If I told you who you really are it would shock you, for in this world you can be frightened, limited, and filled with doubt; yet I tell you that you are God himself, the very one who created and sustains the universe. When you first hear this you will no doubt resist it and believe the one who makes this statement to be insane because the idea seems impossible.600 ¶1

But I tell you: God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Jesus Christ is in you as your plan of redemption. As he awakens, his message of reconciliation is entrusted to you to tell it to your brothers who are waiting, confused by reason of the dream into which they have placed themselves. When this message of reconciliation happens in you, you have entered the state called Paul. Then you, too, will say: “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.”600 ¶2

As Saul (sleeping Man) Christ is seen as a person, someone separate and on the outside. But as Paul, Man awakens to the knowledge that Christ is God’s plan of salvation and from that moment on will not be seen as human. God prepared the way for his banished sons to return to himself. Christ is that way. Why should you be disturbed when you hear that Christ is a plan which has a voice when you read of the serpent who spoke to Eve, the asp who conversed with Pharaoh, and Daniel’s experience of the tree becoming man? Everything is personified in scripture. A plan is speaking, telling you: “I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except by me.”600 ¶3

This is scripture, which is something entirely different from anything a man might sit down and write. In this world we are God’s sons which he banished for a purpose. Christ is his plan of redemption which God prepared to reconcile his sons to himself. God sent us out into a world of death, of horror, and despair only after preparing a plan which would bring us back as God himself, for there is only God. “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” There is only one ultimate body, one ultimate Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. In the end all constitute that one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.600 ¶4

Paul was on his way to find those called ‘the people of the way’, to bind and bring them to Jerusalem, when it happened in him and he was blinded by the truth. Then he defended himself to those who were blind, by saying: “You cannot prove anything against me, for our fathers taught us that God would raise the dead, and scripture has fulfilled itself in me.” I tell you every being, no matter what he is doing, has done or is planning to do is God playing a part, for there is nothing but God in the world.600 ¶5

I know from experience that God is love. He is love which is indescribable. I know what it is like to love a child, my wife, my family, and friends. But I cannot describe the feeling that possessed me when I stood in the presence of infinite love and felt his embrace. At that moment of incorporation I knew myself to be love and although others cannot see it, I wear the body of love.600 ¶6

I now share my experiences with you in the hope that you will believe me, and I will go out on the limb and tell you that there are some here who will not depart this world until you know the truth of what I say: that this pathway is a series of mystical experiences in which God reveals himself in action for the salvation of his sons. By this path you are brought back into God as God himself, and God is love. I told you I was incorporated into the body of love. This is true. Whether I am awake or asleep (judged by human standards) that is the body I wear.600 ¶7

Now, when you give something in the spirit you do not lose it, rather it increases in its potency. One night in vision I gave my immortal eyes to one, that she may see the truth of which I speak. Last week she shared this experience with me. She said, “I awoke in my dream hearing heavenly music coming from a room in the house where I lived with my father. I got out of bed, walked to the foyer and looked into an adjacent room where I saw a ball of brilliant light sitting on a stool playing the piano. Within that light was the skeleton of a child, and I said to myself: ‘I must find someone to witness this, for without a witness Neville will never believe me.’”600 ¶8

Now, this lady was living with her father in her dream. Scripture tells us that when Jesus was accused of testifying of himself and therefore it was not true, he said: “Your law states that when two agree in testimony it is conclusive. My testimony is true for I am not alone. The one who sent me, who is my Father, he witnesses with me.” This lady’s earthly father is but a symbol of her heavenly Father, who is the cause of the phenomena of all life.600 ¶9

Desiring to find a witness to her experience, she sees her father getting ready to go to work and questions him saying: “Do you hear what I am hearing?” and he answered: “Yes, I do.” Then she grabbed him by the hand and led him into the room where he, too, saw the brilliant light framing a child’s skeleton, playing the heavenly concerto. Knowing she had her witness, she wanted to tell me; but when she arrived at my home her father had vanished and standing beside her was her friend Natalie, who knew nothing of her experience.600 ¶10

Knowing that my wife was asleep upstairs she entered my living room to discover it was a garden of flowers. I was there, in a body of love so bright I seemed to her to be the prince of light as I walked among the flowers, gathering a bouquet of white flowers for the one l love, who was asleep upstairs. I looked at her as though I didn’t see her, and then she knew that I already knew what she had come to tell me.600 ¶11

I have been enveloped into the body of love and knew the one to whom I gave my eyes would - before I depart this world - see the truth of what I say. The world is a shadow containing symbols. An earthly father is but a symbol of our heavenly Father. One who has experienced God’s path of redemption is sent as a messenger of reconciliation. I have experienced this plan and knew that I will not depart this world until someone testifies to the truth of what I have said. I am now enveloped in love, clothed in the light she saw as a child’s skeleton.600 ¶12

All through the centuries the symbol of Christ has been the child. Clothed in love, and having experienced the pathway, I can truly say: “I am the way; I am the truth; I am the light.” Here we see the way of redemption taking on the human form and speaking to man as a man, for the pathway takes man to awaken to and externalize it. The way to the Father seems to be dead, but as you enter, the way is resurrected. Man is the Living way to the Father, and when Man reaches his destination he is God the Father. Then that individual is entrusted with the message of reconciliation.600 ¶13

Those who are more interested in things of this world will deny the message. They are those who desire a diamond, like the one which recently sold for over a million dollars. Millions of those in the world are more interested in hearing about a piece of gay stone than the way I have traveled. But you who are here know the way, for I have told you how, when I entered the way I activated it, and there is only one way back from where we are to where we were. We were aware of being God the Father before we came into the world. Individualized now, we will leave this world and return to the Father by traveling the way which was fixed before that the world was.600 ¶14

Having prepared the way for our return, we fell asleep and now sleep the sleep of death. No diet or worldly position can take us back, for there is only one way and that is by a series of mystical experiences in which God reveals himself in action for our salvation. God brings his banished sons back to himself, making each son aware of being God the Father. This is the destiny of everyone in the world.600 ¶15

Now that one has borne witness to the truth of which I speak, I am satisfied. One lady saw me clothed in power and wisdom, and now I know one has seen me clothed in my perfect garment of love. I am forever in that body, as you too will be when you travel the way, for your destiny is to return to that one indescribable body of love.600 ¶16

In the 82nd Psalm we read the words God spoke to us, his banished sons: “I say, you are gods, Sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.” Although you do not know it yet, you are a prince, destined to awaken as the King of all and the Lord of all, for in the end there is only one God containing all of his sons who know themselves to be the one Lord and Father of all.600 ¶17

I tell you: any spiritual gift, given, is not only retained, but expanded beyond what it was. If love is given, love increases. Even though I cannot conceive of a love greater than that which embraced me - as it seemed infinite - yet in some strange way as all of God’s sons return, love increases, as does wisdom and power. Love is not really infinite; rather it is a forever expanding illumination.600 ¶18

When you think of Christ do not think of a man, but a plan of redemption. When you read: “I am the way; I am the truth; I am the light,” do not picture a man making this claim 2,000 years ago, and worship him, for a prophet’s vision is foreshortened, always seeing as present what is future. The present moment does not recede into the past, but advances into the future. If you believe what I have told you now, its experience is advancing into your future. Scripture, although read as having taken place 2,000 years ago, took place 2,000 years before that, as the plan was shown Abraham in 2,000 BC. That’s 4,000 years ago. Scripture is forever fulfilling itself, for that which is happening now is continually happening, but when it will happen in you, I do not know.600 ¶19

Now, any spiritual gift is never given on this level. When I gave this lady the gift of my eyes, it certainly was not here. If I had the choice of who I would give them to, it would have been my wife or daughter; but from this level I was not in control when I gave my spiritual eyes to a lady I do not know socially. She has received the gift and now her eyes are inwardly open into the world of thought.600 ¶20

I, like Blake, will not rest from my great task to open the eternal worlds; to open the immortal eyes of Man inward into the world of thought; into eternity ever expanding in the bosom of God, the Human Imagination. I gave my eyes to her and she will share them spiritually with others, for it was with her spiritual eyes that she saw me clothed in love. When one wears the body of love he is incapable of doing anything save in love, and therefore everything in his presence is harmless, for perfect love casts out all fear. In this world we fear the wild beasts of the jungle, but when one is clothed in love nothing can harm him.600 ¶21

In her vision this lady saw the skeleton of a child clothed in love. Ezekiel tells of the day when all the dead bones will be lifted up and clothed by love, in love. She heard the harmony of the spheres come into being as a ball of light covering the skeleton of a child played the piano. That child is the plan of redemption, of which not one bone shall be broken. Without loss of identity, the body of love will be built on that little bone structure. Even though I am now clothed in a body of flesh, she knew I was Neville. She also knew I was the prince of light and the embodiment of love.600 ¶22

And her name, by the way, is Sharon. In the Songs of Solomon he speaks of “the rose of Sharon, my sister and yet my love.” Then he mentions all of the flowers that are blossoming in the world of man. Symbolic of what is taking place in man, they are the fruit that love bears. So when Christ, God’s plan of redemption, is complete in you, you will know yourself to be God who is infinite love.600 ¶23

When you read in the Book of John that God is love, don’t think these are idle words; they are words based upon experience. God is love. Wisdom and power are attributes of God but God is love and when he incorporates you into his body, you - his banished son - have returned as the Father. Can you imagine the thrill when the curtain comes down upon this drama and all the sons have returned clothed as God the Father - who is nothing but love? The harmony this lady heard in her vision, although beautiful, cannot be compared to the music of that heavenly chorus when they call your name and sing of your redemption. I heard it back in 1946 and its indescribable beauty remains with me today. Although we are one as the Father we are distinct as sons, and no one can take the place of another. I can’t describe this in words - it must be experienced to be understood - but you are forever individualized, and yet together we all form the one Father.600 ¶24

Now, the witness of one is not acceptable, but if two agree in testimony, the evidence is conclusive. In the lady’s vision she lived in a home with her father. He heard what she heard and saw what she saw, so he testified to the truth of what she witnessed. Wanting to tell the man who told her of the path to God, she found a friend. Here is a perfect fulfillment of scripture: “I call you friend and no longer call you slaves.” And the living room she entered, it was not man-made, but God-made. It was a garden of flowers in a lovely greenery. I was watering my garden, giving it light and love, and she knew I was the prince of light as I gathered my blossoms to take them to the one I loved, who was asleep above.600 ¶25

Everyone must awaken, and as they do they will follow the same pathway I have shared with you. There is only one way. There aren’t two ways to God. Today people teach numberless ways, but they are all false. There is only one way, which is made up of a definite series of mystical experiences. The way begins with the resurrection, followed by your birth from above. Five months later David reveals your Fatherhood, then the curtain of the temple (your body) is split and you ascend into heaven. And finally, the dove descends upon you, giving you his stamp of approval, telling you that you are perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, for you are one with your Father. He is Holy and now you are Holy.600 ¶26

Then you are assigned a purpose in life for your remaining years and that is to tell the message of salvation, that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself. When the way of redemption has been revealed to you, you are assigned the ministry of reconciliation, being ministers of the word by telling all the pathway from the outer world of sin and death to the inner world of God and love.600 ¶27

Don’t despair. You are destined to awaken one day as God, who created and sustains the universe. And when all of His sons have returned, this outer world will come to its end. The universe will not take time to dissolve, it will simply vanish. Let our scientists speculate as to its age, it doesn’t really matter. The world, including the sun and moon, came into being as one grand explosion. They all came together for a purpose, and the only little place that could house God’s grand experiment (which is a stage) is this earth that we are on. All of God’s sons are here and they will all return to the very being out of which they came, which is God the Father.600 ¶28

You are infinitely greater than you can conceive yourself to be. Tonight you may envy or dislike someone. That is because you cannot see behind the mask they wear; but if you could, you would see your brother, he who you loved before you came out from the Father. You are going to go back to that same body, only your capacity to love will be increased by reason of the experience of coming into this world of death.600 ¶29

I am so glad that I am returning with the knowledge that one has seen me clothed in the body of love, for I know that I am. Although the mortal eye cannot see it I feel this body all the time. I sleep in it and wake in it every day, then I put on this mortal body and allow my eyes to grow dim, knowing that the day will come when this mortal body will be taken off for the last time and then I will be clothed in a body of love which is protection beyond measure, for in it all fear is cast out and what you do not fear cannot hurt you.600 ¶30

Look upon Christ, not as a person (although it takes a man to express him). Look upon Christ as the path of salvation that the Father prepared before that the world was. Christ is a pathway leading from this outer world into the inner world, for the kingdom of heaven is within. You were sent out (or below) as they are one, just as above and within are one. When the Risen Christ was made to say: “I am from above,” he was saying: “I am from within.” It’s back to the withinness that I go, back to that which has no circumference, but expands forever and ever. It is only without that is limited. You are infinitely great and you are moving towards the discovery of this truth.600 ¶31

In this lady’s vision, she lived with her father who heard and saw what she did. Then, as she traveled the road towards my home, he vanished and a friend appeared to witness the garden. We came out of a garden and we return to a garden, but when we do we are fully conscious of being love.600 ¶32

Now let us go into the silence.600 ¶33

I think you’ll find tonight very interesting. In the Book of Genesis which begins one of the manuscripts…there are three that we have, the J, the E and the P manuscripts. That’s all the authors that we know of, and no one knows who they are. Scholars claim all kinds of things for these initials, but regardless of that, tonight we will begin with the E, which begins with the 15th chapter of Genesis. It doesn’t mention the first fourteen. And here is the story, “As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep; and a dread and great darkness fell upon him. The Lord said to him, ‘Know for a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years… and after that they will come out with great possessions’.”595 ¶1

Abram believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. Here, we see that it is not what man is but what man trusts God to do that saves him. Here, he believes that God the Father has prepared the way for his banished ones to return. He firmly believed that there was a way. He accepted the verdict that they would be enslaved for four hundred years.595 ¶2

Now when you read it you might think in terms of time as you and I think of time, but that is not part of the mystery. In the Hebrew alphabet each letter has a numerical value and a symbolic value. The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Toph, has the numerical value of 400, and the symbolic value of a cross. The cross is the body that you wear. It doesn’t mean 400 years, or 4000 years, or four of anything. It’s simply the numerical value of the cross which is the last letter.595 ¶3

When you reach the end of the journey then there is a way prepared to bring you out of this experience in the world of death. For here is a world of death: everything begins, it waxes, it wanes and it dies, but everything. The very stars are melting…everything is dying…but it must first reach its fullness and then it disappears. But he has prepared a way for his sons who were banished into the world of death to return to him, and when they return, they return with great possessions. Certainly not anything on earth, like homes, since everything here dissolves and disintegrates. And so, we must find what the possession is that comes out of this experience in the world of death.595 ¶4

Here, no matter what you have you are enslaved by it. You buy a home and you start paying insurance on it right away to protect it against all kinds of things. Here in the Western world, earthquakes; all over the world, fires; certain sections, hurricanes. But no matter what it is it’s against loss. You get a huge big diamond and you’re so proud of it, and you insure it against loss, and you pay on it for the rest of your days. Many a person owning a fortune in diamonds puts them in a vault and they never sees them and pays on them year after year…but they have the feeling of possession. All they do is pay the insurance on them, because they wouldn’t run the risk of wearing them in public. So they get duplicates made out of inferior material and wear that, while they know they actually own the original in the vault. Now that’s an actual fact and that’s all over the world. So here, it is not anything that you own in this world that you will take out and call it great possessions.595 ¶5

Tonight we will see what this great possession is that we actually take out after the journey of 400 years. The 400 years will be determined in a certain manner.595 ¶6

The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint which is fulfilled in the New. It is not cut and dried so that you can actually see exactly what it is talking about. It’s a foreshadowing in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. Then it happens and is recorded in the New, but even then it is not, I would say, conclusive and vivid so that man can see it. So we must search the scriptures to see just what you and I must experience in order to depart from this world of death and take with us this fantastic gift that we actually acquire by coming into the world of death.595 ¶7

You and I pre-existed. When we speak of God, there is only one God so he could send no one but himself…for the son and the Father are one. He sends his sons into the world, and it takes all the sons to make the Father. Here in this world there is only God the Father wearing these garments that are the crosses, these garments of flesh and blood. This is our cross and we bear it to the very end. When we come to the end then we are awakened, and when we awaken we discover who we are…that we are God the Father. In this world we do not know it. Here we don’t recognize each other, and yet we were loving brothers before we came down—intimate, loving, wonderful brothers, all loving each other in the most intimate wonderful manner. And then we put on the mask, the cross of flesh and blood, and we are so completely hidden from view we do not recognize each other and we fight each other, and we do everything in this world of horror. Then we are gathered one by one and brought back into that original state, but this time “with great possessions,” and the possession is something entirely different from anything that man has dreamt of. The possession is to have life in ourselves. Not simply to be an animated body as I am now and you are, but to actually have life in ourselves.595 ¶8

Now the Book of Zechariah…and the word Zechariah means “Jehovah remembers.” The awakening man remembers and that’s what the whole book is about: the awakening man remembers. When you begin to awaken, this whole thing will come back, the whole vast memory of what you were told before the venture will begin to return.595 ¶9

Now let me share with you an experience. It happens the very night that you are awakened from this world of dream. When the voice calls you from the tomb and you awaken within the holy sepulcher, which is your skull, to discover that you have actually been there for unnumbered centuries dreaming this dream of life. And the dream comes to an end on a certain note, and this is the very night you begin to remember who you really are, and the whole drama unfolds before you and within you. Then you know who you are.595 ¶10

Now, we’re told in Zechariah, the 8th chapter, “Thus, says the Lord, ‘I will return to Zion and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem will be called the faithful city, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. And in the streets of the city shall be numberless boys and girls playing in its streets’.” Now you read that and you wonder what on earth does that mean in a book called a book towards the revelation of God and his plan for the salvation of humanity? What on earth would that be? Yet, may I tell you, the symbolism and the imagery is perfect.595 ¶11

One night, and I hope it’s not too far from now, but I do not know, no one knows when it comes to the individual, for we are gathered one by one. You’re so unique in the building of the restored temple that you aren’t drawn with another, you’re drawn singly. You are a unique being. Here, the prophet Zechariah, which simply means “Jehovah remembers,” here he describes in the most vivid imagery Jerusalem as it will be when city and temple are restored and the exiles have returned.595 ¶12

The image of this night that begins your awakening…I fell asleep in the normal, normal manner that I have done over the years, not expecting anything, and then came a dream. Here I am in the most glorious city. No building was higher than three or four stories…certainly not more than four…a walk-up, no need of any contraption to take me up. The sidewalks were wider than any streets we have in the city. There is no street, no boulevard as wide as the sidewalks. Just imagine how wide the streets! And they were filled with boys and girls…I mean young boys, young girls, not even quite teenagers, just lovely, laughing healthy boys and girls. There were concert grand pianos on the sidewalk at stated intervals so that one could not interfere with the other. Artists would come and play, and it was all just for the joy of those who were present. There was no charge, just they played. And they all had their following made up of boys and girls and they were their heroes.595 ¶13

I sat at one grand piano. There came this enormous crowd following their hero, a great artist. He came over and it was an unwritten code that no one could ask anyone seated to rise. He could be there always; no one would ask him to get up. But as he came over, I rose and gave him the bench. He thanked me and sat down to play, and as he played, his music formed geometrical patterns. The most glorious patterns came out, seemingly out of that instrument, all in color. But what beauty, what artistry, as it came out of what he played!595 ¶14

As I stood next to him I knew that if I could arrest within me a certain imaginal activity that what I saw, this beautiful thing coming out of the piano in all these forms, that I could arrest it. Then I arrested within me this activity and here the music was frozen. I looked at it and as I looked at it the tone that I arrested increased in volume within me like a sustained note, and that sustained note within me began to build up and it began to awaken me. I felt myself awakening from this dream. But instead of awakening as I would awake say this morning, I awoke in the holy sepulcher, my skull, to find I had been there in this strange, strange, wonderful, fantastic dream, a horrible dream, throughout the centuries. Then I knew innately what I must do to get out. And so knowing it I got out, and all the imagery of scripture concerning the birth of God surrounded me, and I knew at that moment who I was.595 ¶15

Months later came another unfolding, and then I knew beyond all doubt who I am. That the whole thing is only God playing all the parts in the world. That every being in the world though he thinks himself a little being, unknown, unwanted, and shunned by the world, he really is God wearing his cross, as he swore to himself that he would wear it for the 400 years…the 400 meaning only wearing a body of flesh and blood.595 ¶16

So the tone…as we are told in scripture, “Marvel not at this; those who are in the tombs will hear my voice and come forth.” Those who are in the tombs will hear his voice…and you think of a cemetery, you think of a graveyard, no, the tomb is your skull. You are actually buried in your skull, and the you that is buried are God and his name is I AM. That is God’s name forever and forever and there is no other name for him. Your own wonderful human Imagination is God, buried in your own wonderful skull, and that is the holy sepulcher. Don’t go to Egypt to find I; don’t go into the Near East in what is called the Holy Land. It is not there. You’ll not in eternity find it outside of yourself; you are buried in your own wonderful skull, and the being buried is God, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.595 ¶17

Now, when do we awaken? That dream precedes it only by the night, and you can’t really know when it’s going to come. But I’ll tell you, the power in you is the gift that you bring back. You have then the power to stop the entire world, but the entire world, and have it stand still and examine it, and then start it at will. No matter how long you arrest it, it will have no knowledge of being arrested. It will continue from the moment of arrestment as though not a thing had happened, and that interval between arrestment and the release within you could be unnumbered centuries. But it would have no knowledge, for there could be no change without time. Space is a facility for experience, but time is a facility for changes in experience. When you arrest time, then there could be no change. If you arrested it now, at this moment, and then kept it so for a thousand years, nothing could age because nothing could change without time, and time is simply the facility for changes in experience.595 ¶18

So you simply have time within you, and you arrest it, as I did that night, and saw this most glorious thing coming out seemingly from what this artist produced on the keyboard of this concert grand.595 ¶19

As I held it and looked at it, I was holding a tone, for the tone sustained it. As I held the tone, that sustained tone…and the word translated “voice” in scripture if you look it up in your biblical concordance, it means “noise, sound, the sustained noise, the sustained sound.” It is really what is also called in scripture “the blowing of the trumpet.” The trumpet is simply a reverberation and that thing reverberates like a noise, a storm wind within you. As it continues in that sustained note, you awaken. You waken not like you’re ever awakened before; you waken from the dream of life. Morning after morning you awaken from the little dream of the night; this time you awaken from the dream of life. Because you see the whole vast world as it really is and not as you believe it to be through the senses as you read.595 ¶20

So he said, “Believe me, I and the Father are one.” I and the Father are one. Can I be one with my Father? If I am really one with him and if he’s a father then he has a son. And therefore I can’t then be his son if I am one with the Father. So then who is the son? I and my Father are one; I have become the Father. But he still is a father and therefore show me the son…and that comes five months after this experience. But I am one with the Father. Now how on earth can a man be his father? How on earth can he be not only his father, but his earthly father’s father? Doesn’t make sense, does it? But I tell you it’s true and all these things you are going to experience. Everything in scripture you will experience. All of these are adumbrations, foreshadowings, and you are going to experience them.595 ¶21

Now, in the world here you go through the oppressions as promised in the book, the 15th chapter of Genesis: “And they will be oppressed for four hundred years…they will be slaves.” What man in this world is not a slave of the body that he wears? No matter how rich you are, how powerful you are, can you command any servant of yours to eat your food for you, and assimilate it, and what he can’t assimilate eliminate? Is there any man on earth so powerful that he can command one of his slaves to eliminate what he can’t assimilate? Must not he perform all the normal functions of this cross of flesh and blood? Isn’t he a slave of it? He has to eat and drink, and he has to assimilate and eliminate. You need not be a wealthy man and live in a home. You can sleep on the outside, you can go in the nude, you don’t have to have shelter and raiment, but you do have to have food. Having food, you’ve got to eat it yourself. Eating it you have to assimilate it yourself, and assimilating it you’ve got to eliminate what you can’t assimilate. And that makes you a slave of the cross that you wear. No one in this world has ever been so wise or so powerful that he can forego these functions. The day he forgoes the functions they bury him, cremate him or put him in the grave.595 ¶22

But the real grave is your skull. That’s where the real you, your own wonderful human Imagination, is buried. There it remains until the end of the journey when you are awakened from the dream, and you come out as the dreamer, and the dreamer is God. He was always God. So you come out from the dream. He has prepared a way for his banished sons to return. And all the sons together, collectively, form the Father. But we are gathered one by one. You’re so unique you cannot be called in pairs or in groups; you are called one by one. I’ll tell you, the night you are called it begins with the dream that I’ve just mentioned in the 8th chapter of Zechariah…Jehovah remembers. So, “I will send the Holy Spirit and he will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”595 ¶23

So here we are told the story and the visible presence who tells it disappears. Well, where does he go? He sends the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth. But he proclaimed, “I am the truth,” so who can he send but himself. So “God himself enters death’s door with those who enter, and he lays down in the grave with man in visions of eternity until they awake and see the linen clothes lying there that the females had woven for them.” Yes, my mother wove this garment of flesh and blood, and I will come out of it one day (as I have) and I saw it. There was what my mother wove me. It’s called in scripture the linen garments.595 ¶24

And I, the invisible being, no one could see me, and I am feeling and hearing this power within me. It sounded like a storm wind, the noise spoken of when I heard the voice. But the voice was simply my own voice, because I arrested what I saw just through contemplating the beauty that came out of that music. As I arrested that one tone, the tone continued to support what I’m seeing. For the whole thing was supported and it was supported, it was conjured, by the tone and supported by the tone. If the tone stopped, it would vanish; but if I sustained the tone, the tone would continue. And the tone continued and in continuing it awoke me.595 ¶25

So there is a tone in man, it’s a unique tone, that one day you will arrest. When you arrest it, it will continue as a tone, and that sustained tone, as we are told, a sustained tone could break, if related to the tone, a glass. I am told that Caruso could take a glass and get its pitch, and then hit that note and sustain it and break the glass. Well, there’s a tone in man, and one day you will intuitively know that tone. It will come in the form of a pattern, a beautiful pattern, and you will arrest it…it’s a frozen tone. You will sustain it, and as you sustain the tone, it will crack the shell in which you have been completely sealed for unnumbered centuries.595 ¶26

Thousands of years you have been dreaming this dream. You didn’t begin in the womb and you do not end in the grave. You are an immortal being that came down into the world of death. Here you are in the world of death dreaming it, and one day you will see exactly what I saw in that 8th chapter. I fulfilled the 8th when I saw the boys and girls. They filled the streets. And they were so happy…nothing sad about them…just a happy wonderful crowd, each with their own individual hero who played these grand pianos. As he played and I saw the beauty that came out of the piano, within me I had the desire to arrest what I’m seeing, it’s so beautiful. I did, not by holding it with my hand, I arrested what I saw by stopping an activity within my own Imagination. That’s where the power was. As I arrested it, the note continued and it was a sustained note, and it woke me. I felt myself waking from a dream, only to discover I was not on my bed where I fell asleep; I was in the holy sepulcher, my own sealed skull. Then I knew intuitively how to get out, and that shell was cracked and out I came to be surrounded by all the imagery of the birth of God, as told us in the story of the birth of Jesus. For, Jesus simply means “Jehovah saves,” and the only savior is Jehovah. So when he is born, Jehovah is born; therefore, you come out from the shell into which you placed yourself.595 ¶27

How did you get into that shell? How on earth? We know of no way even today with all of our knowledge—we can go to the moon, we can do all kinds of things—and no biologist has discovered how an egg is fertilized. How on earth can the sperm penetrate that which is sealed? It is an egg and there is no hole into that egg. Yet unless it is fertilized it cannot bear the chicken, it cannot bear the child, it cannot bear the animal. Here is an egg completely sealed…but it must be fertilized. The sperm must penetrate the surface of that egg or it cannot become alive. So how on earth was this thing penetrated so that it was made alive, and then to come forward in the likeness of the one who penetrated it? For, all things bring forth after their kind.595 ¶28

Well, if God is bringing forth after his kind, it has to be God that is born. So the egg penetrated was the skull. It’s not simply with the eyes open and the nostrils and the mouth and the ears…it’s a sealed dome. You and I entered these domes, and God entered with us and actually became us. God became as I am that I may be as he is. And you awake to find that you are God the Father because his only begotten son calls you Father; and you have no doubt in your mind as to who he is when he calls you Father, and who you are. So only until this relationship of father-son is revealed to man is the journey over.595 ¶29

Last night as I retired I was thinking on this theme which I am trying to express tonight. Then I woke this morning about, I would say, 2:30…but I did retire quite early so I had a good solid sleep, seemingly dreamless sleep until the very end. At the very end, here I find myself in New York City in the Plaza Hotel. It was much bigger than the Plaza as I know it, much more roomy, but the same old-world harmony and graciousness that you find in the Plaza of today. I had just checked out and I looked up to see one checking in, and he’s my brother Fred, my sixth brother. I went over and I greeted him, and then I turned to my left and here is my nephew Philip who is his son. I didn’t know my brother was in New York City and I didn’t know that Philip was, so I brought Philip over and then the strangest thing happened. I turned to my brother Fred, who is the father of Philip, and I said to Fred, “Oh, I want you to meet my nephew.” They acted as though they didn’t know each other, that the father-son relationship was completely unknown. I said to my brother Fred, “This is my nephew Philip. You’ve met his father and his mother, haven’t you? Haven’t you met Flo and Fred?” I spoke to him as though he were another. He answered as though he knew the ones of whom I spoke…because he had no knowledge of being the father of Philip and Philip had no knowledge of being the son of the one that I‘m introducing him to.595 ¶30

Then you turn to scripture, “And Philip said unto him, ‘Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,’ and he said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father?’” You see, everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. Now here, my brother in the world of flesh and blood, my nephew in the world of flesh and blood, and yet in my dream they are only symbols; symbols that father and son do not know each other.595 ¶31

So I tell you that you are the father of God’s only begotten son who is named David, but you don’t know it. I tell you that David is your son and you do not know it. But I can assure you the day will come that you will stand in the presence of David and David will call you Father; and you will know you are his Father and you will know he is your son. This mutual understanding between father and son will be accomplished. Then the journey is over.595 ¶32

So here, in my dream my own brother and my nephew…and his name is Philip. I played the part of David bringing them together. Who is David? The word David is defined in the biblical concordance as “beloved” but also “the uncle, the father’s brother.” Read it in Strong’s Biblical Concordance, “the father’s brother is called David.” So I am David and yet I am the Father of David, so “I and my Father are one.” So, as David I make the announcement.595 ¶33

These are mysteries, and the mysteries of scripture are not things to be kept secret, but they are mysterious in nature. They confuse the rational mind because the mind wants to continue thinking on this level, the secular world, where you are a man and you have a child, therefore that’s a father and that’s a son, and that’s all there is to it. They can’t get beyond into the great mystery of scripture, and the Bible is not secular history, it is divine history. It’s something entirely different. They’re not writing history, those who wrote. All the names are significant, and they tell an entirely different story that unfolds in the soul of man, and that soul of man is God. You are God…when you say “I am” that’s he. There is no other God.595 ¶34

But you’re down in this world for the allotted time. You will bear the fardel for the allotted time. Then will come that moment in time that this tree that you are will be split from top to bottom, and the Spirit trapped set free. It will be set free and you will awaken to know who you really are…that you are God the Father. There is no other one.595 ¶35

In the meanwhile, dwell upon it, just dwell upon it. If you owned the earth tonight and death ended it all, what would it matter? Stalin thought he controlled the world and his little world, big as it was, it was little. So he could kill twenty million people and then vanish. But he hasn’t gone; he’s restored to life in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in him. He knows he’s Stalin, which was an adopted name, he knows it, but he is not ruling Russia. Hitler isn’t ruling Germany. They are all restored to life in an environment best suited for the work that must be done in them, for in the end they too will be redeemed. Everyone will be redeemed, because everyone is aware that he is, and to be aware that he is, is saying “I am,” and that is the name of God. But while they played their parts here they were used, and although they didn’t know it, they were playing the part of God; and it was all moving towards an ultimate good, but they didn’t know it. They thought differently.595 ¶36

But forget the individual and come back to scripture, for here, I’m only here to fulfill scripture. Every night and night after night even though I have completed the entire story as told in the New Testament, I find myself re-enacting the play, the Old Testament. For in the days when the story was written, there was only the Old Testament, and it must all be fulfilled in me. Even to this morning…by simply dwelling the night before on the subject of tonight, wondering what could I add to it to make it more vivid to help everyone who is here. Then to come through the surface like coming from the depth of one’s sea, and as the waves begin to break in your own consciousness, you have this little drama unfold before you—your brother Fred, your nephew Philip, and they don’t know each other yet they’re father and son. It’s a perfect representation of the absence of consciousness or the lack of memory of the father-son relationship.595 ¶37

My brother Fred has said to me so often in the past, “Of my four children, the one I do not understand is Philip. He is the first and I never understood how he thinks. I’ve never understood what he does. He is completely strange to me, and all the time I do not know exactly what is going through his mind.” They are entirely opposite, yet they look like each other. Physically they are the spitting-image of each other, only my brother is 6’3” and Philip is about 5’8”. Philip is a captain in the Marines and for the last ten years he’s been in the Orient. He’s flown everything that we have manufactured from the super-sonic bombers to the super-sonic fighters, down to the helicopters. He’s flown every kind of mission in the Orient. My brother Fred, who is a business man, can’t quite understand that desire. They have not a thing in common on this level, but on the spiritual level father and son…but they do not know they are father and son.595 ¶38

So when I introduced my brother Fred to my nephew, I had to tell him, “Why, he is the son of Flo and Fred. You know my brother Fred and Flo.” He said yes, but never identified himself with it. And then I came through to this level.595 ¶39

So here, everything in the world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance, but everything. There isn’t a dream that is insignificant, but we are past masters of misinterpreting the dream. We can’t quite put our teeth into it and see the story behind the story.595 ¶40

But here, you’re here for one grand purpose: to awaken from the dream! When you awaken, you will have power in yourself. “As the Father has power in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have power in himself. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when those who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth.” And they come forth when the power is exercised.595 ¶41

There’s only one note that can awaken you. That note will come to you when the boys and girls are playing in the streets of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is within you. Zion is within you; the Lord is within you. The whole drama unfolds within the Imagination of man. Don’t look for it in any part of the outer world. The whole thing takes place in man. One day you’ll be so completely carried away with the beauty of something produced by a note that you will arrest the thing by arresting the activity in you. To arrest it, you’ll have to sustain that note. That note being sustained will awaken you, and you will awaken from the dream of life to discover that you are the Christ of scripture and that you are the Jehovah of the Bible. There is no other God, no other God. When you say “I am” that’s he, but you don’t know it until these things happen within you.595 ¶42

There is a doubt, there is a question mark. I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you are, but not convincingly. You would remain unconvinced because you cannot be convinced until the father-son relationship becomes a reality. Not because you reasoned the whole thing out, but because you’ve experienced it. You must experience scripture to know how wonderful it is.595 ¶43

So I can talk about it. I can be the greatest scholar in the world. I could know Hebrew, Greek, English, all the tongues of earth and still not know anything about it. I could translate the words literally, do all these things.595 ¶44

In this morning’s paper the usual press agent for Billy Graham, and they said that he took to the platform last night a Hebrew Bible given to him by the present prime minister of Israel. So what? He can’t read Hebrew. So it’s a gift, a gift of a book that is completely sealed to him. And from what I’ve heard him say, although he speaks English, the English Bible is sealed to him…doesn’t understand it at all. It’s completely sealed. Now he goes beyond that into the Hebrew translation. And here he took to the platform.595 ¶45

If that is sacred…no, you are the sacred one. That is an external record of a drama that must unfold within you. That is the witness, the external witness. When it happens in you that is the internal witness and now you have the two witnesses.595 ¶46

But don’t bring me one and say scripture said so-and-so, because you don’t know what it’s talking about. Have you experienced it? Have you experienced that chapter and that verse? Well then, come, did it parallel it? Then you are now a witness to the truth of God’s word. But if it has not happened in you, you cannot be called as a witness…it’s only hearsay. That’s what you heard. That’s what you either read or that’s what someone said, but you don’t know it from experience. When you know something from experience then you know it.595 ¶47

Well now, is there another witness other than your own experience?—scripture. So you bring the written word and the internal experience, and the two stand together. You need no one in the outer world to verify it. First of all, they couldn’t, but you have in the depth of your own being a being who knows it, the being who experiences it. And you go blindly on, regardless of what the world thinks or does.595 ¶48

So here, you are the ones and into this world we came. We were told exactly what to expect, that we would be slaves, oppressed for 400 years, but then we would come out with great possessions and that possession is power. It’s not power with money in the bank; it’s power, creative power, that you can at will conjure anything and it stands as an objective fact before you. What do you need with anything in the world when you can at will create it because you have power in yourself as the Father has power in himself, and I and my Father are one! So I don’t need anything…take it all from me and I can re-create it. But if you can’t create it and now it’s taken from you, then you’ll have to have it insured in the event they take it from you. So if they take it from you, you’ve got to go and collect and try to find something similar to what was taken from you, but you can’t recreate it. But to have the power of creativity within you to create anything in this world, that is what you come out with when you come out of Egypt.595 ¶49

But you will come out, may I tell you, one by one. You are too wonderful, you’re unique, and you can’t be duplicated, so you can’t be called in pairs. You’re called one by one as you’re told in the 27th chapter of Isaiah, “And I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel.” Everyone comes out one by one.595 ¶50

And the time, when will it come? I’ll tell you the night that it will come when this dream of which I spoke tonight takes place is the night you begin to dream of the city where the streets are full of boys and girls, and they’re so happy playing in the streets. Then you hear music, and some part of that structure interests you to the point of wanting to arrest it for contemplation. You do arrest it by arresting in you an activity that seems to animate it, and as you arrest it the note is now frozen but sustained. The tone continues and increases in volume, and that volume awakens you. That’s the voice that you hear. He said, “They will hear my voice”…the noise, the storm wind…and when they hear it they will come out from the tombs, even though the world calls them dead.595 ¶51

Now let us go into the Silence.595 ¶52

* * * Now are there any questions, please?595 ¶53

” A ll are Men in Eternity. Rivers, Mountains, Cities, Villages, All are Human, and when You enter into Their Bosoms, You walk In Heavens and Earths; Just as in Your own Bosom You bear Your Heaven And Earth, and all that You behold, though it appears Without, it is Within, In Your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” You may ask yourself what Blake is talking about, yet this is the language of the Bible. Biblical language evokes rather than describes. It is telling of another world, another Man and another age; for in truth, all of the places in the Bible are human.592 ¶1

In the Book of Revelation, John sees Jerusalem become a woman, descending out of heaven adorned like a bride for her husband. And in the 5th chapter of Micah we are told that Bethlehem is that woman out of which God comes. Listen to the words carefully: “You, O Bethlehem, are so little to be among the thousands of Judah, yet from you will come forth for me, one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient times. Therefore, he will give them up until that time when she who is in travail has brought forth.” Then we read in the 63rd Chapter of Isaiah, “O Lord, thou art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name.” Here we see the Ancient of Days as our Father and Redeemer and, like Bethlehem, we are all in travail, redeeming everything and bringing forth the Father of all life as our very self!592 ¶2

One day you will know an imaginative world where the mountains, rivers, cities, and villages are human. Everything will be possible to you there, for when your imaginative faculties awaken, every thought is objectively real. I don’t care what it is, your every imaginal act will instantly become an objective fact. This we are told throughout the Old Testament, but its language evokes and man finds it difficult to understand.592 ¶3

In the 14th chapter of Jeremiah you will find these words: “Thou, Lord are in the midst of us. We are called by thy name; leave us not.” The Lord’s name is “I am.” How could anyone exist and have the name “I am” taken from him? If you couldn’t say “I am” you would cease to be. You could suffer from total amnesia and not know where you are, who you are, or what you are; but, because God remains faithful to his pledge, you can’t stop knowing that you are. And that which is buried in your soul must come forward, and when it does, you are God.592 ¶4

You don’t boldly claim, “I am God” without any assurance that you are. That would be silly. To walk the streets proclaiming, “I am God,” not having had his plan of salvation unfold within you, would be the height of insanity. But when he reveals himself in you, you don’t proclaim it to anyone, you simply know it and live by this knowledge. And the only way he will ever reveal himself in you, as you, is to have his son stand before you and call you “Father.” Then, having fulfilled the 89th Psalm, you too will say: “I have found David. He said unto me: ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.’” When this lad stands before you, you know exactly who he is and who you are, for this relationship was established before that the world was.592 ¶5

Knowing you are the Eternal God who is Father, you will share this fantastic knowledge, not expecting a hundred percent acceptance, but allowing everyone to respond to what you say. Seeing your weaknesses and limitations, some will believe you and some will disbelieve. Don’t let it matter to you, simply tell it and go your way until the end of your allotted time. Then, with the discarding of your garment of flesh and blood, your weaknesses are removed and you awaken as God. Those who heard and accepted your experiences will prove your words in the not distant future and they, too, will awaken as the Ancient of Days.592 ¶6

Mortal eyes cannot see the being I really am. I know I am the Ancient of Days. I never began and I will never end. I appear to have begun in time. That is because I buried myself in my creation, in time. I am the Melchizedek of scripture – he who has no father, no mother, no genealogy, no beginning of days, or ending of days. I am eternity, buried in and waking in my creation. And because I am the Father of all life, my son, David – the personification of everything I have given life to, through experience – will stand before me to witness my fatherhood.592 ¶7

David’s father was called Jesse, which means “I am.” It is that father who, recognising David, says: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” This experience will be yours when you come out of the fiery furnaces, which each one of us must and will go through. Did the Lord not tell us: “I have tried you in the furnace of affliction (experiences) for my sake; for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” There is only God, so he cannot give his glory to another. Having buried himself in his creation, when he rises from his burial place, he is still God, but enhanced beyond measure by reason of becoming his own creation and rising in it, individualised. We are all members of a body which shares in this grand play of rivers, mountains, cities, hills, and villages – all of which are humanity, all men in eternity.592 ¶8

Have you ever reclined in a chair with your eyes closed as in sleep and pictured a stream of water so real you could put your mental hands in it and they are wet? When you cupped your hands and brought them to your mouth, could you feel the water going down your throat? If you have, you know that the state you have entered is very real and personal. That is the power which is in store for you. That is your power tomorrow, when everything will be at your disposal, all based upon your own wonderful human imagination, for that is God.592 ¶9

Taking upon himself all the weaknesses and limitations of the flesh, God became as you are, that you may become as he is. And when he awakens within you, you are he. If you will believe in your own wonderful, imaginative world, everything will be under your control – but everything! And you will know that everyone in your world is within you, to be contacted at will. That no one can escape you; and when you rise within yourself, everyone rises with you. That is the story of scripture.592 ¶10

While you are here you can test your creative power based upon your desires. You may desire something you think you cannot afford, or you don’t have the time or the know-how to enjoy it. You can think of a thousand reasons why its possession is impossible; but – hearing that imagination creates reality – you can imagine you have it. But to imagine is not enough; you must have faith enough in your imaginal act to believe in its reality. When you imagine you are the person you want to be, you must firmly believe you already are it; then wait in faith for your assumption to appear in your world, for that imaginal act has its own appointed hour. It will ripen and flower. If it seems long to you – wait, for it is sure and will not be late.592 ¶11

The link between your imaginal act and its fulfillment is your faith, which is nothing more than your subjective appropriation of your objective hope. Hoping your desire – subjectively appropriated – is true, faith is your link to its objectivity.592 ¶12

Act as God, and simply let it be so. God said: “Let there be light. Let the sun appear. Let the moon appear.” After his imaginal act, God let everything appear, sustaining it by faith, knowing that without faith it is impossible to bring it to pass. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” If you have faith in the reality of your imaginal act, it must objectify itself in your world.592 ¶13

Now, in order to really understand scripture, you must have some knowledge of the experiences recorded there, because they are not of this world. The Bible speaks of the New Man who is in you. It is that Man of Spirit that I am appealing to, as he can believe in the reality of an imaginal act. The outer you knows a reality which it can touch, see, and hear. Its belief is based upon the evidence of its five senses and reason. But I am appealing to the Christ in you, who is your own wonderful human imagination, and one with the Lord. This magnificent creative power is buried in you and will rise in you – not as another, but as your very self. This will be done when the wall of perdition, which divides the two of you, is broken down.592 ¶14

If I speak of him I am implying the existence of two; but when I say, “I am,” I am speaking of only one. So Christ becomes one with me by becoming my very self. But I will not know that I am he until I have experienced everything scripture tells me only happened to him. My rebirth is the result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, for it is said that he rose from the same grave in which he was buried. Since there is only one skull, only one grave, and I awoke within my skull to discover I am alone, am I not the one who lay down there to sleep? If asked who was having this experience, I would answer, “I am,” and “I am” is not two – “I am” is one. I awoke in Golgotha – my own skull – and I came forth from that skull, as it is said that Bethlehem will bring forth someone for me, one who will rule as God.592 ¶15

Try ruling as God! Knowing that all things are possible to your imagination, imagine something that your reason and senses deny, and see if it works. If it does, then did you not rule your world as God? That’s how God acts. He imagines and lets it appear. And who is he? The Ancient of Days.592 ¶16

In the Book of Daniel, you are told: “There came one, like a son of man, who was presented to the Ancient of Days and they became one.” The word translated “son of man” is the Aramaic for the word “I” or “one.” That’s all it means. So when Jesus uses the word, “son of man” he is designating his function as the mediator between the world of man and the kingdom of God.592 ¶17

In the Book of John he says: “O Holy Father, I have made known unto them thy name, the name thou gavest me.” Here he tells you the name is “Father,” saying, “Holy Father.” Now he wants something else. “May the love with which thou hast loved me be in them and I in them,” for the Holy Father wears the body of love. When you step into the presence of the Ancient of Days, you see God in the human form divine, which is infinite love. And when he incorporates you into himself through an embrace, you fuse with love, thereby becoming the Ancient of Days.592 ¶18

You know this because you feel it, but love cannot be seen with mortal eyes; and when you tell your story, those who hear you will say: “You? Why you are not yet fifty.” In the speaker’s case they would say: “You are not yet seventy, yet you know Abraham?” And I would answer, “Before Abraham, was I am.” They would then pick up stones to stone me with the facts of life. Your birth certificate, place of birth, your social, intellectual, and financial backgrounds, are all cataloged, all available as stones to be thrown when you dare to claim that you are known by one who – as a forefather – lived unnumbered centuries ago. One who not only rejoiced to see your day, but saw it and was glad. To claim that you not only know him, but came before him, does not make sense, but is true.592 ¶19

That which has no origin, buried itself in that which began in time, in order to raise that which began in time to its own level – which has no origin.592 ¶20

Here we find the story of Nebuchadnezzar and Melchizedek all rolled up into one. Nebuchadnezzar was an insane king – just like Man in this world. And Melchizedek, who has no father or mother, no origin, no beginning or ending in time, is buried within Nebuchadnezzar. Rising in that which began in time, he transforms time into eternity.592 ¶21

Here again we have the story of the coming of the Father. To find the Father of all life is all that is worthwhile. What else is worth finding? To find a million dollars would be wonderful for the moment, but one day the money will be gone, for everything dies here. Even the very heavens are dissolving; but your imagination cannot dissolve, for he is the Father who was before that the world was. So when imagination rises in you, you are God, even though you are still in a garment which wears out. And when the world calls you dead, it is because you have returned to the Father, as the Father.592 ¶22

As imagination rises in you, you understand the words: “I came out from the Father and I have come into the world. Again I am leaving the world and returning to the Father.” Now the same “I” makes this statement: “Go to my brothers.” If we are all brothers, we do not differ from this one “I” in whom the whole thing took place. The gospel is only the record of experiences seen and heard in the soul. So, “Go and tell my brothers I am ascending unto my Father and their Father, to my God and their God.” There is no other Father but the one Father, and no other God but the one God, who is in us all as our own wonderful human imagination.592 ¶23

When you say, “I am,” that’s he, and there is no other God. You will not know you are God, however, until scripture becomes alive and fulfills itself in you. For that purpose and that purpose only did you come into the world. You did not come here to put things right, as the priesthoods would say. This world is a schoolroom, where man is searching for his father; and how long, vast, and severe the anguish before he finds his father, is long to tell. I do not know when God will awaken within you; but I do know that he will, and then you will see the reason behind it all.592 ¶24

So leave the world just as it is and make no attempt to change it. Every day politicians are trying to change the world. We have many who claim to be our saviors, yet each – like the Hitlers and the Stalins of the world – have clay feet. Still, people will believe in them and you can’t stop them, because they are dreaming. Being all imagination, you can’t stop man from imagining, and imagining creates reality.592 ¶25

Tonight they are trying to stop cigarette smoking. They tried to stop alcohol back in 1919, and in their doing, those who lived in the gutter became billionaires, making billions that they could not – and did not – declare for taxes. Al Capone made 130 million dollars net a year for fourteen years without paying taxes. They got him for a few thousand on some small infraction – but what happened to the 130 million a year? So, the do-gooders will do it all over again. Now they are going to start banning cigarettes; and instead of receiving six billion dollars in taxes from the industry, the money will go into the hands of those who will see to it that those who want cigarettes get them. Man never learns his lesson.592 ¶26

I can remember prohibition well. I came to New York City in 1922 and remained there until 1952, so I know New York City well. Old man Rockefeller, the one who really made the fortune, owned about six blocks between 5th and 6th Avenue. His entire family occupied one block on 54th Street. Before Radio City was built, he owned and rented out the two- and three-story buildings there. One day his son said: “Do you realise that all of those buildings are speakeasies?” Here was a Baptist – who gave millions for the dry campaign – renting houses to be used as speakeasies. So you see, you can blind yourself to anything.592 ¶27

I tell you: prohibition is stupid. You can educate a man out of a state, but you cannot prohibit him from occupying it. If I told you I would give you the earth if you would not think of a monkey for the next 24 hours, I would keep my earth, for you could not do it. Every commandment that is negative will be broken, for “God has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all.” The moment I give you a command that is negatively worthy, I have consigned you to disobedience. There is only one commandment which is not negative. That one is “Love thy father and mother.” Every commandment has to be broken, yet man thinks he is so holy.592 ¶28

A man who recently celebrated his 100th birthday was asked what he thought contributed to his longevity, and he answered, “Smoking! I have been smoking every day of my life since I was eight years old.” Another lady, dying of throat cancer at the age of 30, told reporters that she had never smoked a cigarette in her life. My mother never smoked or drank, yet she died a very painful death at the age of 62. My father drank like a fish. He broke every health code. He never read anything concerning what he should eat in order to live, he just lived. He ate what he wanted when he wanted it. He drank what he wanted when he wanted it, and died at 85 from sheer exhaustion.592 ¶29

Having these two examples before me, I don’t believe in this nonsense relative to what I should eat and drink. I will wear out this body just as I have a suit of clothes, and when I do, men will call me dead; but I will not be dead, I will be one with the Awakened Christ, for I have experienced scripture. David, in the Spirit, called me Father, so now I know my name and will return to that awareness.592 ¶30

Remember, the Bible evokes, it does not describe. There are three kinds of writing: journalism, literature, and scripture. You can study journalism or literature, but not scripture; for it is all revelation, all vision – written to evoke, not describe. As the visions possess you, you will discover that everything in scripture becomes man. The rivers, mountains, cities, villages – all are man.592 ¶31

In the 4th chapter of his book, Daniel shared his vision, saying: “I saw a watcher, a holy one come down from above and heard him say, ‘Cut down the tree, cut off its branches, strip its leaves, scatter its fruit, but leave the stump bound in iron and bronze.’” Now the tree becomes a person. “`Water him with the dew of heaven. Take from him the mind of man and let his habitation be among the beasts until seven times pass over him and he learns that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, even to the lowliest among men.’592 ¶32

“The tree spoken of here is the tree of life, which grows in the human brain. It has been cut down to the root; but out of that tree of life (called Jesse) will come a shoot, which is what the Father is waiting for. He is waiting for himself to come out of man, individualised as the man he is bringing with him. So God – he who created the world and all within it – descended into his creation. And when he rises, in all, he wipes away time and space as we know it, and becomes the only reality.592 ¶33

Now let us go into the silence.592 ¶34

To think of the Bible’s events as historical, and the characters recorded there as persons such as you and I, is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human form, unable to stand the strong light of revelation. But I tell you: it is in us, as persons, that the nature of God is revealed. Paul tells us his conversion came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. It did not come through a man, thereby causing him to change religions. No. Paul never forsook Judaism, but interpreted the meaning of the Old Testament through revelation. But was Paul a person, an individual being such as you are, as I am; or is he, too, one of these eternal characters? That is the question I am asking tonight.586 ¶1

I tell you: all of the characters of scripture, including Paul, are eternal states. One day, whether you be male or female, you will reach the state of Paul, and your journey in the world of death will come to its end.586 ¶2

A friend of mine - a lady with two children and expecting her third - wrote, saying: “In vision I saw the Bible opened to the New Testament and heard the words: ‘You are Paul.’ I was so startled I broke the vision and awoke questioning the words, ‘I am Paul? I am Paul? I am Paul?’ The idea seemed too much for me to grasp, so I returned to sleep and the dream continued. I saw the entire New Testament opened at the Book of Matthew, then an invisible hand moved the pages through the Book of Revelation as I heard the words: ‘It’s all about Paul.’ So I ask you: Who is Paul?”586 ¶3

Paul is a state you enter when, having been introduced to Christianity or Judaism, the secret behind the words is revealed. In the state of Paul, you discover you are the Lord Jesus Christ who is God the Father. It is Paul who says: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” When the vision is yours, to whom could you turn to ask what they thought of it? They would tell you that you were insane, so you would turn to no man; rather you would abide in the vision and dwell upon it.586 ¶4

Paul’s conversion did not change his religion, for he never forsook Judaism. His one disappointment was that he could not convince his fellow religionists of the truth of what had taken place in him. Paul represents every individual - be he male or female - who arrives at that point in time when he awakens to discover that the characters of scripture did not exist in time and space, but are eternal spiritual states, which the individual moves through toward the climax, which is Jesus Christ.586 ¶5

The fundamental story of scripture is a metamorphosis - a complete change of form. Like the grub worm is transformed into the butterfly, so man - as we understand him - is turned into Jesus Christ. And when it happens in you, there is no one to whom you can turn. It is a fact you cannot deny. I could no more deny my experiences of Christ unfolding within me, than I can deny the fact that I am standing before you now. And I am not unique. Christ will unfold in every child born of woman. He must, for God cannot and will not fail to fulfill his promise in all.586 ¶6

The word “Saul” means “to inquire; to ask.” Entering the state of Saul, you are questioning life - its purpose and plan. Is there a God? Why am I here? Saul’s is a questing mind, one which is seeking an answer to the phenomena of life.586 ¶7

Today is the wonderful Day of Atonement which came to its end at sundown with the singing of a great psalm in every synagogue which begins, “Awake O Sleeper who forgot eternity in the pursuit of the moment.” Having forgotten that we are all one in eternity, we are called upon to awaken, but awaken from what? From the pursuit of the moment. Then, in the eternal state called Paul, the story of Jesus will unfold in you, and you, too, will say: “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.” Like every Jew, Paul was looking for an external messiah, one who would come to be the anointed king and save Israel from the enemy. Then he discovered the messiah was within him and would never appear on the outside.586 ¶8

Paul’s thirteen letters were written twenty years before the Book of Mark, which was the first gospel; so Paul could not have quoted the New Testament, only the Old. He never converted in the sense of converting from Judaism to Christianity, or Catholicism to Protestantism. After the revelation, Paul understood that which was revealed to the prophets; for he discovered that the messiah which was to come, was himself, saying: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.”586 ¶9

There is a poem by Browning called “Saul,” in which David tells of the coming of the messiah, saying: “O Saul, it shall be a face like my face That shall receive thee. A man like unto me thou shalt love, And be loved by, forever. A hand like this hand shall open the door To a new life for thee. See the Christ stand.” Standing before the demented king, David is telling Saul that when he sees Christ, he will wear the face of David. That he will love and be loved by him forever. Extending his hand, David tells Saul that this knowledge will open the gate to a new life; for David is the only Christ Saul will ever see. When Christ stands before you, he will wear the face of David and reveal you as the Lord God Jehovah. Then you will say: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” This will be the experience of every child born of woman; for awareness - although limited by a garment of flesh and blood, restricted and weak - is God, the father of all life, and there is no other God.586 ¶10

Now, when Paul spoke of sin he wasn’t speaking of a little misdemeanor, or even a big one. To Paul, if you are not radiating the glory of God and are not now the express image of his person, you are sinning and falling short of that glory. Only when you enter into the state called Paul, will you radiate God’s glory and express his image; for it is in that state that David reveals you to yourself.586 ¶11

Paul confessed to the Galatians that God sent his son into his heart crying “Father!” And now I tell you that when David stood before me and called me father, I saw him more vividly then I have ever seen anyone here. I can still see his heavenly beauty. I saw David in the year 1959, yet history claims he lived in 1000 B.C. But David is not my flesh and blood son; he is part of the unfolding picture of an eternal story in which man is involved. The story, as recorded in the Old Testament, was not understood until it unfolded within one who said: “I am a child of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee of the Pharisees.” Paul never forsook Judaism, but tried to interpret it to those who would listen, but they could not understand.586 ¶12

They were - as they still are today - looking for a physical, external messiah to destroy their enemies and establish his kingdom in this world; but that is not the story. This eternal truth is housed in every being who walks the earth. One day you will find Christ as your very being. You who say “I am” before you state your name, will experience all of the eternal, spiritual states spoken of and named in scripture, to arrive at the final state called Paul.586 ¶13

My friend knows she is Paul, for she heard the depth of her soul tell her so. To her the idea seemed incredulous; yet I tell her she heard correctly, for she has been called. She has been chosen and elected to be an incurrent eyewitness to the great truth which will unfold within her. The Paul of the Bible is a state everyone will attain. And while in that state, David will reveal your true identity.586 ¶14

Enter any state and you become that state. While in the state of wealth, everything you touch turns to gold. In the state of success, you could turn a failing business into a successful one, for in the state of success you cannot fail. You are not a success or a failure, but the occupant of a state. Although you remain untouched by any state, when you enter one, you express it. Put yourself into the state of health, and you must express health. Enter the state of fame, and no power can stop you from expressing it.586 ¶15

And when you enter the state of Paul, David will stand before you and say: “A face like my face shall receive you. A man like unto me thou shalt love and be loved by forever. A hand like this hand shall open the gate of a new life for you. See the Christ stand.” You will be looking into the face of David, the Lord’s anointed; and when he calls you father, you know who you are, for “No one knows who the Father is except the son, and no one knows who the son is except the Father.” David, your son, sets you free; for he is the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, whose revealed name is I AM. Everyone who says, “I am,” is the Father of that eternal youth called David. Awake, O sleeper, and remember eternity, the son of Jesse, for only he can reveal you as God the Father.586 ¶16

This is the greatest story ever told. It is an incredible story of a transformation, a metamorphosis. “Meta” means “change” and “morphos” means “form,” so metamorphosis means a radical change of form. This is true, for the being you are destined to be, could not function in a body of flesh and blood. You will move into an entirely new age. It is a new world, and in it you need a new form. The form is spirit, yet you have a human face, a human voice, and human hands.586 ¶17

That is the form I saw when I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord and answered his question: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” in the words of Paul, as “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment he embraced me and I assumed his incredible form. Since that time we have not been separated or divorced, although while I wear the body of flesh and blood I must be subject to all of its weaknesses and limitations. But when I take it off this time, I will be one with that one body, who is gathering all.586 ¶18

Everyone will be saved, because everyone is God and God is saving himself. At the present time you do not know you are God; but you will know it when you enter the state called Paul, for in that state the revelations unfold and you, too, will say: “I did not get it from a man. It came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. He unveiled himself in me as my very being. Now I know there is no other.”586 ¶19

So I say to my friend: your revelation is true. You have been called and elected. You have been chosen - not by men, but by God, which is the definition of a saint in scripture. How could any man make another man a saint? The idea is stupid. When you are called, you are sainted. When you are elected, you are sainted. When you are chosen, you are sainted, and no man, looking at you, could ever see you as a saint. You are still capable of losing your temper and being violent. That means nothing. Be everything that you are, for you are already redeemed by reason of your experiences.586 ¶20

So, the characters of scripture are not historical. To see anyone - including Jesus Christ - as a person who walked this earth, is to see truth tempered to the weakness of your soul, and unable to bear the strong light of revelation. Jesus Christ is the perfect state into which you are all moving. And in that state, scripture unfolds to reveal you as God. And who is he? He is your own wonderful human imagination!586 ¶21

If all things are possible to your imagination, then all things are possible to imagine! How would you act if God imagined you as you want to be? How would you feel? What would you do? Then do it. Feeling its reality, have faith in your imaginal act. Desire is your hope. Your imaginal act is your subjective appropriation of the hope you want to objectify. Now, faith is the link between God’s power and your desire. He doesn’t question your desire. He who is all creative power and know-how, simply gives it to you. That is Christ, he who is defined as the power of God and the wisdom of God.586 ¶22

Now, if you test God and prove to yourself that imagination does create reality, tell others. If they try it and it works for them, does it really matter what the world thinks? If they think the idea is insane, it won’t be the first time. They thought Einstein was insane. There are those who think I am. That’s perfectly all right, for the day will come when God will reveal himself in each individual, and then that one will move from the state of Saul to Paul.586 ¶23

There is no other God, for God became Man by assuming all of his human weaknesses and limitations. God is not pretending he is you. When he became your breath, he had to take your unique qualities upon himself. That was his crucifixion. No man was nailed upon a cross bar; your body is the cross Christ wears. He is buried in you and will rise in you. His tomb is the human skull where he lays dreaming. So awake, you sleeper, who forgot eternity in the pursuit of the moment. Although this moment seems so real, you are its reality and the central being of scripture.586 ¶24

The fundamental purpose of scripture is metamorphosis - the radical transformation of Man into God. And God has a son, formed by his experiences as the human imagination and personified as David of Biblical fame. David is he who is “A man after my own heart who will do all my will.” He is not a historical character, but an eternal state which appears at the end of your journey into the world of death. The world may think they have found David’s tomb; but they will never find any historical evidence concerning these characters of scripture, because they are all spiritual states personified.586 ¶25

You will pass through these states to discover - through revelation - that you are the author of the Bible. Just imagine, Paul’s letters came first. He called them “My gospel.” They are Paul’s good news of salvation which came through revelation. Paul’s thirteen letters were written first, and all the other books were based upon them; but who is Paul?586 ¶26

Everyone who enters the state of fulfillment. One day you will enter the state known as Paul; but right now you are Saul, seeking the cause of life, not knowing it is your very self. In the Books of Samuel and Kings, we are told that Saul tried to kill the very one who could reveal him to himself; but the revelation could not come until his name was changed to Paul.586 ¶27

Even though, today you are very much a lady, you will eventually become the Paul of scripture. But in that realm, you are above the organization of sex, as Paul tells us: “In Christ there is no bond, no free, no male, no female, no Jew, no Greek, for all are one in Christ.” Your true identity is not male or female, but Man, and Man is God and God is Man, as Blake so beautifully put it: “Thou art a Man, God is no more, thine own Humanity learn to adore.” Tonight, set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you; for Christ in you is your hope of glory!586 ¶28

Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourself and see, for all things are possible to him. Think of something you would like that reason says you cannot have. Now, assume it’s yours. Your assumption, though false in the sense that it is denied by your reasonable mind, if persisted in will harden into fact. You do not need to know the means that will be employed to bring your assumption to pass; all you are required to do is persist in your assumption and allow your own wonderful human imagination to give it to you. All things are possible to your imagination. It’s up to you to provide the necessary link between your assumption and its fulfillment. That link is faith. Having assumed your desire is fulfilled, your faith in that assumption will cause it to harden into fact. That is the law.586 ¶29

Test this law, and if you prove it in performance, it will not matter to you if it seems irrational to others. Tonight, leave this auditorium in the assumption that you are what you would like to be; and if tomorrow your assumption can be seen as fact by the world round about you, then you have found Christ, he who is within you as your hope of glory.586 ¶30

Man is forever coming up with fantastic ideas like going to the moon. At the time, the idea seemed impossible, yet in time man does go to the moon. So you see, nothing is impossible to God - but nothing! Simply name that which seems so impossible to you, then assume that you have it. Walk in the assumption it is now an objective fact and see how God works. I tell you, in a way that you do not know, and you could not possibly devise, you will be led across a bridge of incident to the fulfillment of that state.586 ¶31

All you have to do is ignore the evidence of your outer senses and go about your own wonderful business assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Your assumption, instead of receding into the past, will advance into the future and you will walk right into its fulfillment.586 ¶32

Accept what I am telling you tonight, and you will be on your way towards the state called Paul. He tried his best to persuade his own friends to believe what happened to him in the synagogue. Christianity is not a new religion, but the fulfillment of Judaism. It’s as old as the faith of Abraham, older even than the synagogue. The promise was fulfilled in the state of Judaism, interpreted to Jews, who then organized it into a separate religion; but there could be no Christianity without Judaism. Many a Christian would like to divorce the two books and put the Old Testament aside; but there could be no New Testament without the Old, for the New is only the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.586 ¶33

You are destined to be told - as the lady was - that you are Paul; and the chances are you will be just as shocked as she is, when she looks into the mirror and sees a mother and a mother-to-be, and a wife who may argue with her husband and be short of money once in a while. These weaknesses are part of your garment of flesh and blood; but at the end of time, your new body of love - woven without seams - will be ready for occupancy. Then you will take off this body of limitation and opacity and assume your new body of life.586 ¶34

If, however, you have not reached the state of Paul, when you leave this body, you will find yourself in another one just like this one, in a section of time best suited for the work yet to be done in you. Don’t think you are going to move chronologically from one year to the next, for it can be any year, be it the year 1000, or 3000. Whatever year you find yourself in, you will feel perfectly normal there, and things will seem quite natural.586 ¶35

These bodies of death belong to this age; and regardless of what year you find yourself in, you will wear the same body of slavery, where you must perform all of its functions. No matter how powerful you may be, you cannot command anyone to perform your body’s functions for you; therefore you are its slave while you remain in the state of Saul.586 ¶36

Only when you move into the state of Paul, can the drama unfold and set you free. Don’t think that you have to be the perfect specimen of a man, judged by human standards, to arrive in state of Paul. Although weak and limited as you are now, strive to know the truth of scripture; and one day, when you least expect it, you will find yourself cast in the central role, as everything said of Jesus Christ will unfold within you, and you will know who you are.586 ¶37

If there is any Christ other than he who is in us, who rose and continues to rise in the individual, he is false; for the true Christ is within you. The universal, cosmic Christ became humanity. He rose and continues to rise in individuals. One day he will rise within you to reveal you as God the Father. The relationship of Father/Son was established before that the world was - only we forgot. This is simply the return of the memory of God, all within the individual.586 ¶38

Now let us go into the silence.586 ¶39

I think you’re all aware that this is the most dramatic week in Christendom and yet I dare say that not an nth part of one percent of those who call themselves Christians really understand what it is all about. It’s the story of the fulfillment of God’s purpose. That’s the week, the triumphant march into Jerusalem, the crucifixion and then the resurrection. And it’s told as though it took place on earth. That’s how the story is told. For as Tennyson said, “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” So, man cannot think abstractly so it’s told in the form of a story. And man has mistaken the story for the reality.581 ¶1

Let us now look to see who the one is spoken of in scripture. They say his name is Jesus. You may not believe me but I’ll tell you who Jesus is. Say, “I Am,” that’s Jesus. Don’t say, I am man or John or Peter or anything, just I Am. That’s Jesus. That’s God. That’s the Lord God Jehovah. The crucifixion is already over. It was in the beginning of time, a deliberate act on the part of God – all over. The resurrection took place and is taking place and will continue until everyone is awake. So, you say, “I Am,” that’s Jesus.581 ¶2

Now, it begins with the march. Mark tells us that He took the twelve and then He walked ahead of them. The way Mark states it, it is as if he were one whom a dream had possessed and who went forward to fulfill all that the prophets had foretold. For he said, “I have come to fulfill scripture.” The only purpose. Now, not a man on the outside fulfilling scripture. This one, which is God, is buried in you when you say, “I am.” You may not be aware of it aside from dreaming the dream of life which is this. He also is dreaming the fulfillment of His purpose. And the day will come, you are going to reproduce within yourself all that is said in scripture concerning Jesus. Then you will know who Jesus is. It is said that he told them, “We’re going up to Jerusalem, and all that was written of the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished.” And the evangelist adds, “They understood none of these things.” This saying was hid from them and they did not grasp what was said.581 ¶3

Only the Risen Lord can interpret scripture. Only His finger could trace the ambiguous phrases of scripture and extract their heavenly meaning. It’s a pattern in scripture. That only when He rises in you as you, can you take the Old Testament and simply follow the pattern. You know what the pattern is because you’ve experienced it. And the whole thing unfolds and the whole thing is told you in the Old Testament. But it’s a pattern. It’s told you as though it’s history, ancient history. It’s divine history and that history, not page after page, but a pattern goes through the entire thing and then that pattern unfolds within you. And when it unfolds within you, you actually gain that certainty that, “I Am He.” There is no other way you’ll ever know it until it unfolds within you.581 ¶4

Now, God came and comes into human history. And now we’re going to give Him a name – in the person of Jesus, but the Jesus in you, in me, in every child born of woman. That’s the only Jesus in eternity. I Am that Jesus. Well, now He’s a father. When God is born within you, for that’s the beginning of it all, you first awaken within you and you do not know you are God. You only know that you have awakened from the most profound sleep ever and it seemed like eternity. You did not awake on the bed where you fell asleep the night before. You awoke in a tomb and the tomb is your skull. And you awake within your skull and you’re all alone with no one present. But you have a built-in innate knowledge what to do. And you do it and you come out of your skull as a child comes out of the womb of woman. But you’re coming out of your own skull and you pull yourself out of your own skull. And the imagery of scripture concerning the birth of God surrounds you, including the little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and three witnesses to the event. So, you’re told, “When they came, they saw the heavenly being but Him they did not see.” It’s the birth of God. God actually took upon Himself the limit of contraction, which is man. Now He is born, the birth being an expansion. There is no limit to expansion. God is forever expanding and then, at a moment of expansion, He then has a new venture of contraction. Then He expands beyond what He was. Then He contracts. Then He expands beyond what He was and that is God’s play. There is no limit to expansion. He puts a limit to contraction. The limit is man. So, when you break the tomb, you come out and you are God. Therefore, no one can see you. The heavenly hosts who were present to witness the event can’t see you, for you are spirit; you are God. But you see them and you see the babe and you see everything round about you just as described in Luke and Matthew. But you do not know that you are God.581 ¶5

That comes later, and you’ll not in eternity know you are God until God’s son calls you Father. And God’s son, the Christ of Scripture, is not Jesus. It’s David. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah in you when you say, “I Am.” That’s Jesus. That’s not David. Who then is Christ? The Son of God. David then comes and when David comes, there is no uncertainty as to who you are. For he calls you Father. And before he utters the word Father, you know you are his Father. And he knows he is your son. And this relationship is now what every heart is aching for. When this is established by an actual experience, the drama is over. Everything is over that you came to perform -- to find the son who, in turn, will reveal you as God the Father. For He is sound asleep in humanity and man doesn’t know that he is God. And when he is born from above, he still doesn’t know he is God. And not in eternity can he find out who he is until the son appears. So, we are told in Scripture, “No one knows who the son is except the Father and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom He chooses to reveal Him.” So, hey do it because “They know neither my Father nor Me. Had they known my Father, they would have known me also. But they know neither My Father nor Me.” So, you find, you’ve got to actually feel between the words. For He’s speaking one moment as Father and then speaking, in another moment as Son. It’s a mystery and how are you going to tell it unless you tell it in the form of a story that it may enter in at lowly doors. But man, hearing the story, learns to feel behind the story and feel what it’s trying to convey. But when you actually experience the story, then you know the mystery. It’s the mystery that everyone one day will unfold within himself and he’ll know that he is God.581 ¶6

So this is what confronts man this week as it’s dramatized but not told. For they do not know it. They do not know the story. Let me turn now to the 55 th Chapter of Isaiah. “I will make a covenant with you.” Now he’s speaking to all of us, “I will make a covenant with you,” and this is his covenant, “my steadfast, sure love for David – I have made him a witness to the peoples.” That is my witness to the peoples. Now what is he going to witness? The truth of God’s word. So God’s word is Scripture and the Scripture spoken of was the Old Testament, “and the word is truth,” I make him now a witness to the people and He has my steadfast and sure love forever. Now, “That is my covenant with you,” said the Lord to us.581 ¶7

We turn now to the trial, and here we find one called Jesus standing before Pilot, and he turns to Pilot and he said, “For this I was born. And for this I came into the world to bear witness to the truth,” Now He tells you He is not of this world, “unless you are born form above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” He’s not speaking of the birth from the womb of a woman in spite of all the priesthoods of the world. He is speaking of an entirely different birth, “born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” He said, “I am from above, you are from below.” Now, He’s not speaking to you, the being who is God. He is speaking to this body here. This is from below. This came out of the womb of my mother. But there is that in me which is “I Am” that no woman can bear. That must be born from above. It is now entombed in my skull, entombed in your skull. But the skull of which I speak is a divine skull containing all of us. That is the skull. And it is said in the 87 th Psalm, “And this one was born here and that one was born there.” All within the one grand skull and it’s called Zion – another name for Jerusalem. So, when Paul said, “The Jerusalem from above is our mother and she bears children into liberty.” The Jerusalem from below bears them into slavery. Well, my physical mother bearing her ten children that she raised, she wove garments of flesh. And these garments of flesh came from below, from her womb into slavery. For we’re all slaves of the bodies that we wear. But housed within that, from above, there is another Jerusalem and she is our mother who bears us into liberty, into freedom. You come out of your own skull, that divine skull. And you’re set free.581 ¶8

Well, then you come into this world to bear witness to what? To the truth. So, “I made him a witness to all the peoples.” Well, what is he going to witness now? The truth of Scripture, that God is a Father and that He did say to me, “I will tell of the decree of the lord,” said David in the 2 nd Psalm. “He said unto me, thou art my Son. Today I have begotten thee.” If Scripture cannot be broken, what other Son are you holding up now before me that I may see? You may see all the hallucinations in the world as artists have painted dozens and dozens of different portraits of one they call Jesus. And they said they saw him. Ask the artist, “When you saw him in your imagination and you painted on the canvass or you sculpted, did you know then you’re looking at the Son of God.” If they say, “yes,” well then you must know that you are God. Because no one can see the Son but the Father and no one knows the Son but the Father. Therefore, if you are looking at the Son of God and only God can see the Son, well then you must be God. What are they going to say to that? And Scripture cannot be broken. Read it in the 11 th Chapter of the Book of Matthew. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom He chooses to reveal Him.”581 ¶9

So, I know in my own case, raised in the Christian faith as I was, and I call myself a Christian from my own personal experience of this great mystery, but I did not know from my mother’s knee or in my school (because we had Bible reading and Bible study when I was a child, it was part of our schooling). We had to go to Sunday School. I was taught the Bible, raised with the Bible. And there it is but I didn’t see it and my teachers didn’t see it. My mother didn’t see it; my father didn’t see it, and no one that I ever met ever saw it, so I didn’t know it until it happened. It happened in me and then I could not then make it fit in with what they taught me. I had to go back and re-read Scripture and there the whole pattern was there all along but only the Risen Christ can interpret Scripture. Only when David rises within me and calls me Father.581 ¶10

Now, listen to the words, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying Father.” What time has fully come? When you have borne the great fardel, the great load, the burden the allotted span. Not before you’ve borne it the allotted span can He come. And when you get to the end of the road and you’ve borne that burden, then the spirit of His Son comes into you and here he rises in you. You resurrect your own son and that son is God’s Son; therefore, you are God. That’s when you gain the certainty that you are God. Yet, while you wear the little garment, you are still in a straight jacket. And all you can do while you wear it is to tell it. Try to clarify the atmosphere and scrape off the barnacles from the ship that gathers them over the centuries.581 ¶11

Far from belittling Jesus, I have placed Him where He actually is. He is God. He is not the Son of God. He is God. He is the Lord, a symbol of God, that you may say, but He wasn’t born of any woman. The only woman of whom He was born, “I Am.” That’s the Jerusalem from above. “I am Mary and birth to Christ must give if I in blessedness for now and ever more would live.” So each must bring forth the Son and it’s the same Son. Only one Son. And when you look at Him, no uncertainty; no one need tell you anything. There you are, looking at your Son as though memory has now returned and you have suffered from total amnesia up to this moment in time and suddenly, your memory returns and you know who you are. You’re God, the Father.581 ¶12

It’s going to happen to every child born of woman. Not one will be lost. Not one. I don’t care if you’re a moron today, if you’re brainless. That’s only a temporary experience in this world. That brain that you have really, the true brain, is not really addled at all. That’s only some distorted aspect of life for a little while. Maybe you’ll go through life, spending fifty, sixty years in some distorted brain, but it’s still not the brain of which I speak. Not that divine brain. If your child is not a balanced child, a demented child, I know it’s a hard thing to bring up and a hard thing to face in life, but that’s not your responsibility. That little thing there that you call your child that is demented, behind it all, behind that mask it is part of the burden that it bears, is the perfect being that is Jesus and that Jesus in there is, “I Am.” It was never tarnished. It was never soiled, no matter what it has done in the world, it was never soiled. And one day, it will awake. And when it awakes, it comes out of the tomb.581 ¶13

So Paul could say, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, not I. Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” And that Son is David. Listen to the words, “I have found in David, the Son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will.” Well, the word “Jesse” means “Jehovah exists.” That’s what the word means. So Jesse is the Father. Whose Father? David’s Father. And who is Jesse? Jehovah. And who is Jesus? Jehovah. He is the Lord. But no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And who is the Holy Spirit? The remembrancer. When the Son stands before you and memory returns and you are his Father and He is your Son, then only by this return of memory will you ever know. And so, no one can say that Jesus is Lord and Jesus is the Father. For in spirit, David called him, “my Lord.” Why did he call him, my Lord? Well, that’s a title of Father. So he called Jesus, My Lord. He is the I Am in you, the I Am in every being in this world.581 ¶14

So, we’ll go up to Jerusalem and all that was actually written about the son of man, which is the title that he used of self, will now be accomplished. So, I’m going up to Jerusalem, because everything is going to happen in the skull. That’s where Jerusalem is, the Jerusalem above. I’m going up to Jerusalem, not down. And all things said of the Son of man will now be accomplished. So, he goes up and the whole thing unfolds within the skull. That’s where you awake. That’s where you explode. When David comes out, it’s an explosion in your head as though you had put some dynamite to your head and the whole thing explodes. And when it all settles, here stands David before you. He was buried in you. And when he said to me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep,” who said that? The depths of my own soul, the Lord said that. “I laid myself down within you to sleep and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and I knew exactly what he was dreaming. He’s dreaming that He’s I.”581 ¶15

And when the dream is over, we aren’t two. We are one. No longer will he simply treat me as something on the outside, an emanation of His. No more the emanation, He cleaves to me and we become one being. So when a man leaves this world, his father, his mother, and cleaves to his wife, and this is the wife, the emanation of God. Yet, though His emanation, it’s his wife until the dream is over. When the sleep is over, we aren’t two. We’re one. And I know that when I awoke within me, I wondered, “How did I get here? Who put me here?” For this is a tomb. This s a sepulcher and only one who thought me dead could have put me here. For this is a tomb and only the dead are placed in tombs. So someone, I didn’t realize then, that it was a deliberate act on my own part.581 ¶16

So, you’re told in the 10 th Chapter of John, “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.” And yet, over the centuries, we have condemned a race of people for taking away the life of one who never, as an individual, walked the face of this earth. He is in man or you couldn’t even breathe. He’s not on the outside of man that someone can take his life. He is in man. He’s the breath of man, the spirit of man, the I Amness of man, man’s own wonderful human imagination. That is Jesus. That’s God. And so to blame a race of people for doing what no one ever did, listen to the Bible, the 10 th Chapter, “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again. For I am the resurrection and the life.”581 ¶17

So he entered death’s door, the human skull, and laid down in the grave of man and there he dreams the dream of life, and this is the dream of life. And one day, it comes to the end and he awakes. Where? In the tomb where he entered to find himself there. It was a long dream, thousands and thousands of years he has been dreaming this dream. You didn’t begin in your mother’s womb seventy years ago or whatever year you may be. That’s only a garment woven for you. You are eternal. You have no beginning and you have no end. Never was there a time when you were not. Nor shall there ever come a time when you shall cease to be. Beginnings and ends are all dreams. It seems so real, but they’re all dreams. But you have no beginning, no end. You are and that being is called in Scripture, God the Father.581 ¶18

But, may I tell you something, you will not actually feel, I am Jesus, I am Father. That’s not what you feel. You don’t feel Jesus. You don’t feel God. You don’t feel Jehovah. These are names given by man. But what you do feel is Father. So the great revelation of the New Testament is God is Father. That is the foundation of the entire thing. If you were not a father, then there is no child. So the relationship of father/son is fundamental to the Christian faith. Without the Son, there would not be a Father. And if there is a Father, there must be a Son. And it’s a search for the Son. And when the Son is found, the Father knows who He is. But not until the Son is resurrected.581 ¶19

So, in the Old Testament, in the 2 nd Psalm, the 16 th Psalm, and the 110 th Psalm, they are identified with resurrection. In the 16 th Psalm, David is speaking and is made to say, “Thou wouldst not leave my soul in Hell.” In confidence, he knows he would not be left in Hell, that he would be raised up. Because, “I will not take my steadfast, sure love from David.” That’s my covenant with the peoples. I have made him a witness to all the peoples. I will not take my love from him. So, he dies and is buried but I will raise him up. And when the Father raises up the Son then the smile is on his face because his Son has returned from the grave.581 ¶20

And David is the eternal Son of God, the resultant state of all the experiences that you, as a man, which is God as man, experience in this world. So God became as I am that I may be as He is. This is the story of scripture and it’s all in the Old Testament but not understood. There it is, a blueprint. It’s an adumbration. The New interprets the Old, not the other way around. And when it happens in you, well, what a joy. I can’t tell anyone the emotion that possesses you and then you really are like one possessed. You walk in the dream of what happened and you can’t think of anything but, really.581 ¶21

You may be diverted for a little while, a small party. A big one would bore you. A few friends, yes. A large crowd, no. It doesn’t interest you. A dinner party of a few chosen friends, yes. But to have an enormous crowd, no that’s nothing more than noise. Everyone is trying to, well, monopolize the entire picture. But a few chosen friends for a party, a delightful evening with words where you are discussing reality, wonderful. But after it happens to you, may I tell you, you can’t think of anything but. And your dreams are not dreams any more. Your nights are not what they were prior to that waking. You wake and it’s entirely different. And I can’t explain to anyone who wakes every day of their life after a night of good sleep, that that waking in the morning doesn’t compare to this. It’s something entirely different, as though you had never awakened before in your life. That’s what actually you feel like. Something entirely different. And you look at all these things round about you and here, a thousand years , two thousand years, three thousand years ago, it was written there and it was all about you and you didn’t know it.581 ¶22

So we’re going to go up now to Jerusalem, said he, “and all that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be fulfilled.” All will be accomplished. Then he began to explain to them Scripture and said, “Beginning with Moses and the Law and all the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself.” Now this coming Friday, if you do go to part of the service, you will hear the words on the cross. Every one is taken from the Old Testament. And you will know who you are in that sense. They are the words of David. For David is going to commit himself now to his Father. “Into thy hands, I commit my spirit.” This is now the 31s Psalm. “Thou hast redeemed me, Oh Lord, Faithful God,” yet that is the final cry on the cross when you read it in this little Book of Luke. “Into thy hands I commit my spirit.” And he commits it into the hands of the Father. He calls him now Father, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” And these are the identical words of David in the 31 st Psalm. Now here, the entire thing unfolds within man.581 ¶23

But, something was said to me just before I took the platform by a very dear friend of mine who is here tonight although he will admit to me and to everyone in the world, he is one hundred and one percent American but he cannot deny the fact that he has one hundred and one percent of the Irish background in him too. So, he gave me the definition of an Irishman. An Irishman is one who does not know what he wants and there will be no peace on earth until he finds it. Not exactly his words; he told it much better than that, but that’s the essence of it. He does not know what he wants and there will be no peace on earth until he finds it. Well, that’s the whole vast world. Ask, what do you want. He doesn’t really know what he wants because what everyone wants is to find the Father and you can’t find the Father without the Son. Basically, we’re trying to find the cause of the phenomenon of life. What makes things happen in my world?581 ¶24

He told me, “You know, years ago,” before he met me, “he had these sorts of daydreams of, well, talking to a crowd – maybe going on radio, maybe on T.V.” Here out of the blue, someone came into his restaurant in Ojai and offered him a series of lectures here, in New Mexico, possibly sending him into Arizona. She can arrange other things for him, and the whole thing is done. But he remembered these daydreams. Most of us don’t remember and when we are confronted with our own harvest, we deny it’s our harvest. So, I tell you there is no such thing as an accident in this world. No. There is no such thing as a natural cause. Every natural effect has a spiritual cause, that is, an imaginal cause and not a natural. A natural only seems. It is a delusion of our fading memory. We can’t remember when we set it in motion. He remembers that long before he met me in San Francisco, that this happened back East, this daydream of his. And now, suddenly out of the nowhere a seeming stranger comes into his world, listening to him in his restaurant , carried away with what he had to say and the way he said it and is moved to arrange this thing for him. He doesn’t have to lift a finger to do it. It all will be done for him.581 ¶25

So, I say, dream noble dreams, wonderful dreams. If they don’t come to pass tonight, tomorrow, or next week, you keep on dreaming them. But try to put yourself into the dream as though it’s taking place and try to live in it. Be possessed by the dream and see the whole thing unfold within you in this world of Caesar, always bearing in mind, the real dream. It must come to an end only when it’s fulfilled. And the story is the fulfillment when you awake. For resurrection is waking. It’s not gathering dead bones together and putting flesh on it. It’s simply awakening. You are sound asleep and you awaken like a man out of a deep, deep sleep to find yourself in a tomb. But you have the strength to break the bonds of that tomb and to come out of that tomb. And when they come to search for the body, they have taken away the body. They only knew you by reason of the body that you wore and that’s taken away and they can’t see you. “Him they could not see.” But he was fully aware of everyone round about him.581 ¶26

And, here, all the symbolism of Scripture is unfolding before him. And he is the central character in the entire drama. They’re talking about him. They aren’t talking about Jesus. They’re talking about you. You are individualized and you tend forever and forever toward ever greater individualization. They didn’t call me by any other name. They didn’t call me God. Didn’t call me Lord, didn’t call me Jesus. They spoke of me as Neville. It’s Neville’s baby. I was aware of being “I.” No loss of identify whatsoever. But then when David comes, here is Neville. In this century I was born, the year 1905. Here we have a recorded, so-called history, of one born 1000 years B.C. and he stands before me and I know I’m his father. And here we have words put into his mouth that the Lord said to him, ‘You are my son.’ And I know that I am his Father and only then did I gain the certainty as to whom I am. So, you will not lose your identity, yet you are God the Father.581 ¶27

It is Father that is being revealed, the sweetest name there is in Scripture. He is a loving Father, may I tell you, in spite of all the pain you’ve gone through and all the horrors of the world. For this is a nightmare. Can’t confine it only to the night; it’s a daymare too with most people. So, I tell you, at the end – it’s not a reward – it’s simply victory. You have plotted and planned the whole thing before you entered the tomb. You prepared a way for your own return to whom? To yourself. I came out from the Father and I came into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and I’m returning to the father. And that’s the story of this week.581 ¶28

So as far as Friday goes, Good Friday, save your tears. The crucifixion is over. And it was a voluntary act on your part, which is God’s part. You laid yourself down in a tomb for the purpose of dreaming the dream of life. And in that dream, you suffered. You knew you would. As you’re told in the 24 th Chapter of the Book of Luke, again you’re told it in the 18 th , for that matter. But the 24 th ,“Oh foolish men and slow of heart to understand all that the prophets have written and said about the Christ. Was it not necessary that Christ suffer these things and then enter into his glory.” It’s part of the training. These are the furnaces. “I tried you in the furnaces of affliction.” Why? For my own sake. “For my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another.” And my name is Father. That’s my name. That’s my name. That’s the name truly that is God’s name in the world. And so the word “God” which makes the mind jump on the outside is not truly the name. You take the word “Eloheim” and we translate it “God.” Take the word, “Jod He Vau He” and translate that “Lord.” But the name that is revealed is Father. That’s who this being is. This creative being is Father.581 ¶29

And everyone is in search of the Father. And one day, He’s going to find the only one who can reveal Him as Father. And when He finds Him, He finds His own Son David. Now that will come as an awful shock to the majority of people in the world. And I would not take back one little iota. It’s true. I’m not speculating. I’m telling you exactly what I have experienced. It’s not theory with me. This is all that I know from my own personal experience. It was always there in that Book called the Bible but I had not experienced it so I couldn’t see it. “You have eyes and you see not. And you have ears and you hear not.” Because they’re not yet bored. And it takes the furnaces to bore these eyes for you and to bore the mouth for you, to bore the ears for you that you may experience Scripture and then the whole thing unfolds within you. It’s all about you because it’s all about God and you are God asleep. And the day is coming and may it not be too long when He will awake in you as you. And then you will find your Son that Scripture claims to be God’s Son. And because Scripture claims it is God’s Son and you know it’s your Son, then you must be God. That’s the story of the Bible. Now let us go into the silence.581 ¶30

Tonight’s title is: the “Family Portrait.” Thirty-odd years ago a play appeared on Broadway called the “Family Portrait (*1939).” It was a study of Jesus, and starred Margaret Webster and Judith Anderson. They played the parts of Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother. The central figure . . Jesus . . never appeared on the stage, just as it should be. The brothers appeared, bringing the news of what he had said and the reactions of the crowd, and the concern of the two Marys.578 ¶1

This went through the entire play for its two and a half or three hours. I do not know if it ever came on the road . . if you ever saw it, but it was a perfectly wonderful presentation of this greatest of all mysteries, and in keeping with the story, He never appeared, because Jesus Christ is not what the world thinks he is. Jesus Christ is the Pattern Man. It’s a pattern buried in every child born of woman. There is no description of Jesus in the Bible, because everyone, one day, will experience the story of Jesus in a first-person, singular, present-tense experience, and he will know that he is the Lord Jesus Christ.578 ¶2

So, you cannot pinpoint it and take one face and say, “That is Jesus,” because that would not be Jesus. Everyone, wearing the same face that he has now, will realize, “I AM He.” Then, before others know it, they will witness to the one who knows it. When you are “born from above” and have experienced the entire story, and you tell it, there will be those who believe you and those who will not believe you. Those who will believe you will see you cast in the role . . not in this world . . no, not here, but they will see it in the world where it really does take place. For, in the depths of consciousness the Gospel is still extant. It is an eternal story, the story of Redemption, and everyone is going to experience it.578 ¶3

So, in the story, the Mother would ask, “What is he doing now?” and they would come back and say what he is doing and what he is saying now. They bring back the story of what he is saying. “And how are the people reacting?” “Well, they are very excited. The people are speaking in terms of revolution. The people are thinking in terms of all kinds of violence, over what he is saying.” And then the two Marys are frightfully concerned, because spiritual growth is the gradual transition from a god of tradition to a God of experience. They had a god of tradition, and he is now turning the whole thing over, and showing a God of experience. “Well, what did he say to the crowd?” “He told them that he came out from Heaven and came into the world, and he’s leaving the world and returning to Heaven.” “What else did he say?” said Mary. “Then he told them that God was his Father. He also told them that he and his Father were one. He also told them that his brothers were those who did the will of Him who sent him, and that his Father sent him, and his Father is himself, and the Father never left him.” “Did he say that?” said Mary. “Yes, that is what he’s teaching. The people are going wild. And he’s telling them that we are all brothers, and that he is ascending to his Father and my Father, and he is ascending unto his God and my God. And the people are all for him, but the authorities are against him, but he does speak with authority. He speaks not like the Scribes and the Pharisees; he speaks just like anyone who is speaking with authority.” He is knowing, and he knows what he is talking about, for he has experienced it.578 ¶4

Now, when I tell you that I have experienced in detail the entire story, I must say to everyone who hears me: Believe it or not. Those who believe it will see me cast in the role . . not here, and those who know me very well here know my weaknesses, know my limitations, they say of me just what is said in Scripture, “Why, I have seen him under the influence of wine; he’s a wine bibber and a glutton. He’s a friend of sinners, harlots, tax collectors.” And they will think that is superior insight, and yet it is pure blindness to read into the life of God’s elect some littleness with which one is in some peculiar way familiar. The intimates know you well, and they knew you occasionally take one too many, that you indulge sometimes as a glutton, and that you do have friends that are questionable. They are harlots. They are, possibly, thieves, and yet you will tell them how to use God’s Law to free themselves from the clutches of law. They have broken the law of Caesar, and you will come to their assistance and tell them how to pray, as your Father taught you how to pray, and it will not fail them. They will free themselves from what Caesar would impose upon them if he caught them. And, so, you are a friend of sinners, a friend of the harlot. Those who know your friendships and know your physical weaknesses . . you’ll hear them say, “Well, now, I know him,” and they will read into the life of one they know well the littleness with which they chance to be familiar, and think that is superior insight. That’s the story.578 ¶5

But, here, in my own case . . New York, here, and in Los Angeles, but because I am in Los Angeles more often than I am any other place, I find more witnesses there. So, “What else did he say?” “Well, he said to them that all that is written in the Scripture about me, even through the Prophets and the Law of Moses, and in the Psalms, must be fulfilled. And then he told them, ‘You are my witnesses.’”578 ¶6

Now, here is the story of a lady at the turn of this year, the first week of January. She said, “I found myself, seemingly awake, yet reason tells me it was a vision. At the moment that I experienced it, I seemed so much to be awake. I found myself in an ancient Roman seaport in Biblical times. It was almost midnight . . a very, very hot summer’s night. There was an enormous crowd in their tunics bearing these lights. They all had these tapers, moving towards an enormous temple, but I was moving in the opposite direction. I was struggling and fighting through this enormous crowd trying to reach the beach, where I knew I had an appointment with someone on the beach.578 ¶7

“I am fighting and struggling, and when I got clear of this enormous crowd, all moving in the opposite direction, I found . . and felt . . myself on the beach. I could feel the sand. And here a group of fishermen, darkly clad, and they were all discussing. In the distance farther on were three fishermen and a man dressed in white, and they were urging him to get into the boat and rest. Then he stepped into the boat and sat down and placed his head in his hands, and he seemed so weary, so very tired. And they began to push the boat into the water, and I tried to scream out to wait . . ‘wait but one minute for me’, but I was so tired that I couldn’t get even a squeak out of my voice, and I thought, “I have utterly failed!”578 ¶8

“Then the man clad in white said something to the three fishermen, and then he got out of the boat, and then he looked up to the starry heaven, and then he turned and faced the east, and as he faced the east, Neville, it was you! There you were. You were the man with whom I had the appointment! Then you turned to the fishermen and you said, “No, I will wait until the dawn, for there are others to come.”578 ¶9

“Then the relief that I felt that I had not been too late was so overpowering that I woke.”578 ¶10

Well, that’s Scripture. We read that in the book of Mark. I tell you honestly that you are going to have that experience. Others will believe you and see you in the role, and everything said in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ, you are going to experience. And when you tell it, as you will, those who believe you when you tell it will see you in the role, and those who do not believe it will not see you in the role. They will continue their journey, believing in an external Jesus Christ. They will see Him as someone other. She saw Him, naturally, as someone other, but she also heard me tell her she, too, would have the experience of not only seeing her in that same role and they too would be coming through that crowd moving in the opposite direction . . they are moving towards some man-made temple, made with human hands, and she’s moving toward a temple not made with hands. And the temple is the Risen Lord. One day you are going to have this experience. So, all the things said of Him, you will . . one day . . know it is said of you, and you will experience it. . .578 ¶11

So then, John, who was the witness, said, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life, we proclaim also to you… and we write this that your Joy may be complete.” He’s telling you, “I witnessed the truth of what He said.” So, His face did not appear upon the stage, because no one person can claim, “I AM He, and I alone.” The “I AM” in everyone is the He who will have all the experiences as stated in the Gospel, and it begins with the Resurrection.578 ¶12

It begins with this rising within you, in the sepulcher of your own skull. And, then, out you come from that sepulcher, “born from above” . . born just as told in Scripture, with witnesses to bear witness to this fantastic supernatural birth. That’s your birth. And then, you go through the entire story, but not only the four major events as I have recalled them for you, but all the things said of Him will be said of you and witnessed concerning you by those who believe you when you tell the story. So, we are told the one who first heard it and first recorded it . . his name was Paul. And Paul’s day ended in his own home teaching from morning to night, trying to persuade others concerning the story of Jesus Christ, using only the Bible to support his arguments, and some believed, and others disbelieved. And that is the story.578 ¶13

Today I had a very dear friend of mine to lunch. She was born in the Mormon faith, but married outside of the faith, and her parents, to save her soul . . they are very good Mormons . . had her married by proxy to a Mormon who has been deceased, because without a Mormon marriage, she could not go to heaven. So, they have a heaven where there is marriage, and you have a mate. So, she’s now mated to someone that she doesn’t know and doesn’t care for. But she has her own mate, who sired her child. She’s mad about her son . . they are mad about their son, and here she is now, by the Mormon tradition, married to another by proxy, to save her soul!578 ¶14

She gave up that faith and joined the Christian Science faith, and became a very good practitioner. She still is a practitioner. But she said to me today, “Neville, you know, you frighten me. You have taken from me my traditional Jesus. You speak of the human imagination as the Lord Jesus Christ. Can’t you say Divine Imagination?”578 ¶15

“Well, I speak of my own wonderful human imagination, and it is to me divine, yes. If that is going to satisfy you, I will call it divine. But, do I not say that the human imagination is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, that should aid you to believe I mean divine, for that’s the Immortal Self, which I call ‘human imagination’, that I may make it easier for the whole vast world to feel the reality of the Jesus Christ who is buried within him, for Scripture teaches that ‘Jesus Christ is in you’ , and challenges man to prove it or disprove it.” “Do you not realize,” asks Paul, “that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course,” said he, “you fail to meet the test.” Well, if he is in me . . or if I have an external Christ, where is he? I tell you that He is your very Being. That’s why you can’t see Him. You don’t see Him as you see objects. You are the Reality that is named Imagination. You don’t see imagination. You see the fruit of an active imagination. You see it in action, and you see the fruit of that activity, but the reality . . you are the Reality named that Imagination. “If I say, ‘Jesus Christ,’ because of the traditional concept, you think of a man, and think of him as something external to yourself, and you get on your knees and you pray to a false god. There is no external god to you. God literally became you, that you may become God! And the God that became you is your own wonderful human imagination, and that is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, so, if that does not offend you, then take that, My Dear.”578 ¶16

Well, she was filled to overflowing with questions. She said, “At lunch I was only going to ask you two questions.” Well, the two became two hundred. It was perfectly all right . . just one after the other. It is perfectly all right, for I love her dearly. She was so hungry for all the answers concerning what I am saying here that are in conflict with her traditional concept, which she gave up and then accepted the Christian Science faith, which now she practices as a practitioner. And she loves it; it gives her a great comfort.578 ¶17

I said to her, “You know, it is a positive way of thinking, and it’s a wonderful way to go through life. You help unnumbered people who will turn to you, but may I tell you, it is neither science nor religion. It is certainly not scientific, and certainly it is not religion. Religion is devotion. Religion is a tie to the most exalted Reality that one has experienced. So, what have you experienced to which you can tie yourself and say that that’s religion? The only true religion . . you will find it in the Gospel. That is the fulfillment of God’s promises to man. The Gospel is His plan of Redemption. When you have experienced the Gospel, then you have religion.578 ¶18

Now, hold onto it just like a tail. You’ve held onto it so far. And, as the poet said: “Truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors.” “You hear it, as I heard it as a child. My Mother taught me the story. I went to school, and they repeated the story, and it became the story that I accepted as my faith until it happened in me. Then I had to reinterpret Scripture in the light of my own experience of Scripture, and then I go out to tell my own experience. And that is the story of the Gospel. “And, so, it happens, and will happen, to every being in this world. There isn’t a man born into this world who will not, one day, experience it.”578 ¶19

Well, then, she said to me, “But suppose I die now and I don’t experience it?” You don’t die. You really don’t die! I will experience it if you go now and I don’t go with you. I will experience your death, but you will not experience your death, because you won’t even know you’re dead. You are dead only to me, but not to yourself, because you are very much alive in a world just like this . . just as real as this with the problems that now confront you. You may find yourself in an entirely different role as far as environment goes. But, may I tell you . . you are not going to find yourself married to that one who is now your husband by proxy. You are not going to find yourself there at all. The average marriage in this world, if it had to be perpetuated forever . . wouldn’t you be living in hell forever? Why do you think we have divorce courts and are making it easier and easier every day of the world all over the world, because without that to help man here, it would be hell . . really hell. By man, I mean generic man. It’s just as bad for woman as for man. So, you desire to live and you want to be perpetually tied to someone you don’t even know, and yet know you are tied to one that you’ve been tied to for years and years” . . she’s a lady my senior by quite a few years, and here she has been happy, but it wouldn’t be that one by their concept; it would be a proxy she had never met before.578 ¶20

But she will not meet him. She will find herself in this world, and she may not find herself in the environment where she makes the contact with her present husband. She may be married again to another, because in the world into which we go we marry, as told us in Scripture. If you want to find the passage, read the 20th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Those who do not marry are only those who are resurrected, because the resurrected are above the organization of sex and they marry no more. Why? Because they cannot die any more. “They are now sons of God, being sons of the Resurrection.” And they do not create under a divided image.578 ¶21

So, anyone who is resurrected here, at that moment in time when he departs this section, others see him go and call him dead. He is not dead; neither will he be restored to life in a world like this. He will be in the New Age, and that age is entirely different. He will be clothed with the Divine Body. That Body is Heaven itself, for wherever he is, clothed, as he will be then, is Heaven, for nothing can remain imperfect in his presence. He passes by, and everything that is imperfect as he walks by becomes perfect . . it can’t remain imperfect. He is Perfection, and everything in his world must be perfect without raising a finger. He doesn’t raise a finger to make it so. No . . he walks by, and the blind see, and the lame jump. Arms that are missing come back into their sockets. Everything is made perfect, because he is perfect. That is Heaven, for heaven means harmony, and wherever he goes, he turns hell into harmony . . hell into Heaven.578 ¶22

But those who are not resurrected are restored to life, and everyone is restored into lovely bodies . . nothing imperfect. If you are blind here, you are not going to continue blind. You will see perfectly. If your limbs are missing, they will not be missing there. You will be young, not a child . . young . . about twenty, and perfect, but to continue the aging process. All the problems that confront you here, they are going to confront you there. . . “For he, who began the good work in you will bring it to completion at the unveiling in you of the Lord Jesus Christ,” as you. So, He unveils you as the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is your own wonderful human imagination, and the body that you will wear will be that Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the picture.578 ¶23

So, here, the family portrait is the Gospel. It is eternally true, and now, at this moment and forever it is extant in the depths of your own soul. And one day it will unfold in you, and everything said of Him in the Gospel, you are going to experience . . not as a spectator seeing it of another, but as yourself. And when you experience it, you will tell others, and they will see you in that role. They will see you and then one day, because they saw you and you’ve told them, they themselves will experience all that you’ve experienced, as told you in the 14th chapter of John: “All that I have done, you will do, and ever greater things than these you shall do,” because “I AM going to send the Holy Spirit, and He will bring to your remembrance all that I have told you.” “He will bring to your remembrance” . . the whole thing unfolds within you. And then, you will tell others, and they will see you in the role, with all its side issues. Then they themselves become witnesses to the Truth, and in them the whole thing unfolds.578 ¶24

And eventually, everyone is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, in the end, there is nothing but God! But while we are here, we can use the Law that was given us. It’s a simple law, and it will not fail you. But you must believe in Him. And you cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing in someone other than your own wonderful human imagination . . not the real Lord Jesus Christ. If you want results, believe in the true Jesus, and the true Jesus is your imagination. And all things are possible to the human imagination, therefore, all things are possible to Jesus Christ. So, imagine yourself (and you name it). Believe in the reality of what you imagine. Persist in that assumption, and that assumption, though at the moment that you made it, it is denied by your senses, if you persist in it, it will become a fact. It will actually harden into some objective state.578 ¶25

Now, you test Him and see if this is not true concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, if it works that way, why then, who did it? Well, you can’t deny you did it. Well then, “If all things are made by Him, and without Him not anything is made that is made,” and you know honestly that you did it, aren’t you Jesus Christ? If I now assume that I am elsewhere, and reason denies that I am, my senses deny it, my pocketbook denies that I could even make the trip; if all of a sudden things change and compel me to make the trip, and what I did in imagination I am then compelled to do in the flesh, and I find myself actually there in the not-distant future . . I didn’t devise the means, I didn’t build the bridge of incidents; I went across that bridge and I came to the point where I actually was in imagination prior to the physical trip . . well, then, who did it? Well, all things are done by Him and I remember what I did, and so memory doesn’t tell me, I remember exactly what I did, and then here I now do it physically, well, haven’t I found Jesus Christ?578 ¶26

So, when you read in Scripture, “I have found him” . . found what? “I have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets wrote,” Jesus, the Messiah. Well, then, where is he now? Well, “Come and see.” And then they went up unto the place, “and it was the tenth hour,” and so they remained with him.578 ¶27

Now, the modern translation of the Bible tells us it was 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. What nonsense! It hasn’t a thing to do with any 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. I know the day, in the Hebraic language, starts at 6.00 a.m., and it goes through, but, it isn’t 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. The Prophet meant exactly what he said when he said, “It was the tenth hour.” Well, in the language of the Bible these hours are significant, and “ten” does not mean four in the afternoon. “Ten” is the letter “Yodh,” and the letter “Yodh” has the symbol of the hand. It’s the creative hand, and the symbol is a seed; it’s the creative seed.578 ¶28

They speak of him as a carpenter. What is a carpenter? You and I think of a man with a hammer and nails, and he builds a house, or he builds a chair; he’s a carpenter. Not in Scripture! A carpenter means “one who produces from seed,” just as a mother, as a plant, as the earth, to be born, to be delivered, to bring forth, bringing forth from seed. Well, ten means seed, so, he was at the creative point, and they remained to learn the story of creation.578 ¶29

So, they came to him, and because it was the tenth hour, they remained, and did not depart. And they say it’s 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon! It hasn’t a thing to do with any 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon! This comes to the point where now they are going to discuss the creativity of God. It is ten: the hour is ten. And here is the seed, and this is how it works. What’s the seed? Tell me what you want. That’s a seed. Well, how do I plant it? How do you plant it? What would it be like . . what would the feeling be like if it were true that you had it? That’s how you plant it. Then I become a carpenter, and I build from scratch. I actually build from the seed, the seed being my desire, my hope, my longing. I assume that I AM what at that moment of assumption my reason and my senses deny. But I dare to assume it! Well, that’s the carpenter.578 ¶30

So, they went to the carpenter’s house, and it was the tenth hour, and he shows them the secret of bringing things out as you would out of the earth, out of the woman, out of the plant. Well, there must be a seed there. The seed is your want, your desire. And, so, in the modern version they have it translated into what is called the modern English and call it 4:00 p.m. or 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. You will miss the entire mystery of Scripture if you start doing that with the words of Scripture. These meanings are unique, and they are forever. And you can’t change them.578 ¶31

Here is one told in the book of John. They say John did not tell of the birth. They say that only Matthew told it, and then Luke told it, so Matthew and Luke tell us of the birth of God, with the symbol of a child signifying that God was born. But, where is it in the other Gospels? Well, here it is in the end of John. They came to the tomb, and they found not the body of the Lord, for he was risen. The Lord was risen, but they found the linen clothes, and then they found the napkin, lying not with the linen clothes, but lying apart from the linen clothes. When you read that and start to translate it into modern English, they don’t know what they are talking about. The “linen clothes” symbolize the physical body, out of which he departed. You will see it when you come out.578 ¶32

But, now, what is the napkin? The napkin in ancient times had very many more meanings than today. We speak of a dinner napkin, a cocktail napkin, a sanitary napkin, but in the ancient world, the napkin meant the placenta . . the afterbirth. If I see the symbol of the afterbirth, then a birth took place! What took place? I see the evidence of a birth; I see the napkin. What was born here? God was born! Where was He born? Out of that thing that you call now “linen clothes.” That wrapped Him. Well, where was the napkin? Well, the napkin was not around the loins of a woman, the napkin was around his face; that’s where He was born. He came out of his skull; He came out of his head. He didn’t come out of the loins of a woman, out of the womb of a woman. So, here we find the napkin, the placenta, the afterbirth, signifying that something great was born here this day, and because it was a napkin, and the napkin covered his face, it was out of the skull that that birth took place. If you try to change that into modern English, you are going to ruin it. This whole story is everlastingly true, and it’s all about you!578 ¶33

He said to them, “Everything that is written about me in the Law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, must be fulfilled,” and, “You are my witnesses.” Then he said, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and all that is written about the Son of Man will be accomplished,” “… but they did not understand this.” It was beyond their grasp. He’s going up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is above . . the skull. “I” am going up now, and all that is said about me, in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, will be accomplished . . but in time. He explained to them the mystery of Scripture.578 ¶34

So, here, I tell you: Jesus Christ is the Pattern Man. Don’t expect to see him on the outside. He is the pattern . . a pattern that is buried in every man, and that pattern contains the plan of redemption. So, when the pattern begins to erupt in you, like a seed erupting in the earth, then the whole thing is beginning to unfold, and everything said there you are going to experience. So, Paul warns the people to whom he writes, especially his friend Timothy, and he said: “Follow the pattern of the true words that you have heard from me. Guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.”578 ¶35

You guard this truth, which you have heard. It’s all within you, and if you are tempted to turn on the outside to some external god, remember these words and go back and turn to the Only True God, and the Only True God is your own wonderful human imagination. That is the Immortal You that cannot die! That survives every blow in the world. That survives the grave. It survives everything; it cannot die. If you died tonight at the age of one hundred and you were completely gone physically and demented, you will not be demented after the departure of the Immortal You. It will restore Itself in a new body, a young body, with no loss of faculty, no loss of anything, but still continuing the journey that is necessary until you reach that point in Jerusalem where the thing erupts within you, and then you are “born from above.”578 ¶36

So, “What is he doing now?” asked the mother. And, then, James, the brother, answered, and then Simon answered, and Peter answered. And they all brought back these many reports. But He is never seen, for He is the Invisible You. Can you see your imagination? You can see the fruit of its efforts, but you can’t see Imagination. Look around you. Everything here was once only imagined. So, you see the results of an imaginal activity, but you don’t see imagination. He is the Invisible God. So, He comes to us as one unknown, one that is invisible, yet one who, in some mysterious manner, lets man experience Who-He-Is. So, when you experience who He is, it’s your Self, and there is no other.578 ¶37

As we are told, “Unless you believe that I AM He, you die in your sins,” unless you believe that I AM is He, you die in your sins. He also said, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” and then they stoned him with the “facts of life.” “You are not yet fifty, and you are before Abraham?” No, this script has no punctuation in the original script. Read it with punctuation; put the punctuation differently: “Before Abraham was,” he put it, “I AM.” Put it now: “Before Abraham” . . “Before Abraham, (comma) was I AM.” Nothing precedes Him. Nothing precedes “I AM,” for that is the name of God forever and forever and forever. Nothing came before it, because He has no precedent. He is without father, without mother . . no father or mother; He is the Origin of all. He has not originated from something other than Himself. He is the Origin of all.578 ¶38

So, “Before Abraham, (comma) was I AM.” Now, we can make it more sensible: “Before Abraham, was I AM.” All right, that’s perfectly all right, but this changes it somewhat. “Unless you believe that I AM is He, you die in your sins.” That is, you remain to miss the mark. Well, if you believe that I AM is your own wonderful human imagination, then you can’t miss the mark, because, “All things are possible to Him,” and you simply imagine the state desired, persist in that imaginal state, and it will come to pass.578 ¶39

So, the story, as told us in the Scripture, is everlastingly true. No one can change it. Do not add to the words of this Book; do not take from it or add to it. Yet man goes on forever and forever changing it, adding to it, trying to make sense out of it. It does make sense, if you have had the experience. I have had the experience, and I would not try to alter one word. I have tried to put it back into its original frame when I find translations that are not true. You find insertions in it. You find interpolations that should not be there. But some try, overly zealous, to put his own beliefs into it . . what he thinks the scribe ought to have said.578 ¶40

The “Family Portrait” is your portrait. It is all about you, as told you in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book, it is all about me.” “I did not refrain my lips; I told the great congregation. I told them all that it was all about me.” And now, you write it, and, may I tell you, you can’t restrain the impulse to tell it either. When it happens to you, you cannot restrain it. You become like Jeremiah, and then you say, “I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name. There is in my heart as it were a burning fire set up in my bones. And I am weary with holding it in, and cannot.” You can’t hold it in. You will simply spill over, and you will tell it.578 ¶41

No matter where you are . . you can be standing at a bar . . the occasion will arise for you to tell it. You will tell it while you are drinking at a bar. You can’t keep it in. It’s like a “burning fire,” and you will tell it, and you do not care where you are. You go to church to tell it? That’s no more holy than standing at a bar! If anyone tells you that is a more holy place, forget it. Wherever you are is holy. And when you are born from within and “born from above,” where on earth could you go that is holier than where you are? You don’t have to go into a church to feel more holy, or into some temple. Wherever you are is holy ground.578 ¶42

So, the great story . . this “Family Portrait” . . was right in its place, because the One of Whom they spoke was not seen. They only heard the story about Him. “And what is he saying now? What is he doing now?” and they brought the report of what he was saying, and the mother wrung her hands. She was concerned that it was told in that manner, because it must be told in a way that it can “enter in at lowly doors.” So, you tell it in the form of a story, but eventually you’ve got to find out the truth of that story, and take off the covers. Are we not told in Scriptures “Abraham had two sons; one by a slave and one by a free woman.” “Now,” said Paul, “this is an allegory.” An allegory is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its particular character and learn its meaning.578 ¶43

For, if it is an allegory, and Abraham begins the genealogy in the story of Matthew . . well, then, if the origin is an allegory, what is the end? The end of the entire genealogy is Jesus. You start with Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and all the way down, culminating in Jesus. Now, Paul, the earliest of all the writers of the New Testament, tells us that the story of Abraham and Sarah is an allegory. Well, if that is an allegory, then all the way down it has to be.578 ¶44

Therefore, find out what the story is all about. For, an allegory is simply a great truth concealed, therefore discover the fictitious character of the story and learn its meaning. Whatever it is, an allegory . . to begin with, all ends run true to origins: if the origin is an allegory, the end is. So, find out what it is trying to tell you. Well, it’s trying to tell us our own story. And the whole drama unfolds within us, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ!578 ¶45

Every little child born of woman . . his true identity is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is taught, in the beginning, to turn on the outside for his own true identity, and he worships a shadow, because he has to turn within to find it, and it can’t even be near, for nearness would imply separation. It isn’t even near. It’s his very Being! Now, what is so near that it isn’t even near to man? Where could you go that you are not in Imagination? Where on earth could any man go that he is not in Imagination?578 ¶46

I have seen this body apart from myself, but no matter where I go, I cannot get away from my imagination. I have stepped out of this body and seen it on a chair; I have seen it on the bed in a state of catalepsy, and seen it as something distinct from myself. But I can’t go any place where I am distinct from Being; wherever I AM . . well, that’s where I am; that’s my Reality, and that is my imagination. I can’t even claim my imagination. I AM the Reality named imagination. And, so, I can’t go any place and get away from that Reality. Well, I can get away from this, and if I can get away from this, this isn’t my Reality. Anything from which I can move and see it as other than myself cannot be that basic Being that I AM.578 ¶47

A man can be poor today and rich tomorrow, therefore he’s neither poor nor rich. These are attributes that he can apply a law toward being: identify himself with wealth, and become wealthy. But tomorrow, by a change in attitude, he can become poor. Therefore, wealth wasn’t his Reality. It wasn’t a true Being; it was only an attribute. Therefore, poverty is not true, because he can get away from poverty, but he can’t get away from his true Being, which is I AM.578 ¶48

He can’t get away from imagining. No matter where you go in the world, “I” am there, therefore you can say, “I AM with you always, even to the very ends of time.” You can’t get away from it. I can be a great anything: banker, artist . . anything, but I can get away from it. Therefore, that is not my Reality. But I can’t get away from this Reality that is named Imagination.578 ¶49

Now, I tell you from my own experience that the eternal story . . that “Family Portrait” . . as given to us in the Gospel, is eternally true and still extant in the very depths of consciousness, and that is the Being that You really are. That’s your story. That is your real, true autobiography. And you come into this world of death to overcome death, and the overcoming of death is the reenactment within you of the story as told in the Gospel concerning your true identity, who is Jesus Christ. Now, let’s enter the Silence.578 ¶50

I have told you everything that I have heard from the Father and I have held nothing back. From the time the Father revealed himself to me, I have shared that revelation with you. Whether it be on this level of Caesar—how to achieve objectives—or on the true level where we’re all seeking the Father . For finding the Father…little else is worth finding and it is in us as persons where we find the Father. Wednesday night as I retired, it was quite early, between 9:30 and 10, I was communing with myself; and I said that I’m closing on Friday, is there any better way to explain this principle to those who are coming, any more simple way than I have told you? Naturally, I assumed that there was in some strange way a simpler way…and let it be revealed if there is a simpler way. When I woke in the morning around 5:00 I woke with this experience.577 ¶1

I found myself in a space ship on the way to the moon. I was not alone, maybe a dozen of us, and here I am coming straight to the moon at this enormous speed, yet in control of the space ship. I came as close as I could touch it, and then the ship turned and entered the moon, this dead body, into what appeared to be a tunnel. Then I said to someone, “Well, do I get out?” and he answered, “Yes, you get out.” So I got out, and here is this, the end of the voyage, the moon…that everyone on earth is “reaching for the moon.” You have a big business venture: I’m reaching for the moon. It seems to me beyond my ability to attain it, but I’m reaching for the moon. Everyone has said that, long before man contemplated putting his foot upon the moon. It has been simply a goal…reaching for the moon. And so, I arrived at the moon. When I got out, here it’s like a sideshow of a carnival. All the trinkets, the most horrible artifacts, little cups, little vases, little lids, made not by artists. You would simply distort the name of the artist if you thought an artist did it…the most horrible little things, all being sold to the tourists. That was the end of the journey. That everything that man has as an ambition is like these little things you buy at a carnival and it all turns into dust. They were made of clay…everything was made of clay. Here was the old money register banging out and taking money, selling these little things meaning nothing… and that is the world. All their ambitions turn to dust and even when they achieve them all turn to dust.577 ¶2

This was early Thursday morning when I woke at five. But it taught me a tremendous lesson to share with you. I did go there, I reached it. I’ll tell you how I got there and tell you that no matter what ambition, you realize it is as nothing. The only thing is to find the Father, for the Father is the source, the cause of all the phenomena of life. He’s not found on the moon; he’s found in you. You will find the Father in a first-person, present-tense experience, in only one way. There’s no other way you’ll find him . And that way I’ve shared with you. But there was a lesson in this, for everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. The moon has…the reach of man is the moon, at least today. And so here was the reach. How to tell them that no matter what ambition they have, symbolized as the moon, they can reach it.577 ¶3

So then, how did you reach it? Well, I was on my bed when I communed with myself and that bed is on earth so we are on earth. You could be on a bed, you could be seated in a chair, you could be any place, but you are on earth, and you’re reaching for some tremendous ambition to be realized here on earth. Well, it’s like sitting on a bank and the current from a bank may not be discernible, but give yourself to it, yield to it completely, and you will see that it is in motion and it will bear you to your objective. Many a time you have sat on the bank of a river and you didn’t see the current…you couldn’t see it, but you did notice some little object moving on it in a certain direction. So seated on a bench or on a chair or lying as I did in bed, and you’re asking for something to give them and to feed them to make it easier. Then it was shown that you simply completely abandon yourself to your wish as though it were true.577 ¶4

So my wish was the highest ambition of man, every man, for I can’t tell what you individually want. Some want marriage, some want money, some want recognition, some what health. But I don’t know you individually to the point of knowing what you in your heart of hearts really want, because many of us will conceal the true ambition and state. “Well, I would like so-and-so for so-and-so, meaning, that so-and-so is myself.” So we come with all kinds of veils hiding our true desires. But it was shown me: yield completely. I had to completely yield to this state. And here you are moving at a velocity beyond the wildest dream and yet you feel quite safe. On the bed in this city I am moving in a space craft. So here, you can move…move, but you steer it. My goal was the moon, but when I got there they were all trinkets. So everyone who bought anything only bought dust. Horrible little cups, little saucers, little vases, little this, and here the old money register working overtime and it was worn out. Then how do you return?—by simply awakening. I awoke to find myself…I could hardly believe that I was back here in L.A. on my bed. The thing was so completely objectively real, so solidly real it was difficult to persuade myself that I had just returned from the moon.577 ¶5

So everything contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. The moon played its part and the stupid little things played their part. So even when I go now to a sideshow at a carnival they’re all playing their parts. And you use them to reveal a tremendous story, a story to tell the world that no matter what they have as an ambition in the end it’s trivia compared to what man’s true ambition ought to be: which is to find the source of the phenomena of life. The source of the phenomena of life is the Father, and you’ll find him only when you find him in yourself. You won’t find him as another; you’ll find him only as yourself.577 ¶6

So we are told in scripture, “Hereafter, I will no longer speak to you in figures”—meaning in parables—“but I will tell you plainly of the Father.” Now as you read the 16th chapter of John, there is no attempt to tell it plainly. It’s there, but where is it? Read the whole of John to get what he’s getting at, and you will find he’s revealing himself. And the whole drama unfolds within him. But as it unfolds within him, and it’s told by the evangelist, people think as the world teaches this story; and that is not the story at all. Listen now carefully to these words. I said, “Who is the Christ?” and they say, “The son of God.” Well, with that I will agree. But who is the Lord?—the Lord is Jesus. And you say Jesus is Christ? Yes. And therefore the Lord Jesus is one and the same? Well, Christians are taught to believe that is true. The Bible doesn’t teach that.577 ¶7

We’re coming now to the end of Revelation…in the Book of Revelation, “And the kingdom of the earth has become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ” . You wouldn’t say, “the Lord and of his Christ” and bring them together, would you? The Lord is one and his Christ…I say, the Father and his son…so, the kingdom of the lord and of his Christ. Well then, who is the Lord? At the end of the book, the very last verse tells you who he is: “Come, Lord Jesus!” . The word Jesus means “Jehovah” and Jehovah means “I AM.” So the Lord is I AM and his Christ is his son. Christ means “the anointed,” and the only “anointed” in scripture is David: “This is he; arise and anoint him” . Then David tells of the decree of the Lord: “And the Lord said unto me, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’” . Here is David, the sum total, the essence of the journey of man in this world. When he comes to the end, at the very end if you took all the generations of men and all of their experiences and fused them into a single being, and projected that being, it would be David. That is David and that is the result of your journey.577 ¶8

So you left the Father, “I came out from the Father and I have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and I am going to the Father” . But when I go back, I go back as the Father. That was the reason for my journey into this world. I came out, and in coming out, I seem to be the son of God coming into the world as told me in the 82nd Psalm: “I say you are gods, all of you, sons of the Most High; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes” . So we came out as sons, lower than the Father; having had the experience we return as the Father. For in the end, there is only God and there can be nothing but God in eternity. So he brings out himself as sons less than himself; then when we go back, having gone through the experience, we have to go back as God the Father.577 ¶9

If he is a father, he has a son, and that son is simply the personification of the entire journey that we have made as men. So in the world, we pass through all the experiences that man could ever have. Summarize the entire humanity and all of its experiences and personify it, and you’re going to get the eternal youth David. He’s going to call you Father. So finding the Father is the only thing in this world for man.577 ¶10

You might have read today’s paper and tens of millions must be disgusted, because undoubtedly it was all over the country. It’s not only in the L. A. Times; I presume every paper in the country told the story lifted from the present magazine “Women’s…” I think it’s Home Journal and the cover story of a former first lady. Everyone so adored her. She was this glamour girl. And then you see the greed behind that picture as written by her secretary… that she sold even the gift of her father-in-law at her wedding to what was our present president. Sold it and sold gems from gifts from foreign countries to buy what she considered a more beautiful diamond. I wonder how Joe Kennedy feels tonight when he sees it in print…not that he didn’t know it before. And this whole greed…and you wonder why this union took place between that greed and a half-billion dollars? And then you wonder what is it all about? It’s all trinkets. When you reach the limit of your ambition, called the moon, so you reach the moon, it’s all made of clay. It’ all dead…the moon is dead. I saw it as clearly as I’m seeing this here and touching it like this. The whole thing is just as dead and not one thing grows upon it. It’s all dead, but we colonized it and selling trinkets as we do here on earth. We fill our paper with ads to make you buy what you don’t need and what you don’t want, and take from you shadows, called money. You don’t need it any more than you need a hole in your head beyond what you now have. But you will go out and reach for the moon to get it, as he did, to sell the little things that the father-in-law gave her as a wedding present to his son that he loves. And those foreign countries sent their swords with jewels on them. From one she took the big emerald, because that plus what the father-in-law gave her plus something else could be sold and then she could buy, what?—another little trinket. All tonight who saw and worshipped that creature, if they read it, and they will eventually, and then down into the mire where it should go. It all belongs there.577 ¶11

So, all the ambitions of men come to dust. The only thing left for man…the only thing that was for man in the beginning was to find the Father. So he said he called the twelve and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and all that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished” . But they understood none of these things, for this was hid from all of them and they did not grasp what was said.577 ¶12

Going up to Jerusalem…the Bible tells us of two Jerusalems. The one below is the human womb, a woman’s womb on earth who is in slavery with her children. She bears children into slavery, all enslaved by the body that they wear. I must take care of all the functions of this body, and I can’t pay any slave in the world to perform these functions for me. Whatever they are, no matter how wealthy I am, how powerful I am—whether I be a Stalin who could kill twenty million and be exonerated or a Hitler—he has to perform his natural functions for himself. If he doesn’t, they’ll bury him. And so, is he not enslaved by the body that he wears? The Jerusalem from below, Paul tells us, bears children into slavery along with herself. So every woman in the world bearing a physical child is herself enslaved and enslaves the very one that she bears. But there is a Jerusalem from above and she is free, and she is our mother, said Paul in his letter to the Galatians . Man must be born from above. And then he goes through the series of events from that moment to the very end.577 ¶13

But within that series comes his freedom…when his son appears and he has found David. David said to him, “Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation” . He finds the sum total of his journey: he’s gone through the entire gamut of human experiences, hidden in a merciful way from his present moment in time. For if he could only remember now the horrors that he’s passed through, well, he couldn’t go on. But when he meets the Son, the Son’s presence calling him God the Father frees him forever. And he only waits for that moment in time, which can’t be long delayed, until he takes off for the last time the garment of slavery, which is the body of flesh and blood.577 ¶14

But while we are here…though I tell you I saw it and it is all trinkets, the whole thing is dust, made of clay, nevertheless, rent must be paid, food must be bought and clothing must be found. All of these things must be in the world of shadows, the world of Caesar. And so what it was showing me to do: conceive it. It seems far away? It isn’t so far. You will move with the velocity of light, really far faster than what we now say. You said days to get there? Doesn’t take days, it took me a split second to get back; therefore, it could not have taken longer. Only going was more difficult than returning. Going, I am yielding myself to my wish fulfilled, and you’ve got to work yourself into the mood, into the emotion, so that takes longer. So you’re working yourself into the feeling of the wish fulfilled, giving it all of the sensory vividness of reality, all the tones of reality, and you’re working yourself into it. It might take you a minute, might take you even an hour. You may even fail to catch hold of that trap. But the minute you catch hold of it and let yourself go completely, you will go with the current and it will bear you straight to your objective. When you get there, you’ll have it, you’ll realize it. But I tell you that no matter what you realize in this world as your objective, it will turn to dust. It’s made of clay. The only real objective that will never pass away is the discovery of yourself and the being that you really are is God the Father.577 ¶15

All the honors of men are as nothing. Yet we read them morning after morning in the paper. The man wants another medal, he wants another honor, another something else, and he will give anything…he’ll even buy it to get his name in the paper. Only those who murder or do some frightful thing are mentioned in the obituary, except if you have a million dollars. If you have a million dollars you get into the obituary. It invariably will say a millionaire, so-and-so, died last night. Have a million dollars and you’ll be mentioned in the obituary. Or you kill someone or do some horrible act and you’ll be mentioned in the front page. But do a normal thing in this world, do a lovely decent thing in the world, who knows and who cares? That’s not news. But I’m telling you what lasts as against what doesn’t last. All the other ambitions of men…so they leave a foundation, providing buildings are built with their name on it and endowed, and the thing goes on. Perfectly all right, let them do it…but it all turns into dust. If I could only take you now with me to the moon as I saw it. Colonized by us, there were only Americans there. And was the cash register busy! It was worn out from selling the junk, and all these stupid little things, like Coney Island. I’ve gone to Coney Island unnumbered times when I lived back east, and I’ve certainly gone to sideshows at carnivals, and you know what you buy. Well, it was just as junky as that, not anything of value, on a dead body floating in space. Here it was still…that was the objective, the end of man’s journey. He achieved his ambition and it was made of clay. So they got what they wanted, and that’s the world in which we live.577 ¶16

So I tell you, I asked so seriously before I went to bed on Wednesday night, “Show me something to share with them. I have shared everything that you’ve given me. I have told them that you and I are one. I have told them that your son is my son, confirming the oneness of our own being. I have told them how I was born from above. I have told them how I came out of the grave, how I rose in that grave, the resurrected one, how my body was split in two from top to bottom and how like a fiery serpent I ascended into heaven. And how that dove the symbol of the Holy Spirit descended upon me and remained upon me as it smothered me with love. But is there something else that I can tell them? I’m closing Friday.” And these were my thoughts as I communed with self on what simpler way of telling them to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.577 ¶17

Then came this most vivid…if I could only take you with me into that space craft and show you the vividness of that journey and the dead body in space a quarter of a million miles from earth. And I could almost reach out and touch it. Then the craft moved and then entered a tunnel, into this very wide tunnel, this dead mass. But in it I stepped off the craft with permission. I said, “May I step out?” and then I stepped out. And that is what Blake meant: “If the spectator could enter into any one of these images in his Imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought” . You’ve got to enter into, for unless I actually enter into a state, I don’t know it. Unless I actually become one with what I am seeing and enter into what I see, I do not see it, not really. I see it as a spectator. But if I am not a spectator anymore and become a participant, I must step into the image to become a participant. So I’m a spectator approaching that object and then I step into it. I got permission, “May I step out from this craft?” and the man said to me, yes. Then I stepped into a solid, three-dimensional world just like this, and saw all this junk for sale. All these little things they were going to bring back from their journey to show their friends what they had accomplished.577 ¶18

So a man accomplishes a huge fortune and the children can’t wait for him to die to get it. The grandchildren why they can’t wait…they would ease it quicker because they want it… don’t let him live too long. But the old man doesn’t realize that’s what they are entertaining as thoughts. And that’s the whole vast world. You think that’s a cruel statement? Truth is cruel, it’s a two-edged sword. Can’t wait for you to depart this world, because you have what I could use. And what was it?—trinkets. It was called money. I can see the old cash register now, but everything was solidly real all around. And the return journey didn’t take any craft. It was longer going by getting to the moon than returning, because returning was simply waking. The minute I woke I could hardly believe I was on my bed in this city of Los Angeles. It was just as real as you are now to me. You are no more real and you are no more vividly real than all the things that I touched there.577 ¶19

So I share it with you. How do you do it? Unless you actually become and enter into the thing that you see, we do not see it, not really. We have to actually enter into it and it becomes perfectly real, and when you return you’ve accomplished it. Leave it alone, it will come into your world and you will have it. Share it with your friends and they’ll all see it as I in the not distant future will see that as I saw it in the wee hours of Thursday morning…that is, because I went to bed on Wednesday night the wee hours would be Thursday morning. When I take this off, it’s all mine. I can be here, there or elsewhere as quickly as I was here when I was standing on the moon. Open my eyes and here I am. It didn’t take any four days as it takes our astronauts to do it.577 ¶20

The time was only spent in getting into the mood, getting the mood and abandoning yourself completely to that state. As you abandon yourself to it, then you move toward your objective and you’re doing the steering. You are steering yourself toward your objective whatever it is in your world.577 ¶21

So here, I have shared it with you and I do not know what else I could tell you. I have told you from my own experience that I have actually fulfilled scripture; and there is no purpose in this world for man other than the fulfillment of scripture. “I have come to fulfill scripture,” he said . And there is not a thing else for me to do, just to fulfill scripture. Then beginning with the psalms and the prophets and the Old Testament, that is the law of Moses, he interpreted to them all the things concerning himself . He is the center of the entire Bible…but who is he? Say “I am”…that’s Jesus. That’s Jesus and there is no other Jesus. We are buried with him; I am crucified with him. And he rose…well then I must rise with him. So we rise individually. Well, when you say “I am,” that’s the Lord Jesus; and when you say Christ, that’s the son bearing witness of his fatherhood or his Lordship…not until the Christ appears. So in the 11th chapter of the Book of Revelation: “And the kingdom of the earth has become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ”—the Father and the Son. The summary, the sum total of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into a single being and personified is the eternal youth David…and he is your Son. All you are called upon to do then is to tell it.577 ¶22

Then, like Luke in his first four verses of the gospels when he tells us: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and minister of the word, it seemed good to me also, having observed all things closely from the beginning, to write a very clear understanding of it for you, most honorable Theophilus, that you may know the truth whereof you’ve been informed” . Now, Theophilus is simply…the word means “one who loves God.” If you can honestly say tonight that you are seeking God more than you are wealth—but I mean seeking God the cause of wealth, the source of everything in the world—if that is truly what you are seeking, then you are Theophilus and he is writing this narrative for you. He’s telling you what he has experienced. Man is only telling you what he and he alone in himself experienced; because no one saw these things happening in the soul of the one personified in scripture as Jesus.577 ¶23

Jesus is the personification of all men in whom the seed erupted, in whom it came to flower and blossomed in fullness. So everyone in whom it blossoms is that being called Jesus. So in the end there is only God the Lord and the fruit of his journey which is called his Son. And his Son is personified as an eternal youth, David.577 ¶24

So take what I’ve given you this night concerning moving into the frame. Single out your objective. It’s just like a moon, really. As far as you’re concerned now it’s dead, it doesn’t exist. You need…and you name it. That’s dead, isn’t it? It doesn’t live…just like the moon. But to you, if you realize it, it may be the most marvelous thing in the world. You think it will be. Well now, what would you feel like and what would you see, and how would you act, and what would you do if you realized it? Now feel yourself into that state…actually feel it. It’s like getting off the bank and giving yourself to the current that you can’t quite detect. It’s not discernable from the bank. You’re on the bed and you can’t quite see it. You know where you are. Your friends are not there to congratulate you…and yet in your mind’s eye they are congratulating you. Not a thing in this world will support what you are doing. Everything denies it; your senses deny it, your reason denies it, and yet here you are seeing it in your mind’s eye. But unless we actually give ourselves to what we are seeing, we don’t really see it at all. So you simply give yourself to what you are doing and you’re on the current and it takes you off. Then with the current you go, holding your ship in position, and you get to the state where you step into it. As I asked permission, “May I step out?” and they said, ‘Yes, you may step out.’ So I stepped into the objective and it became like this, three-dimensional, solidly real. Then I realized it was all trinkets anyway. No matter what the ambition was, it still was trinkets.577 ¶25

A man once controlled the whole vast world and he sets out…like a Hitler…and what was the end of Hitler’s life but ashes. What was the end of Stalin’s…they changed the streets and the rivers and the cities and all things named after him; and they will eventually take his name out of the encyclopedia in Russia as one who never lived. He’ll become what is said in the Communist jargon a non-person. They’ll take it out as though he was never born and that whole thing was a myth. They’ll take it out because such a monster could not have existed in Russia, and they’ll actually delete the entire history of the man, and it will be ash. Yet he wanted to leave forever these little stamps in the world. So they follow, one after the other, and what have they in the end?577 ¶26

Today, as I was coming out I turned on the radio and they gave some bulletin, some woman…and I vaguely recall the case of years ago. No one who is not my age will remember this horrible murder. Her name was Ruth Judd. They found her. They thought she had long died and suddenly they found her. Well, my son would never know—he’s forty-five years old and he would never know of that. My daughter certainly would not know of it, she’s twenty-seven. How would she know of that? And so, they’re going to bring it up and make a monstrous thing out of it. Anyone my age will know it, but isn’t that ash? The papers if they can’t find something more horrible by tomorrow morning will give it a headline. So why feed our children who never even heard of the woman and what does it matter? She certainly by now must have paid her price to society if society demands something from her. To live with the conscience of having done it and the consciousness of it, hasn’t she paid the price? But they’ll still demand a pound of flesh. So the whole thing turns to ash.577 ¶27

Nevertheless, if you want it with all your heart, take what was shown to me Wednesday night as I came back from this journey. Get into your own space craft…not a craft…your space craft is simply what you construct in your mind’s eye, a scene implying the fulfillment of your dream, and feel yourself into it. You’re reaching your moon, for the moon seems to be the limit of a man’s ambition to reach what is, at the moment, your present ambition. That’s your moon. Feel yourself right into it until you can step into it and it becomes three-dimensional. So you can talk with them and they congratulate you on your good fortune. You are thrilled because you have achieved what you want in this world of Caesar, and you are thrilled with it. Then return to your body in the twinkle of an eye…having touched the last hand, given it a fleshly tone, and accept his congratulations, and listen to his voice and accept the sound of his voice. Make everything you are doing real. Having made it real, open your eyes and in the twinkle of an eye you are back. But you did it! And you can’t reverse it. As you’re told in scripture, you gave it the right of birth, you gave it your blessing. It was your Jacob, your subjective state.577 ¶28

Faith is simply the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. You hope to realize so-and-so. You must first appropriate it subjectively. So the subjective appropriation of the objective hope is faith. And without faith, it is impossible to please him. So we please who?—the Lord. Who is the Lord?—I AM. He is the creator of the world; he does everything in the world. And who else is he? He is the Father. Well, if he’s a father, then he must have a child. Yes, he has a child. He has an eternal youth and his name is David the beloved: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” . You will find him only at the very end; you will not find him before. But take my word for it, you will find him. Because not one child born of woman can fail: God is in him and God is playing the part. There is no such thing as a lost soul in this world. Everyone is redeemed. If one understood the Christian faith wisely, one would know that the Christian gospel if told as it ought to be told is “humanity is redeemed”…not “going to be,” is! You’re simply waiting your turn to be called…when that which is already in you is fertilized. Then it is germinated, and then moves into development, and all the story concerning Jesus Christ unfolds in you. Then you know who you are. You are the Lord Jesus and his Christ which is your son David.577 ¶29

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Now are there any questions, please?577 ¶30

We’re closing tonight. And if you’re on the mailing list and if and when we are here you’ll be notified. So until whenever we meet, thank you. Good night.577 ¶35

Tonight’s subject is: Pre-Existence. For every child born of woman, there is a “son” of God in the heavens, who is his ancestral Self. He is buried in you. He is the Reality of man. The Bible speaks of this “son” as Jesus Christ, the true identity of every child born of woman. “God became man, that man may become God.” What we read in the Bible concerning Jesus is all about you. It’s your biography. The Old Testament is the prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus, and the story of Jesus as told in the New Testament, which is the fulfillment of the Old, is your story. And the day will come when you will experience everything recorded in the New Testament concerning Jesus Christ, . . but everything.576 ¶1

This is the great mystery of our being. We are not some little product of evolution, as many teach today. We didn’t come out of some little amoeba. You are the emanation of a Son of God! As we are told in the book of Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter: “The Lord has set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” Today they are speaking of curtailing the reproduction of humanity, limiting the births of men. Then we are told, not one child could be born, were it not for a Son of God who is the life of that child. For He has actually “set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” Read it in the 8th verse, the 32nd chapter, of Deuteronomy. You couldn’t breathe as a child, were it not that God is within you. And then you say, “I AM” . . that’s Him. That is the Son of God, and the Son of God is one with God. “I and my Father are one.” “I came out from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again, I AM leaving the world and going to the Father.” Isn’t that pre-existence? I came out from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again, I AM leaving the world, and I AM going to the Father. But I will not leave this world . . this earth . . until I awake as Jesus Christ.576 ¶2

Now, this world does not terminate at the point where my senses cease to register it. I can’t follow a friend who goes beyond through the gate we call “death.” And I think he is gone from the world. He hasn’t gone from any world! He is in this world! “This world” does not cease to be when my senses cease to touch it . . to register it. He is in a world terrestrial, just like this, in a garment clothed as these “garments” are, of flesh and blood. And he passes through similar conditions; and the One within, Who is the Son of God, he is guiding him, sending him through all the “furnaces of affliction” that are necessary to awaken him as Himself. And the Son of God is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, as told us in the first chapter of Corinthians: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” So, in the end, there is only God, and everything is the expansion of God.576 ¶3

Now here is a Psalm, considered the most difficult Psalm of the hundred and fifty. It is the 82nd. What is currently considered the best interpretation of Scripture is the Interpreter’s Bible. It comes in twelve volumes and four extra in the form of a dictionary . . 16 volumes of around a thousand pages to a volume. A perfectly marvelous work! In this it says, “in truth we do not know very much about this Psalm. We can only hope that we are not far away from the truth.” Well, the most scholarly of all Biblical criticisms we find in a book called The Encyclopedia Biblica. The one who is the head of the Hebraic section of that, and also one of the editors of the entire work, Thomas Chaney, speaking of this Psalm says, “This is the most difficult Psalm for the scholar, that the meaning might have been understood.” It might have been in some strange way something that someone at one time understood. “But I must confess that none of us understand it today.” Now, this is Thomas Chaney. At the time he edited this work back in the end of the last Century, it was considered then . . and still is today . . the most scholarly of all the higher forms of Scriptural criticism.576 ¶4

Now this is the story. This is what it says: “God has taken His place in the Divine Council.” This literally means in the congregation of the gods. God has taken His place in the congregation of gods, and now God speaks. In the midst of them, now, He is holding judgment. I say, “Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.” God stands in the congregation of His sons. All the sons make up God. The word translated here, as “God” is the word “Elohim.” It’s a plural word. It is also translated in the plural, “gods.” “God has taken His place in the Divine Council” . . that word is “Elohim.” “In the midst of the gods He holds judgment” . . that word “gods” is “Elohim,” the same word. But the scholars can’t quite understand. Here we have the word “Elohim,” and it’s defined in the singular; and then a little farther on it’s defined in the plural, “gods.” He has taken His place in the congregation of the gods. He is in the midst of the gods now; He is holding judgment. And now He speaks to the gods. He tells them that they are sons of the Most High . . all of them, but everyone. Nevertheless, they will die . . “die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.”576 ¶5

Do you know who He is speaking to? He is speaking to you! We are the “gods” who came down into the world of “death,” and took upon ourselves the limit of contraction, which is man, and experienced “death.”576 ¶6

Then we are told in the letter to the Philippians: “Jesus, though he was in the form of God… He emptied Himself, and took upon himself the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross.” Well, this is the only “cross” that Jesus ever “wore.” The human form is the cross of God! He humbled himself. In what way? He took upon himself the form of a slave.576 ¶7

No matter how powerful a man is in this world . . if I owned the earth, and if everyone in this world is a slave of mine, I have no power to command anyone to perform the natural functions of my body for me. I am a slave of the body that I “wear.” Every function of my body that is natural must be performed for the body by the being . . called a living form. I myself must perform it! I must eat and assimilate, and what I can’t assimilate, I must eliminate. And no one in the world can do it for me. I am a slave of the body that I “wear.” So, “he took upon himself the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And finding himself in human form, he humbled himself” . . that’s his humility . . “and became obedient unto death” . . everything here dies. Everything in this world dies. No matter what it is, it comes in, it waxes, it wanes, and it disappears. No matter how well it is made or how old . . four thousand years old . . things are destined to vanish from the face of this earth. Everything comes, it waxes, it wanes, it vanishes. This is the world of “death” into which God came, for one purpose: to expand His creative power, His wisdom.576 ¶8

We are the gods that came down! And you say, “I AM”? That’s He. “That’s His name forever.” Your own wonderful human imagination is God! And there is no other god. In every form, regardless of appearances . . the same God. No difference, because God is one, though He appears as many. One in many; that’s the word “Elohim” . . a compound unity, one made up of others.576 ¶9

But the scholars cannot understand this statement: “God has taken His place in the Divine Council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgment.”576 ¶10

And now He speaks: “I say, ‘Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die – die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.’” Just one man fell, carrying with him all! As told in Scripture, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” And one man fell into division, and we have all the races, all the nations, all the religions and yet all are contained in one. And we will remain on earth until we are called, one by one, back into that body; but this time when we are called, the body that is resurrected . . going back one by one to incorporate into that same one body that fell. And what a glorious reunion because of the experience of “death”! He comes into the world of “death” and conquers it. He has overcome death. Here everything dies, and yet he overcomes everything in this world. It is a world of “death.”576 ¶11

So, the Bible is your own wonderful biography. Jesus Christ is the true identity of every child born of woman. A little child comes out of the womb and you see it; the reality of that child is Jesus Christ. Hold it in your hands . . you are holding that child that is Jesus Christ in your hands! But that child, to leave this world of “death” has to be “born again.” The “second birth” is not reincarnation. It hasn’t a thing to do with reincarnation.576 ¶12

We are born first “from below” . . from the womb of woman. We are born the second time from the skull of man. By “man,” I mean generic man. “Male-female made He them, and called their name Man.” Read that in Scripture: “Male-female made He them, and called their name Man” . . capitalized. I speak of generic Man. The “second birth” is out of the skull of man, not from the womb of woman. The womb of woman brings us all in slavery, forming “garments” that leave man in slavery. I am the slave of this “garment” until I take it off. And if tonight I AM not “born from above,” I will find myself, if you call me “dead,” restored to life in a world just like this, but young . . about 20 years of age. I do not go through the womb of woman any more. I am found in a world terrestrial, just like this, where I grow older, as I do here, where I struggle to make a living as I do here; where I have friends and enemies, as I have here; where I am weaving a garment of joy and woe, as I weave it here. I will “die” there, as I die here, and be restored once more into, once more, a lovely young body resembling this, only about 20 years of age, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in me. And I will repeat that until that moment in time when He Who made the decision to enter “death’s door” awakens within me. And when He awakens within me, I AM He! And who then am I? Jesus Christ! There is no other. “I and my Father are one.” So, “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to lift it up again.”576 ¶13

Yet in spite of these statements in the book of John, we find through the ages many people speaking of a race of people called the Jews who crucified Jesus! It’s not so. Haven’t you read the Bible carefully? Read these words in Paul: “I have been crucified with God. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God who loves me, and gave Himself for me.” Here the Son of God emanating is the being in man; and He so loved His emanation that He entered “death’s door” . . the human skull, and freed His emanation. And He laid down in the grave with me . . the human skull . . and there He dreams the dream of life as I am dreaming it now, until I awake; and when I awake, we aren’t two . . we are one. “I AM He.” Everyone will awake. Everyone returns to the Father out of Which they came; and returning to the Father, they are the Father.576 ¶14

So, I came out from the Father, and I came into the world. I came and I am leaving again, and I am going to the Father. That is the story of every child born of woman.576 ¶15

So, let them be; they are having a dream . . some dreams, noble dreams, some dreams, ignoble dreams, but in the end, we are all being called, and all will be justified for, as we are told in the 8th chapter of the book of Romans: “Those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.” There is the complete predestination. So, He justified. What is “justification”? Divine acquittal, for this is a “play.” This whole vast world is a play, and you and I are playing our parts, and these parts are forever. We leave the “parts” behind. And we are the actors playing; the part is left behind. I have seen at least twelve “Hamlets.” And no two actors interpreted Hamlet alike. Yet, they use the same words.576 ¶16

I recall seeing my last Hamlet played by Richard Burton, and he played it adorably, and he stepped upon the stage wearing a pair of grey slacks, the color of the slacks I am wearing now. And he had a black pullover shirt with short sleeves; and he played the entire “Hamlet” in that same costume: grey slacks and black pullover shirt. And he gave an entirely different meaning to the familiar passages of Shakespeare. It’s the same “Hamlet”! He came out on cue, and he departed on cue, and everyone entered on cue and departed on cue. But he, the central figure . . Hamlet . . he gave an entirely different interpretation to the passages with which you and I are familiar. When he spoke to his mother . . and in that passage he says to the mother, . . and you know this; it’s a familiar one: “Assume a virtue if you have it not.” Well, I have heard that time and again when it was treated seriously. He didn’t. He treated it lightly, because he didn’t believe she could ever assume a virtue. She had poisoned his father, and she now marries his uncle; and he despised her. And he says to her satirically as he sees her coming, “Oh, assume a virtue if you have it not.” He didn’t believe for one moment she could ever assume a virtue! So, he took the identical words that other “Hamlets” took and gave it an entirely different meaning.576 ¶17

So, you are playing a part, and you are allowed to interpret the part; but you came in on cue and you will depart on cue; and in spite of what our wise men called doctors today are telling us that they can prolong life . . they are not prolonging life . . you were born on time, as told you in the 3rd chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes: “A time to be born, a time to die; a time to laugh, a time to cry;”…576 ¶18

There is not a thing new under the sun. The play is finished. It is being said about the landing on the moon: “See? This has never happened before.” It has been in ages past, but there is no remembrance of former things. We have a little memory . . no remembrance of former things; nor shall there be any remembrance of things that will come later among those who come after. We think it is all now, like a play. You go to a play tonight. I saw a play last night. But to you, these are all new, and you’ll laugh tonight, as I did the night before. And you’ll cry, as I cried the night before. And you will think it is all new as the whole thing unfolds before your eyes; and I saw it the night before.576 ¶19

And this is a marvelous “play” in which we are cast for a purpose. There is a purpose behind the entire thing. So, we are not little beings that began. I began humanly almost 65 years ago? No, . . I came out from the Father, and the Father has no beginning . . no father, no mother, no genealogy. He is without gender, without number. I came out from that Source that has no origin. It is the Origin of all! And I came into a world that seems to begin and end. That is how God expands Himself. He takes upon Himself the limit of contraction . . the limit of opacity; that, having reached the limit, He can again begin to expand. There is no limit to expansion, and no limit to translucency.576 ¶20

So, He sends part of Himself off to go beyond what He was only by first reaching the limit of contraction. And that is how God is perpetually expanding Himself. And we are the “sons of God.” But it takes all the “sons” to make God! So, when we are gathered one by one back into that resurrected form . . the Risen Lord, we do not lose our identity.576 ¶21

I will know you in Eternity. Do you know why? I knew you before you put on this “mask,” and you came into this world and put on this mask. I can’t see behind the mask; it’s like a masquerade . . a great ball. And here my most intimate friend is wearing a mask, and I don’t see him. He’s wearing a black face, or he’s wearing a white face, or he’s wearing a yellow face; but he is wearing a face that I don’t recognize. I can’t recognize him at all. But behind the “mask” is my brother that I knew in Eternity, and I will know once more when he awakens from the dream of life and I awaken from the dream of life. We return to the same form, improved beyond measure, for we came out of the world of “death,” having deliberately, consciously entered the world of “death.”576 ¶22

And everyone has a part they play in this world, into which we all volunteered when we came. No one can take away my life. I laid it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to lift it up again; and no one takes it from me! We deliberately came down into this world to play these parts that we may expand our consciousness beyond what it was, prior to our descent into this world. For: “No one can ascend into heaven who did not first descend from heaven.” I could not emerge from the tomb, were I not in it. I could not emerge from this world of “death,” did I not first descend into it. For: “No one can ascend but he who first descended, even the Son of Man.” So, the “Son of Man” is a name for the “Son of God.” And that “Son of God” you are! So, whoever you are . . if you bear the name of John, or some other name, your real name is Jesus. Because when you come out, He gives you a name that is above every name, and any name other than Jesus on earth and in heaven shall bow and confess Jesus is heir to the Glory of God the Father. And you are that Being! And there never was another. Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. And Jesus-in-you is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s Jesus.576 ¶23

Now, in this world you can test it. You can test it, because he is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. How do I test it? I dare to assume that I am what reason denies, and walk in the assumption that I AM that, and if I persist in that assumption, it will harden into fact. And if “by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made,” and then suddenly I am confronted with the thing itself, having assumed that it is, and I assumed it when reason denied the fact, haven’t I found Him? If “by Him all things are made,” and I dare to assume what my senses deny and reason denies it, and yet I persist in the assumption, and then eventually it hardens into fact . . well, did I not find the One Who makes things? And if “by Him all things are made, and without Him was not anything made that is made,” and I have found exactly how I did it . . and I did it by simply assuming that I AM what I would like to be, even though at the moment of my assumption everything denies that I could possibly be that, and then I became that . . well then, I have found Jesus. I only assumed that I was what my reason denied. How did I do it? By imagining. I have found my imagination to be the Lord Jesus, but eventually I will awaken as the Lord Jesus.576 ¶24

How do I know? I know from experience that everything recorded in Scripture concerning Jesus, I have experienced . . everything, I don’t care what it is. I “wear” this “cross”; and may I tell you, when you and I were crucified on these “crosses,” it was sheer ecstasy. It was not painful at all, in spite of what the churches teach. It was sheer ecstasy when I felt myself “nailed” upon this “cross.” There were whirling vortices: each hand a vortex, my head a vortex, each foot a vortex, my right side a vortex. And here are these six vortices, and I can’t describe the ecstasy . . sheer joy . . when this night I relived the moment of the crucifixion. No one nailed me upon a wooden cross. This is the “cross.” And I did it deliberately. Then memory faded. I am in a world of “death.” So the crucifixion was not a painful act. It was a delightful act deliberately taken by God when He actually nailed Himself by vortices upon the cross of man.576 ¶25

Now you go through all the parts, and then comes the moment that you are about to depart this world for the last time, and that begins your resurrection. And your resurrection is a glorious thing. It really is. You awake to find yourself completely sealed in your skull. Your skull is a tomb, and you find yourself waking from a long, long sleep. You have no memory as to who put you there, but you know your skull is a tomb, and there you are in a tomb, but the tomb is your skull! And you awake, and you stand up in your skull, a being just as you are. And not a thing is in that skull but you! Not a thing is in it. And now, you have one consuming desire, and that is to get out, and you have an innate wisdom as to what you should do, and you push the base of your skull, and something gives. It rolls away, leaving a little opening. Then you put your head through, and you squeeze yourself out inch by inch, like a child coming out of a womb . . only instead of this being the womb of another, it’s the skull of your own being! You are “born from above.”576 ¶26

And all of the imagery of Scripture now surrounds you. Here the “wise men” . . normal men as you are, seated where there is the body out of which you came, and these three are the witnesses of your “birth.” They can’t see you because you are now spirit, but they know who was born. And one will say . . calling you by name . . in my case they say, “It is Neville’s child.” They find a little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes lying on the floor; and they announce whose child it is. In my case, one of them said, “It is Neville’s baby.” The other two, in the most incredible voices, asked: “How could Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he just displays the evidence. And I took the evidence . . the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and held it in my arms, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” And then the whole thing began to dissolve, and I awoke upon my bed.576 ¶27

Here, this unearthly wind is present all along. The wind is the spirit, for the words wind and spirit are the same in Hebrew and in Greek. This unearthly wind is there through the entire drama. Then everything said in Scripture concerning Jesus begins to unfold, and it unfolds in one thousand two hundred and sixty days, as told us both in Revelation and in the book of Daniel.576 ¶28

And here four mighty acts take place, and you are the central figure in the drama. You can hardly believe that something unnumbered centuries ago could be so accurate concerning a blueprint . . a blueprint of salvation. Everyone will pass through the same technique, the same drama, and everyone will awaken as the Lord Jesus Christ!576 ¶29

And because there aren’t two . . only one, all will be gathered together into “one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” who is above it all, through all, and in all. Only one, all gathered without loss of identity, and all are the father of that one son which comes into your experience in the second act.576 ¶30

In the second act he stands before you and calls you, “Father”; and you know you are his father, and he knows he is your son; and there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you and the son, who is the Son of God. So, only through the Son will you ever know Who-You-Really-Are. In this world you may have many sons and many daughters; but there is only one Son that comes through as God’s Son. And you are the father of that Son. And only when He stands before you and calls you, “Father,” do you really know Who-You. . Are.576 ¶31

So, in the end, everyone returns to the Father as the Father! And you and I are one Being when we return from this division, which is for a purpose.576 ¶32

So, we are preexistent beings. You did not begin in the womb of your earthly mother, and you do not end in the grave when someone puts you there in the not-distant future. Don’t be afraid; you’ve gone there unnumbered times! But you are only born twice: once through the womb of woman, and once through the skull of man . . generic man. “Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” “You, a master of Israel, and yet you do not know, Nicodemus, that unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven?” No, he didn’t know that; yet he was a member of the Sanhedrin. This is like saying today that he is a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, . . a priest of the church, if he didn’t know it, any more than they today know it, or the Pope knows it. Until it happens in them, they cannot speak from experience. And I am not theorizing, and I am not speculating; I am telling you what I know from my own experience. I also know that everyone will have the experience, and no one will fail, or God would fail, and that’s impossible. All His sons came down, for He gathered them all together in Himself: and not one child can be born in this world who does not have as an ancestor a Son of God, who comes with him. And that Son of God cannot give up.576 ¶33

Now, Scripture tells us in so many lovely ways. John does not tell the story of the birth as Luke tells it and as Matthew tells it, but John is the most profound of all the Gospels. John tells it, but he tells it in symbolism that is not understood by the people. He tells it in the form of the skull. It is called Golgotha. “Golgotha” means “skull.” When they laid him in the tomb, the tomb was empty, but the linen clothes were there; and lying near the linen clothes, but not with them, was the napkin.576 ¶34

Well, John wrote the most profound mystical doctrine. He is telling it in symbolism for those who understand. The “linen clothes” are called by all mystics the “garment” . . this garment of flesh and blood . . that which the female wove for man. So, the body was there out of which the spirit ascended. Then what is the “linen cloth”? The “linen cloth”… that is the body. Then what is the “napkin”? In the ancient world “napkin” has a far greater number of meanings than today. Today a “napkin” means . . we speak of a dinner napkin, a cocktail napkin, a sanitary napkin. But in the ancient world “napkin” meant the afterbirth . . the placenta, that which is not part of the body . . after the birth, but it must be ejected from the body. And so, it’s not part of the body after something that is born. So, after the Lord is born, that is only the sign of His birth. So, the “napkin” was not found with the “linen clothes.” It was found apart from the “linen clothes.”576 ¶35

Those who understand symbolism will know what John is trying to tell the reader: that a birth took place . . where? In the skull, for this is a description of the skull. They came to Golgotha where he was buried. He was crucified in Golgotha, and he was buried on Golgotha, and he rose from the same tomb in which he was buried; and it’s Golgotha, which means the skull! “Skull” means the “cranium.” “Calvary” is the skull. So, here you find two objects: the body, symbolized as the “linen clothes”; and then you find the symbol of the birth, and that was the “napkin.” Well, the napkin simply was the afterbirth, signifying to those who understood symbolism what took place in that skull.576 ¶36

A birth took place, but he who was born is now Spirit, and mortal eyes cannot see Spirit. God is Spirit. And you aren’t going to see the wonderful form . . it is God being born! You will only see the “garment” out of which He was born.576 ¶37

So, he came into the world and took the “cross” and remains in this world. Unnumbered times he passes through the gate called “death,” and is restored in a similar body to continue the struggle until the end; and at the very end, then he is born . . “born from above.” And that “birth from above” is God being born! “Unto you this day, in the City of David, God is born,” . . a Savior is born; and the “Savior” in Scripture is the Lord. “I AM the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, . . your Savior; and beside Me there is no savior.” The only savior to be born would be the Lord God Jehovah. So, the Savior is born; but they can’t believe. They see the form out of which He came, and they see the evidence of the birth when they see the napkin.576 ¶38

So, John, the most profound of the Evangelists, told it in his own wonderful unique way.576 ¶39

When you read it now in the book of Luke and in the book of Matthew, it is told so clearly to a normal birth that people have confused it with the natural birth from the womb of woman. It hasn’t a thing to do with the womb of woman, for that bears all beings into slavery. Every child coming through the womb of a woman is bearing the cross of the slave; but when you come out of the skull of man, you are now free from the world of “death,” and it is God that is born!576 ¶40

So, you came from the Father, and you came into the world. Again, you will one day leave this world of “death” and return to the Father. But when you return, you . . the Creative Power of God and the Wisdom of God . . have been expanded beyond the wildest dreams. You are then truly glorifying God.576 ¶41

And you can say, as in the l7th chapter of John: “I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do. Now glorify Thou me with Thine own Glory, with the Self that I had with Thee before that the world was.” If I had this “Glory with Thee before that the world was,” isn’t that pre-existence?576 ¶42

I am asking now, having emptied myself of my Glory to perform this work in the world of “death” . . I am asking now to return to that which I gave up in order to come down into the world of death.576 ¶43

I cannot pretend that I am here. I don’t pretend that I am a man. I took upon myself all the weaknesses and all the limitations of man. If I came into this world knowing I was God all along, I could not accomplish anything. I had to completely empty myself of my Father in order to fulfill the plan. If I came knowing, well, I could do anything if I knew the power of God; but I had to completely empty myself.576 ¶44

When I say, “I,” I am speaking collectively . . all of us. So, we are not pretending that we are men. We had to actually become man in this state called “death,” and “wear” the “cross” of man . . not pretending, but actually feel it so we could cry on the cross; “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I can so completely forget Who-I-AM that I cry out to a god other than my Self as though there were such a god, and ask him, “Why did you forsake me?” proving I did not pretend I was a man. I had to actually become a man and completely forget that I was God, and empty myself before I could become man.576 ¶45

You are a pre-existent being, but at the moment you are not yet aware of it. I hope it is not too far from now that you will awake and have all the experiences of which I have spoken that I have experienced. I speak from experience. The story of Jesus is the story of humanity. And one day, everyone . . every child born of woman . . will have that experience of Jesus and know he himself is the Lord Jesus Christ! Let’s enter the Silence.576 ¶46

[Following the Silence:]576 ¶47

Tonight’s subject is: Many Mansions. You may be familiar with the subject from the 14th chapter of the book of John: “Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”575 ¶1

Now, who is this one speaking? Scripture tells us it is Jesus Christ. The chapter affirms it. Arthur Chamber, who won the Nobel Prize in literature [Ed. Note: We found no record of such an award.], said: “It takes a great imagination to follow Jesus Christ, and I, for one, have been lacking in such imagination.” At least, he was big enough to confess it. I have met many, when you begin to discuss Scripture with them, who will always ask one simple question: “Have you read the New Testament in Greek?” Well, my confession is always: “No, I do not, and cannot, read Greek.” Then, of course, they have that supercilious attitude: “Well, then you haven’t read it in Greek! Isn’t that strange?” This happened just about three months ago, and I said that is one of the questions that Aldous Huxley asked me. He read it in Greek. I said to him what I said to this gentleman who asked me: “Isn’t it peculiar? Aldous read it in Greek from the original. You read it in Greek in the original.” (In this century he is really tops. He is gone from this world now.) I said to him: “You know, Aldous, you read it in Greek and you read it in English, and yet you don’t understand it.” So, you ask me: have I read it in Greek? No, I can’t read it in Greek, but I’ve read it in English, and I understand it . . understand it because I’ve experienced it, and you haven’t. Well, the last time that question was asked me was three months ago. He was perfectly still after I said to him: “You don’t understand it.” So, what did his Greek do?575 ¶2

So tonight, we will go into this great mystery . . for it is a mystery. Paul uses the word “mystery” concerning this story of Christ no less than twenty-odd times. He said: “Great is the mystery . . .” All through his letters he is speaking of the mystery. It is not history, for history is not a mystery; it is simply a record of the facts. Well, this is not a record of the facts of a secular nature, for the Bible is not secular history. It’s salvation history.575 ¶3

So here, what are these “mansions” spoken of? They are states. All states are eternal, and they exist now. All states exist in the human Imagination, and the human Imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s God. There is no other God. And all things exist in him now! We have to make the adjustment: think of an infinite number of states . . anything you can think of . . it exists now. Man passes through states, like a traveler who passes through places, through cities. Well, the man who is passing through a state, like the traveler who is passing through a place, may suppose that the place that he has passed through exists no more, as a man passing through a state thinks the state through which he has passed exists no more. Wouldn’t it be silly when I leave this city to feel that because I have departed, that the city has ceased to exist? They remain for anyone to enter, and when they are in it, it seems to be the only reality and everything else in the world seems a mere shadow. When you enter into a city or a state, that state seems to be the only substance. Every state in the world exists now.575 ¶4

Now, the first creative act recorded in Scripture is in the second verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis: ..and the Spirit of God moved… ” Whatever takes place is that movement within God. And God is our own wonderful, human Imagination. So whatever takes place is simply movement within God. How does He now move? That’s the secret: how to go into these states and make them real, make them alive in our world. It’s a very simple process . . very simple . . but you and I have to act to do it. It won’t do it itself; we have to do it.575 ¶5

When we move into the state and clothe ourselves with the state, the state then takes on an external tone and becomes objective to our sight, as this room is now objective because we’re in it. All these states are just as real as this room once we occupy them. So, “in my Father’s house are many mansions,” numberless mansions. “Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye shall be also.”575 ¶6

As I stand here, my adjustment is only in my Imagination. I don’t walk into the place . . I don’t travel into it. I simply adjust it here: close my eyes to the obvious, and then assume that it is here and clothe myself with the reality of the state of my selection. Now, I open my eyes upon this room and this room denies the reality of what I’ve done in my Imagination.575 ¶7

But wait . . just wait! I can’t forget it and I can’t rub it out. It will take the place of this. But why don’t I remember it? Every natural effect in this world has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems; it is a delusion of the perishing vegetable memory. Man’s memory fades, and when he’s confronted with his own harvest he doesn’t recognize his harvest. He denies that at any moment in time did he entertain vividly, with emotion, such things that are happening in his world, because his memory fades and he doesn’t remember. So, he questions the law (if he ever heard of it). He questions: “How could this thing happen to me?” (Haven’t you heard that time and again?) Or have your heard the statement: “Why should it happen to him? He is so nice. He is an altogether wonderful chap. Why should it happen to him?”575 ¶8

Here’s a question, just before I left L.A. “Why should these things happen to Dad and to Mother? Certainly you know, above all people, they don’t deserve it.” It’s not a matter of deserving. These are states. At one moment in time they entertained this with feeling, with intense feeling, and then these things happen. And they might have passed judgment on one who had a similar condition, and relate the condition to some unlovely thing they know of that person and think God was getting even. Yet, they are ardent churchgoers, members of the church. One is on the altar guild; the other is a trustee of the church. He’s a banker by profession. They really devote themselves to the service of the church. Well, what has that to do with one entertaining these emotions with feeling, intense feeling, and then forgetting it, not knowing that the effect (when it takes place . . and it is a natural and a real effect) that it is related to a spiritual cause, and the spiritual cause is nothing more than a motion within themselves. Within themselves they move, and having moved, they are going to project that state into which they fell, either wisely or unwisely. And when it comes into the world for recognition they don’t recognize their own harvest.575 ¶9

But there is no other way that it could come into the world. So, “The Spirit of God moved…” and then the whole vast world began to appear. He moved. Now, motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. If this very moment we were hurtled into space, all in the same motion, I wouldn’t know, and you wouldn’t know, that we were moving. I can only detect motion if I can observe a motion relative to an object that seems to be stationary relative to me. And so, I must have a frame of reference against which I move.575 ¶10

So, the frame of reference: I stand here . . I have a frame of reference. I have friends who know (or think they know) where I stand in the world. They think they know what I stand for, how I live, and that’s what they believe. Well, in my mind’s eye I see that frame of reference, and then I let them see me differently. I didn’t go anyplace . . I allowed them to see me differently. Well, if they see me differently then I must have moved. So, in my mind’s eye I construct a scene implying the fulfillment of my dream, and then as I see it, I accept it as true and believe that they accept it as true of me. So I change it. If I change it within myself and use that frame of reference, and the same reveals a change in me, well then, I have moved. That is the secret of all creation in the world: “And the Spirit of God moved.” And the minute He moved, things appeared. “Let there be light.” Let everything now that this is implying appear in my world, for the potency is in its implication. Well, what does it imply . . this motion? Well, it implies that they now see in me what I would like them to see. As they see me in that light, I am actually saying (without the use of words): “Let there be light on it now. Let it come into the world that the whole world may see it.” See what? See the motion that I produced within myself. For when we are told: “The Spirit of God moved,” that’s no more than your own wonderful human Imagination moving relative to a frame of reference, and so you move.575 ¶11

How is this taught in Scripture? It’s taught in the most beautiful manner. It’s told as a story. These are not secular stories; these are profound truths. Now, Rebecca conceives; she’s pregnant. Isaac prays that his wife will be given a child . . given a son . . and the Lord responded, as we are told, and she conceived. Well, then there was trouble within her womb, and she wondered: “Why should these things be? If this is so, why should I live?”, for, there was a conflict within herself. And the Lord said to her: “Two nations are within your womb, and two manners of people, born of you, shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” (This is told us in the 25th chapter of the book of Genesis.) Now, as the story unfolds, the one comes out second, and he has no hair. His name is Jacob, which means a “supplanter.” He supplants, he takes the place of the other. The one that came out first was covered with hair all over. He is called Esau. Jacob supplants him by deception. He deceives his father into believing that he was his son, Esau. How did he do it? He clothed himself with hair and came to his father, and the father said: “Your voice is the voice of Jacob. Come close, come near, that I may feel,” for the father was blind. Isaac was blind, and he could not see. So he came near, and as he came near and the father felt him, he said: “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau,” and he blessed him. And when he blessed him he gave him the birthright that belonged to the first son. When the first son came in from the hunt, bringing what the father had requested . . venison . . he said: “Who are you?” He said: “I am your son, Esau.” “Well,” he said, “I have just blessed my son Esau.” He said: “That was Jacob,” the deceiver. (This is the second time he has deceived him.) Then the father said, “I have blessed him, and I cannot take back the blessing. You have to serve him.”575 ¶12

Well now, tell that story and what does it mean? Here is my Esau. You are my Esau. This room is Esau. This is stronger than my subjective state. How stronger? This to me is the utmost: I am here, and everything in my world that I can touch and see now and sense. This is the strong, strong son . . my surface. The subjective state is what? I can paint a word picture of it, but that’s not real. But I’m going to make it real. So I shut my eyes, and . . closing my eyes to the facts of life, to the obvious things . . I am blind. So, Isaac was blind. I close my eyes; I don’t see it.575 ¶13

Then I persuade myself that I am what I would like to be, instead of what reason dictates and my senses dictate. Well, in that projected state, I clothe myself with the other although I can’t accept it right now. Imagination is spiritual sensation. Now, take an object. I will just lead you in words. Take a tennis ball in your imaginary hands and feel it. You can feel it. To show you the difference, take a baseball. Can you discriminate between the two? Well now, take a ping-pong ball. Can you discriminate between the three? If these are non-existent, you couldn’t discriminate. How can you say that these do not exist and say that you can tell the difference between non-existent things? They do not, at the moment, exist in your outer mind’s senses . . they don’t. But they exist! All things exist now in the human Imagination. That’s where you felt it; you felt it in your Imagination, and Imagination is spiritual sensation. Well then, what does that mean? “I saw it in my mind’s eye, and I felt the three different kinds of balls.” Well, what does it mean? Well, now to test one. Take this and apply it to anything in the world. Apply it to mountains; apply it to anything, and if you accept what you’ve done to test it in your Imagination, just wait. “The vision has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower; if it be long, then wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late.” It will come on time!575 ¶14

Let me share with you an experience of just a few months ago of this friend of mine . . a very marvelous chap . . an executive in a very prominent advertising agency in Los Angeles (he comes to all the meetings). Here are two short ones: He said, “I was driving home, and then it dawned upon me: You know that April the fifteenth is just around the corner, and you could do with some cash for Uncle Sam.” Now, he receives a very large salary, but he spends it and he lives a lovely, generous life. He has a lovely home and three children. He maintains a beautiful home, but he never thought in terms of these moments in time when we are confronted with Uncle Sam’s outstretched hand and he wants a part of what you earn. Well, you can’t say “No” to him; you’ve got to pay him. So here comes around the corner the fifteenth of April, and he could use some cash. “Riding home,” he said, “this is what I did. I simply imagined, and I made a game of it. I imagined that it was raining gently, but the rain was little green pieces of paper. It was money coming gently upon me, and I could feel it . . actually feel the gentle rain of paper money dropping upon me, and I had stopped. I had done this for about two or three minutes, and then the traffic demanded all of my attention and so I broke it. When I went home that night I thought it was great fun and I’d try it again. I could feel it actually descending upon me like a gentle rain. The next day was the fourteenth of April, and sitting at my desk (not paying any attention to it, really) the boss comes in, and he said to me: ‘You have a ten per cent raise and it’s retroactive as of the first of the month,’ and gave me a check for a ten per cent raise.” And he makes a very big salary. So, ten per cent of a very large salary, and it was retroactive to the first of the month . . here, within a matter of moments, his feeling was granted as an actual fact! He didn’t have it before he started, and now he has it. The vision came to flower at the appointed hour. He needed it on the fifteenth and here, just before the fifteenth, a man comes through with a check and tells him that it is retroactive to the first, at ten per cent beyond what he got last month.575 ¶15

Now, this is a story that I have at home (at the hotel) in his own hand. He didn’t confine me to some secrecy. He told it to me . . not in confidence, but that I may share it with others to encourage them to try it.575 ¶16

“Now,” he said, “I went home a couple of months before, and my wife began to tell me a very unlovely story . . unlovely in the sense that we love the little girl. She’s fourteen months old, and we know her grandmother well. Of course we know the mother, but we are closer to the grandmother, and the grandmother told my wife that the little girl began to develop bumps in her neck . . little swellings. So they took her to the hospital for observation. They made a biopsy and five doctors brought in the negative verdict that it was malignant; it was cancer.” Well, in a child of fourteen months that is fatal, because you are developing. You can arrest cancer if you are my age because you are not building any more . . and they drop from this world by some other means . . because at my age if I was told I had cancer, it doesn’t mean that that will be the cause of my future departure from this world. For I am not building any longer; I am just holding my own. Well, a little child of fourteen months builds rapidly, so whatever is in her is building rapidly. With cancer, in no time they are gone. So the grandmother was scared; the mother was scared.575 ¶17

But as his wife was telling my friend, he said: “I allowed her voice to tell me completely different. I heard just enough. She kept on talking, but she didn’t know from my expression that I wasn’t listening. I didn’t hear one word after I heard what she said, and as she kept on building the picture, her voice faded from me. And then I reconstructed what she said, and I had her tell me that the whole thing was false. Although there were five doctors, each agreeing that this thing was malignant and therefore fatal, I let it fade completely and brought in a complete reversal of that verdict.” Now the grandmother asked that they keep the child a little longer at the hospital that they could still bring in another. So, they made another biopsy from a different section of the neck. A sixth doctor was brought in. “I am sorry to disagree with my men in the profession, but it is not malignant and it is not cancer.” They then were called in to make a third, and they confessed that they were wrong because she couldn’t possibly have had cancer and today not have cancer. So they had to justify it. They could not for one moment; they confessed they were wrong.575 ¶18

He said: “That’s all right with me. The child now lives and she has no cancer. Why should I go out and tell them: No, they were right in the first time, but prayer to the only God that exists can make all things possible? With God, all things are possible, but you don’t know who God is, so you believe in your technique. It’s perfectly all right.” He said: “Now, my wife told me exactly what I knew.” The grandmother is now telling it all over the neighborhood, and now they look upon me as a miracle man . . which is unfortunate, because it will make life difficult for me in the neighborhood.” He said: “I’m no miracle man; I simply learned through you who God is. And if all things are possible to God, and God is my own Imagination, can’t I imagine what I want to imagine and persuade myself of the reality of the state imagined? Well, I did, and the child now is free of what they called cancer. But to justify their own decision and not say: ‘Well, we were wrong,’ they now say it could not have been cancer or therefore she could not have overcome it.”575 ¶19

So, here is that story I’ve just told you, plus the raise in salary, and unnumbered things the man lives by. He is not interested in the Promise. Well that’s all right. He’s a businessman, and he has to pay rent, buy clothes for his children and his wife and himself. And he’s more interested in the Law, and so he’s always writing these stories concerning the Law. If perchance I get off and week after week, I’m stressing the Promise, I can see Dick . . that night he isn’t going to come. Well, it doesn’t interest him but it’s perfectly all right, because we’re living in the world of Caesar, and we’ve got to master this Law and not pass the buck and blame others for the things that are happening in our world, for in my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions.575 ¶20

It sets me now on my feet to become discriminating, to become selective. Into what mansion will I go this night? Into what state of consciousness will I go this night? For, if I occupy it, even though I forget it tomorrow, it will not be forgotten. I have planted the seed, and in time . . and on time . . it will come up as a harvest. Whether I recognize my own planting or not, it’s coming into my world. So, why not devote some time every day to planting lovely things in this world? People will say: “Well, all right . . thorns are real, aren’t they?” Oh, yes, thorns are real, but aren’t roses real too? Do you want to go out and really pluck thorns . . or roses? If I am going to dwell on the thorns, well, I will trade it and leave it for a flower for the Son of Man. Why can’t I think in terms of roses? I’m not denying that thorns are real. The things you see in the headlines, all these things -“Nixon declares war,” or something, why couldn’t they’ve told that same story differently, for in man’s mind the word war has a certain association? Big headlines: “Nixon Declares War” on something. Another paper more modestly tells it, and they will say: “Nixon Takes Issue” with this, that, and the other. But no, we have to simply frighten the reader to make him buy the paper. If he’s declared war, you will read the second line in smaller print, because you might think he’s declared war on Russia. So, the big headline, and then you read what he is really concerned about . . some little issue.575 ¶21

So here in my Father’s house are these unnumbered mansions, numberless states of consciousness. Learn to discriminate between the man and his present state, so that you meet someone and he’s a wonderful being, and in your eyes he seems so just and so honest. Another one is despicable. But when you know they are only states, you will actually see that you “do not consider either the just or the wicked to be the supreme state, but to be, everyone of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” So the one who is now so just . . he may not be conscious of the fact that he has moved into that state literally, and therefore really is a just man, for he is only expressing the state in which he has placed himself. He might have been placed in that state deliberately, or accidentally. If it is done deliberately . . good! Then he’ll know how to get out of it and to continue in all the lovely states in this world. But if he fell into it, appearing as a just man, he could easily fall out of it, and then tomorrow you will read in the paper where he is not so just after all.575 ¶22

So when I know that these are only states.. .you don’t save men, for in every man there is God, and God-in-man is man’s own wonderful, human Imagination. But if he doesn’t know that he will say, as most people say, “Oh, it’s just my imagination. It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing. I can imagine whatever I want because I didn’t do it,” . . he doesn’t know he’s going to do it. You dwell upon a thing for a long while and make it real, so you’re always coming back to it. That state to which I most often return constitutes my dwelling place. You’ll find a certain person . . after a little while, he’s always talking on a certain subject, and he’s coming back to it and back to it and back to it. He may be talking about poverty, and always talking poverty. Well then, follow him. He moves his home, he moves his job . . he moves everything, because the state to which I most constantly return constitutes the place where I dwell. So follow my Imagination. Where does it dwell most often in the course of a day? That’s my dwelling place.575 ¶23

Well, you can start now, and for twenty-four hours dwell in security . . not security from the government, because. no, you have it, you’ve earned it, either through your talent or in some normal but dignified manner. You didn’t steal it; you have it in a marvelous way. Well then, you dwell upon that state and feel what it would be like if it were true. For you see: when the man was blind, he emphasized the one thing, which seemed to be the easiest of all senses actually to apply: that’s feeling. He said: “Come close, my son, that I may feel you.” He couldn’t see him; he was blind. He did use another sense, called “smell.” He said: “You smell and you feel like my son Esau.” Esau had hair all over him. Well, isn’t that the most external thing in the world? The first thing you encounter of a man is hair. You may not even see it, but under the microscope we are all, like a monkey, completely covered with hair. Now, the other one had no hair. He’s left completely subjective. So one comes out into the world covered with hair, and you have a lengthy word picture of a boy with hair all over. It hasn’t a thing to do with a little child who came into this world covered with hair! It means the external world, for that is the most external thing in the world.575 ¶24

When you read that John the Baptist came and he had a girdle made of leather and he wore a shirt of hair, it isn’t a man with a girdle of leather and a camel’s hair coat. That tells you that his story is external. All that he has to say is completely external: “Thou shalt not.” In other words, he came neither to eat nor drink, and his whole world was one of bias against his own appetites. So he felt that by doing violence to himself he could gain the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we are told by the one who had no hair: “Christ in you is subjective,” and he said: “John the Baptist and all those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist: nevertheless, I say, the least in the Kingdom is greater than John.” He was the greatest of all. He was pure beyond measure, doing violence to his appetites. In his own mind he was a just and noble man, but “the least in the kingdom is greater than he,” because he represents the external world.575 ¶25

And we are told Elijah was. but Elijah was John, who was Elijah-come-again. Well, Elijah clothed himself with the camel’s hair, and he, too, wore the girdle of leather, for he represents that state of mind. And you’ll find people in the world who are trying to get into the kingdom by doing violence to their appetites. They are strict vegetarians. They are strict this, strict that, and they really feel they should become a celibate or should order themselves so that they will not become disturbed, as so many priests have done . . and that means that they are now pure people. Pure nothing.575 ¶26

In this world of ours, live a noble life in the garment that God gave you. Whatever it is, live it. And in your mind’s eye, appropriate all the lovely things in the world. You have to pay rent, you have to buy clothes, to buy food; and if you get married and have a family, they are your responsibility while they are young. All right . . all that is yours. There’s no need to blame anyone if you don’t have enough. Appropriate it, for all the states exist now.575 ¶27

But where? They all exist in your own wonderful, human Imagination. And all you do is adjust. Well, where do you go to adjust? Standing just where you are, you adjust. Wherever you are, you adjust to the state desired. So, he’s riding home in his car and money is falling on him . . gently falling, green money . . and then in a matter of moments he gets a raise. Why did that man have the impulse to give him a ten per cent raise? Because he appropriated it. You can work for a firm, as you know, all your life and it would never occur to the boss to give you a raise. And going in and begging him for it isn’t going to do it. You’ve got to appropriate it first, and then let him think that he initiated it and give it to you.575 ¶28

I had a mother who understood this law beautifully. Mother wanted to come to this country on a vacation, and she would appropriate it. She would actually. in those days you didn’t buy dresses. You brought your dressmaker home and you selected the cloth and she would make you dresses. She had all her dresses made. My father was busy in the business world. He knew nothing of this daily activity of my mother . . having all these dresses made. And she appropriated the trip to New York City while physically she was in the little island of Barbados. Then my father would come home and say: “You know . . I don’t want you here. You don’t look very well. You look tired, and so I’ve just booked you for New York City, and you are sailing next week. All you have to do now is go and get a visa, because you are sailing next week and you are going to be there three months.” She would protest: “Oh,” she said, “No, Joseph, that’s so expensive. You shouldn’t do it.” Well, she already did it! She knew exactly what she was doing, but he wanted that feeling of one who was being generous, and she knew that he was the man of the house and if he did all these lovely things for her it would be nicer . . it would make him feel that he was so generous. And so she pleased him by protesting, when in her heart of hearts she knew exactly what she was doing. So I say: Do it all in your wonderful Imagination. She would not have done it, if for one moment she thought he couldn’t afford it, because she loved him and she loved the children she bore him. But why deprive him of the ability to do it or the desire to do it? Allow him full freedom to have the money to pay for it and the desire to do it. He could have had much more and not have the desire to do it. But she didn’t argue with him. She simply appropriated the trip and “lived” in New York City. And as she did it, he had the brilliant idea to send her to New York City.575 ¶29

And you wonder: How did it happen? It couldn’t happen unless someone moved in Imagination. Whatever takes place is but movement within God, and God is your Imagination! So you can move from one state to another in the twinkling of an eye. You don’t need to sit down and burst a blood vessel; you simply do it in the twinkling of an eye. And if you do it with acceptance . . with complete acceptance, no doubt as to your Imagination’s ability to externalize it . . it will externalize it. As we told you last night, the definition of faith is simply the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. You appropriate it subjectively and then it becomes the objective fact.575 ¶30

So, these are the stories told us in Scripture. So when Chambers said: “It takes great imagination to follow Jesus Christ, and I, for one, have been lacking in such imagination”.. .but he was right, in spite of his own position in his own town, a French town. And he made his exit from this world as a young man. Many of the great liberals of the world already quote him, but they will not quote that passage from his works, that he was inadequate to follow the mystery of Jesus Christ. It takes a great Imagination to follow him, because Jesus Christ is your Imagination, not something external to you. He’s in you. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” is what we are asked in Corinthians. Do you not know it? As though it would have changed! Man, whose life is Jesus Christ, doesn’t even know the source of his own life, that the foundation of his own being is Jesus Christ. That’s the reality of man. And he doesn’t know that reality. Well, I’ll tell you who he is: his own wonderful, human Imagination.575 ¶31

And you accept it, and you will know all these mansions are only states of consciousness. They are all states of consciousness. Now, when you go into any state and dwell in it and return to it often in the course of a day, you are dwelling in it, and you will find yourself dwelling there, not only for today, but it will become a habit. And as it becomes a habit, it becomes externalized, and that’s the world. That then becomes your Esau. That then becomes your reality. That becomes the stronger of the two sons. It was once the weak one, and the minute you clothe him with reality and he becomes real, then you may forget it. As it becomes real, you may forget that that was once only a subjective state. As it takes on now objective tones, you may not remember how you got out of the former state into this if you desire it and never despair, for we started with the statement: “Let not your heart be troubled.”575 ¶32

Quite often you will find these words appearing in different . . as we say . . guise: “Be not afraid”; “Fear not”; “Be not troubled”; “Be not anxious.” If you could remove fear from that, you remove all the titles of the world. If you are not afraid (and they couldn’t make you afraid; if you know who God is, they can’t make you afraid) . . if you know who you really are, no man can make you afraid. For within you the power of powers is present, and that power is Jesus Christ. Is he not described in Scripture as the “power of God,” in the very first chapter of I Corinthians? “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Paul saw no other. He only saw the power of God and the wisdom of God.575 ¶33

As the poet said: From the first . . Power One – I knew. Life has taught me That; but for a closer view Love were as close as He. Yes, this I knew: Power One. That I knew, and in my own vision, I can tell you, they come together.575 ¶34

When love embraced me, there was man . . infinite love as man. When I was commissioned and sent into this world to tell the story, it was power that sent me. But your being, your Imagination, is a protean being. It can assume any shape, any form, in the twinkling of an eye. So the one who embraced me as love was the very one who sent me, but when he sent me, he wore the garb of might. He wore the garb of power. His first revelation to man was as power: El Shaddai, God Almighty. He said: “I made myself known unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, God Almighty; but unto you, I have made myself known as I AM.” Then, in the end, he makes himself known as the Father. But he first reveals his nature as power, and that’s what he was when I was sent.575 ¶35

I looked into his eyes and he didn’t move his throat . . didn’t move his lips . . but I heard every word that he thought as he looked into my eyes. He looked into my eyes and thought, and his thought was: “Time to act.” And then with these words: “Time to act,” I was whirled out of that wonderful assembly and back upon my bed in this little garment of flesh, with these words ringing in my ear. But it was infinite might that sent me and yet infinite might was God Almighty, who was one with the infinite love who embraced me. But he did not command me as love; he commanded me as power.575 ¶36

And so it is the same being; he is a protean being. Proteus is simply the mythological god in the service of Neptune, who could assume any shape that would serve the purpose of Neptune. He could be a fish; he could be anything, if it served Neptune. And so he could assume anything, as you do in a dream. How do you manufacture all the symbolism of a dream? That’s you! You are assuming all these wonderful symbols, all the images of a dream. It’s yourself doing it; and you are clothing yourself in all the symbolism . . whether it be animals, the fish, different names, or even of a different sex, because you are protean and you can clothe yourself in anything in the world.575 ¶37

But in my own case, it was power that commanded me, and I can still hear the words ringing in my ear . . and yet I can see before my eyes infinite love that embraced me. When I fused, I fused . . not with power, I fused with love, one with him, and I’ve never been separated from that power that is love . . never! When I feel myself, it is always that same being that I saw. And I am quite sure that anyone who could see (not through mortal eyes, but through the awakened eyes of the risen Lord) would see that being as he looked at me, because he who becomes one spirit with the Lord becomes one body, becomes one spirit. He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him, and there is no divorce or separation from that moment on.575 ¶38

But that body that he wears in the spiritual world cannot be seen by mortal eyes. Yet I can feel it and sense it and know what it is, but it’s not this garment. This little garment will slowly wither away and depart this little life, but he within me, who now wears it, will be that being with whom I fused back in 1959, for here in my wonderful world are unnumbered mansions.575 ¶39

So you don’t have to condemn anyone who is in a state that he finds difficult to divorce himself from. Tell him how to do it. Teach him how to do it. Don’t sympathize with him, because if you sympathize with him, you are fixing that state all the more; but tell him how to get out of the state. It is only a state!575 ¶40

Whether he be just or wicked, he’s only in a state, and if you could only take the so called wicked man and persuade yourself that he is now a generous, kind, wonderful person, he would have a change of heart and not know why he has it. Something will happen within him, and he will become the kind and generous person that you have imagined him to be. If you want him to be that kind of a person, imagine him to be it, and persuade yourself of the reality of your own imaginary act, and he will conform to it.575 ¶41

My wife, back in 1945, when she left the Music Hall (she worked at the Music Hall for eleven years as a costume designer, and the head producer used to treat her unmercifully), but I told her one day: “Darling, he couldn’t do anything for you unless you allowed it. You actually feel that he is no earthly good. You feel that you are a cultured American lady. You went to Smith College. You were born and raised in a lovely environment. You never heard unkind things in your home. You never saw anything that was cheap. Your mother had lovely taste, beautiful things.” The interior was a beautiful, a huge, enormous home, with eight fireplaces, with every floor beautifully furnished, and she was raised in that environment. She went only to private schools, then off to Smith College, and then she worked in the Music Hall.575 ¶42

Well, her father was managing director of the Music Hall, so when she went in there, she did not ask any favors because of her father’s position, and this man simply lorded it over her. She would say within herself (this she confessed to me): “Oh, you foreigner!” because he came from Russia. And she mentally would remind him that she is an American by birth for at least six or seven generations, and he came from Russia, and is now acting this way. Well, that’s wrong. Whether he be a Russian or American, or English, or anything else, we are all one.575 ¶43

“Now, stop it, and allow him to praise you for your work. He’s always condemning and always criticizing. Walk to work. You only walk five blocks from where you live to the Music Hall. Just imagine that he is not only praising you for your work, but he wants to use all of your designs, and the budget will not allow it, so he goes to your father and asks your father to increase the budget, that he may be allowed to use all the designs. Your father’s a businessman, and he’s not going to do it. He’s going to cater neither to you nor to him, but he has to run that at a profit for the Rockefellers. So, let him do it. But in your Imagination assume that he does!”575 ¶44

How long do you think it took for him to actually change his attitude towards her? I’ll tell you: twenty-four hours! When she came downstairs with this wonderful collection of designs, he raved about them, and he actually went to her father and begged him to increase the budget, that he may use them all. Her father would not allow it. And from that day on, he changed his attitude toward her radically for the better. Why? Because she changed hers towards him.575 ¶45

Are we not told in Scripture: “We love Him because He first loved us”? You want to be quite fair? Well, start it here. Start it in your own Imagination, and you’ll find it responding on the outside, for the outer world only reflects the inner world. Start it there first, or you will never see it in the outer world! So, as she walked the street she simply imagined he walked with her, praising her for the work that she had done. And in twenty-four hours he praised her, and she hoped her father would increase the budget, that he could use all of them. And then she retired. And after she retired in 1946, he begged her to come back and do special shows. She went back and I think she did about six special shows for him. Who would have dreamt that he would ever ask her to come back and do one, after the treatment that she received?575 ¶46

She has overcome it; completely overcome it. She knows that it is all within her. She doesn’t turn to anyone to blame; she knows it’s within her. She tries to find out where, in her, she’s been carrying on these unlovely conversations, and then . . changing the conversations within her . . she changes the world in which she lives.575 ¶47

So, “in my Father’s house,” (which is your Father’s house, for we have but one Father and we are that Father) are the unnumbered states of consciousness . . and they dwell in the Father, and the Father is our own wonderful human Imagination. The adjustment is made wherever you are. If you are off to bed, just about to retire, make the adjustment there. If you are sitting in a cocktail lounge, make the adjustment there. It doesn’t matter where you are; you can do it within your Imagination in the twinkling of an eye.575 ¶48

What would it feel like if . . . and set your frame of reference. Your frame of reference . . . everyone has a frame of reference. Go down to the street tonight where people are lying in the gutter, and they have a frame of reference. They know what their parents or their friends think of them. They would know now what the same people would think of them, if they saw them differently. If they only knew that within their mind’s eye they could appear to themselves as one of the dignified beings pulling their own weight in this world (and their parents would be proud of them and not ashamed of them) and persuade themselves as they drop off into sleep that is how they are appearing to Caesar . . they will rise from that gutter and be disgusted with themselves and the gutter and the environment, and go right on . . go right up and do something that is worthy of a real man of this world. They would!575 ¶49

But who is going to reach them to tell them it’s all within them? You can tell them because you know it. Don’t go out and talk about it, but you’ll have an occasion to turn someone from that state into another state . . and you will find yourself knowing they are only states . . and it’s so easy to forgive one, knowing it’s only a state. You will pull him out of the state because you learn to discriminate between the man and his present state. The present state may be most unlovely, but it’s only a state; so instead of condemning the man, it’s the state. You take him out of that state. He’s the same being. The man who is rich today but formerly was poor . . it’s the same being. The state of poverty did not vanish because he left it. It remains a state for anyone to fall into. And you move him into a state of wealth. Well, the state of wealth is a reality. It’s fixed forever, and the day that he moves into it he’s going to become wealthy, and no power in the world is going to stop him. As long as he remains in the state of wealth he’ll reproduce it over and over and over, and you can’t take it from him. If he doesn’t know it’s a state and he loses it all (he might not know it was only a state) and he’ll remain out of that state in a state of poverty. But if he knows it was a state to begin with, he can always go back into that state. Any man can do it.575 ¶50

So, you know that it’s a simple, simple technique, but you cannot be sure that you have moved unless you can see motion relative to a fixed object . . some other object. You always have faces in your mind’s eye of those who know you. How do they know you? If you like it, that’s fine, if you don’t like it, how would you like them to know you? Well then, you name it and then let them know you. All you do is: “Let there be light.” Let the face become luminous, reflecting that thing in you. As it is changed in you, you’ll see it on their faces. Believe it! Believe in the reality of this subjective state. That is your hope, and this is the subjective appropriation of this hope. What hope? The faces are reflecting what you really want to see. And in a way that no one knows, you will become that man, and these faces actually will appear just as you have seen them in your mind’s eye. And they will be proud of you, as you are proud of yourself.575 ¶51

Now let us go into the Silence. Good! Now, are there any questions, please?575 ¶52

Any other questions?575 ¶55

If there aren’t any, we are here through Friday. Every night we begin at 7:30, and then next week, Monday through Friday till we have the series of ten. I hope I’ll see you often. Thank you.575 ¶62

Tonight’s subject is: Test Him and See. In the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the very last chapter, the 13th, he calls upon all of us . . for, he is addressing us. Although it was written two thousand years ago, he really addresses everyone in the world who will read the letter; and he said: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if every Christian in the world were brutally honest with himself, he would answer, “No, I do not realize it. I think of Christ as something on the outside.” That’s what the Christian would say . . “and you tell me He is in me.” I am called upon to test myself: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if Jesus Christ is in me, where is He? For I am told that “all things are possible to Him”. I am told that by Him “all things were made”, “and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Well, if the Being who created and sustains the universe is in me, I want to find it. I should devote all my life to the discovery of that Being who occupies me, who created and sustains the universe, to whom all things are possible. Well, I’ll tell you who He is. He’s your own wonderful, human Imagination! Your own wonderful Imagination is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus.574 ¶1

Well, now, test Him and see, because He creates everything. There isn’t a thing in this world that wasn’t first imagined. Name it! Everything in the world that is now proven as something that is factual was once only imagined. You mean, my imagination is the Lord Jesus? Yes, your imagination is the Lord Jesus; but He’s dreaming. He is dreaming this world. He is dreaming that He is you; and, as you, He is dreaming whatever you experience in this world. I don’t care what it is . . good, bad, or indifferent, He is suffering with you, for He is dreaming the dream of your life. He laid Himself down within you to dream; and as He dreams, He dreams that He is you. And whatever you think you are, that is what Jesus-in-you, who is the Lord forever, is dreaming! And when He wakes, He is you! And you are the Lord Jesus. This is the great mystery of all!574 ¶2

I have many a time stretched out on a bed or reclined on a chair and begun to see what I should not see. I saw what reason would deny that I could possibly see; yet I couldn’t deny that I am seeing it. I could no more deny the evidence of this experience than I could the evidence of my senses at any other moment in time . . I couldn’t. And then my imagination . . call it imagination, call it consciousness . . it follows the thinker. I am seeing what I should not see; and then I step into the world that I am seeing, and it is real . . just like this, and I am real to myself, and the people are real, everything is real . . just like this. Then I return to the place where I knew I was when I began to see it. I return, and yet I am still seeing it. I step into it again. I return . . oh, maybe a dozen or more times, and then I decided to venture, regardless of consequences. No matter what happens, I will go, not only into what I am seeing, but I am going to stay there and really explore. And my consciousness steps into what I am seeing, and it’s a world just like this! Real, solid, and I am solid, and I walk out and I meet people, and they see me but I know exactly what I am doing. I know where that thing began! My body is on a bed. I know exactly where that bed is, it’s in Beverly Hills, on El Camino. I know the number, I know everything . . I know exactly where it is. And, yet, here I am in a world like this, and it isn’t this world, and yet it is this world. And, then, I say to these ladies, “Ladies, this is a dream. This whole thing is a dream.” And they looked at me, as anyone present here tonight would look at me if I told you right now . . and I can, may I tell you . . that this is a dream! If I told you right now, “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a dream,” you would think, “Why did I come here tonight? This man is insane; he’s mad!” Well, that’s what they felt: that I was mad, and they got as far away from me as they possibly could down the corridor. There they walked as far as they could, looking at me suspiciously; and I am looking at these two lovely . . gracious ladies, as you are . . no desire to hurt, only to tell them this whole thing is a dream! And when they got beyond and felt safe, they almost ran down the corridor . . a beautiful, beautiful interior of a plush, plush hotel. And there I stood, shut out in a dream. I knew exactly where I laid my body down in Beverly Hills on a street called El Camino. I knew it was a double bed, and my wife was right next to me, and here I am, standing erect in a place more lit than this, far more plush than this . . luminous, and I am shut out; and I have unfinished business in this world that you and I now know. A child not yet educated . . a child just entering high school, a wife, and I had not yet prepared to cushion the blow if I should depart now. What would they do for . . well, money in the immediate future, for I haven’t yet prepared to cushion their life beyond my departure. And here I am standing, and there is no way back to Beverly Hills, and that world is just like this. Then I remembered what I did years before, when I had a similar experience and it was all based upon feeling; and I could touch something, and I held what I touched and made myself awake. So, as I held it, I said, “Come on! Wake up!” and I woke, holding the object that I imagined, which was in this world. And that’s how I awoke. I remembered that, so, then, I said to myself, while standing perfectly erect, “I will now imagine that my head is on a pillow. It’s in Beverly Hills, in my room on El Camino,” and I could feel the pillow. And, then when I could feel that pillow, I felt myself back . . not in a vertical state, but in a horizontal state, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I was cataleptic. The body was dead. I was alive within a body that I could not move; the thing was completely cataleptic. Then in about . . oh, maybe a half-minute, I could move the little finger, and then move the hand, then push it out and I could feel the warmth of my wife’s body. Then I knew I was back. I still couldn’t open my eyes. And, then, maybe in another half-minute, I made a tremendous effort, and the eyes came open, and here are all the familiar objects in the room: the bureau, pictures on the walls . . the normal, natural things that I had left behind, and I knew that I had entered a world, just like this, and I entered it from a state that the world would call a dream. When I came back, I could only conclude that this world where I am now, on the bed . . touching the woman who is my wife, the mother of my daughter, and this, too, is a dream, but I can’t remember where I laid that body down when I began to dream this dream. I couldn’t remember where that body was, for that was the original body that started this dream, and the other was only a dream within a dream.574 ¶3

Well, then, I began to experiment, as I did prior to that. If my imagination is Jesus Christ, as taught in Scripture; and if by Him all things were made, “and without him was not anything made that was made”, well, then, I can take the challenge that Paul gave us: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourself” . . not the other . . “Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if He is in me, then He is the one who stepped into that world and returned into this world, and in this world He’s dreaming this, and can He modify this dream? I began to experiment, and I began to imagine that I am what reason denies, what my senses deny, and I became it in this world! I began to teach it to others, and I told others to do it in a simple way, like a dream. You start with a dream; and you conceive a scene, which, if true, would imply the fulfillment of your dream in this world; that the potency of that thing is all in what it is implying. Just try it. Bring before your mind’s eye a scene, friends, and have the friends congratulating you on your good fortune; and you accepted it just as though it were true, and then drop it. And, then, let it happen in this world. Let it happen. Then I repeated it and repeated it and repeated it, and taught it; and those who believed me, who tried it, proved it.574 ¶4

Then I found who He was. I found that really the God of the universe is in man, and man is his own wonderful, human imagination! That man’s imagination is the Eternal Body of the Lord that is called Jesus. That is Jesus. He’s crucified on this body, on your body, on Humanity. The day will come that He will awake from this dream, but in this world He is dreaming. He is dreaming that He is you! And the day will come that He will awake from that dream, strangely enough not leaving you behind detached, but He will awake and you are He! “Unless I die,” said He, “Thou canst not live.” “But if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” He will not leave you behind. He actually became humanity, that humanity might become God! That’s the story and it’s not talk; but I am telling you what I know from my own wonderful human experience. I have done it time and again, gone right into a world just like this, and nothing dies. Tonight when someone appears to die, they will only close a section of the Eternal Book that they are dreaming. They simply close it, and you call them dead. They are not dead! They are in a world just like this, and they are solid. They are terrestrial; the world is terrestrial. How? They are unaccountably new. I cannot explain to you how it happens, any more than I can explain to you how tonight when I go to bed and sleep and dream, that I am real to myself in my dream, and I am real to those who see me. I am clothed; yet, the body is on the bed. And I sleep, and have for the last forty-odd years, in the nude. I go to bed, and find myself clothed the way I am now. Where is the clothing? Where is the body? The body is on the bed, but that dream is real; and when I awake within the dream, it’s just like this . . just like this. So, this is as much of a dream as the dream in which I have awakened, and not one friend of mine has ever died. I see them, and they are solidly real, and unaccountably new . . not little children, but new . . no need of false teeth, no need of glasses, no need of anything. They are new. But eventually they have these things because they grow old there, too. They age there and die when they come to the end of that section of the Book of Life. Then they awaken to find they are reading another chapter, and they continue the Book of Life, and we are dreaming the Dream of Life.574 ¶5

In the end, we will awaken from the Dream of Life, knowing that everyone eventually will do it; but while we are in this world, we can modify the dream.574 ¶6

If I know I’m dreaming, I can change it. So, someone comes into my world, and he’s unemployed, yet he needs money; he has a family to support. He needs money to buy all the things that a family needs; and I’m dreaming that. Well, I’ll change that dream! I will see him as gainfully employed and happy in his family, and everything is, as it ought to be. So, I changed the script. I have the power to change it, and he conforms to my change, and he works. Now, I can’t see you now unless you penetrate my brain. Everything that I perceive, I perceive only because it as an object in space is penetrating my brain. So, at once, you exist, not only in me, by penetration, but you exist as an object occupying a place in space independent of my perception of you; but you do exist simultaneously in me, because you have penetrated my brain, you also exist as something occupying space in the surrounding world. Now, must I wait for you to change, to change in me? Or, can I change in me what I see there, and make the change take place there? Well, try it. This is the test. If Christ is in us . . well, then, do I wait for objects in space to change for it to change in me, or can I change it in me, for you are penetrating my brain or I couldn’t perceive you? Well, I’ll change that which penetrates my brain, and it is one with that which is in space, because if you should change it would change in me. Well, now, if I change you in me, I could change you in the other world. Then I try it, and it works. I try changing in me what others appear to be. It was not lovely, and they requested a change, they felt they couldn’t bring it about, and turned to me. All right, so if He is in me, and all things are created by Him, “and without Him is not a thing made that is made”, well, then, I will change it. So, in my mind’s eye I represented him, or them, to myself as I would like to see them and as they would like to see themselves, and then I did nothing, beyond simply changing them in me, and persuading myself of the reality of the change; and then they conformed to it.574 ¶7

Well, if they conformed to it, then I have found Him! “For all things are made by Him, and without Him is not anything made that is made.” So, “examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Read it in the 13th chapter of II Corinthians.574 ¶8

And there’s no more glorious end than in that chapter, the greatest benediction that you could ever read: “And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” That’s how he ends that letter. Have you ever heard a more glorious benediction? “…be with you all.” What? “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Well, grace means a gift unmerited, unearned, unwarranted, a complete, wonderful gift that no one could ever earn . . the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ! Then he comes to the love of God. I can’t conceive of that, it’s infinite. He is infinite in His love, and, then, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, making us all one. That’s the benediction.574 ¶9

But that challenge in the 4th verse, when he asks you if you do not realize that God . . he calls Him “Jesus Christ”: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, you ask that of the Christians of the world, and if they were brutally honest, they would tell you, “No, I don’t realize it.” But, now, test it; and when you test it, you find Him. And after you find Him through testing, I’ll make you a promise; you are going to have the experience of Jesus Christ. And everything said of Him in the Bible, you are going to have it in a first-person, singular, present-tense experience; and you will know that you are the Lord Jesus Christ! That God actually became us, that we may become God! That is the story.574 ¶10

So, when, sitting on a chair or lying on a bed . . and it’s happened to me so often . . I see a world that is so real, and I shouldn’t see that world . . because if I am seeing what I ought to see, I should see the walls, the picture that I know, the things . . the objects that I know that are in this room . . and I am not seeing these things at all. I am seeing an entirely different world, and then something moves within me, and my consciousness follows my vision, and I step into the world that I am seeing. I enter it. And then I remain in it long enough to have it close upon me, and this world is completely shut out. Yet, that world is as real as this world, and I find myself moving in that world . . I stroll. And it’s just as real as this world!574 ¶11

Now, last night a friend of mine, who is here tonight, having heard this story of mine a little while back . . he told me of an experience of his, and it really was a thrilling experience. I am going to ask him to take the platform and tell you what was told him when he sat at a bar on a hot summer’s day. I am going to ask him to keep it down just to the essentials, not to embellish it and not to attempt to interpret it . . just to tell you what was told him by one who had this experience. Verne, will you take the platform?574 ¶12

Verne: I have been coming to Neville’s lectures four or five years in San Francisco, and I live about 55 or 57 miles down the Peninsula. It was last summer just before Neville came to San Francisco that I had been taking some material to the Post Office about 5:00 o’clock in the evening, and was returning to my home through the business district, and I saw the door of a barroom open. It was a very hot day, and I thought, “Oh, on an afternoon like this, a nice thing I could have right now in my experience would be a cold bottle of beer.” So, I parked my car and went into this bar. I noticed that it had been redecorated. I had been in this place before, but not for several months. There was new leather paneling all around the walls with metal studs. There were new stools, and the floor was all redone. It was very attractive and a very pleasant place to be. And the bar had been modified a little bit to make it rather “L” shaped. I noticed that every seat was taken, except for the far end where the small leg of the “L” would be. So I went down there to find myself a seat, and there were two stools; but the one I could not occupy because there was an ashtray there that had a cigarette in it, and there was a glass. Someone was occupying that stool, so I took the only one that I could, which was next to the wall, wondering who might be in the seat next to mine. In a few moments a man came back from the lavatory and sat down beside me. He was about five feet seven, clean cut, shaven, coal dark hair, and rather solidly built . . a pleasant-looking person. But it’s not my custom to seek for companionship in bars, and I had no desire to conduct a conversation with him, but he wanted to talk to me. I was not rude to him, but I answered everything that he said in monosyllables, to sort of indicate that I’d rather conduct my affairs by myself, but he insisted on speaking to me, and he wanted to know if I was an engineer because I live in that part of the Peninsula where there are a lot of electronics industry. I said, “No, I am not an engineer.” “Well, what do you do?” he asked. I said, “I happen to be a writer”; and the fact that I was a writer triggered something in him. He had been down to that portion of California where old treasures are reputed to be, and some months ago he had found some old, Spanish coins, and he had written an article about these coins which had been published in a magazine. He brought that out because he thought it would be of interest to me, which it was, and then we got to talking a little bit more, and he said, “You know, that’s the part of the United States where many of these people go that are interested in unidentified flying objects. Do you believe in those things?” I had to say that I didn’t have any feeling one way or the other about it because I had had no experience with them, but I said, “I can tell you something of interest if you are interested in that sort of thing. I was the Personnel Officer with the United States Air Force in 1952 at a large radar station in Wisconsin, near the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and we had the radarscope working 24 hours a day, picking things out of the sky, as part of our surveillance over the Canadian border.” I said, “Our men used to pass on weather reports to commercial airliners because they would pick up advance notice of these things.” And I said, “One night they clocked some object in the earth’s atmosphere that was going at an enormous rate of speed . . nine thousand miles an hour, or something like that, and then it stopped with no curve or anything and just took off in another direction.” I said, “That is the limit of my experience with unidentified flying objects. We made a photographic impression of what appeared on the radarscope and sent it to Washington and that’s the last I heard of it.” Our conversation came to a halt at that moment, and then he said, “You know when I was in the war, I was a Marine and I was in the Pacific Theater, and I was wounded in the leg there and was taken to a hospital in Japan. And one night while I was on this hospital bed in Japan, I had a dream. And all of a sudden,” he said, “I awoke in this dream, and I found myself in a large beautiful ballroom, and there were many couples who were dancing to some very stately music, and it must have been something like a French court or a European royal family of some kind, because,” he said, “it was very ornate, and it was very stately.” He said, “All the women were wearing hoop skirts, long hoop skirts, powdered wigs that came down to their shoulders, and the men were wearing knee breaches with silver buckles on their shoes; and I am dancing with this woman, and I am trying to tell her that I am having a dream on a hospital bed in Japan and she was part of my dream, as all of the dancers were, and she wouldn’t accept what I was saying. She said to me, ‘Oh, you’ve had too much to drink out of the punch bowl; so I think maybe we should step out of this dance and go over there and have one more glass to get you straightened out.’ So, they broke away from the other dancers and he, protestingly, went along with her, trying to tell her that he believed he was sincere in what he was telling her, and she wouldn’t accept it, and he began to get a little bit loud about it, and finally it was noticed by other dancers and some of the men broke away and came over to see what all the trouble was about. She told them, “This man is out of his mind and is insisting that this is a dream, that we are all dream figures”’ and he insisted on it. He said, “At that point they began to move in on me as though they were going to overpower me and shackle me, because I was creating such a ruckus.” And then he said, “Pfff, it was like smoke, and it all disappeared, and I was back on my bed in Japan.” It was then that I told him Neville’s story, and I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head because he had not heard of this experience from anyone else.574 ¶13

Neville: Thank you, Verne; thank you. Thank you very much. Now, here you’ve heard it from one who was told it at a bar. If I said you are all figures in my dream, you would think me completely insane, and yet I will not retract one word. You are dreaming me, and I am dreaming you; and we are dreaming this scene to be, and while we are in it, in the world of Caesar, we can modify the dream and change it and make it conform to a better dream than the script that we are reading. But the day will come, you will awaken from the dream of life, and when you awaken, you are the Lord Jesus Christ! This is the story that I am trying to get over to everyone in the world. So, you condemn no one, for what you are seeing is all part of your dream.574 ¶14

Now, test it and see. But you are told in this 13th chapter: Test yourself. You don’t test the other. You test yourself, and the other is a part of your dream; so you can’t appeal to him. You appeal to yourself! If he is in your dream and he’s not doing what you’d like him to do . . he’s unemployed and he’s a burden on society, well, then, employ him. See him gainfully employed, making far more than he ever dreamed that he could ever make, and let him go. He will conform to your modified dream. See the other, and the other one wants to be . . I don’t care what he wants. If they want to be socially prominent, if they want to be this, that or the other, what does it matter in the dream? So, he wants to be something very important. Does it take anything from you? No, you are the dreamer. The dreamer in man is God.574 ¶15

Now, there are three ancient manuscripts concerning the beginning of the Bible. They are known only by letters. We speak of the “J” manuscript, the “E” manuscript and the “P” manuscript. Scholars do not know who they are. They are all attributed to a mythological figure called Moses. But nevertheless, in the book of Genesis it is only “J”, “E” and “P”; and they have named it Jehovah, Elohim, and the Priestly; but the “E” manuscript begins with the 15th chapter of the book of Genesis. It doesn’t mention the first fourteen chapters; it has not a thing to say about the so-called creation and the flood. It begins with Abraham, before his name was Abraham, when his name was Abram. That’s the 15th chapter, and in this chapter he asks for a son. He said, “I have no son. Why can’t you give me a son? And the son born in my household of a slave will be my heir.” And the LORD said to him, “He will not be your heir; your own son will be your heir.” Then the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Abram, and Abram slept. Now, not a thing is said that he ever awoke! Abram slept, and the LORD said to him, “You will be slaves for four hundred years; and when you come out, you will have an abundance beyond what you have prior to the deep sleep that falls upon you, and you will suffer. You will be a slave during this sleep.” This is the 15th chapter of Genesis.574 ¶16

May I tell you? You are the Abram spoken of. The “four hundred” doesn’t mean four hundred years, as we would measure time. Four hundred is the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is tav; and the symbolical value of that is a cross. The “cross” is this body. This is the cross, the tav . . the four hundred that you wear; and until you take it off finally, at the very last you are enslaved. You are enslaved by the cross that you wear. You perform all of its functions. No matter how powerful you are . . you cannot pay anyone or command anyone to perform for you the normal, natural functions of this cross. You must assimilate and eliminate, and do everything that this body demands; and you cannot turn it over to someone else to do it for you, no matter who you are. So, this is the slave body that Abraham wears; and when he comes out of this dream, he will be enhanced a hundredfold. Whatever the creative power you possessed prior to your descent into this garment, it will be enhanced a hundredfold; whatever the wisdom that you possessed prior to the descent, a hundredfold.574 ¶17

So, this is God, and God alone who is playing all the parts. Here we have a play, and you and I will not avoid the play. We read it and we play it. Now, to play a part, a good actor must, to some extent, feel the part that he is playing, and to the best of his ability identify himself with the character that he is playing. He must do that. So, God is not pretending that He is you; He had to completely forget His infinite power and take on the limitations of you, in order to play “you” as you ought to be played. So, God is not pretending that He is man. He became man! He became man, that man may become God! That’s the only way that God could actually extend His own Being . . His wonderful Being.574 ¶18

So, you are the God of Scripture. You are the God of the universe. You were the God that created the heavens and sustains the heavens for a divine purpose; and when the play is over, and we all awake from the dream, we knew each other, for you and I have known each other as brothers before we descended. I knew you and loved you beyond the wildest dreams that man could ever think of . . a love so dear, so tender, that not a thing on earth could ever compare to it. That’s how we loved each other. And you and I agreed to dream in concert, and not to break the dream until it was over. And when the whole thing is over . . and may I tell you, it is over, not collectively, but it is over one by one because you are so unique, you can’t be replaced. Not one person in Eternity can take your place in the Risen Body of the Living God! Not one. It would be a catastrophe beyond redemption if you could be lost. You can’t be lost. You must return as a living stone in the living body of the Risen Lord. And by living stone, I mean a Being way beyond the wildest dream of anyone here on earth. And when we meet in that Living Body, we will remember the Being that we loved before we descended, as told us in the 82nd Psalm: “I say, ‘you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall as one man, O ye princes.”574 ¶19

So, we actually fell as one man, and became diversified in these garments of flesh and blood, wearing different pigments: some wearing white bodies, yellow bodies, black bodies: and behind the mask of these bodies is God . . not less than the other one. Not one because of the pigment of the skin is less or greater. It’s all God! There’s nothing but God. I wouldn’t want to be greater than the one I loved before the fall, and I will not be. All will be one. We ventured into this world of death, and we will come out of it, and return to the world of life . . the eternal world. This is the most marvelous venture in the world, but while you wear the mask, we can’t quite see it.574 ¶20

Now, I am telling you this tonight, not from speculation. I am not theorizing; I am not speculating. I have experienced Scripture. Everything said in the Gospels concerning Jesus Christ, I have experienced, from the Crucifixion straight through to the descent of the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove! The ascension, the discovery of the Fatherhood of God . . all these I have experienced in a first-person, singular, present-tense experience. And, yet, while I wear the garment to tell the story, I must still continue the sufferings that the garment imposes upon me. It gets old, and it gets older and it gets older, it gets weaker, and I have to bear it. I must bear this cross to the very end. Well, as Paul said in the 8th chapter of his letter to the Romans: “I consider that the sufferings of the present time aren’t worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us at the Revelation of Jesus Christ.” When Christ reveals Himself in us as us, what does it matter what we have suffered through the play? But I cannot stop the suffering as the body gets older and decays; but this time I am taking it off for the last time, not to be restored any more, but to completely leave it behind, and then to return to the One Body that is gathering one by one by one all into the Risen Lord.574 ¶21

I’m already part of the Risen Body, but I was sent to tell this story; and tell it, I must; and tell it, I will. And if it offends someone, if it disturbs someone, it doesn’t make any difference to me; I still must tell it. If someone becomes completely self-publicized and is distorting the mystery of Christ, I must protest the distortion of this great mystery of God. They set themselves apart as though they were elected to tell a story of a moral issue, and that one is no god, and that one. That isn’t so at all! There isn’t one in Eternity that will remain unredeemed; and the part he is playing was essential to the whole, for “all things work for good for those who love the LORD.”574 ¶22

We are told: “You didn’t sell me into slavery,” when the brothers confessed they had sold him into slavery. He said, “No, it was the LORD; it was the LORD’s will. You were instruments used to sell me into slavery; but He knew my innate wisdom, my innate know-how to interpret the signs of the time and so I interpreted the signs of the times to save civilization.” “So a famine was coming upon the world. Without my knowledge of the Pharaoh’s dream, then we would not have lived. So, He allowed you to sell me into slavery, that I may be in contact with Pharaoh and read his dream for him and prove it true, and then become equal with Pharaoh in the running of civilization.” So the brothers thought that they had sold him. So, you think you have injured someone. Time will prove you didn’t at all. It was part of the unfolding drama, part of the play.574 ¶23

This whole thing is a play. I have seen it so clearly, and I can’t tell you the thrill when you sit comfortably in a chair thinking of not a thing in particular . . not dwelling on anything, and suddenly you aren’t seeing the interior of your living room. I know the interior of my living room backwards. I have a lovely library, comfortable chairs; it’s a homey life. It’s not for show. My wife and I live in a place that I call home. So, if anyone comes to our place, we make them feel at home; it is restful. And my books are used; they are not for show. The chairs, the furniture . . everything is usable. We have not a thing for display . . lovely pieces . . some beautiful pieces, but no one comes every year, as they do in L.A. . . I suppose they do it here, too . . to take the value of your furniture, and they estimate the value, and you pay so much of it. Well, they will come into my place, and here I have a beautiful library, but they are all used books. So that’s discounted right away. We have some lovely old pieces that came from my wife’s mother’s estate. Well, that’s several generations; and it’s old to them, therefore it has no value, and I wouldn’t dare tell them, but anyone who knows the value of these things, as I have had them come in and say, “Will you take three thousand for that?” “Will you take two thousand for that?” . . but to the one who is sent over to value the things, they wouldn’t give them room in their place, because they are old pieces. But, to us, they are not only old but they are lovely, and they are functional. Everything in our house is functional.574 ¶24

So, I will sit in a chair, and then suddenly I am not seeing what I ought to see, and sometimes I will take the venture and step into what I see. Consciousness follows vision, and I step into the vision and explore a world just as real as this. You find people who the world would call “dead”; they aren’t dead at all! Solidly real in a world that is terrestrial, trees grow, and they wax and they wane and they die. People grow, they wax, they wane, they die; and yet they do not die. All things are restored. You’re reading a play, and you are playing the part that you are reading; and the day will come you will awaken from it all. And when you awaken, you are the one who created it.574 ¶25

The Old Testament is the portrait; the New is the reality. The day is coming that you will realize within yourself the reality. You will compare it to the portrait, and you will see certain things in that portrait that you could change . . and you could at any point . . certain things you would add that the portrait did not catch, certain things you would delete, for you are the reality. I’ll tell you, the story is true. It is not chronologically accurate, but it is true. Every bit of it is true. I could tell it in a more chronological, accurate way than it is told in the Gospel, telling it from my own personal experience; but it is good enough to be left just as it is, for when you, the reality, unveil yourself, you will compare it to the portrait . . and you will know it’s your portrait; and you will say of it, “It’s an excellent likeness, but it’s not the reality.”574 ¶26

Now, let us go into the Silence.574 ¶27

Good! Now, first before we take the questions: Verne, thank you. I enjoyed every moment of it; and do me a favor, and write it for me. I like to hear these stories and then have a record of it, that I may share it with those when I go back south. So, if I have it in written form, I can share it. So, thank you. Now are there any questions, please?574 ¶28

Oh, by the way, I’ve been forgetting it night after night. I use your name and address only to let you know when I’m in the City. I don’t offer you anything for sale, I don’t try to sell you anything; I do not appeal for any money. When I come to the City, I let you know if you are on my mailing list. There’s only one friend of mine in this area to whom I have given my list, and I recommend him one thousand per cent; and if you are on my list, you will be on his list, because he teaches what I teach. And his name is Freedom Barry. So, you will hear from him, but he’s not going to sell you anything. He’s not going to sell you anything, appeal for any money; he will simply tell you where he is and how many days he’ll be here. But I do not use your name and address for any other purpose; so you can feel free to give it to me if you would like to have me send you a notice the next time I come to the City.574 ¶39