Now, here we are in this fabulous world of ours and we think, well, let us get ahead and make more of this, more of that, and own unnumbered things of the world. But let me tell you tonight the purpose of it all. It seems arrogant, but I’ll tell you, we’re building a temple for the dwelling place of God the Father. You and I, when the work is completed, we are God the Father, without any loss of identity. We are contributing to this building of our individual structures. Blake in his Vala, which he named The Four Zoas, and subtitled A Dream of Nine Nights, in this he said, “His fall into division and his resurrection to unity; and his fall into the generation of decay and death, and his regeneration by the resurrection from the dead.” Man falls—and this man is generic man, it’s God—into this world of division, and then by resurrection into unity, and that unity is the one Father.391 ¶1

The Bible speaks from beginning to end of a certain temple that is being constructed. Now this passage—in fact the entire Four Zoas, Blake associated with the 12th verse of the 6th chapter of Ephesians; he has a footnote to it and he has the 6th chapter, 12th verse—and that is the conflict where we are not contending against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the wickedness in the heavenly places. The whole thing is mental. Who knows this very moment who is treading out the winepress of hate, of the horrors of the world? And you and I, walking this earth, because we are one, it impinges upon us and tries to persuade us to act upon that which someone bathing himself in the state of hate is treading out. Because you can’t isolate yourself…we are one. You’re going to contribute, one day, your temple, your building to the temple which is the dwelling place of God the Father.391 ¶2

Now, in this same Book of Ephesians in the 2nd chapter…he took the last chapter and said this is what he experienced in these nine nights, a dream of nine nights…and told it beautifully. But in the 2nd chapter they’re talking about a building, a temple, the whole structure was gathered together; in other words, each building harmoniously fitted together. For you are bringing your building, I am bringing my building, we are bringing our buildings, and they are simply living stones in the building of God. They grow into the building. As we are told, the whole structure is joined together and grows into the holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it as a living structure of God, in the Spirit.391 ¶3

Now, let me illustrate it with a story told me this past week by a lady who is present. Let me tell you, this lady is a mother. She recently had a little boy, so she’s very much a woman, and here is her story as she wrote me in her letter. She said, “I had a dream and I was three people”—these are her words—“I was three people. First, I was myself and yet I was a man…because when I became the other, I remembered my former self as a man. When I became this person I had a longing, a wanting. I lingered around, but there was a peculiar longing for a little green dog. I saw the little dog among others and with others, and I knew this little dog, and he shone like the sun. He was just like the sun, so radiant. And I knew that all I had to do, because I had ordered him, was to wait…I just had to wait to receive him as mine. Now this is the story of the three persons. I was always the sender. When something had to be told, I told it, I told it to another which was myself. But whenever I told it, or it had to be told, I told it. So I told it to another who was myself. Well, when he had to retell it, I became the other…it’s myself.”391 ¶4

Now here is the story as she tells it to me. “Here are the three. Here the third one and I am the third one telling it, and I tell the second to tell the first.” It doesn’t make sense on the surface, but it’s a fantastic story and so true. At the end of the journey this comes. “I am the third…I am telling the second to tell it to the first. I see myself, the second, receiving the message; then I become the second, for it has to be retold. Whenever it has to be retold, I must tell it. Now I’m going to tell it to the first. I am telling it in this form, that now the little dog is yours.” That’s one story.391 ¶5

I am telling it so the little dog is yours…and she’s very happy about this. Now, she’s telling this story. You tell it to the second, who receives it, and the second tells it to the first. The story is this: the building that you ordered is yours, it’s finished, it’s all yours. So the third (and she’s the third) she tells it to the second, the second receives it. Now she becomes the second and she’s looking for the first to whom she has to tell it, that the building is finished, it’s completed and it is yours. All that you have to do is to turn around and see it and claim it. That’s all that you have to do, it’s all finished….you only turn around. As you turn around you’ll see it and you’ll claim it. It’s all yours. At this point, the little dog disappears. She is now the first that receives the message. Then she sees this fabulous land and enormous construction going on, and here workers are clearing a plot. She knows this is going to be a building and it reminds her of what she was told, that her building is finished, it’s completed, and all she has to do is to turn around and see it and claim it. She gets all excited when her little boy, just recently born, just a few months, cries in his crib and wakes her.391 ¶6

Now, on the surface it seems what a silly, idiotic dream. You go to some psychiatrist and what would they tell you? They’ll be completely bewildered. It would mean nothing to a psychiatrist. But, oh, what a dream! What a vision! First of all, let us take it now she has a little dog, a green dog that shone like the sun. The word dog in Hebrew is Caleb. If you look up the word Caleb, you’d find he first appears when he goes only with Joshua. The wilderness generation will deny they’re excluded from the Promised Land. The only ones of the wilderness generation that could enter the Promised Land were Joshua and Caleb, his companion. In this story Caleb had absolute faith in the God who promised Israel land. He was sent by Moses, along with other spies, into Canaan, and he said when he came back, “Attack now, immediately.” The other spies brought back other evidence. They were afraid to trust God. And so he said, “Attack now, and take it.” Only two agreed, he and Joshua. Well, the word Joshua is Jesus—it’s the Hebraic form of Jesus. So Jesus’ companion is Caleb, the dog…the dog that goes into the Promised Land. Here she finds…she’s waiting for someone…it’s the little dog. It’s a green dog. Well, the word translated green in this means “bursting with sap”; in other words, luscious, healthy, bursting with all that is life…like “he makes me to lie down in green pastures.” So here, this companion is full of life and full of faith in the God who promised Israel land. So he was highly recommended for entrance into the Promised Land, and only two could enter.391 ¶7

She’s waiting for her companion. Then who is she if she’s waiting for the companion? Oh, others had him first. She’s not the only one into the Promised Land, but she’s waiting. She knows he must come and so she waits. Then he comes, because the voice, the third, tells the second to tell the first that the dog is yours now. Now comes the building. And the third, which is herself, she tells another, who is herself; and as she tells the other, she is never the receiver, she’s always the teller. She’s always the sender, never the receiver: “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.” So the other seems to be another; it is herself. So she tells it, and then she becomes it after it’s told when she has to retell it. If she isn’t going to retell it, she doesn’t become it. The minute she has to retell what was told her to tell the other, she becomes the one who must tell it. Now she’s going to tell the first and so she goes now to tell the first. She’s looking for the first. The dog now disappears. Why? She’s in the land; she sees the structure going on. As she now becomes the first, seeing the structure, she’s reminded that her building is finished and all she has to do is to turn around and see it.391 ¶8

Now, the two passages in scripture…one in the Book of acts, the 12th chapter, the 11th verse; and then you’ll find it in the 15th chapter, the very last of the 15th chapter…or rather, read the whole thing…concerning the prodigal son: “He came to himself.” That phrase “came to himself” is one Greek word translated “came to himself”—it’s “when you awake after fainting.” In the Book of Acts, Peter was in prison and shackled with chains and soldiers guarded him, and he was completely in the cell alone and the angel of he Lord appeared in the cell and touched him and told him to rise. He rose and “came to himself.” That same phrase “came to himself” is translated “came to himself,” but take all the definitions as given to us in the concordance: and one is “turn around”—she turned around; one is “it is fulfilled”; one is “it is finished; to be married.” All this is part of the phrase. And she heard the words, or knew the words, “All you do is turn around.” As you turn around you behold the finished structure. It is yours…this living stone that you now contribute to the overall picture, which is the temple of the living God where all contribute. Each becomes the living stone in that one structure.391 ¶9

I am going to tell her from my own experience you can’t turn around by turning physically this way. Neither can you, although you might try it, turn within your own body and turn around. You can’t do it that way either. So don’t try to do it. You will be turned around. I know from my own experience it’s a force beyond the wildest dream of man, anything known to man, and when it’s centered upon you it would take all the powers of eternity multiplied by the nth degree and still they couldn’t turn you around. I tried it. I tried to turn it. I knew if I turned what would happen, I knew it. And the force at the base of my skull, well, you might just as well take all the powers of the world and center it on my skull…that’s what it felt like. I tried and I knew I couldn’t do it. I made every effort and couldn’t do it…not until the end.391 ¶10

Go back to Blake, “He fell into division”; she divided herself into three. He fell into division and then he resurrected into unity, at the end of this journey. You’re at the end, may I tell you. You’ve done it…the whole thing is over as far as you’re concerned. When this little garment is off, it’s off for the last time; and when that force that is now on you to hold you and face this world is released, you turn around. And you will see the structure that your Father built, and you are the Father. You are that first, that second, and that third. It’s not another being who is building it: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” . He began it, he completes it. And who is he?—I am he. So that being in you began it and you’ve gone through all the fires of hell as everyone must: “I’ve tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake I did it, for my own sake; for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” . So here, you’ve done it. Your journey is at an end.391 ¶11

But you have a little child now, and you can’t stop the visions…they’ll come. They’ll keep on coming to the very end. I cannot say you will not depart before the normal time or prolong it…I’m not predicting because I could not. I’m only telling you that you are blessed, my dear. You saw the perfect vision, the perfect vision at the very end of the journey. You’ve arrived at it. So the building is complete…not one more brick can be put into it, it’s finished. All you have to do is simply turn around. You can’t turn by making any effort known to man, and there’s no direction, you know, because you’re going to be held with your face to the granite until the end, and finish it that way. So when Paul said, “I have fought the good fight,” let no one tell you he was simply exaggerating. It is a fight!391 ¶12

So when Blake took this Dream f Nine Nights and picked out the one verse that shows the battle…that we are not contending with flesh and blood. I’m not contending with flesh and blood, but who do I know at this very moment who is treading in the winepress of hate and impinging upon my mind suggesting to me that I must do a certain thing which I would regret tomorrow. Yet they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re ignorant of the use of this law of imagining. So someone sitting in a dungeon this night filled with anger is treading the winepress of war; and he will light up the eyes of some little boy who is out in the field, and suddenly he catches the idea. He wants to be a hero, because he hears, in his mind’s eye he sees I could make a name for myself, I can become a great hero, a great general who will explode and blow up the whole vast world. And he’s dreaming that. Well, you can’t stop him dreaming. So we war, not against flesh and blood but against these principalities, these powers, these hosts of spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. And “heaven is within you” . It’s all within. And so here we are carving on the inside of our minds these abominable and loathsome beasts, and then the world wars against it. I don’t have to war against some being that I can see but the unseen forces as I walk the earth that impinge upon me morning, noon and night. Whether I wake here or wake in dream or sleep here and sleep there, they are impinging upon me.391 ¶13

But, oh, what a thrill to get a letter of that nature, to see here is the end of the journey, the building is finished, and she has the entire trinity. There are three of her, but she only gives the order, she only sends, she only tells. She sees herself as another, receiving, but after it’s received, if it must be retold, she becomes the one to tell it. If it’s told again, she sees herself, the other, receiving it. But if it must be experienced, then she becomes the one to experience it. So “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.” Only God plays all the parts.391 ¶14

So everyone in the end brings his living temple, and it’s all part of the structure of the temple of God. So we are told in the end of the 2nd chapter of Ephesians concerning this temple, how this is perfectly fitted together, each bringing because you are built into it as a holy temple for God…in the Spirit, not in this world. People build these cathedrals and all these things, and they do speak in the scripture that the church is the body of Christ, but the church is not that. The church is simply the communion, the assemblage of the redeemed, of those who have finished the building…and the Father in them finished it. And so, you and I play the part, we receive it, and then we carry on building.391 ¶15

She came upon that land, an inner land, and here the structure was all taking place, all the construction going on. Then the workmen emptying a place, leveling a place, and she knew a building is going here. At that moment she knew this building was going here and it reminded her that her building was finished. And she saw it perfectly, even to the dog. The only two who cross into the Promised Land were Joshua, which means Jesus, and his companion, the dog Caleb, and he shone like the sun. Then when you get into the land he disappears. He’s only the companion who shines like the sun to lead you into it. Then Joshua is there. So Jesus takes everyone in, and who’s Jesus?—your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus. So I tell you, this is the most fantastic story.391 ¶16

Here is another one, separated three, three years. Well, three is associated with resurrection. Three years ago this lady had this experience. In her dream she saw this creature that she could hardly believe could ever be embodied in a man. Everything that any woman could desire as man he embodied, but everything. It took time in the dream…there was a passage of time as you can sense it in a dream. A romance developed, an engagement took place, and came the moment of what she thought to be a wedding. And she put on her loveliest gown of the evening and retired in the hope. He came into the room and he said to her in a solemn manner, “Not yet”; and she in absolute confidence accepted that when he said to her “I will return.” It’s been three years since and then now, this month of November, the same individual returns. I won’t go into the details of seeing her parents and friends of her parents, four of them who are gone from this world, and how she recognized them, how they were pointing at each other—that is irrelevant to the point. But suddenly she looks up and here he is and reads her mind. Because she sees now he has returned and kept his promise, and implies by a look…and as she interpreted the look…he has returned to complete the promise of marriage.391 ¶17

Now, you’re told in Isaiah, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” . So this is beautiful symbolism, it’s all symbolism. She’s not about to meet in this world of ours, in flesh and blood, a man of such magnitude. No, this is simply the symbol of the being that is spoken of in Isaiah, that your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name. So I can’t tell you my thrill when I hear these things coming through from this audience. Here I can tell her, it hasn’t been consummated. Because you had no assurance that the marriage took place, but you do have the assurance that he kept his promise, that “I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye shall be also.” And so, here is the promise being kept.391 ¶18

The other, the house, is finished. She won’t turn around by any effort known to man. I tried it. Had I turned around I would have vanished. They would have found a stiff in that bed the next morning. For, I would have seen the temple that was finished and I would have entered it. Having entered it which is not of this age but an entirely different age, I would have left behind this garment which belongs only to this age. But the work…as Paul says, “I would like to depart and be with Christ, but it is far better”—not far better in one sense—but it is more important at the moment to remain because of you, said he, and tell you of the visions, tell you of the dreams, to encourage you to persist even though you are fighting against principalities and powers of darkness, and all the horrors of the world, because, a building is being constructed for you not by another, by yourself. But something so deep, so wonderful, it’s your Father who is yourself; for God the Father became you.391 ¶19

I know that from my own personal experience. Before I came out West and took up residence here in 1956 when I lived in New York City, this 42nd Psalm unfolded within me this night. When we are told, “As the hart panteth after the water books, so panteth my soul after thee” , there was a thirst that only an experience of God could quench. And this night, here out of the blue, I found myself fulfilling the 42nd Psalm. And “these things I remember,” said the Psalmist, “as I pour out my soul. How I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God” . And here, this enormous crowd that was going towards the house of God, made up of all the “structures”—as my friend wrote me concerning her building that is finished. We’re going towards the house of God. It’s still in the distance, may I tell you, and no one can see it. It’s the invisible structure, but I am leading them towards the house of God. There’s nothing on earth but a shadow of that house. It’s not a temple built by human hands, because God does not dwell in houses made by hands. It is in eternity.391 ¶20

I’m leading this enormous throng when a voice sings out, “And God walks with them.” And then a woman at my side questions the voice, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice replies, “At your side.” She turns to her side, looks into my face and becomes hysterical. It strikes her so funnily, because she’s looking at me, a man of flesh and blood in this world. Then she questions the voice, “You mean Neville is God?” and he voice replies, “Yes, in the act of waking.” It didn’t say he’s not awake. I knew I wasn’t yet awake, but I was encouraged…“in the act of waking.” Then the voice spoke only from within me and no outer ear heard it. They heard all the other voices and her questions and answers, but now the voice comes from within. The voice is saying, “I laid myself down within you to sleep and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then I knew that he was dreaming that he’s me. I knew that he was dreaming that he’s I, I knew it. And at that moment the memory came back, because I felt the vortices in my body, these five vortices, my hands, my feet, the vortex of my head, and the vortex of my side. And I knew what it was to have experienced the crucifixion and it was ecstasy, sheer joy.391 ¶21

So as Paul brings out in his letter to the Romans, the 6th chapter: “If we have been crucified with him in a death like his, that is, if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” . He divides the tenses: The crucifixion is past and it was sheer ecstasy. As we are told, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world” . So, if he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, when the universal Christ gives himself up—because “no man takes my life, I lay it down myself; I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again”—so when he deliberately lays himself down, then we are laid down with him, because he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. And now, if I am united with him in a death like his, I shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Well then, I was…after…as the years went by, the resurrection took place in me, only confirming the story as told in scripture. The crucifixion is told, the resurrection is told, and he rises in me.391 ¶22

Then the structure is enhanced for it grows—listen to the words “and it grows.” Here, we’re told in that 2nd chapter of Ephesians, at the very end of it, “and not only is this whole thing fitly put together, but it grows in God” . So everyone comes and by adding his structure, his living stone, then the temple grows and grows and grows until the whole thing is done, and the final curtain comes down and the temple is perfect. It’s the dwelling place of God the Father and you in that day will be God the Father, I will be God the Father; and we all will not lose our identity, all God the Father having predetermined the entire play and how it would come out. So, no one can thwart it, no one can even delay it, they can’t divert it. It’s coming to its fullness. So her vision was perfect. And my other friend’s vision was perfect: He kept his promise, returning in three years. Three is always associated with resurrection. So the union will take place and she’ll tell me, too, and then she’ll have the experience of the resurrection.391 ¶23

So I ask you to continue to test it on this level by practicing revision. When you see something in this world that is unlovely, don’t accept it. Instantly revise it, and see it as it ought to have been seen by you and by others, and persuade yourself to the best of your ability that it is so. Because, what does it really matter if tonight you owned the earth and then tomorrow you must depart and leave the earth that you think that you own to be divided among those hungry ones you leave behind you…who would have killed you to get it. You can’t take it with you. You’ll go in and find yourself, may I tell you, in a world best suited for the work to be done. You will leave a fabulous world that you think that you own and find yourself in an environment best suited. That environment may be serving up some little flap cakes, and you’ve left behind you a fabulous world where you owned it all. So what does it matter? But they don’t know it. They are ninety, pushing ninety, and they still want more of the world and they own so much of it.391 ¶24

I read here recently, this past week, I think it was the New York Times, some article…no, it could be the morning paper…I’m not quite sure now…but he said that he served so many Presidents in the White House going back to Wilson. He’s an old gentleman to go back to Wilson and still be here with us. He came all the way through, he served Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Hardy, all of them, and he said not one would he consider to be a happy person. They were miserable, and he wonders, what is that peculiar ambition that possesses a man to want to be President, because not one…and he knew them all from Wilson on. Wilson went blotto as you know. He was paralyzed and was not mentally functioning but lingered as our President and no one would tell the world.391 ¶25

When I read that Roosevelt died at the age of sixty-three, well, I saw him just about a week before the election in November of the year that he ran for the fourth term, because we lived next door. He lived at 29 and we lived at 32 on Washington Square. These numbers were not as normally you’d have them…it was 29, then would come 30, 31, 32 and so on. Here I was coming home and we were stopped for a moment, the police would not let us get by, and you couldn’t tell them that you lived in the building. They wouldn’t accept…and the man was dying. You could see he was almost dead, this wizened little thing. And it was raining, November in New York City when it’s cold—it hadn’t yet turned to snow—but it was a cold, cold, almost on the verge of snow. But he had to ride in an exposed car, because the politicians demanded that you must show yourself. Here was death walking by. Mrs. Roosevelt got out of the car with an enormous bunch of roses—there must have been five or six dozen, and she was a big lady as you know. She grabbed these roses, trying to divert the crowd who awaited his arrival at the home. Then came these men quickly into the car and lifted him out bodily, because he was crippled as you know, and took him into the apartment house.391 ¶26

That ambition! He was dying but he still had to get back…he couldn’t give it up. This man said, “I do not know of one of them, including Coolidge”—who said ‘I do not choose to run’—“who did not really in his heart want forever to live in that White House.” They can’t relinquish it once they taste it. But what possesses them to want to be there…an ambition beyond the wildest dreams of man. Not to help humanity, not to help us as citizens of the country. That’s the furthest thing in this world from them. Help us what? They’ll give you a million and one promises, and violate every one before they reach their first four years.391 ¶27

Look what has happened in England today—all that we hold in the sterling area depreciated 14.5%, and who is going to suffer? Not those who have the money but the millions who have nothing. They’ll cost fifteen percent more to begin with, and you’ve got to make a profit so you’re going to charge them another twenty-five percent to buy the same thing that they could buy today. And this man, he wants to perpetuate himself forever as the head of England. He’s determined not to give up and this is what he’s done in spite of all of his promises. So forget all of these things in this world and simply apply this fabulous, wonderful law that we have here, that imagining does create reality.391 ¶28

So tonight, if I took my money and converted it into dollars and cents, it would be depreciated, say, fifteen percent, but I’m not converting it into dollars and cents. If I go there tomorrow, it would give me the same purchasing power so it doesn’t hurt me on that level. To transfer it, it would. I’m not transferring it. Here, the whole vast sterling area…and who is in it…the millions who actually must go out tomorrow and buy products that they cannot themselves produce. So Barbados can’t produce certain things, they must import if from the dollar area at now that much more. You want it? You pay that much more to borrow. So we don’t produce it. So you go to the entire area…India with its 450,000,000, they don’t produce what they need. They must bring it in from the dollar area, and now with the sterling dropping fifteen percent they’re going to pay that much more, and they don’t have it. But the wealthy Indians will not suffer. These fellas in the know in the financial world, all over the world, they knew it for the last two weeks. And every day it was denied, so they got themselves completely adjusted to it and what fortunes they made while they waited for that moment, which was an off-day, on a Saturday, when it was announced. Well, let no one tell you that they didn’t know it. For two weeks they knew it, and the whole thing was arranged. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.391 ¶29

So these are the powers that Paul spoke against. He said we fight not against flesh and blood, we are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against principalities, and powers, and this darkness of the rulers of this world, and against these spiritual evils in heavenly places. For, all of that they are doing, that is in the heavenly places, for heaven is within you. So as they plotted it and planned it for their so-called ill-gotten gains…and, of course, we do not know how many of them actually made what they made. But in the not distant future you’ll read their obituaries and they’ll be gone. There’s no desire on my part to follow to see where they’re placed in order for the building that they must bring out to be completed. So they leave here with a fabulous world, leave it all behind, taking nothing with them to find themselves best adjusted to working in some small little environment. So then the building is ground that way, because the stone must become a living stone.391 ¶30

But I can’t tell you my thrill tonight on these two…where this group is coming to the very surface, and what was divided…this fall brought on division, his resurrection unity…and here is resurrection. Now, let us go into the Silence. * * * Are there any questions, please?391 ¶31

Someone asked when I’m closing. I’m closing on the 15th, but I will be here on Friday. Someone wondered whether I’m speaking on Friday because it’s the day after Thanksgiving. Yes, I’ll be here on Friday, and every Monday and Friday until the 15h, and then I close for a few weeks. So we have four more weeks and there’s no break in the pattern…it’s every Monday and Friday until I close on the 15th of December.391 ¶32

Yes, Nan?391 ¶35

Let me repeat, I will be here on Friday and every Monday and Friday thereafter until the 15th of December…reopening I think it’s the 8th of January. Until…391 ¶38

I’ve told you night after night, Jesus Christ is the core of man, the true identity of every being in the world. Now, listen carefully to one who really saw it so clearly and told it so beautifully. And this is William Blake. In his last chapter, he addresses it “To the Christians”…this is his 77th Plate…and he said, “Devils are false religions.” There is no other devil.389 ¶1

Now he defines Christianity. He said, “I know of no other Christianity and no other gospel than he liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination, Imagination, the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our eternal or imaginative bodies when this vegetable, mortal body is no more.” Now he makes this bold assertion: “The Apostles knew of no other gospel.” “What,” asked he, “is that talent which it is a curse to hide? What are the treasures of heaven that we are to store up for ourselves, are they any other than mental studies and performances?”389 ¶2

That’s the only Christianity that he ever heard of; he never knew any other gospel, no other Christ. So, Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that is Christ. And everything said of him in scripture you will experience. But you must first accept him as your own wonderful human Imagination and practice this great divine art of Imagining, which in scripture is called “repentance,” which word simply means a radical change of attitude towards anything in this world that you want to change…a radical change. You simply in your wonderful human Imagination set up a picture which is different from what you are seeing with your senses; and you persist in that picture until you are persuaded of the reality of that picture, and then it takes the place of what you are seeing outwardly. Then you know who Christ is, for “by him all things are made, and without him was not anything made that was made” . So if you do it and prove that it works, then you know who he is.389 ¶3

This is the only Christ that Blake ever heard of, for as he said, “The Apostles knew no other.” There was no other, and anything other than this is a false religion and he called that the devil. So you make some picture on the outside, and you worship some little thing in conflict with the Second Commandment “Make no graven image unto me” . You make something other than yourself and think it is Christ—that is nothing more than a false religion which is the devil.389 ¶4

So let me share with you what was given to me this past week. It’s perfectly marvelous. This friend of ours, who is here tonight, he writes, “At the office I was confronted with a problem, and so, believing that imagining creates reality, I took two words to form a sentence, and I had them written in my mind’s eye in the handwriting of the one who would write that sentence…just two words. If written in hand, it would imply that the problem was solved…if that was written.” He didn’t tell me what he saw. He only said, “I took two words to form the sentence. Now he said, “As I did it, they began to rearrange themselves into a negative state, other words, so I brought them back and brought them back, time after time, and tried to fix them. Finally, that night as I went to sleep—it’s only last week—I held the two words and then I held it in my mind’s eye, seeing this in script written in the hand of the one who would write it implying the solution of the problem. And then I fell asleep.389 ¶5

“In my dream I am seeing now the rearrangement of these words into the former negative states, implying or indicating the continuity of the problem. Then I made a slight mental effort to bring it back and fix it. As I fixed it and saw the two words implying the solution, here came a white-robed arm and it wrote in the identical handwriting of the one that would write it the two words. As I saw it, I fell into a far deeper level of being. When I woke the next morning and remembered what had happened, I went through the day like a breeze, a thing I haven’t done in quite a while. Then on my way home I went over the picture and allowed myself to go back not only to the fixed two words but beyond when they rearranged themselves. Then something from the depths of my being, an energy I have never felt before—it wasn’t anger—it was fierceness to stop me from going back into that state. Then I took it as a wonderful warning, and then dropped it.”389 ¶6

I can tell him, whether it has happened or not, it must come to pass to fulfill that fixed sate. It must! Imagining creates reality. For your own wonderful human Imagination is Christ Jesus and there is no other Christ Jesus. He is buried in you. You are the tomb containing Christ and he has to awaken in you; and when he awakens, everything said of Christ in scripture you are going to experience, but everything…from the birth right through.389 ¶7

So when I call upon man to suffer…alright, who doesn’t suffer in this world? You may go through a healthy state from the beginning to the end, but don’t you lose a friend and isn’t that suffering? Or are you insensitive? You can’t shed a tear when someone dies? When someone that you claim that you love is hurt and you can’t be really moved? Then, may I tell you, you’re dead. The shortest verse in scripture is “Jesus wept.” Here is God himself, yes, he can shed a tear that something goes out of his life and he can’t touch it physically now. He knows that he created it all, it’s all his, yet the shortest verse is “Jesus wept”…two words.389 ¶8

So I say to everyone, your own wonderful human Imagination is Christ Jesus. There is no other Christ Jesus. Like Blake I know of no other Christianity, no other gospel. If you know of one, well then, may I tell you, other than this, you have a false religion and a false religion is a devil. Devils are false religions. Any other concept is a devil.389 ¶9

Now let me share with you what happened to him last Sunday [...]. Undoubtedly it was the night’s dream, but it’s dated the 12th of November, which was Sunday. He said, “I found myself in the Near East and judged by our standards, the Western standards of 1967, it was primitive, and yet it was undoubtedly, no question about it, a commercial and intellectual capital of its time. I was there for the sole purpose of listening to you. I only wanted to hear what you had to say. And you operated from a grain store, only grains. I made sure I would not miss one word that you had to say. Not only what you had to say, but I joined a crowd on the street following you when you gave a talk…even the chance remarks, the impromptu remarks, when I asked all the villagers to quote anything that they heard you say. It took weeks, in my dream it took weeks to carry on this listening to you and listening to what the villagers told me you had said. My earthly parents came because they were troubled about my welfare, and they came to investigate. I was completely indifferent to my earthly parents, completely indifferent, but they said, ‘It’s only fair if you will travel half way across the world to hear this man that we should listen.’ I can see my father sitting on a bag of grain listening to you, and then I saw that he was beginning to understand you. But I was completely indifferent to them.389 ¶10

“Then I met you on the side street. In the interval of these many weeks having heard you, I had experiences. Whether they were dreams or whether they were objective facts, I do not know, but I had experiences based upon having heard you, and I was hoping against hope that they were significant. On the side street I encountered you and you were wearing a long white robe. I told you of my experiences and you told me that I had done it. You went to great lengths to assure me that I had done it, and I felt so relieved. Whatever I had done, I do not know, but I felt so relieved because you were so compelling and so, well, positive in your assurance that I had done it that I woke in the feeling that I had done it.”389 ¶11

I can tell you tonight you have done it! Now, I’ll show you where you are in scripture—in the 2nd chapter of the Book of Luke. In the 2nd chapter he goes into the temple . First of all, his parents take him to Jerusalem which is the custom at Passover…every year they go to Jerusalem this day when he is twelve years old, which means puberty in scripture. When man reaches puberty he can create. So at the age of twelve they take him, and not knowing that he’s not in the crowd, they start back towards their home in Galilee. After a day they miss him and they go in search for him. After three days they found him in the temple and he was listening to the teachers in the temple. He was questioning the teachers and they were amazed at his understanding, what he understood. The mother said to him, “Son, why do you do this to us? Did you not know that your father and I have sought you anxiously?” He replied, “Why did you seek me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?”389 ¶12

The Kg. James Version translated “About my Father’s business?” Well, you can’t dismiss that translation, but the question asked would imply space or location. “Why did you seek me?” is what he asked. Therefore if you are seeking me, it should be some place. So the Revised Standard Version translates it as a place…calls it “my Father’s house.” But don’t dismiss the Kg. Jas. Ver., “About my Father’s business; for he said, “I must be about my Father’s business. I have come to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. And it is said they did not understand the saying that he said.” They didn’t, for here are parents before you and you’re telling them, “I must be about my Father’s business” ignoring physical parentage. This is something entirely different.389 ¶13

I can tell him that he’s a way towards the end. These things you don’t conjure, they just happen. Scripture unfolds in man, and when it unfolds in man no one can deny it. I could no more deny this this night than I could the simplest evidence of my senses. So here is one who is right at the very end of the journey. I’m only here to fulfill scripture. All of the palaver of the outside world, building monuments to myself and huge things, and books written about me, biographies and auto-biographies, and all the nonsense. What is not written in scripture is nonexistent. I’m only here to fulfill scripture—that is the word of God.389 ¶14

So I can say to him, yes, I told you that in the Spirit, but you played the part of Christ, the twelve year old. That’s the part you played. So here, you’re moving towards the inevitable end when you realize that “All that you behold, tho’ it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” .389 ¶15

Here this morning at 1:30 I woke. I retired about eight. I suddenly awoke at 1:30, fully awake and very revived, no drowsiness, no sleepiness…but it’s too early to get up. To get up at 1:30 and sit in the darkness or put on the light to read, it was too early, so I remained in bed. It must have been two hours later that I dropped into a certain state and here a world just like this and I’m telling everyone but everyone—my wife was there, my brothers were there, many of my friends were there, many of you were there, and those complete strangers were there—and I’m telling them I could awake from this and when I awake they would cease to be and then I would vanish. Well, they wouldn’t believe me, and so I simply awoke on my bed where, as far as I’m concerned, where they were not. Whatever they saw, they didn’t see [...]. Then I dropped into it again and picked it up just at that moment, as though I’d gone into a [...] and continued it, and repeated it four times…simply seeing this world, stopping it and starting it, and then waking on the bed.389 ¶16

Now at this very moment my body is elsewhere and if there I awoke, as I’m talking to you now, I would vanish and awaken there and you would not see me. And if there’s a greater depth and I’m talking and I awoke, I’d vanish there. The whole vast world is man pushed out; there is nothing but God in the world, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination…that’s God. There’s nothing but God.389 ¶17

Now take me at my word and test it right here. Take a sentence, as my friend did, with two words, or take a structure that is visual to your Imagination which would imply the fulfillment of your dream. Hold onto it in your mind’s eye, don’t let it go, and become persuaded that this which implies the fulfillment of your desire is true. Then drop into the deep holding this. May I tell you, no power in the world can stop it from objectifying itself, but no power!389 ¶18

So here, in scripture, “They will come upon you…” said the Lord. Now this is the Book of Amos: “I will send upon the land a famine; it will not be a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God” . When a famine strikes you that is so intense that nothing in this world can satisfy you but an experience of God, then the famine is upon you. Doesn’t mean famine for wheat, famine for bread, famine for food, no, but when I’m so hungry to hear the world of God. Well, so what about it? But if it’s really upon you, nothing else moves you but that, then I’m at the end of the road. So, I will send a famine upon the land. It will not be a famine for bread or a thirst for water but for the hearing of the word of God. That is in the Book of Amos.389 ¶19

Now, he read from the book the law of God, that is to say, with interpretation. That is, they read it clearly so that those who heard it could understand the meaning. So you take the book and on the surface it’s a closed book, a veil is on their face as they read it. But now, someone comes who has experienced scripture. I’ll tell you that my knowledge of the Christian mystery is not from learning; it is from revelation. It’s not from learning at all. So we’re told in the 7th chapter of the Book of John , “How is this man speaking with learning when he has not studied?”389 ¶20

Here is someone who walks the earth, he has no background, no intellectual background, that anyone who calls himself an intellectual…and they’re all today screaming more and more that they are intellectuals and no two agree. One would think there must be some agreement among intellectuals and everyone tells you he is an intellectual, and the papers tell you how wise he is and all the magazines say how wise this one is and that one is, yet they differ. These are all professors at Harvard and Yale, all of them, and no two agree on the same point…but they’re intellectuals. As Peale often said, “How do I know he’s one? He told me that he was.” Well, that’s [...]. They tell you that they are and then their publicity agents come forward and they scream how wise they are.389 ¶21

So, I’ll tell you I’m not an intellectual. What I know of the Christian mystery is not from learning; it is all from revelation. It all was revealed within me. It came quite suddenly and, may I tell you, quite unexpectedly. It suddenly happened within me. When the whole drama began to unfold within me, then and only then did I really know the Christian mystery. I’ll tell you in my own words where it parallels scripture; and in the words of Blake, your own wonderful human Imagination is Christ…and there is no other Christ…and there is no other God. For [...] say, “I and my Father are one” . There is no other God; there is no other cause.389 ¶22

So man is looking for the cause of the phenomena of life, and that cause is called in scripture God. In the New Testament it is called, the Father. Man is looking for the Father and he’ll find the Father only when the Son stands before him and reveals him as the Father. He always thought it was something other than himself until that moment in time when the Son, David, calls him Father. That’s the Son. It was set up in the beginning, but only at the end of the journey does he find David and David reveals him to himself as God the Father. There is no other Father. So I tell you, you are looking for the source of phenomena and you are looking for yourself.389 ¶23

Now, I ask you to believe me and try it, test it. Take any objective in this world. The blind spoken of in the Bible—“and he opened the eyes of the blind”—who were the blind? If I tell you this and you don’t believe it, therefore you will not try it, you are the blind. If I could persuade you to try it, I opened your eyes. I will simply heal you of the blindness as to the cause of the phenomena of life. If I can’t persuade you, then you remain blind. If you believe me, that your own Imagination is the cause of the phenomena of life and put it to the test, then I would open your eyes and I have opened your ears.389 ¶24

Now, in this experience of my friend I conducted my teaching in a grain house. Well, the grain house…and the sower went forth to sow. He sowed seed and it fell on four different kinds of land: the highway, then it fell among thorns, among rocks, and finally on land that was well prepared to receive it. But it was grain. Now, what is the grain? We are told in scripture, “And the seed was the word of God” [...], so the symbolism, the imagery, was perfect. He found me half-way across the world, conducting my teaching in a grain house; and his father, his earthly father, sat upon a bag of grain and listened to the grain being planted as the words came out explaining the word of God. That’s the grain, that’s the seed. He saw from the expression of his father that he was beginning to understand it. But he had no interest in his earthly parents—he was seeking the Father. Well, he’s found him…he’s found him as himself. His own wonderful human Imagination is God, that’s Christ; there is no other God and there is no other Christ…that’s God.389 ¶25

Now he’s putting him to the test. What I know from what he’s done, he’s proved it beyond measure, but you cannot rest upon your laurels. Every moment of time you’ve got to actually keep the mood or keep it moving…no resting upon laurels. Just simply, I plant, harvest, well now, I plant and harvest, and I keep on planting and harvesting. Every moment in time I must plant wisely and plant on soil that would receive the seed. So every day, every moment of time, you don’t go idly by thinking of unlovely things.389 ¶26

He was rudely awakened when he went back in time to that moment when the two words rearranged themselves into the former negative states. Then he said it was not anger, it was a fierceness that possessed him—“something I’ve never felt before and then I took it as a warning not to go back and fix the former state. Come back to this that’s been fixed, for the hand came out of the deep.” It was a hand that was simply…a white cloth was on it…and then it wrote in script, the very kind of script that would be the handwriting of the one that he had imagined. He brought it out of himself. What is brought out?—not another.389 ¶27

So then he conjured me from himself, for I was simply the teacher, all within himself. The whole drama is unfolding within him. He trusts me as a teacher, and here I stand before you seemingly as another, but I am in everyone. If I am not in you, well then, the drama isn’t true. If I say everything in my world is in me, well then, everything in your world is in you. If I am in your world, then I am in you. So he conjured me out of his own being as a teacher, for he trusts me to teach him, and then he found me in the grain house.389 ¶28

He saw what?—a projection of himself, the whole vast thing, because every dream is ego centric. It’s coming out of one’s own being. He pulls me out, and I’m simply conjured by him, and he thought everything I told him was significant, but everything! It came to the very end…he was hoping against hope for what he wanted to hear I would say. He was hearing he [...]. He determined it. That’s what it was, the end of the road.389 ¶29

I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine. There’s only one, there aren’t two. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one” . There aren’t two, no room in this world for two Gods. So, though you imagine and I imagine and we imagine and there seems to be multiple, the word Elohim is a compound unity, one made up of others. That’s how the unity is arrived at…all forms the one. So I am in every being and every being is in me.389 ¶30

So here, the word that he heard, the word that Blake revealed, the word of scripture must unfold in you. Every one of us must fulfill scripture. Life is not finished until scripture is completely unfolded in us. It’s not secular; no man is going to come from outer space or from some so-called holy womb and teach you in some holy way. Forget it! There’s no one on the outside. When Christ comes to man he comes from within, because he’s buried in you. This is the coffin, the sepulcher in which he’s buried; and he rises in me and unfolds in me, and everything said of him I experience. If the world believes it or not, it makes no difference whatsoever…it’s still true.389 ¶31

So, you either believe it and act upon it or you don’t. If you don’t act upon it, may I tell you, it’s only delayed, because you will, for no one can be lost. So if you drop dead this very moment, you’re restored to life in a world just like this, just as real, may I tell you, with no transformation of beliefs, with all the limitations that possess you now. You go through the suffering—you go through the deceit, the betrayals, the cursing, just as you do here—until you believe it. When you believe it to the point where it compels you to act upon it…for belief is not belief until it produces action. If it produces action, well then, you act upon it and then all of a sudden you see how true it is, and the whole thing unfolds within you.389 ¶32

Then you depart from this age, the age of death, into the age where nothing dies. You’re completely in control of your own wonderful creative power, which is your own wonderful human Imagination. So that is the story.389 ¶33

I can’t thank you enough for sharing it with me that I, in turn, may share it with you and all be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. Here, he so believed it he carried it into the deep. And when you drop into the deep where usually attention is the servant of vision rather than its master…and here in the deep, when he dropped into the deep, a hand comes out of the nowhere and writes in script the two words that he held in his hand, his mental hand, as he fell into the deep. Then he felt himself going deeper into a far deeper state. So this is what I’m asking everyone to do here.389 ¶34

But without flattering anyone, may I tell you, you are all at the end, coming to the end, everyone. “No man comes unto me save my Father calls him” and “I and my Father are one.” I am my Father. I sent myself into this world for a purpose and I’ll return to the self that sent me into the world after I’ve accomplished the work that I came to do. So I came to do a certain work, sent by myself, and myself is God the Father. When I’ve done the work I return to what? To myself, having accomplished the work, for I don’t get back to that self until I’ve finished the work.389 ¶35

And death does not finish man’s journey. The end does not come because man dies. The world does not terminate at that point where my senses cease to register it. [...]. And so, a man dies…you can’t touch him, can’t hear him, can’t see him, and one thinks, well, he’s gone. No, he’s instantly restored in a body just like this, only much, much younger, usually around eighteen, nineteen, twenty, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be one in him. When that work continues, he either hears it, it comes out of the nowhere, or he hears it again…and he can refuse it again. But he continues, he’ll die again, and be restored, no loss of identity, none whatsoever; and then continues until finally he hears it. Then as he hears it and begins to live by it, it begins to stir within him and he awakes. And he discovers he is Jesus Christ, the one spoken of in scripture, where “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” .389 ¶36

So all the promises made to Abraham, to David, and to all the prophets, all fulfill themselves in Christ, and Christ is in man. So, “He’s made known unto me the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in heaven and in earth in him” . Everything is simply brought back redeemed in him, and in the end we are one, not two.389 ¶37

So Christ becomes the pattern man, not something on the outside, some little being born 2,000 years ago. I’m speaking of the cosmic Christ that is buried in every child born of a woman. And this is Christ, the only Christ…it’s a pattern man.389 ¶38

So read the story as to what happened to you…that’s going to happen to you…but all in Spirit. Just as he was taken in Spirit halfway across the world, and it was, by these standards, primitive. But he followed me as I walked the streets. Whom did he follow…this talking to you, called Neville? No. I’m but the personification of the teacher that he trusts. He conjured the whole thing within himself; this whole thing took place in him. Then he asked all the villagers, what did he say, and listened attentively to all the quotes that seemingly I, another, had said. It’s all coming from the Father within him.389 ¶39

He found here an objective father that he trusted, turned his back on the earthly father, and finally he comes to the point where he is the Father, and he instructs himself. He projects and instructs himself until finally he awakens and he is God the Father. And there is no other Father. The only way you will ever know you are God the Father is when his one begotten Son, David of biblical fame, stands before you and calls you Father.389 ¶40

There he stands and there’s no uncertainty as to the relationship between yourself and David, none whatsoever. You can be uncertain as to someone you pass on the street—was that Neville? no maybe not, was that so-and-so? maybe not. When David stands before you, may I tell you, there is no uncertainty whatsoever. The whole vast ancient world returns…and here you are he. Your Son that to you was lost because you slept this profound sleep to dream the dream of life; and then you found the Son that was lost, the Son that was dead, and now he’s alive again, the Son that was lost and he’s found. Here he is [...] the most beautiful lad in the world and he is your Son. The one being who did all your will: “For I’ve found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will” . He never lost a battle because the Lord fought it, never lost a battle. When finally the whole battle is over, and the war of life is over, and you’re at the end of the journey, you’ve run the race, then he appears. Everyone will meet him.389 ¶41

But until you meet him and the whole thing comes to its glorious end, you drop in this world, are restored to life to continue the race. But you will not forget my words, for I’m telling you what is true. I’m telling you what I know from experience. I did not study it, I did not hear it from another, I did not read it in a book. It’s in scripture and I read scripture, but I didn’t see it. It was a closed book as we are told by Paul. “To this day, when they read Moses a veil is over their face”…it’s still veiled. When you read the controversies in scripture today by all the so-called wise men of the church, you understand that they are just as blind as those that they lead, and the blind following the blind all fall into the ditch. They haven’t the slightest concept of what scripture is all about.389 ¶42

It is not secular history; scripture is the history of salvation. It hasn’t a thing to do with anyone in this world, but all are something in man that is in this world: God is buried in man. It’s the story of God’s salvation, how he dies and then raises himself from the dead…all in man.389 ¶43

In the end, without loss of identity, you and I are united into a single body. Without loss of identity and yet we are one, because all are the Father of the same identical Son. If I am the father of David, as I know I am, and you are the father of David, and you will know that one day, well then, are we not one? How can we have the same Son, without any doubt in your mind, and not be the same father, without loss of identity? It’s a mystery. I grant you if you try to rationalize it you’ll go mad. But I’ll tell you from experience it is true, every word is true. It is all revelation. It is not what I’ve rationalized or thought up. It’s completely given to me by revelation as it unfolded in me.389 ¶44

So I ask you this night…because what would it matter if you really owned the world and did not know it? You will die tomorrow, in the not distant future, because you are far [...]. If you could postpone it, and you can’t, it’s all on time—you came in on time, we depart on time—but if you could even postpone it, say, for a hundred years, what’s a hundred years? You would still give up the little garment that you wear and find yourself in a similar garment, younger, in a world where you would not be surrounded with the world that you owned, but find yourself in an environment best suited to awaken you. And so, if it means suffering, you’ll find yourself there shining, possibly, the shoes of another…although you left the world that you owned completely. So if you owned the whole world and lost your soul, what would it matter? But you will not lose your soul…it can’t be lost. “Nothing is lost in all my holy mountain.” But you’ll go forward until you believe it.389 ¶45

So in the grain store…I’m so glad the imagery was perfect in his vision, finding me operating in the grain store, sowing seed, the word of God. And his earthly father sat among them…and the expression “that he began to understand.” Here the whole thing is conjured out of you. He conjured the entire thing, for the dream is ego-centric. Here he projects upon the screen of his mind one that he trusts, whose teaching he has proven in this world on this level. So he projects him and continues to use him as a barometer, as an echo, to hear his own wisdom coming from within himself. Then he hears him and then he comes back and writes it to the shadow in the world called Neville. For the whole thing is taking place in him.389 ¶46

I can tell him right now he is at the end of the road. I would not be surprised if he had the experience of the birth prior to his present embodiment here, because it’s the 2nd chapter of Luke. The 2nd chapter of Luke. He was twelve years old and he was in the temple. So don’t feel you’ve got to have that…you could have had it and the memory has not yet returned…any more than in my case of the crucifixion. I didn’t know that I had that until one day twenty years ago suddenly it came back as a memory of what had happened.389 ¶47

It was an ecstatic vision…wasn’t painful. “No man 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” . Everyone has been crucified…it’s over. I had no idea it was such an ecstatic state, because I was always taught to believe that it was a painful, painful, horrible state, and it wasn’t at all. The nails were vortices—my head, my hands, my feet, my side, everything a vortex—and oh, what joy! What infinite ecstasy was the crucifixion! So that came back as a memory of it, not the actual.389 ¶48

Well now, in his case he may have now the memory of the birth, as I’m led to believe that those who are having it now in a different manner from what I’ve had, they’re almost memory images. Because it could have happened at the very end as they departed. But I do not know from experience, so I would not have you say it is so, because I’m only speculating on that score. But here you cannot fulfill the 2nd chapter of Luke and parallel it and not have been born.389 ¶49

Now let us go into the Silence.389 ¶50

I want to thank you for your many letters. I can’t tell you how helpful it is to this group that you would share with us your wonderful experiences. So tonight, I will take one and then tell you two or three of my own to add to the interpretation of it.388 ¶1

As you know if you come here often, we are here for one purpose: to fulfill God’s word, which word is scripture. We simply fulfill scripture. Oh, we can accomplish everything we want to, really, in this world, but the purpose in life is to fulfill the word of God. As we are told, “My word shall not return unto me void. It must accomplish that which I purposed and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” . Well, we are that word and so we fulfill the entire book.388 ¶2

Now a lady wrote this letter, which she gave me on Friday night. She said, “Recently I’ve been having great difficulty in bringing back to memory my dreams, but this one was the most difficult thing I have ever encountered. I knew that I had to surface, and it seemed like an endless depth of utter darkness through which I came, having had the experience. I am holding onto the memory image of what I had experienced, because I felt I must bring it back and tell it to you. I knew that if I would let it go, let the memory of it go, I would quickly surface and find myself in my body lying on the bed. But I said, no, I must hold onto the memory of what has just happened. And so holding onto the memory, I seemed to be like a diver who simply plunged too, too deep, and I thought I could never make the surface. Through this utter darkness I am coming and I wondered if I would ever make it.”388 ¶3

This is the experience. She said, “I stood before Jerusalem’s gates, these enormous wooden gates, and naturally the high, high walls. I was thrilled beyond measure as I stood there before Jerusalem’s gates, and my thrill turned to chagrin when I realized that they were closed. Then suddenly I found myself on a very high hill clothed in a body of light. The light radiated from me in all directions. It seemed that the light was life-giving. I animated things, I gave life to things. It just simply radiated from me. It illuminated a part of a certain far distant structure of earth, and then in the distance I saw the whole earth and its curvature, as though I stood in space in some spaceship. The whole thing was curved, the whole earth. I’m looking on it and I’m radiant light giving life to objects. And I knew that I could rearrange all the things that I saw if I so desired, but I also knew that everything was ordered and as it should be. Then I said, now I must get back and tell this to Neville…and then the struggle began. I thought I would never make it. When I came back, there must have been a certain reluctance on my part to return; on the other hand, I am glad I did it because now I feel that I do not wish to depart this life until I have experienced the descent of the dove. But I knew I need not have returned…and yet everything was ordered, but everything.” And here she stood at the gates of Jerusalem.388 ¶4

Now, in a book called Looking at Modern Painting there is a chapter on Max Beckmann, who is a modern artist who does symbolic art. In this he said, “I awoke and yet continued dreaming, and I saw William Blake, that noble emanation of English genius. He looked like some super-terrestrial patriarch and he waved friendly greetings. And then he said to me, ‘Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Seek this path and you will attain from your own ego a deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. You will attain an ever increasing release from that which now sees to you sad or terrible.’” Then he finally awoke now from this state and here was William Blake telling him of the order, of the perfection of everything, and he has to experience it. It was in keeping with her experience. Everything seemed ordered and as it should be, although she knew that if she desired she could rearrange the order. But why…when everything is ordered and perfect and as it should be only for man to experience it?388 ¶5

Now let me give you an experience of mine that happened when I was in my twenties. This night I found myself in the presence of two. Above me, the most heavenly, beautiful woman that man could ever conceive. Everything that man could ever conceive in that of woman here was the personification of it. And below me, everything that was horrible, a hairy, monstrous thing that would resemble if I would take any animal on earth it would be an ape or a gorilla or a combination of the two. The hair was brown…it was completely covered in hair as a gorilla. I looked at this heavenly creature, and then I heard this guttural voice coming from this beast and the animal said “Mother.” Well, I lost my temper and I pummeled it…that it would dare to call this beautiful creature its parent. But it gloated on violence, and as I beat it, it seemed to grow. It thrived on violence. I kept on pummeling it and it kept on growing in strength as I did to it such violent acts.388 ¶6

Then I realized that this was my creation and so is this beautiful creature. They’re my emanations. Here is the embodiment of every evil that I’ve ever done, all the violence of mine; and here is the personification of every noble, lovely, kind deed that I have ever done. And now they both confront me. I turn from the noble being to this monstrous creature. There was no one present with whom I could make some contract, and so I swore by myself—in fulfillment of scripture, the 22nd chapter of Genesis—I took my vow to myself that if it took me to eternity I would redeem this monster . And as I resolved to redeem the monster, regardless of the length of time it would take me, before my eyes it melted, dissolved, as though some heat had been placed to it. It got smaller and smaller and left not one little spot that it had ever existed. But as it dissolved, all the misused energy that went into the shaping of that monster returned to me, and I’ve never felt so powerful. I felt like infinite might as this misused energy was returned to me. It was not lost; it was simply held there in this horrible shape to confront me at a moment in time as I travel the path. So this night, I came upon this on the threshold of my motion into this new state. I was in my twenties. And as it dissolved and the energy came to me, this radiant creature glowed and glowed, almost like the sun in radiance. Then I woke. Here was this creature and here was this monstrous thing.388 ¶7

Now let us take from scripture these two. We are told in the Book of Mark, the 8th chapter, when the blind man’s eye was opened he was asked “What do you see, if anything?” and he replied, “I see men as trees, walking” . I see men as trees walking.388 ¶8

Now in the 4th chapter of the Book of Daniel, the king has a vision and as he lay on his bed, here came the vision of the night. A watcher came down from heaven, a holy one, and gave the command “Hew the tree down”. It’s the tree of life as we are told in previous verses of the same chapter. For this tree fed all the world. It housed the birds of the air, it sheltered the animals, and gave food to all flesh. Here comes the command now to “hew down the tree, cut off its branches, strip the leaves, scatter its fruit, but leave the stump of the root in tact in the earth. And let him”—now it changes the pronoun—“let him be watered with the dew of heaven; let him now make his abode with the beasts of the field; let him now be taken so that the mind of a man is taken from him and the mind of a beast be given to him; and let seven times pass over him until he learns that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” .388 ¶9

So in the creation of both this wonderful being and this monstrous being, I wore the heart and the mind of a beast, as we all do, couched in these garments of flesh. We all do…this is an animal body. But here, it was a tree that was felled, and yet it becomes man. It was the tree of life. This lady, in her experience, she experienced the tree of life—it radiated and gave life to every object that it touched.388 ¶10

But she stood at the gates of Jerusalem and they were locked and she couldn’t get in, because you can’t go through those doors. There’s only one way into that citadel, only one way into Zion, only one way into the city of God, called Jerusalem, and it’s up the water shaft as told us in the 5th chapter of 2nd Samuel . And David captured the city of Zion by moving up the water shaft, and he built from the outer inward and yet upward at the same time. Well, the only way I could ever build from the out in and move up at the same time is to build in a spiral. I enter the city of God by a spiral act, right up, for this is the city of God and this is Zion. I move up my spine, that’s how I go up.388 ¶11

Man is the fallen tree. Have you ever seen pictures in drugstores or in medical books of man with his skin off and the entire nervous system and his circulating system exposed…all the veins, all the arteries, all the nerves revealed? The skin is removed but the man remains. Isn’t that an inverted tree rooted in the brain? Well now, this tree has to turn up. It does not turn up until you go up the water shaft. Then man, who is now down in generation where all of his power is towards generation in this world—sex in the extreme sense—then he is lifted up. When he is lifted which is called the resurrection he enters the world or regeneration, where he creates just as this lady who wrote the letter created. You create not on a divided image; you animate forms with the power that comes out of you. You are life itself, life within you, not going down into generation but moving up into regeneration; for man in the resurrection is above the organization of sex . He creates without a divided image and all of his energies are flowing up.388 ¶12

So when men do violence to themselves to bring it about, it’s stupid. There are men who will take the vow of celibacy and there are women who take the vow of celibacy. There are men…you go back into the early church, Origen, possibly the most influential early father of the Christian faith, who lived in the 2nd Century. Possibly next to Augustine he is the most influential. He castrated himself in the hope that he could produce it. You can’t produce it, not by any physical violence to yourself. Not a thing you can do until you are turned around. And it’s done by that violent act where you are split in two from top to bottom. When that body of yours is split in two and you see that golden liquid light that went into generation, and you fuse with it, as you behold it, up you go…as David entered the city of God. And there you are. No one can come through that gate for the entrance in is up the water shaft.388 ¶13

So she saw it perfectly when she saw herself locked on the outside before the wooden gates. But that is only a foreshadowing of that which is in store for her. For she saw it and she saw the power that is hers, she saw what really is her future. But she will enter up the water shaft.388 ¶14

Now, we are told in Revelation, “And I beheld this new Jerusalem, the city of God, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” . Well, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” . You are the Maker, and you create this beautiful creature out of every noble act that you’ve ever done. She is my emanation, yet my wife ’til the sleep of death is past . And here is the monstrous thing that is unseen all through one’s life until that moment in time when he reaches the threshold and he has to make the decision, will you redeem this energy or not? So he confronts and she confronts you. This is infinite good and that’s permanent; and this is evil, the embodiment of every unlovely, violent thing one has ever done.388 ¶15

And may I tell you, everyone has one, everyone, because he feeds only on violence, and whispers into your ear morning and night to violate everything that you would think lovely. We think we are hiding it. It is fattening itself and growing stronger and stronger on it, on every violation of our conscience. For we know, every one of us knows, and not one can just simply say, well, I didn’t know. He thinks no one sees me—the 37th chapter of the Book of Ezekiel—and so they went into their chambers and they said, no one sees me, God doesn’t see me, there is no God to see me . But I am the God I think that does not see me and I am seeing it and I am doing it. It’s not another God; there is no other God. So God is housed within you. And in this plunge that he took when the tree was felled, he put upon himself the garment of an animal, with the mind of an animal, the heart of an animal, and here he wears it.388 ¶16

Now let me share with you this experience of the tree, the walking tree. Man thinks he’s going to find it on the outside. Well, Blake in his wonderful vision said, and this is from the Songs of Experience…as a friend of mine asked me the other night, this is from the Songs of Experience, the Human Abstract. It’s the last verse: “The gods of the earth and sea sought through Nature to find this tree, but their search was all I vain, there grows one in the human brain.”388 ¶17

Now this night I would say fifteen, sixteen years ago, I saw this wonderful forest and I saw these men walking like stags. They were men but such majesty—antlers, beautiful antlers that would go out of sight, and yet a man carried it. Then I saw a man, he was the third in the Labor government of England, a very controversial figure. He’s gone now…in fact the three of them are gone: Atlee is gone, Bevin is gone and he is gone. He was a Welshman and he tried to completely change the whole structure of the economy of England. He disliked heartily the aristocracy; he disliked anything that was to him noble, anything that had wealth. He tried to nationalize all the industries. Well, they really broke England. I wouldn’t say nearly broke them, they broke them. Put steel, coal, all these things into the national setup.388 ¶18

Well, I saw him, and he took a tree from the outside and he put it on his head; and he knew from some tradition that with such power you could take off. Well, he got on a hill…wasn’t too high, the height of this…and he jumped and fell flat on his face. He got up again, put the thing back on, went back up the hill, jumped again, flat on his face. He tried to put it on from without, just as the whole vast world is trying to do, by shelling billions into this and billions into that and not changing man.388 ¶19

Like someone coming to your home with tar on this hands, filled with tar, and he offers to help you clean the house. I, with unclean hands, would make things clean. That’s exactly what the whole thing is about. Unless I change the structure of the thinking of a man I can’t change his world. I can give him from now to the ends of time everything that I have, and when I stop giving to him he’s going to criticize me for stopping, and will not be grateful for anything I gave in the interval. He’ll be completely forgetful of anything I gave him. He will simply stop his so-called gratitude which was nothing more than thought the day I stop the giving…as happens to nations.388 ¶20

You stop today…we’ve just cut our gifts to the outer world thirty-seven percent. You watch the howl in the world press. If you couldn’t keep it up, why did you start it? That’s what they’re going to tell us. And we think we’re going to change the outer world by giving from the outside…and you can’t do it. I saw this vision so perfectly.388 ¶21

He was the one most instrumental in changing the economy of England, because he hated the aristocracy, he hated the wealthy; he hated anything that he thought superior to himself scholastically. He hated Churchill, because when they got into Commons—they both were able speakers—but Churchill was a master of the English tongue. Churchill could take the three of them and twist them around a finger. Here was Atlee, he was Prime Minister who got the vote when Churchill at the end of the war lost it to Atlee. And that lovely statement he said to Atlee that “Atlee was a very, very modest man and has much to be modest about.” Well, I mean, how are you going to argue with men like that? So when this man got up before Churchill, he made a monkey out of him, and he hated him all the more for using his talent of words to make him feel even smaller than he felt inwardly. And he’s going to change the entire structure of England on the outside. He hated the power of this land. Although we put them back on their feet, he hated us just because we were the power.388 ¶22

Well, I told you I saw it in vision. He put the thing on his head, a huge big tree, got on the hill, and jumped, fell flat, flat on his face. Didn’t believe that, so got back again, because someone must have told him this power will lift you up and you can go to the highest mountain. But it didn’t come from within. So “The gods of the earth and sea sought through Nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain.” It doesn’t begin to turn up until the body is split, and then you are turned around, and the energies that went into generation are now turned into regeneration.388 ¶23

And you leave everyone alone. You don’t tell them to emasculate themselves or to sign the vows of celibacy that means nothing! You could be a celibate from now to the ends of time and dream of sex all day long, and actually have nothing more than a cesspool for a mind. Every lovely girl and every lovely boy who go toward the altar for marriage, they condemn them and say the offspring is sin. Of all the nonsense in the world! Then you ask them concerning their own father and mother, “So you are now simply the offspring of a sinful act? In other words, you are the embodiment of sin.” Of course they’ll go into hysterics if you tell them that. So I tell you, you can’t bottle it up. It’s an energy that is natural as it’s turned down. And when you least expect it, that body of yours is going to be split and then the energy will turn up.388 ¶24

May I tell you, there is no loss. On this level you think it is a terrible loss if such a day would ever come. There are men…well, in the 1st World War someone brought out the idea of monkey glands. The men who led the Allies in battle, like Clemenceau and Lloyd George and all these old men, who were then pushing eighty or so, and they were subjecting themselves to transplants of monkey glands. No wonder we lost millions of men while these old monkeys played their part. So they sent the men into battle…so what, it’s the other fellow who will die.388 ¶25

That story they tell of our general…and here he is, this wonderful general who led our armies, and two sergeants are at the door, and they overhear the conversation, because like all people they think servants and underlings have no ears. At a lovely dinner party they treat the servants as though they are complete morons that can’t hear, and they will discuss anything. The most intimate things in the presence of servants, because they can’t hear or see or in any way know what is going on. Well, the generals are discussing the taking of a certain hill, and our general said to the others, “It’s going to cost me 10.000 men to take that hill, but I’ll take it!” And one sergeant said to the other, “The general is a generous son of bitch, isn’t he!” It’s going to cost him 10,000 men to take it but he’ll take it. And so when he finally dies at the age of eighty-odd, we give him the most wonderful send-off, this marvelous funeral…and there he is with all the palaver.388 ¶26

One day he has to face the monster. Everyone must face the monster that they have created; and everyone will see the ideal, because no one is void of such lovely thoughts, no one. When you loved your mother, before you could even reason, all of that went into this ideal. When you gave not because you had to but when you gave because you wanted to, all of that went into this ideal.388 ¶27

I have a friend of mine and when she died, Kathleen Norris wrote her husband and she said, “You know I have known Clarissa since we were girls in San Francisco and I have never known a more giving person.” Now Clarissa did not have money—she had modest means—but this is what she meant. She said, “She never wrote me a letter but what she enclosed a recipe, a poem, a clipping from a paper, a handkerchief, something she enclosed. ‘I found this recipe and I tried it out and it’s delightful…I want to share it with you.’” And so she would send the recipe, she would send a poem, she would send anything she saw in the papers or a magazine to Kathleen Norris, and she said, “There was the true giver of this world. Don’t wait for Christmas to give and hope that they’ll give you as generous a gift as you gave. That’s what most people are going to do this Christmas. But you give all through the year.”388 ¶28

A friend of mine died suddenly Saturday…my oldest friend in California. Met him the first day I arrived…minus my friend, Ursala, for I knew her in New York. But outside of Ursala…I met him the first day I got off the train in San Francisco. He was only fifty-three. Now there was a giver! He had so little and all day long he was giving, giving, giving to everyone. I couldn’t request anything, I was embarrassed, I wouldn’t voice anything in his presence. He made a mental note and it came not on an occasion like birthdays or Christmas or things of that sort but anytime. Bring it to the door and he said, “A care package.” Always some little joke. Well, he was up all week, he was home for dinner the week before, talked to him the night before…a massive heart attack and Mort is gone on Saturday. Well now, there was a giver. What ideal new Jerusalem he so far has built.388 ¶29

He hasn’t confronted the other. But he will make that decision, everyone will make it, because you are the God who created it. And what man has made he can unmake. Anything that is made can be unmade. God is not made so that it cannot be unmade. God in man cannot be unmade, because he isn’t made. But he’s the maker. He makes his new Jerusalem, his emanation yet his wife ’til the sleep of death is past; but he also makes this hell by his mistaken use of energies. It’s all energy, all power.388 ¶30

And so, one day he confronts the two. He turns to this on his left and he stops heating it and pledges himself, no one else, just himself, “I’ll redeem it if it takes eternity.” But it doesn’t take eternity. Right before his eyes, the whole thing before his eyes dissolves. It doesn’t take more than a matter of moments. The whole thing simply gets smaller and smaller and right before his eyes the whole thing dissolves. And all the energy that it embodied returns to him and he’s infinitely stronger now. That same energy is back now to use wisely, lovingly.388 ¶31

So any time you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another into the glorious ideal, the new Jerusalem you are building. And one day she will descend, prepared as a bride, she’s a bride. You’re building her out of your noble thoughts. That’s why I said to live so that your mind can store a past worthy of recall, for the mind whose contents vanish suffers loss, though he himself cannot be lost, but only through fire will he simply awaken. So, live so that all noble thoughts…you can always recall them with joy.388 ¶32

But one day, in the twinkle of an eye, you’re gong to confront this monster. He’s ever present, may I tell you, some act of violence that he may eat. He can’t eat otherwise, he can’t feed on anything but violence, can’t feed on anything but hate, anything but horror. He is the embodiment of all that and he can’t feed on anything but. So every violent act fattens him, strengthens him, and every noble act beautifies her. And that’s your life.388 ¶33

So, the lady who wrote that perfectly marvelous experience, may I tell you, thank you more than you’ll ever know for sharing it with me. You saw the perfect vision; you saw the beautiful imagery of Jerusalem. But the city is a bride, an emanation of beauty that returns, and you become one, and you are infinitely greater as a result of that union. So you emanate both. You dissolve this and the energy returns to you; and you wed this, not as two but as one. You leave all and cleave to her and you become one being; and so you’re enhanced in beauty, enhanced in love, enhanced in wisdom, enhanced in power by reason of the journey through here. Even though you did in your mistaken judgment create something…but it wasn’t lost, you dissolved it and it came back as energy. Then you unite with this ideal and you’re one.388 ¶34

So do no violence to these bodies of yours in the hope of entering Jerusalem. See, she went beyond it. She’s locked out, she couldn’t get in, and then she finally finds herself on a hill, clothed in a body of light. The light is radiating and the light is life. She’s animating and giving life to every object; and she knows she can change the order of a thing she sees, but also knows in the depth of her soul it is perfectly ordered and should be as it is. Now, how to get back and tell this to Neville? So she comes back to tell it to me and struggles through the darkness…limitless depths of utter darkness as she comes to the surface, struggling.388 ¶35

Now, she said, “I have been out of my body many times before and seen my body sitting on the chair from which I have departed, but it was no problem in getting back, I was instantly back. But I knew in returning here to the surface if I could only let go the memory of the experience, I’ll go back instantly. But I said no, I must take it back and tell it to Neville. So the struggle to bring back the memory of the experience took me this seeming forever to come through the darkness to tell you.” It’s a perfect vision, the imagery is perfect: the walls of Jerusalem.388 ¶36

As Blake said, “I give you the end of a golden string, only wind it into ball; it will lead you in at heaven’s gate, built in Jerusalem’s wall.” That’s not the gate. The gate is up the shaft that takes you into the citadel where the king dwells. When you go in, you are he. Then all the blind and the lame that kept you out before are destroyed. They’re not blind people or lame people, but these so-called weak forces were so powerful when you didn’t find the way in and they kept you out while you struggled to find you couldn’t go through the door.388 ¶37

So the tree spoken of is man. Man is the tree. I have seen them walking. I told it to a friend of mine in San Francisco…she was present. She came to see me at the Palace Hotel and while waiting for me in the lobby, she said as I came through the door…if you know the Palace, it’s a very…maybe three or four stories, the entrance the ceiling, very tall and perfectly beautiful, especially when you go into the restaurant, that wonderful Palm Court. She was waiting for me there. Now she said, “Neville, I can’t explain it, because here you’re only five foot, eleven inches and even as tall as the ceiling is, and it’s three stories tall, it couldn’t contain what I saw when you came through that door. I thought I was seeing a stag with antlers reaching up to the sky. They were like antlers.”388 ¶38

Now she didn’t describe them in her vision as antlers. She described them in her vision, in her letter to me, as radiations from every part of her body, making everything alive. But my friend the artist saw this and drew me a picture of it, keeping the same suit as I wore then and then this something coming out, just like a stag in complete bloom with his antlers but going beyond the ceiling. Now she said, “How could you come through that revolving door and still wear these antlers? Yet that’s what I saw.” It’s not of this world.388 ¶39

So when I told that story, not her story, but told my experience with this vision of mine of that third in importance in the Labor party in England, one lady said, “Of course, Neville, I think you’re going all out now. I mean, this is getting too far. You’re turning my daily bread into the substance of fairy.” So I don’t think she ever came back. She didn’t want me to discuss such things because it disturbed her. If I could give her some little tiny technique concerning tomorrow and how to treat the one she disliked in the office. Well, you can do that too. I do that, I don’t omit that, but that’s not the ultimate goal.388 ¶40

The ultimate goal is to fulfill the word of God: “My word shall not return unto me void; it must accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” . And so, I’ve sent you the word; that is, you sent yourself, because the Father is in you, and he is playing the part. But he did cut himself down and laving just the trunk, just the roots. And let now the dew of heaven water him, put bands of iron around him, and then he will grow and reach the skies, reach the heavens. And the birds will come—this time it is a better stronger tree—and they will nest in the tree, and the fruit will be for all nations, all flesh, and shade everything that lives. That’s what we are told in Daniel. And you are the tree; you are the tree of life.388 ¶41

Now, these things were given to me the other night, on Friday night…so fast. I had about five or six of them, and I was trying to say something to two friends, who are not here tonight, they’re off to meet their daughter flying in from New York, and I’m not quite sure which lady it was. If you’re here tonight, hold up your hand…the one who gave me this experience. Thank you very much! Because it all came this way and I didn’t know…I had so many when I got home.388 ¶42

But may I tell you, my dear, it’s a perfectly heavenly experience and true just as you described it. You went beyond that interval, that dark, dark interval between that marvelous world of life and this where the tree is felled. You brought it back in the most perfect manner. So I want to thank you.388 ¶43

So the tree…don’t look for any tree on the outside. The tree of life is not in some little garden on the outside; you are the garden of God. You are the one when the eye is open, you’ll see men and those who are awake just like trees walking. But you will see what I saw. You’ll see men who are not awake, who know nothing of scripture (not interested), who think they can put it on from without and rule the world. So let them try. They come to that inevitable—the only certainty in the world—death, and they’ll find themselves re-clothed, as here, in a section of time just like this best suited for the work yet to be done on them. They’ll keep on building and building, feeding both the good and the evil until that day that they confront him, and they’ll make the decision to resolve and dissolve this monster.388 ¶44

I’m telling you the thrill that goes through you, because the minute you seriously mean it—no one is here to hear your pledge, it’s all done within yourself—if it takes me eternity, I will redeem you. At that very moment it becomes nothing, right before your eye. But all the energy is returning to you, and you become stronger and stronger as it comes back to you. That’s the energy you simply misuse in the building of that monster, that dweller on the threshold who is not far away. He’s always present whispering violence, always ready to get you into trouble, because he thrives on your trouble. The other always thrives on every good fortune of a noble, lovely character.388 ¶45

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *388 ¶46

Now are there any questions, please? None? Alright.388 ¶47

May I tell you, on Friday I have some marvelous stories to tell you, which came today. This perfectly marvelous working of the law and its operation, that when you go into the deep and you are still governed by it. It’s not when you are here and in control of the direction of attention, but when you are there. And usually when man is there, he is the servant of his vision and not the master. But here, it is so much a part of him that he is the master of the vision even there. So we will share that with you on Friday. Thank you. Goodnight.388 ¶48

You know, quite often I find myself taking too much for granted. Because I read scripture all day, really, I’m inclined to believe most people do…and they don’t. So yesterday a friend said that he lives so far away and could I favor him with simply a short visit and he would drive in these many miles if I would see him. In talking to him…now he’s been coming here for quite a while, he’s a doctor, and in talking to him I discovered that I really take too much for granted. For then he said to me, “You know, now I see it, I see it clearly. I thought I saw it before, but now suddenly I am seeing what I should have seen before.” So tonight, you’ll find this the most practical, really the most practical and yet profoundly spiritual.386 ¶1

In the 25th chapter of the Book of Matthew you will read the words, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Well, to whom is he speaking? Now read on. This whole chapter is simply one parable after the other. This is now the last parable. It begins with the virgins, the ten virgins, the wise and the foolish. Then he goes into the talents, those that he gave five talents, two talents, one talent and their use or hiding of the talent. Then comes the last, and this is now explained, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me, I was a stranger and you received me.” He mentions all these things. “I was in prison, I was sick, and you visited me.” They are surprised, for they are now invited to inherit the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world. They said to him, “When did we find you hungry and gave you food, and when did we find you in thirst and gave you drink, and naked and clothed you, and a stranger and welcomed you, and sick and in prison and visited you?” He said, “As you did it unto the least of one of these, you did it unto me.”386 ¶2

Now, the world is looking for some external Christ, something on the outside. Now if tonight…suppose someone in this community could be assured that Jesus Christ as an external being was present. Why, the entire social world would turn itself over for the privilege of entertaining him. Why, you would have such a battle in the social world to entertain him it would be like a slaughter. Just to give him a piece of bread, a glass of water, just to touch him, to talk to him. They’re looking for the wrong Christ. “As much as you’ve done it to the least among one of these my brethren, you did it to me.” If perchance you had a chance, wouldn’t you simply jump to serve a Christ? Well, can you believe when you do anything to anyone in this world, you’re doing it to Christ? If you don’t, you don’t know Christ. If you do not know that whatever you do to anyone in this world you are doing to Christ, you do not know Christ. You’ll wait forever to see him coming from without. He can’t come from without, he is within. “Awake! Awake!” said Blake, “you sleepers in the land of shadow, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine. I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and a friend. Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me”. But the man does not believe it. “And the perturbed man away turns down the valleys dark.” He will not believe it. He’s looking for some external savior, some external God.386 ¶3

So I said to my friend the doctor, whenever they come to your office seeking help, you are serving Christ. Now Christ comes disguised…it’s just disguised…he’s wearing a mask. It could be a black mask, a white mask, a yellow mask, a pink mask, a sick mask. In your case, they’re coming to you, you’re a doctor, so they’re not feeling well. Do you know any part of scripture where he was sick? No. Yet he does make the statement, “When I was sick, you visited me”. Yet it’s not recorded that he was ever sick. There’s only one record where he asks for a drink…they didn’t say he was thirsty. He asked the woman of Samaria, “Give me a drink” and then she said, “You, a Jew, talk to me a Samaritan? Jews do not talk to Samaritans.” Then he explained to her the difference of the two waters. “Had you asked me, I would have given you living water from which you would never thirst.” Then he explains to her for the first time who he really is. It’s to a woman. He never really revealed who he really is until now. She said, “I know Messiah is coming, and when he comes he will lead us into all things.” Then he said to her, “I who taught you am he.” It’s the first revelation when he first reveals who he really is. It’s always to woman that he reveals it. In the very end, he appears first to woman. It is the drama as it unfolds in this world.386 ¶4

So if you could do anything to anyone and believe you’re really doing it to Christ, you’d be amazed at what would happen in your world. Now let me share with you two stories told me. When I came back from Barbados this year the letter was waiting for me. My friend is here tonight. But I haven’t used them, because it was not the occasion. Tonight is the occasion to use them.386 ¶5

He said, “A friend of mine in my office—and I call him a friend, we have lunch almost every day together—he started telling me all of his problems concerning the lack of finances, how far behind the eight-ball he was. Well, I don’t always believe everything that I hear, so I appeared to be interested, but I really wasn’t. I was indifferent to all that he said. I listened as though I heard, but I didn’t hear. I heard it but it made no impression whatsoever, and I wondered to myself, how can he really believe the things that he’s telling me? But after a series of luncheons where he’s repeating this negative state of how much he owed and what he needed, I thought indifference is not really the thing, I must do something about it. So I simply began to listen and I heard him tell me that he had more than enough and enough to share. This was back in February or March of this year. Then he said, ‘In either May or June of this year, he tells me that he came into an inheritance. He didn’t tell me how much, but the first thing he did he bought himself a boat that sleeps four. Now the boat, this cabin cruiser sleeps four. Then he sent his oldest son off to college. Then he had extensive repairs and enlargements on his home. Then he bought himself a new wardrobe. Then he bought himself a new car. Now the last item” said he to me in the letter, “I know he had no intentions whatsoever of buying any new car. But these things I know that he did—he bought himself a cabin cruiser, he enlarged the home and had repairs on the home, a new wardrobe, sent his oldest son off to college, and then bought himself a new car. Now I know,” said he in his letter to me, “more and more who I am, the power that is resident in me. I heard it. I ignored it, but that’s not enough, to be indifferent. I must do something about it.”386 ¶6

And so, “As you did it to the least among one of these, you did it unto me.”386 ¶7

Now he said, “This is a trivial thing, but after all, we all have a measure of vanity in the world. I go every week to have my hair cut and for the longest while I’ve been going to a barber. Even though I moved away I would drive into his suburb just to have my hair cut. And then he moved away. So I thought, well now, I’ll look within my radius where I live to find what I wanted, trial and error, and finally I found a shop. Four barbers. I sat at the first chair—the owner occupies the first chair—but he would not take off enough of my hair. I would tell him every week, ‘You aren’t taking off enough. Take off more hair. I don’t want this…it’s something I don’t want,’ but he would not do it. So I watched the other barbers, the other three, what they did to the other customers, and I finally thought I would go to the number four chair. Well, number four, if you know a man’s barber shop, if there are only four chairs, the fourth is the last. Those who are not there by appointment, they send them off to number four, because he is simply working his way up to number one, if he ever gets there. ‘So I saw what he did and I went to his chair. I began to talk to him and I asked him if he liked barbering. He said he loved it. He couldn’t afford to take a course, but he would like to go and mentioned a certain school—I do not know these schools—a certain school where it’s considered tops internationally and he would like to take everything that they offered.’” He said, “When I discovered he really wanted to be a barber and to be the best barber, then I felt easy in doing what I’m going to do. So I then began to listen and have him tell me how he passed, how all these things happened. Well, I began to do it, and to conclude the story, he came top of his class. He went to the school, came top of the class in all the things that they taught. And then he bought out the barber shop, displaced the owner, let him go, displaced two others, brought in others.” And he said, “Today, I am only there every Saturday at 11:00, because by appointment I have made it a permanent date with me. He has a receptionist now to answer the phone. It is so busy you can’t get in, you can’t walk off the street and get any appointment, so there is a receptionist added to the service to answer the phone and make appointments. I have my date set up every Saturday at 11:00. And I did it when I was convinced that he really likes being a barber.”386 ¶8

Well, what’s wrong with that? Suppose there weren’t any barbers. We’d all be beatniks. How could we cut our own hair? Suppose there weren’t waiters in the world. Suppose there weren’t ladies who were willing to come in and clean our homes. That’s Christ! When Doris comes home and cleans our place every Monday, that’s Christ coming through the door. One day when she came through the door and she told me of a friend of hers who had had an accident and the car was smashed, I said, “Well, Doris, was he injured?” She said, “No, he wasn’t but the car was.” I said, “Well, forget it. You can always get a car, you can buy a car, all kinds of things, but you were made by God. Only God made you. So you aren’t injured, they were not injured, and the car was injured…forget the car! But you were not injured!” Do you now, it changed her completely. She said, “No one ever told me that.” I said, “Don’t you go to church?”—she’s a Catholic, she goes to the Catholic Church—“Weren’t you told that God made you because he loved you? He didn’t make anything he didn’t love and here you are. So man in this world makes cars, makes all kinds of things, and you can replace them. But how can they replace you, Doris?” It has completely changed Doris’ life…to tell her how valuable she is in the eyes of God that he made her.386 ¶9

So here, he prayed for another. Now let me give you the side benefits of this praying for another. He said, “While I imagined these lovely things for my friend, who would give me all the negative states in the world about lack of money, in the same interval while he because one who inherited this money that allowed him to buy a cabin cruiser and a new car and extensive changes at the home and new wardrobe and everything, my children, and I have three, were named beneficiaries of an estate going on all the way back seventy years.” And so, like Job, he prayed for his friends and his own captivity was lifted. Only when Job prayed for his friends was his captivity lifted, theirs too, but his own.386 ¶10

Because if man could only realize that I dwell in every being in this world; there is nothing but myself. I am looking at myself pushed out. I can’t behold another. Every being in this world is myself made visible. So everyone who comes, if I don’t see Christ in them, that I’m only dealing with Christ, well then, I don’t know who I am, really. So as Blake again said, “God himself enters death’s door with everyone who enters and lays down in the grave with them, and shares with them their visions of Eternity until they awake and see Jesus, and the linen clothes lying that the females had woven for them, and the gates to their Father’s house.” So here, he enters, well, his name is I AM. Do you say “I am”? Therefore he entered. You couldn’t breathe if you couldn’t know that you are. Knowing that I am, is saying “I am”—that’s God. So God enters death’s door. What’s death’s door?—some cemetery? He never entered any cemetery on the outside; he entered us, my own wonderful human Imagination. This skull is where he lays down and shares with me the dreams of eternity until I awake. When I awake I will see Jesus. See Jesus as something “other”? No. I see the linen clothes and then I realize who I am. I do not see him as another. When you actually see Jesus, you know Jesus; and to know Jesus is knowing him as yourself. You will know him because you know that God’s only begotten Son is calling you Father. When he calls you Father, then you know who you are. He said, “I and my Father are one.” He said, “I’ll tell you before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may know that I am he.” Now what did he tell us? He said, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Read it in the 14th chapter of the Book of John. “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in your.” Well, if I am in my Father and then you are in me, well then, you are in my Father. Now he tells us in the 10th of John, “I and my Father are one.” Then he tells us that here David in the spirit calls me Lord, calls me Father. If he calls me Father, well then, who am I? And because there’s only one Father, and he calls you Father, then you’ll know I really am you . As Blake so beautifully said, “We are one.” Actually one…there’s only one Father, only one Son. Not a bunch of little Davids running around and a bunch of little fathers running around…only the Father. So if he calls me Father and there is only one Father, then I know who I am. Then he calls you Father, so “I tell you before it takes place so when it does take place you may believe I am he.” And because you dwell in me and when it takes place in you, you will know I am he. It takes place in the whole vast world, and they’ll know I am he…and I AM is the name of the Father. There is no other Father.386 ¶11

So the whole vast world must awaken to this wonderful plan. When we awaken, we have extended our creative power beyond what it was when we conceived the plan, and then entered death’s door, this limit of contraction. Now here in this audience, this small audience, I can’t tell you my thrill when night after night I hear from you as the letters come. Here, if you take into the depths of your soul in the night, called a dream…and here this lady writes me, “I no longer go with this boy, but in the dream I met his mother. She said to me, ‘What do you think of God?’ and I said, ‘Christ is not external, it is all within.’” When you carry it into dream where attention is usually the servant of vision and not its master, and yet you can bring this to the surface, your conviction is in the very depths of your being when you can answer that in the depths.386 ¶12

Now, a chap who has been coming only recently came down from the north, and he said, “I was having a dream just recently, and in my dream I’m trying to find someone. It is important that I find someone, who it is I do not now but I must find someone. There’s a crowd discussing…I’m not interested in the crowd or their discussion I am still feeling for this someone to bring this someone into my family. Then there’s a space in the crowd and a young man occupies the space, and pointing his finder at me said, ‘You are Father.’” Now, that’s a foreshadowing, that’s not the event, that’s a foreshadowing, a prefiguring of the event. But the mere fact that he saw the foreshadowing it is not far away. But it’s not the event; it’s the foreshadowing of the event.386 ¶13

And here, to get this in the morning’s mail or to get it here when I leave on my lecture night, I can’t tell you my thrill to look out and see it all awakening. Because I tell you, everything that you want you can have right here, really. Just as my friend did it for the barber, and did it for his friend; and while he was doing it for his friend, his three children became beneficiaries of an estate that has been in liquidation for seventy years. Seventy years! He made his departure from this world back in the 1890s and now in this day and age, in the ’60s, the next century, they’re all named beneficiaries of this estate while he prayed for his friend…fulfilling scripture. He is fulfilling scripture—that’s the story of Job. And may I tell him, that’s the last chapter of Job, the end of the journey. It could come to him suddenly—all of the things that have happened to us who are here this night, the three of us who I think of, who have had the entire unfolding of scripture. One, the complete beginning, the birth from above; it will not be long before he has it all. And his could happen just like this, because he, by this, is at the end of Job…and Job is the story of the whole vast world. Job is the story of the whole vast world. In the very end, all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him was removed. Now, the Lord brought it. As we’re told in the 9th chapter of John when the question was asked, “Who sinned, this man or his father or his parents that he was born blind?” He said, “Neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God may be made manifest” . So everything is taking place in order, and now he’s come to the end of the journey. I’ll tell him he has. Even though he has not had the mystical experience of the birth from above, he’s at the end of the journey. How long it takes between the mystical experience of the birth and fulfillment?—three and a half years. And he’s a young man.386 ¶14

Now, just before I took the platform a couple came back to tell me that our friend Jan, who is here tonight, that they met her, met her in a dream. He woke in a drowsy state, but it was so impressive…“I will not return any more.” Now, she hasn’t brought it back, but they brought it back and told me. So she in the depths told them she’s not returning any more. Well, that means resurrection. For your told in the 20th chapter of Luke that when the question was asked, “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” and he said, “You do not understand the scriptures. In this age they marry and they are given in marriage. But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age, they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore. They are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” So when she tells in the depths of her soul to the one who heard it, and coming through to the surface of his being, he has to record it. He turned to his wife and said, “Record this, I am still too drowsy, but record it.” And then she records it for him…what he heard her tell him in the depth of his soul, “I’m not returning any more.” So I say that we’re all awakening, all awakening.386 ¶15

So what does it matter what the outer world looks like and what it really does! There are two: the outer man, the inner man. So we’re trying to patch up the outer man? We’ve been patching him up forever and forever, and you’ll still be patching him up, may I tell you. You try to be someone in the eyes of others…to go back to what I said earlier, who this night would not really give their right arm to really serve Jesus Christ! Don’t you think that if our cardinal knew tonight that he came to earth and he was in the city, being the cardinal, he wouldn’t want to entertain him? And he would take the second place…he would not put himself at the head of the table. He would see that the Lord is there. Yet he’ll pass by one in need. You don’t have to give one nickel to anyone to help; you do it all in Imagination. He didn’t give his friend one penny, the friend inherited. But he did give his friend the gift, he used his talent; therefore, he implied by what he did he multiplied the talent. He is among those that I spoke of earlier, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom of God.” Why? What did I do? Well, when I was hungry you fed me, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was a stranger you welcomed me, and when I was in prison—in this case, financially imprisoned and he was sick at heart because of the limitation—you visited me. He didn’t give him one nickel, he simply used his God-given talent, that God gave him, and he exercised it and multiplied it. He multiplied that talent. Didn’t give him one nickel and yet he gave him everything.386 ¶16

So this is what I’m talking about, that you simply use the talent that God gave you. Someone buries the one, he’s afraid to test it, because if it doesn’t work then what? Then he has nothing. So he buries the talent. Others have the five and they make ten; two, they make four, and they are highly commended for their investment of the talent. So you’re not called upon to share anything physically with others, but you do share it in your Imagination by seeing them as you would like to be seen were you in that position. If you were in need and someone had the power by imagining you to be affluent, wouldn’t you like them to exercise that talent? Well now, that’s what he did and that’s what happened. So I ask you to take me seriously and simply go out and determine within yourself to be on that right side; for he separates them as a shepherd separates the flock, the sheep on the right and the goats on the left .386 ¶17

Now although you are told in a harsh way in scripture that the ones on the left who did not apply their talent are condemned to everlasting hell, forget it! It is simply remedial—that man has to be once more…he has to enter the same world. People die here but they don’t really die. They find themselves restored to life, and it’s simply remedial. So they continue until finally they take that talent and they use it. So you will die…we all die, that’s inevitable. That’s the greatest certainty in the world that everyone’s going to die. Well, why tell someone who is just about to get married, you know that eventually you a going to be parted through death. Wouldn’t that be the most horrible thing, to tell them to dwell upon that stupid thing! But that is a certainty. It has to take place. They’ve got to reach that parting way in death. If they don’t before in some other law court, they’re going to part in death. But why tell them that? But whether they die or not, they’re going to be restored to life, instantly restored to life. As they’re restored they find themselves in a world just like this until they use their talent.386 ¶18

That talent is not giving a million dollars because you have a million dollars to build a church or to build a museum and all these things. That’s not using your talent. When you did it to the least of one of these my brethren you did it unto me. So to give it…and put your name on a plaque; and say, “If my name will not go up on that plaque, you don’t get this building. And if you don’t house my paintings in this room and name it after me, you will not get my money.” And their paintings are atrocious…they know nothing of painting and buy it only based upon the tag. So they buy a tag and it costs $100,000 and you wouldn’t give it wall space if you had any taste whatsoever. But they will give you a million dollars if you’ll take their collection and display their awful taste. And so, because you need a million dollars you take it and name it after them, and hope that they will not long survive so you can change it. And that’s the world over.386 ¶19

Well, that’s not using this talent. When you use this talent, you take anyone that you see and treat everyone you see as though you’re treating Christ. Well, what joy if you know you’re actually treating Christ. So I say to my friend the doctor, when anyone comes through the door…an old lady who is really in pain or can’t pay you…Christ came in. And treat Christ! No matter what it is, just treat Christ. Then see what happens in your world, just as it happened to my friend. After all, when you have three children and they’re all minors and they must go through school and you want them to go through college, and then they fall heir to something that is now seventy years in litigation. Just imagine seventy years! And finally while he is praying not for himself but a seeming other, he was really praying for himself.386 ¶20

So the 25th chapter of Matthew: When did we do it? When did I actually see you in what and I gave you anything? When you did it to the least among one of these my brethren, that’s when you did it to me. And when you didn’t do it, that’s when you did not do it to me; when I was thirsty and hungry and naked and in prison and you did no do it. It is just as simple as that. So don’t put out your hand and give him anything. Quite often you’re not helping at all; you’re simply perpetuating a bum. But when you do it in your mind’s eye and see him not in that position, and wonder what it would be like if now you could pass him by and he’s well dressed and he’s affluent and he’s going off to do something wonderful in the world, helping people, in business, in everything that is marvelous, well then, that’s when you did it, as you walked by. You’re only walking by yourself. And Christ is the reality of every being in the world. There’s only Christ. So Christ is the true identity of every being in the world. So you walk by, who can you pass? So this one is a lady of the evening…that’s Christ. That’s the way she’s making her living. Alright, suppose now she actually was affluent. She could still play the same part if that’s what she feels towards life, nothing wrong. If that is how she feels towards life, play that part, but not really in the gutter. Lift her up in your mind’s eye and see her in the most glorious way. Don’t condemn anything that man is doing, for God is playing everything that man is playing. There’s nothing but God in the world. So when you see this and you live it, then you will know.386 ¶21

Now a friend of mine, again, she said, “I was having this wonderful dream about David, and I said to myself, I must remember this. At that moment when I said I must remember this, then I woke. I didn’t remember it and I fell back to sleep again. But it was all about David, the most beautiful things about David. Then when I was waking in the morning I heard these words, ‘Thou art like a wing’d star and I have shot thee very far.’” Now, she said, “It was not winged but wing’d. It was….she spelled it out, wing with the apostrophe and d, just as Blake would emphasize how he wants his words expressed if you should read them. He would always write it that way. Whenever you see Blake write a word and here he puts an apostrophe, rather than the e, d, he puts the apostrophe and just the d, he wants you when you read it to give it that same pronunciation. So she said, “I heard it was not winged. ‘Thou art like a wing’d star and I have shot thee very far.’” But it all came after dreaming about David. She couldn’t remember what it was, but these are the words that came through. Then she woke quickly in the morning and wrote them down. So what a joy to me to see everyone awakening…and all, if you haven’t completely had the birth, foreshadowings. Not only your own foreshadowings but those because they’re all one bringing back to the surface what you told them concerning your not returning here anymore. And all of this is part of the wonderful drama.386 ¶22

So I ask you to go out and try it and try it, and do what my friend did concerning the barber. He first wanted to be sure he wanted to be a barber. And I am very grateful there are barbers in the world. I’m grateful that there are every…that everything that I need there’s someone to fill it, like my Doris who comes home. She’s like a member of the family. Go into the restaurants…suppose there were not waiters, suppose there were not cooks, dishwashers, what the devil would we do? So, everybody is playing a part, but the one playing a part is Jesus Christ. There’s only Jesus Christ, there’s nothing but Christ. So you give out of your wonderful human Imagination, just as he gave to the barber and just as he gave to his friend in the office. One now owns the barber shop and you can’t get near the place. You will call in for an appointment, but it’s always filled up because he saw him as the most successful barber. He wanted a barber in his neighborhood that would be so successful he wouldn’t have to start looking for another barber and going out of his way to another barbershop. So he anchored him there as a most successful barber having discovered he wanted to be a barber. Then his friend, going to lunch, didn’t want any part of this stupid nonsense that he was talking about. And now, if he discusses anything, he can discuss his weekend on a cabin cruiser or his journey with this new car or what he’s done with his enlarged home. These things he gave him. And the man is totally unaware of the giver. He thinks that when the money came by inheritance that was the giver. That could have gone on into litigation just as it did back in 1890, and all those who are mentioned are now dead, and now these are now named. The estate is about to be given.386 ¶23

Let us go into the Silence. * * * Are there any questions, please?386 ¶24

Do you have another question?386 ¶27

Blake asked the Reverend Trussler, who always criticized him, “Why is it that the Bible is more entertaining and instructive than any other book? Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding or reason?” If you’ll take this thought of Blake, take it seriously, you’ll be amazed at what you get out of it. When you think there are sixty-six books, it’s a library in that one book of ours…sixty-six books. It’s a challenge, something addressed only to the Imagination. The understanding is simply like the mediator…it passes through, as though someone comes in to mediate some problem. And from the depths of your own soul you’re speaking to the surface of your being, the enormous, infinite Imagination speaking to human Imagination. So it’s not really addressed or directed to understanding or to reason.384 ¶1

Now, let us take just a simple theme tonight. I challenge you to test it. May I tell you, you will not disprove it; if you test it, you’ll prove it. This is what Paul said in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, “We walk by faith, not by sight” . Now, what does he mean? You and I when we walk by sight we know our way by objects that the eye sees. For instance, while we are seated here suppose the entire city was suddenly rearranged. Take a simple example, here is Wilshire…if all the buildings on the south were suddenly transferred, still related to each other, to the north of Wilshire, and all of the north to the south; and this building here, which is now north of Wilshire is just as far south as it is now north, and all the buildings that are now on this side equally distant…and you started home tonight and you turned here and turned toward Wilshire, and by habit you turned, say, to the west but as you go the Ambassador is on the north side, well, you know right away you’re going in the wrong direction. Then here is the Brown Derby, that’s on the south side. Well, you know you’re in the wrong direction. So what do you do? You turn around. Do you know you’ll never get home? But fortunately for us in our simple childlike manner, these things are fairly stable. Not completely, because if someone came back from the last century into New York City today, who knew New York City well, they would not know New York City. They would have to be directed and ask question after question where to go and so and so. I came back to New York City in 1922. Well, I have lived there for years, and go back every year, and every year an old landmark is gone and some towering thing is in its place. So I know the city well…I haven’t really left it, because going back every year for at least five or six weeks at a time, I keep in touch with it. But if you are gone, say, for a long spell of time, you wouldn’t even know it. They change the names of the streets. What was, when I first came there, Sixth Avenue is now called the Avenue of the Americas. You wouldn’t know where you are, because that was not something…it didn’t exist.384 ¶2

So now, that’s how I walk by sight. When I walk by sight I know my way by objects that my eye sees. Now how do I walk as Paul said he walked and invites us all to walk? He said, “I walk by faith, not by sight.” When I walk by faith, I order my life by objects that only my Imagination sees, that’s all, when I know where I want to go. Where do I want to go? I want to go to the top of his particular business. I want to be promoted from where I am to where I want to be. Well now, how do I rearrange the structure of my mind? I can’t rearrange the structure of the outside physically, that doesn’t help me. But if I walk by faith, I will now walk by a rearrangement of the structure of my mind, all the things of my mind, and so set them up that that’s all that I see. I must now remain faithful to this state.384 ¶3

Now he makes another observation, he said, “This is the one thing I do.” Well, if it is the one thing I do, I should read it over and over and over. What is the one thing that he does? This is in his letter to the Philippians, the 3rd chapter, “But the one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” . Now, you name it. He had his goal. So that was his, but you need not have such a high goal. You can have any goal in this world…a business beyond the wildest dream of man. There is not a thing that did not begin in the Imagination. No matter what it is, whether it’s the highest political position in our world, the greatest financial structure of the world, all things begin in the human Imagination. Because there’s only God and God and man’s own wonderful human Imagination are one. If they differ, and they do, it’s only in the degree of intensity, that’s all. Keyed low as we are, well then, we have to either walk by sight or walk by Imagination. We may falter in Imagination. Walking by sight is easy, because we know things are fairly stable. They are not going to be rearranged suddenly overnight so that you may lose your way tomorrow morning when you come out and turn in one direction through habit to find the building isn’t there and you’re completely lost. But if I walk by faith, I now order my objects in my mind’s eye, as these are ordered here to my physical eye, and then I walk in that manner.384 ¶4

Now I can tell you unnumbered stories where men and women simply ordered it in their mind’s eye and they walked faithful to what they fixed up in their mind’s eye and they became it. I think of my brother, my family, who had not a nickel, not a penny, and here he rearranged in his mind’s eye a certain structure which if true would imply that we owned this building and all that it contained. It took him two years. Two years later without any more money than when he started, a total stranger…I wouldn’t say a total stranger, but we knew him, but not socially. We never wined or dined with him; he never wined or dined with us. This building is up for sale. In the meanwhile, it faltered, it failed, and the sale is this day. The very day of the sale he comes in and asks my brother if he wants to buy it. We didn’t have any money, no collateral. Well, he said, “I have been watching you and your father…you seem like an honest family…and so I have money. So I’ll buy it, but not for myself. I’ll have my lawyers bid for it, because if they knew that I am bidding they’d bid it up. So whatever I can get it for, will you take it? What it will cost I do not know, but will you take it? Yes? No collateral, just your signature that’s all.” And that day we owned the building.384 ¶5

We sold it…we bought it for only $50,000 in 1924, sold it eight years ago to a bank for $850,000…and there is no capital gains in Barbados. Didn’t lose the business, didn’t buy our business, only the building, only the little plot where it started. So we bought it for $50,000 on borrowed money, did a whale of a business in it, expanded beyond the wildest dream, and then sold it for $850,000…without any capital gain tax whatsoever. That is my brother Victor.384 ¶6

Every day as he passed by he saw on the marque instead of the name that was there he rearranged the structure of his mind and he saw what he would like which if true meant we owned the building. For our name is Goddard; my father’s initials were J. N. He saw “J. N. Goddard and Sons” and the name read “F. N. Roach & Co.” Well, you can’t transliterate the initials of F. N. Roach & Co. and make it spell J. N. Goddard and Sons, so he walked by faith, not by sight. Sight told him it was F. N. Roach & Co.; faith tells him it’s J. N. Goddard and Sons. So in the structure of his mind he simply rearranged the entire structure. Every day for two years, as he walked past this building on his way to a little tiny shop on a side street which my father had and on the way back home at night he always stopped and looked and saw what he wanted to see. That was the beginning of my family’s good fortune. That one had the good sense to put into practice this which is taught in scripture.384 ¶7

We walked not by sight, we walked by faith. Well, faith is what? Now let us go into the Book of Hebrews and get the definition of faith. We are told in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…so what was made was made out of things that do not appear” . That’s what we are told in the very beginning of the 11th chapter of Hebrews, that what was seen was made out of things that do not appear. Well, that certainly did not appear, but it was made out of unseen things. No one by my brother Victor performing this mental act saw what he saw. In this world even in a simple manner I can say to anyone, you see what I see, but you do not see what I see. As Blake said when someone asked him, “When you look at the sun, don’t you see a huge big disk like a guinea?” he said, “No! What I see…I see a host of angels singing ‘Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty!’” Others look at the sun and see a disk, a round disk, a huge big guinea, and he sees a host of angels singing, Lord God of Hosts. I look at a tree. Do we all see the same tree? We don’t see the same tree. So I can say, you see what I see but you do not see what I see. So you can look at someone who is in need and we see the same being, but you do not see what I am now seeing. I’m seeing one who is not in need. So we see the same thing, but we see it differently.384 ¶8

So I either live by faith or I live by sight. If I want to live by sight, well then, let me be just simply an automaton and accept everything that happens; and if I fight from now to the ends of time to change it, I will not change it. I will change it only as I begin to live by faith. So I walk in faith and not by sight. That’s what we are told. Now, if there’s one thing he tells us that he does, he forgets the past. No matter what he has done or did not do, he completely puts it behind him. “One thing I do, forgetting what is behind me, what lies behind, and I then stretch forward towards what lies ahead” . Now his ideal is to be called to the highest spot of God, that’s his ideal. Maybe that is not your ideal. I hope it is, but maybe it is not. Maybe other things are pressing and you need money, and you need this and you need that. Alright, if that is what you need, take that as your objective. But take the same technique; put the past behind you. Don’t look back and become like Lot’s wife who turned into a pillar of salt. Salt is a preservative. You want to preserve something you simply put it in brine and you can keep it indefinitely. So that is salt. If I turn back to the state that I want to leave behind me, if I turn back and dwell upon it, I turn back to it and once more re-enter it and become it. But if I will turn my back on the past, no matter what I have done or didn’t do, and then stretch forward towards what I want to do in this world, and remain faithful to it, there’s no power in the world that can stop me because there’s no other power. You will actually become the man that you’ve assumed that you are, the lady that you’ve assumed that you are, if you remain faithful and persistent in this assumption.384 ¶9

So this is why Blake said, is there any book in the world comparable to the Bible? It’s the most entertaining. What a challenge! And it’s the most instructive. Because as you read it…on the surface it’s not the easiest thing to read, but he said, if it were easy to read it, it would not be worth my care, for the ancients discovered that what was not too explicit was fittest for instruction. And so if you want me to make it so explicit that everyone in kindergarten can see it, well then, it isn’t worth my care. You’ve got to dig. They made it in this manner because it rouses the faculties to act.384 ¶10

So you read something, take a simple, simple thing like this. One of the most glorious…of course, they’re all glorious, all the books…but take Hebrews. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…who reflects the very glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature” . Well, you read this and you wonder what is it all about?384 ¶11

“In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets.” Well, the 118th Psalm, the 19th Psalm, all these psalms will give you where the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handiwork, and all these things we see as he spoke this way. But then, who are the prophets? We see as we read it they are only instruments through which he spoke…these are the instruments. All these things came through in a not altogether conclusive way. They were foreshadowings of what God intended. But in the last days he has spoken to us by his Son. You read that and may I tell you from my own experience, I am still—not here in this group because you do believe me and you accept it—when I go across country or if I’m invited on a panel on TV or on radio, it’s the most difficult series ever to convince man to accept this Son of whom I speak. They will say “he means.” It doesn’t state it in the book…no one knows this unknown author, he remains unknown, and no one knows to whom he addresses the letter. When we speak of the letter to the Philippians, the letter to the Ephesians, to the Corinthians, we know to whom it is addressed, but the letter to the Hebrews does not in any way indicate who is the recipient of the letter. It’s unsigned and no one knows the author of the Book of Hebrews. But here, “In many and various ways he spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in the last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” Because you read the Old Testament and then we have a New Testament, and the churches of the world tell us that son is Jesus Christ. There we are stuck. Now he’s stuck—it’s Jesus Christ— and it isn’t so at all.384 ¶12

This is the most fantastic revelation: In the end he is going to reveal himself, and he’s going to reveal himself only in one manner…through his Son. So it is the “last day” of the one to whom he reveals it—it’s not the world is coming to an end—we come to the end of the journey, individually. So the individual who experiences this Son has reached the end of the road; it’s his “last day.” In the last days he has spoken by his Son…spoken to us. When the Son comes, you are so thrilled and so surprised that you can’t, well, can’t describe it in words. And the Son is David; it’s not Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God the Father. And he calls Jesus Christ “my Lord.” He calls Jesus Christ “my Father.” So when he calls Jesus Christ, “my Lord, my Father” and then he appears and calls you “my Lord, my Father,” then and only then do you really know who you are. I could tell you from now to the ends of time that you are Jesus Christ, you are God the Father, but not until this happens will you really believe it…really believe it, really know it.384 ¶13

I’ll tell you why. You and I, I don’t…no, I shouldn’t say that you and I, because I don’t think for one moment that you do doubt the authority of scripture…but many in high places in the world, like Bishop Pike, he questions the authority of scripture. Yet he is the highest that in the Protestant world one can go, you can’t go any higher. We don’t have popes in the Protestant world, and the highest order is a bishop. So, he questions the authority of scripture, well, that’s alright. But may I tell you, let him do it. He questions the authority of scripture, but no man can question the authority of scripture after he has experienced scripture. Now, scripture is called the Word of God and we are told “his name shall be called the Word of God,” speaking now of Jesus Christ in Revelation . Now in the Book of John it is said, “And thy word is truth.” Now, if you experience it then you know it’s true, don’t you? Well, may I tell you, a truth which man has experienced he knows more thoroughly than he knows any other thing in this world, or than he can know that same truth in any other way. For I can tell you what I’ve experienced and it’s true, and so you’ve heard it and you believe it—if you come here, I think you believe it—but you do not know it to the degree you will know it after you have experienced it. So a truth which one has experienced he knows more thoroughly than he knows any other thing in this world, or tan he can know that same truth in any other way.384 ¶14

So I tell you from my own experience, as I’ve just told you about my brother, it can’t fail you. You say two years? Well, what’s two years? He was just only a kid really. He hadn’t yet turned, well, he was in his early twenties when he started this. Now, he’s two years my senior. And so today we have this fantastic, I would say, set-up business-wise in the islands, because someone really believed scripture and walked by faith rather than by sight. Because sight told him he didn’t have a penny and no possibility of getting any. A large family, all these mouths to feed and to live, all kids, all little children, and what on earth are we going to do when we think forward in time to support a large family of ten children, a father and mother and grandmother and aunts, too. For we never neglected anyone, we included everyone who was part of the family tree. Not one went outside; if we had anything, they shared it. Then he started this wonderful walking by faith, ordering his life by objects that only the Imagination could see.384 ¶15

Well, others ordered their lives and walked and found their way by objects that the eye sees. Your eye can only register what is right there now. If you don’t like it and that’s all you’re going to register, you’ll continue to perpetuate it. But if you don’t like it, you have a power within you to completely change it and change it radically. That power is Christ in you who is the Father. Who is he?—your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s Christ in you.384 ¶16

So tonight you can start. May I tell you, it will not take you long, but you are the operant power. And you can tell where you are going by simply watching at any moment in time what you are imagining…just watch what you are imagining and you know where you are going. If I imagine certain things based upon my past and it’s not lovely, that’s where I’m going. I’m only perpetuating, bringing it forward again. But if I would turn my back…as he said, “This is the one thing that I do, forgetting what lies behind and stretching forward towards what lies ahead.” If that’s the one thing he does, then let me do it. But he had the highest ideal: his ideal was the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.384 ¶17

So it’s entirely up to us. I invite you to try it. May I tell you, you’ll never disprove it, not in eternity. But being the operant power, then you have to live by it if you’re willing this night to actually live by it. I could tell you unnumbered stories where an individual having nothing …you don’t have to have anything…that’s the wonderful story. You start just where you are and start moving from there. But you must walk by a certain direction and you walk by the direction that you yourself set up. What would it be like if it were true…what, what you want to be? What would it be like? Well then, conceive it in your mind’s eye, what would the feeling be like?384 ¶18

Now Blake said Imagination was spiritual sensation. Well, what is spiritual sensation? Analyze it. Feel a piece of glass. Can you feel it? Alright, can you feel a baseball? Does it feel like a piece of glass? No. Can you feel a tennis ball? Does it feel like a baseball or a piece of glass? Can you feel a piece of cloth? Can you feel a violin? Can you feel a piano? Do they all feel alike? No. No two really felt alike. That’s spiritual sensation. You can do the same thing with the ear. It’s simply a living, a vivid living way of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling…a vivid way of doing it. And you can do it right now. I can feel right here without going elsewhere.384 ¶19

In New York City one night when I was giving something similar, a lady sat in the front row…and she lived in the Waldorf Astoria. She said, “Well, I’ll try it now,” and she embraced mentally…as she sat in the Silence she embraced a huge, huge bunch of roses. She was passionately fond of roses and she embraced roses. She could smell them, she could feel that velvety petal; she could actually, well, she could see them in her mind’s eye. She saw the roses, she saw all these things. And then she departed as they all did at the end of the meeting. The very next day this is what happened. When she went back to the Waldorf Astoria, the one that is now called the Queen Mother Elizabeth—not the present queen but her mother—they gave a party for her at the Waldorf Astoria, and there must have been, I would say, 2,000 who attended. Naturally the flowers came, like gardens and gardens. But the next day, the maitre d’ looking at all these lovely fresh flowers wondered what to do with them. This lady was a permanent resident of the Waldorf Astoria. He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, take three dozen up (calling this lady by name) take it up to her room and place it in her bedroom for me. Then take this to so-and-so and take that to so-and-so,” and he distributed all the flowers. But he sent to her room three dozen roses named for the Queen Mother. It was a new rose that year named for her because of this occasion. They all knew that it was going to happen, that she was coming to what is called the English-speaking Union. So, when she came home that second night, walking down the corridor she could smell this fragrance, this lovely…almost like someone had broken a bottle and the attar of roses is coming out. She stopped at three doors beyond her door and wondered if it’s coming from that room. She was overpowered. And then she got to her room and saw these lovely things on her bureau, three dozen of these lovely, giant beauties left on her bureau. She simply embraced it and lost herself in feeling it.384 ¶20

I try to get everyone to feel it and walk by faith and not by sight. Now, if something is very important to your life, maybe you can’t lose yourself to that extent…and then you are looking back on what you are against what you want to be. She didn’t have to have flowers, so she could completely forget anything in this world, and she lost herself in embracing roses, not just flowers but roses. And here, the maitre d’ casually said, “Take these up to Mrs. Neidemeyer” (that was her name)…“Take them up to Mrs. Neidemeyer.” Because she was a gracious lady, very kind to all the people who lived there, and all of a sudden he had one idea, take three dozen to her.384 ¶21

So I tell you, even in the simplest thing…a lady came one day, she said, “I want more money.” I said, “What do you do?” She said, “I am a seamstress and yet I am also an artist. I design and yet I’m a seamstress, but I do aid in designing.” I said, “Now what do you want?” She said, “I want x-number dollars, and then minus…I’m a single person living in a hotel, so minus my deductions for taxes and all the other things that are taken out of my salary, I want exactly $100.” This goes a way back in years, not today; I’m going back when a hundred dollars was really not what a hundred dollars is today. And she said, “This is what I did, I held the envelope in my hand and then I tore off the end. I could hear the tearing of the paper, the envelope. I shook the contents out and then I counted out the money, even to the very pennies that I would get if I had x-number of dollars minus that they would deduct. I counted everything out. That very week the phone rang in the lobby of my hotel and here was a total stranger…she knew of me but had never met me…and she asked me if I would see her. So I came down to the lobby, not knowing who she was, and here was someone who employed many people and offered me a job and paid me to the penny what I had counted out.”384 ¶22

That lady could have counted out much more, but it was more than she got before and she was quite satisfied with it. Right to the penny and it all happened that week. Well now, if there is evidence for a thing, what does it matter what the world will think? How could you now take from her what she has experienced? So the truth that she has now experienced is paralleled in scripture, for “all things are possible to him who believes.” Well, how do I believe? I’ve got to imagine. How can I believe without imagining? Believing what? I’m believing I’m getting this money…that’s what I’m doing. Well, if I’m getting it, will I not do it? Well now, bring all of your senses to bear upon the act, for Imagination is spiritual sensation. And so, all these things…she played every part. She could hear the paper tear, she could hear that; then she shook the contents out, she heard that; and she felt it, felt the paper, felt the contents. Do you know that money has an odor unlike anything in the world, so you can smell money. If I put a piece of money before your nose and you closed your eyes, what are you smelling? You know exactly what you’re smelling…it’s money. You can smell it. So, all the senses were brought to bear upon this event, and that very week she started working for this party as a seamstress plus designing in part.384 ¶23

And you can go through…I can take you all through even silly little things…like a lady going into Stearn’s department store on 42nd Street in New York City. She said, “Now Neville said I could have anything I want if I can imagine it and believe it.” Well, she had no money, but none. She couldn’t really purchase anything. She takes off her hat and she tries on a hat and she likes the hat. Leaves her hat there and she tries on the hat, and she walks around admiring herself before all the mirrors, and then she comes back. She can’t afford the hat. Then she wonders, “Where is my hat?” So the one who is selling hats asked her, “What hat?” She described the hat. “Oh,” he said, “I’m sorry, I sold that hat. I couldn’t find the price tag on it, but the lady loved it and the lady bought it.” So he called a section manager over and described the problem and where is her hat. He was frightfully embarrassed and he said, “I’ll tell you what, no publicity, take any hat in the department and it’s yours.” So she liked what she had on and she walked out with it. That was her hat.384 ¶24

Another story of a similar nature…here is a lady whose profession in this world was a lady of the evening. There are all professions in the world. In New York City this lady came to all of my meetings, and I ran into her on 73rd and Broadway. She lived at the Ansonia. She said to me, “You now, Neville, the strangest thing happened. You told me that I could have anything that I wanted by simply imagining it.” I said, “Yes I do. I still teach that.” She said, “You know, I saw a beautiful hat in the window and it was”—in those days you could buy a hat for $3.50-$4.00, but this was $18.00—she said, “I stood before the window, I imagined that hat on my head, and then I walked up Broadway. As I came back, I would not look into the window to become disillusioned to see the same hat there, so I walked by as though I had the hat on my head. Then when I went home I took off the hat without looking into the mirror and put it up as though I took off that hat that I saw in the window. It was my hat now. Well, the next morning when I got up the old hat is still there, and so I wore that hat for maybe a week or ten days. Then a friend called me and asked me to come and see her, she wanted to see me; so I called on my friend and during the conversation she said, ‘Pardon me a moment.’ She goes into her room and brings out the hat and she said, ‘You know, Ann, this hat I bought…I must have been insane when I bought it, I wouldn’t wear it to a dogfight. Yet, strangely enough, I think it would look lovely on you,’ and brings out not a hat but the hat,” the very hat she saw in that window. Something possessed this lady to buy it; she buys it, takes it home and keeps it for eight-ten days and calls up the one person, and says, “I think it would look lovely on you.” So she gets the hat.384 ¶25

Then she said to me, “But Neville, why didn’t God give me the money to buy the hat? Why did he give me the hat in this manner?” So, knowing her profession, I thought I could talk to her openly, I said, “Now tell me, Ann, do you owe any rent?” She said, “You’re too nosey.” I said, “I’m asking a simple question, do you owe any rent?” She said, “Yes, two weeks.” I said, “I presume you pay just about $17.50 a week rent, don’t you, at the Ansonia?” She said, “I do, exactly $17.50.” “And you owe two weeks, so you owe $35. What price hat do you usually buy?” “Oh,” she said, “$3.50, $4.00.” “Have you ever bought a $17.50 hat? That’s what the hat cost.” She said, “Never.” I said, “Now, Ann, tell me honestly, if while you were watching the hat you saw a $100 bill, and it was all yours now…you found a $100 bill, owing $35 in rent and the uncertainty of your future, would you, without ever having bought a $17.50 hat, would you have bought it?” She said, “No. I still say you’re too nosey.” She had confessed she would not have bought it if she found a hundred dollars. So I said to her, “Well, how much must God give you to get you to buy the hat? If he gave you a hundred, you wouldn’t have bought it; if he gave you, what, a thousand dollars to buy it, he could do it cheaper than that…so he gave you the hat.”384 ¶26

Someone bought it who didn’t like it, so what. I have bought clothes and when I went home I wondered what possessed me to buy it, and then called up a friend and gave it away. I’ve given all kinds of things away after having bought them. At the moment I was possessed to buy it…and someone was treading in the winepress elsewhere; I was simply the one moving and he was treading it some other place. Someone wanted a suit of clothes. So I go to my tailor, I said, “I think I’ll take this.” So he sells me something that when I came home my wife said, “Alright, so you bought it. Don’t expect me to go through the door with you.” And then a friend who wanted something just like it, he comes and gets in touch and he gets the suit. So he was treading the winepress while I bought the suit.384 ¶27

So may I tell you, Imagination, as Blake defines it, is spiritual sensation. Really believe it! It’s a vivid sight, a vivid sound. When Beethoven went deaf, all sounds to the outer ear came to an end, but it didn’t come to an end with Beethoven. Didn’t he hear with the inner ear? Don’t you and I go and enjoy all these lovely things that he heard not with the outer ear but with the inner ear? Well, can’t you now think of someone that you love and hear what they are saying? Can’t you hear them? Anyone that you know, whose voice you know, you can hear them. If you can’t see them vividly, you can hear them. Well, any one of the senses is enough to get through—a touch, a sound, a sight, an odor.384 ¶28

I know in New York City years ago I walked through Harlem and I would get the whiff coming from someone’s cooking and it was all West Indian food. Why, instantly I’m in Barbados. I could smell odors that only come from Barbados…the kind of vegetables that you only get in the West Indies, the kind of fruit, and the mixtures…I could get everything. I walked by and suddenly an odor is coming…why, I’m walking in Harlem and yet I’m in Barbados. It just transports you 2,000 miles away. So you can bring back an odor and put yourself in any place in this world…a sight, a sound, a touch.384 ¶29

So, “I walk by faith,” said Paul, “and not by sight. But this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, I stretch forward to what lies ahead.” Now he names the most glorious thing…but it need not be yours. You read this in the 3rd chapter of Philippians. So he named the most glorious thing, the highest calling in the world, the calling of God in Christ Jesus: To become one with him so that before you stands his only Son who in turn calls you Father, who calls you Lord.384 ¶30

Well, tonight you try it. For your life is forever, may I tell you. Nothing dies, but nothing dies. Even the little rose that blooms and you wear it in your lapel, you take it out, it’s gone and you throw it away. “The rose that blooms once blooms forever.” Nothing passes away. And so tonight, if one should cease to be in this little sphere, he doesn’t end. He’s instantly restored to life and carrying on the wonderful journey in this age until that moment in time, the last day, when he speaks to him by his Son and the Son calls him Father. Then and only then does he know who he really is: the author of it all. His journey in this world is over, and when he takes off the little garment, as he tells us in Philippians again, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is better by far.” Then he uses an expression which always interests me, “But,” he said, “it is more necessary”—an unusual expression—“it is more necessary that I remain in the flesh on your account.” Longing to depart and be one with Christ—because there’s only one Christ who is God the Father—but it is more necessary. And when I first read that it struck me as the most wonderful way of expressing something…that he remain in the flesh because it is essential for us that he remains and continues the instruction.384 ¶31

So tonight, you take this. It’s very practical. All that I have told you has been right down here. But I will not limit you as to your goal. You’re goal may be God, you’re goal may be anything, but whatever the goal is, take this and walk by faith and not by sight. Then take the one thing Paul said he did, the one thing that I do, and then he turns his back on anything that he’s ever accomplished, and then he goes forward. Doesn’t matter what he’s done before. He has a goal and now he walks by faith towards that goal. So you set it up in your mind’s eye. What would I see if it were true? How would I feel were it true? What would I do were it true? Now walk in that state and you cannot fail! Now let us go.384 ¶32

* * *384 ¶33

Now, if I said to you that whatever you believe, if you persist in it, it will come to pass, that all things are possible to him who believes, would you believe it? So if you asked me, “Have you any reason for making that bold assertion?” If I quoted scripture and said, these are the words of Jesus Christ, you might say, “Well, after all, that’s Jesus Christ, but I am simply John Brown, and I cannot bring myself to believe that whatever I assume that I am, if I persist in it, that it will become a reality.” That is only because you do not know who Jesus Christ is: Jesus Christ is the true identity of every man. Say “I am”…that’s Jesus Christ, that is God. Well, man does not believe that. He will say, “Well, that’s all well and good for someone who is called Jesus Christ, who is called either God or the Son of God, but certainly not for me.” Well, I tell you, the true identity of every man is Jesus Christ.383 ¶1

Now tonight I want to show you who Jesus Christ really is. I have told you and I mean it that I stood in the presence of the risen Lord, that he embraced me and incorporated me into his being. That was in 1929. He was infinite love. But when I looked at him I saw him as another and then at that moment I became what I beheld. I was actually embraced and actually fused with the body of the living Lord, the risen Lord. But I did not know Jesus Christ…you do not know him that way. I saw him as another. He embraced me and actually incorporated me into his body, and I was one with the risen Lord. But we are told in scripture that “no one has ever seen God; the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” .383 ¶2

Well now, “to see” and “to know” are the same words in Greek, same words. So when I’m told that no one has ever seen God, I might just as well have been told that no one has ever known God. No one except the Son who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known. And that is true. It was thirty years later that the Son in the bosom of the Father made him known. I did not realize when I was incorporated into the body of God that I was God. Thirty years later when the Son, David of biblical fame, broke within me as I exploded within myself and he stood before me, I didn’t have to ask anything…he called me Father. Well, whether he called me Father or not, I knew instantly who he was and who I was and the relationship between father-son. So it takes the Son to reveal to me who I am. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord,” said David, “and the Lord said unto me, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’” . Well now, when I read that in school as a child, and when I read it in my mature years, and when I heard it said by others, it never occurred to me that this character of scripture who was supposed to have lived 2,000 years, well, a thousand B.C., was in any way related to me…certainly not the relationship of father to son.383 ¶3

So, it is true, no one knows, actually knows the Father. No one has ever actually seen God until the Son who is in the bosom of the Father makes him known. Only when within your own being there is an explosion and David, in Spirit, calls you Father, then you know it. Even though prior to that you stood in the presence of the risen Christ and he asked you to name the greatest thing in the world and you named it: Love. At that he embraced you, incorporated you into his own being, and you felt the fusion with God. But you didn’t know that you were he, not for one moment, until the Son. So it is true, only when the Son reveals him do you really know who you are.383 ¶4

So people do not know Jesus Christ. They say, well that’s all well and good for Jesus Christ. But I am telling you from my own experience Jesus Christ is the true identity of every man. Say “I am” , that’s Jesus Christ, that’s the Lord Jehovah, that’s God. There is no other God, there is no other Savior. You came out of yourself. All these proceeded out of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all beings will return, having completed their journey, to the one body, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the one Spirit, the one Lord, the one God and Father of all. So all are coming back, but they will not return until this experience takes place within them.383 ¶5

Now let me explain it in this way. At the end of the 7th chapter of Luke, it is said he forgave a woman of her sins, and those who sat with him at the table said, “Who is this who forgives sins?” Then it goes into this little drama, and drama is this, that he went from city to city, village to village, teaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. There were with him three women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, and they provided for him out of their means.383 ¶6

Well, when you read these words and if you are not aware of this great mystery of scripture, well then, you’ll come to the same conclusion that all of the scholars have. Because here is the most learned group of scholars today, because they are drawing upon all of the scholars of the past, and in these twelve volumes of the great Interpreters’ Bible these scholars made this observation. And this is the exegesis which is simply taking the words apart and trying to come to some understanding of it. This is what they say: that Jesus did not depend on chance hospitality but was supported by wealthy women out of their means.383 ¶7

Can you believe that! One who will say to you, to me, to all, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will”—to depend upon another?—“That all things are possible to him who believes.”383 ¶8

Now I am quoting accurately from the Interpreters’ Bible, considered the most scholarly work as of the moment; because they have as a background these 150-odd men who brought it in. They have an enormous range of scholarly works and they have researched it, gone through it with a fine-tooth comb, and yet they come up with this. Why?—because they have not experienced Jesus Christ. How could anyone tell me that Jesus Christ was supported by wealthy women out of their own means and others…they also add “and others.” But they mention three…they mention Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna.383 ¶9

Hasn’t a thing to do with any three wealthy women. These are the eternal characters, for they were still present at the empty tomb. Not Susanna, she only appears once, and then another Mary takes her place. As so they came to the tomb and they saw the empty tomb and they told what they had seen, they related their own experience. But those who hear it—and the apostles are the ones who heard it—it is said of them that it seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe it.383 ¶10

Then comes a story that they walked with these women and these individuals. Who?—the risen Lord. And he asked them, “What is it all about?” and they said, “Do you not know? Do you not know the great prophet who was delivered into the hands of the elders and the authorities and they crucified him?” They did not recognize him. Then he said, “Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer these things and then come into his glory?” . They still didn’t recognize him. “And then beginning with Moses, in the law, and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” . They still didn’t recognize hm. But it was late and they restrained him and asked him to remain with them. So he entered their homes and while seated at the table, he took bread and having blessed it he broke it, gave it to them; and then at that moment they recognized him and he vanished out of their sight. He gave it to them and then they recognized him, and he vanished out of their sight.383 ¶11

Well, what is his bread…a piece of bread? No. He said, “I am the bread of life.” When I-AM-in-man breaks like a seed that is growing, it erupts. When it breaks, you recognize the truth of the eternal story. This story is true; it is contained in man. Man finds it difficult to grasp until it breaks from within him. Not something on the outside of man is having dinner. It’s late and he takes a piece of bread and he breaks it and he gives it. The bread is in everyone; that bread is “I am.” “I am the bread of life.” It is in everyone. Can you say, “I am”? Well, that is it. The day will come that it will break, it will erupt just like a seed bursting itself; and the plan is contained within the seed. Whatever is said of Jesus Christ and whatever he claimed of himself will unfold within the one in whom it breaks. Then and only then will he really know who he is. So in the end he will know himself as God when David in the Spirit calls him Father. David in the Spirit will call him Father and only then…even though prior to that he stood in the presence of the risen Lord and the risen Lord questioned him. He answered correctly. He was embraced, incorporated into the body of God, which is called “baptism” in scripture. If we have been baptized into the body of God, we have been baptized unto his death; and “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” . See the difference in tense: We have been united with him in a death like his then we shall be united with him in a resurrection like his.” So the seed has been broken and it’s being broken day after day after day in all, and it’s coming out in all of us.383 ¶12

So in the end there’s only one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all…and you are that God and Father of all. It comes out of you. So I came out of myself into this world; I’ll return from this world, to where?—back into myself. But I’ll be enhanced, enriched by the experience.383 ¶13

So the word translated as “suffer”—“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”—the word suffer means “to experience these sensations,” that’s all that it means. It is translated many ways in scripture like “suffer little children”—let them come, don’t stop them—“suffer little children to come unto me”—allow them, permit them, let them come. But the word translated in this passage is simply “to experience sensations,” these sensations in the world of death. So I come into this world to experience all of this; and so I empty myself of my divine being, take upon myself the limitations of this world, called the limitations of the slave, and commit myself unto death. This is a world of death; everything here dies, but everything dies. No matter what it is it eventually dies. So, I became one with death…and then I overcome…for the last thing to overcome is death. You overcome it when you simply break it and discover who you are. Then you are born from above.383 ¶14

Man, then, is born from above. He said, “Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” . When you are born from above then you will know. Know what? Well then, you will know in this way, you will lift up the Son of man. When you lift up the Son of man, you will know that I am he. The being talking to you?—no, the center of man’s being is Jesus Christ, it’s “I am.” When I lift up the Son of man, I will know that I am he. Unless I know that I am he, I remain missing my mark in this world, and I die in my sins. “Unless you believe that I am he, you die in your sins” . Not a being talking to you from the outside; but man takes it this way in the beginning, from the outside…as though there’s another on the outside.383 ¶15

Now, everything said of him I must fulfill and you must fulfill individually—not collectively but individually—because you are unique. There’s no one like you. You can’t be replaced in the kingdom of God.383 ¶16

So when I am told in the 14th chapter of John, “In my father’s house are many rooms; were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also” . Now it seemed like an idle tale.383 ¶17

Now how are these women mentioned in the story? I’m addressing all, but I call them my witnesses in scripture. You shall be my witnesses and I will take you into the Father’s house, a house of many mansions, many rooms. So, you will describe it when you experience it as spacious. You’ll describe it as the most spacious building built by your Father…and I will take you right into the Father’s house.383 ¶18

You will see me and the word you will understand instantly, as Sharon did: I said “My name is Friday.” She instantly knew the meaning of the word, and she said, “Oh, that means ‘O my darling,’” which in scripture means “the one that they had actually pierced” as told us in the 12th chapter, the 10th verse of Zechariah. Oh, that means “they will look upon me.” Now the pronoun is “me” in Hebrew; it is not “him.” But it’s translated him in the bible to give it sense. It’s not him, the pronoun is me. “They will look upon me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for me as one mourns for an only child.” And then you nod, “That’s right.”383 ¶19

You knew exactly in the depths of your soul who I am. But you still do not know, not yet, because you’re seeing in me and you’re hearing me as another other than yourself. I brought you into the Father’s house; I can take you no further. If I bring you into the Father’s house, then you must find the Father. You can’t find the Father looking at me. But when you have seen me you have seen the Father, but I am not the Father when you look at me. You will find the Father only when the father’s only begotten Son David stands in your presence and calls you Father. But I’ll bring you to the Father’s house. So, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; 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 unto myself, that where I am there ye shall be also.”383 ¶20

Bring her right into the Father’s house, and she passed all these rooms, room after room after room, all painted white. It was a white house and it was empty…the only room occupied where I sat instructing. But this time, all my remarks are directed to her.383 ¶21

And there were only three mentioned in this series of dreams. She mentioned three, three women, and then she spoke of others. Now in the chapter, beginning with the first verse—first, second and third verses—of the 8th chapter of Luke they only mention three by name and then they said, “And others.”383 ¶22

You’ve got to fulfill scripture, so everyone is going to fulfill it. And because we’re all one anyway we bring our own being into the Father’s house. I can take her no further. She is right at the awakening. I can’t take her any further. She came right into the house. It was adjacent to where the Father stood, but he was invisible. He’s always invisible because she herself is the Father. The day will come in the not distant future when she will know that she is the Father.383 ¶23

So the whole vast world must experience scripture and scripture is simply the story as told in the New Testament of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is simply a prophetic blueprint; the New Testament interprets this prophecy. It’s a foreshadowing. It’s a prefiguring in a not altogether conclusive or immediately evident way; it’s an adumbration. When it happens, it doesn’t seem that is the thing that was foretold. But this is now it happens, it happens in you: the birth; the discovery of the Son revealing you as Father; the tearing of the temple of your own body; the discovery of the Holy Ghost descending upon you in bodily form as a dove; and everything happens in this wonderful manner, and you are Jesus Christ.383 ¶24

You don’t go out and brag about it…because the world will imply again cut your throat. Tonight you go before any so-called holy man, who thinks himself so good, so holy…the very ones who will say that Jesus was kept by wealthy women, they’ll believe that. And may I tell you, in my own profession there are thousands and thousands of men and women who will point to this passage in scripture and then get from wealthy women support. They will actually believe they are doing God’s work, while here on the outside these false prophets are milking them as you would milk cows. The man that could say, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it” would then depend for his support on wealthy women?383 ¶25

May I tell you, I’ve gone through the mill. I have had offers of all kinds—diamonds, jewels, money, all kinds, my rent paid for five years at a time—and each time I have said, “No thank you, I will live or die by what I teach. Keep your money and keep your rings.” They bring me all these things. I have never once accepted one ring, one bit for my rent. “I’ll pay it out of everything I have, but not from you.” But they say, “After all, this is common practice.” I said, “If it’s common practice, I am not common. Go elsewhere. I am not in the market for what you’re offering.”383 ¶26

So here I’m telling you, it’s in scripture, but a misunderstanding of scripture is the strangest thing in the world. So when the greatest scholars will interpret it that way, you can’t blame the hoi polloi for giving a similar interpretation to that passage…that he depended upon the wealthy women for his support. But there it is in the 3rd verse of the 8th chapter of the Book of Luke.383 ¶27

But I tell you…then what are they, those who supported me? The women who will have an experience like Sharon and who will write me that letter. Only one in ten will do it. “Were there not ten of you?” and nine did not come back to verify the law that he is teaching” . So one comes back, and he asks, “Were there not ten?” So she writes her experience to support my claim that I must have proof and confirmation that everything said of Jesus Christ in scripture must be experienced by me. Should not Christ suffer these things, should he not experience these sensations, these emotions, and then enter into his glory? So I must have it. Well, if ten had a similar experience, alright, so nine will not come back…one will. So she brought it back.383 ¶28

My friend Grace Griffith, she brought hers back, when in the depths of this moment when looking at the TV and she just simply closed her eyes, and then she said, “I must remember what Neville said, I must remember what Neville said!” Jack said, “What did he say?” “Wait a second, it’s coming…” and then she said from the deep, “He said to me, ‘Do not be disturbed…I am with you to the ends of the age’” . She’s quoting scripture.383 ¶29

I have to have these things confirmed, for I am not just talking to you here on this level.383 ¶30

Sharon found me in other levels: it goes from city to city, from village to village. “Well, it started that way, all the cities and villages…you’re talking in all these places. As you talk in all these places, I came to one place and it was this lovely wonderful campus. And here a single youth, he’s anxious, he has to see you, so he sits next to you and he loves you. I could tell from his attitude that he loves you; so he’s in love with you as you explain to him all the mysteries of the Word of God. And I eavesdrop.”383 ¶31

Now, all along she does not find me directing any thought to her. She goes into all these places, even to this one with the young lad, but in the end, when I bring her into the Father’s house all of my remarks are to her. And what do I tell her? I simply, aside from what she heard…now, listen to these words, “And did not our hearts burn within us when he opened unto us the scriptures?” .383 ¶32

Now, in all of these experiences of Sharon’s it was only talking about scripture. She used, in her letter to me, “My heart exploded, it began to split with excitement. Everything you said was simply splitting my heart with excitement” and at the very end she could hardly contain herself. “Did not our hearts burn within us when he opened unto us the scriptures?”383 ¶33

What else is there in this world! If you read the morning’s paper thoroughly and have any memory that goes beyond, say, a month—suppose your memory goes back, say six months, oh, you’re blessed—do you know the contradictions? Why, you take what you and I admire in this world, the medical profession. If you read this morning’s paper and remembered what the same one who wrote something about a year ago wrote on the same condition of the human heart, it’s complete contradiction. But see, he’s only quoting what another doctor said. Well, if there are one million doctors in the world, do you know there are one million different treatments for the same disease? They are more fashionable than the clothing industry. They change their fashions month after month.383 ¶34

But one thing that does not change is the Word of God. It is forever. So when it happens to you and you’re born from above, everything said of him you are going to experience.383 ¶35

Now listen to these words, “I am from above, you are from below; you are of this world, I am not of this world” . Now how can you say that this thing is secular? He tells you that he is not of this world. Then where is Jesus Christ in the secular history of this world? He’s not! He belongs to an entirely different region. While you and I walk in this world, we are born from above…and the one born from above within us is Jesus Christ. He is in us, and then he has to be born; but he has to be born from above, not from below, from the womb of woman. He’s born from above, from the skull where he was buried in the beginning of time. So Christ is buried in man, in the skull of man, and it is there that he will be born.383 ¶36

Now may I tell you from my own experience, believe it. And if the whole vast world rises in opposition, it makes no difference, because you’re going to experience it. So let them rise in opposition and give you all the arguments, and if perchance they are so stupid to hold onto certain things, they quote these great scholars. Couldn’t even support himself…that sort of person I must worship? He couldn’t support himself, he depended upon the support of wealthy women, and, of course, they’ll rise in opposition and cut your throat for it. But just point out the passage in scripture…for that’s the God you worship? One who depended on the support from wealthy women? And quote it. There it is in the 8th chapter of the Book of Luke.383 ¶37

But you tell them that is not Jesus Christ; that Jesus Christ is the true identity of every child born of woman, and every child born of woman will experience all that is said of Jesus Christ, but everything.383 ¶38

To suffer doesn’t mean any more suffering than you’ve suffered, than I have suffered, for Jesus Christ in us is the one who has played the part. So everything that I have ever done, it was Jesus Christ who did it, for he is the life of me, the life of you. Without Jesus Christ in us we couldn’t even breathe; he is our life. So he had to suffer these things in multiple ways. He allowed it first of all, and then he experienced everything that this world could offer, as you have. But God in his infinite mercy has removed memory from us so that we can’t quite remember the horrors that we pass through…but we have!383 ¶39

In the meanwhile, may I tell you, believe every precept of his literally. It will be fulfilled literally…those on other regions and some on this region. For instance, believe that you are what you want to be. On this region?—yes, it will be. If I dare to persist in the assumption that I am the man that I want to be and live as though I were, regardless of the evidence of my senses, regardless of all things that would deny it, I will become it. Try it!383 ¶40

But the other things that this level cannot comprehend…no, you will one day fulfill the entire scripture. You, too, will take those who are walking with you into the Father’s house, and when you take them in you will simply reveal who you are: I am he whom they pierced.383 ¶41

And may I tell you, the crucifixion is not what the world believes it to be. It’s the most ecstatic thrill that you can imagine. They are not nails nailed into the hand, nailed into the feet, and a piercing of the body. No, these are vortices. I can tell you, the day that I experienced it, it was only a memory, for it was done in the beginning of time. But in this moment, in the 42nd chapter of the Book of Psalms, “And these things I remember”…so this was only a remembrance of that event. And if the memory of the event was so ecstatic, oh, what the original thrill must have been, even though what would follow would be the horrors of the world. “But no man 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” . Therefore, no one took it, I laid it down. I actually nailed it on humanity…and that is the being who we are, the cosmic Christ. When these things actually nail us, they are vortices—one vortex here, vortex here, vortex here, vortex here and vortices, the soles of the feet. These are the things that nail us—two, four, five, six, the six-pointed Star of David, the Mogen David—nailed on it. And I can’t tell you the ecstasy of that thrill when it took place.383 ¶42

But we do not know…after that it’s a complete forgetfulness, and then we come into this world nailed to these crosses. Then at a moment in time—not a moment before, not a moment too late—we are born from above; and the whole predestined state unfolds within us and then we know who Christ is.383 ¶43

So I tell you, Christ is known to you as God the Father only when God’s only begotten Son stands before you and calls you Father. He who calls you Father is David as told us in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke. “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” And they answered, ‘David.’ Then he said, ‘Why then does David in the Spirit call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?’” So David calls him Lord, and the word Lord is the expression that every son used of his father…referred to his father as “my Lord” . And so he calls him Lord. But you know the feeling between that which confronts you and it is David.383 ¶44

So I tell you tonight, this may seem not practical. It’s the most practical message that you could have, because while you are roaming in your mind, you are dwelling upon who you are. I’m telling you who you are. If you believe me, well then, you’ll go out knowing that I said, “Whatever I believe, if I persist in it, I will realize it.” Not “he” said it. It’s what you said in the beginning, for the Christ of scripture is resident in man. It’s man’s own wonderful human Imagination that is the Christ of scripture. So if that’s what Christ said, well then, I said it. And all that he said is true. So I will go out believing that I am now what I want to be, that things are as I desire them to be. Walking in this assumption, persisting in it, it will harden into fact.383 ¶45

Now let us go into the Silence.383 ¶46

* * *383 ¶47

[...] a very successful and productive series. I’m going to ask you to share your experiences with me that I, in turn, may share them with others. In this way we are mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.381 ¶1

This principle works. If you are here for the first time, you may hear a certain phrase that may not seem familiar, but I assure you it has biblical support. I may change the word and it may sound unfamiliar, but I assure you, it’s all scripture. When I make the bold claim that imagining creates reality. That is only scripture. You will not find it stated in that manner in scripture, but you will find these words, “All things are possible to him who believes.” You’ll find it in the 9th chapter of the Book of Mark. Then you read the 11th chapter, “Whatever you desire when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will” . No limits are put upon the power of belief, none whatsoever. It doesn’t say it’s good for you. You be the judge. It doesn’t say that others will agree with your choice. It leaves it entirely up to you. Whatever you desire, not what others think you ought to desire. Maybe it is not a wise choice on your part, but that’s not part of the principle. The principle is that all things are possible to him who believes. Therefore, the secret is how to believe. How could I be self-persuaded when reason denies it, when my senses deny it, when everything in the world denies it? Can I really persuade myself in the face of such denial? I must learn the art of such firm self-persuasion. For, if everything is mine if I want it, and all depends only on my ability to become self-persuaded that it is true, then I must imagine as if it were true. Man’s progress has come from those who imagined as if it were true. Imagining as if it were true is the way to success.381 ¶2

Well now, how to do it? Blake said that he invited Isaiah and Ezekiel to dine with him, and he asked them concerning this strange power of persuasion. He said to Isaiah, “Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?” Isaiah replied, “All poets believe that it does, and in ages of Imagination a firm persuasion removed mountains; but not many are capable of a firm persuasion of any thing” . So how can we do that?381 ¶3

For instance, if I should turn to a friend of mine and say to him, “You know, I saw John this morning, and he looked remarkably well, and I told him so, and he said to me, ‘I’ve never felt better!’ I was so happy for him, because I’ve never seen him look better, and he agreed with me, he’s never felt better.” Now the one that I addressed knows John, knows him quite well, and then he turns to me and he tells me, “Well, you could not have seen John, for John is not even in the country, and John is very, very ill. In fact he’s in the hospital. Those who see him they despair, so how could you have seen John? Where did you see him?” I replied, “I saw him in my mind’s eye, that’s where I saw him. I saw him right in my Imagination. I was thinking of him, and having thought of him, I brought him before my mind’s eye and saw him as I would like to see him. And he seemed to be there. So, I told him and he agreed with me, that he had never felt better.” My friend turns to me and he tells me, “Well now, that’s all false. That’s untrue.” I said, “Alright, it may be false based upon the facts of the moment, so I will say it may be false, but will you wish it true? Has it your vote to be so if it can? If I tell you of other cases, similar cases, and they all came to pass, will you now wish it true and not disturb me with your arguments and your facts?” And so maybe he will and maybe he will not, but he may leave me thinking I’m a little bit touched. For I say I saw the man this morning and I tell him where I saw him. I saw him in my Imagination, that’s where I saw him. I thought of him, therefore I saw him. I brought him before my mind’s eye and saw him as vividly as I am capable of seeing anyone, if I think only of him without some external form to support it… and I saw him. Now, is it true? Well, let’s wait and see, wait and see if the facts of the moment will not dissolve and this so-called thing that is not a fact takes its place. Are we not told in scripture that God calls into existence the things that do not exist? They do not exist and he calls out of things that do not exist, he calls into existence things that you and I will see. But the source…they do not exist, then where are they? Here, as I thought of John I conjured him in my mind’s eye and I carried on a conversation with him. Now its power is its Implication, what does it imply? That John is well, that’s what it implies. Well, that is its power, its implication. Now leave it, for that has the power to externalize what it implies.381 ¶4

Now, can we support this with an actual case history? Here is a wonderful case history that greets me in New York this past spring. It was sent here and my daughter forwarded it in time for me to share it with those who were taking my lectures in New York City.381 ¶5

This friend writes, “Soon after I heard you I was faced with quite a problem. I’m an advertiser, and our agency had this problem. Here was an enormous industry in our country and they wanted us to bring out an advertising campaign that would not only arrest the decline in sales but reverse the picture. So I said to myself, if imagining creates reality, all that I have to do is to proceed from that assumption. And so, I must simply bring out my ads based upon this, that all the desires of my client, which are only mere desires to him, I will treat them as end results, as facts existing now. So I simply constructed these ads and had them illustrated graphically as something that’s a fact, something’s taking place now. “Well, here there are twenty-four men on the board of this enormous corporation, self-opinionated, egotistical, and power-seeking. Their self-image was one of integrity. How to get them to accept this campaign based, if you must be objective about it, upon a lie? The whole thing was a lie. Yet I knew if I got this thing rolling I could persuade all the, I would say, the prospects across the country to accept these end-results as facts. And so I brought in the artists and they had my concept clearly in mind. Then I made these bold statements and I documented them with art and statistics…yet every one was a lie.” He said, “It was amusing to sit in this meeting filled with arguments, these men trying to find proofs to persuade themselves to accept this campaign. How can they be persuaded to accept the campaign of this nature when every claim made by me was a lie? So I sat there and only saw the end, that’s all that I saw. I lived in the end, the end result. Well, they accepted the campaign and it was launched in the media that I had chosen. In three months time, we not only reversed the trend of the downward sales, but we broke every record locally, regionally and nationally. The net increase in the first three months of the campaign was seventy-five million dollars.381 ¶6

“Now they said, ‘Our competitors aren’t going to take it’ and they began to be afraid of what their competitors would do, seeing the success of this campaign.” Well, he said, “They must have become self-persuaded of their fears, because they did—some even used the copy without changing any part of it, here, they took the whole thing bodily”—again fulfilling scripture in the Book of Job, “And my fears have come upon me.” What they greatly feared they drew to themselves, because imagining creates reality. I can’t fear something and not imagine. How can I be afraid of anything and not set it in motion, when imagining is creating reality? So here, they were afraid of what their competitors would do and their competitors did it. They had to do it. Now he said, “I have before me, rather I have on my desk, a five-page letter written to my boss from a vice president, who is also business manager and assistant to the chairman of the board of one of the world’s largest and richest oil companies. He congratulates my boss on his clever use of this principle in this most effective campaign. For they all knew about it. But, said he in the letter, “It is part of the core of our thinking in our business. My particular company thinks this way and the executive branch must act this way and think this way.” He said, “I also know many big companies from the inside and that is part of their principle. They may not phrase it in this way, that imagining creates reality, but they act upon it in that way.” He said, “I also know one politician, a very successful one, who was elected to office by the conscious use of this principle.” Then he goes on in his letter giving me other aspects of the principle as he has used it successfully.381 ¶7

He’s here tonight and I want to thank him for sharing that experience with me that I in turn could share it with you…when a man sits at his desk and using just his Imagination and constructs a campaign based purely upon a wish fulfilled. What did Shakespeare tell us in Anthony and Cleopatra? “It has been taught us from the primal state that that which is was wished until it were.” That which is was wished until it were. What’s the primal wish? “Let us make man in our image.” Isn’t that a wish?—and then he dwells in the end. The end is his image, which is Christ Jesus, seeing man not as he goes through life, but seeing him in the end—only holding in his mind’s eye the wish fulfilled, which is Christ Jesus. So in the eyes of God the Father everyone is seen in the end. Not as we appear to each other in this world of conflict, but in the very end he sees us as the perfect reflection of his own being and therefore himself. So here, I ask you tonight to put this to the extreme test with anything in this world, I don’t care what it is. For, if all things are possible to the one who can believe, and you can believe, then why not put it to the test? So I invite you to try it.381 ¶8

I’ve gone across the country…in New York City I have many wonderful case histories…go to little Barbados, just for a vacation for two months, and there I saw it among those who were successful. They don’t discuss it and give some biblical support secret…it’s there for all to read if they’ll read the scriptures and read to it correctly. They think it’s their own little secret. But it’s not a secret, it’s there for all to read if they’ll read the scriptures and read them correctly. And so, we search the scriptures to find these laws, and finding them then we share them. So the foundation tonight is to go out and just simply imagine the end as if it were true. I don’t care what that end is. You be the judge. I am not here to sit in judgment concerning what you choose to be in this world. If you want wealth above anything in the world, maybe you do. Maybe you want fame, maybe you do. Maybe you want strength, marriage…I don’t know what it is. But whatever it is you need not discuss it with a neighbor. Be bold enough to say, “This is what I want” and then be big enough to accept it if it’s not quite the thing that you really wanted. Bring it into being…as Robert Frost told us a few years ago when he was interviewed by this reporter from Life magazine that “The Founding Fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in!” And the whole vast world is waiting for some future date to bring them something that they do not now possess. And yet the Founding Fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in. And he goes on to tell us, there’s nothing more creative in the world for man than to believe a thing in. How to believe it in? Well, that’s the secret. Well, you try it. I bring before my mind’s eye a scene which would imply the fulfillment of my dream. Then I toy with it, and try to lose myself in it as though it were true, and to the degree that I am self-persuaded to that degree it externalizes itself. This whole vast world of ours, this objective world as it seems to be, is solely produced by imagining.381 ¶9

Now we’re told in scripture that all things were made by God, all things, and without him was not anything made that was made . Well, I imagine something, and I wait patiently, and then in a way I could not devise it happens. If all things are made by him, well, if I’m really alert and not governed by human concepts of who God really is, I should discover him. If all things are made by God, and without him there was not anything made that was made, and I sit down quietly and imagine something that has no external fact to support it, but I believe in the reality of my imaginal act, and then I wait patiently, and then it comes into my objective world to be shared with others, well, haven’t I found God? Isn’t Blake then correct in telling us that “Man is all Imagination. And God is man and exists in us and we in him” ? That, “The eternal body of man is the Imagination, the Divine Body, Jesus, and we are his members” , that he actually dwells in us? And does not the scripture tell us, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless of course you fail to meet the test” . If you test it and prove it, then you’ve found where he is. Well, you know exactly what you did. You didn’t pray to another, you didn’t ask another, you simply imagined the end, and dwelling in the end the end took on some external form and became a fact to be shared with others. Well, haven’t you found him? Didn’t you find where the source of the whole thing was? Well, if that is God, then you’ve found him. And so, Blake is right that God dwells in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination.381 ¶10

But you will say, “But God is all love and I’m capable of imagining unlovely things.” Are we not told in scripture, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and none can deliver out of my hand”? . Are we not told that? Are there two Gods, someone who makes alive and one who kills? No. There’s only one God. That is the foundation of our faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is one” . Not two. Well, if someone kills, it has to be the same God that makes alive. If someone injures, it must be the same God who heals. I heal; I kill; I make alive; I wound…the same God is speaking. Read it in Deuteronomy . And so, I find out that I must stand my own creations. So if I pick the unlovely, if I feel some intense emotion and it’s not a pleasant loving one and I bring it into my world, I’m stuck with it. But, at least, I know I did it, I know I brought it into my world. Well, be big enough to live with your own creations until you learn better and learn really how to bring only the lovely things into the world.381 ¶11

So here, I ask everyone to try it. It will not fail you. But remember we are the operant power, it doesn’t operate itself. You may hear this tonight and go out and just simply repeat like a parrot, imagining creates reality, and yet, it is not strong enough a conviction to cause you to act, because, if you really believed it, it would produce an action when you’re confronted with a problem, because instantly as you have a problem you know the solution. If you’re in debt, what is the solution but sums of money equal to your need? That’s the solution. How, is not your concern; the means, that’s not your concern. The end is your concern. The end is where you begin: In my end is my beginning. And so, “What do you want?” is asked in scripture. “What wantest thou of me?” Don’t tell me how to do it, what do you want? And the one who said that “I could see, Master,” the other one said that “I may walk without a limp, Master,” the other one said…and they named it. As they named it, then he said, “According to your faith be it unto you.”381 ¶12

Now, do you have the faith? Because Imagination and faith are the stuff out of which man fashions his world. We are told that “By faith we understand that the worlds were created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things that do not appear” . But then we are warned, “Without faith it is impossible to please him. And those who would draw near to God must first of all believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” . Now I say to you, “Do you believe in God?” and the chances are everyone present will tell me, “Yes, I believe in God.” Then we ask the second question, “Have you ever seen him?” If you are brutally honest and you would answer correctly, everyone present who has not been raised from the dead, everyone who is not resurrected would answer in the negative and say, “No, I have not seen him.” But you believe in him? Well, can’t you not now believe in the reality of the unseen state that you’ve just imagined? You believe in God and you haven’t seen him. The day will come, you will see him. You’ll look right into the face of the living God, the resurrected God, you will. You’ll be incorporated into his body. You will know the story in the Bible, “There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all, who is through all, and who is in all” . Here, “above all”, the transcendency of God; yet he’s “through all”, the omnipresence of God.381 ¶13

Where could you go and God be not? Where could you go? You’re in hell, God is there because you couldn’t breathe were God not within you. No matter where you make your home, that’s where he is because he is through all. And then, the imminence of God…just imagine the imminence of God: he is in all, through all, in all and above all…that’s God. You can’t go any place where he’s not. You could be in church and there he is. You could be in a bar being drunk, that’s where he is too. How would you [...] drunk? Because, he’s your own wonderful human Imagination. Now, you may be shocked and say, “How could God be drunk?” Well then, there’s another God that can do something that the other God can’t do. Because, if one God, there’s only one, and suddenly this man is drunk, “Well, God wouldn’t do that,” well then, there’s some other Creator in the world that could do it. He can do something that God, your God, can’t do. You get drunk, and if the other God can’t get drunk, well then, that’s saying there’s more than one God. If you start with two, you’re going to have four, then you’re going to have eight, you’ll have sixteen multiple gods. Come back to only one God, only one. What’s his name? I AM. “Go and tell them I AM has sent you unto them…and that is my name forever, for all generations, forever” . The name I AM? Yes, that’s the name. Well, don’t you say it all day long without actually giving it a voice? Aren’t you aware of being? To be aware of being is to be saying “I am,” no matter where you are. You may be aware of being poor, well, that’s what God is. You may become aware of being rich, well, that’s what God is. He’s everywhere. And so you have the choice of becoming aware and persuading yourself ’til you reach that firm persuasion that could move mountains. And so that is your task, a daily task, to devote yourself every day to persuading yourself that you are the man, you are the woman, that you would like to be. And to the degree that you are self-persuaded that you are, to that degree you’ll become it, without the help of anyone in the world.381 ¶14

Oh, others may aid the birth of that state, but they have to. The minute you are in the state, if it takes a thousand people to aid the birth, a thousand people will come. You do it without asking them to do it. They would have to play the part, because you are what you are.381 ¶15

So here in this simple, simple principle, every man is set free. If I want the government to make me free or the government to support me, well, that’s entirely different. You won’t find Peter that way. You’ll find Peter when you accept the responsibility of being free. That in spite of the limitations of birth, you dare to assume that you are the man that you want to be and live in that assumption—though you have nothing in the cupboard—just as though it were true. And may I tell you it will become true. Things are going to happen. You’ll be singled out in a way you do not know and moved towards the fulfillment of that state that you dared to assume that you are.381 ¶16

Frost said, “What evidence had I that I could write a poem? I simply believe it. That’s all that I do, I just believe it.” Well, he was forty years old before anything that he ever wrote was published. And when Robert Frost died everyone hailed him as the outstanding poet of the Century, the grand old man. He said, “We are always believing ahead of our efforts.” But man will not believe that. He wants the evidence first before he dares to believe it. So the man is not well. Alright, when I see him look better then I will believe he’s going to recover, so I’ll wait for the evidence. And that’s what the whole vast world does. The business may be sick. When I see a trend, a little change towards a healthy recovery, then I’ll begin to believe it. Well, then you’ll wait forever. You must anticipate it, desire it, and then assume that it’s done, and imagine as if it were true.381 ¶17

You’re told in scripture, “Be imitators of God as dear children.” Well, find out how he did it. You’re told, he calls a thing that is not seen as though it were. That’s how he did it? Yes. You mean that God calls into existence the things that do not exist? That’s what scripture tells us. That’s how he did it. Then I will go do the same…I will call into my world the things that do not now exist. But I will call them as though they did and then duplicate my Father who sent me into this world to experiment. For this world is only an educative darkness, like a kindergarten, exercising the greatest power in the world.381 ¶18

For you’re told in scripture, Jesus Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God…and by him all things were made. But I’ve just discovered…and you must have discovered as the gentleman whose story I told tonight discovered…it was all in his Imagination. Yet he could turn these twenty-four men, who thought themselves so wise and so big, and in their own mind’s eye they were so honest, their self-image was one of integrity. How could they accept a campaign based upon a lie? But when they saw the money, oh, they loved it. Then they wanted to possess it and protect it and make it all theirs, their own industry’s idea. It wasn’t any industry’s idea. It was my friend, who is here tonight, who heard it right here in this room. And then taking his talent, he proceeded to put it to the test. If imagining creates reality, what am I doing arguing about this? I will simply take my client’s wish. He has a wish, he wants to arrest this trend, it’s going down in sales, not only arrest it, reverse it, send it up. He sent it up and it breaks all records, not only in the local field, in the regional field and the national field. And now he tells me in his letter, “Of course, this campaign that was so successful, I wrote my own ticket then with my own firm.” Why shouldn’t he? You have a client that you can in the first three months of the campaign show an improved picture to the tune of $75 million. That’s net, that’s not gross.381 ¶19

Well, certainly you write your own ticket if you can do that. But he has the same principle, so he can take any client now no matter what the product is that he’s selling on the same premise. It doesn’t really matter. And so, today they have all the credit for it, but they know in their hearts who did it. And so, undoubtedly they still have this client on their books. I presume so, I haven’t asked him.381 ¶20

But, I told this story in New York City. There was a chap in the audience—everyone had a recording machine—and he came forward, he said, “You must tell me not only the man’s name who gave you that letter, but his company’s name and the client’s name.” I said, “If I knew them I wouldn’t tell you. You haven’t heard me tonight at all. What does it matter what his name is, what the client’s name is and what the company’s name is? You haven’t heard the principle. You wouldn’t even know anything, if you heard me.” But, he said, “I am an advertiser too and I sell things.”381 ¶21

One thing he was selling,…he took all of my meetings down. There were twelve. Then he would go to these radio stations and sell the tape. Well, you go and sell the tape…I said, you’ll do it anyway, I know you’ll do it, so I’m not going to ask you not to do it. I’ll ask one thing of you…don’t change what I say. If I made mistakes or if what I said is in conflict with what you think I ought to have said, leave it just as it is. That’s all I ask of you…because you’re going to sell it anyway. That’s your business…go into to public meetings and taking down talks. They cost you only the price of admission and then go out and sell it. So you have [...] to do with me plus twelve, so you have thirteen. Now you can go and sell your thirteen and they can sell…as I talk on the word of God, you can break right into it and sell toothpaste, and then sell something else, some detergent or something, I really don’t care. But don’t alter what I’ve told you. Leave it just as it is on that tape. Whether I spoke grammatically correct or if I murdered the English tongue or not, you just leave it just as it is. Do not change my ideas.381 ¶22

But, as to the man’s name, I will not give it to you. As to his company, I do not know it; I haven’t asked him. As to the client, I do not know, he didn’t say in his letter. But had he said all these things I would not tell you, because you haven’t heard me. If you heard me, you couldn’t ask these things. Go right out and simply see the goal, the end, that you want in this world, and apply this same principle towards that end. But the minute you ask these questions, you’re now going to try to pull little wires and do everything that man should not do when he hears this principle.381 ¶23

So we come down to the fundamentals: imagining creates reality. Because you can imagine, you can create the kind of a world in which you want to live.381 ¶24

Coming down tonight…my friend brought me down, David…something came up, someone asked him at the university—and he teaches over at U.C.L.A.—about the war. They’re always having these campaigns against the war, for this, that and the other. He thought of a very wonderful answer to give those who are always against and against. He said, “You know, at one time in the history of man there was a first class, a kindergarten class, I’ll call it a first grade. Then came that moment in time, they had to go on to something further, to a second. Well, because they graduated to a second, must we now completely rub out the first grade because they went on to a second? Can’t you see this whole thing like a school room and you who have had the experience of war, must they be deprived of the experience of war?”381 ¶25

You aren’t going to deprive man of war, not as long as man is what he is. You aren’t going to say, “Because I’ve had war and it’s horrible, we’re going to make and we’re going to force peace upon you and stuff it down their throats. They’ve got to have it. We’re all going to laugh or I’ll kill him.” Can’t do it—not while man can imagine—until man actually is the embodiment of love and he’s not that until he’s incorporated into the body of God, for God’s body is love, the human form divine. And when you stand before him and he embraces you, you are completely fused with the body of love, forever and forever. There is no divorce from that body. But until that day comes, you are capable of violence. Are you not taught that in scripture? He takes the heart of a man and gives the man the heart of a beast, the mind of a beast. Read it in the 4th chapter of the Book of Daniel. And he does it to man, and lets seven times pass over man, until man learns that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will .381 ¶26

So you see in that one act the elective love of God. You might think, certainly he should be called first. He has a lovely home and he gives to the poor, and he’s such a generous person, and he’s so wonderful, and he’s so highly educated, and he has a wonderful social background, well, he’s a member of all the fine clubs, everything, certainly he should have it first…but not the one who cleans his shoes. You mean the bootblack where he goes to get his hair cut, that he has been called and incorporated into the body of God, and the one whose shoes are being shined, who has all the money, and he hasn’t been called? Yes. He gives it to whom he will. He sees not the outward appearance of man, he sees only the heart . And so, he calls us one by one to unite into a single man, who is God, one body, one Spirit, one hope.381 ¶27

So I ask everyone here tonight to go out and try it. You have all the tools: you can imagine and certainly you can desire. No one can tell me that he has no more desires. You can desire a glass of water tonight. You desire to go to sleep tonight. You desire [...]. You desire…all day long you are desiring. So when the certain philosophies of the world who teach us how to kill out desire, to kill out desire you have to first start with the desire not to desire. So you start right there and you defeat it. And so, you can’t kill out desire. The normal functions of the body will demand that you desire, and so, you have that.381 ¶28

So, what do you desire? You have the great tool called Imagination and that is God in man, the only creative power in the world. So you have that. What else do you want when all things are possible to God? You have the power, Imagination, and you have desire, you can desire. Now, I will not ask you to name for me what you desire, but to yourself, be perfectly honest with yourself. If you want money, let no one tell you you shouldn’t have it. There are those today who have hundreds of millions and you know what they want more and more?—more of the same thing. There are those who really have hundreds of millions, and you could not interest them in philosophy or in the Bible or any religion. They want more money. Well, what’s wrong with that, if that’s what they want? God gave them the desire to want even more, and so let them have it. If you were in their company and they turned to you for advice, tell them about the principle. Tell them how they can have more by simply applying this wonderful principle and let them have more.381 ¶29

But, don’t you forget that you too are in this world to learn how to use your wonderful human Imagination, how to exercise it. It’s called in the Bible repentance. The word means “a radical change of mind.” So, I’m confronted with the facts, do a radical change of mind. Don’t like the facts, so change my attitude toward the facts, they don’t exist; and put in the place of the facts what ought to be there, and then persuade yourself that it’s so. Now, the world may tell you, “Well, that’s going insane. But we told you earlier it’s false.” Well, would you wish it true? Would you wish it? Well, if you wish it true, well then, let us have your vote for it, and see if it can’t become a fact in your world. So tonight, when you leave here, determine to go out and not wait until you go to bed… as you ride home ride in the assumption that you are already the man, the woman, that you would like to be, and see how these things crystallize in your world.381 ¶30

I know as I go through the world I meet men in all walks of life, and every one is simply the living example of this principle. They may not know it. They may be unwell, but they are the living example of it. Go home to Barbados, to my brother, and here he gets bigger and bigger and bigger in the world of finances by sleeping in his dreams. He can’t understand why I am not interested in finances. Because I don’t need it, I have no interest in it. If I have enough to live and meet my obligations to society that’s all I need. I have no desire to have more, I really don’t, none whatsoever. If I told this, you would think me insane.381 ¶31

But, no, you have memory images, haven’t you? You are sixty-five years old and you go back in memory…maybe you can even go back to when you were poor. I can go back to when I was poor. But I don’t stop there. I can go back into the centuries and I’ll tell you that you don’t know one here, you know no one, yet you know many, who are very, very wealthy. But you know no one, may I tell you, who today enjoys the wealth that I have a vivid, vivid memory image of having possessed. I can relive that entire life of fabulous wealth, when I had so much that everything around me was decadent, because there wasn’t a thing that I desired that I could not realize by simply the money that I possessed. A full complement of servants, I can see them now, from the very top down. Your secretaries, in your home, I don’t mean in business. I didn’t have to go out to business. It was that sort of wealth. I have a vivid, vivid memory of the whole thing. I’ve gone back into it, for that did not cease to be. These are simply schoolrooms you enter. I’ve gone back into that state and relived it in the night, to find the same full complement of servants, and the same thing going over and over.381 ¶32

When I see it compared to the little that I came into this world with, that I came in with nothing, I could not give up this. But I realized what happened to me in this interval when I started with nothing and, really, I wouldn’t call it much today. It’s enough, but I wouldn’t call it much by other standards, and yet I could not give up this. If to give it up I would also have to give up my conscious knowledge of standing in the presence of the risen Christ, of being incorporated into his body, of being born from above, being raised from the grave, seeing David, if all these things had to go, well then, there’s no wealth in the world that could actually cause me to give up what I have in this conscious knowledge of these experiences…not for all the wealth in the world.381 ¶33

Yet, if someone wants wealth I’d be the first to encourage him to get it. And I’m telling him exactly how I would do it were I he with the same consuming desire, just what would it be like? And I would tell him. So now I ask you to try it.381 ¶34

Now, we go into the Silence for a moment before we take the questions. In the Silence we simply imagine some scene which if true would imply [...]. * * * [...] you’ll find that a more mystical night. Yet, we will have moments to incorporate in the evening some of the practical teachings of scripture. Now, are there any questions, please?381 ¶35

Any other questions, please?381 ¶38

I think you’ll find this a very practical evening and yet profoundly spiritual. All things exist in the human Imagination, and I mean that literally. None can know of Imagination who has not tasted the cup of experience. Shall I not drink of the cup which the Father has given me? And here we read in the Psalms that there is in the hand of the Lord a cup, a cup that is bubbling over with wine and very well mixed. I will take the cup of the Lord of salvation and call upon his name. We read these words and we wonder, now what is it all about? Well, let me share with you a vision of mine of about thirty years ago.379 ¶1

This night I found myself in an infinite field of beautiful flowers. They were sunflowers, as far as the eye could see, and every flower was a human face and each perfect. If one smiled, all smiled. If one bent over, all bent over. No matter what one did, all did it. As I stood there observing this fantastic display of beauty, I knew, although I did not feel myself that beautiful, not by the widest stretch of my Imagination, I also knew that I was freer. That I expressed a greater measure of liberty and freedom than all of them put together, I knew it. When I returned to my body on the bed, I knew that in some strange way I was separated from that which once I formed a part.379 ¶2

And then these words from the 8th chapter of Romans: “We were made subject unto futility, not by our own will but by the will of him who subjected us in hope…that we would be set free from this bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God”. So you and I here in this world are detached from that field of beauty. It’s a chorus where they all move in unison. But you and I are now separated and here we are in this world completely separated, completely incarnated. And complete incarnation is essential to individuality. This incarnation involves separation from the Father, it involves death, it involves, well, descent into hell. This is hell. You may not know it but this is hell where we are now, right here in this room and in this world. In this world we are separated from the Father. You may not know it but there is a fear in the heart of man that he never more will see his Father who from all eternity was built into himself. It’s a fear, but may I assure you, having seen the Father, having realized the Father, that your fear need not be continued if you believe me. You’ll find the Father and when you find him, you’ll find him as yourself. We are separated from the Father for a divine purpose, for without this complete incarnation, insulated in this garment of flesh and blood, I would never find him. I would be part of that infinite chorus of beauty.379 ¶3

I can’t describe the beauty of the faces, like sunflowers, each a perfectly marvelous beautiful human face. If one smiled, all smiled; if one bent over, all bent over. No matter what one did, all did it…it was a chorus. But now, you and I are not a chorus anymore—we’re individualized forever and forever. And may I tell you, we not only are individualized but we tend forever toward greater and greater individualization—that is who we are—by actually being subjected to this world where we are completely incarnated. And here we stand today.379 ¶4

Now, what is the purpose of it here? I am incarnated, you and I are incarnated, why? To create in ourselves the spirit of Jesus which is continual forgiveness of sin. Believe me when I tell you I know from experience that God is love. I stood in the presence of the risen Christ, infinite love, and he embraced me. But do you know that love divided from Imagination is eternal death? I’ll show you why. I love a friend and my friend is unemployed, without funds, burdened beyond measure. I can’t deny I love him. My memory tells me whenever I think of him he is unemployed, he is without funds, and he’s burdened. I will keep him forever through love in that state unless I know what Imagination is all about.379 ¶5

So, none will know Imagination who has not tasted this cup of experience. We come into the world and there we are, and we spend centuries. Oh, yes, we love. You love your wife, you love your mother, father, children, friends. But you don’t know how to change them from what they are into what they ought to be unless you drink this cup of experience and you know the great secret of imagining. So love divided from Imagination is eternal death.379 ¶6

Now I’ll tell you what Imagination is: God’s great gift—his creative power—of himself to man. That God is love, yes. God is infinite power, infinite wisdom. But his creative power is Imagination. Now he gives me his creative power, called in scripture Jesus Christ. In the 1st chapter of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, “And Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”. So I see one that I love, love him dearly, and he’s, as I said, unemployed, without funds, in great need, embarrassed, unclothed? I still love him, but now let me take my gift that God gave me, and exercise it, and represent him to myself as I would like him to be—gainfully employed, happy, no debts. Let me persist in that imaginative state concerning my friend. And if he now conforms to it, if the world now remolds itself and shapes him in the likeness of one who is gainfully employed, who is making all that it takes, has no debts, then I have found the most wonderful secret.379 ¶7

This is the story of the prodigal son. So there were two sons and one, the second one, said, “Give me what is mine. Let me go into the world.” So he went into the world and he simply lost or wasted all. The first one did not leave home. When the second one came back, having had experience, he said, “When he came to himself, he remembered his father.” And then he went back and the father gave him the robe, the ring and prepared the fatted calf for a tremendous merry reception in the honor of the returned son. The first one complained, and he said to the first one who complained, he said, “Son, you are always with me.” You’ve never departed. You never detached from this world. “You’re always here, and all that is mine is yours”.379 ¶8

But, he knew nothing of the power of Imagination. All was his, but he didn’t know how to appropriate it. You, tonight, could have a billion dollars in the bank and die of starvation, if you didn’t know you had a billion dollars in the bank. If it is all yours but you didn’t know, you would never appropriate one penny in the world, and die of starvation, die dishonored. So, “All mine is yours,” that’s what he said to the son, “but you’re always with me.” You’ve never gone out. You never departed from the Father. You and I departed from the Father, we came out. We did not do it willingly, not by our own will, but by the will of him who subjected us to this world of futility in hope that we would become free and set free from this world of decay—for everything dies here, it dies, decays—and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God—to exercise this power of Imagination. So here we are in this world and now we must exercise this right.379 ¶9

Now, after he tells this story, he follows it through with the story of the unjust steward. These are the 15th and 16th chapters of the Book of Luke. So he tells the story. These are parables…and parables are wonderful stories where man must discover the fictitious nature of parable and extract its meaning and apply it. Now he comes into, right on the heels of it, he tells the story of this wonderful unjust steward, and he commends him for what he did. Now, the original meaning of the word steward was “the keeper of the pig.” That’s what it means, a “steward.” Today, we think of a chief steward on a ship. A steward takes care of things belonging to another, but originally the word meant “the keeper of the pig.” And the pig universally is the symbol of the savior of the world. That is a universal symbol, the pig. To keep the pig: I tell you my story. Will you eat it? No, there are hundreds of millions who will not eat a pig today. They will not accept the story. They will not accept this story of salvation, so they refuse the pig as food. “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you”. So, it’s not a little pig, like eating a piece of roast pork, which is a delightful thing if it’s well done. And so, who doesn’t like it, the taste of it? But there are those who will not eat it, in a most literal sense, meaning they will not accept the story of salvation. They will not take it.379 ¶10

So here, he is the keeper of the pig, the steward, the unjust steward. He was called to give an account, because it was rumored that he was not keeping a proper record. Then the one who employed him said to him, “I have heard these things concerning you, and now bring an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer work for me.” Well, knowing this, he went to those who were debtors of his employer, and he said, “How much do you owe, my master?” He said, “A hundred measures of oil.” He said, “Sit down quickly and write fifty.” “And how much do you owe?” “A hundred measures of wheat.” He said, “Sit and write eighty.” He went through the entire list. And the master, when he heard of this, highly commended him for his action. Well, you couldn’t conceive of someone commending a dishonest employee for such action, so what does it mean? It’s a parable.379 ¶11

Now, who is keeping the record in me, in you? My memory, that’s the recorder. I know what I saw today, what I heard, what the mail brought. So someone called me and told me that they were, well, distressed. So, when I hang up, I know what they said…that is the recording being in me. I am called upon to falsify the record. I heard what I heard, but I mustn’t live with that. At the end of the day, when night falls, I’m called upon to give an account of my day. Have I falsified the record? I must learn to falsify the record of the day. So, someone is now distressed in some marital state. Am I going to let the curtain fall this night without revising the record? I am told to sit down quickly and write instead of a hundred, this is a fact, write fifty. I modify it. I’m not saying that they will now be completely enamored as they were the day they got married. I’m not saying that they will…he falsified it fifty per cent, he falsified it twenty per cent, but he falsifies the record. In other words, he makes an adjustment. He can’t bring himself to completely bring them back thirty years to the day when they got married, and then they go through life in that romance. Can’t do that. He’s not qualified to do it. He’s not strong enough to do it. But he can falsify it. He brings them down fifty percent, brings them down twenty percent. So here, in this fabulous world of ours we’re living in we falsify the record.379 ¶12

So, all things exist in the human Imagination. And, you and I are detached. I see it so clearly, after thirty-odd years I can see that scene right now…see it more vividly than I can the lovely flowers that my earthly mother grew. Mother was passionately fond of her garden, a beautiful garden. Every day mother would go out, always had her parasol because she was very, very fair and the sun would blister her. So under her parasol and to her gardeners, she gave the little directions as to what they should do. I can see her grafting her lovely roses and doing all these lovely things, beautiful garden. She was unusually fond of flowers. I can see her. But this vision that I had transcends anything in my childhood in mother’s lovely garden. Every face is so distinct and they were all like a chorus. They moved in the most perfect manner. One moved, all moved, in the same direction. No one violated the order, the unseen or unheard order, and if one smiled, all smiled. As I stood observing them, I realized I was freer. Single as I was, observing it all by just one being, I was completely free. If not completely free, certainly more free than all of them put together.379 ¶13

Then I realized that this division that must take place when we are made subject unto futility not only separates us from the Father and involves death, for we die, and brings us into the world of hell, a descent into hell, yet oddly it creates in us the Spirit of Jesus which is continual forgiveness of sin. And in hell, which is here, there is nothing but self-justification. He shot me first, she shot me first, she did so and so. So I justify everything that happens in my world. This is the voice of hell: self-justification. But in heaven, it’s all forgiveness of sin because all things exist in the human Imagination. So something is happening in my world…it can’t be happening outside of something that is taking place in me. So I must forgive it by changing it in me. I can’t just justify it in any way, and I can’t condemn it, for I will live in a state of hell.379 ¶14

For, everything is taking place in you. You are now separated from the Father, but, may I tell you, don’t despair that you never more would see him, for he is built in from all eternity in you…and you will meet him. You’ll meet him when David stands before you and you know him as your son. He will actually stand before you and you will call him, “Son.” He’ll call you, “Father, Adonai, my Lord.” It’s not a David, it is the David; the eternal David that was set up in the beginning of time, that was actually put into the mind of man before that the world was. And then, you and I were simply detached. It was simply an act of love, though it doesn’t seem that way, when you and I were detached from that infinite field of beauty; and then made subject unto futility, not by our own will but by the will of him who subjected us, who intended to give himself to us. To do it, we had to be individualized. So complete incarnation, where I’m insulated, I’m completely incarnated and think myself Neville and think myself a member of a family. But I am not the family, I’m a member of the family of many brothers, a sister, and I have friends, and I have a wife, and I have children. But I am insulated, completely separated; and this complete incarnation was essential to my own individuality. That I would then begin to awake, and waking I am he who subjected me. I become the very being the world calls, God the Father. So this is the great story as I understand it from my own personal experience and my visions, and then I paralleled it with the words of scripture.379 ¶15

So tonight I’m asking you to take your own wonderful human Imagination and exercise it. Bring not only your friends, bring yourself—because they’re all yourself anyway—take everyone and put them into the light that is a more glorious light than where you found them. Don’t say, “Well, it serves them right”; you’re justifying it. Because, all things exist in you; it’s not out there, it’s all in you. So, if you fail a thousand times…and “How long, how often, Lord?” “Seventy times seven.” Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me? Well, how often must I forgive my brother who sins against me? Well, may I tell you, in the 51st Psalm, the 4th verse, you can’t say it’s sinning in any other way than this, “Against thee, O Lord, thee only have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, therefore, thy judgment, thy justification, is in order.” You’ve judged me? Well, who is this being against whom I’ve sinned? His name is I AM. Alright, his name is I AM. “Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight.” Alright, I see someone in my world and it’s not right. Well, I can’t sin against another; it’s against myself. I’m seeing it. I am seeing it, so I’ve got to take that and represent it to myself as it ought to be seen, and persist in that scene until it conforms to what I’m seeing. That is what I’m called upon to do, for “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight.” So, if I encounter anything—and I will encounter everything in this world that is a [...]—I’ve got to change it. I was made subject unto this futility, unto this vanity. And I, and I alone, in the world in which I live, I’ve got to change it, and live in the sense as though things were as I desire them to be. I know this from experience. Because the night that I was lifted up, in l946, and came upon this infinite sea of human imperfection, when I was lifted up, all were made perfect in harmony with that state to which I was lifted as I walked by. So, within ourselves we must lift ourselves to the state where we can lift our world up. Because everything in this world is yourself pushed out; it’s all yourself made visible. There is nothing but you. But not a thing in this world, no matter what it is, it’s all you made visible. The whole vast world is God projected…and God’s name is I AM.379 ¶16

So here, believe me when I tell you of my visions. They have never betrayed me, never. I might have betrayed my vision by ignoring it and encountering someone in need, not accepting what the vision is telling me to do. But it’s telling me that when I encounter anyone in my world to know I am only encountering myself… it can’t be another. Then I start it, and I represent that seeming other to myself as I would like him to be. To the degree that I persist in that assumption, then the other conforms to that state. So, here I must dream.379 ¶17

And I think I can say tonight, I drank that cup to the very dregs. Shall I not take the cup which the Father has given me? For in the Lord’s hand there is a cup with foaming wine all mixed. Yes, I did not avoid any character in the world, I played them all, played all the characters—the white, the black, the yellow, the pink, the red. Whatever color there was, I played it. When he was honored or dishonored, I played it. I played all the characters of the world, and that I do know. So I can say, everyone in the world is playing all the characters. If you haven’t played them, you’re going to. But let me assure you because you are here—and no man comes unto me except my Father calls him— you are here, and I have reached the end of the road, and I have called you because my Father in me has called you. You play the parts too, you play them all.379 ¶18

Start now to take every being in your world and change them into the form of love. But love divided from Imagination is eternal death. Yes, you can love someone dearly, love them forever, but you can keep them in that state forever, not knowing they’re in a state and only a state. So take them out by the use of Imagination. But none will know Imagination who has not tasted the cup of experience. So here, we are in this world of experience for a divine purpose. It is the world of hell; this is hell. It’s the world of death; this is death. But now you take it, right here, and overcome the last enemy in the world, which is death. So someone seems to be forever ignored, forget it. You, in your mind’s eye, represent him as one who is known and wanted and loved, and see him conform to that. Bring him out of that state. Bring them all out of the state. You will say, “Well, what is going to happen to me?” That’s yourself…you’re saving yourself.379 ¶19

So don’t be concerned what’s going to happen to me. May I tell you, things happen. It’s all yours. He said to the first son, “All mine is yours.” But the son didn’t know it. He wasn’t detached; he wasn’t separated from the Father. So he couldn’t appropriate… not even a little kid. He said, “He never once gave me a kid that I could have a feast with my friends.” But he said, “Son, all that is mine is yours.” The son didn’t know it. But here, “Your brother, he was dead”—for separation from God is death—“and he’s alive. He was lost and he’s found.” So the seed had to be detached from the Father, fall into the ground, to be made alive. “For a seed unless it falls into the ground, then it remains alone; but if it falls into the ground and dies, then it brings forth much”. So the seed, which is the creative power of God, your own wonderful human Imagination, falls into the ground in you. This is the red earth, called Adam. And then, it is made alive. Suddenly he begins to awake and he realizes who he really is. He encounters infinite love. But without the power of Imagination and divided from Imagination, love itself is eternal death.379 ¶20

So here, we go through this fabulous world of ours, changing our world to conform, yes, to a loving thing. But you can’t change it without Imagination. And you can imagine… everyone can imagine. So let the world go, let them go by…don’t try in any way. Your world, speaking of your world, and change your world, and prove this power within you. Then you will know what it is to drink the cup which the Father has given you. Shall I not drink it to the very end? I would. May I tell you, I have. I have played all the parts in my blindness when detached. But it was God’s infinite love when he detached me from himself and allowed me to drop as it were; for this separation from God is a form, and yet it’s a beginning of a new creation. So, I fall, as the seed falls from man, and yet it is the beginning of a new creation. And so here, we fell and then began a new creation. And God in us has given himself in this wonderful human Imagination.379 ¶21

So, tonight you take it. You take yourself, begin with self. You’re told to begin with Jerusalem. Now, who am I? Where am I? What am I? Well, I don’t like it. Alright, let me begin right there. Then represent myself to myself as the man, as the woman, I would like to be, and persist in this assumption. The assumption, though at the moment is denied by my senses, denied by reason, if I persist in it, it will harden into fact. So this is what we’re called upon to do, and this is simply taking the gift of God. He dropped me. What good would I be if I were dropped without the gift of his creative power, called in scripture, Jesus Christ? He’s the power of God and the wisdom of God.379 ¶22

So I can be dropped…he dropped me in love, for he’s all love, but he dropped me. And in me he buried his creative power. Then I come out and I see things and I don’t like them. But I don’t know how to change them. Finally, I go through all of the things of the world, and then I discover I can change it. I try it. I try it once, try it twice, try it a dozen times and it works. Then I know I can change it. But, when I know I can change the world, that I don’t have to argue with the world—I can change it to conform to the ideal that is in my being—well, then I do it.379 ¶23

And so, believe me, I’ve experienced it. I can see that enormous field of perfection. You’ve never seen such beautiful faces, like sunflowers, each flower a face…and yet, a chorus. It was only a chorus. But, you are not chorus, you are soloists. You are individualized. And only complete incarnation can individualize us. So I had to be completely incarnated and isolated…feel myself separated from everything, including my earthly mother, loving her as I do, and my father, and my brothers, and my sister, my wife, my children. I went into something entirely different, completely isolated. This complete incarnation is essential to my individuality. Yet it involves separation from the Father, involves death, and descent into hell; though I’m seeking for the source of all phenomena, what is causing it, which is the Father. And I despair and I’m afraid I will never find my Father, my source of phenomena, who from all eternity was built into me. Then one day I am born from above and five months later I encounter the only one in eternity that could reveal to me who I am. He stands before me and here is David, and David calls me Father. Then I know…no doubts…no uncertainty. I am looking right into the eyes of the one who was in the beginning put into my mind. “He put eternity into the mind of man yet so that man could not find out what God had done from the beginning until the end”. So the end comes and then he stands before you and he calls you Father. Then you know.379 ¶24

So I say to everyone, you are detached and subjected unto futility. But, may I tell you, it is for a divine purpose. The purpose is that you will obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And the sons of God are the resurrected…as you are told that they are sons of the resurrection, being sons of God, or they’re sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. It’s automatic. You can’t be a son of God until you are resurrected, born from above; then you encounter the great David, who stands before you and calls you Father. But here, you are here…and no one could come unless the Father within me called him, but no one, may I tell you. And we are waking quickly, rapidly, in this small gathering. When I think in this audience tonight I can see those who have awakened, who found David. One has found the child. On the 6th of March, or approximately about that time, he has to find David. David must come to him. If that chronological order that Bob and I followed is the order, and I’m convinced that it is, then Benny must, on the 6th or approximately the 6th of March bring forth David. Others have the forecasting of it; many of you have, from your letters. So I say in the not distant future then the actual thing will take place, and then comes the fulfillment.379 ¶25

I can’t tell you my thrill, without any feeling of emptiness or despair, because as far as I am concerned I could just drop right now. It would make no difference to me, none whatsoever. I feel the work is done. But, for unknown reasons I must continue to tell it over and over and over. That will be told me afterwards why I still must continue after the work is done. For my work is finished, I’ve completed it. All of the scripture I have experienced, yet I am called upon to remain and tell it. But whenever that moment in time comes that I depart, it makes no difference whatsoever. Only it’s a thrill to me in this world, which is called hell, to see that we are overcoming the last enemy which is death. For death is the last enemy to be overcome. And to find in this audience people are overcoming it, over and over. It’s marvelous!379 ¶26

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *379 ¶27

We’ll be here on Monday, as you know, every Monday and Friday until the middle of December. But, what I will speak on Monday, I haven’t the slightest idea. I only know that I’ll be here…and you’ll be well fed.379 ¶28

Christ is the reality, the God that is in Man. It is he who breaks down the dividing wall between himself and Man and makes of the two, one new Man.375 ¶1

Is this all done on the other side of the veil, or is there something that we can do on this side of that dividing wall? Let me share with you a story of a very dear friend of mine, one who has had most of my experiences. Listen to me carefully, for God speaks to man through the medium of dream and unveils himself through revelation. This is his letter.375 ¶2

“I awoke at 6:00 o’clock in the morning. It was too early to get up, so I decided to lie in bed and do some purposeful imagining. Then this thunderous voice came from within me declaring, ‘I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!’ It kept repeating these words over and over and over until finally I said to it, ‘I know, and I’m trying to do something about it, but you are speaking so loudly I cannot imagine.’ But the voice continued ‘I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!’ over and over again. It seemed to me like rape, if you can’t prevent it, relax and enjoy it, so I did, and fell asleep enjoying this declaration.”375 ¶3

“Then I found myself in a vast desert of nothingness. Not a blade of grass, not a shrub, not a cactus, nothing but an infinite desert. I am holding some golf balls in my hand. I throw one and instantly a beautiful home and yard appear in technicolor. I throw another and a second home and yard appear, this time with people around it. Taking another ball I threw it across the way and a wonderful putting green appeared. Then a man at my side said, ‘Isn’t that terrific. You put the ball right next to the hole.’ And I answered, ‘No, I don’t do it that way. I put the ball down and put the hole next to it!’”375 ¶4

“Then I created a huge gate and we walked through it into a miserable scene of dilapidated house and a streetcar in the last stage of decay. I took a ball and tried to throw it, but no matter how I tried to release it, it would not leave my hand. Then I said to myself, “Maybe it is beyond my power.” And as I contemplated this scene the ball was released and the house was transformed into an ultra-modern hotel as the streetcar became a streamlined bus which quickly moved away.”375 ¶5

It was so easy for me to create out of nothing, but when I came upon a scene out of the past, that I know to be a fact, I couldn’t change it, for I couldn’t let go of the past. But I persisted and persisted and I was eventually rewarded, as the house was turned into a glorious new hotel and the streetcar into a streamlined bus.375 ¶6

“Then,” he said, “I came upon a scene which resembled the Miracle Mile on Wilshire Boulevard with an island up the middle. But, in place of the usual well-dressed men and women, I saw young boys in messy pants and girls in bikinis. So I decided to throw another ball, and as I did they were transformed into beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen, dining under umbrellas and served by elegantly dressed waiters. Then I turned to my friend and said, ‘You know, maybe I should have left them as they were.’ Now, he’s a very humorous man, may I tell you, and he always ends his letters to me on a humorous note, so he added, ‘and I awoke not a moment too soon.’”375 ¶7

Now, God speaks to man through the medium of dream. Although there were no golf courses two thousand years ago, the word “ball” appears in the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. When you read it you think God rejected a man, but all of these are states of consciousness. God rejected the state, not its occupant, for God is playing all the parts, but we are in states. Then he turns him into the one whose shoulder the peg will be nailed. And on him will rest the burden, the responsibility of the house of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the 10th chapter of I Samuel, the prophet Samuel speaks to Saul saying, “The spirit of the Lord shall come upon you and you shall be turned into another man.” God rejects the state of Saul and turns him into an entirely different state.375 ¶8

Now listen carefully to what you can do on this side of the veil to break down that wall between the two, and make of two, one new man. “Jesus came into the world preaching the gospel of God saying, ‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.’” Believe my testimony, for all the promises of God have found their fulfillment in me. Believe my gospel and repent, for the story of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness, and forgiveness tests man’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite.375 ¶9

When you see anything in a dilapidated state it is a past state, old and fixed. But you can change it by throwing the ball. If, at first the ball will not leave your hand because of the obvious facts before you, persist. “How long, O Lord, must I forgive the brother who sins against me? Seventy times seven.” Do it and do it and do it until you succeed in letting go of the past and seeing what you wish in its place. Persist and persist and persist until you can actually let it go.375 ¶10

Jesus tells the parable of the woman who comes to a constable who, although he didn’t fear God or respect man, rose and gave her what she wanted because of her persistence. Her constant comments forced him to give her what she desired. The story is also told of a man who came at midnight wanting something to feed a stranger in his house. The man from above said, “It is late and my children are in bed and I cannot come down and open the door,” but, because the man persisted, he was given what he wanted.375 ¶11

You may think there is no way out of your present turmoil, but I don’t care how fixed that seeming turmoil is, if you persist and persist and persist, he who is from above has to come down and grant your request.375 ¶12

Practice repentance on this side of the veil while the work is going on in a hidden manner on the other side, and the wall will become thinner and thinner until the shell is broken and Christ is born. And who is he? I AM. After you break the shell it’s not Jesus and you, there is Jesus only. And on that day the Lord shall be one and his name One.375 ¶13

It was so easy for my friend to create out of nothing. When he threw the ball in the vast desert of emptiness a beautiful home and lawn instantly appeared in technicolor. Another ball and another beautiful home and yard with people all around, then a golf course and a gate through which he and his friend passes. Now he views pictures of the past — a home decayed beyond repair and an ancient streetcar. Desiring to change them he discovered that he couldn’t let go of the past. But he persisted and eventually succeeded. He realized that it only took five seconds for him to create out of nothing, but it took so long for him to change the past. Although the ball had left his hand, he felt that it wasn’t going to work, but it did, as the house became a beautiful hotel and the streetcar a streamlined bus. Then the transformation was easy along Miracle Mile, for he had succeeded in taking that which was ancient and having transformed it, he changed the boys and girls into ladies and gentlemen without hesitation.375 ¶14

That’s what you and I are called upon to do. In the earliest gospel, the book of Mark, we are told that after John (reasoning consciousness) was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” What he is saying is, “Believe my testimony, for all that I tell you is but the fulfillment of scripture.”375 ¶15

Standing before you tonight I can say, unschooled, unlettered, unknown, uneducated by human standards, yet scripture, the only reality in the world, has been fulfilled in me. Everything in this world will pass away, but God’s Word is forever and his Word is being fulfilled in everyone.375 ¶16

God is not condemning any man, for they are only states, and we must learn to distinguish between the occupant of the state and the state he occupies. God does not reject man, but the state, and puts man into another state.375 ¶17

I know that since this man heard my message years ago he has been daily practicing revision. Revision is repentance and revision results in repeal. When you revise a memory that is fixed you have repealed it. He repealed the dilapidated home and streetcar.375 ¶18

Here is the new man fulfilling the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. Although the word “golf ball” is not there, the word “ball,” that which turns upon itself and repeats a memory image, is. But, holding the ball in his hand (the symbol of God’s power and wisdom) he persisted and exercised his power.375 ¶19

You have that power. Test it by bringing a seemingly hopeless case before your mind’s eye and revise it. Persist in revising it until you can let go of that ball by feeling the breath of relief because it is done. If tomorrow does not bring the confirmation, or next week, wait, for it is done. And in a way that no one on earth could devise, it will come into your world and you will see the results of what you did.375 ¶20

So I ask everyone to practice revision. Revise the past. I don’t care what it is, revise it and the past will conform to your dream of what it ought to have been and appear before you. Then the new man will rise within you and it will no longer be you and Christ, but only Christ.375 ¶21

We are told in the 9th chapter of Ezekiel to follow the man who is clothed in linen. He will go through the city and leave a mark on the foreheads of men, women and children. “Follow after him, and everyone who does not bear the mark, whether he be an old man, an old woman, a maiden, a young boy or a child, slaughter them and your eye must have no pity.” Then, in the 22nd chapter of Revelation he turns and those who have the mark come before him. They see his face and his name is on their foreheads. That name is Jesus and Jesus means Jehovah. He only redeems himself.375 ¶22

Don’t think because of this strange imagery that there are those who are lost. Everyone, at a certain moment in time, is slaughtered because of the state he is in, but the play goes on and he plays other parts and still, more parts, until finally he plays the part of the selected one. And in that final part the mark is on his forehead and the name Jesus is his own.375 ¶23

So in the end there is Jesus only. Everyone will be redeemed. Infinite mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus. There is only one body, only one God, only one being, so when you are redeemed you are He.375 ¶24

So tonight, begin to practice the art of repentance, for everything can be redeemed. Now, repentance is not to feel remorseful or regretful. I don’t care what you have done; you don’t have to feel remorseful about it. You had to do it because of the state you were in at the time. Repentance is practicing the art of moving into the opposite state. You don’t feel sorry for yourself and wallow on some weeping wall when you repent. Your sins may be as scarlet, but through repentance they shall be white as snow. It does not matter what a man has ever done, he is only expressing a state. When in the state of murder he must murder, or in the state of the robber he has to steal. We condemn the occupant as though he did it, but he is in a state, which he entered wittingly or unwittingly.375 ¶25

So Blake said, “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them in the state of sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it left paradise following the serpent.”375 ¶26

Scripture tells us there are two things, which God finds impossible to forgive. The first is our failure to believe that I am He and the second is the eating of the tree of good and evil. Man’s unwillingness to believe that I am He is the fundamental sin; for God, whose name is I am, became man that man might become God. My unwillingness to believe that I am he who causes me to breathe, to think and to move, as well as going through life condemning good and evil as I see it is unforgivable to God.375 ¶27

But then comes this wonderful revelation, “I know from the Lord Jesus Christ that there is nothing unclean in itself, but any man who sees anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” And as he lives with it, his state allows it to be seen as unclean. That’s life.375 ¶28

On this side of the veil let us practice repentance and transform any unlovely past. Let the mind store a past worthy of recall, for eventually everything that is unlovely is going to be destroyed, and although the mind seemingly vanishes, man does not, for man is God. In the real sense of the word, there is no death for really nothing dies. The actor leaves the stage and seems to be gone, but he isn’t dead, for the supreme actor is God and he is playing all the parts. “The deceiver and the deceived are his.” I have deceived and I have been deceived; therefore I am both.375 ¶29

After I have played every state I am called upon to believe the testimony of one who has experienced scripture, then to constantly practice this wonderful art of repentance.375 ¶30

Repent and repent and repent. As you see someone in need, change him. That’s repentance.375 ¶31

You could argue with him, tell him it serves him right, that if he hadn’t done what he did he wouldn’t be paying the price, but do not condemn him. He is in a state and must reap the results of the state into which he has entered. It is only a state and since the occupant is immortal, as you are, you can repent and place him in a different state.375 ¶32

It does not matter what you have done, you are immortal and one day you will hear the same words my friend heard. “I AM GOD! I AM SELF-CONTAINED! I AM SELF SUFFICIENT!” Right now that same voice is screaming in the depth of your soul. It hasn’t stopped since the beginning of time, but the wall is too thick for you to hear it. But when the wall becomes very thin, you will hear it. He heard the words as the wall was breaking, making of the two one new man, thus bringing peace.375 ¶33

That’s what you are told in the 2nd chapter of Ephesians. “I bring peace by breaking down the wall that separates the two.” Have you ever lived in an apartment where the walls are so thin you can hear your neighbors whisper? Practice repentance and you wall will become so thin you will hear God, the eternal I am in you; proclaim what He is. “I am the everlasting! I am eternal! I am self-sufficient! I am self-contained! I am God!”375 ¶34

He heard the voice so loud and so persistent that he decided to test this power, which symbolized itself as the hand where the ball was placed. Then he created, changed and revised all demonstrations of God’s power that he now knows himself to be.375 ¶35

Revise, then drop it as he dropped the ball. Release the past and hold onto the vision of what you want in its place. With this power you can completely redeem the past, “And God requires the past.” And, although your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow.375 ¶36

Now let us go into the silence.375 ¶37

If you find yourself miserable or helpless here, may I tell you that you are not condemned to the state by a deity outside of yourself, for everything that takes place in your world is but a movement within God. We are told that in the very beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and things came into being. Everything – your misery, your helplessness, your joy, your sorrow – no matter what it is, comes into being by a movement within God, and he is not a deity outside yourself. You are not a helpless being, but the operant power of God. Seated as you are now, you can move without moving physically because your eternal body is all Imagination. Called Jesus Christ in scripture, you are God’s power and wisdom. So if you find yourself in a place where you are miserable and feel helpless, it is because you either knowingly or unknowingly fell into that state, and not because of the condemnation of some deity outside of you. Every conceivable situation that you could ever think of exists now as a fact in God but cannot be made visible to you until you occupy it, for you are God’s operant power. Everything in this world needs man as the agent to express it. Hate or love, joy or sorrow, all things require man to express it. We glorify or condemn the man, but he simply represents a state which God entered knowingly or unknowingly and remained there until the state was externalised.374 ¶1

Everyone is free to choose the state he wishes to occupy. You imagined yourself into your present state. If you don’t like it, you must imagine yourself out of it and into another. It is all a matter of movement.374 ¶2

We are told that “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Collectively forming one glorious being, we conceived a play and speaking as one being, we said: “It is time for the play to begin.” Then individually we said: “I AM,” and the play began. We conceived a play containing every horrible thing as well as every lovely thing in the world. Every problem and its solution were conceived. In fact you cannot think of something that was not in that original conception. Then it was time to start, and saying simply: “I AM,” God took upon himself that which He had conceived, and your journey into this fabulous world began. So no matter what you are experiencing now, you are not condemned by some being outside of yourself, for you either wittingly or unwittingly fell into the state, be it good, bad, or indifferent.374 ¶3

Now, how to move? We are told in the very beginning of Genesis that “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” And in the Book of Joshua (which is the Hebraic name for Jesus) the Lord said: “Wherever the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you.” Now, you can choose where you want the sole of your foot to tread, for the world is yours and all within it; but remember: whatever you tread upon will be given you!374 ¶4

When I speak of Joshua or Jesus, I am not speaking of any historical creature, but the Christ in you who is the hope of glory! I am trying to get you to realise that Jesus Christ is in you as your own wonderful human imagination. So when I say: “God became Man that Man may become God” I mean: “Imagination became you that you may become all Imagination.”374 ¶5

Man has difficulty associating Imagination with God. Somehow the word “God” denotes some being that created the world, yet remained apart from it, but when I use the word “Imagination” it is my hope that the separation ceases to be. May I tell you: the whole vast world is all imagination.374 ¶6

Our realists think they are nearer to the truth, yet they do not realize they are dictating nothing more than their imagination. They laugh at those who are mystically inclined, but may I tell you: leave them alone and go your way in confidence that what you are imagining you already are, you will become. You imagined yourself into the state you are now occupying, and you can imagine yourself into any state you desire to express.374 ¶7

No outside deity moved you into the state of misery you are now expressing; you did it yourself because you forgot who you are. You are the being who conceived every state in the beginning and deliberately started your journey by moving into a state, for you are Jesus, the Lord.374 ¶8

When I speak of Jesus, I am not speaking of some holy person as the world calls holy. The true story of Jesus is not as the churches teach. Their teaching is as far removed from the truth as Dante’s “Inferno” is from The Sermon on the Mount. Dante had the capacity to spin beautiful worlds together, but what a state he fell into when he wrote his words. He was supposedly writing scripture and that is what the churches follow, yet it is so completely different from the real, true story of Christ.374 ¶9

Jesus is the very being of everyone in the world. The word “Jesus” means “Jehovah saves,” and there is only one savior. Jesus is He who fell and He who saves himself. No one else saves you. You are saved by your own being. Becoming aware, you begin to remember; and remembering, you turn around and come out of the very play in which you sent yourself. And in the end all are united to form once again the single being that fell. The Lord God Jehovah, containing all, fell into diversity. In the end not one will be lost, but all will be gathered into the unity that is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the story.374 ¶10

This week I received some beautiful letters. One was from a lady who said: “I heard you ten years ago and shortly after hearing your message I found myself in vision on top of the highest mountain in the universe. I was looking towards the horizon into a fantastic vastness without a shore. Clouds were below me, but as I looked into the distance I saw a little flicker of light, then a spark, and then others. As I watched the flickering lights round about me, I noticed that the cloud below me was making an imperceptible forward motion. Then a burst of white light came through the clouds and filled infinity. The clouds began to disburse, and pointing to the light, I said: ‘That’s Paul.’ Then the light diffused and a burst of light appeared in living colours, and, pointing to it, I said: ‘That is Neville.’ Then came a shower of golden needles which penetrated my brain, and I awoke to write it down. For years I have contemplated this vision, not understanding its meaning until last Monday night, when you spoke of the being of light who shoots his fiery arrows into the brains of those who are called.”374 ¶11

May I tell you: it’s the same story over and over again. You are the only Christ, the only Lord, the Only God and Father of all! Having conceived the play, youare playing every part and each in his own wonderful time will play the part of Jesus Christ, for in the end we will all know that we are God. Then you will hate no one, for you will realise that we agreed to play all the parts while hiding behind the masks we wear. Now completely masked, we think we are many and do not recognise ourselves as the one who conceived and predicted the play of life. You are not now in a fatalistic state. You fell into the state because it was arranged in the beginning that you could fall into and move out of every state. So keep on going and complete the play, for when the play is finished, you turn around and return to the very being you were in the beginning!374 ¶12

Now, a gentleman wrote, saying: “I saw a man, about 26 years of age. He had golden curls on his head and seemed to be sunk into the ground. Two men appeared to be working on the top of his head towards the back of his skull. As I watched, the young man raised his arm, and touching his head, he put his hand into his skull. Curious, I came closer to see an enormous skull made of clay or some form of plastic, which was completely empty. Moving to look at the front of the man, the scene changed, and now I see his chin resting on the sands of the desert. The mask looked like those shown in Africa or Hawaii, where you only see the mask but never the wearer. I knew I was seeing a mask, but its wearer was unseen.”374 ¶13

That is the world! You don’t know it, but when you are looking at a seeming other you are seeing an intimate being, one you knew in the beginning, one you will remember when all of the masks are removed – for we are all wearing masks in order to play this play called life.374 ¶14

In this world Imagination plays the role of the weak man, the strong man, the poor man and the rich man, for the roles were conceived in the beginning by Imagination, and Imagination is playing all the parts. You, imagining, are God – who is all Imagination. That’s all there is. The universe is nothing more than Imagination creating while it is fast asleep!374 ¶15

You and I move from state to state, either deliberately (by knowing what we are doing), or unintentionally (by falling into a state as we read the headlines of the paper). Listen to the radio or watch TV tonight, and although you may know none of the facts, if you accept what is said you will fall into a state and buy things you do not need. You will fill your house with all kinds of trivia that you have no room for because Imaginations is operating! Someone conceived a plan to get you to empty your pockets and buy their products, and you will, because Imagination is sound asleep. And Imagination will continue the journey until you turn around and head for home by becoming more and more awake!374 ¶16

Those who think they are so very wise in this world know nothing about Jesus. Only the seers, the mystics, know who He is. Only those who have seen the light he claims he is and know his form without seeing the face, know him. There are not thousands of lights, but only one vast, infinite light. If one takes on a white light and another multi-colored lights, it’s still the same wonderful light of Jesus only. There is only God who is playing all the parts, and in the end you will know that you are light, that you are Spirit, that you are God, from personal experience.374 ¶17

But tonight as you sit here, you can mentally shut out the facts of life and move anywhere in your imagination. Do that and no one looking at you physically can tell where you have mentally moved. And if you dwell in imagination where you would like to be, and see what you would see were you there, you will have moved within your own being. Persist and everything here will die because of your move within God.374 ¶18

In the beginning, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, saying: “Wherever you go and stand, I will give you.” You were given everything in the beginning, and one day – having finished the play – you will begin to awaken. Then I who came out first will stand there as an anchor for all to come through by performing the same deed. You will be drawn by a fiery brooding upon this wonderful mystery, drawn to the Risen Christ, who is formed out of all. As you enter we fuse, and the mortal you reassumes immortality. You fell into the mortal state in order to experience death, and when you turn around, you rise to become one with immortality.374 ¶19

I tell you: you are the Lord God Jehovah, who conceived the play and deliberately entered it. You did nothing wrong. It was an adventure and without adventure, what is life? If someone left you a billion dollars so you could be cushioned for the rest of your life here, they would be robbing you of your creative adventure. In the beginning you left all by emptying yourself of all that you were aware of being. Then you took upon yourself the form of a slave. Wearing a slave-mask right now, no one knows who you really are, and you cannot recognize those who you have known throughout all eternity.374 ¶20

Bennie came to my home a week ago, and sitting beside him I could see nothing but love pouring forth from him. I couldn’t see his face, for his skin is dark, but when I looked at Bennie all I could see was the being of love I knew in eternity. In the beginning we were all the elohim, which is a compound unity of one made up of others. Bennie has as dark a skin as I have ever seen on a man, and I am as fair as man can be, so you might think we came out of different beings – but these are only masks we wear.374 ¶21

Bennie has turned around and now knows he is the light of the world. He knows he is infinite love. May I tell you: when you see infinite love you will see Man. You will see he who is the gathering togetherness of all! I will know you by the light and you will know me by the light; but when we know each other as One, it will be as Love, and that is Man.374 ¶22

Everyone is gathered into the human form divine! Not one will be lost, for in the beginning we agreed to dream this world into being, in concert. Then we went our separate ways, to falling into different states of consciousness and blaming others for the discords in our world. That’s all right, for one day we will return and all the discords will be resolved into perfect harmony, as we expand beyond what we were prior to the play.374 ¶23

You can put me to the test tonight by learning how to move. My brother Victor learned how to move into riches when he had nothing. Living on borrowed money and trying to operate a little shop on a side street, Victor would stand before one of the largest buildings in the island and see “J.N. Goddard and Sons” on the marquee, rather than the existing “F.N. Roach and Company”. This he did every day until the idea was fixed in his mind’s eye. Two years later, the business failed. (You may think that was wrong, but nothing is wrong in God’s name. We ate of the tree of millennium and fell into right and wrong). When the building was put up for sale, a man we hardly knew bought it for my brother, and the sign was changed from “F.N. Roach and Company” to “J.N. Goddard and Sons”.374 ¶24

What did my brother do? He moved his imagination. He had no money when he purchased the building in 1922. Now, in 1967, I don’t think you could buy the family out for $25 million. I own ten per cent of the stock, but I do not know its value.374 ¶25

I came here to tell you, not how to make money, but how to operate the law of identical harvest so that if everything is taken from you tonight you can rebuild it tomorrow. This is how it works.374 ¶26

I imagined myself into what I am, and I can imagine myself into what I want to be. I am forever becoming what I imagine myself to be, be it good, bad, or indifferent. There is no deity on the outside who condemns and causes you to do what you are doing. You moved into the state you are now occupying either wittingly or unwittingly, for God and your own wonderful human Imagination are one. So when you say: “I and my Father are one” you are speaking of your human imagination!374 ¶27

I have been sent to clarify scripture and take off the barnacles off the story called Jesus Christ. This is a small beginning, but what does it matter? You who hear me will tell the story and bring it back to somewhere near its original form, for the story as interpreted by the churches of the world is not anything near the truth.374 ¶28

This morning I read Buckley’s column. I enjoy his use of words and I find him quite an interesting fellow. Today he wrote about the Bishop of Canterbury, saying: “I don’t believe the good Bishop would recognize a Christian if he met one, or scripture if he read it.” I don’t always agree with Buckley, but this time I agreed, after reading what he quoted the Bishop as having said. Now, this is not only true of the present bishop but of all the bishops I have met, whether they call themselves cardinals or popes, for their rituals, beliefs, and teachings are so far removed from the true story of Jesus.374 ¶29

I am here to tell you that God became you! How? By seeing the mask (one like you see in Africa or in Hawaii) and identifying himself with it. Now disguised as that which God wears, you can no longer see who you really are. But I tell you: the being behind the mask you now see as your brother, your sister, your wife, your husband and children – is a part of the elohim who created the play and is playing every part.374 ¶30

One day that being will take off the mask and you will resurrect and leave your empty skull. So I say to my friend who saw the mask with the empty skull made of plastic: the day will come when you will ascend with one of us whose mask is already taken off, and pointing to that skull, you will say of it: “I once dwelt there.” Then you will know as I do that you were never the mask you wore. And in eternity we will all know each other and all be enhanced beyond what we were, by reason of the journey that we made.374 ¶31

Tonight you try this. Test it. Learn how to move. The test is simple. Just like my brother, take a simple little thing like asking yourself: “What do I want?” Now, looking at the world as you now see it, if you had what you wanted, would you continue to see the world as it is now? I doubt it. It need not be a change from where you live, but if there were a change you would see the world differently and, naturally, your closest circle of friends would see a changed you.374 ¶32

Well, begin to move in God by seeing your world from a different angle, and let your friends see you there. You are the operant power and move in your own being. If you move from where you are to where you would like to be, you could detect that motion only by a change of position relative to another object. Motion in itself cannot be done without some frame of reference from which it moves.374 ¶33

If your income had just been increased to say $30,000 a year from your present income of less than $10,000, how would you feel? How would your present circle of friends see you? Would they know it? Would they discuss it? Would they speak of the change in your life? Tell them, and then eavesdrop and hear your friends discuss you as one who is now making $30,000 a year. That’s a motion in God and that movement will produce results!374 ¶34

Everything in this world is nothing more than the result of a movement in God, which is a motion in your wonderful imagination. The slightest imaginal act that is a change (I don’t mean just an act, for you can imagine things you don’t believe), but if you imagine something you believe is a change, a thrill is sent through divine being. At that moment you have actually entered another state and made it alive and real in your world!374 ¶35

Try it tonight. It costs you nothing, not even a nickel. But may I tell you that when you stand in the presence of the one being who is drawing all towards itself, you are sent into the world to tell them your fantastic story; and if they do not apply what you tell them, they become disillusioned and hate you who invited them to dream. I am sent to invite everyone to dream consciously, to dream deliberately, for this is a dream world.374 ¶36

They say that where he comes, he is always rejected, for he tells man: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will.” Anyone who makes that bold assumption and gets the confidence of those whose sphere he reaches, runs the risk of rejection, for when they try it and do not quite know how to do it, they become disillusioned and invariably hate the one who invited them to dream.374 ¶37

That’s the risk every teacher who is sent must run. But I tell you: it’s true anyway, and if one fails to bring their dream into being and becomes embittered, I say to myself: “How often must I tell them? Seventy times seven.”374 ¶38

I must tell them until they really understand, and those who hear me, will carry my message forward. They will be heard and in the end we will all be gathered back into the one being, to know that we were that one being who conceived the play and took the plunge.374 ¶39

So when we said in the beginning: “It is time for the play to begin,” not one of us failed to respond in the first person, present tense: “I AM”. Now let us go into the silence.374 ¶40