t judge them…leave them alone. They’re going to play the part they must play to come into your world and actually produce what you’ve assumed that you are. And this is the world in which we live.864 ¶15

So here, Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. Believe it! If you believe it you will see this wonderful story unfold within you. It’s all in scripture…here, “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord our God”. Yes, he is the Father of the Lord, of my own wonderful I-am-ness, for my I-am-ness is the image of him. His name is I AM and I say “I am,” so it’s the image. But in the end we are one, for there’s nothing but God in the end. “For in that day the Lord shall be king over all the earth; and his name shall be one and the Lord one”…only one. So I say “I am” and I’m told by him “My name is I AM.” So now I trust in my own Lord and firmly and implicitly believe it.864 ¶16

Well, if I duplicate it and then I do another one and another one and another one, then I share it with all in my world and they do it too, then I have found the Lord. I have found him of whom Moses in the law wrote and all the prophets wrote. Of whom did they write?—they wrote of the Messiah…they wrote of Christ.864 ¶17

Well, I discovered him. I discovered him, for first of all, I heard of him, and long before he unveiled himself in me I began to practice what he told me to practice. One day he unveiled himself in a series of events. Every event I found in scripture and these events belong only to the Son of God. Then I knew I was the Son of God…the same, the identical being that the world worships falsely on the outside and calls him Jesus Christ. So they go to their church and pray to a God that does not exist. He doesn’t exist at all. The God that really does exist makes you alive or you couldn’t breathe. You could not for one second exist as we understand the word were he not now housed within you.864 ¶18

So now find him and trust him, trust him implicitly. But let me warn you, he does not accept any orders, any compulsion. Only as you will imagine the wish fulfilled will he act upon it. So this enormous infinite power and wisdom expresses itself only as you accept the being that he really is…as you accept it. So do you accept it? Well now, believe it this night. As you put your head on that pillow, just snuggle into the mood of the wish fulfilled in absolute confidence and trust that he has ways and means that the surface mind of himself knows not of…and then trust him implicitly.864 ¶19

I waited nine days for confirmation…but I waited. I must confess I was encouraged by the vision of the first night when I saw that paper come before me and it had the word “Disapproved” and it had my Colonel’[s name; and then it came, the hand of God, the right hand, and here it scratched it out and boldly wrote in script “Approved.” Then it said to me, “That which I have done I have done!” and now comes the command, “Do nothing!” So I did nothing. And the same one who disapproved nine days before calls me in and grants me an honorable discharge, and then shakes my hand and tells me, “I will see you in New York after we have won the war.” I thanked him…not going to argue with him at all. He’s a nice man…perfectly marvelous wonderful man playing a wonderful part in the role that he is cast to play. But that’s not my role and back to New York City I went.864 ¶20

My mother-in-law could hardly believe that I was honorably discharged. She said, “Neville, you aren’t running away, this is not AWOL is it?” I said, “No, I’m not any AWOL, I’m honorably discharged. Here are my papers, and now I can take this off right now and get into my civvies.” They fell on me because in the army I simply went down to nothing in weight because I didn’t want their food at all…couldn’t eat it. You have to acquire that taste after awhile. For my first four months I just would go into the place, I couldn’t take anything that they gave me, so I just simply didn’t want the food. And it was from sheer not wanting the food they offered. But you can’t strike and say, well, I want some other kind of food. You take it or you leave it, so I left it. But I remembered…and so I know whom I have believed.864 ¶21

Then when confronted years later with a similar problem, where I’m told I can’t get out, not for months, I had to get out. I had an agreement to be in Milwaukee on a certain day, so I got out by the same application. I trusted whom? I didn’t call anyone on the outside, I didn’t ask anyone to use their so-called influence; I simply assumed that I’m on a boat looking at the island and see it nostalgically because I loved it, and I had that mixed feeling of loving to be there and still wanting to get back to my apartment in New York City…that peculiar mixture of feelings, the bittersweet. Then the next day I got confirmation that I was sailing on the next sailing of that boat. So I tell you, believe it, that you, too, may say with Paul “I know whom I have believed” and you will not fail.864 ¶22

So you’ve got to find the one being in this world that is the Lord your God. And the Lord your God is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s the Lord your God. And you get to the point that you trust him implicitly, and do not raise a finger to aid. If tomorrow morning you awaken and you’re under compulsion to do a certain thing, all well and good. You will move under compulsion, but you yourself do not devise the means. You don’t say, “Now if I go in this way and argue the point,” no, you simply can’t resist it…you’re moving under compulsion.864 ¶23

Here is a lady whose story I told, I think, in The Law and The Promise, and she took off to Paris with her two children and left her maid in charge of her home in New York City, her apartment. When she came back the apartment was empty and she’d been paying the rent month after month, but the maid took all the furniture and just simply left. Well, she went to the police department, she employed a private detective, and she did everything humanly speaking. Then she came to me. I said, “Let us sit quietly in the Silence, and you are now in your apartment, and you can see everything that you had, but everything, it’s all there. Now look at the piano, look at what you had on the piano…see everything just as you remember it and feel the presence of it…it’s now.” In the not distant future, matter of days, she goes to her bank on Madison Avenue, and when she came out, she absentmindedly (so she thought) turned in the wrong direction and went one block before she realized that she was walking in the opposite direction. But at that moment she looked over and she saw a very familiar pair of ankles. She said, “Now that belongs to only one person in this world”…her maid, and looking up, there was her maid. The light just turned and she grabbed the maid and said, “I’m not letting you go until you take me to where my furniture is!” The maid was frightened and she began to scream. She called a taxi and said, “You take me exactly to where that is either stored or where you have it.” She did and every piece was in tact. She said, “I’m not pressing anything against you.”864 ¶24

Now, all we did was to simply trust the Lord our God. What would I have done to find the furniture for her when the New York police couldn’t find it, the private detectives couldn’t find it? She employed all kinds of people to find it and they went to all the warehouses investigating, but no one could give her any leads on it. And here, we trusted the Lord our God, that’s all we did. I didn’t get down on my knees and she certainly didn’t. I just simply sat in the Silence and assumed that she’s telling me that she’s found it. I asked her to say to me that “I am now sitting in my living room and all the things that I lost are not lost, they’re all back.” And when we broke the Silence, I forgot it completely, because not a thing I could have done to aid the search, and then it happened.864 ¶25

Well then, who is the Lord? If it happened that way, then who is the one who creates all things? For we’re told in scripture: “By him all things were made; and without him was not anything made that was made”. Well, I know exactly what we did and I know exactly what happened; therefore that was how it was made.864 ¶26

Now man finds it difficult to believe in such power housed within him. Yet he will read the scripture, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?”, and “Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God”, and Jesus Christ and God are one. He reads that but he goes right off and takes all the nonsense in the world on the outside, moving before man-made little altars, bowing before it, and believing that something on the outside is specially equipped individual to interpret God to him; and he dares to claim that he is the sole, I would say, deposit of the wisdom of God. What nonsense! God is housed in every child born of woman. But they are misled by all this nonsense in the world concerning who God really is, and they worship a false god that never existed and never will. There’s only God…there’s nothing but God. There is no intermediary, none whatsoever. So don’t think of God, and then Jesus Christ is the intermediary, and then you…oh no! It’s God and only God, and God became just what I am that I may be just what he is. That is the story.864 ¶27

Read the 20th chapter of the Book of Acts. Scholars…but you must read it in the King James Version because they give the true literal translation. The Revised Standard Version cannot believe their own eyes so they translate the word God as “the Lord” and when you read “the Lord” in scripture, it always means Jesus, so it could be Jesus…and it isn’t so at all. That “By the blood of God we are redeemed”…there’s only God. So God became just as I am with all of my weaknesses, all of my limitations, that I may become as he is, sharing in everything, all the divine nature. And that is used in that translation.864 ¶28

So I tell you, you are his love and that’s why he became you. Now trust it, trust it implicitly. But you can trust it only if you completely accept what is told in scripture: The weakness of man is just what he uses and the foolishness of man is what he uses, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God.864 ¶29

They think themselves so wise. They’re going to rationalize everything and find him one day on a planet or in a corner. No, we’ll go to the Moon, we’ll go to the stars, we’ll go to everything, because whatever man can imagine man can do. Don’t think for one second he can’t. And so someone today who knows nothing of science is dreaming fiction….but there is no fiction. Tomorrow, the so-called scientific mind will devise the means to fulfill the dream of the one who knows nothing of science because he’s dreaming. The dreamer is God and all things are possible to God. So you simply dream this night that you are exactly what you want to be; and then trust this being implicitly that you may say, I know I have believed, and then let it happen. And may I tell you, it will happen!864 ¶30

A man stands before the water looking out…waiting for the little ladies to come back, for he heard they had a few cattle for sale. That man was my father, and he and my brother Victor went up to see this little place, thirty-five acres. Well, that’s a big place in Barbados when it’s a home, and these three sisters lived in this area. Then when they came in my father said—having seen the cattle, which he bought for the slaughter house—to her or to one of the ladies, “If you ever decide to sell, remember me and give me a chance to bid.” Then he turned to my brother Victor and said, “This would be the ideal spot for a hotel.” Now, this is years and years ago when I was still in my teens.864 ¶31

Well, two died and the third was advised by her friends and relatives that it was too expensive to maintain the gardeners and servants in that place, thirty-five acres, so to move to a hotel where all service would be given her, all meals prepared. She wouldn’t have any problem whatsoever, and all the money from the sale to maintain herself for her remaining days in all the comforts of the world…which she did. One man in the island with all the ready cash in the world wanted that beyond anything. He happened to be in Brazil on the day of the sale and my father bought it. He simply imagined that he owned it years and years before. Well, they had died…eventually two had died, and then the third one was persuaded to move into a hotel, which she did, and the sale was on. When the man in Brazil remembered, he cabled his lawyer to buy it at any price; he was twenty-four hours late. Now, a beautiful hotel is on the spot, a lovely hotel, very, very popular, always crowded winter or summer. And that whole thing was a dream of my father that came to pass. He could trust his God implicitly. He firmly believed in the Lord God but he new him to be within himself.864 ¶32

He never would go to church…didn’t care for the minister at all. What strange things we have as stories between my father and the minister. Minister came home one day, as he always came every month on his usual monthly visit, and he said to my father, “You know, Mr. Goddard, I am one of the chosen.” My father looked at him and said “You’re a chosen one? You know, I wouldn’t have chosen you.” He was just as brash as that with all that he did in this world. He didn’t care for the man, had no respect for the man, and when he would come home because he was a minister, don’t think for one second that in any way changed my father’s attitude towards the man. He wanted to see a man and that minister to him was simply not a man. He was married, he had his children, and he had these things, but that was not a man. It was something that…just made of paste…and he could not in any way persuade my father to change his feeling toward him.864 ¶33

So he never saw the inside of a church save when we were all baptized. My sixth brother…this same minister…my father took two captains as godfathers and the minister said, “Are they Episcopalians?” He said, “I don’t know”…turned to one, said, “Are you Episcopalian?” and he said “No, I’m Presbyterian.” The other one, he’s Methodist. The minister said, “Well, I’m sorry but we can’t have them as godfathers. They must be Episcopalian.” My father said, “You mean you aren’t going to have my friends as the godfathers of my son?” He said, “I can’t allow it, Mr. Goddard.” He said, “Give me my son.” Took him out of his arms and said, “I’ll baptize him myself.” He took the water and sprinkled it on his face and he said, “In the name of Jesus your name is Fred” and then walked out with his son in his arms. That’s his name, his name is Fred Goddard.864 ¶34

Well, that’s the kind of man he was and still is, bold, and just not any bone in his body lacked courage. But he found the Lord and he found him as his own wonderful human Imagination. So when he wanted something, he simply imagined that he had it and slept. No matter what the day was, he could go sound asleep and if you called one minute later he was unconscious. He is sound asleep and I mean a completely solid sleep…until the early hours of the morning when he’s up at five. Always rose early because he went to bed early. But I mean, no such thing as wrestling with himself in bed…he was out. Some thought because of the aid of rum, but it wasn’t always.864 ¶35

But may I tell you, when you find the Lord what peace in this world is yours! When you find him and really trust him; that you don’t have to bow before anything in this world. There’s no man, no woman, no building, nothing in this world is holy. Only the Lord your God is holy, and he’s the only one you should worship and the only one you should serve. He is your own wonderful human Imagination.864 ¶36

And grant the same right to everyone in the world. So when you know what you want either for yourself or for others, you assume that it’s done. Just assume the feeling of that wish fulfilled and go to sleep. Don’t raise a finger to make it so, let it come into this world…let it be so. And may I tell you, it will be so! Now let us go into the Silence.864 ¶37

Now tonight is “Election.” Election is an act of God not based on any inherent superiority of those elected, but grounded in the love and grace of God and his promises. His promises were made to us before the foundation of the world, for we’re the ones spoken of in that 82nd Psalm: “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 you princes.” So, one man contained all. And we deliberately, purposely forgot all that we were, to experience the world of death, knowing that we had the power in the end. And we trusted the one, for we all made up the one. The word “elohim” is plural, it’s “gods.” The word “the Lord” which is I AM, that’s singular, but it’s made up of all, all of us. So we are the sons, as elohim, of the Most High. To be a son of God and no longer a slave is the theme of the New Testament. So here, election…let no one tell you that someone who is called—for the word “election” also is translated “called or favored or chosen”—so one who is called does not in any way transcend one who has not yet been called—for all will in time be called, every one in his own order.863 ¶1

So, “to be in Christ” as the scripture speaks of being “in Christ,” a new universal humanity comes into existence, something entirely different from what we were prior to our descent. And, may I tell you in my own words and my own experience exactly how it happens. Not that the one who is called or the one who is elected is in any way better than the other who is not yet called, but it is all a plan and all in order. We are called and grafted into the body of the risen Lord. Everyone is called eventually and grafted into the body of the risen Lord. So in the end there is only one being containing all that were chosen in the beginning before the so-called “fall.”863 ¶2

The fall was not a fault and it was not anything that we did that was wrong; it was simply a deliberate plan to expand our own creative power. So the promise was that although we would go into the world of death, we would be redeemed. All would be redeemed in the same one body that contained all when it fell, a deliberate fall into death.863 ¶3

Now, back in 1929 suddenly—unexpectedly, certainly unprepared for it—I was called. I was elected. It was simply that moment in time when I, having borne the fardel for the allotted time, was simply now released from my burden and my long lost rank restored.863 ¶4

For when I was taken in Spirit into the divine assembly and here my name was already written in the Book of Life—as yours is written in the Book of Life—and it’s simply the formality of being checked off; and then to stand in the presence of the risen Lord, and to be embraced. It’s like the impression of a seal upon wax, upon clay, so now when you are sent you are God himself sent out…it’s God sent out into the world.863 ¶5

For in the end there is only God. God is made up of all of his sons, and it’s an ever-expanding wisdom and power of God through his sons. So when I stood in his presence and answered what he asked, the embrace, which was a fusion as far as I’m concerned, was at the same time the impression made by a seal upon wax. For I was simply liquefied and made ready to receive the imprint of God, so that when I would come out now I would bear the express image of his person and radiate his glory covered by a garment of flesh and blood that no one here can see it. It can only be seen when the eyes are open in Spirit…but certainly not here.863 ¶6

So election is simply that moment in time when having borne the burden that was allotted in the beginning…for we are told, “You are sons of God, all of you, sons of the Most High; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.” If then you are princes, well then, your father is the king. He is the King of Kings or the Most High Lord. So in the end, all are gathered together; but we’re gathered in a certain order, and no one on earth can tell you that order or how you actually come back into now a far greater state than we were prior to the fall.863 ¶7

For he who never experienced the world of death, the unmanifested, the eternal, comes into time expressing death, overcomes it, and returns glorified beyond what it was, having overcome the experience of death.863 ¶8

So everyone in the world will be redeemed, will be elected, will be called, I don’t care who they are.863 ¶9

For, everyone is playing a part that was written for him. I have played all the parts. Having played all the parts I was qualified to take off that burden, and then came the split where the imprisoned splendor or that Spirit that was trapped is set free. It was set free and then my rank, long lost rank, was restored, but augmented beyond what it was before the fall of the one man.863 ¶10

So let no one tell you that when one is elected that he’s better than you are. Not for one moment! For we all were chosen before the foundation of the world, and chosen in him who was God. So everyone in the world will be elected and returned to the body that is God but beyond the wildest dream of what he represented prior to the descent. That I know from my own personal experience, I’m not speculating.863 ¶11

I’m not asking others to tell me. I am like Paul, so when Paul said in his first letter that he wrote to the Galatians: “Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.”863 ¶12

The only one in us is Jesus Christ. We are Jesus Christ, and he only raises Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is his power and his wisdom. His power and his wisdom took on the wildest temptation in the world, death, and experienced death and over came it. For he rose; but he hasn’t risen in all. So, “Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if he is not born in thee, thy soul is still forlorn.” Christ rose not from the dead…Christ still is in the grave if you for whom he died still are asleep in that grave.863 ¶13

So when you wake in the grave, which is your own skull, Christ awoke, for you are he. When one speaks of Christ, they think of the third-person; when they address him in prayer, they think of a second-person. Christ is not a third or a second-person; he must be thought of in the first-person. Only when you experience him in the first-person…for I know, in my own case, I awoke. It wasn’t another that I saw, I awoke. I was raised. I, myself, was resurrected in a tomb—the same tomb in which Christ was buried, this universal diffused being in all the tombs of the world, our skulls. When I emerged from it, I emerged, it wasn’t another. And so, the entire thing re-interpreted itself in me, the entire story as told and recorded in scripture. The whole thing having unfolded in me I couldn’t find a second person, I couldn’t find a third person of whom I could speak after the experience. Although the world will think you insane and arrogant and that you’re blaspheming, I can’t deny the experience. I know exactly what happened to me, so I know exactly what has happened to those to whom it happened, and what must happen to everyone who will experience it. And everyone will!863 ¶14

For the story is the story of God and there’s nothing but God. God chose us in him before the foundation of the world and told us that we would—though gods, sons of the Most High, all of us, not one less than the other—that we would die like men. Well, I know I’ve said goodbye to my father, my mother, my brother, my nephew, my friends, and hundreds I have said goodbye to that I knew here and could touch and talk to. So I saw them go and I know that I must go and others see me go…they must.863 ¶15

But in my own case, having been elected, having been called—not because of any superiority—but the time was up. I bore the burden for the allotted span, and after that span I was told I would be redeemed. Well, I have been. So he called me, he elected me, and brought me into his being once more, and impressed me with himself, like the seal upon wax, and sent me. Well, having sent me and I’m his very image it is simply God who goes forth into the world. There is no other way he’s sent. For, there’s only God in the end and all of his sons reflect it. It takes all of the sons to actually make God the Father.863 ¶16

So here, all these were told, it is said in scripture to the fathers. The promises were made to the fathers. We are the fathers. “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your son after you, who will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son” …that is said to David.863 ¶17

Well, David is the very end—for all the parts you are playing, when you summarize all the parts, the quintessence of all the parts is David.863 ¶18

So at the very end and you lie down with your fathers, then is when something comes out of you, that which played you, and played all the parts that you represented. For, the root of the word which is “to elect” means “to try.” You try this on approval and you try it and try it. Then all of a sudden you come to a certain point where now the play is perfect and I know he will do all my will, but all my will, and then I start. I play every part in the world. There isn’t a part that ever was played on earth that I have not played or I could not reach the point of having the time strike to relieve me of the burden. So when he strikes that note, all of a sudden you hear it within you and it’s simply what is known in scripture as “the trumpet.”863 ¶19

But the trumpet is a reverberation, and it reverberates like thunder, and you hear it in your head. You can’t stop it, you can’t in any way divert it; you are helpless while it is blowing. It’s a peculiar unearthly wind. You begin to awaken and you awaken and didn’t realize that you have been so sound asleep in your own skull, which is a tomb, for so many years. Then you awake and then you emerge from that grave, and you leave that grave empty. You come out and all the things are round about you as recorded in scripture. So that moment you hear the vibration, and you can’t stop it, and the vibration awakens you. As Blake said: “And the dead heard the sound of the child and began to awake from sleep.” Well, in my own case, I knew the area was a place of death, but I personally felt myself waking. I had no feeling of being dead, but when I found myself sealed in a tomb, I knew that only the dead were placed in a tomb. So he equates…both Blake does and scripture, “Wake you sleeper and rise from the dead.” So if I am a sleeper and I must rise from the dead, he equates sleep, this kind of a sleep, with death. And that moment when you hear that peculiar vibration you wake.863 ¶20

That’s when you are elected. Not because of anything that you have done…you have done everything that is condemned in this world and everything that is praised in this world. But you have borne the fardel for the allotted span and you can’t go beyond that. There was a promise that after 400 years you will be brought out into an imperishable inheritance, something that is beyond the wildest dream of any person in the world…after you have borne it for 400 years.863 ¶21

Well, 400 is a symbolic number of this body that I wear. I will wear this body of flesh and blood for the unnumbered centuries whether it be 6,000 or whatever it is, until the very end. And I will not for one moment fail. I will drink that cup to the very last and drain it. And then I’ve been promised that after I have borne the burden for the allotted span he will then call me, he will elect me, and then graft me into his body.863 ¶22

Well, I was. So I know from experience there is a risen Lord. You’re grafted into that body and you are the Lord. And there are all things you have ever done and you’ve done everything, I don’t care what the world will say, you have done everything…or you will still have to do it, because not one in the end will reach the point where he cannot say, “Forgive them. They know not what they do!” So that every being in the world is completely forgiven for all that he has ever done because all have done it.863 ¶23

Now, this is election.863 ¶24

So let no one tell you that one who is elected is something better than another. There is no historical continuity of any biological descent concerning this election as some will try to tell you. No social, no political, no religious institution is relevant as a criterion to this election.863 ¶25

They cannot in any way explain it based upon any institution in the world. So when you read in the papers and magazines, as I do, that a certain order, certain religious order, dares to claim that they are the sole custodian of a great mystery of life based upon an unbroken chain back to Peter, what absolute rubbish! What nonsense!863 ¶26

He calls us from every walk of life; in my own case, from no walk at all. For in 1929 the unemployed…the Crash came, and what would you do with a dancer? Well, you couldn’t eat. All the theaters in New York City closed. There were only four legitimate theaters running, and running at a loss just to keep something going. Four, mind you, out of fifty legitimate theaters. All of the vaudeville houses closed. Well, I was simply a dancer, therefore unemployed. And while unemployed I was called…with no background whatsoever. I was called into the presence of the risen Lord. So you’re told in Daniel, he will give it to the lowliest of men after man realizes that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will…even to the lowliest of men. Well, I was as low as one could get. And so he gives it not based upon any background whatsoever, for he will take the foolish to confound the wise and the weak to confound the mighty. So if you took that standard, I certainly fitted it…but I had played the parts.863 ¶27

I have memories, occasional flashes of fabulous wealth, and in such peculiar fabulous wealth. I’ve actually gone into the very homes and the full complement of servants and actually relived what I did live at some moment in time. I realize that I once on one occasion I gave it up voluntarily. I did not return. What I did to move from the world, I do not know, but I gave it up voluntarily because to me it was decadent. I was getting nowhere with all this enormous possession and there I left it behind me.863 ¶28

So I know from my own visions that I have played them. I know that you’ve played them, but you may not have brought back the visions. But you have played all these parts so that in the end you will condemn no part in this world, and that at the end you are called. To be called is to be elected and to be elected is to be grafted into the body of the risen Lord. From then on, for a little while, you are sent and because you are now one with God, to be sent is to be simply God sent out. That’s all…it’s simply God sent out.863 ¶29

So, election is not some strange, peculiar thing that the churches talk about that they are the elect and this one is chosen and that one is so and so. I tell you, in the end everyone will be elected, everyone will be redeemed, as the promise was given in the beginning: you will experience death, my sons, you’re sons of the Most High; nevertheless, though you experience all of this and you will fall as one man, I will raise you up at the last day. After you have borne the burden, then I will split that which encased you, and the Spirit that was trapped will be set free. You’ll be set free and once more return to the one body, the one God, the one Lord, the Father of all…and you will be he.863 ¶30

So this is really the story of election. No secret to it. And every child born of woman will be elected, will be redeemed, but not until he has borne the burden for the full span of time. No one knows how near you are to that final hour, no one knows. I assure you from my own experience I didn’t know. If anyone the night before it happened to me had told me or asked me if I had any hope, I think I would have said no. In the world of Caesar where would I turn to earn a dollar when I only knew how to dance? What would I do? And yet seventeen million unemployed and only 125 million of us in the country, do you know the percentage? Seventeen million workers unemployed, so what would you do with a dancer? And he wasn’t trained to do anything else. So ask me then what I thought my future would be, well, it would be a huge big zero. Yet it was that moment in time that I had borne the burden right through to the very end. And in his infinite mercy he hides from me the horrors that I have done, so that in the end I can say to everyone, “Forgive him, I don’t care what he has done. I played that part too.” For all these parts we’ve played and if we haven’t, we will. But I am convinced that those who are here have played them. Oh, you’ve played them, but he is infinitely merciful and he hides from you the parts that you may not be drowned by them. So, in the end you will simply proclaim the entire thing.863 ¶31

A lady wrote me this day, she said, “I had the strangest experience this past week. I saw stairways leading to the right, to the left and forward. All the people…so many moving…and they all were in dark modern clothes, all dark clothes. I was dressed in white flowing Grecian robes and I had on golden slippers. But they didn’t recognize me, not one of them knew me or recognized me. Then I saw in the distance coming from the right side a man clothed as I was clothed in white robes, Grecian in style and golden slippers. As he approached, it was you, Neville, but you had golden hair. Your hair was gold. You greeted me because you recognized me. Still, they didn’t see you; I saw you. And after the greeting I wondered to myself, ‘Why does Neville have golden hair?’ Then I said within myself without voicing it, ‘Well, I know this is a vision and time will prove to me that this has a significance, and therefore I will extract the meaning, in time. Why he has golden hair now, I do not know.’ And then that was it.”863 ¶32

Then, another perfectly lovely experience given to me this past week, this lady said, “I heard this wonderful chorus of male voices and they were singing our wonderful battle hymn, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord, and I within myself repeated it, just the first little section of it. Then I found myself standing on the rim of a very large wheel and all around the rim on the wheel were strong, strapping, muscular men, and they wee singing at the top of their lungs. Glorious voices! And they were like laborers, muscular. I could see the one to my left with a bare chest and all the muscles on his chest and his arms. What lovely voices! I was the only woman present. In the center on the hub of the wheel was a small wiry man with hair that was mussed, and he was simply waving his hands with a baton. He kept on looking, and there were all these voices singing, and then he turned and looked at me. At that moment we were singing the most glorious hymn—I can’t repeat the words, I haven’t memorized them—but it was to the effect that we are one. We are one in hope, one in honor, one in charity. Even though we seem by the spokes to be divided, and they’re all around the wheel, we are really one. That was the essence of the song. Then he turned to me and came forward and gave me the baton. And then I woke.”863 ¶33

Then she said, “In the same interval, soon after that, you made the statement that you would give only what you yourself would like to receive. It gives you a thrill to give what you would like to receive. I thought that was a lovely thing. So when I went to bed that night I thought of my friend Jan and I wondered, now what will I give her? Something that she has never really had…and I thought, well I’ll give her love. I actually felt I was giving her love when I became like the ocean, a fabulous ocean, and Jan appeared walking on the ocean. She was all gold…the whole body was gold. Even when she opened her mouth to smile, it was gold…everything was gold. Then she seemed to disappear, yet she left that golden reflection that I could see reflected in the ocean. And I felt so satisfied that I had picked up love to give it to her and endowed her with a gift. Well, I know she must receive it in some tangible form in this world of Caesar.”863 ¶34

That was a gift. You do not have to have one penny in your pocket to give; you can give as this lady gave. She gave her that wonderful feeling of love, that she was encompassed by love and everything was love. Then she saw her appear walking on the water. Well, water is psychological, therefore, this was a psychological gift…but it will harden into the rock. It will harden into fact in the world of Caesar.863 ¶35

So here, I promise you. I hope—but I cannot say it would happen tonight—I hope it comes in the not distant future that you, too, are called; because I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store when you are elected. When you stand in the presence of the risen Lord and know he is risen, that he’s alive and that he is love, infinite love and nothing but love. That everything is forgiven in his presence. Whatever I did is completely wiped out, the fault forgiven, and the monster tamed.863 ¶36

For may I tell you when you take upon yourself these bodies of flesh and blood you take on an animal. And you speak of the world of the animals? Well, they are tame compared to this animal. The whole vast world of animals, may I tell you, would never hurt you if you didn’t first hurt them. There isn’t an animal in the world that really would hurt you if man had not gone out to murder and destroy them, they wouldn’t.863 ¶37

I saw it one night so clearly where I was at the very top of a ladder and down below were all the animals of the forest, the lion, the tiger, the panther, every wild beast. For a moment I was apprehensive, and I looked and they roared and carried on in the most violent manner. While standing at the top of the ladder with nothing between us but simply the steps of the ladder, I realized that they were only an expression of me. At that moment I arrested in me the activity that caused them to move, and they all froze and became as though they were made of clay. I descended the ladder and went down, and they were just like dead, dead things. Then when I lost all fear of them, I released the activity within me and they were like domesticated cats, playful and wonderful, altogether lovely.863 ¶38

I know from my own experience if we were not what we are…and we are a violent being. We came down into the world and took the heart of violence and the mind of violence and gave up the being that we were to experience this. Then in the end the monster is tamed.863 ¶39

Because the night that I had the experience suddenly I saw two beings: one below me, a horrible monster all full of hair, the Esau of the world; but it was an animal like a gorilla, hair from head to feet, a strong monstrous beast; and above me, this glorious angel, just an angel, beauty beyond description, radiant. This monster called her “mother.” I pummeled it and as I beat it, it gloated. It loved blows, it loved violence.863 ¶40

Then as I realized what was happening: every time I beat it, it grew stronger, and I was vying with it, and the thing grew stronger; and this one above me, this glowing, beautiful creature. I realized here is the embodiment, the personification of every violent act that I have ever done. I can’t describe to anyone my compassion for it…I felt so compassionate. I’ve never felt it before or since for anything or anyone in this world. As I looked at it, I swore to myself—I had no one to swear by and I swore inwardly—if it took me eternity I would redeem this monstrous thing, because it had no right to existence. It came into being through my misused power; it was not brought in in some deliberate act of love. It only personified my misuse of power.863 ¶41

As I made that pledge to myself, this enormous monstrous being melted, actually melted. As it melted before my eyes, becoming smaller and smaller, all of its energy came back to me, and I felt as strong as he who said, “I am God Almighty.” I felt like El Shaddai when the energy misused and personified and held in that state dissolved and returned to me out of whom it came. As it did so, this angelic being glowed like the sun. And then I returned to this world of Caesar.863 ¶42

So I redeemed him. I redeemed that which had followed me all through the centuries. I unknowingly created him, but he was unseen by me, invisible to my eyes until the last days. For the last day is this world now in which I am. It began in 1905 and this is my last day.863 ¶43

Only a few years ago when I went back to Barbados, my brother Victor—he had never told me this before and what brought it up I don’t know—but he said to me, “You know, when I was a boy of eight and therefore you were six, the prophet Jordan”—we had a man in Barbados who was known as “the prophet” and his name was Jordan—“the prophet Jordan said to me, ‘Vic, what do you want to be when you become a man?’ I said, ‘I want to be a businessman.’ He said, ‘You’re going to be the most successful businessman in the island,’” which he is today.863 ¶44

“Then he said, ‘Now the third brother’ (didn’t mention the first at all), ‘what does he want to be?’” Well, strangely enough, my brother Lawrence from the time he was a little child of three or four wanted to be a doctor, and Jordan said to my brother Victor, “He is going to be a very, very successful doctor,” which he was when he died a few years ago. He left the most modern clinic in the island that could take care of thirty patients; that is, he had thirty rooms, fully staffed, and all the other doctors to assist in all that was needed plus his own diagnostic lab. He had everything, which he left to his two sons who were doctors.863 ¶45

Then he said, “Now the fourth one…don’t touch him! He belongs to God. He was sent this time into the world to do the work of God, so don’t try to persuade him.”863 ¶46

In spite of that prophecy by the prophet Jordan—and Victor became exactly what he said, my brother Lawrence became what he said—they all have tried throughout the years to persuade me to give up what I’m doing and come back to Barbados and become a businessman and enter the businesses with my family. When I was only six, the prophet Jordan said, “Don’t touch him, he’s the fourth one, and he belongs to God. God sent him in for a purpose at this time, and you can’t change him, Vic. He’ll do exactly what he has to do, because he’s under compulsion by God.”863 ¶47

I didn’t know that story until a few years ago when around, I presume, the tea hour or cocktail hour Vic told me the story. He never told me before because he didn’t want to influence me. So here, in spite of his not telling me, I was moved by that unknown force— which my mother felt when I came into the world. But she interpreted it to mean that I would be a minister, because she had felt that something in her when she was carrying me, and said, “Now this one is going to be a minister.” Well, a minister but not in the orthodox sense of the word.863 ¶48

So I’m telling you all of these things from experience that everyone will be elected, everyone will be redeemed, because you were the son of God before your descent. You didn’t begin in the mother’s womb and you didn’t begin 6,000 years ago; you were in eternity the son of God. You are the son spoken of in the 82nd Psalm. So what can happen to us after the burden but restoration of our long lost rank? But the restoration will be now glorified, enhanced beyond what it was because we came into death and overcame it as he who decided the whole thing said we would.863 ¶49

But he is made up of us—there would be no Lord without the gods: the Lord is made up of his sons. We are his creative power and wisdom…we are, all of us. We are the Christ spoken of in scripture.863 ¶50

So tonight when you go out, you dwell upon it. Don’t just let it remain here for the evening, dwell upon it. So when you go to bed tonight you dwell upon the glory that is yours, that you really are the son of God. If as yet it hasn’t been revealed to you, take my word for it, it will be revealed to you. So that no one can persuade you otherwise, it’s going to happen in you. You’ll know that you are the Christ; that you don’t see one rising, you rise. You rise in the same place where he was buried. Well, who was buried there? You were buried there; you were that power, that wisdom that was buried in Golgotha. You’re the one who will come out of Golgotha to find yourself surrounded by the symbolism of scripture now bearing witness to your birth into a higher echelon and all of these things will unfold within you. You will be elected.863 ¶51

So if I said, as I quoted earlier the great mystic of the 17th Century Scheffler: “Christ,” said he in his third stanza, “Christ rose not from the dead. Christ is still in the grave if you for whom he died art still asleep in the grave.” But it won’t be long when you awake in that grave and you will awake. All that follows will convince you that you are the Christ of scripture. It is you who died. It is you who entered that state, convinced that the power which is yours was enough; that after you had borne the burden for the allotted time you could rise, having experienced death numberless times and having played everything, and in the end forgiven everything.863 ¶52

Now, let us go into the Silence. * * *863 ¶53

We’re told in the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “The grass withers, the flower fades… but the word of God stands forever.” The Bible is the word of God in its entirety. No matter how far it may exceed the limits of our logic, it still stands forever, and you and I will experience everything in that book. If at the moment we can’t grasp it, don’t try to change it, and leave it just as it is. It will prove itself in the most marvelous series of mystical experiences that you ever conceived. In fact, you couldn’t conceive them. So don’t even attempt to change the book, leave it just as it is. It stands forever.862 ¶1

Everything will fade and wither, but it will stand forever. Now we are told in the 84th Psalm, “Blessed are the men in whose heart are the highways to Zion. They go from strength to strength; the God of gods is seen in Zion.” If you have the highway in your heart that leads to Zion, you will see God. And everyone is destined to go to Zion. Now the word Zion appears first in the 2nd Book of Samuel, the 8th chapter. I have yet to find a book written by anyone that can throw any light upon it. But you listen carefully, I am quite sure I can throw some light upon it. I’m not being arrogant: I have experienced it.862 ¶2

So here in this book, the fifth chapter, beginning with the sixth verse, beginning with the first, for that matter, and you go through, say, ten or twelve verses of 2 Samuel. The word Zion appears for the first time. Zion was Jerusalem before occupied by Israel. The Jebusites occupied it—they were the lame and the blind—and it was impregnable, you could not take it. And they said to David, “You cannot come in here.” Then said they, “The lame and the blind will ward you off.” It would only take the lame, and the blind to keep you out of Zion. That’s how perfectly arranged it was, impervious to any attack. But David took the stronghold of Zion and named it the city of David, which is the city of God, the New Jerusalem.862 ¶3

Then said David, “Whoever would take the Jebusites let him go up the shaft, the water shaft.” The water shaft was a perpendicular shaft that led from the rock below to the rock above on which Zion was built. I have read unnumbered attempted interpretations of this, and they all conclude it doesn’t make sense. Maybe the script is distorted, maybe someone changed it, but it doesn’t make sense. For, said they, David is attempting to build a circular city at the same time he is building an inward city. So they conclude that no man can build in a circle and inward at one and the same time, unless of course he is attempting to construct this strange architectural feat in a spiral manner. For then you can build the circle and the inward at one and the same time if you are going to do it in a spiral manner. Over the centuries, they have been trying to find just such a structure in the Near East, where we call Jerusalem, and it isn’t there at all. It’s all in us—the whole vast Bible takes place in man, individual man.862 ¶4

And this is true. My entire circular world that I am building, and I am building the inner world. Here we are told, I look at it and it’s made up of the lame and the blind, and they are strong enough to stop me from getting in to take the citadel. Yet I am told I must make the effort to take the citadel. And David takes it. Then he makes the statement, “Whoever would take this citadel must go up the shaft.” From the bottom to the top, that’s how he goes up. This is a perpendicular shaft that rests below, and it goes through all the rocks, right up to the top where Zion is built. So let me show you how it’s done.862 ¶5

We turn now to the 15th chapter of the Book of John, which is related to the 18th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. Here we are told about a strange vine. He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, my Father takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” And you’ll find a parallel in Isaiah 18. I look at my world, and everything seems on the outside but everything. It seems completely independent of my perception of it, everything in this world; I don’t care what it is. This, the nearest thing in my world seems so completely detached and independent of my perception of it, and that is my circular world, as I look at the world; to the extent that I can take everything in my world and change it and make it conform to my ideal of what I think it ought to be, always using love as a motivation. Let me use my Imagination lovingly on behalf of every being in this world, and see them, as they ought to be seen were they now actually enjoying what they are doing. Let me persuade myself that it is true. As I bring about these changes in my outer world, this circular thing, I am producing that circular motion within me. I’m binding it. And when I’m completely convinced that nothing in this world truly exists independently of my perception of it, but nothing; I have completed that circular motion.862 ¶6

And then will come that moment in time when I will have all these rocks, as told us in the 5th chapter of 2nd Samuel, they’ll be split right down the middle, that which divided the land, and I will go up in circular motion into the city of Zion. For we are told in the 84th Psalm that crowds of people are eagerly waiting to mount into Zion to display themselves before God, eagerly waiting. The whole vast world is waiting, but they don’t know how to get there. You get there in the same way that David builds the city. Said the critics, no man can build in a circle and inward at one and the same time, unless, of course, he proposes to build in a spiral manner. How else could he do it? And they can’t quite understand it. They have maps, all kinds of maps of the Near East, trying to in some way interpret this is where David did it. It hasn’t a thing to do with modern Jerusalem or any Jerusalem. This is Jerusalem; this is Zion; this is Jerusalem. And I start from generation at the base of my skull. I go down into the base of my spine—that’s where we generate in this world—and then I reverse the process.862 ¶7

Someone told them, where I don’t remember, but someone told them that nothing in this world truly exists independently of my perception of it. I may, at that very moment, have doubted it and then taken it under consideration. But maybe I experimented, and I proved at least to my own satisfaction that something worked. It seemed so completely independent of me. And then I am told there are all the lame and the blind. Someone couldn’t see his way toward a job, couldn’t see his way toward something—he was lame, he was halt. And then I was told, he really is not independent of you, you know, that’s your lameness, that’s your blindness. He’s in your world; that being is in your world, and that whole thing is in your world. He is unemployed, and yet he should be, because he has an obligation to life. He’s unemployed? Well then, bring him into your mind’s eye, because you are blind, you are the lame, and then do it. And you do it without his or her or their knowledge or consent, and it works. And up you begin to make this circular motion. As you change this fabulous circular world on the outside, you are moving up this way on the inside. As you move up by changing your world and making it conform to your dream, the ideal, as it ought to be, you move up.862 ¶8

One day, you hit the last point and then comes that enormous power of creativity, which was resting at the base of the spine. It was enormous power and you were it. It was God all along, God in descent. And there you saw it, and you can say to yourself, “I know it is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.” And you, as it, moved up in a circular manner, in the most perfect manner, just like a serpent. But up you went in a circular manner right into Zion to present yourself before the Lord of hosts, the God of gods, and you are he. Everyone has to make the motion.862 ¶9

So I tell you, you started by seeing your world. And if you look at the world, everything seems in a circle. Everything really is blind. Who can see tomorrow? They’re speculating; they’re all plotting and planning tomorrow. All the great leaders of the world are plotting and planning for us. Our political leaders are plotting not tomorrow; they’re plotting next year’s elections. Not this November, but a year from November. They’re more concerned about a year from this coming November than they are about any crisis in tomorrow, as far as they are concerned. They aren’t concerned about that, they’re thinking of a year from November. That’s a year and a half away. They’re more concerned about the results then than they are about things here now, all plotting and planning and scheming. I tell you, forget it. Look upon your world, and you start doing it. Take a simple one in your world, maybe your servant, and maybe you have because of changes in your life you must let the servant go, let the employee go. But don’t let him go or her go into the vacuum; see them gainfully employed before you let them go. When you give them their severance pay, bring them into your mind’s eye and see them more gainfully employed than you employed them. As you do that, you are moving up this way on the inside. Let the whole vast world deride you; I don’t care what it does. They will still be plotting for tomorrow’s election unnumbered centuries from now. But you will be in Zion. Everyone must move into Zion, and you move into Zion in a definite technique.862 ¶10

Listen to the words, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” And may I tell you, the true vine of eternity is the human Imagination; that’s Christ. Christ is really your own wonderful human Imagination. It is he that is doing the work that must move up, and that’s how he moves up. He moves up by transforming every being through the medium of love in this world, but every being, no matter who he is.862 ¶11

And when I tell you the story, you may at this moment find this vine a wild tree. I found it a wild tree. Whenever I heard the story—whenever you hear it—at that moment it’s a wild tree. And so the poet said, “I found it a wild tree, whose wanton strength had swollen into irregular twigs. But I pruned the plant and then it grew temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted as you see into these full clean clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it.” And so, if you look, it’s a wild, wild tree. I had brought in everything in this world based upon the blind and the lame on the outside. They’re all blind. They couldn’t see where they’re going. They’re all complaining, doing all kinds of things, criticizing, and they were lame. They were in need of help, and I allowed it because to me that was fact. Then I was told it doesn’t exist independently of your perception of it, all this blindness and this lameness; it’s all you pushed out. And so when I found it, it was a wild tree. I hadn’t pruned it, and I had allowed it over the unnumbered years of time to go into useless leaves. Then I became the vinedresser, and then I would prune it. So it would start to bud, and then the bud became the blossom, and the blossom became the grape.862 ¶12

As it ripened into the grape, then every branch that didn’t have blossoms and grapes you cut it off. It isn’t bearing? Well then, cut it off that it may not use that enormous power and sap these lovely clusters that could become bigger and bigger, and you cut it off. And so everything in this world becomes now something out of your own wonderful mind. There’s nothing in this world but God, nothing. God is taking everyone here individualizing himself and each becomes God, with the same power; and so he has to do the same thing because my Father is the vinedresser. He is the vinedresser [...] and every branch that bears no fruit he takes it away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes it that it may bear more fruit. So someone will reach a certain level—there’s no limit in this world—he’s reached that. You can’t coast in this world; there’s no status quo. All right, push it up higher, something lovelier. And all of sudden, this thing is moving, and it’s moving in a peculiar way, up your entire spine. And when you’ve done it, so that no power in the world could change it, there’s no one who could convince you that this isn’t true. You’ve proven it. You’ve had the experience.862 ¶13

And you can say with Cathy of Wuthering Heights—which undoubtedly are the words of Emily Bronte, but she puts her own experience into the words of a character—and she said, “I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas. They’ve gone through and through me, just like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.” Emily Bronte undoubtedly awoke in a dream one day. It could have been a daydream or night dream, but she awoke in the dream; and from that moment on, Emily Bronte never could be the same. When one awakes in a dream to find the dream not a dream, where you say of it, “I’m dreaming. No, I’m not, I am awake. It is really so,” and the dream becomes as objective as this room is objective, then you can’t think of anything in this world thereafter as you thought of it prior to that experience; you can’t do it.862 ¶14

So you think of a person, and you see the person as they would like to be seen by the whole vast world. You may not succeed in awakening in that dream, but that’s a dream. That’s a daydream. You may not succeed. But you can’t deny the experience that once you were dreaming in a similar way and you awoke in it and there he was, the embodiment of what you imagined him to be. You can’t deny that. So whether you fail a thousand times, you can’t deny that there is such a possibility of thinking of a friend, seeing him as you would like to see him, as he would like to see himself, and awakening in that state to see that he’s actually in that state—and then it comes through this world. Well, whether you succeed or not, you can’t deny the experience. So she said, “I have dreamt in my life dreams that stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas. They’ve gone through and through me like wine through water and altered the color of my mind.”862 ¶15

Like turning wine into water, you can’t change it. It’s colored, and the whole thing remains colored. My life is colored, the pigment of my Imagination, having had these experiences, and I can’t change it. So I can tell you today, although the scholars will say it doesn’t make sense… I was reading this day… and I went to my Bible. Here, these are the so-called greatest scholars on the biblical score in this world today, a hundred-odd. The books are only a few years old. So I opened up the book, and this is actually what he said, “Someone must have in some way disturbed the script, because one thing is certain”—and this is the word he used—“one thing is certain, this does not make sense.”862 ¶16

And there’s no way they can rearrange it to give it sense. It makes all the sense in the world. For, said he, David is building in a circle and inward at one and the same time, and that can’t be done; unless, of course, the accepted architectural feat, this unusual architectural feat, of building spirally, building in a spiral. That’s exactly what he’s doing. But the scholar did not have the experience of moving up in a spiral. And you move up in a spiral after you’ve been building and rearranging the circle. So you take every person in your world; I don’t care who he is, who she is, and you represent them to yourself as they would like to be seen by the world, as you would like them to be, persuade yourself that they are, and then they become it. And you are rearranging and building your circle. As you’re doing it, you are actually performing an inner action, and you’re moving up.862 ¶17

Then comes that moment in time when there is a terrific severance of the stones. Bear in mind, David said, “Whoever will subdue the Jebusites, all these blind and the lame, let him go up the water shaft” . We must go up the water shaft, and that water shaft is in you. It’s your own wonderful spinal column. As we brought out last Friday night, Moses discovered the dwelling place of Jehovah, in a tree that was aflame. And yet though aflame it didn’t consume him. A flaming tree—well, I am the flaming tree; you are the flaming tree. It’s an actual flaming tree, and yet it doesn’t consume. Like that little poem—only in that case it consumed—two little moths were sent by their king to investigate the nature of a flame because the flame is to a moth its god. After a little while they returned with uncertain intelligence; one thought it was warm, and the other thought it was bright, but they didn’t quite understand the nature of the flame. The third moth went and moved by true desire, he folded his wings beneath him and plunged headlong into the sacred fire, until he became one color and one substance with the flame. “He only knew the flame who in it burned and only he could tell who n’er to tell returned.”862 ¶18

But unlike this flame, you do return; I return. I have plunged headlong into the sacred flame when I saw it, and I knew it to be myself as I saw it. I didn’t hesitate for one nth part of an nth part of a second; I plunged headlong into the sacred flame and went right up in a serpentine form into Zion, into my skull. I have returned to tell it. So I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen to you. Every being in this world is going to have the identical experience.862 ¶19

And so we take the blind, and we take the lame and we take the halt; we take all these things, and we change them and make them conform to our ideal of men and women in this world. Regardless of headlines, regardless of all the things in the world, we do it and remain faithful to our concepts of others as they ought to be seen by themselves and by the world, and they will conform to it.862 ¶20

As they conform to it, you, unknown to yourself, you are really building inward. Building inward. And finally, after unnumbered—how long I don’t know—but there comes that moment when you least expect it—when these stones through which the shaft came are suddenly split from top to bottom. The temple is split from top to bottom, and you, plunging into the sacred flame, move up in this most marvelous way. Then we are told: there will come before you a tall, smooth-skinned [...]. Again, reading that, they said [...], for they’re tall and majestic creatures. They can’t get away from the outer flesh and blood. Hasn’t a thing to do with the Ethiopian or any other majestic creature that he is. He is a majestic creature, no question about it, tall and majestic, but that’s not the being. You are serpentine; you are seraphim, a being that is a flaming being. Yet you can’t quite describe it; human face, yes; human hands, yes; human feet, but the form you can’t describe. The best you can do when you come to it, it is serpentine, and it is smooth and it is tall and it is godlike; it is God.862 ¶21

So that’s the being we become as we move up.862 ¶22

You remain in this world, clothed once more in this little garment, to tell it to everyone who will listen to it, until you leave and take off the garment for the last time. For as you move into Zion, you inherit the kingdom of God. That’s the kingdom of God. But the glory of your inheritance cannot be fully realized while still wearing this garment. But the day will come in the not distant future because what is life but three score and ten. And remember David in the story he started to reign at thirty; he reigned for seven and a half years, and then reigned for thirty-three years and made his exit at seventy.862 ¶23

You ask yourself, who is this David? Who is this creature that conquered Zion, which is called God’s living place? Whenever you see him, you will see him in Zion, for that is where God dwells. And David conquered it for him, and when David conquered it, then he sets the Father free.862 ¶24

So everyone who finds David and sees him as his son has been set free. For he, as David, conquered. So he conquers by setting free the blind and the lame and the halt.862 ¶25

May I tell you, you will have an experience before the serpentine motion takes place, where you will anticipate the glory of that state. You will come upon a scene, but it will be preceded by a similar motion in you, a [...] motion, and a heavenly chorus will sing out. They will sing out, calling you by your name, “(You) are risen.” And then you will see the blind, and the lame and the halt and the withered, and as you walk by everyone will be transformed into the most glorious creature you’ve ever seen. There will be no blind, no halt, and no withered, and you see them all and everyone will be made perfect. When the very last is made perfect, the chorus will exult, calling you again by name, and say, “It is finished!”862 ¶26

And then, you will be encouraged to go on doing what you’ve been doing, tell everything you have seen, [...] not to really add up. But you will do it, and you’ll still do it.862 ¶27

You may never hear from the unnumbered hundreds whose good news you heard, because only one in ten ever returns to say thank you. So don’t expect two; they won’t come. One will always say thank you, and the nine will go their way, saying it would have happened anyway. They could always justify the good fortune and never turn back. But one percent will always come back, one of ten, I should say, so ten percent. Ten will come back out of a hundred. You will hear it for hundreds, and they’ll take it for granted and go their way. Because they think if they came back and thanked you, they should accompany the thanks with a bill, and you don’t need their bill. They don’t know you’ve inherited the kingdom of God. They’re afraid to come back because [...] attached to their thanks some expression of thanks in the form of a gift, and you don’t need their gifts. But they will do it and they’ll go their way and the ten percent, only ten out of a hundred, will return.862 ¶28

But as they return, it only confirms this wonderful—that you can set free the blind and set free the lame. And as you do it, years later in my own case, because that happened to me in 1946, and it was in 1960 that this temple of mine was split from top to bottom, and I was moved up in a serpentine form into Zion, on the morning of April 8, l960. So from l946 to l960, yet I went blindly on believing that I could transform people by simply believing in the reality of my imaginal act. And so I believed it. I imagined that you were so and so, convinced myself that it was true, went about my business, and ten percent wrote me letters or saw me in person or called me on the wire to tell me that it worked. The other ninety percent went their way justifying and thought that they had saved a dollar. That’s the world. But there was no charge attached to it in the first place. However, that’s the picture of the world.862 ¶29

So here, we are told it doesn’t make sense—somebody in some strange way has changed the script. The script hasn’t changed. They can’t find any older manuscript or any other manuscript that doesn’t say the same thing. But scholars can’t understand it, so they conclude, “One thing for sure of which we are certain, this doesn’t make sense.” So they’re sure. Because you cannot build in a circle and inward at one and the same time, unless, of course, said he, you’re performing the most unusual architectural feat of building in, spirally. Well, you are building in spirally, of which you are totally unaware. But the spiral only begins when you’re going to conquer a land where there are the blind and the lame. And that blind and the lame, it’s Zion, ruled by the Jebusites. It is said it is so impervious of attack, it’s so impregnable, you could never attack it. There’s the smallest little garrison of the blind and lame to ward off the blows of David. But David conquered Zion. Then he said, “Whoever would conquer Zion, let him move up this shaft,” the only way to do it. They think of a huge big place, that is an enormous city, and down below where the water came that David and his men got under the ground, came down by the water’s edge; and in some strange way came up the shaft and conquered it from within. Well, he did, but not as they planned it.862 ¶30

Because the Zion that he conquers is his own skull, where, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” There’s nothing on the outside, even though everything tells you that it is.862 ¶31

And so at that moment, when everything is screaming how real it is, independent of your perception of it, it is then that you’ve got to start applying this principle. And someone who would not listen to you, but you love him. You’re going to tell everyone, he will not listen to you; nevertheless, without his consent, you see him, as he would like to see himself. And maybe he will be one of the nine who never return. Because it’s going to happen so naturally to him, he will never think that you in any way had any part in the doing. So leave him alone, perfectly all right. But to your own satisfaction, you saw a transformation: the blind is not blind any more. [...]. And he wasn’t lame any more. He didn’t come home bringing excuses to his wife that things are bad, competition is horrible, and so he isn’t lame any more. He comes home with his head up and it’s marvelous. And so you heard of it; it doesn’t matter, you heard it. And so, the lame is no more the lame, and you are conquering.862 ¶32

As you conquer all the lame and all the blind in your world, suddenly up you go into Zion. And may I tell you, I can’t tell you the thrill and the joy that comes to the individual who moves up in that serpentine form right into Zion and becomes a member of the hierarchy.862 ¶33

He knows in the depth of his soul that if he remains for another ten years or twenty years or whatever interval, [...] it’s only until the garment for the last time comes off; for he has gone up. But he’s hoped that he has told it so that they understood it to the point where they would believe it and practice it, that they too may start the process of building the city, starting, yes, in a circle but also inward at the same time. And so, it is inward; it’s all done in silence, and up they go one day when they least expect it.862 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence.862 ¶35

Tonight’s subject is “The Crucifixion.” In the history of man, our human history, life begins with birth and ends with death. In divine history, it begins with death and ends with birth. There’s a complete reversal of these histories. So here we begin in the womb and end in the tomb; but in divine history, we begin in the tomb and awaken in the womb, where we are born.861 ¶1

Now here, in this fantastic drama, I think that we have misconceived the part of Jesus Christ and made of him an idol. Having made of him an idol, he hides from us the true God. So here, let us turn to the Book of Luke, the 18th chapter; he turns to the twelve, “And taking the twelve he said to them, ‘We’re going up to Jerusalem and everything written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. He’ll be delivered to the Gentiles and they will mock him, and shamefully treat him, and spit upon him; they will scourge him, and kill him, but on the third day he will rise.’ And they did not understand what he said; this saying was hid from them, and they could not grasp what was said.” We’re told that no one understood it.861 ¶2

Now believe this, I am speaking to you as I try every night from experience. I am not theorizing. I have no interest whatsoever in trying to set up some workable philosophy of life. I really haven’t. If I made my exit tonight, it would make no difference to me personally—maybe to my wife and my child, my family, but not really to me. I am not speaking from theory; I’m speaking from experience.861 ¶3

The drama begins with the crucifixion. “Unless I die thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Wouldest thou die for one who never died for thee?”. This is the story of every being born of woman. No child in the world could cross the threshold that admits to conscious life unaided by the death of God. It’s God’s purpose to give us himself, as though there were no others in the world, just God and me, God and I. Believe this, really.861 ¶4

If you believe it, then the most unbelievable gospel in the world becomes possible and believable. And it takes the Son to reveal it to be true. Now this is the story as revealed to me. You may think, well now, that was just simple, wonderful—exciting, yes!—but just a dream. May I tell you, it was not a dream. It was an experience more vivid than this moment here in this room. For a true vision is far more alive than anything you’ve ever experienced in this world, but anything.861 ¶5

This night in question, I was walking with an enormous number, as though the whole of humanity walked in a certain direction and I was one of the unnumbered. As I walked with them, they were all dressed in very colorful Arabic clothes and a voice shouted out of the blue; the voice said, “And God walks with them.” A woman to my right—a woman I would say in her thirties, maybe forties, a most attractive Arab—asked the voice, “If God walks with us, where is he?” The voice answered from the blue, from the deep, “At your side.” She took it literally, as the whole vast world takes these things literally; and turning to her side, she looked into my eyes and became hysterical. It struck her so funnily. It was the funniest thing she ever heard. God walks with us, and she turns to a simple man, with all of his frailties, all of his weaknesses, the ones she knew well; and having looked into his face, having heard the voice, she said, “What? Is Neville God?” And the voice said to me, “God laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept, he dreamed a dream, he dreamed…,” and I completed the sentence: he was dreaming that he’s me. How else would I be in this world if he didn’t dream? And you awake from sheer emotionalism.861 ¶6

May I tell you that this is the sensation of the crucifixion. It’s the most delightful sensation in the world; it is not painful. My hands became vortices, my head a vortex, my feet vortices, and my side a vortex. And here, I was driven into this body on the bed through my emotionalism, held by six vortices: my hands, my feet, my head, and my side. And the delight and sheer joy of being driven upon this cross, this body! So I speak from experience that it is not a painful act. But it happened in the beginning of time. This was only a memory image returning when I was about to awake. But in that interval, how long? Who knows?861 ¶7

Blake calls it six thousand years. The Bible speaks of three days between the crucifixion and resurrection, but that’s all symbolic. Blake calls it 6,000 years. He said, “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years dazzling around thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is my Self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.”861 ¶8

Now, here we turn to the drama of this coming Friday that all the Christian churches will reenact. And they differ. Matthew and Mark give the last cry on the cross as the quotation from the 22nd Psalm, the 1st verse, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” John gives it in the cry, “It is finished!”. Luke substitutes the 31st Psalm, the 5th verse for the 22nd Psalm, because he was using Mark’s script. Perhaps he elaborates on Mark’s script, and he substituted Psalm 31:5 for Psalm 22:1. This is what he quotes, “Into thy hand I commit my spirit.” That’s all that he quotes. But the completed fifth verse is fantastic. This is the verse, “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” “Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.”861 ¶9

He kept his faith, for he told me, “Unless I die thou cannot live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me.” There came the very act of crucifixion that was in itself resurrection. Yes, at an interval of time between, yes, no question about it. But may I tell you, no one in this world can fail, for quoting in the 6th of Romans, “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And everyone in this world will be resurrected, but it takes this interval of time and all the blows in the world to make the immortal garment.861 ¶10

Now listen to this carefully. It has been given to me and you; take it for what it’s worth. The promise of this begins in Genesis, the promise of an infant called Isaac. The whole vast world has the strangest concept of Isaac. The Lord begot Isaac. Isaac is to be [...] not as the result of generation but the shaping of the unbegotten. Here is God, the unbegotten, shaping himself upon us; and when he completes that shape and it’s perfect in his eye, then we are born from above. So Isaac is the shaping of the unbegotten. For God is not begotten. He is begetting himself on man, individual man. And when he begot himself in me to his satisfaction, I was born from above and went through the entire series in the interval of five months, judged by Caesar’s calendar. How many thousands of years prior to that, I do not know; I cannot tell you. I would if I knew, for I have no secrets. When I get it, I’ll tell you. But I do not have it; the veil has not been lifted to that extent.861 ¶11

But I do know that when it pleased him, that which he begot in me, and then it took nine months for the entire series of mystical experiences, as described in scripture, to completely unfold within me. And so I can tell you it’s going to happen to you. And so there’s no time; it took nine months from the moment of the birth, but when that birth takes place, it’s all in God’s keeping. You and I are put through the furnaces of affliction. Let no one tell you that you’re not going to. “As I have planned it, so shall it be, and as I have purposed it, so shall it stand.” And no one will thwart it, but no one.861 ¶12

I’m inclined to believe that in spite of the pain, in spite of all the things that man plots and plans in this world, there is a definite period. I’m inclined to believe it. The Book of Habakkuk tells me—but they won’t tell me what the period is—“The vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens, it will flower. If it be long then wait; for it is sure, it will not be late.” If it will not be late and the vision has its own appointed hour, then whether Blake is right or someone else is right, I do not know. But I assure you that the last section takes only nine months, even though you linger for years beyond that nine months, for you came into your inheritance at that third experience. But the glory of your heavenly inheritance cannot become actual or is not fully realized in the individual, so long as he’s still in the body. But the moment that he takes off that veil called the body, he is clothed in that garment that God and God alone made.861 ¶13

God was actually shaping himself upon this garment, without my consent and without my knowledge, molding that unbegotten being that he is and giving me himself. So then he succeeded in giving me himself, so he satisfied him, that immortal garment that he would wear. So he wears it, for his name is I AM. And may I tell you, in all of my experiences, I have never had a change in identity, never. I have always been aware of being I am. I have never had any feeling of being other than who I am and something taking place in me, and it was God. As we are told, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ is the perfection that is God, and he will not stop it until he brings it to Jesus Christ in you.861 ¶14

But now we have taken Jesus Christ and made of him an image, an idol; and having made of him an idol, he now hides from us the true God. It is God, the only God that is actually shaping himself upon you. When that is shaped upon you—this is a form, a mold, but this cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; this is flesh and blood—it takes this that is molded upon it. For what is being molded upon it is God, the unbegotten; and God, being Spirit, is molding himself as Spirit, the immortal you. And then you, as God, are clothed. Well, how could you clothe God in form? He’s clothing himself in a shape. That’s you. So he begets us.861 ¶15

But it begins with the crucifixion. The crucifixion does not end the drama; it begins the drama. And so everyone becomes a breathing, living, conscious being because God died for him. It’s the mystery of life through death, as told us in 12th chapter of the Book of John, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it brings forth much fruit.” It has to fall into the earth and die, and this body is the earth in God’s kingdom. God falls into this earth and dies: He forgets that he’s God in his belief that he’s man. God actually becomes man that man may become God, and he molds himself, this unbegotten being, upon man. When he is satisfied with that molding process and in the eye of God that it’s perfect, therefore if it is perfect God is born in that man.861 ¶16

So God actually gives himself to us, to each of us, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you, God and I. Believe it. The whole story of the gospel is this story. So the crucifixion, from my own personal experience, is not as the churches depict it. The sorrow comes in between. That interval, be it 6,000 years, I do not know, but in that interval we have to be molded. As we are told in the 48th chapter of Isaiah, he has put me through the fires of affliction. For his own sake, he did it, for his own sake, for there is no other way in the world of bringing me into that state of perfection and to weave me into an immortal body to receive God himself as my own being, unless I went through all the fires of affliction, all these fiery, fiery ordeals. But don’t be concerned. “Whom God afflicts for secret ends, he comforts and heals and calls him friends.”861 ¶17

So when you and I entered Golgotha, as we are told, “And when they came to the place which they called The Skull, there they crucified him.” Read it in the 23rd of Luke, “When they came to the place which they called The Skull, there they crucified him.” The word skull is translated as Golgotha; another definition is the Holy Sepulcher, so now we know what the Holy Sepulcher is: it is our own wonderful human skull. That’s where he is crucified. But he is also nailed upon the cross. He is nailed through the feet and hands and pierced on the side. Now here John gives so much time to the piercing of the side. He does not give the cry of dereliction, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” John only claims, “It is finished!” and then came the soldier’s shaft into the right side and out came blood and water. Down through the centuries, they are in some way trying to explain it. They can’t explain it on anything that is biological, save that a birth always has the phenomena of blood and water. When a child is born, the water is broken, and there is a flowing of blood and water. This is birth. To understand it, we go back to the 31st Psalm: “Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” So he promised it and he did it. That is only a symbol of one’s birth which is redemption.861 ¶18

So I say to you, don’t weep when you see it. Rejoice! It was God’s sacrifice of himself because he desired to individualize himself in unnumbered garments, in all of us. God can’t beget anything other than God. So we are told in the 82nd Psalm, “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” One God in the midst of the gods—all is God. He is [...] and begetting this unbegotten being. The cue is given us in the Book of Hebrews, the 5th chapter, 6th verse. It is called by a different name; it is called Melchizedek. He has no father, no mother, and no genealogy. He is telling you who he is. Everyone who is born from above, because God succeeded in giving himself to that individual, that individual has no genealogy. He is God the Father. Believe me.861 ¶19

[Hiatus in tape required text from previously typed lecture.] For the son [...]. Well, how could he give me himself as if I’d known him? He gave me his Son. I tell you, the whole vast world of humanity is symbolized in a single youth called David. David is the whole vast world of humanity in the language of symbolism. And the day will come in the second mystical experience in the nine-month period, and there you look at David. David is your Son, and you know it more surely than you know anything else in the world. There’s no uncertainty when you look into his eyes and you see David and he calls you “my Lord, my Father.” He calls you “my Father.” And so then you know for the first time who you really are. You tell this to the world and you tell them what happened; but you’re told, as I quoted earlier from the 18th chapter of the Book of Luke, they did not understand the saying. This saying was hid from them, and they could not grasp the meaning.861 ¶20

How can you persuade the individual that the day will come… that even at this very moment, I could take the most orthodox Jew in the world… if I went to Israel tonight and talked to the head rabbi and asked him if he feels any relationship to David, he would say, “Only as the greatest of the kings of Israel, but relationship as to myself, no.” But he respects the great king of Israel and hopes someday to rebuild the dynasty that is now gone. But he could not feel a relationship. And if I, in his eye a total stranger, a gentile, would tell him I am his father, he would spit in my face. To him that would be blasphemous—he would spit in my face. And yet I could tell him I am his father. I’ll go further and I’ll tell you you are his father and the day is coming that it will be revealed to you. And when the whole vast world is completed, God’s work is finished, and he’s given himself to every being in the world because he is the father of David. To give me himself, he has to give me fatherhood of David. Not just fatherhood. There’s no need to give me fatherhood and not the father of his son. His son? Yes, the 7th verse of the 2nd Psalm: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” And then he takes this only begotten son to prove his gift to us by giving us that son as our son. You look right into his eyes and there he calls you Father. He calls you Adonay, my Lord.861 ¶21

So I tell you that the day will come that you and I will be the same father of the same child, the everlasting eternal youth, that God in the beginning put into the mind of man and molded man into the likeness of him. Read it in the 3rd chapter, the 11th verse of Ecclesiastes: “And God has put eternity into the minds of men; yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” The word called eternity, translated eternity, is the Hebrew word olam, and olam is translated “youth, man, stripling.” Listen to the words, and see how we know who he is.861 ¶22

The king wants to find out the identity of this fantastic youth that conquered the entire enemy of Israel—he brings down the giant. And so the king said to his lieutenant, “Abner, whose son is that youth?” and Abner said, “As your soul liveth, O King, I cannot tell.” He said, “Inquire whose son the stripling is.” No one knows. Now the stripling comes in with the head of the giant in his hands, the head of Goliath, the enemy of Israel, and the king said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?” He said, “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” Now, prophecy was made in the 17th chaper of 1st Samuel, the 25th verse, that the father of such a lad would be set free in Israel. Not the lad—the lad is buried in every being in the world—but the father of that lad, who knows he is the father; he is set free in heaven, free in the New Israel. And so when one knows he is the father by actual experience, at that moment, he is free in Israel. The 6,000 years of turmoil is over for him. But David is still to be redeemed, to be discovered in the minds of all, and everyone is going to find him. Finding him, they’ll find the relationship of himself to that lad. We all will be one, and our name one when the curtain comes down on the final act of this marvelous play.861 ¶23

Blake said, “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. For everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to achieve perfection.” Everything is ordered; everything is perfect. God planned it just as it’s come out and it will be consummated and no tyrant in the world is going to stop it. He will take all the tyrants in the world and use them for the fulfillment of his purpose. As we are told in Proverbs 16:4, everything, not just a few, “God made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” Yes, even the wicked for the day of trouble. For if it takes the wicked being to cross your path to add a little more fire to bring you closer into the image of God, then he’ll cross your path. If it takes many to cross it, they’ll cross your path.861 ¶24

And finally, one day will come that in the eyes of God, not man, what man looking at this garment that wears out could ever see you in the image of God? But this is not what is molded. This is only a form in which he is molding himself. And when he’s finished that molding, then comes this fantastic experience in you, and you awake. You awake in a tomb, and the tomb all along was the womb. That was where you were crucified, but you didn’t know it. One day, you awake in a tomb and the tomb is your own wonderful skull and that is the Holy Sepulcher. But this week, thousands of pilgrims will go to Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulcher, and some priests, quite innocently, will point out a place and say, “That’s it, that’s where he was buried.” He wasn’t buried there at all. There is no holy place in Jerusalem. The holy place is your own wonderful skull; that’s the Holy Sepulcher; that’s where he’s buried. That’s where he’s sound asleep, dreaming with you these visions of eternity until you awake. But when you awake, you are he and he is your very being.861 ¶25

It’s his purpose to give you himself. There is no way in eternity that God can give me himself and prove it unless he also gives me his most precious possession in the world, and that’s his son. He doesn’t give me his son to walk the street with me as a companion; he gives me his son as my son. So I look right into the eyes of the Son of God and know him to be my son. Then I wonder, “How can this be? Here a man, a few years old, weak and limited, with all the frailties of the world and all the weaknesses of the flesh, and yet God so succeeded in his purpose for me that he, the unbegotten, gave me himself; therefore, I am unbegotten?” So I who seemingly had a beginning in time, with the gift of God, the unbegotten, I now cease to be begotten. I have no genealogy. I have no father. I am Father, the father of his only begotten son.861 ¶26

I tell you, it’s a mystery. But mysteries of this nature are not matters to be kept secret but truths that are mysterious in nature. They are not things to be hidden. The minute they happen to you, you tell them to encourage every being in the world that, in spite of the furnaces of the moment, to continue and keep on moving, for you’ll move anyway. But the end, listen to the words, “Thou hast redeemed me, O God, faithful Lord.” He has kept his faith. He promised me in the beginning that he would do it and then sent me through furnaces, without my consent, without my permission, just sent me through furnaces.861 ¶27

The story of Job—for here is one subjected to all the most horrible experiments in the world produced by God. And in the end, he said, “I have heard of you with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” He’s sees the only thing in the world that could reveal God to himself. Because God is invisible to the world—but his Son reveals God. “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.” And so how will I ever know God? When his Son comes into my world and looks me in the face and calls me Father, then I know God.861 ¶28

And yet in spite of this, may I tell you, the day will come that you will still be taken into the presence of infinite love. You don’t have to ask who you are or anyone in the world who he is. You stand in the presence of infinite love; he embraces you, and you know who he is and who you are. For at that moment of the embrace, you become one with the body of infinite love. Yet that God is almighty, no question of that, but almightiness and omniscience are but attributes of God. God himself is love, absolute love. I can’t describe it save to tell you it’s man. When you look at him, infinite love, he embraces you and you are lost in the body of God and yet one with—it’s your body.861 ¶29

And then comes the final journey. “I tell you these things before they take place in you, that when they do take place, you may believe.” So I share with you my experience and remember it because it’s going to happen to you. When it happens to you, you will not differ from any other being in the world to whom it has not yet happened, for it’s going to happen to every being in the world. But you are one with those to whom it has already happened. And when it happens to you—it may happen tonight—you’ll wear the garment for a little while, and then you’ll take it off. In the normal process of time, you’ll take it off. And then, at that moment of the discarding of this mold that God used to mold himself, you’ll be one with the gods. In your entire inheritance it is to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Believe me.861 ¶30

What that garment looks like, if I can describe it, I can’t tell you. I can describe the sensation, but it doesn’t make sense to anyone in the world. But the final act, when he ascends into heaven and you ascend as it, I can only describe it as the seraphim, a golden, golden liquid being; and you ascend as a serpent. It doesn’t make sense, does it? A human serpent, as described in the 6th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. The face, the hands, and the feet were human, but he couldn’t describe the glory of the body. It’s simply golden liquid light. Because in the resurrection, man is above the organization of sex—the garment he used by which to mold himself and to give man himself.861 ¶31

So Blake brought it out in his wonderful thought, called The Gates of Paradise: “When weary man enters his cave, he meets his savior in the grave, some find a female garment there, and some a male, woven with care, lest the sexual garments sweet should grow a devouring winding sheet, one dies! Alas! the living and dead, one is slain and one is fled.” If this is slain, the mold is over. No need for the mold anymore, for he wove upon this divided image, male and female, the garment that is immortal that is above the organization of sex. So he discards then this divided image as far as that individual goes. He’s now clothed in his immortal, eternal body, and no need for the divided image on which God molded himself and gave himself to us. That being means Jesse, which simply means I AM, the same being named as Jehovah, which is I AM, the same name of Jesus, which is I AM.861 ¶32

And so I tell you that this fantastic mystery of crucifixion is true. It begins the play of God. If I went to a play tonight and saw a three-hour play move before me on the boards, I could, as so many people do, misconceive the role of the actor and make of him, as people do here, a movie actor or a stage actor, and make of him an idol. Ask him for his signature, do all kinds of things, and make of him an idol. And then making of him an idol, he hides from me the message of the play. Here is a play condensed into a few hours that took 6,000 years to unfold. And so man’s misconception of Jesus Christ has made of Jesus Christ in the eyes of all Christians an idol. And that idol hides from that man who holds him up as an idol the true message of God.861 ¶33

For God’s purpose is to give himself to us without an intermediary—no intermediary between God and you. He’s actually begetting himself on you; and because he is without origin, the unbegotten, when he begets himself, that very being still has no origin. So when he begets himself on you and gives himself to you, completely individualized as you, you have no origin. The reason you have no origin is the child, and you see God’s Son as your son. Then you will know who you are—the being without father and without mother.861 ¶34

And it’s a strange thing to say that I, a little thing, a few years old, that some fantastic mystery could take place here. And here, undoubtedly this garment began fifty-eight years ago, and yet on this garment and the garment that preceded it, something was being molded that was unbegotten. When it was completed in its perfection, and then I wore that garment that was molded on me with all the pains I went through, that I am the being who molded it; and so I am unbegotten. So the garment I wear, the immortal garment, though begotten, it’s being worn now by the unbegotten, God the Father. You dwell upon it.861 ¶35

But what I’ve told you this night may seem strange if you’re here for the first time—maybe you’re here for the hundredth time and it still seems strange—but it’s true. Everything I’ve told you is true. I’ve spoken to you from my own personal experience. We all are on a fabulous pilgrimage moving toward some invisible shrine, and God is awakening in us. The world round about us will go on to their journey. And when we are singled out, one by one, they laugh at the very thought that he who dies a normal, normal death as any other man, was in that exit—his final exit—and he by that experience is immortalized, eternalized? And they smile and continue the journey that they’re on.861 ¶36

But I tell you, [...]. You too will be called out of the pilgrimage, and the voice will speak out of the vast sky: “God walks with them.” Someone will question the voice, and the voice will answer, yes; and they will turn to you, and they’ll be just as hysterical as they were with me. The voice in the depths of your own soul will tell you, “God laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream: he’s dreaming that he’s you.” Then you will feel the wonderful thrill of being nailed upon this body. Oh, what a thrill! These whirling vortices—no pain, just joy, ecstatic joy! And then you are on the bed alone, and this journey continues in the soul, still moving on. But now you cannot rest; from that moment on, everything changes. You see people as you saw them but still they differ. You know their future. You know what they are destined to be, that everyone is destined to have the experience and to remember in that ecstatic moment, where unnumbered ages before, he was nailed upon the cross through God’s love.861 ¶37

“Unless I die, thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. For if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist.” So God dies. And this is the wonderful mystery of life through death. But here is our story for you this night on the crucifixion.861 ¶38

Now let us go into the Silence and hear the [...], and believe, when we break the spell, believe in the reality of that imaginal experience.861 ¶39

I would call it “The Greatest of All Blessings.” Like all visions in scripture, they are on levels. So I could take it on this level, and if I took it on this level then tell a little story to illustrate it. So the greatest of all blessings would be a strong Imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things as we desire them to be, all clearly fixed in our mind, and never waver from that vision, regardless of what you hear, regardless of what rumor comes into your world. Just a strong Imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things as you would like them to be, which would imply the fulfillment of a dream, your dream…on this level.860 ¶1

That same formula holds good for us on the highest level. It is held in the Divine Mind, and his dream for us is “Let us make man in our image.” That has never faltered, never wavered. It still remains fixed in the Divine Mind. Regardless of what we go through in this world, that remains fixed so that must come out. You and I, on this level, we may waver and break the image and feel that the law doesn’t work. But on the highest level for us there is no wavering, God is faithful. You can trust him implicitly to produce in us the image, which is the image of himself: “Let us make man in our image.”860 ¶2

On this level, let me show you in a simple way how this law operates. I received a letter yesterday from a friend who is here tonight. Another friend, who also is here tonight, shared with us an experience of his, and based upon this, this friend applied it, that if you want to help another, you become the other. You simply assume that you are the other, and then you give to the other that which they are either unwilling or incapable of giving to themselves. He did it with remarkable success, fantastic success! He took many, but he told us of a few, that he had assumed the personality of that other, and then while he wore that personality he simply gave to himself as that being what that being could not give to self.860 ¶3

Well, this gentleman who’s here tonight, he said, “I play golf. I don’t play it well, but I play golf, occasionally. And so, a friend of mine said to me, one with whom I’ve played time and again, ‘What about a game tomorrow?’ and I accepted the invitation. So, that night, the night before the game, I assumed I was my friend. I entered his body, and then wearing the body of my friend”…he then complimented himself on every stroke on the game that he played. So he played the part of his opponent complimenting himself on the game that he played. The next day…first of all he said, “We’re not the best players. We only play nine holes, and we always come, I would say, equal. We do it in fifty-six or fifty-seven strokes. That is our score for nine holes.” So he said, “The next day we played, and it was sheer fantasy, everything just went right for me. At the end of the game I won by ten strokes, and he, at every hole, was complimenting me. He said my putting was simply amazing…everything…as I’d never done it before, everything was perfect.” But he said, “Neville, I didn’t intend to beat him, that was not the purpose, but I tell you this to show you how the law works. I wonder if Arnold Palmer knows about it?”860 ¶4

Undoubtedly he does. He puts himself into the body of Nicklaus and has Jack compliment him on every hole, then who is going to win? I just say this is how the law works: a strong Imagination, a clear idea, and a determinate vision of things as you want them to be, and to not waver in that state. This is how the law works in this world of ours.860 ¶5

God, on the higher level, holds us, holds everyone, in his mind’s eye to form everyone into the image of himself, for that image is Jesus Christ. Now I asked you a few weeks ago to assume as you retire at night that you are Jesus Christ—I had a purpose for it—just assume “I am Jesus Christ.” Well, if that is the root, then you will grow from that root, for all things bring forth after their kind.860 ¶6

Well, a few hardy souls had the courage to try it, and I can’t tell you my thrill tonight that from this small audience, three men—two are present tonight, one is not, but he was here last Tuesday—on the basis of this assumption wrote me these letters.860 ¶7

Now here is the first, this chap assumed that “I am Jesus Christ.” He tried to feel what it would be like were he Jesus Christ, and fell asleep. He found himself sitting at a long table with benches for seats, just as you would in a park, say a picnic ground. Two first cousins were present. This lad, like his cousins, were all born and raised in the Catholic faith. They could not claim today that they are practicing Catholics, but they were born and raised in that faith. A discussion started, and my friend tried to persuade them of the reality of the power and wisdom of God, and told them that the power and the wisdom of God was Spirit. They seemed to be shocked when he told them what he did about the power and wisdom of God. He said, “I’m not making this up, I will show it to you in scripture. This was written by Paul 2,000 years ago.” This is all in his dream…he’s talking this way…and he tried to find a New Testament where he could turn to the first chapter of the 1st epistle of Corinthians, which is the 24th verse, to read this passage. Then he said, before finding the Bible, he said, “In the scripture written 2,000 years ago the power and the wisdom of God was named Jesus Christ.” And with that, it was such a startling statement that the whole dream vanished. They vanished. He awoke from it all and he remembered what he had dreamed.860 ¶8

Now, may I tell you, the whole purpose of life…if by God’s law you owned the earth—and many have tried to own the earth; great tyrants the world over over the centuries have tried to own this earth. They’ve all failed. But if you did succeed in owning the earth, you’ll make your exit anyway, like the little grass that withers and the flower that falls. Everything goes that way. But if you only fulfill scripture…for the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture. He said, “I have come and my only purpose is to fulfill scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” As we read it in the 24th chapter of the Book of Luke, “And he began with Moses and then the prophets and then in the psalms, and he interpreted to all of them all that was said of him in scripture.” So Jesus Christ in man is being formed; as he’s being formed, he unfolds scripture.860 ¶9

So here is my friend who actually in a state that you’d call an involuntary state, he is quoting scripture. He’s quoting the 24th verse of the first chapter of 1st Corinthians. He is unfolding scripture within himself by first assuming “I am Jesus Christ.”860 ¶10

Now, another one writes a letter, and he said, “I assumed I am Jesus Christ. I found myself walking down a highway, moving towards an institution for men. I knew there were all men there and they needed my help, and that was the purpose of my journey, I’m going to help them. So as I went down toward this place, I entered the courtyard of the institution, and instantly an enormous dog jumped at me. I held him. As I put my right hand forward it went through the collar and in some way held him and therefore arrested his motion, so he did not really hurt. And then, as I held him, all he could do was simply to nuzzle my neck, perfectly harmless. But I saw men in the area and I knew intuitively that these men had planned this trick, and they were enjoying the little trick of this seemingly vicious dog. All that I had within me as an emotion was compassion for them, that’s all that I had, just compassion. And then I had no resentment, I had no feeling of hurt, just sheer compassion for these men who had plotted and planned this trick against me. Then I turned my back on the men and I repeated the 11th verse of the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, and this is the verse: ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I put childish things away.’ And then I woke.”860 ¶11

Here is scripture… fulfilling scripture in the unfolding soul. I say to him, he hasn’t far to go. It always strikes me in a very strange way that everyone across this country as I go they’re always quoting the words of Paul. When the song begins to unfold, there are only two more verses left and the next really links it with the last. The next verse, “Now we see through a glass darkly”—-or as one translation has it, “We see in a mirror dimly”—-“but then face to face.” That’s the 12th verse and then we come into the 13th. I know from experience when you stand face to face with the risen Christ you pronounce the last verse, and it is: “Faith, hope and love, these three abide; but the greatest of these is love.” So the next vision comes when you are brought into the presence of the risen Christ (a man); and when you answer by quoting the last verse of 13th Corinthians, he embraces you. As he embraces you, you are fused with the body of Christ. You’re incorporated into the body of Christ. You’re one with the body of Christ, and one with the Spirit of Christ. Then you’re sent into this world to tell the story of the risen Christ. So here, this chap, by daring to assume “I am Christ”…and he found that the position in the moving drama where he is in the unfolding soul. What you are in the world of Caesar doesn’t really matter. He may be tonight completely unknown even in his neighborhood. He may have no security in the world of Caesar. He may be almost tongue-tied among people, that’s entirely up to him, or others, doesn’t really matter. But in the world of God, the unfolding soul, here he stands at the end of this wonderful drama as recorded in Corinthians. He’s on the verge. He’s only a verse away from it, because the 12th and the 13th they come together: “Now I see in a mirror dimly; but then face to face” and that comes right…face to face comes with the answer, which is “The greatest of these is love” as though you were prompted what to say when you’re asked “What is the greatest thing in the world?”860 ¶12

Now scripture also tells the symbolism (I do not go into that) of the dog…all that is told in the 22nd chapter of Psalms and in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. All of that is recorded in Genesis in depth. And there was a place for men only, that’s what he brought out, an institution for men, and only men. We’re told in the 22nd Psalm that they were wicked, “And the dogs surrounded me and the wicked ones encircled me.” So you know by the symbol of the dog who the wicked ones are. If you have a concordance and you look it up—I need not discuss it from the platform—you’ll know exactly the kind of institution that it was. It’s all part of the unfolding scripture.860 ¶13

Now the third one, who is not here tonight, he said, “I assumed I am Jesus Christ.” That night as he slept, he said, “I found myself in an enormous amphitheater, huge place, crowded to the gunnels. I was at the very base, the very bottom of it all. At the top stood you and you addressed this enormous crowd. You were asking all of us if we would, with you, affirm “I am Jesus Christ.” And so all who would agree to it would rise, and only a few of us rose. I rose…just a few rose…and then together you led us and you said, “I am Jesus Christ”…only a few from this enormous crowd in this amphitheater. And then I woke.”860 ¶14

Again, that is scripture…not quoting it…but that’s scripture, the 6th chapter of the Book of John. Here was the biggest crowd recorded in scripture, the 5,000. [...] modify it, just a big crowd. This from scripture would be an enormous crowd. Now this is the book or the chapter of the entire Bible that you can name, if you want to give it a name, secession. Where they heard the story, the grand story of the gospel, and only a few could take it; and the majority couldn’t take it, so they turned away, never to walk with him again. For he said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” And they said, “We know this man. We know his father Joseph and we know his father and mother, and how does he say, ‘I came down from heaven’?” Then he said, “Unless you eat the body and drink the blood of the Son of man, you have no life in you.” How could he say, “Unless we eat the body and drink the blood of the Son of man?” He calls himself the Son of man, which is the Son of God, and he claims as Son of God he is one with God, that “I and my Father are one.” How can this thing be? So they left, never to walk with him again. He turned to the few who remained, just a few, and he said, “Will you also go away?” Peter answered, “To whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and we have come to know you are the Holy One of Israel.”860 ¶15

They first heard it; hearing it, they believed it. And through belief they came to know, like these three tonight. They came to know the truth of the word of God. They know these words are true. Tonight, anyone here familiar with these words, with the Bible, can quote them, but when you are asleep you are not rationalizing. These things spring like flowers coming out of a vine. You can’t in sleep, when you are not rationalizing, think these things. They simply spring into being based upon where you are in the unfolding tree of life. And so here, “We believed it, and having believed it we have come to know you are the Holy one of Israel.”860 ¶16

Now, how would we eat the body of Jesus Christ? I could have the biggest meal in the world; it’s no earthly good to me unless I eat it. When I eat it, I assimilate what I can; what I can’t I expel, my system expels it. But I first must eat it. Well, how would I eat the body of Jesus Christ?—by simply assuming “I am Jesus Christ.” And all that Jesus Christ represents as I read about it in scripture, I assume I am he. I may not be able to assimilate all that I am told concerning Jesus Christ. What I cannot, I will eliminate. But I can start eating him and drinking his blood by making it alive within me. As I do so, then he begins to unfold within me. I must eat his body to have life within me, I must drink his blood, and the eating and the drinking of this being is simply “I am he.”860 ¶17

We are told there is only one body, one Spirit, one God and Father of us all, who is above all, through all, and in all. Well, if that is true, and I’m taught to believe and asked to say “our Father”…he tells me “I am Father.” If I am called upon to say “our Father” and then the one who teaches me to say “our Father” tells me “I am Father; when you see me you see the Father; I am the Father,” well, then I assume I am he. If I assume I am he and he’s the Father, then all that is said of the Father, that he’s the only Spirit, the only body, should begin to unfold within me to the degree that I assimilate him, that I feast upon it and feed upon it.860 ¶18

So here, in the short order of three weeks three men, all in their thirties, who are here, could actually assume the state to the point of revealing where they stand in scripture. For the only reason for it all is to unfold God’s word; there’s no other purpose. But if you owned the entire world and scripture didn’t begin to unfold within you, what would it matter? For we are told the whole vast world is as grass and all its splendor like a flower of the field; “the grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of God endures forever more.” So this word endures forevermore, therefore, let it unfold within us. It unfolds when you dare to assume that I am Christ.860 ¶19

But now I warn you, and this is a warning given to us in the first chapter of the 1st Epistle of Peter: “If you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially concerning their deeds, then conduct yourselves with awe through your entire life in exile.” This is the exile. Everyone wearing this veil of flesh is exiled from heaven. While you are here, when you dare to invoke as Father he who judges each one impartially according to their deeds, well, then you judge your own. Don’t think tonight, with dirty hands, the unclean hands, all things, that you dare to invoke him, because you are warned (it’s subtly) what’s going to happen. You are actually conjuring the power of the universe, but it’s yourself. It’s your very being. It is God. You are God. There’s only God, there’s nothing but God. God became as we are that we may be as he is.860 ¶20

So tonight, these three gentlemen, they didn’t for one moment think they were not worthy of such an association, and they claimed “I am Jesus Christ.” They were rewarded with the most glorious vision of where they stand in scripture. Scripture is unfolding in man: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” As it fulfills itself in me, then I awaken and I am he. Who? The one who voiced it and who through his servants the prophets recorded scripture.860 ¶21

So tonight you can take it on this level, as he took it with the golf course. That’s simple enough. He realized after he did it…I hope it wasn’t too much of a bet against his friend, unless he shares with the friend his knowledge of Christ. Next time he meets his friend he can tell him what he did, and then encourage the friend to try the same thing with him, so that he will actually begin to awake. But I tell you it works! It’s something that cannot fail if you will assume that you are the man that you want to be.860 ¶22

Now, this other aspect of this great secret of imagining was given to us by my friend, who is here tonight. He went home and in a vision he was told quite vividly—he being a writer, he was the perfect medium through which it could come—that when you would help another in your Imagination, do for the other what you do when you write a play. In writing a play you play all the characters, so you assume all the characters. Even in a love scene you make love to self to find out what this one would say, what this one would react to, and if in the love scene a slap in the face is in order, you slap yourself. Then in playing all the parts you know exactly how to unfold it. Well, now in doing so, now do the same thing for one you would help when you would apply your Imagination towards the other.860 ¶23

So he went home…that is, that very next day having received this revelation he tried it out. And with what startling success! Then, the following week he wrote me another letter where he warned me to warn you to do it always with love. For the first time he did it, he simply assumed that he was the one he wanted to help, and her immediate need was a car. So he simply assumed he was driving as this one the new car with the top down and the wind blowing in her face. It was a woman. In the immediate present, her mother gave her the sum of money to buy the car, and justified the gift by saying since she did not have a car, she has not been seeing her as often as she would like to see her. So she gave the money so that when she has the car she’d pay more visits to the mother. So the new car…and it is with the top down, and the same make, and the same color that he in his imagined state rode. The identical make, the identical color, and the top down, a convertible. That’s the car she bought without knowing what this man did.860 ¶24

Then with the new car…she said to him to get a certain party out of her life, but do it without offence, do it without hurting him. He, on the other hand, when he once more assumed her body, to get rid of this character he did not do it with love. For six hours he was locked in her body and couldn’t get out. He just couldn’t get out for six hours. When he finally got out and disengaged himself from this association, he was so emotionally and mentally and physically exhausted, he fell asleep and slept for twelve unbroken hours.860 ¶25

So, very nicely and wisely he wrote me another letter asking me to tell you, who heard the first aspect of this wonderful working of the law, not to do it save you do it in love. For you may be locked in that which you thought you were going to help and got lost in something other than love. For God is love. So if you do it in love you can’t go wrong. You will do it beautifully and you will disengage as easily as going in and out of an open door.860 ¶26

So that is on this level. On the highest level, you will know exactly where you stand this night…tomorrow night if it doesn’t come tonight…if you dare. I can’t say that all of you here will dare. My friend said to me that the two cousins of his, raised as he was as Catholics, thought he was blaspheming. It’s all in the dream. And said he to himself but he didn’t voice it to them, “Had I been told the same story of Jesus Christ a few years ago I would have felt as you feel now.” He didn’t criticize them. He knew how they felt, but he didn’t tell them that he, a few years ago, would have felt the same thing; he thought it to himself. But now, having heard it, having applied it and worked it on this level, he knew that this power was Jesus Christ, as told us in scripture.860 ¶27

My friend who told the story, he was actually quoting the 24th verse of the 1st chapter of 1st Corinthians, that the Spirit that is called Jesus Christ, that this is the power and the wisdom of God personified as a man. Well, you’re a man aren’t you? Well, the power is in you. It’s being formed into the image of God. But that power operates through the agency of man. And when it’s formed in you so it’s the perfect image of God, well, then the shell is broken, and you come out. But you still remain here in this world playing your part until that moment in time when the veil is taken off, and it’s taken off for the last time.860 ¶28

So everyone will actually be incorporated into the one body. So I meant it when I wrote it in that little tiny pamphlet of mine He Breaks the Shell that we are gathered one by one to be united into a single man who is God.860 ¶29

What a shock to the whole vast world! When my friend saw this enormous crowd, almost like a pyramid…because were I at the top and he at the bottom, it couldn’t really be an arena as he described it…this great amphitheater, how could it be? I should be down at the bottom addressing the crowd, but, here, I was at the top, the apex, addressing this crowd…almost like a great pyramid. They were all seated and not a seat to be had. But only a few would rise, only a few had the courage to claim “I am Christ.”860 ¶30

Three weeks ago, when I made this statement, there was a chap here. He brought a family of seven, his wife and children and all, and he made a date to see me the following Tuesday. It was on Friday night that I made the statement, and he had a date to see me on Tuesday. That was made before the lecture. He not only did not keep the date, he hasn’t phoned me, he hasn’t written me, not a card. He, seven of them altogether who came, they were symbolic of the crowd who cannot take it. He has his concept of Jesus Christ as some being who lived and died 2,000 years ago; and hopes to see him come in some strange way, maybe a glorified man, but he wants to see a little man all glorified with light to save his world. That’s not Jesus Christ.860 ¶31

Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God buried in every child born of woman. Everyone has to go through the same unfolding word of God. That remains forever. Nations come and go, empires come and they fall, everything comes and goes, and withers just like the grass, and falls like the flower, but the word of God, which is the gospel, the story of the gospel, remains forever. It unfolds in the individual.860 ¶32

And so, practice the law on this level that you may become familiar with it and have faith in Jesus Christ, who is the power and the wisdom of God. So you start on this level, and then that something begins to unfold within you, and it unfolds in the automatic, involuntary manner in the form of a dream or a vision. You go back and you search scripture and you find in scripture the passage that you have experienced, and you know exactly where you stand in the unfolding drama. You come to the end of Revelation when you stand in the presence of infinite love and it’s God, the risen Christ, who incorporated you. And then, you go through telling your story as best you can of the risen Christ. Whether they believe it or not, you tell it.860 ¶33

Then you come to the grand series of events, and there are eight. There are eight, and eight is the symbol of the complete resurrection. You start with the crucifixion: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his”. Watch the distinction in tense. We have been united with him in a death like his; we shall be united with him in a resurrection like his. So here, that’s the beginning of it all: We all have been united with God. He chose us in himself before the world was, so all are crucified with him, all of us. He’s crucified on these garments. This is the cross. The next is the entombment, that’s the second. You are entombed within your own skull, that’s where you are entombed. That is Golgotha. That’s the great sepulcher where Jesus Christ is buried. The third is the resurrection. On the third day the earth came up out of the deep, out of the deep the earth came. So three is a symbol or a number of resurrection, as eight is. Eight is the grand one. So on the third day he resurrects. You awaken within your skull to find yourself entombed, and then you come out. The coming out: The symbol of your birth from above is present in the form of a little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. That’s number four. Number five, the discovery of David, you find David. David is the Son of God, “Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee”. You find him and he calls you “Father”. Then and only then do you know who you really are: there’s only God in this world. You know even though you are limited by this flesh exactly who you are. But while you wear it, it’s like a grand pianist who could sit at the greatest instrument in the world, if you put a mitt upon him, what would he do with the instrument? The greatest technician in the world, sit him down at any grand piano that is beautifully tuned, everything is perfect, and he is the master of masters, but cover him with a mitt and ask him to play. Well, this body is the mitt that covers God…this is the veil. And so you find David, and you find him on the inside of your own being and he calls you “Father” and you know who you are. Here is this wonderful being that reveals you as God the Father. So that is the fifth. Then the sixth is the tearing of the curtain of the temple, which is your own body, from top to bottom, and severing you in two. At the base of that spine of yours, the blood of God, the golden liquid living light, and you know it is yourself. You fuse with it—this is the seventh—and up you go in serpentine form…all fulfilling scripture. Then the eighth is the seal of the Holy Spirit upon you by the descent of the dove. You do exactly what you’re told in scripture. When the dove returns to the ark, he puts out his hand and takes the dove in, and the dove comes into the ark to him. That is the seal of God’s work. And so the dove does come, which is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and seals you forever. You are sealed to an inheritance that is imperishable. You still wear the gloves, you still wear the veil, until your time comes at the end of a very short interval, when you take it off and the world calls you dead. And then, for that first moment in eternity, you really have returned to eternal life.860 ¶34

So here, the greatest of all the blessings is simply a strong Imagination, a clear wonderful idea, and a determinate vision of things as you would like them to be, completely fixed in your mind. You can start on this level. And I tell you, the story of the gospel is the idea fixed in the mind of God for you. He will not waver, he will not falter. But on this level, while we are veiled as we are, and shut out, we can play it and cushion our world and make it a lovely world for ourselves and our friends.860 ¶35

Just as our friend did this for himself on the golf course, we can do it for another. We can do it for anyone in this world. You can take anyone that you love in this world and you should [...]and you will [...] at all. It’s all one, anyway. You can take one who cannot do for themselves what they want to do. You will wear them as though you were the other and you will give to yourself what they could not give to themselves. And they will get it, things will break for them, lovely things. Not things that you imagined, not something that you plotted and planned, out of the nowhere the whole thing will simply work for them. When it works for them, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you used God’s law wisely. To use God’s law wisely is always to use it lovingly. Whenever you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you’re actually mediating God to that other. And then the whole thing unfolds within this world.860 ¶36

So in the end, not one is greater than the other, because all, everyone, is God. So in the end, you can truly say, as we’re told in Ephesians: “There’s only one body, one Spirit, one God and Father of us all, who is above all, through all, in all,” only one.860 ¶37

So I stood in the presence of the one, incorporated into that one, without loss of identity. So I know I am that body…the body of the risen Christ. And may I tell you, God is man. So when Blake made that statement, “Thou art a man, God is no more; thy own humanity learn to adore,” man finds it so difficult to believe that the Infinite Being is man…and it is man. We are the fragmented man, but all are being gathered together one by one by one to be united into a single man who is God.860 ¶38

Now let us go into the Silence.860 ¶39