Last Tuesday, we spoke of the three levels of the Bible, the rock, the water and the wine. So much is said in the Bible about the rock. We’re told, “Of the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and you have forgotten the God who gave you birth” . So we find the Rock equated with God. Then we are told, “They drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ” . We are told that the people rejected this Rock and yet it eventually became the chief corner stone. And throughout scripture so much is said about the Rock. From experience I tell you that truth is literal…although the words used may be figurative. When you experience scripture you will see, though before experience they were to you just metaphor and, well, figurative, when you experience scripture you will see how literally true these words are. How could God be a rock? How could Christ be the Rock from which man not only drank but the Rock that gave him birth? How can it be?821 ¶1

Well, here is an experience that I will share with you. It was in the thirties. I meditate daily, no special hour, not always to bring about changes, just because I like it. So while sitting in the Silence with my attention turned inward and contemplating nothing in particular, just the brain as it were, and usually after about a minute or so, sometimes it’s a matter of seconds, all the dark convolutions of the brain break and they burst into light, golden liquid light that simply pulses and goes all around one’s head. Well, honestly, I was thinking of nothing in particular, but suddenly before me came a quartz…I would say about that big. As I looked at it, it broke, became fragmented into numberless pieces; and then quickly it was assembled into a human form and seated in the lotus posture. As I contemplated it I noticed I am looking at myself. Here is the very being that is contemplating and the being contemplated, and they are one. We had only a moment before a rock, and the rock fragmented. The rock was gathered into human form, and a living, breathing being not made of rock. Here it is now living, it’s breathing, it’s flesh, it’s alive. Then as I became interested, it began to glow. It began to glow and increase in intensity, and when what seemed like the apex or limit of such intensity, the whole thing exploded. And here I am, still seated, pondering over this strange, peculiar vision.821 ¶2

I say, God actually achieves his limitless purpose by self-limitation. The word rock is defined as “to compress, to confine, to restrict; to take on the limit of contraction, the very limit of opacity.” So we’re told in the Book of Philippians, “And being in the form of God, he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave and was born in the likeness of man; and being formed in the image of man, became obedient unto death, even death on the cross” . Now, the cross, I know from experience, is not outside on a tree or wood, but man himself is the cross, the man himself is the tree of life; that here on this cross God is crucified. That I know from experience. I’m not theorizing, I’m not speculating, I know this experience to be fact.821 ¶3

This is the limit of contraction that God assumes. As the poet Blake said, “God himself enters death’s door and lays down in the grave with those who enter, and shares with them their visions of eternity ‘til they awake and see the linen clothes lying that the females had woven for them.” Here again is the linen cloth. The word linen means “white as marble, bleached, blanched.” That’s exactly what you see the very day of your resurrection. You’ve never seen such a ghastly whiteness on the face of the body out of which you’ve just emerged. Talk of death…there is really the appearance of death, really bleached. So here, this is the rock.821 ¶4

The occupant is your own wonderful I AM…that’s God. Your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God. And he shares with you all these wonderful visions of eternity. Most of them are nightmares, horrible dreams; but to you they aren’t dreams, they’re objective things, they’re facts. But if the day will come that you will awake, then the experiences preceding waking must have been a dream. So he lies down in the grave with them and shares with them their visions of eternity ‘til they wake. So when they wake all that preceded it seemed so real, just like the dream of the night. It seemed so real while you’re in it, and only on waking and reflecting on it does it seem like a subjective experience, a dream.821 ¶5

Well, this whole vast experience of man when God awakes in man will be to him a dream. But it had a purpose, an infinite purpose: For man to expand as God. God became man that man may become God. There is only God in the world, there is nothing but God. So this Rock that begot us…one day you will have the experience of seeing that Rock…beautiful imagery, marvelous symbolism. And yet all through scripture it is all about this Rock, the Rock from which man drank, this supernatural Rock, and the Rock was Christ. You who do not have the concordance will find that in Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, the 10th chapter. The Rock was Christ…he equates now the Rock with Christ. As we find in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, the word God being equated with the Rock: “And the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.” If the Rock begot you and God gave you birth, then Rock and God are one.821 ¶6

His name is I AM, in this wonderful unfolding of scripture, for scripture must be fulfilled in me. What is written about me has its fulfillment and everything written about me is in scripture. The whole book is a prophecy of what must be experienced by every child born of woman. So we are told, call the next witness. Call witness after witness, to do what? To testify to the truth of God’s will. So the first witness is external and we reject it. It’s to us like myth. It’s a rock, so we will not accept that as the building cornerstone on which to build our world. So the more intelligent man becomes, the more he looks upon the Bible as myth. And I tell you it’s the only reality. The Hebrew rabbi was uttering the truth when he said, “What is not written in scripture is non-existent.” Everything will pass like a dream, but his Word will not pass. This is simply a prophecy of all that man will one day experience. So we take it literally and wait for that day when we are called upon to be the witness to the truth of God’s Word.821 ¶7

You can’t force it. So what one should really believe in is simply the testimony of Jesus. As we are told, “He is the first witness, he is the first born of the dead.” Well, listen to his witness, listen to his testimony; for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. What prophecy? The whole Bible is prophetic. Not who’s going to win a war, or who’s going to become prominent in the world. Hasn’t a thing to do with secular history. The Bible is sacred history, brought to climax and fulfillment in the story of Jesus Christ. You may look upon Jesus Christ—and I take liberties—but in a sense just as though he were a divine reporter giving an account of that which is of infinite concern to man. Well, what is the concern of man other than to tell him his future?821 ¶8

His real future is to fulfill scripture. I can tell you of a secondary future which is entirely up to you. Anyone can become what he wants to be, that’s scripture too, but that belongs to the world of Caesar. If you know what you want to be in this world, it’s not difficult to become it. If you dare to assume—in spite of the evidence of the senses to the contrary, if reason denies it and your senses deny it—and yet you dare to assume that you are now the man, the woman, that you want to be, and believe in the reality of that assumption, not knowing how it’s going to happen, you’ll become it. But that belongs on this level, to this world, and in the end you’ll leave behind your record but it will fade…no one will know it in the next few generations. I only have to look back upon the great stars of forty-odd years ago, when they were so majestic in the eyes of all of us. You mention their names to my daughter, she doesn’t know them. I speak of Wallace Reed, she said, “What?” And yet when I was a boy the name Wallace Reed itself was magic. You mention all these names…she knows nothing of them. And then what will be her child’s, and her children’s children? They will know nothing of the so-called glittering ones of today.821 ¶9

But here is the Bible forever going right through, still remaining contemporary. But I can’t tell anyone who has not experienced scripture the thrill that is in store for them when they begin to experience it. Now, if you just read this one simple little statement, you could no longer conceive of Jesus as a man. We speak of the universal, cosmic Christ buried in every man, and that cosmic Christ is God. Take the very last verse of the simplest and yet the most profound book in the New Testament, the gospel of John. Read it! Only a few things are recorded, he tells us, that you may believe, but if everything he did and said were recorded, the world itself would not be big enough to contain the books. Well, can you conceive of a life of a few years doing things that you could not write about in all the volumes, and so many that the world couldn’t contain them?821 ¶10

But if you see him as a cosmic Christ, from the beginning of history up to the very end, and everyone in the world lives because Christ lives in him, and everyone does what he does because Christ does it in him. Christ is the slave of man. So you have the most horrible thoughts, he’ll execute them, yet he is love, infinite love. But being your Imagination he does not question your right to imagine the unlovely; he will do it. For he laid down the law in the very beginning: “All things bring forth after their kind,” everything. So you will know when you reap, don’t be surprised that was corn, that’s why you’re reaping corn; and you’re reaping sesamum because it was sesamum when you planted it. So I would say the law…the law of identical harvest. When you reap it it is only the multiplication of the identical seed.821 ¶11

So he will actually take upon himself all the sufferings of the world. Who? The cosmic Christ, your Imagination. So he doesn’t question your right to want to hurt, he carries the burden, and he is your own wonderful human Imagination. When you know that, you become extremely selective, extremely discriminative. For I tell you, in the end there is no other; there is nothing but yourself made visible, for the self of man is God. As he wakes in man, you know you are the God that begot you…you are self-begotten. When you have the experience, you read it, how could it be? Out of death came life? Well, here’s the mystery of the seed: Except it falls into the ground and dies and rots, it remains alone, but if it falls into the ground and dies, it brings forth much. So we’re told, God dies in the most literal sense, and yet it is not death as the world sees death. The Bible equates death with sleep: “Awake, you sleeper, and arise from the dead.” So when God puts himself into this self-imposed restriction called man, it is, relative to what God is, death. He emptied himself of his glory and took upon himself the form of death, which is man. He animates it by being present; he animates it as the dreamer.821 ¶12

Now we’re told, “And the voice said, ‘Come and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lord…the wife of the Lamb.’” Well, the lamb is a symbol of the Lord. Come and I’ll show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. “And so in Spirit he took me,”—always in Spirit—“and there I saw the new Jerusalem descending from heaven”—here, the King James Version translates what he sees now as the most priceless stone—“adorned like a bride.” The others, that is, the Revised Standard Version calls it a radiant light. Well, both are correct. It is a stone, but a stone capable of assuming human form, becoming alive and breathing; and then radiating beyond the wildest dream of man…more brilliant than the sun, more brilliant than the stars. And that’s you, because you’re looking at yourself.821 ¶13

Here you are contemplating your own being, and it began, as far as you see, a stone, just a quartz. It says, “Come, I’ll show you the Bride.” Well, what bride? Am I the Bride of God? Yes, I am the Bride of God. So the story from beginning to end is all about Christ. And man must leave everything and cleave to his wife, cleave to the woman, until they become one. So you see it when you become one. When you become one and not two, a new man is formed, and the new man is Christ. So he is being formed in us as it were by cleaving to us. As Blake brought out so beautifully, “His emanation, yet his wife, ‘til the sleep of death is past”…his emanation yes and yet his wife. He becomes it and individualizes himself as you.821 ¶14

When it happens, we’re told, he gives us a new name, and he writes it on a white stone, that luminous, radiant thing, and it’s a new name known only to the one who bears it. But I’ll tell you the name—but you won’t believe it until you are called by it—the name is Jesus. In the end, Jesus only…everything disappears and there is Jesus only. As we are told in Isaiah the 27th, “And I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel”…I know from experience why we are gathered one by one: Because of our uniqueness you can’t bring two together. One by one, to unite into a single body which is Christ—Christ awake, the risen Christ, is God. And everyone, as we’re told…of course, the translation is, “And he will transform or change our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body”. But that phrase “to be like” literally means “of one form with” his glorious body. So you will wear the body of love which is the body of God. These experiences are literally true and you’ll have them.821 ¶15

So when you’re told you must be born again, that’s literally true; and you will be, but not in the world of flesh and blood. For God is Spirit and if you’re born into the world of God, you’re born of Spirit; and you’re born from above, not from below from the womb of woman. Everyone will have this experience. If you’re here for the first time and just not quite familiar with this teaching, you might say, “Well, suppose I die tonight without having had the experiences?” May I tell you, I know this too from experience, you’re instantly restored to life. You’re still in this world, this world and this time called “this age.” You enter the new world through that new birth, which is preceded by a moment by what is called in scripture the resurrection. So we are resurrected one by one, and then as we are resurrected we are born of the Spirit into an entirely new world, wearing the body of God. And in the end, there is only God, nothing but God.821 ¶16

If you are here for the first time, and you’re concerned about improving your lot in this world of Caesar, may I tell you, it is very easy to do. It’s simple if you could only believe in the reality of your unseen, invisible imaginal acts. If you could sit here right now and contemplate what you would be like were it true that you are already what you want to be. Well, how will I know that I’m doing it correctly? Well, I do the frame of reference—I take a circle of friends, friends so close and so concerned that they would be conscious of the fact of my transformation. If I shared with them my secret, what I wanted to be, when I become it they will know it. So I let them know it…all in my Imagination. I bring them into my mind’s eye and let them see me as they would have to see me were I the man that they know I want to be. So should I become that man they’d be aware of it. I let them become aware of it and I believe in the reality of what I’ve done.821 ¶17

Because who did it? Christ did it, and all things are possible to Christ. Did he really do it? Well, he must have done it, because I did it. And we’re told, “By him all things were made and without him was not anything made that was made.” If I did it, I made it. It’s unseen as yet; it isn’t clothed in three-dimensional form, but I did it. And he is the one who does everything, and all things are possible to him. So my reasoning mind will tell me, well, you don’t know how it’s going to happen. As far as I am concerned, it has happened and I’m only awaiting confirmation. It has happened.821 ¶18

Like scripture, all this is foretold, as we’re told in the 44th of Isaiah, everything is foretold: there isn’t a thing that I haven’t shown you. But who will believe it? And here, everything is told. Now you become a witness to prove how true all that was hidden comes into your being through experience, and you become the witness. I must have two witnesses if I go to court. The outer witness is the Bible; the inner witness is the Spirit, and so when two agree in testimony, it’s conclusive. I have my Bible as a permanent record, and if my experiences parallel the Bible then I am the internal witness; I don’t need anyone else. I stand before the one who judges which is myself in the depths of my soul. I can’t lie to myself. So if I know that I have experienced this, that and the other, I know because I can’t fool myself, I can’t lie to myself. So when we are told, “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” Bring the next witness…so he comes in, and when he comes in, his very life, his very being testifies to the truth of the fact that he has witnessed and experienced scripture. That’s all that we are here for.821 ¶19

But in this wonderful world of Caesar—and it’s for a purpose—it’s a world of educative darkness. So you and I simply can change our environment regardless of where we were born in this world. Don’t complain because you were behind the eight-ball, born on the wrong side of the tracks. It doesn’t really matter if you know God’s law and you’re willing to trust God. God acts in you through your imaginal acts. Well then, single out what you want your friend to be, what you want yourself to be, and believe that they are.821 ¶20

You can start doing this now with a friend in your office. If you are having any problems with him, treat him as kind, as though he were. Treat him as though he were generous. Treat him as though he had intelligence. Treat him as you would like to see him. Do you know, he’ll conform to it. He may be the same rascal to others but to you he wouldn’t be. He has to conform to what you actually persuade yourself that he is, and in your presence and in your world he is the person. You can take anyone in this room…you’re not the same person to any two, far less any twelve. They see you differently, because they see you through their concepts of you; they see you through their assumption of you. Well, what is right?821 ¶21

So tonight, you take yourself, start with self, and try it. See if you do not in the immediate future actually change your world to conform to these changes that take place within your mind. As I change within, I change it without. And how I do it, I don’t know. I only know I believe in the reality of the imaginal act, and then if it takes one person or a thousand people to aid the birth of this imaginal act, it will take one or take a thousand. And really it’s only an extension of myself…they’re all arms of myself. They seem to be detached, but in the end they aren’t. So they’re going to help…they’ll do their part to bring about the birth of what I’ve assumed I am.821 ¶22

And may I tell you, it’s all in scripture. They may even intend it to be evil, they may even intend it to hurt me, but time, on reflection, will prove that God intended it for good. Because, I did it and I intended good…but I did it. Their intention may be evil. When the brothers sold Joseph into Egypt into slavery, and they came and they were filled with remorse, he said, you didn’t sell me into slavery, it was God. “You intended evil against me; but God intended that it work for good”. If you know the story, he became equal with Pharaoh in the ruling of Egypt and he could interpret dreams…the medium through which God speaks to man. So he interpreted the dream. Without his interpretation of the dream, the world would have starved to death, for it lasted seven years. And this famine was so great that no one remembered any time in history when they ever had anything; that’s how intense the famine was. Their very memory faded, they couldn’t remember a moment in time when they had anything. So he prepared, from seven years of plenty he prepared and filled the barns. Every year a certain amount had to be put aside. So when the famine came as foretold, it lasted seven years, and he had enough to take care of civilization.821 ¶23

His brothers came down and they simply were filled with remorse. But he knew they only played parts…he had a job to do…and getting to Egypt he’d be sold there. And the brothers were moved to play the parts they played. So someone may want to hurt you, and time will prove their hurt was used…for all things work for good with those who love the Lord. So everything that was done to him moved to work for good, and he became equal to Pharaoh in power, equal to Pharaoh in might, and yet transcending all in his wisdom; for he was in communion with God and could interpret the language of God. So here, don’t be concerned. If someone tomorrow on the heels of your assumption that things are perfect, accuses you, well, falsely, you’ll prove in time, on reflection, it contributed to what you are, and you’re moving towards the fulfillment of your assumption.821 ¶24

I came from a very small, little island. My family is a large family. The day that my father had this terrific blow in business we all despaired and thought this is the end, this really is the end, the whole bottom of the world has fallen out. Here he had these ten children to feed, to educate, to clothe, a wife, mother-in-law, and the usual help that we need in the Indies…and he had no money but none. Total strangers…not strangers but people that we did not entertain at home and who never entertained us…but they, too, came to his aid. One said, “Joe, what can I do?” Well, he said, “All I need is money and I have none, I have no collateral.” He said, “Alright,”—he was a commissioned agent—he said, “You want to go back into the same kind of business?” My father said, “I know nothing else but. I know how to be a good grocer, meat vendor, liquor salesman, and so these things I can do.” Well, he said, “Find a place, I’ll take care of the rent and I’ll stock you.” He found the place, or we found a place on a little side street. He gave orders to his clerks that every order that came from Mr. Goddard must be filled, no compromise. Fill it without any questions asked, and send no bill until Mr. Goddard pays you. When he feels like paying, he’ll pay. So we had what was to us unlimited credit, in that sense, and as the merchandise moved we paid.821 ¶25

Then on reflection, from that little beginning, the greatest day in my family’s life in the world of Caesar was the day he was wrongfully accused and eased out of this junior partnership in a grocery shop. Because, had he not been eased out he would have simply gone through the next years of his life doing what he did for the first nineteen in that partnership—working hard and getting nowhere. Then he started just with the help of two friends, who never came home for a cup of tea. And so, on reflection, what day in our life as a family could compare to that day!821 ¶26

My brother—not being superstitious, well, he’s a very practical, down-to-earth businessman—because this happened on the 13th day of the month, and he opened his new business on the 13th of the month, he got married on the 13th of the month, the new building was bought for him out of nowhere and now he took his signature on the 13th of the month—no one could come to him and tell him thirteen is unlucky. He waits for the day. Thirteen, as far as he is concerned, that’s the greatest day of the year, certainly of the month. And so, all the major things in his life fell on the thirteenth. And in spite of his know-how and really a terrific businessman, like so many people of the world they carry one little superstition. He carries that.821 ¶27

So here, don’t fall for the thirteenth, fourteenth or any other delay. All days are God’s days, all equal. The thing you must watch is what you are doing in your Imagination, for your every imaginal act is God in action, and all things are possible to God. It’s because of our shortened memory we don’t recognize our own harvest when it appears in the world. We don’t see it. But here, the whole thing comes up to confront us, to fulfill God’s law that all things bring forth after their kind. You can’t plant an apple seed and grow something other than the apple. That happens to everyone in this world.821 ¶28

Who knows that his partners had to do what they did because he was ambitious for his family, and in his daydream he was dreaming of something bigger, something better, to leave his family, to give his family. He never shared that secret with us, but he could have undoubtedly dreamed these things. So having dreamt these things, they played their part, and so he never condemned them. In the very end, if one wanted help, he helped him. They all went to work for other people, eventually, and he was the only one when he died—of course, the others died before him—when he died he could leave his family financial independence. He had a large family, nine sons and one daughter. He didn’t just leave them as a unity, individually they were all independent.821 ¶29

It was all from that little beginning where he started behind the eight-ball. So what was the end of the world as a family became the beginning of a glorious future for all the family.821 ¶30

So if tomorrow your world collapsed after you’ve assumed that you are what you want to be, look upon it as a contributing factor. Time will prove that it is. Don’t get on the phone and call someone and say, “I asked you to help me and look what happened! I was fired!” Best thing in the world! The day I was fired I went to my boss and said, “Why did you fire me?” I was making the large sum of twenty-two dollars a week working for J. C. Penney, busboy, putting hats in bins, and all kinds of things. Any moron could have done what I did. I worked for a year, and one day they fired me. When I asked him why, what have I done that’s wrong, he said, “Not a thing…but you come from a little island where you don’t have the same concept of business that we have, and when business declines we simply let people go.” I said, “What am I going to use for rent and food?” “That’s not my concern.” Well, he must have felt sorry for me and so he gave me a little note to a friend of his who employed people at Macy’s, and said, “He’s a greenhorn, just in from the West Indies, help him out.” I went over to Macy’s and so they gave me eighteen dollars a week.821 ¶31

So one day, instead of being fired I quit…and that was the beginning of my world. I had the courage to quit. And when I quit, and didn’t depend upon Macy’s to feed me or pay my rent, I never worked for another person. Oh yes, I had six Broadway shows, but I never considered myself working for Mr. Schubert. I was an artist and he employed me, and so, when he employed me I never thought that he was my boss. I tore that word completely from my vocabulary and threw it through the window. From then on I was simply on my own. If I starved, no one would know it. I would know it, that’s all.821 ¶32

And so on reflection, my wonderful day was when J. C. Penney fired me, for I might be today the captain of the elevator operators, could easily be. If I held on just as securely and only securely, then longevity would have given me something there, for that’s going all the way back to 1922.821 ¶33

So I say, don’t be concerned if tonight you have a blow, a horrible blow, a great disappointment after you’ve assumed something big and wonderful for yourself; for that assumption is coming into being and has to break up all these things to make way for its birth. When you grow in this world, you outgrow. You can’t grow and not outgrow. And so, the growing pains are painful sometimes.821 ¶34

But I tell you, everyone in the world will witness to the truth of God’s Word, everyone. And the most impossible statement in scripture will one day be experienced by you, and you’ll see how literally true it is. Who would have thought that the statement of “the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and you forgot the God who gave you birth,” that that Rock and God are the same in scripture? And the Rock from which you drank as you went through the wilderness, that supernatural Rock was Christ? Well then, I saw the Rock, a fragmented being gathered together, and it wasn’t any picture I’d ever conceived of as Christ. Then I understood the epistle of John, “If anyone said, ‘Look, look here…look there, that’s the Christ,’ don’t believe him!” Don’t believe him, why? Because, “It does not yet appear what we shall be. We know when he appears we shall know him”. Because why? We shall be just like him. So when you see that Rock which is Christ assembled into human form, it’s you. And then you know who Christ is, that it’s yourself begotten, that God achieves his limitless desires by putting upon himself these self-imposed restrictions and becoming obedient unto death on the cross that is man.821 ¶35

So, when you leave here tonight, don’t forget it. Try to remember it every moment of time. As you walk the street, no matter what you’re doing, just bear in mind that you are actually creating your future here. Your real future, as I told you earlier, is to fulfill scripture, and that you will do. Your secondary future is to use God’s law wisely while you are in the world of Caesar. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have the talent, you don’t have this, that and the other. You have all that it takes because you can imagine. If you can imagine, I ask you to imagine the loveliest things in the world. Not only for yourself but for everyone you know, and see how everyone conforms to your Imagination, to what you have imagined them to be. You’ll prove it.821 ¶36

Now before we go into the Silence, I want to remind you, if you don’t come on Tuesday, this coming Sunday, on the 20th, my friend Freedom Barry… * * *821 ¶37

“All that you behold; tho’ it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” You cannot conceive of something that is not already contained within you. If you imagine it and enter into that state as though it were true, the outer world will respond to bear witness of this imaginal activity within you. Now you try it. And if you prove it to your own satisfaction that it does work, then you come to this conclusion—you’ll read it in the 13th chapter of the Book of Acts: “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.” Now if the entire world responds to my imaginal activity, well then, that is David who will do all my will, for, he is doing my will. Well, if the Lord said David does my will and I by a simple imaginal act command the outer world to respond to it as though I struck a chord and everything in sympathy with the chord struck must respond to bear witness to this that is active within me, well then, who is the Lord? If I notice the world responding to what I am imagining, and David is one after my own heart who will do all my will, I see who David is: David is the outer world responding to my will. Now, it’s not “will” as the world will use it…I will “will” it to be so. No, I will imagine it to be so. I am inwardly convinced that it is so. If I imagine that it is so and persist in that imaginal state as though it were true and the world responds, I have found David. And I have found the Lord…the Lord being my own wonderful human Imagination. The imaginal act in its response is David…there is David.820 ¶1

Now in Hebrew thought, history consists of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into one grand whole; and this concentrated time into which all the generations are fused and from which they spring is called eternity. Now we are told in Ecclesiastes that “God has put eternity into the mind of man, but so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Only in the end will we find out what God has put into man’s mind. Well, he’s put eternity which would contain all things. If all the generations of men and all of their experiences fused into one grand whole is put into the mind of man, every conceivable variety of experience is contained within that one grand whole. The word translated eternity is also translated “the world.” But it is also translated and quite often in scripture as “the youth, the stripling, the young man” and these are three titles used of David. He said, “I have found David the son of Jesse.” Well, Jesse means “I am” and that’s the name of God. “I have found in David”—the Son of God, the son of Jesse—“a man after my own heart who will do all my will.” Well, now I see that he really is the entire vast world of humanity and all of their experiences, but I do not know this until the very end. In the very end of the journey I find him personified as a single youth; not as unnumbered people, one single eternal being. For, eternity is personified as youth and not as an old man as the Greeks did. It is simply one single being and he is the youth called David. I will know this only in the end.820 ¶2

Now here is the day after the great event that tens of millions celebrated yesterday, and I wonder what percentage of them really understood what they witnessed. Listen to these words, this is the 20th chapter of John: “And Peter went into the tomb and he saw the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, which was on his head, lying not with the linen clothes but rolled up in a place by itself.” Well, you would wonder, “Why on earth would you put that into a story that is so dramatic, so all-together marvelous, why would you tell it?” You see the linen clothes and you see the napkin and they are not together, they are separated, and he finds this in the tomb. Now we are told that when he was brought to the tomb the tomb was called the skull, and there he was buried. There he was first crucified and there he was buried. So Peter goes into the tomb that’s the skull, but him they do not see. He and his partner when they went in did not see the one that was put there, but they found the linen clothes and they found the napkin, and they were not together. The napkin was rolled up in a place by itself. If you take it as a secular story, you will think a man died, had him in linen clothes and they covered his face with a cloth called a napkin, and then when they went in the third day the tomb was empty…he wasn’t there but the linen clothes…well, you will think in terms of these.820 ¶3

But that is not the symbolism of scripture. The linen clothes represent the physical body and that’s what they found. They found the physical body, the garment that he wore, but they did not find him. You would say then he was dead. No, that is not the story that is being told. They found the napkin. Well, in ancient times the word napkin had a far wider range of meaning than it has today. We have a dinner napkin, a cocktail napkin…we also have today a sanitary napkin. But this was a different kind of napkin. This napkin symbolizes the placenta, the afterbirth. If you know the true symbolism of scripture it is telling you a birth took place and it came from this. For, the napkin symbolizes simply the afterbirth…and here is the body that you found. Well now, something was born. Now, this is in the Book of John, it is not in the other three gospels. John insists on a birth from above. Matthew and Luke who tell the story of the birth do not tell it in this manner and you would on reading that story imply a woman called Mary gave birth to a little child, as you were born, as I was born, but it differed from us. That’s not the story. When you see the story in John, who is the most profound of all the New Testament writers, you see the birth and then you see who Mary is. Mary was the skull; Mary was that womb in which God entered. Or as Blake said, “God himself entered death’s door with those who enter and lays down in the grave with them, in visions of eternity, until they awake and see Jesus and the linen clothes lying which the females had woven for them.” Well, my mother wove this garment, this fleshy garment. My mother wove it in her womb, this is the linen cloth that mother wove and she wove it for me. When it came forward, then following it came the placenta. The uterus had to expel it…it had to be discharged. It was no part of her. Here is the napkin telling that something entirely different took place, some birth, some unusual birth…something that was not known to man before…and it took place in the skull.820 ¶4

The drama begins in the skull and ends there. So here, unnumbered millions yesterday attended this service and they heard that he is risen. Well, yes he is risen, and so will you, for he is speaking of you…the whole story is all about you. God actually became as we are that we may be as he is, and he entered death’s door, which is my skull, your skull. He enters and then has visions, visions of eternity, and all these horrible visions that you and I have which come forward as physical effects in our world—wars, famines, convulsions—everything in the world you and I imagine or it couldn’t happen. So when I imagine a state and I find a response coming from without, I have found who God is.820 ¶5

But “All things are made by him and without him is not anything made that is made”. But he also has to have one who will do all of his will. Then I find that 500 different people, male and female, were responsive to my imaginal act, and they seemed to be the instrument through which it became visible in my world—then I have found David. For, if David is a man after my own heart who will do all my will then humanity is David. But, in the end of my journey the whole is fused into a single youth and that youth is then personified as David. And strangely enough, coming from within you, then you stand and you face him, and he calls you Father. As told us in scripture, he will call God, the Lord, Father—“I have found David and he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father’”, and when he calls you Father the journey is at an end.820 ¶6

But it took all the generations of men and all of their experiences to bring you to the point of confronting all of it fused into a single being, and that being is David. That’s in store for every one in the world. Every child born of woman will discover eventually that he is the God who created the entire vast universe. He is the God who wills everything to happen; so in the end he forgives every being because everyone did his will. But everyone summed up simply means to him David: “I have found in David the son of Jesse”—which is I AM, my own son—“a man after my own heart who will do all my will”.820 ¶7

Now in scripture you find these words, I, Jesus, tell you I am the root and the offspring of David. I created humanity, all these bodies that were dead, and then I entered them and animated them. They became animated, they could respond to my imaginal act. And then I came out of humanity. Having played unnumbered parts I came out of humanity, so I am now the offspring of humanity. I am the root, therefore the Father, and yet in the end I come forward from it as I promised myself that I would. So, go say unto David, “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”. So, I created humanity, came forth, and buried myself in humanity. For, a seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive. Unless it dies it remains alone, but if it dies it brings forth much.820 ¶8

So God must die, so he comes into humanity. Humanity is made of the dust, the earth, so the seed falls into the earth called man. And then in man because it comes from God and is God, he says “I am.” That’s the name of God forever and forever. So here in these bodies you say “I am,” well, that’s God. Then you imagine a certain state and the world responds, good, bad or indifferent. Well, if it responds it’s doing your will. So whether it be a single person who did it or unnumbered persons who did it, they represent David…for I have found David who does my will. So regardless of your present name, your present race, your present anything, you are David if you respond and make visible to me that which I have imagined. I not only have found David in the response, I have found the cause of that response, and I have found it in myself—that my imaginal act was the cause of the response of the world relative to me. So I have found the Father and the Son.820 ¶9

In the end of my journey, when I come to the very end and I am setting myself free from this world of death comes this wonderful mighty act. And the whole thing is fused before me into one single youth and he stands and there he is as described in the Book of Samuel, just as he’s described in Samuel. And here is eternity that was buried in me: “God has put eternity into the mind of man yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end”. So all of a sudden, I’m in the end and the journey is over, and I am enhanced by reason of the experience of creating bodies that are dead, entering the bodies that are dead, and playing a part. I play all the parts and you will play all the parts. Your presence here tells me you have played them or you wouldn’t be here, because no one comes unto me save my Father calls him…and I and my Father are one. So you wouldn’t be here as you are without an interest. Your presence night after night proves that interest, and therefore proves that you are at the end of playing all the parts…with the same identity, no loss of identity.820 ¶10

But you have played the part of the well-known and the unknown, of the wealthy and the poor, of the disgraced and the honored. You have played everything in the world, for everything is contained within you, and you can’t conceive of a plot in the world that is not now a reality in you. But you need not animate it. If you enter into that state and assume that you are it, well then, not one power in the world could stop that from responding. And if it takes a dozen or ten dozen or a thousand men and women to respond to bear witness to that active state within you, they must respond, for they will do your will. “I have found in David a man after my heart who will do all my will.” Not once has he ever failed me in doing my will…and humanity is David. That is the Hebrew thought concerning history. This is their real concept…when I say “their” I do not mean the person you will know who is calling himself a Jew. I’m speaking of the Sanhedrin; I’m speaking of the giants in that wonderful setup.820 ¶11

Yet the giant did not understand the word when he said you must be “born again.” His name was Nicodemus and he was a member of the Sanhedrin and he said, “How can a man who is old re-enter his mother’s womb and be born again?”. He said, “You, a master of Israel and you do not know? Except you are born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, you cannot enter the new age. And this whole drama is simply one being playing all the parts…one being expanding himself by first limiting himself to his own creation. So he creates humanity. It’s part of the structure of the universe and it’s dead. Now he animates it. It is said, “He breathed upon them.” Well, the word breath and the word spirit are one and the same in Hebrew and in Greek. So to breathe upon is simply to possess it. I possess the body and as I possess it, spirit enters it. That is animating it. But I am now in a body that is dead. I must now go through the horrors of the journey, and when I reach the very end of it then I begin to awake. And I awake just where I started the dream…I awake in Golgotha, the skull, the tomb, which is the skull of man. That’s were I entered, and that’s where I awake, and when I awake I emerge from it.820 ¶12

I look back at that which I occupied for 6,000 years and it is ghastly pale. It’s the linen clothes that my mother wove in her womb. And then I depart, leaving, and the body expels that which is the napkin. And I come out, and others come to find me. They find only the discarded body and they find now the thing which symbolizes my birth. It’s only a symbol of my birth from above. Having had the experience I can tell you exactly how it happened. You start in the skull and you end in the skull…and the whole drama begins in man. The drama is all about God and there is nothing but God. It is God who created it, it is God who is playing it, and in the end it is God who extracts himself, and he rises from his own state which was a dead state. That is resurrection.820 ¶13

But if you think in terms of one little being called Jesus Christ, you miss it completely. That is not the mystery. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, and that is God himself. When you imagine a state wait for the response…it will come. Everything will come. It will come just like any sound that you make will bring a response, because in your world there is something that is attuned to the note that you struck. It will come. Everyone in the world will play the part they must play if I remain faithful to any state into which I enter. So when Paul makes the statement, “Remember Jesus Christ descended from David according to my gospel,” he’s telling you now that it’s my gospel and that he experienced it. He does not deny the descent of Jesus Christ from David, yet he knows that David was created by Jesus Christ. He buried himself in it and died…forgets himself completely as being the one who created it, and then extracts himself from it…now far more luminous than when he entered it, far more translucent then when he entered it, far greater in power and wisdom than when he entered it. For God is truth and truth is an ever-expanding illumination and there is no limit to the expansion. So when he comes out and he begins to expand, he is enhanced by the experience of coming into the world of death and overcoming death.820 ¶14

So resurrection is simply the rising from the dead, and the dead is simply theses bodies in which we are now encased. So the little napkin…don’t look for it as the world sees it. It’s a symbol just as I have told you. I know what I am talking about. You won’t find it; I didn’t find it. I knew what happened, but I knew why John placed the word napkin there and gave such importance to it, such significance, because he was the one person who stressed the necessity of being born from above. “You must be born from above.” Well, the one sign of birth would be that. If you come and you find that, then you find a body. And that belongs to the body, but it was not with the body, because it can’t be with the body after the birth. It’s only with the body prior to the birth. But when the birth takes place, when the offspring comes out, that is then discharged from the uterus. And it’s a sign that something came out of this, but this one they do not see, for he is now born from above. And no one can see Spirit with mortal eyes. So they came in and they saw the remnant of the things he wore, but him they did not see. This is the story as told us if one understands the symbolism of scripture.820 ¶15

And the day will come that you’ll experience it. Everyone will experience it, and you and I will once more be back into the one body we occupied before the descent into these bodies. For the body of the risen Christ is not something that is finished; it is in the process of erection, made up of the redeemed, made up of everyone who has had that experience. And everyone must have that experience, so eventually that body will be the most glorious thing in eternity, for it will be far more luminous and more wonderful than it was prior to the descent into its own creation of death. It was done deliberately. You didn’t do one thing that was wrong to come into the bodies of death called man. You are God. You are not some little worm coming out of the slime, moving from there into some little bird, and from the bird into something else, then something else, and finally man. No, all of this is part of the structure of the universe. You descended into man and animated man…all of us. And no more can descend into humanity than the number of the sons of God and it takes all the sons of God to make God. The word is plural, the Elohim…these are the gods, the sons of God that together make up the I AM. And you can’t have more in this world than there are sons of God.820 ¶16

So every child born of woman could only be born and be animated because a son of God, an ancestral being is in it and animating it, controlling it, and putting it through all the paces by putting himself through; and in the end he extracts himself from that body. That body was his David, his beloved, because the whole vast world is David, because the world has to respond to his will. Someone now sitting in a dungeon feeling abused, by some intense Imagination entering into the image conceived by her is causing disturbances in the world. She is completely unknown, buried in a dungeon, and she is treading the winepress. While completely unseen and unknown by the world she is causing a response in the whole vast world.820 ¶17

Who knows who is actually causing the response today in this conflict, that conflict and the other? No one knows. Some unseen person can be the source of the conflict. We don’t really know. And we go forward giving what is called advice, more and more so-called good advice when scripture doesn’t speak of giving any good advice; it speaks only of giving good news. Go and tell them the good news, that you created it, and you will simply extract yourself from it.820 ¶18

And so, you are the immortal being. Don’t give any good advice. Let people be just what they want to be. I don’t care what they are, let them be. They want to grow beards and long…well, there was a time that everyone grew a beard. Let him grow his beard, let him grow his mustache, let him do all the things in the world as long as he doesn’t interfere with you. As far as you are concerned if you don’t want to grow one, don’t grow one. And no one will disturb you if you in your own wonderful way imagine you are free, free as the wind, and live in that state. And the world will respond to you and treat you with all the respect you do. But if you get entangled in it, trying to work against shadows—for they’re all shadows if they respond to my imaginal act then they’re shadows—how can they be causative in my world? If I give them the power of causation, then I’m transferring what rightly belongs to me to them, and they’re only shadows. The whole vast world bears witness of the activity taking place within us, and so the whole world only mirrors what I am doing within myself. That’s all that it’s doing.820 ¶19

If I know that, I am set free! I keep on to the very end. And when this terrific series of events begins to unfold within me and I’m at the very end of the road, tell the story. Tell it to encourage your brothers, because we’re all brothers. “Go and tell my brothers I am ascending unto our Father. Go and tell them I am ascending unto our God”. And when we get there we are the Father and we are the God. It is not you and I as brothers and he as Father; we together, collectively, are the Father…we are God. So go tell my brothers I am ascending unto my Father, your Father, unto my God and your God. So in the end we are only one, one wonderful being. And the body is now being slowly erected out of the redeemed and everyone will be redeemed. I can’t conceive of one being lost. One of my brothers lost in the world of death? Why, I would leave the ninety and nine and go in search of him. I could not leave one in a body that is still not yet awakened. He would have to be redeemed or the temple is missing a stone and it’s not finished. So everyone in the end is going to be redeemed. Yes, Hitler, Stalin, all the so-called monsters of the world, for they only responded to the fears and the frightening, horrible things that men set in motion.820 ¶20

My friend, who is here tonight, gave me a letter last Friday and she said that she rarely buys a paper, but several weeks ago she bought a Sunday paper and going through it she came across a story, a short story of this woman who called herself “a great medium” and, naturally, California is going to go right into the Pacific. So she took all of the members of her family and went off to Spokane. Then she said, “Weeks went by and a friend of mine called and she brought in a paper. As I told you I do not buy papers and that was simply an occasion when I bought that Sunday paper. So she brought in a paper and I took the paper and went through the pages and here I came upon a little news item; the same woman, the same medium who took her family from California and went off to Spokane died suddenly of a fatal heart attack, age twenty-nine.”820 ¶21

All right, so California did disappear, as far as she is concerned her world vanished. She is now in a world like this, but it need not be in her little California. She’s in some section of time best suited for the work yet to be done in her to bring her to the knowledge of who she is. This frightened little thing…so she died at age twenty-nine. And she is one of the great soothsayers who has frightened so many in this state. Friends of mine left it, went off to Arizona. But they don’t realize you can only take yourself with you. You can go from here to the ends of the earth. If you make your bed in hell, you’re still there, because God is there and you are God. You can’t get away from being God, although you may not know that you are, and so if you are afraid here you’re going o be afraid there. So in her case the fear possessed her.820 ¶22

It’s like Job…he said, “My fears have come upon me”. He was so afraid, he was creating his own disaster and then it came upon him. Now we are told in the end that it was God who brought it. But in the end he realized who God was: God was himself. He said, “I heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” Now I know, I experienced…I was praying to a God external to myself and all of my fears came upon me while I pleaded with a God who did not exist to do something about it. In the end, the very last chapter, the 42nd chapter, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee”. He now sees the symbol that reveals to him that he is God the Father. And all that he had lost returned to him because it had to return…but it was double. Because when God comes out of this and extracts himself from this fabulous experience, everything that he was is doubled when he comes out. That’s the story of Job.820 ¶23

Job didn’t do anything wrong; he simply imagined the wrong things. It began with a so-called devil. Well, the devil doesn’t exist outside of man. The devil is doubt, that’s all that it is. Satan is the doubter. And so, I doubt the reality of my imaginal acts…all right, so that’s Satan. I can’t believe in the reality of the unseen imaginal act. Well, then don’t, but you still will imagine anyway. You will not believe in the reality of this imaginal act, but you’ll turn from this, you’ll turn to another, because you can’t stop imagining, for imagining is God and imagining animates the world. That is the power of the world. So in the end, I have heard of thee, but I didn’t see you. Now my eye sees you, and then all the things that were taken from him are now returned a hundred-fold.820 ¶24

So here, this wonderful birth that was celebrated yesterday is the birth from above, but they celebrated it only as resurrection. Resurrection and birth from above are two sides of the same coin; it takes place the same night. And it doesn’t have to take place on any first Sunday after the full moon in Aries. That is simply a mark set up by the priesthoods of the world. It can take place at any moment in time and it is still taking place every moment of time. For, the temple is being constructed and the whole thing is being rebuilt on a more glorious scale out of living bodies. For, we are the living stones that will now form the New Jerusalem. So believe me when I tell you your own wonderful human Imagination is Jesus Christ. That is the being that entered death’s door, you skull, and that is the being who is dreaming the world in which you live and that is the being which will emerge. When he does, you are Jesus Christ and there never was another one and there’s only one. So when I awake, I am he; when you awake, you are he; and we all awake, we are he. And so, together we form the one being and that one being is the Lord God, the Creator of it all.820 ¶25

So don’t envy anyone, don’t condemn anyone, for a judgment is an activity of your own Imagination and with what judgment you judge will be judged on you. You’ll fulfill it. So leave them alone. You’ll find people always trying to get you into a certain little circle to make you pass an opinion. What do you think of the hippies? What do you think of is one? What do you think of that one? Well, I’m quite sure if any of us had a memory long enough, we could go back and trace everything we now see in the world to some ancestor. If we go back far enough all were our ancestors: we had hippies, we had thieves, we had murderers, and we had everything.820 ¶26

I think it was Lord George when he tried to bring in a change in the land reforms of England, and he got up in the House where he was prime minister, and he was trying to bring about some reform of the land reform. He turned to the opposition and he said that “every Englishman today in order to trace ownership of his land must go back to the ancestor who first stole it.” Well, he got a lovely reaction on that, because you can’t go back far enough unless you find the one who stole it. We speak of kings today…no one was originally born a king. He had to steal that position and maintain it by arms, because who ever appointed him as king? Who appointed anyone in a position of that nature? You go back far enough and they all stole it. So when he was trying to bring about land reform in England he said, “You can lay claim to this land only by going back far enough to find the ancestor who stole it.”820 ¶27

Now, you don’t have to go back and change anything. Leave it just as it is. He wants a thousand acres, let him have it, a 100,000 acres, let him have it. You are satisfied with just simply living in a lovely apartment, all right, take the apartment. But you will say, “Well, I can’t afford it.” If you say that you can’t afford it, that’s your imaginal act. I would suggest to you when you say that you can’t afford it, this night to sleep in that apartment, mentally, as though you occupied it, with all the funds necessary to pay for it. And in a way you do not know the world will respond and you will get the necessary funds to pay for it. If you don’t want that and you want to own your own home then sleep in a place as though you owned it and the necessary funds will come; because the world only responds, it doesn’t cause. It responds to your own imaginal act, for there’s only one God and that God is in you as your own wonderful human Imagination.820 ¶28

Now, before you judge it, may I ask you to try it. If you try it, you can’t fail! And if you really try it and you prove it in the testing, well then, you become one who will spread the good news to your brothers, and tell everyone that you meet how things work in this world. So they will not feel, “Well, I didn’t have it at birth. I didn’t have the good chances as a child. I didn’t have the parents who had it, the proper education.” Forget all of these things and just simply take this principle and you can’t fail. “For an assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact”. That is true. So when you know what you want, just assume that you have it, and persist in that assumption as though it were true, mentally seeing the world that you would see if it were true. And as you walk, you are calling a response to it. And eventually, in the not distant future, you will find yourself occupying that state physically in this world.820 ¶29

Well, now don’t forget it. We go to sleep after we realize our dream and try to hold onto the dream that is now solidly real in our world and try to protect it with secular means. Don’t! Hold on to it only in your Imagination, for we are given a warning that this man said, “I have all that it takes, more than enough. I will now build bigger barns to house and then take my ease” and the Lord said to him, “O fool, tonight your soul is required of thee.” You don’t have to hold onto anything…hold on only in your own wonderful human Imagination. If something is taken from you, all right, somewhere along the way you allowed it by assuming that you had lost it, toying with the idea what would it be like if it were true that I had lost it. And then you dropped it, forgetting that you did that, and then comes the moment that you lose it. If you want to lose it, all well and good; if you don’t, then hold onto your things only in Imagination and don’t build barns to house them.820 ¶30

But don’t forget the story of the birth as told in John. He does not describe it as Matthew does, and as Luke does, but he tells us it is essential to enter a new age. And then, in the very end he gives it to us in the most beautiful symbolism, but the symbolism is not understood. They see death. And yet it’s only through death that one lives, so “The seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive. If it dies, it bears much; if it doesn’t fall into the ground it remains alone”. So God dies: “Unless I die thou can’st not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me”. And I rise out of death.820 ¶31

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Now are there any questions, please?820 ¶32

If you opened the Bible and you opened to the page and read this simple little statement, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,” would you grasp it? “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation,” what would it mean? Who is this God and who is this Christ, and who are we that he entrusts to us this message of reconciliation? When you open the Bible, you’re really opening the greatest mystery in the world. It’s not something you can pick up and then just say, well, I will read it and this is something like reading the morning’s paper, a little news item. So, you follow me closely and see how it works with us.817 ¶1

I will now quote the most quoted Psalm that is quoted in the New Testament, the 110th. “And the Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’ The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’” Now this is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. When it’s quoted in the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, the words are quoted by Jesus Christ. Naturally, after the gospels are over, it could only be quoted of him, not by him, and so we find it in Acts, in Romans, in Corinthians, in Ephesians, in Colossians, twelve times in the epistle to the Hebrews. We find it in the epistle to Peter and in the very last book, the Book of Revelation.817 ¶2

And here is this 110th Psalm…what does it mean, “And the Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’”? Now here he introduces three characters, seemingly. For here is the great poet, the inspired poet David, and David is speaking; and he speaks of “the Lord,” the creator of the universe; then he speaks of “my lord,” something entirely different. What is the difference between David, the Lord who is the creator of the universe, and then David’s lord? Speaks of it as “my lord”…”He says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’”817 ¶3

Now, he’s entrusted to me the message of reconciliation, as I quoted in the beginning from Corinthians, so I must this night explain to you this passage. For what is Christ in the world doing? He doesn’t come to change governments; he doesn’t care whether the government is one of Democracy, of tyranny, really, that’s not his purpose. When Christ begins to awaken within man, he has no desire whatsoever to change forms of government. He doesn’t care if this government is a government of Democracy, and one is one of Communism, and one is one of something else…hasn’t a thing to do with governments. He comes only to fulfill scripture: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me.”817 ¶4

So, “Beginning with the law of Moses and through the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them all that was written about himself.”817 ¶5

So everything is written about me, for the Christ of scripture does not differ from the Christ in you. The Christ in you is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Christ. So, divine Imagination is limited in man as man’s wonderful human Imagination. Now we go back, “The Lord”—-that’s Yod He Vau He, the Grand I AM—-“says to my lord”—-that word is Adonay, which is often used as a substitute for Yod He Vau He…same thing. They do not differ in substance, do not differ in anything other than one is keyed low. God keys himself low, empties himself of his divine being and becomes man, man’s wonderful human Imagination. And that limited state is called Christ Jesus. So he comes down and becomes man…and this is Christ Jesus in man.817 ¶6

Now, “Sit here at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” Well, the right hand is only the place of honor, that’s all that it is. Even today, in 1965, you have a dinner party and your guest of honor is seated at your right hand. If you now went to the White House, the most important member of the cabinet is at his right hand. If you went to Buckingham Palace and you were invited there, you could look around the table and see the most important at that gathering—based upon her concept or their concept—-is going to be seated at her right hand. All it means is simply “the place of honor.”817 ¶7

So here, seated at my right hand…well now, who’s going to do the whole thing? Listen to the words carefully: “The Lord said to my lord:”—-two entirely different states, seemingly—-‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” So who is going to do it now? The Lord is going to do it…not my human Imagination…for this is Jesus Christ.817 ¶8

Is it really Jesus Christ? Well, scholars have argued over the centuries as to what it means “my lord,” and they said, David meant the ruling king of the day. Well, he could not have meant the ruling king of the day if you take it historically because he was the king. If you take it as he wrote it when he was a child, then Saul was the king, and Saul was rejected by the Lord. David was called and anointed by the Lord. So you can’t say Saul was king and you can’t say there was another king, because David reigned until his end. He didn’t die a king and someone reigned, that is, he didn’t find himself expelled from the throne, he reigned until the very end. So how can scholars say he is speaking of the king? Another scholar said he was speaking of a visionary being, some visionary figure, in other words, the Messiah of his dream. That comes closer.817 ¶9

But this is not secular history, this is something entirely different. Then who is he speaking of? This is a mystery. There are three characters: there’s David; the Lord, Yod He Vau He, which is I AM; and then “my lord” which is David’s lord. Well, who is David’s lord? The Old Testament is one grand question mark to which the New Testament gives the answer. To find the answer to this you go to the New Testament.817 ¶10

So we go first to the last books, we go to the 22nd chapter of the Book of Matthew—-you can find this in the 22nd of Matthew, the 12th of Mark, and the 20th of Luke, same story—-and the words are put into the mouth of Jesus Christ. He’s discussing resurrection, the breaking of the last barrier in this world; for the last enemy to be overcome is death. So he’s telling the world that you don’t really die, that those who are resurrected they die not more. You die and you’re revived, and you die and you’re revived, until that moment in time when you’re resurrected, and then you die no more. You’re part of an entirely different age, a different world: You are now the Son of God and, therefore, one of the resurrected.817 ¶11

Then he quotes the greatest of all commandments, the Shema, “Hear, O Israel”—-and the word now used is Yah-Adonay, which is the same word used in this statement, “my father,” which is called “my Lord.” So he tells us, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” They agree with that, for that is fixed in the minds of all who understand God’s Word.817 ¶12

No one asked the question, so he asks the question. This is where the whole mystery is unfolded if one can get it. He said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” And they answered, “The son of David.” He said, “Why then did David, in the Spirit, call him Lord, saying (in the Psalm), ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool’? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”817 ¶13

Now he shows us the relationship of this question asked and stated in the 110th Psalm. He quotes the 110th Psalm. Now, “my Lord” is an expression used of a slave of its master, of a wife of her husband, of a citizen of his king, by the son of his father. He asks the question concerning the relationship of father-son; so he sets it up, that David is asking and stating about his father. He identifies himself with the statement “my Lord.” Why did David call me, he’s telling us, “my Lord”? And being my son, he’s calling me his father. If David calls me “my Lord,” how could I be his son? For here is Christ speaking, he said, “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he? And they answered, ‘The son of David.’ Well then, why did David in the Spirit call him Lord?” And then he quotes the 110th Psalm: For David in the Spirit said, “The Lord said to my lord—-which is to my father—‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” “If David thus calls him Lord—-which is ‘my father’—-how can he be his son?”817 ¶14

He’s revealing the great secret, this reversal of order, which to this very day people do not grasp. Even though they hear it from the lips of one who has experienced it, they still will not accept it because of two centuries, or 2,000 years, of prefabricated misunderstanding of the mystery. So we set the whole thing up…tells us how it’s done.817 ¶15

Now, he is my own wonderful human Imagination. Do I do it? No, he puts me through the paces. Who?—-the Lord, the Grand I AM. “The Lord said to my lord”—-the Divine Imagination said to my Imagination—-‘Sit at my right hand,’—-take the place of honor—-‘till I make of your enemies your footstool.’” And then I am put through the paces; I have no choice in the matter, none whatsoever. But I am one with the one who is putting me through, we are one. He keyed himself low in me for this purpose, to expand his creative power. And when the victory is over, I as a man didn’t gain the victory. I’m united with the victor because we are one.817 ¶16

We were one in the beginning; we’re one in the end. He’s simply working on himself, so he keys himself low in me, he keys himself low in us, and works on himself. The very end, when the victory is won, I’m united with the victor. And that’s the mystery.817 ¶17

So, in this 110th Psalm, well, how does he do it? Listen to this one now, he says, “I’ve come only to fulfill scripture. I fulfilled the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms.” So while we’re on the psalms tonight, we’ll take another one.817 ¶18

We take the 24th Psalm: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Who shall ascend the hill of the lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Then comes a response, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.”817 ¶19

But how do I do it? Do I go about making my hands clean? How do I do it? I don’t have to think for one moment how to do it, because God is working on himself, that’s all. He puts me through all the paces that man could ever conceive, and I fail, I flunk every test that he ever gave me when I was keyed low. Then he breaks the spell and he expands me, and then I come forward with the answer to every test that in the beginning I flunked. I don’t have to test myself. How do I have clean hands, how do I have the unclean hands? Well, the unclean or the stained hand is the hand that takes a bribe, the hand that commits the act of murder, the hand that steals, the hand that has the greed for gain, that’s the stained hand. And the same is true of the impure heart. If you read the 15th chapter of the Book of Matthew, he mentions all these qualities, for everything that is unclean proceeds out of the heart, everything. I couldn’t murder unless it was first part of me. And the words “mind” and “heart” are the same in Hebrew. And so, I couldn’t murder unless first I entertained the thought, I couldn’t steal, I couldn’t take the bribe, I couldn’t have that intense greed for gain at the expense of others. Did it not come out of the heart, out of the mind?817 ¶20

So he tells me, those who have a pure heart they can scale the heights and see God…those who have clean hands. Well, do I go about trying to purify myself? No, God does it. It is God who set us up which is himself. The story of Job all over; that you and I here we had no choice in the matter, we are victims of this cruel experiment, but the end will justify the horror of it all. For in the end, you are united, all of us will be united, with the author, the creator of it all. We are God…in the end.817 ¶21

So here, he sets it up in a simple way. Let me give you one simple little story told me only yesterday. Friend called me up, called my wife up, and she is very sweet and kind to us. We don’t drive, we haven’t a car, and so she calls us every week and offers transportation for anything we want to do. So this friend and my wife went off shopping. My wife had occasion to stop in at the supermarket for some small, little item, and so she bought it. It only came to ninety-eight cents. A lady just next to her before…instead of ordering what she wanted to order, she had to justify her purchase, which was chopped round, and there was something, thirty-eight cents, so she had to say, “I want this for my dog.” Well, the person knows exactly who’s going to eat it anyway, so why go to all that trouble of saying “I want it for my dog”? So she bought a pound of this thirty-eight cent meat for her dog, and the butcher knew exactly who was going to eat it when she took it home. So the butcher simply did this. And then my wife said, “I’ll have a pound of top sirloin, ground top sirloin.” Well, that was ninety-eight cents as against thirty-eight. So the butcher, having written this thing out thirty-eight, he took the pound, wrapped it up, and then put thirty-eight, and gave it to my wife. She saw his mistake and she said, “I think you made a mistake. Didn’t you give me what I ordered? I saw you take it from this thing…” and he said, “I did.” “Well, then you only put down thirty-eight cents, it should be ninety-eight cents.” He thanked her, took it back, and then wrote ninety-eight.817 ¶22

That’s how the Lord speaks to my lord, my Imagination. You sit here and I’m going to put you through the paces, you don’t test yourself. When you least expect it, these things are placed upon you, a simple little thing like this.817 ¶23

Now may I tell you, it isn’t because my wife could not have used the extra fifty cents. We have in little Barbados supermarkets…my family, we have three huge supermarkets, and the wealthiest people in the island, socially prominent, and we know who they are, they come in and they are shoplifters. But their husbands know it, and they make no complaint. We never say a word, but we have notified their husbands of this simple, peculiar attitude that the wives adopt. So they allow…instead of embarrassing their wives and therefore reflecting on them, you let them take anything they want as though you’re getting rid of it…at the end of the month you send me the bill. And so, at the end of the month we send the bills to these shoplifters, who are prominent socially and very, very wealthy. So it hasn’t a thing to do with wealth. These are the tests that “the Lord” says to “my lord,” to my Imagination: You sit here, I’ll put you through…I’ll put you through the paces, and when you go through all the furnaces, your hands are going to be clean. I could put anything before you and it would not be a temptation. If you are dying of starvation for the lack of a penny and a dollar was there that you could take illegally, you wouldn’t take it. You reach that point; and then, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart.”817 ¶24

All of these things, may I tell you, we experience, and we all go through them; not one will fail. In the very end, the reward, if you can call it a reward, for all the horrors that you go through is that you are united with God himself. There’s only God. The most difficult thing in this world for man to believe is that God is playing all the parts. Because he plays all the parts and having flunked every test and then passed every test, he can say, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” If he hadn’t flunked all and then passed all, he could not forgive all. But he flunked all, every test in this world you and I have flunked; and every test will be given again and again and again, and every test you and I will pass.817 ¶25

We’re only here to fulfill scripture, that’s all, to pass the test of scripture.817 ¶26

To pass the test of the world, that means nothing. If tonight I were a billionaire, what would it really matter? I saw in the current Time magazine these two billionaires. I don’t recall the name of one, the other is Getty. There they are nose to nose. And when you read the little story, both are really with both feet in the grave, anyway. This other one…I don’t know, a Greek name or some Armenian name, some name of that nature…and when they asked him what they discussed, they were discussing oil and the twenty or twenty-one thousand dollars a moment, while they were standing there they were earning that apiece. While they were in this discussion they were bringing in twenty-one thousand dollars in actual cash. He asked…the question was asked him, and he said, “What else is there to discuss?” Well, that’s his present level of consciousness. He’s completely right…and don’t change him. He will tomorrow or ten years from now or in the not distant future make his exit from this world and be put to another test. So let him make his billion today…and twenty thousand dollars coming in every moment in this fabulous world of theirs in dollars and cents. And he wondered, “Is there anything else to discuss but the making of money?”817 ¶27

Alright, so I say, God is in Christ—-Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination—-reconciling the world to himself; and now he has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation. So he’s entrusted me with the message, well, what is the message? I’ll tell you: Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. And although you’ll go through all the furnaces in the world, meeting tests that you did not expect because the Lord, the Grand I AM, is putting you through, while you’re waiting for them or going through them, you can use the same power keyed low on this level. For God the supreme Imagination and God human Imagination are one, they’re not two. So on this level, you and I simply imagine lovely things for others, and watch them come to pass. You and I will meet the test. We may fail, but eventually we will not fail. We’ll pass every test in this world.817 ¶28

The test given us is only clean hands and a pure heart, that’s all the test. It isn’t that I’ll become rich or become famous or become this…no, the test is simply the clean hand. Am I given the opportunity to take something from another in some illegal manner, and then I take it? Well then, I haven’t made the test or met it. Now I will get this same test over and over, and I’ll change it somewhat so I wouldn’t recognize or remember how it was given to me before. Numberless ways of receiving the same test, until the hands become clean and the heart becomes purified. When the heart becomes purified and the hands are clean, I will see him.817 ¶29

So read the entire 24th chapter of the Book of Psalms…a very short one, only ten verses. So he asks this wonderful question…first of all, you’re going to come before and see the face of the God of Jacob. That’s what you’re going to see, as we brought out last Friday night, the apple of his eye. And here was little Jacob; he found him in a desert, a howling waste wilderness, but he was the apple of his eye so he encircled him. The apple of the eye is simply the pupil of the eye and the pupil of the eye reflects the beholder, so I become what I behold. So God beholds himself in you, but at first it’s a tiny little thing. When I look into your eye, I see myself reflected, but I see a tiny little reflection of myself. So Amos asked the question, “But Jacob is so small! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!”. Again the Lord repented. This is your affirmation. For his second…when it’s done twice, it means now it will be done. He repents and then the image begins to expand in you. What image? It’s the image of God. For if I look into your eyes I don’t see you, I see myself. If I smile then the image smiles; if I frown it frowns. No matter what I do it does. God then begins to change his nature relative to me, and I begin to expand as he changes his nature. Finally I arrive at the very end where it is God the Father who is infinite love. But to arrive at that, he has to take me through all these stages and it’s God himself imposing this upon himself. There’s only God…there’s nothing but God.817 ¶30

So here is this wonderful, wonderful 110th, the Psalm most often quoted in the New Testament. Now, the passage of it which I have not touched so far, which is quoted all through Hebrews, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Is that what I am?—that’s what I’m told, after I’m resurrected. For this is identified with resurrection. Who is Melchizedek? He has no father, he has no mother, he has no beginning of days and no end of days, and no genealogy, no origin, no background. Who could he be but God himself! You sit at my right hand, the honored place, and I’ll take you through the paces, and in the end you will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. So he brings me to the state where I don’t have a background, I have no origin: I’m self-begotten. I am the being that I am, not by reason of the fact that someone begot me. I am the same being that is the one that created the whole vast universe. That is Melchizedek: No father, no mother, no beginning of days, no end of days, no genealogy. This comes through the revelation called resurrection.817 ¶31

So when Paul uses this 110th Psalm in his letter to the Ephesians, he speaks of God: “Which God accomplished in Christ, by his resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and now sits at the right hand in heavenly places” . But who did it?—-God—“that which God accomplished in Christ.” Well, Christ is your own Imagination…so God accomplished it in you. What did he accomplish in me? Everything recorded in scripture concerning Jesus Christ he accomplished in my Imagination. When I least expected it he came like a thief in the night and awoke me from a long, long slumber, which, undoubtedly, was a horrible dream; for we all had to dream the same dream and the dream is the dream of horror. Then he awoke me in my skull, which is called Golgotha. Then he brought me forth to show me the symbolism of my birth. Then be brought David into my world.817 ¶32

Well, who is David? When I saw him he was simply a youth, twelve, thirteen years old. But in Hebrew thought, history consists of all the generations of men and their accomplishments fused into a single great whole; and this concentrated time into which all the generations of men are fused and from which they all spring is called eternity . Eternity, by my own mystical experience, is personified as a youth. It’s not an old man as the Greeks have painted and our modern artists have painted. Hasn’t a thing to do with age; eternity is youth. And that concentrated eternity which God placed in my mind which I had to bring forth is personified as a youth and he’s David. So I had to play all these parts that were contained within this completely concentrated being. So history is simply made up of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into this one being, that being is David. Eternity is put into the mind of man and then you dream it. He is the grand dreamer. He is the being who is doing all of the fighting in the world; it’s you dreaming it. And at the end you will bring him forth out of your own mind, and you are his father, so he calls you “my Lord.” You are the father of him, so you bring him out and he stands before you and calls you, “Father,” which is “my Lord.”817 ¶33

So we go back, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The son of David.” “Then why did David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make of your enemies your footstool?” “If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” A complete reversal of order. So eternity was put into the mind of man, and man brings him forth, personified as a youth. The being who brings him forth being the father of him is greater than eternity, greater than the whole vast concept of all that is now man and all that man has done, is doing and will ever do. The whole thing is within man, concentrated into this one, single youth. And after you’ve played all the parts, you will not flunk eventually; you’ll pass every test eventually ‘til the hands become clean and the heart becomes pure. When the heart is pure you see God. Who do you see?—-yourself, raised now to the nth degree of beauty and majesty. That’s what you see…your very being. So you put yourself through the entire paces for the purpose of expansion of creativity. And this is the story. He said, “I’ve only come to tell you and to fulfill scripture,” so he interprets scripture and fulfills scripture. He has no purpose other than that.817 ¶34

To come into the world to change this form of government for another form of government or to impose my will upon man? No. Read these two psalms. I tell you they are so beautiful…the music in them, the beauty! And they are so short, one is only seven verses, one is only ten.817 ¶35

He comes as though he came to a wall, and now he personifies a gate; he said, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates!; and lift up your doors, ye everlasting doors! that the King of glory may come in.” And voices come from beyond, “Who is the King of glory?” He first answers in might, the Lord of battle, the Lord of might. Again, he asks the question, the same question, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lifted up, O everlasting doors!” Again they ask, “Who is this?” But the final one—-and this is the payoff, that last beautiful verse, when he said, “Who is this King of glory?” and then he answers, “He is the Lord of hosts, that is the King of glory.” Who is this King of glory? And then he answers completely, changes the entire mood: There’s only one King of glory . But these heads are not high enough to let the glory in, hearts not purified enough, the hands aren’t clean enough, and, finally, everyone has to be lifted up within himself. As he’s lifted up, then the glory can pass through, because he is the door. Who’s the door?-—“I am the door. Those who came before me are thieves and robbers. They cannot get in, for I AM the door” .817 ¶36

The door must be lifted up; the gate must be lifted up. So here, it may seem to you a night of a spiritual talk, but, may I tell you, that which is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. So tonight, you will go out, I hope, with a lighter heart. But you are not going to go and fix the test for yourself. The test will come when you least expect it. Forget the test, it’ll come. You go out determined to take this wonderful principle and use it wisely to change the lives of everyone you know for the better.817 ¶37

You will still be given the test, so don’t think about the test. The test will come. In a simple little thing like trying…and certainly the butcher did not for one moment think that he was making a mistake. And if he had made a mistake, it wasn’t his money, it belonged to Food Giant. He would not have been aware of it. She made the little purchase, so what, ninety-eight cents? But she saw the difference between what she bought that was ninety-eight and thirty-eight, and she called his attention to it, and he said, “Oh thank you” and then wrote ninety-eight instead of thirty-eight. He was confused by the one who was buying it for herself, called “the dog.” So she was playing her little part too. She failed in her little test because pride got her. And we’re told in these two psalms, speaking of false pride, “…who will not lift up his soul to vanity”—that’s part of the 24th Psalm —-doesn’t lift it up to vanity. Well, that certainly was vanity. Who cares? The butcher doesn’t know me, he doesn’t know her, doesn’t know anyone. They know you, but not really. You see the familiar face, so he serves you as he should, but, really, he doesn’t really care. He’s working [...]. At the end of the week, it’s going to be so much whether he sells it or not, and so he’s going to be part of that establishment. He’s a union man. And so, you’ll take all the tests.817 ¶38

But don’t plot the test; you can’t plot it. Don’t try to overcome it, leave it alone. In the very end of your journey, you, too, will cry out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”; because they were not expanded enough to meet that test. Tomorrow, a similar test will come and they’ll meet it without batting an eye. And another test will come, until finally it’s reached the limit of expansion, the hands are clean, the heart is pure.817 ¶39

And then who do you behold? You behold the face of the God of Jacob, he who found me in the howling wilderness and encircled me with his love and took care of me, he’s the one. If you were not here last Friday, that’s the 32nd chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy . He found him in the wilderness, encircled him with his love, took care of him, for he was the apple of his eye; therefore, the relationship is established right away, the father-son. But in the beginning, the son is so little, a little tiny thing on the pupil of the eye. Then the Father repents that he’s so little and expands him. You can’t expand him without putting him through the tests. And then he flunks and he flunks and he flunks, and then you expand him, and then he passes the test. And, finally, at the very end, he is one with the being who beholds him. So Blake, all through Jerusalem, uses this expression so often, “And they become what they behold.” So in the very end, God who is beholding me has expanded me to actually fit his mold, and I am really his image. Then I am declared “Son of God” by reason of my resurrection from the dead. Now let us go into the Silence.817 ¶40

May I call your attention to the book table. My book Awakened Imagination is back in print. It’s been out of print for quite awhile; now it’s back in print and many of you have asked for it over the months that it’s been out of print. Every book on the table I recommend.817 ¶41

Tonight my subject is “Your Future.” This is open season for prophesying—astrologists, numerologists, teacup leaves, monkey bones—using all these to tell the future. Well, we will confine ourselves to the Bible, and tonight you will find it the most practical right down here in the world of Caesar. The Bible does not tell any man that he has a predetermined future in the world of Caesar. Everything here is conditioned. The Bible teaches that you have an ultimate future which is to awaken as God; that’s your real future that’s unconditional, unearned. You don’t earn it, it’s a gift. It’s called in the Bible “grace.” So everyone is destined to succeed because God is playing the part, playing all the parts; and in the end he awakens and you are he. On this level everything is conditioned.816 ¶1

Now we turn to the Book of Matthew, the 21st chapter, the 22nd verse: “Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith.” It doesn’t say that you ask for things that are good for you…“whatever” is all inclusive. Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith.816 ¶2

Now prophets, as Blake told the Bishop Rexford, in the modern sense of the word have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a prophet. We value his opinion both private and public in this way: if you go so, the result is so. He shall never say so-and-so shall happen let you do what you will. He will never say that, for he is a seer, not an arbitrary dictator. You go to a medium and they will tell you so-and-so is going to happen to you, allowing you to be anything you want to be in the meanwhile. It’s not true, it’s a lie. The only way it would come true or could come true is if on departure you believe what you heard. If you believed it and completely convinced yourself of the truth of what he or she said, whether they use tea leaves or coffee grounds or stars or anything else, your future is in your hands. You cannot be in one state of consciousness and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state of consciousness. You cannot change the course of your future life so long as your present state remains the same. A change of state is a change of your world.816 ¶3

This whole vast world is infinite response. It’s response to you; you are the operant power. Listen to the words of scripture, “We love because he first loved us.” We love because he first loved us. What “he”? He’s speaking of God. Something out there? No, God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So I will now have the world respond? Well, then I must be the operant power and [...] it. What would I do? Well, I’d make a selection, single out what I want to be this year 1966; assume that I am it; persuade myself that I am it now, though not a thing in this world suggests that I am it or could even become it; and to the degree that I am self-persuaded the world will respond. It has to! The little word “because” implies causation: Because he first loved us. You dwell upon it.816 ¶4

Let me tell you a story…you may go out on a limb and tell it. You need not wait until it happens and hope that they will believe you. You can tell it before it takes place if you have faith. A few weeks ago I told you the stories of a lady who came here with her husband. He is her minister. She took eleven case histories…nine had come to pass. She wrote of eleven—two were prophetic in the sense they had not yet been realized. You who were here that night will recall the stories. This is one not yet realized.816 ¶5

The day was July 27th of last year. She said to her husband Daniel, the minister, “I want you to play this record back for me in your mind…not audibly. Sit quietly and listen to my voice and this is what you’re going to hear, ‘Danny, I am so happy that you have sold your song and have your 100,000-a-year-plus income.’ You play it over and over until my voice becomes as natural to you in this imaginary state as it is when I’m talking to you now.” One month later, on the 29th of August…now I do not know these people in the theatrical world. I’ve been out of it for years and years. I do not know the terminology of the musical world. But she said this lady and she called her by name (she did not confine me to secrecy), the name is Gloria Wood, whoever she is, never heard of her. She said that she has nine gold star records (whatever that means). She is a commercial artist and receives as high as $50,000 for one commercial jingle that only goes a half-minute. She likes Danny’s voice, likes his songs, and said to him after the service that she would like to help him. Then, said she, at the very end of her note to me, “This is prophetic. I am sure this will be as real as the nine that I have told you that are already behind us.”816 ¶6

On Christmas week, Danny calls up and he tell us—my wife answered the phone—‘I know that my wife told you of my hope to put my songs over in an album, well, (calling this same lady by name), she has the reputation’—her name associated with his is an instantaneous sale—‘we’ve made the album. It’s distributed by the company who has promoted her to the tune of nine gold records!’ Now, $100,000…it just started. But her name was identified with his name on the records in his album, using only his songs, and he plays piano. In fact, he’s a one-man-show: plays the organ, he’s his own chorus, he’s the minister, and he does everything but take up the collection. You’ve seen him here…big strapping fellow. Well, that’s one.816 ¶7

Now, to come back to our theme tonight, your future is in your hands, as based upon that verse in the 21st chapter, the 22nd verse of Matthew: “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have”… First of all, when you read it you will think…you’ve been taught by your ministers to pray audibly, get down on your knees and say the words. You go to these churches…over the weekend if you like the ballgames as I do, each started with a huge big prayer. One hundred thousand on the outside and one man is leading them in prayer. He couldn’t possibly begin to believe what I want. You if you were present, how could he possibly lead you in prayer? Prayer is a very individual thing. No two tonight in this room desire the same thing and he’s leading 100,000 in prayer, in this audible prayer. You don’t do it that way.816 ¶8

The word prayer as used in the Bible means “motion towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of.” That’s the meaning of the word prayer. So I have a desire. How am I going to move towards the fulfillment of it? How will I get near? Suppose my desire this night would take me to the East, how would I get near 3,000 miles away? Because I am all Imagination, it’s easy. “Man is all Imagination and God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God himself” . All things are possible to God. Is there something you can’t imagine? You may not believe it, but don’t tell me you can’t imagine it!816 ¶9

So now here is the story. In one of my books—I can’t recall the title of the book—if you are familiar with my books, you’ll know it. But I’m quite sure that the majority here have never read it or heard this story. The lady to whom it happened did not confine me or in any way swear me to secrecy. She’s a gracious, wonderful lady, and so I’m going to use her name. Not to drop names but to let you know who she is, and that with all of her background, tremendous background, she didn’t know how to pray.816 ¶10

She’s a pillar of the Episcopal Church in New York City, a pillar of the church. Her name is Mrs. Archibald Roosevelt, the daughter-in-law of our late Teddy Roosevelt. She came to me, in fact she came once a month, at least once a month, for a period of years. She said, “Neville, every year I have rented my town home, and with that rental paid in advance I’ve been able to open my country home in Long Island. This year for the first time in over twenty years no one has shown any interest. We have the same real estate agent in the same social world that he caters to, but this year the season’s slipping by and rentals will be at an end, for it’s only for the summer. Not one person has shown any interest in taking my apartment, and unless I rent it, I cannot open my home in Long Island.816 ¶11

“We have a social position and a political position, but we’re not people of means. My husband works for a salary. We are not wealthy Roosevelts. We are Roosevelts and the name is powerful in the political world and in the social world. The demands on me and my husband are so great because of our name at the end of the year we don’t know where the next is coming from to give to charity as is expected of us. We have many children and like all mothers the world over, all parents, there’s always need and so they come first. So there is always need from one or the other of the five that we have. So, what must I do?”816 ¶12

I said, you’ve been coming here over the years now. You know about me [...] from the past. I’ll tell it all over again. If you rented your place today, where would you sleep tonight? She said, “Where I slept last night.” I said, “Where was that?” “In my New York apartment.” I said, “No you rented it. You aren’t taking in boarders, you rented the place.” “Oh, but” she said, “in the past I always had grace…three, four, five days to get ready and then they would come in after I moved.” I said, no, this is an emergency. They rented it, made your payment in advance, and they want to occupy today. She said, “Well, under such circumstances I wouldn’t waste the money by going to a hotel, I would go straight to my home in Long Island, even though it’s not ready to receive the family.” I said, that’s where you sleep tonight!816 ¶13

“Oh,” she said, “that isn’t practical.” I said, I am not telling you you are going to sleep there physically; you are going to sleep there in your Imagination. Your Imagination is the real you, Mrs. Roosevelt. I’m looking at a mask. If I could tear it away, I would see God unmasked. But here, I’m looking at a woman who in the world of Caesar is prominent. I’m speaking now to the God in this woman, to your own wonderful human Imagination. And in your Imagination you sleep this night in your home in Long Island. To prove that you are there, you must think of this apartment, and you cannot see it under you, around you and over you. You must see it across the East River in Manhattan, and you must feel the naturalness of your home in Long Island. She said to me, “If this works, I’ll call you.” I said, the only “if” about it is if you do it. If you do it, you’ll call me. But you know, you’re one of nine in the Bible. He said, were there not ten or you and only one returned to give thanks, and the one that returned was a stranger, a Samaritan. The other nine got the same results, but they didn’t return. You’ve been coming here over the years and often I’ve read of the answer to your request in this group in the newspapers…I never got it from you. But let it not work, you’re on the phone to tell me, like all the others. Let it work…he should know anyway…and so I’ve grown indifferent to the working or not working. I know the law cannot fail. I have taken it from scripture and the Word of God is true, everlastingly true, and that sentence is true.816 ¶14

So tonight, you sleep in your Imagination in your home in Long Island. This was on Thursday. She went to bed early that night, about nine. She said to her husband and family, “I do not wish to be disturbed unless there is an emergency. Do not call me for any other reason.” At nine she retired and to prove she was in the home in Long Island, she thought of her home in Manhattan, and saw it across the East River in Manhattan. She got off the bed in her Imagination and walked through the door into an adjacent room that could only be entered were she in the home in Long Island. She did these many little things and gave this imaginal state all the sensory vividness and all the tones of reality that she could possibly muster. Then she slipped into the deep.816 ¶15

In other words, if I were to define faith for you, faith is a simple surrender of self to the Spirit of God. God is your own wonderful I-am-ness, is he not? That’s my name forever. “So I’m on my bed…I’ve just done things that would prove to me I am in my home in Long Island. And the reason why I’m here, my place rented, and I’m very happy about the tenant.”816 ¶16

This was on Thursday. On Friday noon or there about, the phone rang and the agent called her, “I have someone interested in your apartment, may I bring him?” “Certainly!” A man came up, he had all the necessary references, he had all the qualifications, and he offered her a check without any argument in advance for the entire summer months. But one condition he imposed upon her: He wanted immediate occupancy that day, which is now Friday. “If you could get out today, I’ll take it…but only on condition you move today.” She said, “This has never happened to me before, but if this is your condition I will get out.” She called her husband about what happened and he said, “It’s perfectly alright. Get your things together as quickly as you can. I will take off and I will come and help and we’ll move to the home in Long Island.”816 ¶17

This was on Friday. On Saturday morning at nine, Mrs. Roosevelt is on the telephone and she said, “Neville, this is Mrs. Roosevelt.” I said, “Yes?” She said, “I slept in my home in Long Island last night.” She expected me to be thrilled. I said I’m not surprised. If you did what I told you to do, you had to sleep there last night! Well, she was a little bit taken aback, because she thought now this is a miracle and I should rejoice. All others are miracles too, but she never called me until I put my foot down and said you’re just like the other nine that never come back and say thank you.816 ¶18

And so that was the story of “motion towards.” In what way—in your Imagination— “accession to; at or in the vicinity of”—at the house, in the house, right in the vicinity of the house. And she did it. To locate herself and make it seem natural she thought of her home across the river and saw it away in the distance in her Imagination, but not under her and not around her and certainly not over her. That story, as I’ve told you, I could just add all the little places to it to make it all the more beautiful as it actually happened.816 ¶19

So I tell you, your future is not in the stars, not in teacup leaves, not in anything outside of your own state of consciousness. Everything is here for the taking. You appropriate it, you live in it, and you conquer it in the world. Listen to these words, “By faith he understands that the world was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” Did anything appear outside of her own Imagination? What did she do with visible things? Nothing! If anyone had entered her room in Manhattan that night, they would have seen, if it was a child, their mother—if her husband entered, his wife—seemingly asleep. She was asleep to the world. She had shut out the obvious. As you’re told, “When you pray, go within and close the door; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” What was he seeing in secret? He saw her living in her home in Long Island. He saw her happy because she had rented the New York place. It hadn’t burned down…she was happy about it. But who could have looked to that woman and seen any visible things that she used to construct this scene? So here it is, what is seen is made out of things which do not appear. Now isn’t that clear? So where is my future? It’s within me.816 ¶20

Religion always needs tests. Without it, all religions become distorted into creeds, into some ritual, yes, even into self-centered [...]. So religion does not [...] when it appeals to personal experience despite the risk involved. And I say that advisedly, because many will come here—which will shock you—you think if they heard it on the wing and they were not exposed to it as you are—but many will come here in a meeting like this and I will say over and over always use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of others, never use it in any hateful manner. There is no other; you’re only going to hurt yourself. Always use it lovingly on behalf of others. Yet there are those who will gloat over the hurt of another, and gloat in the presence of others and tell them, “I want to see him dead…and he is dying before my face…and hurt these, too, because they don’t want the speaker dead”…just actually feel it… then you’re taking this fabulous law that could set you free and bind yourself all the more.816 ¶21

So I will say to you who has done it, you cannot cause me to depart before my time. No one multiplied by all the people of the world has the power to cause my departure one second before my time. You can’t hasten it and you can’t delay it. And it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and be cast into the sea than to dare to put your finger on one whom he has called to tell his story!816 ¶22

If you saw tonight’s TV, here is Mike Quinn, head of the Transport Union. He incited the entire city of New York. He was brought before cameras and these are his words…there he is before the cameras and he’s saying, speaking of the judge who sent him to jail, he said, “I’m waiting for the sheriff to come and he will take nine of us…and let the judge drop dead and rot in his black robes. I will not” said he “call back this strike.” Alright, the sheriff came through the door and picked him up, put him in the wagon, and off to the city jail. He was there two hours and he came down with a heart attack. Here came the ambulance, they wrapped him up in his blankets, and rolled him out to the waiting ambulance to take him to Bellevue. What he wanted for the judge arrived within two hours and happened to him. There is no “other.”816 ¶23

So I tell you, use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of all because there is no other—it’s yourself pushed out. This whole vast world is yourself pushed out. Your future is really in your hands here in the world of Caesar. But because you don’t use it lovingly…I could never tell you how long, how vast, how severe the anguish before you are brought forth from the furnaces. For you aren’t going to be brought forth from the furnaces and enter the world called “the kingdom of God” until you are perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. So do unto others as you would have them do unto you, that’s the eternal code. And never accept a feeling of getting even or hurting unless you want the same thing done to you.816 ¶24

So I tell you, the story is true. Whatever, as vast as eternity, you ask in prayer—remember what prayer is, motion towards the fulfillment of the wish fulfilled, that’s motion towards…all in your Imagination. You will receive it, that’s a promise, if you have faith. So take tonight’s definition of faith, which I’ll give you, which is “a simple, simple surrender of self to the Spirit of God.” You put yourself in the state and sleep, you surrender your Spirit: “Into thy hands I commit my Spirit.” After having occupied the state, simply relax in that state and God sees the state you’re in, and that’s like a [...] and the whole vast world responds to what you have done. You don’t have to ask them anything. Mrs. Roosevelt didn’t go out and come up to a person saying “You’ve always over the years rented my place, what’s wrong?” She didn’t complain. She simply went home, she believed what I told here, and she applied it. The very next day it’s rented and she has her check for months in advance. With that she could open her place and have a wonderful, wonderful summer.816 ¶25

So let no one put any wet blanket upon you by telling you that the future is already written for you and it’s in the stars. Those wonderful words of Cassius to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.” Not in the stars! Look there if you want to, but you won’t find them there at all.816 ¶26

I’ll tell you a story concerning one who is now gone from this world. Last fall in New York City, I learned that she had just recently before my arrival made her exit. She was a teacher in a high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She came to New York City, she was a widow, she had a widow’s pension from the railway—she could always travel on the railway without paying anything—but she wanted to live in New York City. She had a nice pension from the school and from the railway; it was adequate, not big. She wanted to do something in the City. Well, my old friend Abdullah…I took her to Abdullah…and she couldn’t quite get the feeling of what Abdullah was trying to get over, but she could believe in astrology. Well, I think I know how to erect a chart and regress a chart, and so I taught her. I told her, it isn’t there at all, it’s all in you; but if it takes you to persuade you of something nice to tell someone, then use it. But, eventually, you’ll take it like a crutch and throw it away.816 ¶27

Well, one day I called on her and she was in tears, actual tears. I said, Norma, what’s wrong? She said, “A man came in here, very highly recommended, a good business man, successful, and I read his chart. I told him that he will send me the $100 he promised me he would. In fact, I’m so convinced that it’s true, I said to him, ‘Don’t wait, give it to me now!’ He said, ‘No, if it works today as you tell me, well, then I will send you the money.’ I said, well, what’s wrong with that, Norma? She said, ‘The chart wasn’t his chart. I was sitting at the open window and the wind blew over the Ephemerides.’” They were bound…she had about 100 years of these all bound in one volume, and while sitting at a window she was distracted and she came back, not checking, and drew a chart from what she saw there, not knowing the wind had turned over the pages and she’s now drawing a chart of one who wasn’t born until ten years later. But she said, “Neville, I drew a chart of a man who was ten years not yet in this world.” And what’s wrong with that? Did you convince him? She said, “I think I did, for I said in all seriousness give me the $100 now. If you’re going to send it to me after it works, give it to me now. That seemed to convince him all the more, Neville.” I said, it’s done! Forget it! She still couldn’t stop her tears.816 ¶28

That night after dinner I called on her again. I was in her suite of rooms at this [Knott?] Hotel, at 72nd and Broadway—it’s gone now, of the old Knott chain—when the doorbell rang. It’s a messenger from Western Union. It’s a hundred dollar check, a Western Union check. And she drew a chart of a man who wasn’t born! But she was convinced when she spoke to him—and he didn’t see her tears and our conversation didn’t hear that—so he went away convinced of the reality of her abracadabra. He’s a big business man. You see, it comes in all walks of life. They tell me that Hitler wouldn’t make a move without consulting his astrologer…so they tell me. Where did it get him? Where did it get him finally? And so all this business of something on the outside…she got that $100 and I was in her room when that Western Union boy delivered that Western Union check.816 ¶29

Yes, you can persuade yourself if you want these things, but don’t, don’t resort to anything but God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. If God is the only creator, he is the only receiver as well. So you think of your home right now, who’s doing it? If I said, what are you doing? “I”—right away you said God—“I am” and then you name it. Well, who’s doing it? You said, “Well, I’m doing it.” Well, that’s God. He is the only receiver. But if you don’t know that, you aren’t going to believe in the reality of what you’re doing. So you imagine something now, that’s God doing it, that’s God in action.816 ¶30

So when this chap, Danny, imagined his wife’s voice saying, “ Danny, I’m so happy that you sold your songs and you have a 100,000-plus in income a year,” it’s only just on the market this past month of December, but at least it’s in an album. How many people today who have written songs would give anything to make one record of it! And here a woman comes off the street, comes into his little church here on Wilton Place, I think it’s 801 Wilton, and likes the man’s voice, likes what he’s singing, and [...] so that right after the meeting she goes up and tells him what she thinks of the songs. Well, that’s just what Danny wanted, and he puts on a whole show for her; and then she said, “I want to help you.” So she, because she has nine gold star records, she wants to associate her name to help his name, and does it. I think it’s called “My Pastor and I”…I think it is. He called up and told this story to my wife.816 ¶31

Well, I tell you, your future is not outside your ability to imagine that you are the one that you want to be. Just imagine that you are now the one that you want to be, and forget all these things round about you. If you are faithful to it, surrendering yourself to the Spirit of God, all things being possible to God, it will come to pass in your world.816 ¶32

Everything in your world is conditioned. The only unconditioned is God’s ultimate promise to himself which is man that in the end he will awaken and he will be Jesus Christ. You will know there is only Jesus Christ. Everyone will know he is Jesus Christ and yet no loss of identity; although a radical discontinuity of form, for your form will be the glorious risen form of the risen Christ!816 ¶33

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *816 ¶34

Now tonight you’ll find it a combination of the spiritual world and Caesar’s world. You and I who were raised in the Christian faith or the Jewish faith were taught to believe that that whole book was history. The Old Testament was history, secular history, and the New Testament was secular history. May I tell you, the manner of Jesus’ birth is, to those who understand who he is, a sign of the divine initiative in our redemption. The whole story of Jesus, from his conception by the Holy Spirit to his ascension into heaven, is a sign granted by God to those who will receive it. When Paul saw the vision, this eternal story…for the story of the Old and New Testament is eternal; these are the eternal realities, unchangeable. One day you will come upon and you will encounter what appears on paper to be characters, to be persons. And when you encounter them, they, too, will seem to be persons, but they are states personified.813 ¶1

So Paul said, “From now on we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer” . When you and I heard of Jesus Christ, we thought in terms of a person. After Paul had the revelation he saw that Jesus Christ was “the creative power of God and the wisdom of God” . But God is man, so every attribute of God is personified. And so it is personified whether it be faith, called Abraham, whether it be the power and wisdom of God, called Jesus Christ…every quality of God is personified.813 ¶2

So he said, “From now on we regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer.” Now he’s not speaking of you, a person, he’s not speaking of me. He’s addressing these words to the Corinthians; and he certainly is not speaking to these Corinthians as persons. He is speaking of these characters in scripture. From now on he can’t conceive of Abraham as a person as you are a person. So he tells this story, “It is written”—written where?—in scripture. “It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman. The one born of a slave was born according to the flesh.” Well, you were born according to the flesh. He’s telling you right now you by your physical birth are that one born according to the flesh. “And one born according to the promise.” They have dropped the definite article in translation, but it is the promise. There’s only the promise, not a promise. And so, two children, two sons—one according to the flesh (this is according to the flesh), and one according to the promise.813 ¶3

And then he explains it concerning the two women. One was Hagar, who was a servant of Sarah, who was given over to Abraham and Abraham sired this child, and the child was born Ishmael…his hand is against every man and every man’s hand is against him. That is this world…you and I struggling to make a living, to pay rent, to pay taxes, to keep ourselves above the flood, the flood of illusion. And so, the whole thing is a struggle and that is simply the offspring of the slave Hagar. But there is another birth that you recognize after the vision has taken place in us, and that comes from Sarah, and that is the birth from above, called “the promise.” Now, it hasn’t a thing to do with a little child. All this is symbolism when you, not a child, when you are born. Oh, the child will appear wrapped in its swaddling clothes only to symbolize your birth…that you are born from above. And so, there are two distinct births from two distinct women. One birth is the womb of woman, and the other is the skull of man. By man I mean generic man. These are the two women in scripture.813 ¶4

So when Paul saw the vision, he said, “From now on I will regard no one from the human”…and he’s speaking now only of scripture. He will not see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or any character of scripture, including Jesus Christ, from the human point of view. Even though I formerly saw them that way and heard the secular scripture, secular history, no longer will I see it from the human point of view. So here, when he said, “When you read”—he’s writing now to the Ephesians and he makes the statement in the 3rd chapter of the 11th of Ephesians, “And when you read”—and they added the word “this”; it is not “this” in the manuscript. “When you read”—he’s referring to the Old Testament—“When you read (the Old Testament), you will perceive my insight into the mystery of Messiah.” We translate the word Christ…but Christ and Messiah are the same. “You will perceive my insight into the mystery of Messiah, which was not made known to men in other generations but is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” The whole thing comes from within. It was not known prior to this, but now the time is fulfilled.813 ¶5

For said he, in the same letter to the Ephesians, that: “He has made known unto us”—speaking now of himself and those with whom he shared the vision—“the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time” . A plan! Now, to him Christ is not a person, he’s a plan. I will not see him ever again as a person…and he defines him as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” . Now he said, “I only preach Christ crucified and raised from the dead.” So within that power crucified on humanity, that power in you is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s Christ, there is no other Christ. It’s crucified on humanity, the cross of man, and it contains within itself a plan of resurrection, a plan of redemption. So, “He has made known unto me the mystery of his will.” Mystery means a “sacred secret.” He has made known unto me that sacred secret according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ—that is, the power crucified on me as my Imagination—as a plan for the fullness of time. So when the time is fulfilled, it erupts within me. What erupts?—God’s plan that he’s buried within me. And so the whole plan erupts within me. Then and only then do I know God’s purpose.813 ¶6

The revelation of purpose gives meaning to everything in this world. Without purpose, what does it matter? If there is no purpose…so I would make a billion dollars and then tomorrow die like a gnat and those who inherit my estate, give them three generations and then they’ll forget me completely. The unborn, which is a third generation removed from me, what would they care about grandfather? What would they care, it’s theirs and they’re all married into all kinds of things, and they completely forget if I left them a billion. What really would they care? You would have a little lip service, but in one generation, what do they care? They take their wife or their husband and cast it away and marry another, and they’ll still give lip service to a father or a grandfather who gave them money. But that’s only lip service and there’s no feeling there whatsoever—“Why didn’t he die before? I could have had it sooner to spend it and do all the things. He gave it to me when I became fifty; he should have given it to me when I was twenty or sixteen.” So that is the picture of this world.813 ¶7

But there’s a plan revealed to us. And so, when revelation gives us the purpose of God, well then, it gives meaning to everything in the world. I will know why you do what you do. I will know why you dream what you dream. I will know why you have the vision that you have. Because everything contains within itself a symbolic significance, I don’t care what it is… everything in this world. When I walk this earth and I think I’m awake, whatever I see and dream and the most ludicrous dream has tremendous significance when I awake. Because everything is a symbol and everything is telling me…I’ll show you in a very simple way.813 ¶8

You dream tonight that one you love dearly, really dearly, and you see them in the most intimate relationship with another. Maybe you aren’t disturbed in the dream, but you see them, and you wake and wonder, “What on earth is this?” Then you ask, what is the one that you saw in intimate relationship, what does that represent to you? And then you come up with the wonderful answer as it comes from the depth of your soul: well, he or she depending on which one it is you saw in the vision, and you see that they represent the personification of the most glorious thing in the world, on a certain level. They represent to you—and I will take it now in a continental America—[...] said to me, “You know, just as the last war broke”—the 2nd World War, not Korea or the present one in Vietnam—he said, “You know, this world is so altogether crazy. We should have only the English speaking people the world over.” And he meant it. He is an American of many, many generations. Then he went further, he said, “You know, Eastern America (speaking of New England) that is the backbone of this country.” And he meant ever word of it. He’s a brilliant, brilliant man. Graduated at the age of nineteen from Yale and remained in Yale to teach higher mathematics, brilliant person.813 ¶9

So you encounter him in a vision, and here you see this person in a relationship and you know from your own innate intuitive knowledge this is not something that is physical. You see the seeming physical act, but here is an ideal impregnated into someone you love dearly, and she or he will bring it to fruition in the immediate present. What does he represent?—an ideal. Something altogether lovely, but it is of the Eastern seaboard. It’s not of the West, the North, the South or the Midwest. It’s something that he, in your mind’s eye, is altogether sweet and wonderful, and you can’t tarnish it. It’s altogether lovely. Whether one knows it or not, in the not distant future, this one so impregnated will be inspired to paint, to write, to do something creative…for he is creative. But on this level, you will say, “Isn’t that sordid!” because you don’t know God’s symbolism. So you will rise in the morning and you will think, “What a horrible thing that I had as a dream…and it’s a most glorious thing. You saw God being a protean being; he played all the parts. So he wears the garment of this, that or the other, and you see an act. And what was that one…it could have been a horrible thing based upon your concept of that individual. But if it’s a lovely concept, then out of that union will come the most glorious child. The child could be a poem, it could be a novel, it could be the most wonderful thing in this world. It could be a painting, a design for a portrait. That’s all that it means. But man is so rooted in the flesh, right down here, he gives it a Caesar’s concept, and he doesn’t see this glorious thing that takes place in the world.813 ¶10

Now in our world here I have told you what has happened to me, that I have fulfilled scripture. You may or may not believe it as I told you when I first opened up the talk tonight that the whole story of Jesus, but the whole, from his conception by the Holy Spirit to his ascension into heaven, is simply a sign granted by God to those who will receive it. I have told you, some here will not receive it, other will receive it. For those who will receive it, if you ever see me in your vision in such a creative act, I am simply fertilizing the story of the gospel in you. I am the Father of that which has been fertilized. Now, I refer you to the 4th chapter of 1st Corinthians when Paul turns to the Corinthians and he tells them, “You have unnumbered guides in Jesus Christ, unnumbered, but not many fathers. I became your father in Christ” . It’s a mystery…he’s telling you the whole thing is a mystery. You have unnumbered…those who will tell you about Jesus Christ not based upon experience but based upon theory, based upon speculation, and they will carry it on. But he tells you, “You have numberless guides” and he calls them—the King James Version calls it—“instructors, numberless instructors, but not many fathers. I became your father.” He is telling them that he sired them after they accepted what he experienced. He told them what he experienced: “For when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I didn’t converse or communicate with flesh and blood” . What person in this world would I turn to after I’ve experienced the vision? How could he tell me anything about it? What could they tell me? It’s all from within me. Then I tell it and I get a certain crowd who will believe me, believe what I’m saying is true. Whether they understand it or not, they will change; they will modify their preconceived concept of the Christian faith to conform to what I have experienced. Then I have union and that concept unfolds within them. That’s what he’s telling them.813 ¶11

Read it in the 4th chapter and you read it from the 14th, 15th, and 16th verses of 1st Corinthians. Yes, on the surface you’ll say “What on earth is he talking about?” But he’s telling you what takes place in the world, for God being a protean being will use Paul, he’ll use Neville, he’ll use anyone who has unfolded the drama within himself; and wearing that mask he has union with one who has accepted the story of salvation. And having fertilized it, that thing unfolds within.813 ¶12

Now, again I must tell you, from my own experience it took thirty years from union with the risen Lord to my birth. But, I will now say, although it was my experience I’m not going to be hard and fast about it, for the simple reason we all are playing different parts in the great body of God. All of us are playing different parts, and my part has been a complete unfoldment of scripture as it’s recorded. It took thirty years…and “He began his ministry when was about thirty years of age.” Doesn’t mean thirty from the womb of the physical, for it hasn’t a thing to do with the physical womb; that’s not the birth, it’s something spiritual. “When he was about thirty”—after the union that was spiritual; and so, in my case, from 1929 to 1959 that’s when I had the birth. But I will not now say to anyone…for I go back to Habakkuk, “Every vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens, it will flower. If it be long wait; for it is sure, and it will not be late” . And so, if the part you are to play in the body of God differs from the part I am playing and was predestined to play calls forth a shorter interval, well then, it is. For he does, may I tell you, give us eight levels of the body of God. He begins it with the apostles and then the prophets and then the teachers, and the workers of miracles. If you are destined to play another part other than that of the apostle, well then, maybe the length of time between union and birth in such a part is not the same. I tell you this from my own visions since I last saw you. So visions come in a different way…but the maximum, as I understand it, is that of the birth of the apostle, and that in my own case was thirty years.813 ¶13

Now he tells us, these things were not known, not known by any man of other generations, but only now revealed to the holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit. Now I know on this level the feeling between having a vision tonight concerning the world of Caesar where someone is impregnated by an ideal. But the ideal is always man because God is man, and it always wears the human form. And so, here is an impregnation and that whether that one knows it or not…they may even be disgusted if you ever told them what you saw in vision. Alright, so they’re disgusted, but you saw it, and you can’t deny it, any more than you could deny the most simple evidence of the senses. You can’t deny it, but you have to wrestle with the interpretation of what you saw. You come to the conclusion the one you love dearly is an ideal, and it’s altogether wonderful, and it impregnated. So, what that one who is impregnated will do…it’s not a little child…it isn’t a violation of her pledge to a person in this world of Caesar, but it will bring out the most glorious concepts concerning what he in your mind or she in your mind represents. You get it? That’s how the whole thing unfolds within us. But if you’re going to give it an interpretation on this level, then we’re far, far removed from, really, what God intended to convey to us.813 ¶14

And we get to the point that every dream has significance. There is no dream, no vision without meaning. For God speaks to man through the medium of dream, and unveils himself through the medium of vision . So you have it and you know exactly what it means. It’s a fantastic thing! On that level it’s right, completely right; on this level it would be wrong. So man ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thought this was right and that was wrong, and descended into the level of confusion. And now he sees the tree, and nothing is right or wrong. On a certain level it’s perfectly right; on this level that would be completely wrong. You begin to accept every level, and up you go on the tree of life, higher and higher and higher. Every level on its level is right if you know how to interpret it.813 ¶15

So he said, “He has made known unto me the mystery of his will”…that sacred secret…“according to his purpose and he set it forth as a plan in Christ, for the fullness of time.” But now I know that Christ is not a person: “From now on I regard no one from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” I see him now as the creative power of God, as the wisdom of God, and buried in that power is a plan. And that power is crucified on me; I am the cross that he wears. The plan has to unfold in me if I would ever rise. So he resurrects himself in me, because the plan is in me, because he, the power of God, is in me. When he awakens within me, the whole plan as told unfolds within me and the whole story of Jesus Christ unfolds within me, and then I am he. Alright, the world will not believe it, doesn’t really matter. You’ll always find a remnant who will believe, always a remnant. Well, a remnant is considered ten percent. So you’ll find a remnant who will believe it in spite of what they formerly believed. In this audience, there are those who will come and they’ll come for the longest while, but they will come with that barrier and they will not accept it. There are others who are not conditioned to come, but they will come and they will put up all kinds of barriers.813 ¶16

A friend of ours, who is here tonight, he comes here all the time, he graciously brought a lovely lady friend of his last lecture night and she told me that she would take under consideration my theory. I said, “They are not theories, my dear, I speak from experience. I have experienced Christ.” She said to me, “But I am an ordained minister.” I said, “That means nothing to me. Have you had the vision of Christ? The one who ordained you, did he or she or they have the vision of Christ? Well, if they didn’t, then it’s the blind leading the blind. And no matter how old you are in the years of Caesar, or how long you’ve been ordained, it still doesn’t make any difference, none whatsoever. I’m not theorizing. You can’t take under consideration my “theory”; you may take under consideration what I have experienced. If it doesn’t fit your prefabricated misconceptions of scripture, all well and good, you may continue in your prefabricated misconceptions. But don’t take my ‘theories,’ I don’t have theories; I’m giving you vision. I’m giving you what I have experienced. It’s all revelation; I’m not theorizing.” Well, she was very sweet about it and we didn’t go beyond that point. She simply left in the company of my friend who is here tonight. She said, “I came here, this is my first time.” But you don’t come for the first time and hear something so radically different from what you’ve been trained to believe and expect to swallow it hook, line and sinker.813 ¶17

So I would ask him tonight to simply give her or loan her…I’m quite sure you have my book Resurrection. Maybe she won’t even read it now, but loan it to her anyway, and have her read the chapter on resurrection. It’s all documented and I have used as much of the Old Testament to show. Because, all that I can say, when he said, “Read…after you have read” he’s referring to the Old Testament, for there was no New. And keep in mind my interpretation of the Old as you read the Old, that’s what he’s telling you—Ephesians, and the Galatians and the Corinthians, in fact, all of his letters—for there was no other Bible. So he would say to them, “When you read (meaning the Old Testament) remember my exposition, and keep that in mind as you read it, and you will find light coming from what you cannot normally understand, for the thing broke in me.” That’s what Paul is saying. I will say to you, give her the book or loan her the book, and have her read it, because every passage I have spoken as an experience I have pinpointed that passage in the Old Testament where this is its fulfillment. For the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old; it’s not the other way around. The whole thing comes from the Old, but it’s fulfilled in the New. And the whole was completely sealed in the Old until the fullness of time when it erupted in man. Resurrection has taken place and is taking place in all.813 ¶18

So here on this level we can test it. Test one of his great theories which he knew from experience; therefore, to him it was not a theory, but to those who heard it, it was theory. Believe that you are the man or the woman that you want to be, just believe it! What would the feeling be like if you were now what you want to be? Can you catch that feeling? Can you view the world from that assumption as though it were true? Can you do it just as though it were true? May I tell you, if you believe that this vision of yours, this assumption of yours which is a vision has its own appointed hour and it will flower, and in spite of the so-called seeming delay, you persist in it, no power on earth can stop it from hardening into fact. No power! “For an assumption though false”—by false, I mean at the moment of assumption my reason denies it, my senses deny it, and though it’s false to my reason and to my senses—“if persisted in will harden into fact.” This is Christianity.813 ¶19

I do not know if any of you last night heard William F. Buckley and Muggeridge. We came home from a party which our daughter gave because it was Mothers’ Day, and we all went to her home. It was a perfectly lovely evening, and we came home just about ten minutes before ten, and my wife said, “You know, Muggeridge is on tonight.” Well, he was the head of Punch, the editor of Punch magazine in England for eleven years…a brilliant mind. And so, William F. Buckley, who is a brilliant fellow, and there they were on camera for nineteen minutes. Well, I’m telling you it was the most fantastic nineteen minutes and all on Christianity. Muggeridge went all out, he said, “I’m not the kind of Christian undoubtedly that you are Bill,” speaking to Buckley; for one is a Catholic and Muggeridge was raised in the Anglican faith. But he said, “I do not go for the kind of concepts that Anglicans have or any institution in this world. Now they call me the extreme Left.” He said, “If I would define for you what I mean by extreme Left, I want to free the individual from all institutions, all organizations, all of these things in the world, and put them into the true light of a Christian.” “You have an organization,” said he to Buckley, “and you think that is an authority. I refuse to accept any authority other than that which I find in the four gospels and letters in the New Testament, that’s all that I will accept. And I find the greatest freedom in it.”813 ¶20

Well, the young boys challenged him and they thought the whole thing was all sheer fantasy. His answers were simply superb. Of course, his use of English would be like Shakespeare. Muggeridge when he uses English…so is Buckley for that matter…they have the most wonderful command of the English tongue. But Muggeridge took over the entire evening, and what he said about his deep convictions concerning Christianity. One thing that he brought out was this, he said that all these marches, ministers and priests that are all marching, carrying things, for what? They’re trying to bring the kingdom of God on earth, and you’ll never find it. “Haven’t you heard” said he, “my kingdom is not of this world” . You can’t bring it into the world of Caesar. You live by this faith in the hope that you will enter this world of freedom, and you believe the revelation as it’s given to us in the gospels and the letters. But man is trying to bring it here and grant everyone financial security, this, that and the other…all equally hating each other…and you can’t do it. You will only have faith in this vision. And he confessed he didn’t have the vision, he hadn’t had the experience but he is one hundred percent a Christian in the belief of this story.813 ¶21

So, I’m telling you I wish you could have heard it. I’m rarely up that late on lecture night. I’m usually in bed before that unless I’m entertaining. But coming home as late as we did we turned it on and it was the most glorious time. These two men…and they did, they sort of played each other beautifully. When these children—when I say children, well, to me they are children in their twenties, in college in England, Oxford and Cambridge, and they’re asking these questions—Muggeridge made them look just as they are, like children, when they simply brushed the whole thing off as fantasy. Sheer fantasy, they said.813 ¶22

And may I tell you, there is no limit to this power. Tonight, I don’t care what faces you, the most horrible problem in the world. I don’t care what it is. If you can conceive a solution in your mind’s eye—and anyone can, it doesn’t take an Einstein to conceive the solution of a problem. You don’t have to work it out: “I have ways and means ye know not of…my ways are past finding out” . So you don’t work out the ways and means; you only work out the end. Well, if you are in debt, what is the solution, that this one would give you money or that one will do so and so? No, the end is that you aren’t in debt. What would it be like if you were not in debt? And if you had the most horrible problem—you think of it (any problem in the world)—then what is its solution? Then you imagine the solution. Well then, assume that it is true. What would the feeling be like were it true? And then in a way that no one knows, if you are persistent in that assumption, it will come to pass. I’ll take everything in this world: There is nothing impossible to God and God who is crucified upon you is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s God. There never was another God and there never will be another God. So all things being possible to God…if I could imagine the end, knowing all things are possible to God, and remain faithful to that assumption as though it were true, it will harden into fact. “An assumption though false if persisted in will harden into fact” .813 ¶23

This is what we teach here, and it’s provable. But we are the operant power. It will not operate itself because we know what we should do; it will operate if we do what we know we should do. So are we willing to assume at the moment of decision that things are as we desire them to be, are we willing? If we do, it will come to pass. Now others will say no…doesn’t really matter. You who know it, you try it. And to the best of your ability persuade others, although they may be against you for a moment, because they’re all human enough to resist anything of this nature. Well, they’ll accept it, so don’t give up. Just simply in your own mind’s eye persist in the assumption that things are as you desire them to be. And if you do and you do not falter, it will come to pass.813 ¶24

So if we go back to what we started to say in the beginning, he tells us that the story of Abraham is an allegory, that this is an allegory. Well, the Bible really begins with that allegory. Know what an allegory is? It’s a story told as if true, leaving the one who hears it or reads it to discover its fictitious character and learn its lesson. If the story of Abraham and Sarah and their offspring Isaac, and Abraham and Sarah’s servant Hagar and their offspring Ishmael, if this story is an allegory, and yet Abraham is the father of all of us, well then, where is the reality of the story? For we are told, this is an allegory in the 4th chapter of Galatians . Well, if it’s an allegory and an allegory is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its fictitious nature and then learn, well then, if that is the origin of all the stories of scripture, for all things come out of Abraham. For the very first beginning of the New Testament, “And this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham” . Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers, and he goes all the way down. So if Abraham, the source of all, is an allegory, well then, the whole thing has to be an allegory. Therefore, you have to discover the fictitious character of all the stories, including Jesus Christ; for he is the culmination of the entire genealogy that begins in the first chapter of Matthew. So find out what is the story. It hasn’t a thing to do with what the world is talking about. And then you find out the whole thing is a grand, wonderful plan of salvation buried in Christ; and Christ is not a person as you think, but the power and wisdom of God, crucified on man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination.813 ¶25

Then, knowing that plan is contained within you, and you believe it, the whole thing will awake one day within you. You may be completely unaware of that moment when that plan was fertilized; but it has to be fertilized. It will be fertilized by one who has awakened from the dream of life. It is going to be that kind of a birth. One who has not yet awakened from the dream of life can be used on this level to bring about a beautiful poem, a play, a great, wonderful story, on this level if that is the ideal in your minds’ eye. But when it comes to the plan, God’s plan of salvation, it can only be fertilized by one who has already been raised from the dead; and God, in this world being a protean being, he will assume that mask and play that part, and that one will be fertilized.813 ¶26

So let me again go back. Because there are eight levels, I do not know how long between such fertilization and birth…because I do not know what level you are destined to play. I only know in my own case it took the maximum, because I was destined to play the part I’m playing, which is the part of the apostle. For, the one indispensible qualification for that part is to have seen the risen Lord. There is no other, I would say, qualification named in scripture but that. You read it in the first verse the ninth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, when he says, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus Christ?” You do not see him standing before you, who talks to you, who embraces you, and you fuse with him and become one body with him unless that is also that you’re going to be sent. To be sent is to be an apostle. Everyone who is called into that level of his being is always sent. And so, the apostle comes first, then comes the prophet, then comes the teacher, then comes the worker of miracles, the healer, the helper, the administrator…all these are different levels and there are eight levels . So there are different intervals of time, undoubtedly, concerning the birth. So I will not say it has to be unless you’re going to be the apostle.813 ¶27

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Are there any questions, please?813 ¶28

Tonight’s subject or title is really “Believe It In.” But the paper didn’t believe that I meant that and so they rearranged it, without my permission, and called it “Believe In It.” So when they sent the proofs back, it was so late I had no time to correct it because they had gone to press. Well, they did no more than our scholars do to the Bible. We have a passage in the Bible that “woman is saved by the bearing of children.” They give you a footnote that the real passage reads “woman is saved by the birth of the child.” It’s all the difference in the world. And through the Bible you’ll find when it does not make sense, our scholars give it sense…and it isn’t so at all. In the Book of Jeremiah, we’re told that man draws himself out of himself, and he begins the drawing when he reaches the hips. He actually comes out of himself, and then he uses his hands to draw the remaining portion. Well, the scholars could not believe that and so they say, “Why do I see every man with his hands on his hips just like a woman in labor?” So I did not intend the title they gave me. The title is “Believe It In.”812 ¶1

The late Robert Frost, oh, maybe two or three years before he died, some reporter from Life magazine interviewed him, and he said—and it startled the readers of Life—that “our Founding Fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in; we are always believing ahead of our evidence.” He said, “What evidence had I that I could write a poem? I just believed it.” He said, “The most creative thing in us is to believe a thing in.” The Bible teaches that “all things are possible to him who believes” —not a few, not if the wise men say that it is possible, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. If this is true, you and I should devote all of our lives, really, to the mastery of the art of believing. How to believe when reason denies it, my senses deny it, everything denies it? Yet I am haunted with the statement of scripture, “All things are possible to him who believes.” So how do I do it? Fawcett said—using the word Imagination, but really you can take the word belief in the same way—he said, “The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which the mystic aspires, for supreme power, supreme wisdom and supreme delight lie in the far off solution of this mystery.”812 ¶2

Well, if that is true, I should devote all of my energies to the mastery of this art of believing and the art of imagining. For Imagination and believing are the stuff out of which we fashion our worlds…every one of us.812 ¶3

There isn’t a thing in this world that comes suddenly upon us that really did not have its cause in some invisible imaginal state where we believed it. We forgot it, yes, went about our business, things are active, and suddenly it confronts us, and we don’t really recognize our own harvest. But everything comes by reason of the law, and we plant it by believing. We were told the story and we believed it. Others rejected it; we believed it. Or we can tell ourselves a story.812 ¶4

Let me tell you a story that I know intimately, because it’s part of my family’s world. You can’t conceive of anything poorer than to be born on a little island say like Barbados where I was born, and born with a light skin and be poor. If you were born with dark skin, you have a chance. If you were born with a white skin and you have money, tremendous chance. But to be born with white skin and poor, you’re behind the eight-ball at birth. Well, both my father and mother were born in these situations, poor and white. The highest education we had on the island would be what we could call high school, but not the standard we have today or certainly not the standard when my father went to school that we had then in this country. He went as far as he could go and he had to get a job, his first job in the city, paying five shillings a week. A shilling, call it a quarter, it was really twenty-four cents, but call it a quarter. There was no transportation and he lived ten miles in the country from the city. He had to be on the job at six in the morning and he had to walk it. It was six days a week and he walked back when the store closed at six, walked back another ten miles for his five shillings a week.812 ¶5

There was a huge big building judged by other standards on the main street. It was called C. F. Harrison & Company, a department store. They also had a commercial agency in the store. Some nights when he was beastly tired and to compensate he used to play the little game of believing, and to comfort himself he would believe that he owned that store. Well, he was as far from ownership as possible…well, how would I even compare it to something else…my being near the White House. That’s already been ruled out by human law, because I was born outside of continental America, so I would be as far removed, as my father, from owning this building. It occupied a whole block on the main street, a wonderful wide side street to the second street, a whole block. It was owned almost 100 years by the same family, but they lived in England; they never saw it. They hired local men and occasionally they sent a man out from England to take over management. But he played this game and it helped him, it compensated him when he was beastly tired, walking home in the belief he owned C. F. Harrison & Company.812 ¶6

Now, the Bible teaches that “every vision has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late” . No two seeds have the same time interval to sprout. Some will take years, some will come overnight like a mushroom, but they all come in different time periods.812 ¶7

Well, in 1942 the War is on, a 2nd World War. My father in the meanwhile…this goes back into the 19th Century, 1894, 1895, when he was playing this little game of believing. Then he got married and raised ten children. Through hard work, he was given a junior partnership in a small little grocery venture. They carried groceries, liquor, meat, and so on. 1919, for reasons that need not be explained, for they’re still unexplained, he was eased out of his partnership. They wanted it for themselves, and five men got together and eased him out. He had no choice in the matter. He was eased out with ten children, unschooled…where to turn? No equity, really, in that little junior partnership. It all adds up. With borrowed money he started a little grocery store, that’s all that he knew, and one of my brothers with him.812 ¶8

In 1942, a man came by…he was standing at the front of his store looking at this big building, and this friend said, “Mr. Joe, what are you doing?” “Oh,” he said, “I’m just looking over at this building. I’ve always liked it.” He said, “Would you like to own it?” “Huh!” he smiled. He said, “If any man who owns this building were ever to entertain the thought of selling it, he should have his head fixed. This is a gold mine. It’s owned by an Englishman who is ninety-two years old. He has two sons—one is a priest who doesn’t want any part of the commercial world, and the other has been a playboy all of his life. He has all the money in the world and would have not a thing to do with overseas properties. He has all that he needs in London plus this. This is his, too.” “Well,” he said, “I’m just asking” said this man to my father. He said, “Where is Vic?”…Vic is my brother. “Oh,” he said, “he’s somewhere around. I saw him here recently.” He said, “I want to see Vic.”812 ¶9

So when Vic came by, he said, “I want to see you alone.” Took him upstairs to the office and he said, “Vic, read this letter. It came from the old man who owns the building, trusting me as an honored friend, a trusted friend, to sell it to some local family who has the island’s interests at heart, who has worked hard and proven by their efforts that they’re really good hard workers and a local family.” Vic read the letter and he could hardly believe his eyes. In the letter he said, “All I want is a good value, no great profit. Value the building, take an inventory of the stock, and then that’s all that I want. But I want whoever buys it to take over the obligations of the insurance policies for my employees.” He employed about, oh, maybe seventy people and all were insured against retirement. So here was the figure when he’d taken inventory. The building is worth…and he quoted a figure. He said, “Now let me call my father.” Daddy read the letter and then he said, “All right, let’s go straight to the bank. I’ll take it, have no money, but I’ll take it.”812 ¶10

Went to the bank and then he said to the bankers, “I need so much, but I can’t tell you why. If you want to know why, I can’t tell you. Cable headquarters in Toronto,” and then he made a promise, “and tell them we want to borrow a certain sum of money which is in excess of our present loan, but we can’t tell them why we want it.” The bank sent back, “This is the most unusual request, but we’ve dealt with the Goddards now for twenty-odd years and so we will say yes to this request.” Then he wrote a letter, went to the head censor, the War was on, this man’s name was Johnny Walker, a descendant of the Scotch family, he was the head censor, and he said, “Now Mr. Walker, I want you to read this letter and you will see in this letter that we have said nothing to in any way affect the War effort, no secrets. We are just simply accepting an offer and making an offer.” The man read it, he said, “Now I want you to seal it in my presence so these 275 girls and boys will not read it after you’ve sealed it. You read it and seal it, and let me see you mail it.” For in those days our ships were going down left and right by the subs, so we had no assurance the letter would ever reach England; for we had no other means other than water transportation.812 ¶11

Time went by…three months later came a cable, “Accept Goddard’s offer.” By then the Bank of France wrote the money, the whole thing was done, and it broke in the papers the next day. Every merchant in the island rushed in to buy a piece of it. My father said “No, it’s just for the family, just the ten of us, nine brothers and a sister, and my father and mother, that’s all.” In fact, mother had just gone, for she left us in 1941.812 ¶12

What I’m getting at is this. The old man was right, Robert Frost: “We’re always believing ahead of our evidence.” In the meanwhile he worked, they all worked hard, and then came the evidence of what was no idle daydream, which he indulged in only to help him walk ten miles after being tired all day and walking home to his little hut in the country. That building today with its present rate of business, I don’t think anyone could come for it under, say, eight million dollars. I don’t think anyone…and it’s not for sale because business is too good. The very commercial agencies that we have are in themselves a fantastic business, aside from the actual business that is conducted there.812 ¶13

First thing my brother did, he brought in an English architect, disemboweled the place and modernized it, and used every square inch that he could use as against the old concept…like the Emporium in San Francisco. Just disemboweled the center so as to give it air or to watch the people below, something, and all that space is wasted. We had something similar. He put in elevators, put in escalators, and covered the entire four floors, occupying every square foot of the space. And today, it is the most valuable piece of property…all based upon my father’s believing.812 ¶14

The art of believing…he used to practice this every day of his life. He would come home for breakfast. We call breakfast at home the first heavy meal around ten, ten-thirty. Early in the morning it’s really breaking the fast but you do that with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, and then you go off and return around ten, ten-thirty for a substantial meal which we call breakfast. So after this substantial meal he would sit in a chair, and with his eyes partly closed, he would see what he wanted to see. He would imagine what he wanted to imagine, and carry on mental conversations with imaginary people from premises of his fulfilled desire. So he started from scratch, behind the eight-ball, but if all things are possible to the one who believes, well then, he’s proved it. He had not a thing in this world to support the claim that believing he had it that he would have it.812 ¶15

And look at the things that happened in the interval. One became a priest…he wasn’t even born when my father began to do this. The old man who was then ninety-two, if you take off the almost fifty years, well then, he was in his forties, early forties. And if the one who is the priest was born, he was a young man; the other who became a businessman but really a playboy. They never saw their overseas properties; then came two world wars while this little thing is maturing and germinating.812 ¶16

So his vision, his belief was in keeping with Habakkuk, “The vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late.” That’s the 2nd chapter of Habakkuk .812 ¶17

So here, the whole vision is for man. You are as free as the wind if you believe these principles in scripture, not based upon anything on the outside at all, all based upon you. Can you believe?812 ¶18

And this story is told after the disciples failed to cure a certain lad and they asked, “Why did we fail?” He said, “Because of your unbelief, you faithless generation. How long must I be with you?” And then he explained and the father said, “I believe you; help my unbelief” . So that’s what we’re here for, to help each other’s unbelief. You say, I have a certain goal, but so far I haven’t realized it. Well, that’s the purpose of the platform: it’s to help.812 ¶19

What are you doing? I find the great fallacy of the whole world in this art of believing is perpetual construction and deferred occupancy. Occupancy is incubating the dream. What do I mean by occupancy? I mean thinking from instead of thinking of. I can stand here and think of for the rest of my days, think of owning that, owning this, or I can think of something I’d like to do; but until I actually occupy it, dwell in it, and look at the world from it, I haven’t incubated it, I haven’t fertilized it.812 ¶20

I can take an egg, [...] egg, until that sperm enters it isn’t fertilized. How does the sperm enter the egg? It’s still a mystery to our scientists. Well, here a sperm enters the egg from the outside and yet there are no holes on the outside of that egg either before or after fertilization. How did he do it?812 ¶21

Well, you can do it because you are the sperm of God; you are the creative power of God. How do I do it—by Imagination. I can stand here and no power in this world can stop me from imagining that I am where I would like to be. They can’t stop me. I can stand here, you can bind me, you can do anything, but you can’t stop me from imagining that I am, say, in San Francisco. You will say, “What does that matter?” Well, if I desire to go to San Francisco and I haven’t the time or the means, I will go to San Francisco in my Imagination, and things will reshuffle themselves to give me the time and the means. Then I’ll be compelled to move across a bridge of incidents that will lead me from here to where I am in Imagination, and I’ll go to San Francisco. I have done it time and time and time again.812 ¶22

So when you know what you want, occupy it. Occupy any state in this world. Occupancy is fertilization, and the egg is not fertilized until you occupy it. When that sperm enters, it doesn’t break the shell. You need no door to open the door; you go in and occupy it.812 ¶23

Now, we are told that God speaks to man in a vision or rather he makes himself known in a vision and speaks to him in a dream. A few years ago, I think it was Christmas night, about two or three years ago, I had this vivid, vivid dream. It as more than a dream, it was like a waking dream, a waking state. But I found myself in New York City on Fifth Avenue in one of the huge, big mansions that dotted the avenue at the turn of the century. These were enormous mansions, sixty to eighty rooms to a mansion, where people occupied them, one family, but they had maybe twenty-five guest rooms. They had their stables on the west side where the servants lived above where the horses were kept. But these enormous things…I saw them when I came to this country in 1922. They had just begun to demolish them, and the big buildings were going up then.812 ¶24

But in my vision I found myself on the inside of this fabulous mansion and there were three generations present. One was invisible; he was spoken of as grandfather. Then there were two visible, the second and third generations, and the second was telling the third that grandfather used to say while standing on an empty lot, “I remember when this was an empty lot.” He’s standing on it, and he would tell them, “I remember when it was an empty lot.” Then he would paint a word picture of his desire for that lot, and paint it so graphically they could see it as though it were fact and objective to vision.812 ¶25

I woke on my bed in Los Angeles and the whole thing was so vivid, I got out of bed, it was early, 3:30, and I wrote the whole thing down, the entire vision. It was too early to get up and remain up, so I went back to bed and re-dreamed the dream, only with a slight change. Now I’m in the mansion, the same mansion, and there are three generations but I am grandfather. I didn’t speak of grandfather; I was grandfather. I heard the story in my vision and I had so absorbed the power of faith, the power of belief that now in telling the story, I told them…“I would stand on an empty lot and I would say to those who were with me, ‘I remember when this was an empty lot.’” Then I painted the word picture of my desire for that lot and did it so well and so vividly that they all saw it.812 ¶26

Now the Bible teaches that the doubling of the dream means that God has fixed the thing and God will shortly bring it to pass. You read that in the 41st chapter of the Book of Genesis …the doubling of a dream, the thing should come to pass, for God has fixed it. Now, who is the God that’s spoken of? It’s your own wonderful I-am-ness, that’s God. “That’s my name forever. By this name I am known and will be known throughout all generations” . Well, who had the experience? I did. And when you woke and wrote it down and went back to bed who had the second one? I did. Therefore, the whole thing came from the depths of my own soul.812 ¶27

Now, have a wonderful, wonderful experience in your Imagination and make it real. Give it all the sensory vividness, all the tones of reality, and when it seems real to you and you’re thinking from it, it’s done. In a little while, do it again, double the vision, the dream. For you’re told, if it’s double then it’s fixed and God shall shortly bring it to pass. So, take the Bible at its word and double it, and see how this thing comes in this world.812 ¶28

You bring things in by believing. You are always believing ahead of your evidence. The most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in. May I tell you, it’s not difficult. Not only it’s not difficult, there is no strain, because if you believe a thing, there certainly is no strain to it. If you have faith, there’s no strain to it. Faith is only loyalty to unseen reality.812 ¶29

You’re told in scripture, he calls a thing that does not exist and he calls it into existence. Read it in the 4th chapter, the 17th verse of Romans. The Catholic Bible translates that passage “He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were, and the unseen becomes seen.”812 ¶30

Well, no one saw my father owning that place, and he didn’t share his little story with anyone else. So he was calling a thing that was not seen by another as though it were seen by the world…and then the unseen, in time, became a fact. So here, you call a thing that is not seen just as though it were and the unseen will become seen.812 ¶31

You do it with anything in this world. You are the operant power and you have to make the choice. There’s always risk in your choice, because you may not always choose lovingly. If you don’t choose lovingly, well, you will still get it, only you will find it was an unwise choice. Time will prove it, because in the end you’ll discover there is no “other” but really no other just yourself. So if you choose something that is to another’s disadvantage, you’ll prove, time will prove it to you that you made an unwise choice. Yet you are free to do it, because the story is all things, not a few things, “All things are possible to him who believes.”812 ¶32

Now, here is the secret in this little story of believing: You always start at the end. The end is where I begin. In my end is my beginning. You go to the very end, the thing accomplished, you start there. And then you bounce back here…and then you move across this series of events that lead you to that end that you had already predetermined.812 ¶33

Here is something that…of course I don’t like to use science to support anything in scripture, because scripture is so far beyond anything in science. It doesn’t appeal to the rational mind as science does. It belongs to a depth so deep that reason can’t reach it, that’s why it still remains undisturbed by all the arguments, all the intellectual criticisms that you can throw at it. It still remains undisturbed, but sometimes some fantastic thing comes out which, well, it’s so funny the scientists have said it. In fact, right now, or it just happened in—is it Norway where they give these prizes out?—well, this wonderful prize to Mr. Feynman, Professor Feynman, he’s now at Cal Tech. But they’re giving it to him today for something that he stumbled upon in 1949 (because I have his scientific paper at home, the Nov. 15th or Oct. 15th issue of The Science News Letter). And he said what they’re giving him today is for something he discovered a way back in 1949. He said, “It’s no earthly good from a practical point of view, but you can’t discount it, you can’t rub it out, there it is.”812 ¶34

This is what he said concerning a little particle discovered in atomic disintegration, something known to scientists as the positron. Now he said, “The positron is a wrong-way electron. It starts from where it hasn’t been and it speeds to where it was an instant ago. Arriving there, it is bounced so hard its time sense is reversed and then it speeds back to where it hasn’t been.” He’s getting a prize for that…this is Professor Richard Feynman of Cal Tech.812 ¶35

Now the physics of the mind cannot differ really in any respect from the physics of the rest of nature, for God is one, there’s a unity here.812 ¶36

Alright, how could I relate that to this statement now from the 14th of John: “In my Father’s house are many mansions; were it not so would I have told you? And now I go and prepare a place for you. When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye shall be also” .812 ¶37

Now look upon it as a conversation taking place within one man. The outer man can’t do it, he’s helpless…he has no money, no position, he has nothing…but he has a desire. He has to turn that desire over to the depths of his own soul who is God, his own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God, so all things are possible to God. The outer man can’t do it, so he puts him on a chair, puts him on a bed, leaves him just where he is, he’s helpless.812 ¶38

Now in Imagination I go and prepare the place for him, wherever I would like to take him. But he has voiced the request, his desire, so I go into a state named by him. I occupy the state, it seems so real, and then I break it and speed quickly back to where I left the garment one second before.812 ¶39

Now, to the outer mortal eye no one saw me go any place and no one saw me speed back, but I know what I did. I went into an unseen state based upon the mortal eye, and when I broke the spell I sped back to where I was physically. And I’m bounced so hard by the realities of things round about me that my time sense is reversed; and now I move across this series of events, this bridge of incidents that takes me from where I am physically to where I really am in Imagination. So I move forward across this ladder of events and so he said, “It speeds from where it was not and comes back to where it was an instant ago; arriving there, it is bounced so hard the time sense is reversed, and now it goes back to where it hasn’t been.”812 ¶40

All right, I can see that. I’m going back to where I haven’t been physically, not as yet, but I was there spiritually. So I go in spirit to prepare it and start back to where I was physically; we coincide once more; then I go forward to where I am in spirit and take with me this garment that I had left behind.812 ¶41

Now, said he, having seen this peculiar behavior of the little particle, man’s entire concept of the world has changed. He can no longer believe that the future slowly unfolds out of the past. Now he has to see the entire space-time history of the world laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively. The whole thing is finished and I simply become aware of portions of it. He said, the direction that it takes is irrelevant. For that he’s getting $50,000.812 ¶42

If I told you that story without prefacing my remarks by telling you a very honored man is this night receiving a great honor for that discovery and led you to believe that I said it, if you’re here for the first time, I prophesy you’re here for the last time. But it’s Professor Feynman and all scientists today are way up in the minds of men. Because he said it and he’s being honored for it, oh, isn’t that marvelous…tell us something else equally crazy and try to relate it to the Bible.812 ¶43

Well, everything is equally crazy if you come into the Bible. For the story of the Bible is the most incredible story in the world, and yet it’s true. It cannot be proven to the rational mind on this level. You can’t for one moment prove it. You have to wait for it; and then the whole drama of Jesus Christ unfolds in man, but the whole drama. Everything said of him you are going to experience: that the great sacred history of Israel came to its climax and fulfillment in the story of Jesus Christ. Not only came, it came and comes, because it’s taking place in everyone in the world. The day will come and you will have the experience of being the one you always thought was unique and different that lived 2,000 years ago, that you are he and the whole story is your story.812 ¶44

Now I asked before I closed to share with me your experiences. Not only of things here in the world of Caesar—how you get a home, a better job, more money and all these things, they are important—but I also asked you to share with me your dreams, your visions. For if they are in any way foretold in scripture, they are important.812 ¶45

Well, next Tuesday I shall take four from the same lady who said they happened to her between closing December the 17th and my reopening January the 4th. They are perfectly beautiful, and I can tell her now, they’re all in scripture. They’re all in scripture—maybe she doesn’t have a concordance—everything she told me. I found this letter and read it over…everything is there in scripture. Not everything recorded in scripture completes the vision. As you’re told in the end of John, “there are many other things that he did that are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe.” The important eschatological story is written, that great finishing drama when it’s come to its climax, its end; but so many of the visions are not written. These four of hers are all in scripture. So we’ll take them and weave them into the story which we’ll give to you on Tuesday.812 ¶46

This is prompted not only by her four stories but by an article that my friend (who is here tonight) sent me last Tuesday. It’s in the current issue of Harper’s Bazaar and is about dreams. This practicing psychiatrist has been one for twenty years, but he wouldn’t give the Bible credit for anything. He quotes J. W. Dunne, Freud, Jung, Adler, and all the so-called authorities on dream, and only vaguely mentions in the very end this trinity in man, which he calls the self, the rational mind or ego, and then what he speaks of as the Holy Spirit as a reflection of the great trinity.812 ¶47

That’s all that he would mention of scripture; and the Bible, from beginning to end, mentions the importance of dreams. It also tells us we are past masters at misinterpreting dreams. If it’s a simple, simple little dream, all well and good, but when it comes in symbolism you need a professional interpreter…and I don’t mean Freud. He’d put it right down into the loins. No matter what the vision is, he takes it right into the loins…and that’s not the story. So on Tuesday we will take that.812 ¶48

And strangely enough, someone gave me for Christmas the Sunday issue of the New York Times that will come through the year, and in the book section, the first book reviewed is on dreams, something new. He, too, mentions these same “authorities” but not scripture.812 ¶49

So on Tuesday, it will be that to show you what scripture teaches concerning this activity in the depths of the soul of man; and the four that she gave me last, well, I got it in the mail this week, are perfectly marvelous. I will tell her to read the 10th chapter, the 20th verse of Ecclesiastes tonight, and, I think, the 31st of Jeremiah, the 5th verse.812 ¶50

Well, let us go into the Silence. * * *812 ¶51

Now the time is up. We’re here every Tuesday and every Friday. I can’t tell you when we’re going to close, but until….812 ¶64

Blake said, “Why stand we here trembling around calling on God for help and not ourselves in whom God dwells?” Well, does he dwell in us as something other than ourselves or did he actually become us, become man? I will tell you, you are the being that became man, the being Blake refers to as God. God is your own wonderful human Imagination. It did not begin in your mother’s womb and it will not end in the grave. This is the pre-existing being, the being that existed before the foundation of the world, and you emptied yourself completely for a purpose. Tonight, we will try to touch on that purpose.811 ¶1

So Paul in his letter to the Philippians speaks now of God in action as Jesus Christ. He said, “Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider it something to grasp, but emptied himself”—a complete emptying of himself—“and took upon himself the form of a slave, and was born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and took upon himself the cross.” This is the cross that he took. Now, this is all behind us. The being spoken of here, we are that being. Now he tells it as though there is another, and he said, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name Jesus every knee should bow, on earth, in heaven and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God.” You read this and you think he is speaking of another. He is not speaking of another. It is you who completely emptied yourself. You had all the glory of God and all the power of God and all the wisdom of God, and you were not pretending when you became man and were nailed to this cross that is man. You couldn’t pretend it and accomplish anything. You had to completely empty yourself of your power, your wisdom and your glory; and actually take upon yourself the humility of a garment of flesh and blood which enslaves you. For you have to cater to it from the cradle to the grave. You feed it, you bathe it, you wash it, and when it cannot assimilate what you give it, it has to eliminate, and then having eliminated then you have to clean the body again. And so, from the cradle to the grave you are enslaved by this body on which you are crucified.811 ¶2

Now Christ is crucified on man. He is buried in man. When he rises in man, that is the risen Christ and there is conferred upon the risen Christ in the experience of men the divine name Jesus. Through this experience a new age is ushered in. So Jesus is simply a name conferred upon the risen Christ, but the risen Christ is present in every child born of woman. The word Jesus means the same thing as the word Jehovah, “Jehovah saves.” Jehovah’s name is I AM. So here, this is not another being other than yourself. You are suffering from total amnesia. You had to completely forget your power, your wisdom, and your glory, and actually become what the world thinks to be a little man, a little woman, born a few years ago who will play a little part and then depart this world. But there is an immortal you that is in it, buried in all.811 ¶3

So then Blake said, “Why do we stand here trembling around calling on God for help and not ourselves in whom God dwells?” He dwells in us. Everything in this world that you can think about is present. You can’t conceive of something that is not already worked out in detail. But they are shadowy to those who dwell not in them, mere possibilities; but for those who enter into them, they seem the only substances. When I enter into a world that is just like this, prior to my entrance into it it’s a possibility, an image. But let me now actually enter into that world so that my consciousness follows my vision and I enter, it seems more real than this room when I leave it tonight. At the moment I am in this image and this room is real. When I depart here tonight, it’s a memory image, just a memory picture, and wherever I am at that moment that’s more real than this room that is most real in my life. This is more real now than any part of my world. I left a home which was real when I left it and it’s now a memory image. But when I re-enter that room, it will seem to be the only substance in my world. When I came here, coming here it was an image. As I entered the room it took on all reality, all that was real. Now, we think this is a normal procedure. No, everything in the world exists just as this room exists and your home that you left exists, and everything exists. The job you want exists. It’s only a dream, a mere image, while you’re not in it; but when you enter into it, it seems while you are in it to be the only reality. And you can’t conceive of a state, not one state that is not already worked out and finished, waiting for occupancy, waiting for someone who desires to experience that to enter into that state.811 ¶4

To come into this world you emptied yourself completely of your power and your wisdom and your glory. The day will come—having gone through the gamut the God in you, which is your very self, not another, he’s actually your very self—will rise in you and you are he. That rising in you is of the being that emptied itself. Then memory returns and then is conferred upon you that divine name, which we are told in that letter to the Philippians when it is heard every knee is bowed, in heaven and in earth and under the earth, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God…because you are God.811 ¶5

But in order to come here and take on this limitation, you could not pretend. No one can get anything out of this and pretend that they are a man. They had to actually become a man and take upon himself all the weaknesses and all the limitations of the flesh. Now, does the Bible in any way suggest it? Yes, we are told in the Book of John, the very beginning, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” . Now, “The Word became flesh and dwelt within us.” If he was with God and was God, that certainly implies pre-existence. “Before Abraham, was I AM.” Does that not imply pre-existence? “Tell me, master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he is born blind? I tell you, neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God be made manifest in him.” Isn’t that pre-existence or did he sin in his mothers’ womb? Either he sinned in his mother’s womb and this is the result, or else here is implication telling us of a pre-existence. And yet he is blameless…this is a state that he had to experience. You don’t avoid anything…you play all the parts of the world.811 ¶6

Now we find in the 17th of John, he is asking, this is a prayer, and he’s asking the Father, which is himself—for he said “I and my Father are one” —he wants everyone to be where he is. And then he tells you why he wants everyone to be where he is, “that they may see my glory that thou gavest me and the love with which thou loved me before the foundation of the world.” You and I were loved. We are part of the body of love. We were loved before the foundation of the world. But we came to do a job, to expand our power, expand our wisdom, and expand our glory. And to do it we had to come down and reach the limit of contraction which is man, the limit of opacity which is doubt; and completely forget the being that we really are, and doubt that we ever were, or that such a being ever existed. So here we are in this world, in the limit of contraction and opacity.811 ¶7

Then comes that moment when the risen Christ now, Christ who is in us but so asleep he appears to be dead, completely dead…and then he is disturbed. The storm wind, which is Spirit itself, begins to stir him, and he wakes to find himself encased in his tomb. He comes out of his tomb…but it begins with his resurrection. He rises first before he is born from above. As he comes out of this tomb from above, there is conferred upon him this greatest of all names. It’s called the name, the name Jesus. So in the end there is only Jesus, the cosmic Christ—we are the Cosmic Christ—buried in all. When he rises individually, that name which is the name Jehovah, that’s the name of Jesus, is conferred. He is the Lord God Jehovah. Well, who is rising?—I am. What’s God’s name?—I AM. What is David’s Father’s name?—I AM. That’s what scripture teaches. So here, the essence of all that man could ever experience stands before him personified as the crown of his journey. It’s a son, a son bearing witness to his victory over death. He actually died: he became man, entered the world of death, and rose out of it. And as each rises, each in that act of rising receives the name Jesus. So we can say in the end, after the transfiguration, Jesus only. All are gathered into one body and that one body is the Lord Jesus Christ.811 ¶8

So in this world all things appear to be, and as they appear to be, they become what they seem to be. Again, as Blake said so beautifully, “Those in great Eternity who contemplate on death”—and this is the world that they contemplate—“said thus: ‘What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of torment, despair and eternal death; but divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” When it seems everything is lost, then you begin to awake and you awake within yourself. You don’t see another, it’s you who awakes, and it’s you who goes through every stage of the entire drama. It’s all in the first-person singular, it’s all in the present tense, and there’s not another, it’s you. You are the Christ Jesus spoken of in scripture: “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” . Well, where is he? Say “I am”…that’s he. So why call upon another? Why stand we here trembling around calling upon Christ Jesus as another and not ourselves in whom he dwells? He dwells in me as my own wonderful human Imagination…and there never was another.811 ¶9

I got a card today from Norway. Many of you know this lady, and she reminded me in the card that she said to me on occasions if there is one place in this world that she would like to visit it would be Norway. But she felt she couldn’t afford it…she could ill-afford to live here, far less go to Norway. But if she could go to Norway it could be to make a picture, to appear in a picture. Well, she writes from Norway today stating that she is working on a picture being done in Norway, and her dream has come true, and here is this lovely picture of one of these beautiful inlets in Norway. So there she is! How she got it I don’t know…it doesn’t really matter. But it was a mere shadow in her world prior to this, standing here talking to me, voicing this request. And I said to her as I would say to you, “Dwell in it. If you were in Norway, how would you see the world? You would see it from Norway. You wouldn’t see it from Los Angeles if you were in Norway. Don’t ask me how you are going to get there. So you have no money, you can ill-afford to buy food, but you want to go to Norway. Well, it costs money, but you will render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and you’ll go if you apply this principle and you dwell in Norway. Tonight when you sleep, you sleep as though you were in Norway and then this state into which you go will seem the only substance. You may fall into it this night and have a dream where you are in Norway and it seems so real.” Well, she doesn’t confess in her card to me that she had any such experience, only that she did dwell in the state as though she were there. Then comes the casting, then comes the picture, and she’s making a picture in Norway. So you move into any state. I don’t care what the state is, it’s already done. Everything is completely worked out in detail, the most minute detail, and you simply step into it. From a shadowy substance or a shadowy state it becomes the only substance. Everything seems so on the outside and so shadowy when you only think of it. When you enter into it, it takes on reality and everything seems as completely real as this room seems real now.811 ¶10

So here, the being that is housed in you when you say “I am,” that was in the beginning with God, and it was God: “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” You are not another. You are the creative power and wisdom and glory of God. But you as God had to completely empty yourself of this glory, this wisdom and this power, and not pretend you are entering the graveyard called earth. And these unnumbered bodies are all graves, that’s what they are…every body is a grave. And you actually came down and took upon yourself and entered the grave; and because you are an immortal being your presence animates it. You made it alive because you are in it. It couldn’t breathe unless you were there because you are breath. The words breath and Spirit are the same in both Hebrew and Greek. It just couldn’t breathe if you had not entered these graves called men. I mean generic man, male, female. So you came right down into it, and animated it for a purpose, and you completely forgot so you don’t recognize your own brothers when you see the other, and you war against them as though they were others. You are told in this passage that I quoted tonight in the 2nd chapter of Philippians, it starts with this lovely thought: “Let each of you think not only on his own interests, but also on the interests of others. And let this mind be in you, the mind that you have with Christ Jesus.” The same mind…it’s not another. You can’t tell it any better. How could you tell it more beautifully than “my interest should be your interest, and then it should be our interest” because, really, basically we are one when these garments are finally taken off? They are taken off one by one and we re-enter the one body that fell. In the end, only one being, the glorious being that is the Lord God who is the Father of the entire drama.811 ¶11

So, I got this letter this week, in fact, I got it last Monday. All are coming close to it. He gave me a series of dreams, all on a single night. The final one is the cue to the dream, like three stages. In it he saw a being and to him it was a huge monkey, a horrible thing, and it clung to his back. He said, “I wasn’t afraid of it, but it seemed unclean and strange. I wished it would go away, but it wouldn’t. And then it began to make love to me and that annoyed me, but I was not afraid. I didn’t want to hit it or tear it off, because I thought it could even kill me. But even then I was not afraid of it, though I felt it had the power to kill me. Then as it continued in its love match, I tore it off, and in the tearing off from my back, I awoke.”811 ¶12

It’s a perfect vision. One day he will see the complementary side. This is the “dweller on the threshold.” This is man’s symbol of his misuse of the creative power of God, that is, the misuse of his Imagination. Every man has one…let no one boast…everyone has one. Every time you have misused your Imagination by imagining something unlovely either of yourself or a seeming other you feed this monster. You brought him into being by your misused Imagination. You also brought into being one that he didn’t see but he will one day, a glorious being, an angelic being, beauty beyond measure. And she is the personification of every lovely imaginal act of man. One day you will meet them together, and you will see this monstrous being, just like a huge I would call it an ape or orangutan. But it speaks…it has this guttural voice and it speaks. Then you will see this glorious being that is also your creation, but you don’t know it. They seem completely independent of your perception of them. This one, you see nothing leading to you, and here you see this beautiful creature, an angelic being, you see nothing attached to you. Suddenly as this one begins to speak it calls this one “Mother” and you are so annoyed with this monstrous thing calling this angelic being mother you pummel it, you beat it. You realize it gloats and it grows on violence. Every blow it becomes stronger and it loves it. It loves every violent act of yours even on itself. It’s like a masochist appealing to you to be violent even on it. Then you realize this is my creation. And so is this one. This is all that is good in my world personified and this is everything that is evil and horrible in my world symbolized. And you make yourself a pledge, for there is no one to whom you can swear. God has no one to swear but himself. So finding no one, he swore by himself. And you will swear by yourself that if it takes you eternity you will redeem this monstrous thing that should not live. It never should have been brought into being…but your misuse of power brought it into being. As you pledge yourself that you will redeem it if it takes you eternity, at that very moment it dissolves. It dissolves before your eyes and leaves no trace of ever having been present. But as it dissolves the energy isn’t wasted, it comes back to you, and you feel a power that you have never experienced before. That is, you don’t remember ever having such power…because the whole thing returns to you. It’s only misused power and power cannot be wasted. It will simply coalesce into a garment like this. But it cannot be wasted, so it returns to the one who used it and misused it. And on the other hand, as it returns to you and you begin to feel the power that returns, this beautiful creature glows like the sun. And then you awake.811 ¶13

So everyone will one day be confronted with these two. They are self-creations, and man goes through in this world creating both of them. He feeds this one with every lovely, noble thought he ever entertained; and he feeds this one with every ignoble thought he ever entertained. As he goes into violence, this one gloats and it grows in it; and this one remains un-phased. But every time you entertain a lovely thought on behalf of another, this one is fed and it gets more and more glorious, more and more beautiful. So this thing that clung to him like a monkey or like a cat, the same element would take their form, as someone wrote concerning a cat. It was a vicious thing that seemed about to claw the hand. He wasn’t afraid of it and yet he didn’t like it. That’s only the symbol of the misspent imaginal power that is God. For God in man, that divine body that is crucified upon man, is man’s own wonderful human Imagination. There never was another God and there never will be another. That’s the only God.811 ¶14

So while we are unmindful, because we gave up everything, we can still hear the voice of one who has heard it from within, the voice of one who has risen from the grave, and believe him to the point of testing it. Put this to the test as this lady either wittingly or unwittingly put it to the test, and then she can write from Norway. Well, she couldn’t afford the passage of a ferry boat. She wouldn’t know if there were a ferry between here and Catalina…she couldn’t take it. She was reduced to that state and yet she can write me from Norway where she is making a picture…all because she dared to imagine she was in Norway. She reminded me of that moment with me when she simply expressed the desire of all the places of the world that she would like to see it would be Norway. But she got a job in a picture and there she is now making her picture. So don’t discount this principle. Just test it! As we are told in that 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless of course you fail to meet the test.” I trust you will not discover that we have failed in the test. And so he knew exactly what he wanted and he entered the state, and the state took on substance, and became to him real.811 ¶15

I have gone into world after world, and when I step into these worlds it is the only reality; and this that I leave behind like my apartment tonight it’s only a shadow now, just a shadow. I expect to return to it to find it wrapping itself around me and taking on substance, taking on reality. But at the moment this room is far more real to me than any place I’ve ever visited. It may not be as thrilling, but it’s more real at this moment. And wherever I am at that moment, that place is real, it takes on substance…but it’s only an image. So I walk into an image. Whether I walk physically from here into another image or whether I do it as I do it constantly from my chair or from my bed, I see a world and into that world I step, and the world becomes real and surrounds me. People are real just like these and everything about it is real. The body that I wear is real.811 ¶16

Where did the body come from? Isn’t that also in my Imagination? Where did the clothing come from? I sleep in the nude. I’ve slept in the nude for the last forty-odd years regardless of winter, summer, spring or fall. If it’s ten below, I get under those and in a matter of seconds I am warm if I have enough covers on me. But it gives me the freedom I enjoy…having once tasted the freedom of sleeping in the nude. Well, I was in the nude when I stepped into this world and yet I’m clothed. Where did the clothing come from? Where did the body come from? I knew the body was on the bed. I knew that much, and I knew that body was in the nude, and here I am clothed and I am in a body. I know my identity; I know exactly who I am, so where did it all come from?811 ¶17

The power begins to return and that power can clothe itself in any form in the world. It’s a protean being, yet that identity remains unchallenged forever and forever; yet you will bear the name, that divine name that is above every name, and the name is Jesus. So no one sees him here, but we will all know him because all will be Jesus. In the meanwhile, the power of God which is Christ is buried in us, the wisdom of God is buried in us, and the glory of God is buried in us. And when it is raised in us the power is enhanced and so is the wisdom and so is the glory.811 ¶18

So you are a pre-existent being. You did not begin in your mother’s womb; you cannot end in the grave. You were before the foundation of the world. That’s the being of whom Paul speaks when he addresses that letter to the Philippians. He is addressing it to posterity and he is addressing it to you, to me, to everyone, for he is speaking from experience. Now tonight, I can speak from experience, for I have had all the experiences that are recorded in scripture concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean all of them. And yet, I am just as weak while this garment remains, just as limited, and will continue to be until one day I’ll take it off. At that moment that I take it off, I return to my former state but glorified beyond it.811 ¶19

So I, too, can say, “Return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory I had with thee before that the world was. I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do.” What work? He proclaimed through his servants the prophets what would come to pass and only God could fulfill them. So God himself emptied himself of his wisdom and his power and his glory and took upon himself the opacity and the concreteness of death, and then went through the entire gamut, and then he came out victorious over death. And when he comes out as the victor over death, his power returns, his wisdom returns, and his glory, but by reason of the experience each is enhanced. And now he expands beyond what he was prior to coming into the world of death.811 ¶20

So let no one scare you, let no one frighten you. You are a prenatal being, a being that has preexistence. And the existence did not begin some 6,000 years ago; it was before the foundation of the world. So when our scientists tell us…and they change it every year, they jump by billions…so when they say the universe is not now so many billions, but it’s so many trillions of light years, let them put any number of zeros next to that number, it doesn’t make any difference. Whatever number they come up with, before that you are. Before the foundation of the world, I am. So it doesn’t matter how many billions of light years they think it is, whatever they come up with, before that the world was, I am.811 ¶21

So he says, “Father, return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was”. Why?—that they may see my glory, the glory that thou gavest unto me. For I radiate that center called Father and yet as I radiate it I am the Father. I also reflect that center of the Father. And now he goes beyond that…he not only wants them there to see his glory, but he makes this statement, “And the love with which thou loved me before the foundation of the world.”811 ¶22

Here, God, infinite love, loves us all. He foreknew us all, he chose us all in him, all his one being, and all together fell. One man fell carrying with him all into the world of death.811 ¶23

But bear in mind, as we’re told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, he has set bounds to the peoples of the world. In other words, not one child can be born unless there is a Son of God which is Christ Jesus housed within that child. He set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God. If he was not in us, we couldn’t breathe. He is the breath of us…couldn’t breathe. And when he removes his breath, you are that breath. You are he who came in. And your friends cry over the garment that you wore. They do not know the occupant of that garment was God himself. And you who had a child, that child you called it Grace, call it by some other name, that child was Christ. That child is destined to receive the name which is Jesus, and no power in the world can stop it from receiving that name eventually. Meanwhile, he’s Christ…everyone in the world is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.811 ¶24

And then he is resurrected. When does it start? You’re told in the first chapter in the Book of Romans, “He is designated Son of God in power through his resurrection from the dead”. He’s walking the earth as a man. Maybe he’s the mason, maybe the carpenter; maybe he’s a musician, maybe a professor or some other thing. No one knows him, he’s playing his part, and one day he is resurrected. At that moment, he is returned to his power, to his glory, to his wisdom. So he is designated now Son of God in power through his resurrection from the dead. He looks back and sees his whole vast world and knows that everyone is destined to be resurrected as he has been. Everyone is destined to form into the one body, as now he is, and in the end one glorious brotherhood, transcending the wildest dream of love in the world, all sharing in that divine love.811 ¶25

For, love is the human form divine. I can’t describe it to you save in a few words, but how can I describe the mood that possesses you when love stands before you, when love embraces you? I can’t describe it. It is an ecstasy beyond anything that the word ecstasy could describe. You speak of ecstasy, it can’t describe it. It can’t describe that body that embraces you, and then you are incorporated into the one body, the body of love, knowing that everyone in the world must come, but everyone must come because he loved all before the foundation of the world.811 ¶26

And not one could be lost because God would be lost. How could one be lost? And in the end all are vindicated. Yes, the cutthroat, the murderer, the thief…I don’t care what he has done…in the end everything is vindicated like the blind man in the 9th chapter of the Book of John: “No, not this man nor his parents but that the works of God be made manifest in him.” One day I was confronted with this huge sea of the imperfect, and I played all those parts. They were waiting for me to redeem them, for they were the costumes that I wore; all these were the garments that I wore. And then when I was lifted up on high, I walked by and every one was made perfect because I was perfect. “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven perfect”. And where is heaven?—“Heaven is within you”. So when he has made it perfect and you are perfect, you are lifted up and you walk by all the parts and every one is made perfect. You could not improve it, because you can’t improve upon that which is perfect, or it was not perfect. There is no room for improvement in the perfect. And everyone was made perfect as I walked by.811 ¶27

In the very end the chorus sang out, “It is finished”…the last cry on the cross…“It is finished”.811 ¶28

And then, you come and you tell it. Tell it to everyone who will hear you. But eventually all will hear. So you will depart the world and others will pick it up just where you left off. They will have the similar experiences and they will tell it, and then others will tell it. Don’t expect to find 100 percent acceptance. There are those who will believe because you have used scripture to support your argument, and those who will disbelieve, doesn’t really matter. Leave them just as they are and you go about your Father’s business telling exactly what happened to you.811 ¶29

For, when I tell you what has happened to me, I can speak more convincingly than if I am theorizing. I can speak with conviction when I am telling you what I actually know from experience. For, the truth man knows from his own personal experience he knows more thoroughly than he knows any other thing in this world, or than he can know that same truth in any other way. I may hear someone tell me what he has experienced and I believe him, I trust him, and I will say yes, I believe you implicitly, but I can’t speak with authority; it’s hearsay. I can’t go into a court and be a witness unless I witnessed it myself by experience. I can’t come in and say, “Well, I heard it said”…that doesn’t matter. I must come in and say “I know.” Here is an assured “I know,” not I believe nor I think, but I know. How do you know?—because I experienced it.811 ¶30

And so, bring me two witnesses. I have one on the outside…that’s scripture. Now I must parallel scripture. Well, have I had experiences that parallel scripture? Yes…then there are two witnesses and when two agree in their testimony then that is conclusive. Here is scripture and here is mine dovetailing scripture. Well then, I have two witnesses: one is the written word and one is the living word interpreting the written word. And so, step into the kingdom, for you brought back the truth of God’s word. He sent you the living word to interpret and verify the written word which he gave to his servants the prophets. Now that you have actually interpreted scripture yourself by unfolding scripture within you, enter the kingdom.811 ¶31

For that’s the only purpose for living. There’s no other purpose he said in these words of the 8th chapter of 2nd Corinthians: “You know the Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that by his poverty you might become rich.” In dollars and cents, no. He was rich in power; he was the power of God. He was rich in wisdom; he was the wisdom of God. He was rich in glory; he glorified God. Gave it all up and became poor, and entered the world of death, that by his poverty, now you may become rich. So when you awake you are the Lord Jesus Christ…and there never was another. There is no other.811 ¶32

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *811 ¶33

Now are there any questions, please?811 ¶34

…closing night for awhile and I’ve been thinking through the day, rather days, what should I say were I leaving permanently? What would I like everyone to remember? Well, these are my thoughts to leave with you, things I’ve told you over the years. It is God’s purpose to give himself to all of us, to each of us, as if there were no other in the world, just God and you, God and I. Believe this and the most unbelievable story in the world which is the Bible becomes possible and believable.810 ¶1

And it is the Son who makes us sure that it is really true. You dwell upon it: “In many and various ways he spoke to our fathers through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken through his Son.” The fathers spoken of…we are the fathers. You didn’t begin in the womb of your mother and you are not going to end in the grave. You’ve been coming a long, long while; it’s a long journey. The fathers spoken of are right here this night. And, in many ways he spoke to the fathers. You’re told in the Book of Numbers he spoke to us through the medium of a dream, he spoke through the medium of a vision; he is still speaking through the medium of a dream and that of a vision. The Bible recognizes only one source of dream and vision and that source is God.810 ¶2

A daydream does not differ from a night dream save in this one little aspect—in the night dream we are servants of our attention, it leads us anywhere. In the daydream, we should be masters and guide it where we want it. If you remember that in my absence, you can take this world of Caesar and make it conform to your dreams.810 ¶3

A lady wrote me, I got the letter yesterday, and in this letter she said she sat in her dining room and she was reading my book The Power of Awareness, the chapter on attention. In it I give her a certain exercise where you take the entire day, just one day, from the last event at night to the first in the day, and you try to hold your attention and put it back, move it back, one event after the other going backwards. It may seem easy but try it. She said, “I failed many times, but finally I succeeded in going back, event after event.” You don’t change it, this is not revision, this is only an exercise to concentrate the mind where you want it. So she said, “I finally succeeded in taking it all the way back to the first event of the day, when my eyes fell upon spots, ugly spots on this lovely carpet of ours that leads from the kitchen to the dining room. We had tried to remove these spots using all kinds of things, things that were suggested, but they are still there. I closed my eyes and I wondered what it would be like if this carpet today looked just as though it were new when we put it down, and so I just simply imagined it new, clean and said thank you. And that was it…I completely forgot.”810 ¶4

In a few days the phone rang. There’s a phone upstairs and a phone downstairs. She was downstairs in the bedroom. The phone downstairs unless you are in the bedroom you can’t hear it. It’s a very, very small bell so as not to disturb, so much so that her husband who was upstairs did not hear it. A total stranger soliciting business over the phone asked if he could come around and give an estimate for cleaning rugs. Well, she said, “These calls come through all the time and at first my impulse was to say no, but on second thought I said why not? I accepted his suggestion. So he came, he cleaned it, and the rug today is just as though it were put down for the first time.”810 ¶5

So what I want you to remember from that little scene: imagining creates reality. “Man is all Imagination and God is Man and exists in us and we in him; the eternal body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God himself.” Every time you exercise your Imagination lovingly or unlovingly that is what you are doing to God. Use it lovingly, for I tell you from experience God is love. These are not idle words. So this is what I want you to remember.810 ¶6

We were told, the day will come the Holy Spirit will come upon you and lead you into all knowledge, and bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you; and now I tell you before it takes place that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.” This is not a being on the outside of you talking to you; it’s your own, own being. When it takes place it takes place in you, and you will know that you yourself are the being you formerly thought to be God as something on the outside.810 ¶7

Now what would he tell you, what would he show you? There is a rabbinical principle that what is not written in scripture is nonexistent. So he leads you into all things; he isn’t taking you outside of scripture. He isn’t showing you what’s taking place now in the world of Caesar. This will all vanish as though it never took place. He will not show you any part of human history in this secular world, but he will show you the eternal truth of God’s Word. When he shows it to you, he takes you through it as your own personal experience. Every word of scripture is true and you will experience it. You will know how true it is. You will experience it in the very depths of your soul and it is literally true in depth. On the surface it doesn’t make sense. But he will come and when he comes and moves you, he moves you only into truth and truth is scripture.810 ¶8

Here is a simple, simple statement: He moved triumphantly into Jerusalem. What a gay, festive occasion! Who would have thought it would end in the crucifixion? That experience you will have. And may I tell you, don’t be afraid, it is joy from beginning to end, from the very beginning. Then you will experience the 42nd Psalm, “And I led them in procession, in a gay procession to the house of God”. You will lead them. It was the most festive occasion. Everything about it was one of joy. And yet the Psalm itself is one of sadness, “Why is my soul cast down?” He turns to memory, trying to get memory to bring back something to support a joy. Well, this is what you’re going to have.810 ¶9

You, too, will lead a crowd. May I tell you, a crowd which you’ve never seen before, an enormous crowd, as vast as your eye can see; a sea of human beings all clothed in their gay attire and it’s festive. A voice will ring out and you will hear the voice and everyone will hear it: “And God walks with them.” You will turn to your side and there, if it’s a duplicate of my experience, it will be a woman, a very attractive woman in her thirties in Arab robes. She becomes the voice of questioning the voice and she said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice answered, “At your side.” She in the crowd takes it literally so she turns to her left. I am standing at her left and she looks into my face and she becomes hysterical it strikes her so funnily. For the voice said “At your side” and she was questioning the statement “God walks with them.” Then she said, “What? Is Neville God?” and the voice rang out that all could hear, “Yes, in the act of waking.”810 ¶10

Then the same voice heard only by me from the depths of my soul, and this is what it said, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then I knew the completed sentence and I became so excited, so emotionally moved that I didn’t wait for the completed words, I knew he is dreaming that he’s me. At that moment I experienced a memory of the crucifixion, for I was on the outside of this enormous crowd and then I was sucked into this body. This became a vortex, this a vortex, my head a vortex, my right side a vortex, and my two feet, the soles of my feet, were vortices. Here were these five, these six vortices nailed to this cross and I knew this was the crucifixion. And may I tell you, the crucifixion far from being a sad event it is sheer ecstasy! I can’t put into words the thrill that was mine that night when I experienced the crucifixion!810 ¶11

You and I were all crucified with God. As we are told in scripture, we give all and we bear on our bodies the death of Christ. “If we have been crucified with him, if we have union with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his”. So the crucifixion is over and was joy beyond measure. The resurrection is taking place. It has begun…the whole thing is in process now…and one by one we are being resurrected. But all have been crucified with God.810 ¶12

So you will experience scripture. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, he leads you into all truth…and what is not written in scripture is nonexistent, therefore, it’s a lie. He’s not leading you into what science today knows about the heavens; they will pass away. All we think we know now about outer space it will all pass away, everything we think we know and we’ve proved it, because imagining creates reality. We can take the lie of lies and prove it, but it isn’t true. God’s Word is true and when you’ve experienced it, you know the whole of truth was confined right here.810 ¶13

And the purpose of it all is to awaken all of us, every one of us; not one will fail because he became all. God became as we are that we may be as he is. God became man that man may become God. And that is the entire story.810 ¶14

So I tell you this for a reason. Our memories are short and some very wise man will come into your sphere and in no time lead you astray with his wonderful, wonderful words and he knows so much. He can tell you all the things to lead you astray and you go into blind alleys. Try to remember these words. Try to remember that the whole vast Bible is all about you, as told you in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book it is all about me”. He didn’t realize it and so now as he searches scripture, as the Spirit moves him, possesses him, and takes him through these experiences that are recorded in scripture: the final revelation is always by the Son.810 ¶15

So let me repeat, it is his purpose as we are told in Isaiah, “As I have planned it, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand…and my will shall not turn back until I have accomplished and executed the intents of my mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly”. In the latter days he reveals himself to you through his only Son.810 ¶16

Here is a universal language that all can understand. I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you and I are one because God is one and God became us; and when he completes his work in us, there aren’t two, there’s only one, and it’s God. You haven’t lost your identity, you haven’t lost your individuality, and yet you’re God. I can tell you that in words and tell you that I know it, but how to persuade you that you and I are one when you are so completely individualized and I am so completely individualized? There is no way in eternity that anyone will know the unity of being save through the Son, but no one. So he said, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he speaks unto us through his Son”. So his Son comes; he only has one Son. If he’s a father, there’s a son somewhere, bring him.810 ¶17

What person in this world, 1966, would believe in any way that they are related to David of biblical fame? Yes, Haile Selasie claims he is descended from Solomon, and Solomon of scripture, son of David. But they don’t understand these mysteries. Anyone here, would you ever include David in your world, one who is supposed to have lived 1,000 B. C.? Did it ever occur to you that the day will come you will know you have no beginning, you have no origin, no father, no mother, because you’re God, no genealogy? And that David is the very essence, the quintessence of all the generations of humanity and their experiences brought forth and personified as a single youth? That’s David…all the generations of humanity, all of man’s experiences, fused into a single whole, and that whole personified as the eternal youth that is God’s begotten Son.810 ¶18

The day will come you will look into the face of David and David will call you Father. Well, I can call you Father but you wouldn’t believe it. But when David calls you Father, there is no uncertainty. You don’t have to question the honesty of the words of the lad, you know, you’ve always known. Here he stands before you. I think I know that I am the father of my daughter Vicki. I’ve never doubted for a second that I am the father of my son that I call Neville, never doubted for a moment. But when it comes to David, there is no uncertainty. You don’t have to ask anyone, there is an innate knowing that you are the father and he is your son.810 ¶19

In the fulfillment of scripture and the Lord is looking for David, the 89th Psalm, and then the Lord cries out, “I have found David. He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation’”. He finds what he sets up in the beginning as a plan, as a purpose. He’s brought to climax and fulfillment, and here he finds his Son. He went through all the generations of humanity, all the suffering, as told us in Isaiah: “I’ve tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake I did it, for my own sake, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another”.810 ¶20

And so to come forward as Father and there’s only one Father, only one Son. In the 2nd Psalm, “Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee”. Now you take the Book of Hebrews, considered next to the Book of John the most profound in the New Testament. Every chapter, almost every verse, he supports by some scriptural passage—by scriptural passage I mean the Old Testament—and asks all these questions, “To what angel did he ever say, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’”. He starts it that way, and all the passages are related to David and he’s speaking of the cosmic Christ.810 ¶21

So I tell you, everything in scripture you are going to experience. I don’t care who you are; I don’t care what you have done. In his infinite mercy he has hidden from us our violence and the horrors to which we have been subjected and the horrors that we ourselves initiated. But in the very end it’s all vindicated, everything is forgiven, but everything; for it took all these furnaces of experience to bring out David.810 ¶22

And so in the end, I tell you, you, regardless of your present sex…for these are only garments that God wears. He’s not a man in the sense not a male, not a female, he’s God and God wears these garments. So I say to my own mother who is not in this sphere anymore, I say to my wife, to my daughter, you are the father of David, I know I am the father of David, therefore you and I are one. In the world of Caesar we are three. Here you are my wife, you are my daughter, I am your father and your husband, and yet in the depth of our being we are one. And the only proof of the oneness of us, of the unity of our being, is our one Son…and he calls you Father. There is no uncertainty in you when you see him. He has already called me and there’s no uncertainty. So these things I would have you remember. Dwell upon them.810 ¶23

In the world of Caesar you can have exactly what you want. It’s based upon this simple, simple principle: “Whatever you desire,”—no limit to that statement—“when you pray believe that you have received it and you will”. Well, if I must believe that I’ve received what at the moment reason denies and my senses deny, how could I come to any other conclusion than that imagining creates reality? I can’t reach any other conclusion. You mean, that I want something now intensely and all I need do to bring it to pass as a concrete objective fact is to persuade myself that I have it? The secret then is how to persuade self.810 ¶24

But if I find that secret…as the lady sitting at her table just simply closed her eyes, saw the carpet clean, as perfect as it was when she bought it, and she felt so completely relieved she could say “thank you” and then forgot it. A total stranger, drumming up business…then she said to me, “There are two telephone numbers in the book; the one he called is the second one. The second belongs downstairs and the bell is almost, well, you can’t hear it.” She happened at that moment to be in the room. Were she not there, she wouldn’t have heard it, but she was there when it rang. And the impulse would be no, why must I be disturbed? For the phone rings like this all the time, people soliciting some work in your home. Then she said, “Yes, come over and take a little survey of the place and clean the rug” which he did. She said, “The thing is just as new as the day it was put down.”810 ¶25

So I say to everyone here, try to remember these words that I have told you. Every one is true. I’ve been telling you what I know from experience; I’m not speculating, I’m not theorizing. I am not an erudite person, I just tell you what I know and my knowledge is based upon what I have experienced. What a man has experienced he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same thing in any other way. If I know it because I trust someone who told me, well, it’s hearsay. But when I know it because I’ve experienced it, well, then I know it. If the whole vast world rose in opposition, it would make no difference to me. I know scripture is true.810 ¶26

I know Jesus Christ is the reality of every child born of woman. That he is related—not related, well, like a brother, sister—he is the actual being, the inner being of everyone in the world, but he’s asleep. But contained within him is the plan of awakening. When he awakens, you are God, for you are he, regardless of what you have done in this world prior to that awakening.810 ¶27

So in my absence…how long it will be I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m going…I did buy a roundtrip ticket but the return is undated. There is no need to date it…I’ll come when I feel like it. But in that interval, people get tired, they move away, they hear of some wise, wonderful person and they go to hear him, or go to hear her, and then they lead them into all kinds of strange blind alleys, all in the name of religion. You dwell upon these words.810 ¶28

He didn’t become the other, so “If anyone says, ‘Look, here is Christ!’ don’t believe him, or ‘There he is!’ don’t believe him.”—why?—“For when he does appear we shall be like him”. Does he look like you? You will never know Christ who is not the Christ who is looking just like you. So his second return is when he unfolds in you all that is recorded of him in scripture so you know you are Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as told in scripture is the Father. He is the father of God’s only begotten son, who is David. If you want the scriptural passages, the 14th of John: And one said to him, “O Lord, show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied. He said, I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how then can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”.810 ¶29

Now comes a passage, and he has just explained the difference between this age and that age, two entirely different ages, where this age we generate and procreate, we’re born, and keep it up over and over. And so those who did not believe that man ever resurrects asked him, to trip him up, he said: “Master, Moses in the law says that if a man marries and he dies leaving no offspring, his brother should marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Well, there were seven brothers and there was this first one who married her. He died; he left no offspring. The second married her, he died, no offspring. The third, the fourth and finally the seven married her, all died, leaving no children. In the end she died. Tell me, whose wife is she in the resurrection? And he answered, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage”—well, that Greek phrase in other Bibles that I have at home reads “the sons of this age procreate, they generate and they are born”—“But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrections from the dead”—he looks upon this whole age as “the dead”—“they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die any more”. Two entirely different ages!810 ¶30

Now he’s discussing that and now comes a questions he raises that is not related to anything in that chapter. So he turns to the same crowd who questions, he said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” and they answer, “The son of David.” He replies, “Why then does David in the spirit call him Father?” The word is Adonai, translated “my Lord,” but in the ancient world every son referred to his father as “my Lord.” So he called him, my Lord. “If he calls him my Lord, how then can he be David’s son? And they asked him no more questions”. He is telling you he is God the Father, and God’s only begotten son has called him “my Father” in fulfillment of the 89th Psalm. For he said, “I have come to fulfill scripture; scripture must be fulfilled in me”. “And beginning with Moses and the law and the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”. That’s all that he came to do.810 ¶31

So your only purpose here while you play the game that you must play is to fulfill scripture. Everyone will fulfill scripture and prove the truth of the Word of God. In the meanwhile, while we are fulfilling scripture, let us use God’s law wisely, lovingly, and live as graciously as we desire to live in this world. You can be…everyone can do it.810 ¶32

I invite you to try it and make it just as simple a thing as my friend did with the rock. As the little girl (whose father is here) what she did with her trip, just simply closed her eyes, communed with self, in harmony with the 4th Psalm, and within herself she thanked him for the fulfillment of what she wanted. Then in a matter of moments she got it…and three times, one after the other. Try it! Don’t burst a blood vessel, do it lightly, just as easy as she did, and see how it works while you wait patiently for the fulfillment of scripture in you.810 ¶33

As I stand before you, I can honestly say everything recorded in the gospel concerning Jesus Christ, from the birth to the descent of the dove, but everything recorded in those four gospels I, in the Spirit, have experienced…but every one of them. Yet I am a man as you are, with all the weaknesses, all the limitations. Everything that is man and that man is heir to I am. So it happens in the depths of the soul of man that is unblemished, untouched by the world of Caesar. It certainly didn’t happen here…this body was on the bed and sound asleep, and yet I, a conscious being, experienced it. So that conscious being animating this is untouched by what this garment is put through. So don’t judge yourself harshly because you’ve done so and so. You may think you aren’t qualified, forget it! You’re qualified because God wears you. Every person in this world is a garment that God is wearing, but every person, and not one is better than the other because in the end all will be God the Father. And you can’t have one greater than the other. No two will be alike save they’re individualized and yet they are one.810 ¶34

And now we come to the greatest of the great commandments: “Master, what is the greatest commandment?” “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord”. Hear, O Israel: The I AM our I AMs is one I AM. This one I AM fragmented into all of us, and yet together it is a unity. It’s one, one made up of others, so that no two will be alike in the sense that you’ll be absorbed and I’ll be absorbed, and yet one will not be greater than the other. For all will be the father of God’s only begotten Son, therefore, God.810 ¶35

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *810 ¶36

If you would like to tell the story as I’m telling it, may I encourage you to start. Start! If you feel that you aren’t qualified, forget it. A man or woman who tells me that he feels or she feels qualified to do it, I would suggest to them, wait awhile. It’s when you feel that you’re inadequate…as Paul said, “Why should I?” As Moses said, “Why should I?” He stuttered; the other had a thorn in his side. And no one who does this work when they start really feels that he’s qualified. So don’t wait until you think you are ready one hundred percent, just start. It will come. All it needs is sincerity on your part. If you really want to do it, do it. Don’t ask anyone to ordain you, not in this work. There was no one who ordained Moses or ordained Paul, he simply started. He believed it, he tried it, he proved it, and then he told it.810 ¶37

I started on my wife’s birthday, the second day of February, 1938. I started on a borrowed five dollar bill to pay the rent. The War was not on and in spite of what you might read in the papers we were still in the Depression, and there was not a job in sight. I rented the place at Steinway Hall for five dollars which sat about seventy. And that’s how I started. I didn’t charge…didn’t have the courage to charge. They either gave it because they loved me or they were embarrassed, and they paid the rent that night. Think six came. So it started from that little, little [...].810 ¶38

And may I tell you, again I speak from experience, I had no promotion, no ballyhoo, nothing, no money, completely unknown, but I wanted to tell it. And so, dressed in my best suit which was my tux, I sat in a chair. I think I went as long as fifteen minutes before I gave out, and then we asked questions. Now today, if my voice wouldn’t give out, I could go for hours and hours and hours. It never exhausts itself anymore. So I say to you who want to tell it, don’t wait until you’re prepared. You will never feel prepared. If you don’t feel like an artist feels on a first night, don’t do it. You must always feel like the artist on first night, always keyed up, always telling the greatest story ever told. So when you are…I’ve had six first nights on Broadway and I know the feeling, what it is to step before that audience and it’s all new. Everything back stage is all afire, all electric, and you are one with it. Well, every time you take this platform you don’t take it lightly. You simply [...] that same thrill. You’re telling the greatest story in the world. So to you who want to do it, and I know many of you want to do it, may I tell you, do it! If you only have one…and the one will grow and grow and grow.810 ¶39

Now are there any questions?810 ¶40

Well, I’m away beyond my time, Mr. Fisher [...]. Well, thank you so much. And when I return, if you’re on my mailing list, you will know where I am and all about it. Thanks.810 ¶63

I think we’re all familiar with the theme here. And may I tell you, we must make daring experiments in Jesus Christ, we must. Brood upon it, put it to the extreme test, that’s what we’re called upon to do, and I promise you that you’ll pass on to your friends and to your successors what you discovered in Jesus Christ. You will one day discover the true Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ of history, in your own wonderful scriptural experience…that’s how you discover him. Everything said about him you will experience, and you’ll know who Jesus Christ is.809 ¶1

Now tonight, if I were called upon to name or give a title to this, I would say “Where are you staying?” That would be the title. It’s taken from the first chapter of the Book of John. We are told that the Spirit descended upon him as a dove, and John, standing next to two disciples, seeing Jesus walk by, said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and so they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned around and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said, “Where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, because it was the tenth hour.809 ¶2

We read that in the first chapter of the gospel of John. If you would take only that and would dwell upon it for the rest of your days, what things you could extract from it. Don’t change one word of it; leave it just as it is.809 ¶3

Well, who is this being that is the Lamb of God? The first time the word appears in scripture is back in the 22nd chapter of the Book of Genesis. Here is the promised son, called Isaac, and he said to his father Abraham, “We have the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” His father said to him, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.” God is the lamb: Here is the presentation of God as man. God becomes man that man may become God…he becomes man. How could he become me? Well, he is my own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God. That’s the lamb of God that he provided. He provided himself; he became me. My Imagination is God, this lamb that is the burnt offering.809 ¶4

Now here in this story, “Well, where do you dwell?” “Well, come and see.” Where do I dwell? I am all Imagination. Where do I dwell?—-that state to which I constantly return constitutes my dwelling place. Where do I constantly return in the course of a day? Do I dwell in poverty? Do I dwell upon this, that or the other? Whatever is my most constant state to which I return that is my dwelling place. So come with me and see where I dwell and he reveals his dwelling place.809 ¶5

They stayed with him that day, for it was the tenth hour. Now, the latest translation of the Bible which is called the New English Bible translates this phrase, “And it was four in the afternoon.” Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. But they want to give sense to the scripture, because if you start with their six in the morning and you add ten hours, it would be four PM. But it hasn’t a thing to do with four PM. It’s tenth hour…they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical as well as a symbolical value. The tenth hour is Yod; its symbolical value is the creative power, the hand of God. Every letter of the entire alphabet of the Hebraic world is made up of Yod. You start, a Yod, if I took any letter, Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, He, any letter, they are only combinations of Yod. You take the entire alphabet…if you have the Bible, the King James Version will give you the 119th Psalm and at the beginning of every psalm is a Hebrew letter, the value…every little letter is only simply different arrangements of Yod, that’s all that it is. It’s the creative power of God, that’s all that it is. So he said, “The tenth hour…so they remained with him, because it was the tenth hour.” He is revealing the power, the creative power of God that is himself; for Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.809 ¶6

So, come, where do you dwell? I’ll tell you where I dwell. Come with me and I will show you where I dwell, and he reveals the power and the wisdom of God in Yod. Hasn’t a thing to do with four o’clock in the afternoon and yet that’s the latest translation of our wonderful ancient script. I tell you, it’s all to do with this power and you and I are dared to put it to the extreme test. I don’t care what the test is, put it to the test. He who made the eye, shall he not see? He who made the ear, shall he not hear? He who made anything, shall he not continue making it and make it perfect? Well, who made it? The creative power of God, and that’s Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ. There is no other power, no other creative power.809 ¶7

When we turn our attention to ideas we’re captivated by them, or at least we run the risk. We turn our attention this night to the idea of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will be captivated by this idea. If I could only get everyone present to be captivated by the idea of Jesus Christ! I tell you, in spite of what the churches have told you and what they still tell you, and what all the isms tell you, it isn’t that at all. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, and the day is coming that you will actually discover in your own wonderful experience the truth of scripture. You’ll find who Jesus Christ is, all within you. You will go through all the experiences in scripture, and you’ll find who he is, and know he is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ.809 ¶8

Now last Tuesday, I told you an experience of mine, a simple experience. But don’t discount it; God speaks to his prophet through the medium of dream. I asked for it, and it came to me that very morning, Tuesday morning. I told you who were here last Tuesday. Not everyone present came last Tuesday, so for the benefit of those who were not here and for those who did hear it, because, may I tell you, it is profound. The more I dwell upon it the greater significance it has.809 ¶9

For last Tuesday morning when I woke at 4:15, it was too early to rise, and I said to myself, “Favor me with an experience…it could be a dream, it could be a vision, an ecstasy…but favor me with some wonderful experience that I can share with the whole vast world who will listen to me.” So I went back to sleep and I found myself in New York City in my old apartment house where I lived for thirteen years and eight months. The superintendent was the same superintendent, everything was as it was before, but when I took the elevator up to the 6th floor I discovered I didn’t live there. I not only didn’t live there, but I could not remember where I’m dwelling, I couldn’t. I made every effort to remember where I am dwelling now, and I couldn’t. That was my past dwelling place. But the question is, “Where are you dwelling?” “Come and see.” And so, they came and they saw where he was dwelling and stayed with him that day, because it was the tenth hour.809 ¶10

The past I remember. Usually when people have amnesia they forget the past, can’t remember the past. But this amnesia was not of past; I remembered the past. I couldn’t remember the present, and that is the problem of the whole vast world. For the revelation of God’s name, forever and forever, is I AM. Man has such difficulty in remembering the tense. He can’t seem to keep alive within himself the tense: I AM. I can’t seem to remember I am wealthy, remember I am healthy, because the verdict of the doctor tells me I am not. I can’t bring it into this present tense and always remain alive and awake to God’s name. So I couldn’t remember where I am now at this moment living. I remembered the past, it was in New York City, and that was years ago, and I lived there for thirteen-odd years. But where do I live now? And when I came to, where did I come to? I was sleeping in myself, that’s where I came to. I came to into the present by trying to feel myself to be in somewhere dreaming of this state. For were this a dream, I am somewhere in this world sleeping, and if I am sleeping, where am I sleeping? I tried to locate it in space, but when I really located it, I located it in myself…I am sleeping here. That’s where I am sleeping and that’s where I am dreaming. I am dreaming of a past.809 ¶11

Now, what about my present? Here is the present and so if man could only dwell upon the present. What do I want in this world not only for myself but for every one that I know in this world? If I could only now take that into my consciousness and dwell upon it now as something that is taking place now…that’s where I’m dwelling. For that state to which I most constantly return constitutes my dwelling place if I could only remember that. So in the course of a day, to what state do I return frequently? To the unemployed friend, to the unemployed this, to the horrible that? If I do that constantly that’s where I dwell. I’m always dwelling in the state to which I constantly return. But if I will remember this technique, forget now that past. I have no amnesia concerning the past. Man is always dwelling either in the past or the future; he doesn’t dwell in the present. He’s always thinking of what happened or what may happen, but he doesn’t live in the present.809 ¶12

So they ask the question, “Where are you living, where are you staying?” “Well, come and see.” Now the entire gospel of John dwells only with I AM, that’s all that it dwells on. He tells us, the fundamental sin is “the lack of faith in I am he,” that’s the fundamental sin. And the entire gospel of John is the most Hebraic of all the gospels; in fact, it is the most profound of all of the new scripture. And here in this, “I am the door”—-not I was or I will be—-“I am the true vine, I am the shepherd, I am the life, I am the truth, I am the resurrection, I am the way.” Word after word, I am. “Except ye believe that I am he, you die in your sins.” Anyone in this world that doesn’t believe that I am now that which I would be, then you remain what you were and you die in your sins. Remain just thinking of it, instead of thinking from it. Well, the difference between success and failure is thinking of it and thinking from it. If I think from it, it’s I am. I can think of and it’s something entirely different. If I think from it, well, then I am it and I’m thinking from it. This subtle little subjective change in man produces the success that we are seeking in this world.809 ¶13

So, tell me, “Master”—-he called him Rabbi which means teacher—-“where are you staying?” “Well, come and see.” And so they came and they saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day, because it was about the tenth hour. He instructed them in the way of the creative power of God in the tenth hour, which means Yod. He told them all about the Yod. [...] Yod He Vau He. The name Jesus is Yod He Vau Shin Ayin, just like Joshua, the one who actually went into the Promised Land. So the foundation, the root of the word is Yod He Vau. It begins with Yod and every letter in this alphabet is simply a combination of Yod. No matter what letter you bring before me, if I had a blackboard here and drew the entire twenty-two and the five finals, I would only use the letter Yod. Simply use them in such formations that they’re simply different combinations of Yod, and they all form the entire alphabet of the Hebrew alphabet. And that is the Yod. But man, not knowing that, these brilliant scholars dare to take it and say that it was the four in the afternoon. Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. It has all to do with this creative power that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the creative power and the wisdom of God.809 ¶14

If this very moment…I take a simple, simple woman…here is a simple, a very simple woman—-and I am no critic of one’s behavior in this world, I don’t care what you do—this woman by profession was one who, I would call, well, a lady of the evening, that was her profession. She said to me one day in New York City, “Neville, I would love a new hat!” “Alright, you have a new hat. Put it on. What hat do you want?” Well, she didn’t know at the moment, but she would like a new hat. “Alright, put it on, wear it just as though it were true.” She lived at the Ansonia Hotel on 73rd and Broadway. She came out of that hotel one night and walked up Broadway and passed a millinery shop and there were the hats. Something struck her fancy; it was seventeen dollars and fifty cents. These were pre-war days. Today that seventeen-fifty hat possibly would be a normal priced hat, but in pre-war days seventeen-fifty was an exceptionally high hat. But she saw the hat. She remembered what I told her, and she put in on mentally and felt the thrill of wearing the hat and walked up Broadway with the hat. And when she walked back, instead of looking into the window to become disillusioned she didn’t look; she went by the window and went home and took off the old hat and stuck it on the top of the shelf. Well, the next day she put on the old hat. There was no hat that she had put on that day.809 ¶15

Ten days later, a friend called and the friend asked her if she was busy or not, but she said, “Well, I am free.” So she said, “Will you come home? I have something to give you.” So she went to this lady’s home and she said, “Anne, I don’t want to offend you, but I bought a hat just about eight or nine days ago. Why I did it I don’t know, I wouldn’t really wear it to a dogfight. But I thought of you and, strangely enough, I think it would look lovely on you.” And she brings out the hat…not a hat, the hat. Anne puts it on. It’s the hat that Anne had put on that night.809 ¶16

Anne said to me, “Well, now tell me, Neville, why didn’t God give me the money to buy the hat instead of giving it to me in this manner? So, God gave me the hat alright, I have the hat, but why couldn’t I have had the money to buy the hat?” Well, knowing Anne’s profession…and I am not against any profession in this world, I don’t care what your profession is, you could be a thief; as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. God plays all the parts. So I said to her, “Anne, what price hat do you usually wear?” “Oh,” she said, “about three-fifty or four-dollar hats.” I said, “What did the hat cost?” She said, “Seventeen-fifty.” I said, “Now, Anne, tell me, do you owe any rent?” She said, “You’re too nosey!” I said, “Honestly, do you owe any rent?” She said, “Yes, two-weeks rent, and I pay seventeen-fifty a week rent, and I owe two-weeks rent.” “So you owe two weeks rent? If you found a hundred dollars on the floor while you’re looking at the hat, would you have bought the hat?” She said, “No.” I said, “You would have gone in and paid the two-weeks rent, wouldn’t you? And you would have put down three times seventeen-fifty of the hundred dollars you found on the street. Well, how much money would God have to give you to get you to buy that seventeen-fifty hat? So he gave it to you the only way that you could ever get it. You would never have bought it, no matter what sort of money you found, because you’re not in the habit of spending more than three-fifty or four dollars for a hat. So you would never have bought that hat. You put it on, didn’t you? And you got the hat. So what!” She just looked and smiled. She went her way and I went my way.809 ¶17

I say we must be daring in our experiments in Jesus Christ. That was Jesus Christ. So she was a harlot, so what? His friends were harlots, his friends were all the harlots of the world, the winebibbers, the gluttons, and the tax collectors. He came not to save those who felt they were already saved; he came to save those who were “missing the mark” in life. His name is Jesus which means “Jehovah saves.” He saves those who are missing marks in life so that they may know how to hit the bull’s-eye…didn’t come to judge people and to criticize them. So that’s her part that she’s playing in this world. But she wants a hat and Jesus Christ, her own wonderful human Imagination, gave her that hat. Gave it to her in the only way she could ever get the hat, because if she found a thousand dollars, she would not have bought the hat. You don’t jump from a three-fifty hat to a seventeen-fifty hat overnight; it takes time to acquire the feeling of spending.809 ¶18

You go in and you buy a suit…I used to buy twelve dollar suits. I haven’t bought a suit under $175 for the last twenty-odd years, but I remember buying suits that were, alright, twelve-fifty. I ran into a fellow on a boat one day, “What did you pay for this suit?” I said twelve dollars. He said, “They robbed you.” Then he said to me, “If it starts to rain, start running. You’ll never get it off.” Well, that was the days of Depression, 19…I can see it… 1933. When I went to Barbados I bought a twelve dollar suit, that’s all that I had, and I thought it was the most wonderful suit in the world. Then I had to push myself out beyond that to thirties, forties, fifties, and now I haven’t had a suit that has cost me less than 175 and many 225 and 250, in the last twenty-odd years.809 ¶19

So I tell you, put Jesus Christ to the extreme test. And one day you’re going to see the Christ of Israel in the light of your own scriptural experience of him. You’ll never see him otherwise. You’ll never see him coming from without, with some beard or some glow around him and wearing some lovely robe. He doesn’t come that way; he comes in the unfoldment of scripture in you, and suddenly everything said of him you are experiencing. You experience Jesus Christ and then and only then do you know who he really is. You know him from your own personal experience who Jesus Christ is. Not something that comes from without at all, it comes from within, and that’s where you’ll find him.809 ¶20

So, he started, started the entire drama. The dove descended. When the dove descended that’s when Messiah’s power laden work begins. When that descends, the individual upon whom the Spirit descends as a dove, his power laden work begins. And he doesn’t care what the world would say or what it thinks about his interpretation of scripture. He isn’t speculating anymore, he’s speaking from experience. He’s not trying to speculate, he’s not going to say it’s four in the afternoon. He doesn’t read Greek, he doesn’t read Hebrew, doesn’t read these ancient tongues, but he knows it’s not any four in the afternoon. And that’s the latest translation by the greatest scholars in our world, and it hasn’t a thing to do with it. It was the tenth hour, the Yod…and he was the Yod. He is the seed of God, the creative power of God, and he explains to all who will listen to him what he discovered about the creative power of God…how he told the woman, a simple woman, how to get a hat.809 ¶21

How he told someone how to get a book, a book that was out of print. And then one day in the very bookstore…I was there with Hannah. She came into the bookstore on 49th Street in New York City and she couldn’t find the book. The lady said, “It’s completely out of print. I’ve had many requests for it, but you can’t get the book.” I stepped forward, I said, “You want the book?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Well, will you please assume that you have the book and leave your name right here, leave your name and address right here with this lady. But you assume that you have this book, could you do that?” She said “Yes sir.” Didn’t ask my name, just simply thought it was a strange, strange thing to happen…a weird creature would come forward and tell her to simply assume that you have the book. Well, I was in that bookstore two weeks later when a box of books came from Florida to the bookstore. No price on the books. She was a widow, the husband made his exit from this world leaving a library and she wanted to unload and get some money in, and hearing of this Harley Bookstore on 49th Street, she packed up a box of books and sent it off, asking the lady, Mrs. Zimmerman, at the bookstore to pay her anything she thought that the books were worth. Among the books was that book, so she got the book.809 ¶22

There’s nothing impossible to the power of Christ, but nothing! But you and I must dare to put him to extreme experiments. Brood upon him, night after night, brood upon this power; then having brooded upon him, try to find out more and more about this working, creative power of God. And then share him…then pass it on to our successors…to anyone who hears you that they in turn may pass it on to others. Don’t keep it to yourself. Pass it on to everyone in this world, who Jesus Christ really is. He doesn’t hang on any wall in this world. He’s not some little icon stuck in some little place, that’s not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ.809 ¶23

The day will come—-and may it come this night if it hasn’t already come to you—-that you will actually see and know Jesus Christ by your own experience as scripture unfolds within you. You will know him. Then you will tell others what happened to you and they will smile. What does it really matter? You’ll tell your family and they’ll go into hysterics, because they know your weaknesses, they know your background, they know everything about you. So you’ll tell them what happened to you; but they have the traditional concept of Jesus Christ, and they could not believe in that concept or ever believe that you, their brother, their sister, could be the one spoken of in scripture that is Jesus Christ. But it doesn’t really matter to you. As far as you’re concerned it makes no difference whatsoever. You’ve experienced it, you’ve told it, and you’ll disappear from this world when your moment in time comes to depart.809 ¶24

Then there will be no more revival; you’re not restored to life any more, for you are the resurrection and the life. You are in an entirely different age of an entirely different world. Not this world or any part of this world, an entirely different world where all things are subject to your imaginative power. For you are all Imagination, all power, all creative power, and you are the resurrected Jesus Christ.809 ¶25

There is nothing in this world but Jesus Christ. He’s buried in everyone, yes, in the skull of everyone. Where did they put him? Well, they took him to Golgotha. Well, what is Golgotha? It’s Calvary. And what is Calvary?—the cranium. Well, what is the cranium?—the human skull. You mean that’s where they dropped him? Yes, that’s where the creative seed of God fell: the mystery of life through death. It fell into the skull. Is there any symbol in this world that is more representative of mortality, of death, than the human skull? We’ve all see it when the flesh is off, when the skin is off, and here is this thing, just the brain into which the seed of God fell. Here it grew from within into this glorious being that is Jesus Christ. And everyone grows into that being.809 ¶26

So I’m telling you what I know, I am not speculating; I am telling you what I know from experience…the only Jesus Christ in the world. And so, you will see him, you will know him, not as coming from without but your own wonderful scriptural experience of Jesus Christ. That’s how we know him, and he unfolds within you. You stand amazed at this pulsing, living being that you are. Then you know the great mystery that is told in scripture which is not understood by all these great scholars. There is such a thing in this world as “learned ignorance.” [...] you think because you read Greek and you read Latin and you read Hebrew and all these wonderful tongues that you are a great scholar. Well, no question about it, you are a great scholar. But there is learned ignorance in this world.809 ¶27

When I saw that this morning, I just simply thought I would take four Bibles and just simply compare them. So I took my Revised Standard Version, which doesn’t alter the King James Version, and I turned to the New English Bible, well, I could hardly believe my eyes, went back and read it over and over. Here it is, “it’s the tenth hour.” To give it sense…they’re going to give it sense, it was four in the afternoon. Hasn’t a thing to do with any four in the afternoon. He’s talking of the great sperm. If you see the Yod, it’s like a little sperm, like a little comma, a bulbous head and a little tail that is turned. And you take that same little bulbous head and a turned body and you make every letter of the Hebrew alphabet out of it. It’s only the Yod, that’s all that it is. So it begins the name of God: Yod He Vau He. The symbol is a hand, and the hand is the one part of man that separates him from the whole vast world of creation. With the hand I can create. Take a hand from me and give me the brain of the wisest of men and I would only be a smart monkey. Couldn’t make anything…I couldn’t fashion anything…I could mold nothing…just a brain. But give me the hand and you make me the sculptor, the painter, the artist. I become a creator with the use of a hand.809 ¶28

So this is the hand, the Yod is a hand, and it begins the name of God—-Yod He Vau—-it’s a window. The window is to the house what the eye is to the body. And so I see. Having conceived—-that’s the Yod—then I see, He. Then the same Yod pulled out is a Vau, it’s called a Vau, a nail, and I join myself to that which I see by an inner adjustment and feel that I am that which I would be. The final one is an He which is the objectification of the subjective state. Yod He Vau—-that’s all subjective; the final He is objective. The whole vast world reveals this activity of the Yod He Vau that takes place within man.809 ¶29

And so I assume that I am the man that I would be. Reason denies it, my senses deny it, but I dare to assume that I am it. Having assumed it, I have nailed it up, joined myself, and then I wait in patience, in confidence. Then it comes into my world, externalized, and I see my world bearing witness of my inner creative activity. That’s the story. So everyone here can do it. So don’t go looking for Jesus Christ…you’ll never find him in eternity outside of yourself. But you will find him one day not as something coming from without or coming as another, but coming in light of your own scriptural experience. That’s how you find him…can’t find him any other way.809 ¶30

And so, “Where do you dwell?” “Where do I dwell? Well, come and see.” If I could take you with me and be honest with you, I would show you that state to which I constantly return. For the state to which I constantly return is my dwelling place. I could return to wealth. I have a brother who thinks constantly in terms of the expansion of money; that’s where he dwells.809 ¶31

This doesn’t interest him. He goes to church…it’s all the churches in the world…gives generously to the churches. Comes to New York City, he runs my feet off going to churches. Every time he goes to a church he puts a huge big bill into the box. If there’s no collection taken up, why he goes to the box by the door, he drops a huge big bill into it. He feels he is doing the right thing by whatever he thinks God is to be…I don’t know. But he sits in the silence and feels the atmosphere of these wonderful churches and he likes that…and I’m bored. I sit with him because that’s what he wants to do; but he can’t conceive of this kind of Jesus Christ, not yet. At the moment, he thinks God has been so very kind to him because he has made millions, and so he wants to repay God. Put in a twenty dollar bill, a fifty dollar bill into the little box and that’s repayment for the great comfort that he now enjoys because he has millions. I go right behind him and I put in a dollar bill. So I have to show some kind of thing with him. So that’s the picture.809 ¶32

But to talk to him of this that I’m telling you tonight of Jesus Christ, he couldn’t believe it not for one second because God has been so kind in giving him all these millions. I tell him I’m here for the last time. I told him this past year in Barbados, I said, “Vic, this is my last time around, but the very last. And I know, I’m not speculating. When I close my eyes here…I’ve already made my will out, so it’s all there…but as far as I am personally concerned, I have left the stage. I have left the stage for the last time, Vic. Until it happens to you you’ll be restored to life instantly, given the opportunity for another angle of the grinding that must take place, until it takes place in you.” Well, because in his eyes the only wealth I have is simply inherited wealth from my father, it doesn’t make any sense to him whatsoever. Because he can’t conceive that such a person who only inherited wealth, who doesn’t earn it, could really be at that station in life. Can’t persuade him…leave him just as he is.809 ¶33

But I tell you, I know this is my last time around. Whenever it comes, it doesn’t really matter. If it came now it would make no difference whatsoever…it’s the last time around. But I’ll share it with everyone in this world who will hear me. I tell you, Jesus Christ will be seen and known by you in your own scriptural experience of it. That’s how we know…there’s no other way.809 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence.809 ¶35