Tonight is “The Art of Imagining.” I hope you will listen carefully and apply it. It will not fail you. Every natural effect in this world has an imaginal cause; the natural effect is only seeming, it’s an illusion. I don’t care what the effect is…the most normal natural thing in this world…and the reason why we do not recognize that it is produced by some imaginal, or you could use the word spiritual, cause is because that our memory is so fading, is so short. We can’t relate the thing that is taking place physically to anything we did in some imaginal moment. And so, if one could only believe that we’re not contending, as Paul said, against flesh and blood (meaning the natural world), we’re not contending against flesh and blood but against this darkness, the present darkness. What does he mean by “this present darkness”? It means our ignorance of these invisible, spiritual causes. So we contend not against the flesh and blood but against spiritual darkness.278 ¶1

Then he invites us to take the sword, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, and then he tells us to pray at all times in the Spirit. Now, how would I take this instruction given to us in scripture and apply it in a practical manner?278 ¶2

Last Sunday night, a couple of friends were home for dinner. I must tell you the story that you may appreciate how this thing works. They both worked at RCA, that is, the show room that RCA had in L.A. One was in the Whirlpool Division, the other in the TV Division. The one who was in the TV Division is still there, and he’s been there for years. The one who was in the Whirlpool Division was there for two years, and he worked honestly and faithfully up to the end of last year. All through the great rush at Christmas he was on the job, his sales record was terrific, everything was perfect. Then came New Year’s Eve and he was paid off and told that that was the end of his service, after two years there. This chap came from Duke University. He’s an intelligent fellow. He worked for years downtown with Gulf Industries and then after almost thirteen years he quit. He was tired of it, took off a few months, and then got this job with RCA. He’s only forty years old…he will be forty his next birthday…and after two years at RCA, doing a wonderful job, he was fired.278 ¶3

Well, Sunday night at home, he asked me this question, he said, “Neville, when we create reality, as you say imagining creates reality, must we always do it consciously, deliberately, or can we do it without knowing that we’re doing it?” Well, may I tell you, you can’t stop doing it. It’s not only in the waking day, it’s through the night. There is only one creative power and that is your own wonderful human Imagination.278 ¶4

So then he told me this story. He said, “We live together, as you know, we have a home in Eaglerock, that’s our home. We have two cars. But when I got the job I would drive to work taking Bob with me for a week, and the next week he would drive and drive me. So we had a saving of car, saving of gas, saving of everything. But it was bumper to bumper! We would take the Santa Ana Freeway and I would simply despair. We got to the job at eight o’clock in the morning and we left…we took only a half-hour for lunch…so they gave us a half-hour off in the evening so we could simply get home a bit earlier…instead of taking a whole hour. But we had to be on the job at eight. “Well, when Bob drove and this was bumper to bumper, many a time I not only thought of it, I voiced it to him and I said, ‘Oh, I wish we were turning off here and going downtown instead of turning this way and taking the Santa Ana Freeway.’ So I said it to him. But many a day, as I rode next to him, I would, as we came to the junction, I mentally would turn off and I would turn towards downtown L.A.”278 ¶5

Now, said he, “I was so shocked when they fired me! No one told me anything, there was no rumor, but the order came through from Chicago that this department must give up one person. They went all over the country. They had their biggest financial year in the history of RCA last year, their biggest! They paid higher dividends, made more money, they had all kinds of things that they didn’t have in previous years, but that doesn’t in any way affect these so-called experts, efficiency experts. So they are brought in and they take this billion dollar corporation and they go through the entire thing. And then they analyze the departments, and this department can give up one man, this can give up three, that can give up twelve. This all comes down from Chicago and it goes across the country, so that here on the West Coast they had no alternative, they had to execute the order that came out from headquarters.”278 ¶6

Well, he was the last employed in this department, therefore, the first to go. His job was perfect, his sales record was excellent…and an honest, wonderful, marvelous lad, going on forty. He was shocked beyond measure. And when he told me he was fired, he didn’t quit, he didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell him then, I waited.278 ¶7

Now that he has the job and he brought it up to me last Sunday night, this suddenness on his part—he was fired suddenly, no warning whatsoever—was only the emergence of a hidden continuity. Now how to find that hidden continuity? Where was the cause? The cause upon the surface is physical, it came from Chicago, that this efficiency expert went over all the field, and concluded that this department could save money by giving up one man, could get along without one man, and that one without so-and-so. And on the surface it seemed that the cause was the decision made by a man in Chicago. Wasn’t so at all!278 ¶8

When Bob got to that junction on a morning after two years, and he lost himself in a daydream, and Mort kept on driving towards RCA, but Bob enjoyed the ride and moved downtown. Well, I’ve said time and again, the potency of the imaginal act is its implication; that’s the potency of the imaginal act. Well, what turning downtown would imply? Would it not imply that he is not working at RCA? He either quit the job or he was fired, but it would imply he is not working at RCA. Well, he enjoyed these imaginal journeys where he was not bumper to bumper on the Santa Ana Freeway; then came the sudden emergence of what he had planted.278 ¶9

So Paul is right, we are contending not against flesh and blood, but against this time of darkness. We are totally unaware of what we are doing, not what he is doing. The one who wrote out that decision and sent it off to L.A. that he was the one who had to be fired, he wasn’t the cause. He had to write it. And so he is undoubtedly honored by the company for saving so many salaries. If you multiply all their outlets, and he could save one to a dozen at each of these outlets, it would run into a fortune, in spite of what they made. They made more than they ever made before. But that is not the problem.278 ¶10

The problem is, are we contending against flesh and blood? Is he going to fight the boss and say to the boss, “Why did you fire me?” or is he going to recognize the cause of it? Well, tonight what thrills me, Bob now recognizes the cause of it. Because he came over during the evening and he said, “Must I always deliberately determine my imaginal act or could I do it unwittingly? Just without really considering the consequences could I set it in motion?” Well, he asked the question and before I could answer him he smiled.278 ¶11

He’s not only found Christ, he knows Christ. People think Christ is something in space, something in time 2,000 years ago. Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. Christ is the creative power and wisdom of God. There is no other creative power. Personified in scripture as a man, certainly it’s a man, for the creative power of God takes a man as its agent. To express love, give me a man. To express hate, give me a man. To express anything in this world, I need a man. So a man personifies the creative power and the wisdom of God, as told us in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “Jesus Christ, the power and the wisdom of God.”278 ¶12

So here is the personification. The world, not knowing this, will take him for a little icon and make some little fetish of it. And they worship something outside of themselves, and they go to church and cross themselves before a little cross of wood or stone or some little precious metal, and call it Jesus Christ.278 ¶13

And the whole vast world, with just a few…I mean just a few…so, we were discussing last Saturday night at another dinner party…and a friend of mine (who isn’t here tonight), he said, “Neville, why should there be so few people in this audience hearing this fantastic thing that you’re talking about?” Well, he happens to be a PhD, so I said to him, “Tell me, there are three and a half billion people in the world, how many PhD’s are there?” Well, he had to admit fewer percentage-wise than possibly I’d get in the course of a year. There are fewer people who can claim they have a PhD than I address in the course of a year. So then he came to his senses that you can’t judge by numbers. It’s not numbers.278 ¶14

Do you really believe that you are contending not against flesh and blood but against this kind of darkness where you are completely unaware of the creative power that is yours, that you are causing all of the phenomena of your life? You fire yourself, but it seems to come from Chicago. That was the order from Chicago and expressed through your immediate boss in your department. And you were surprised because your memory is so short; you forgot you set it in motion. You didn’t know what you were doing when you relaxed as your friend Mort took the car down the Freeway towards RCA, and you relaxed and imagined you were going towards downtown L.A., which you know so well because you worked for Gulf Industries for almost thirteen years. You knew all the restaurants, all the places, all the people. Well, he’s now working for Unico, which is almost a neighbor of Gulf Industries, with all the old friends and the restaurants and all the places that he knew so well. That’s exactly where he headed in his Imagination.278 ¶15

So there are two powers: one, the inner motive which is causal, and the outer which is under compulsion. So everything that happened to him had to happen. The order, the direction, the firing, and the only thing that, well, he was surprised that he was fired, an honest worker with a wonderful sales record. But what thrills me that last Sunday night he could say to me, “Do we always have to set this thing in motion deliberately or could we do it unwittingly?” Now he knows. If he only remembers what he said to me last Sunday night! If man could only remember. The awakening man always remembers and he watches carefully exactly what he is doing in his Imagination.278 ¶16

Well, that’s the entire world. You are creating everything in your world and no one else is doing it. They are only instruments through which you are expressing this enormous power. So the natural effect is only seeming; it always has an imaginal cause, it always does. So if you bear that in mind, you will never be surprised; no matter what happens to us somewhere along the line you did it.278 ¶17

My father came home broken, a really broken man. I’m going back now, oh, I was just in my teens. Only two were out of school, and the eight remaining were still in school…that’s how long ago that was. No one knew…certainly I didn’t, mother didn’t know, he didn’t know…no one knew why it should happen to him. On reflection, I realize now what an ambitious man my father was. He started with nothing; I mean nothing, in the most literal sense of the word…behind the eight ball.278 ¶18

But he had ten children and he assumed all responsibility. He never once shifted responsibility, not my father. He would go hungry, but his family couldn’t go hungry. Not that he did go hungry, but he would have. That’s the kind of a man that he was. We were never conscious of the fact that we were poor, so in our consciousness he never built poverty in our minds. We had nothing, but we didn’t know it. Well, if you don’t know it, then you don’t have it. So we were never made aware that we were poor, never, not for one second.278 ¶19

In fact, my mother would say to any one of us who did something unbecoming what she thought a child of hers should do, and she would say to us, “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?” You never questioned your mother…guess you forgot…therefore Goddard must be something important. But it wasn’t, on reflection it wasn’t, but she made it important. So where was the cause? Was it not in the belief that to bear the name of Goddard, being the child of Joseph and Wilhelmina Goddard, was important? Well, they’re all, judged by human standards, they’re all important. No one locally is strong enough financially to buy them out. There’s no one locally, but no one, who could buy them out, because no one has $25 million to buy them out. And they didn’t have a penny. But mother built it into our consciousnesses “Have you forgotten you are a Goddard?”278 ¶20

I can see it now, on a Sunday morning when I should have been in church… what possessed me that morning that I didn’t go, because mother corralled us all…and here I am sitting on the outside, without shoes, and just a little shirt. My father came down and he got off the car and saw me, and the first act was one whack across the face…a son of his on a Sunday morning not in church and sitting here on the street without shoes? And an enormous blow…could have deafened me…but that was his attitude towards this building in us the feeling of being important.278 ¶21

Isn’t that all Imagination? He had nothing, but not in his own mind’s eye…he had nothing in the world of Caesar. Today, those that he trained and left in the world, they can’t be bought out by any local…. because they don’t have enough money to buy them out.278 ¶22

Well, that’s what I’m getting at concerning this wonderful, fantastic law of imagining. We are not contending against flesh and blood. So he is important? Alright, let him be important, not a thing’s wrong with that. He can fire you? No, he can’t. Not a thing can happen to you unless, in you, you first let it happen. So you can dream, as Bob dreamt, and may I tell you, he wanted more money and greater responsibility than he got at RCA.278 ¶23

At RCA he got more money than he received at Gulf Industries after thirteen years at Gulf. Today, he’s getting more than he got at RCA and greater responsibility. He has an office staff of maybe twenty-five girls under him taking care of the credits for the company. Unico—you don’t know it, I didn’t know it ‘til he told me—they make or manufacture or distribute all kinds of electrical can openers, every conceivable electrical can opener. So they are running into all kinds of things where the credits were all jammed up, and he came in, and in just one month he resolved the whole picture. He’s making more money, with greater responsibility than he had at his previous company. That’s what he wanted. He was going downtown to a new place where all these things would be in order. So I ask you to believe me.278 ¶24

I know that you believe it. But you’ll go out and tell it to others who still believe in some little personal Jesus Christ, a little man. May I tell you, they’re not just in the little walks of life, you’ll meet them as great scientists. You’ll meet them in every walk because they specialize in their own game and they hold onto a certain little icon, too. Because they don’t know, they haven’t had the visions, they haven’t had the experience. So you will not just find this superstition among people who wash your floors, no, you will find it in every walk of life, from the Pope down, may I tell you. They haven’t had the experience, so they don’t know this mighty power that is housed in them and not on the outside.278 ¶25

And when it begins to unfold because you are exercising it, then comes the most glorious drama as it unfolds within you. You will see in what I’ve told you so far that conflict between David and Goliath. Goliath depended upon the armament of the world to achieve his end, and David went unarmed, armed only with the word of God. That’s all he had, just the word of God, and brought down those who would oppose him with the armaments of Caesar. You try it. Try it and see how it works. I tell you it will not fail.278 ¶26

Here is this wonderful story of William Butler Yeats. He said, “I thought intently of a fellow student. I had a message for him, but I hesitated to write this message. Two days later I got a letter from a place several hundred miles away. In the letter he said to me, ‘You appeared suddenly in a very large gathering of people in a hotel where I am, and I said to you, because of the crowd, would you please leave now and return later.’ And he said to me in the letter I vanished, but I did return at midnight and gave him the message I had intended to give him, that I would not commit to writing.”278 ¶27

Now, said he…Wm. Butler Yeats, in his essays called The Essence of Good and Evil, and this is the section called Magic. You can buy the book or rent the book, go to the library and read it…it’s under the caption Magic. He said, “I have no knowledge whatsoever of that visit. I do remember that I desired intensely to give him a message. I also know I hesitated to commit it to writing. But I have no knowledge of my visit to him and no knowledge of my appearance and my return to give him the message, but he enclosed in his letter to me the message.” Now, is that not Imagination? What did it? He’s thinking of a friend. He intensely desires to tell him something, which he doesn’t write, but he has no knowledge that he appears seemingly to the friend in bodily form, as solidly real as though he were in the flesh.278 ¶28

I have done it dozens of times to those who wrote me…I appeared to them. By some intensity of Imagination I appeared to them and they saw me. At the moment I didn’t have any knowledge. I have a few where I do recall deliberately doing it, with my sister and with a few others, but with the majority it was all done without any conscious knowledge of my projection in space and time. But it was still all Imagination. So you are influencing every being in this world to play the part they must play to bring to birth what you are imagining.278 ¶29

So let us go back and pick up a thread that you must get tonight. The imaginal power is in its implication. What am I implying when I bring before my mind’s eye a certain series or a certain, I would say, scene? What does the scene imply? I’m turning downtown, downtown L.A., well, that implies I am not working at RCA, does it not? Well, you take that same cue and the power of the imaginal act is in its implication. So tonight, when you are alone, whether you are in bed or just before you go to bed, and you bring before your mind’s eye a scene, well, now what does the scene imply? Are you going to argue with someone who owes you a dollar? Well, that implies that he hasn’t paid you. Are you going to tell him what you think of him? That only affirms it; it makes it all the more that he isn’t going to pay you. Do you bring him before your mind’s eye and thank him for having done what in the world of Caesar he has as yet not done? Everything is in the implication. What is the scene that you are conjuring? Some of us don’t even want to be paid, that we may say to the one, “I always knew you wouldn’t anyway!” I mean, that gives a certain emotional reaction, a certain thrill, and we delight in telling him that he’s a thief without using the word thief. So we can do that. So the scene…the power of that scene is its implication; so it’s not any little goody-this or goody-that or someone else, forget it.278 ¶30

Bow before no one in this world, but no one. As Blake brings out so beautifully, that “Thou art a man, God is no more, thy own humanity learn to adore.” So when man would bow before a man because of something he’s accomplished in this world, forget him! God became you, individually. The same God, no other God, there’s only one God…he became you. He is housed in you. When you say “I am” that’s he. When you begin to imagine, that’s his creative power, and that act of imagining is Jesus Christ, that’s Christ.278 ¶31

Now, prove Jesus Christ. As we are told, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, of course, you fail to meet the test!” So if you call upon the name of Jesus Christ…you don’t call upon the name of Jesus Christ…you don’t pray to Jesus Christ, you simply confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus Christ being your own wonderful human Imagination, you confess the power and the wisdom and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which is the power of God. Then this thing begins to unfold in you; the whole thing unfolds within you.278 ¶32

Everything I have told you is true. It is all true. I didn’t hear it from a man. I didn’t read it in a book. I read the Bible but I didn’t see it until it happened in me. That’s how blind one becomes. Until it actually happened, you can’t quite envision it. You can’t quite see it until it happens, and then it’s so altogether different in retrospect from what it appeared to be in prospect. You thought of someone 2,000 years ago and you thought this is how it happened, and it wasn’t so at all. It all is happening in you.278 ¶33

So you begin to actually put into practice what he who was sent…and the one who is sent, may I tell you, the cue of it all is to encourage you to participate in the risen Christ. Not to talk about him, to tell you about the one who slumbers in you that you may participate in his resurrection in you. Then you will know to what extent he really has been sent or is he simply playing a little part. Let no one talk down to you and tell you that you’re simply [...]. If one is sent, he will tell you who you really are, and the being you really are is God. God became you that you may become God. And the whole wonderful story as recorded in both the Old and New Testament is all about you.278 ¶34

I know in my own case, I was a dreamer. From the time I was a child I was a dreamer. So when I was fired…and I worked for J. C. Penney, and one day, like my friend Bob, in my little envelope of a few pennies—that’s all that they gave you really. You paid rent…in those days, luckily for me I wasn’t renting. I couldn’t have bought one…and I was a young boy, eighteen years old, nineteen when they fired me…all I could buy was my vegetable dinner and milk on what they paid me. Then you were fired, and you had not, as you have today, insurance against being fired; you can draw it for weeks or months. None of those things happened back in 1923 when I was fired. So, all of a sudden you’re out, you’re fired.278 ¶35

But I was a dreamer…I know today, were I not the dreamer I wouldn’t have been fired. I would be today running the elevator for them; that’s what I’d be doing. I might have been captain of the elevator operators. All of a sudden they put it all into automation, so I’d be out of a job anyway. But because I dreamed…like my father dreamed, he dreamt of something more noble for his family and himself. Well, I dreamt of something noble…didn’t have a family then of my own, just the family of my father. But I dreamt of a noble state in this world, and dreaming that way and losing myself in it, I had to be fired. So they fired me.278 ¶36

And with that, being fired, I went out determined that after a little while I wouldn’t work for anyone else. So, I got a little job at Macy’s. I went to the boss and he sent me over to Macy’s. I got a job there, and then I quit Macy’s (they didn’t fire me). Worked there for ten months and I quit, and from that day on to this I have never worked for another person. Oh yes, I had Broadway shows. I seemingly worked for them, but when Schubert’s employed me, or all the others employed me, it never occurred to me that they employed me. I was using my talent, so it never occurred to me that they were my boss. I lost completely the concept of boss. In fact, if there is one word that I almost hate it’s the word boss. Who has a boss?278 ¶37

So when my daughter once spoke of her boss, I can’t tell you my reaction. She works for a man who could tonight, if he’s dreaming well, he could be fired. He’s no boss! She has no boss! In fact, no one has a boss in this world. The only boss is God, and you are he. He became you; you are God. God became man that man may become God. Does he have a boss? He has no boss!278 ¶38

So, in your own wonderful Imagination dream nobly and try to catch that which Bob did. There was motion, it was an internal motion. An internal motion really is causal; the external is under compulsion. So all the outer motions, like writing this decision to fire him—or one of them, he was the one—and then all these things that happened to him, all that was under compulsion. And he was the compulsive being that did it. But what thrilled me last Sunday night, when he came over from his chair and sat at the base of mine and said, “Tell me, must I always to apply this principle of imagining do it deliberately, do it knowingly?…because this is what I did, Neville.” So he answered himself.278 ¶39

I can’t tell anyone my thrill when those who hear me find the secret by their own experience. It seemed to him at the moment to be disastrous. So he was fired. But he’s under the present system of unemployment insurance. He has his home. Not completely paid off but it’s well paid off; he’s meeting all the payments on it, and his friend, the two of them own the home together. And so, he went down and got what he’s due. He pays on it. After all, every penny he draws when he goes to get it he paid for it. Why shouldn’t he get it? I see nothing wrong with going and getting it. You’ve paid in over the years on all that they’re asking of you. So he goes and gets it.278 ¶40

And then, one morning he decides…in fact, I was with him the day the phone rang at home and they had been trying to get him at Unico: Come and see us tomorrow for some examination or some interview. So he went down…and started the next month. He’s making more money, greater responsibility, which is so important in this world, just responsibility. I can’t tell anyone what a thrill it is to bear responsibility. When people say I don’t want it, oh, they don’t know what it is. If it’s only to buy the food for your wife that she doesn’t have to do it. If it’s only that, if it’s only the clothes she wears, at least you’re going to pay for it. Just responsibility! When man tries to shirk these things he doesn’t know what he’s missing in this world.278 ¶41

So I tell you, go out…God became you that you may become God, and God in you is your own wonderful human Imagination, so you go out and try it. And may I tell you, no matter what is asked of you, do grant it if it comes within the code of your, that is, your wonderful ethical code of decency. No matter what request…you’re not a doctor…if anyone calls you and asks any help of you that is of a physical nature, financial nature…you aren’t a banker, you don’t know a thing about these things…you can still grant it.278 ¶42

There are three and a half billion people in the world who are agents for you. The surgeon is one agent, the dentist is an agent, the banker is an agent, they’re all agents to fulfill what you have imagined has happened. So you simply imagine this happened and you lose yourself in the joy of the fulfillment of their request.278 ¶43

Now when it happens, they may tell you, you know what happens, it happens this way and that way and the other, and they will give you all of the means through which it happens. But you are still faithful (I hope you will be) to the cause. It’s the cause…who ran through the means. So the means…he was fired, that’s means. He was disappointed; he didn’t remember. Then he took off for a while, enjoyed himself, and then this request comes. All that is part of it, for it would not be complete until he got a job paying more with greater responsibility. That was the flower; that was the fulfillment. It’s not just being fired…going down the road, he wasn’t just going down the road to escape bumper to bumper. He was going down this place because he was going downtown to a better job that paid more, with greater responsibility. So that’s what he was doing in his Imagination as his friend Mort drove the car. If he’s trying to run away, he’d be fired from another job. But he lost himself in a more glorious end.278 ¶44

So let everyone here take the same technique and apply it. You are not a little “ism.” Maybe you’ll say today if someone asks you, “What are you or who are you?” you’ll say, I’m a Christian or I’m a Jew or I’m a this. Really you aren’t! I wouldn’t know what to tell you that you really are because you aren’t. You are something infinitely greater than any little ism in this world, infinitely greater! And all these little isms will all pass away, all vanish into nothing, meaning nothing.278 ¶45

But if you really have one grand book that we really, I would say, worship, let it be the Bible. Turn over any page and it fires the mind, but any page. Today I simply turned it over and here I spoke earlier from the 6th chapter of Ephesians, “We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against this time of darkness.” Yes, I am unaware of the cause of the phenomena of life, so this is darkness. Now he tells us, “Pray at all times in the Spirit.” Well, to pray is to move towards my objective, to actually accede to it, to get close, get near, ‘til finally I can touch it…that’s to pray. When he was riding down, and finally he could touch downtown, knowing the area is what he wants, and it carries with it more money and greater responsibility, and finally he finds a job there…that’s praying.278 ¶46

You don’t pray to Jesus, you only confess the authority, the power, the Lordship of your wonderful human Imagination, and then you exercise it. As you exercise it, you are putting into practice the story of Christ. Let no one tell you you can’t do it. You can do it and do it now. All that is told us in the promise will begin; like unfolding buds into their flowers, it all unfolds within you. And you will know by the unfolding tree that you are he. You are not another, you are Jesus Christ. Begin now to believe it, to exercise him, and see how these things begin to unfold within you.278 ¶47

Now let us go into the Silence.278 ¶48

Tonight’s subject is “The Witness of the Spirit.” When we open the Bible we think of it as something that belongs to an ancient world, something that goes back, as far as we are concerned, at least 2,000 years or more. I tell you that you and I are called upon in this world of ours to witness to the truth of the word of scripture, called God’s word; and to the testimony of Jesus Christ who broke the seal and revealed it by his own personal experience; that no matter what we accomplish in this world, it is as nothing to that which we are destined to perform, which is to witness to the truth of God’s word. Now, we will witness to it, I assure you we will. Everyone must witness to it, therefore, he will. Tonight we’ll take a simple, simple story to show you how this one has witnessed to it.277 ¶1

She gave me a letter last Friday night; in it she said, “I was brought to your meeting last December and I attended five of your lectures. I read four of your books over and over.” She said, “I sell homes, and so I took a client of mine—the client being a couple and three children—they wanted a larger home than they occupied. Well, I showed them home after home after home, and nothing pleased them. They wouldn’t tell me why, whether it was money, whether neighborhood or what, but nothing pleased them. And so, having heard you, having read your books, I retired this night, and in my Imagination this is what I did. I stepped into a hallway of a very large Spanish home. To my right was the most beautiful living room, to my left was a large formal dining room, and through the window I could see this wonderful garden patio. I sat at the table and had coffee with my clients, and heard her say how much she loved the place and that it was just right as far as her pocketbook was concerned…it was what she could afford to pay.277 ¶2

“I did this in my Imagination for approximately six nights, six consecutive nights. Then the phone rang soon after and it was my client. It seemed that her sister had a friend who had seen a large home for sale in a certain neighborhood, and called to say that it was available. So she, in turn, called me to tell me that it was listed with a certain broker, who, she said in her letter to me, was not in my multiple or our multiple”—whatever that means. I’m not familiar with the terminology of agents—but not in our multiple. “However, I investigated it for her because she wanted it. Well, the story is this, I went to see it. I stepped into this very wonderful hallway and I became almost speechless. To my right was the largest and possibly the most beautiful living room I had ever seen, to my left this very large formal dining room, and through the window was this wonderful garden patio. To make it short, said she, yes; they bought it at their price. They’re now living in it and they are blissfully happy.”277 ¶3

She said, “I tell you this to share with you—as your friend, you called him Bob, as he shared with you his mystical experience—so now I’m sharing this with you.”277 ¶4

In Bob’s story, he occupied the body of a friend to give to the friend what the friend either could not or would not give to self. So he actually became the friend and assumed for the friend what the friend was either unwilling, unable, or for the lack of faith could not give to self.277 ¶5

You don’t have to limit this to a physical body…you give to a friend by occupying the house. She actually occupied a house in her Imagination and felt the house to be one that the people that she had shown unnumbered houses to, were not satisfied with them, but she actually occupied the house she felt they wanted, at their price. So she gave to her clients the house that they could not find or give to themselves. So you occupy a state…a state could be the body of a friend, the state could be, in her case, a house that some client desired that they could not find.277 ¶6

So here, this is bearing witness to the word of God. Are we not told, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will” . Well, she actually moved into the state and believed that the friends wanted it, the clients wanted it. And so she took a lesson from the story that my friend shared with us when he assumed the body of a friend and gave to that friend what that friend could not give to herself. So this is bearing witness to the truth of scripture though when we read it, it seems to belong to an ancient, ancient age. I tell you, every word of scripture you and I will testify to.277 ¶7

Now, how do we do it? How do we start? Listen to these words, “We love, because he first loved us” . I love you because you first loved me? That’s what it’s implying if I get it correctly. We love because he first loved us. Now “Be imitators of God as beloved children” . Is that how he made me love? I had no capacity to love or to respond in any way until he first loved me. For the word “because” implies causation. We love because he first loved us. Well, if that is the secret of causation, then I must initiate everything I want to see in my world. I can’t wait for it, I am the operant power. As the operant power, if I must imitate God as a dear child and I love—the King James Version has it “we love him,” but I’m told that is a poor translation or an inferior manuscript. The Revised Standard Version has it “we love,” no pronoun, not we love him, we simply love. We could love a shoe, we could love a bird, we could love a hat, we could love a dog, we could love a man, we could love the building—we simply love. And he leaves it entirely up to us what we love, the object of our love. So instead of saying we love him, meaning God, we love because he first loved us; therefore, it is God and God alone who only initiates this capacity in man to love. If he hasn’t yet loved me, well then, you can’t condemn me for not loving. I must first of all be loved before I can respond in love.277 ¶8

Now if I must imitate him in this capacity, well then, I must start right now and whatever I want you to be, I must see you are it first before I can see you respond and reflect it in my world. I see through this that the whole vast world is only infinite response. The whole vast world is simply response. Well, it can’t respond until it has something to respond to. If I must initiate what would respond, well then, it’s entirely up to me to become discriminating, selective and single out the one I want to help, assume that the being is exactly as I want that being to be, and wait for the response (just like an echo) if the story is true.277 ¶9

Now, if this is true, I could put it to a test. Religion always needs a test. Let no one tell you that it doesn’t need a test. Everything needs a test when it comes to religion. If not, it becomes simply a distorted…what…formalism, just a peculiar barren creed, or simply some strange piety. So many people call themselves holy people because they attend a certain church, or they do a certain thing in this world, and it becomes that if you don’t test it. So here, we have to test our religion.277 ¶10

We can only test God’s law; we cannot test his Promise. His Promise is an unconditional gift. That comes and you will actually say, in the words of John, “I, John, am a witness to God’s word and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and all that I have heard and seen” . He tells us that everything that he heard and that he saw he has reported. He is speaking from experience, he’s not theorizing. This is in the epistle of John. So when he makes the statement that God is love he is not theorizing. I read here recently that Thomas Huxley, the great intellectual giant of his day—the grandfather of Aldous and Julian, who were also intellectual giants—and he was in the scientific world, and he made this statement, he said, “I cannot see a shadow or tittle of evidence that God is love.” This is Thomas Huxley, “I cannot see a shadow or a tittle of evidence that God is love.”277 ¶11

Pre-occupation with this human scene to the exclusion of higher things invariably leads us to that conclusion. If my whole vast world is in the scientific world, as his was, trying to unravel how the world is constructed, not asking why you did it, or who did it, just take it as a machine, and trying to unravel the mechanism of it—or if I am lost in personal gain where I can’t find enough to cushion me against tomorrow’s blows or expensive blows, then I have no time for higher things…they mean nothing. A friend of mine who made a fortune said to me, “Neville, I can’t wait to get up in the morning and I hate to go to bed, it’s a waste of time.” A dream meant nothing to him, a vision meant nothing. He’s gone from this sphere now, lived his three score and ten, leaving behind him a chain of hamburger stands which were very, very productive, eight of them in New York City. And so, he left it behind to his wife and three children. But all he could think of was more of the same thing. A dream, it would frighten him; a mystical experience, that meant nothing to him.277 ¶12

So now he’s gone into another sphere, but I know from experience that he is clothed in a garment that is as real to him as the garment that was here. Not playing the same part, for he who initiated the whole thing knows exactly where to place him for his future good. For he who began the good work in him, as he began it in us, he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ . That is the work to be done.277 ¶13

When Jesus Christ which is in man—every child born of woman, the reality of that child is Jesus Christ—it is that being that has the experiences of scripture. It is that being that resurrects; that is born from above; that discovers the fatherhood of God; that finds himself as the Son of man ascending like a serpent into heaven. It is that being that finds himself smothered with affection from on high by the Spirit of God in bodily form as a dove. It is that being…it’s not another. And so, everyone in this world, his real accomplishment is measured by his ability to witness to the truth of the word of God.277 ¶14

If tonight I made my exit from this world and tomorrow’s, well, investigators found I left behind me one billion dollars, those who could read it in the morning paper that he left a billion might be envious of my so-called gain and possessions. But if, as I make my exit, I have not testified, I had no ability to testify to one word of scripture, I am as poor as a church mouse. The billion would be nothing, for I don’t take it with me, not one penny do I take with me. Not one honor that is conferred on man by man in this world do we take with us.277 ¶15

If I told you some of my stories, meeting those who are truly great, or were great, in the eyes of the world, and meeting them beyond the veil in the world that is just like this, you would think, well, Neville has gone insane. Those who were so brilliant and such giants politically and such powerful things in this world, and I meet them…you don’t want to have sympathy for anyone, you want to rejoice with people…but you wouldn’t rejoice with the parts they are now playing. I am telling you from experience, I am not theorizing.277 ¶16

So what are we here for?—to test scripture and at least be a witness to the law of God. The Promise comes automatically in God’s own good time.277 ¶17

Well, just to be able to say I tested it, like this lady. I don’t know her personally. She said she only came last December. When she heard a week ago last Friday, or two weeks ago tonight, the story of my friend who shared with us his ability to actually clothe himself with a friend and grant to that friend what the friend could not grant to himself, she took that cue. Then she said, “Alright, [...] because of that, now I will share with you as your friend shared with you.” Well, I do not know the lady. She only said a friend of mine, calling him by name, brought her here for the first time last December. And this is how she found the place for her client after having shown the client house after house after house and they could not respond to it.277 ¶18

So, at least tonight—whether she ever comes here again or not—she knows that she has witnessed to the truth of God’s word. She heard it here if she didn’t read it in the Bible, because it’s in the Bible. I don’t quote from any other book, not really. So whatever you desire believe you have received and you shall. Well, she wanted to find just what they wanted, so she occupied it. As I have stated time and again, this is a vast difference between thinking of what you want and thinking from it. The great fallacy of the world of man is perpetual construction and delayed occupancy. We know what we want, we see it in the mind’s eye, we construct it, but we don’t occupy it. Well, she occupied this building and then she was called by the very clients saying her sister had a friend. That’s how it worked itself. If she doesn’t know what she did prior to finding the house, she might now see the means and believe the means determined that, rather than that what she did determined. But she might…now I don’t know…she could sit down right now and say it would have happened anyway. The house was already built, the house was on the market for sale, this lady’s sister called her and said a friend saw it as she passed by, and having seen the sign then asked her to get in touch with the agent to investigate it. Then on reflection, she could now say, well, it would have happened anyway. Then completely forget that for one little moment in time she became a witness to the truth of the word of God.277 ¶19

But I tell you, we’re here for one purpose: Only to testify to the truth of God’s word and the testimony of Jesus Christ as he broke the seal, and then the whole thing unfolds within him. And because the same Jesus Christ is buried in every child born of woman that same Jesus Christ must testify to the truth of the word of God and to that testimony as recorded in scripture, which is called the testimony of Jesus Christ. So everyone here will do it.277 ¶20

You wouldn’t be here tonight were you not on the verge of, I would say, the Promise. And yet, I cannot say with any authority. I only know that so many of you, as I look out at your faces, have proven the law of God. So now when you prove the law of God, I can’t believe for one moment you are not on the verge of being called into the fulfillment of the Promise.277 ¶21

Now, the statement that Huxley could not accept, that God is love, I stand before you, I don’t have to speculate, I don’t have to ask is God really love, for I was taken in Spirit. Now you’re told there were only three who bear testimony—the spirit, the water and the blood. I was taken in Spirit into the presence of the risen Christ, and all that I could see as I stood in the presence of the being that is man was infinite love. I had no other emotion. I couldn’t tell you anything about this presence, infinite love…that’s all that was there…and yet it was man. So when John makes the statement “I, John, I saw it, I handled it with my own hands, and I testify to the truth of all that I have heard and seen”…I heard it. He asked me a question, I answered him, so I saw him face to face. As John tells us and Paul tells us, I stood in his presence and saw him face to face. Well, he embraced me, so I certainly touched him. He asked me a question, so I heard him. I answered his question based upon love. And so I know from experience that no one could disturb that conviction that God is love, infinite love. Well, when you look at the world from this level and you see the violence and the horrors of the world, I wouldn’t blame Huxley. He was an honest observer as a scientist and he’s had no evidence to support the claim that God is love. He sees one being killing the other and one animal eating the other and we eating the animal. He sees nothing but violence in the world. As an observer, a scientific observer, he came to the conclusion that he had not one shadow or tittle of evidence to support the biblical claim that God is love. You can’t find it philosophically, you can’t find it by rationalizing; it is revealed by God himself.277 ¶22

So when you are called, you are called and you have no choice in the matter. He who began the good work, he brings it to fruition. I didn’t initiate it, God initiated it. And why at one moment in eternity I was selected to be unveiled, and had this unveiling take place in my presence, and looked right into the face of the risen Christ, I cannot tell you. I only know that I have experienced it. So I can say with John, my hands have handled it, my eye saw it, and I heard it as he spoke to me face to face. Well, I can say that.277 ¶23

There’s a lovely poem—I can’t give you the whole— but the essence of it, it’s based upon John. It is John who wrote the epistles, who our scholars tell us also wrote the gospel of John. It’s the poem by Browning called A Death in the Desert. It’s all about John who was the last of the twelve to depart from this sphere, as Browning sees it. Here is this John contemplating the fact that when he goes there’s no one left to say “I saw him.” So here is John, he’s surrounded by a few adoring friends and he contemplates his own demise and wonders what it will be like in this world when there’s no one to say “I saw him.” There’s one little poem; he said, “When my ashes scatter, there is none alive on earth, no one alive and left, who knew. Consider this, no one who saw with his eyes and handled with his hands that which was from the first the word of life, how would it be when none more sayeth, ‘I saw’?” Now that is Browning, that’s not scripture.277 ¶24

Inspired yes, but I would say never will come a time when there will not be a remnant in this world who will be able to say “I saw.” For we aren’t seeing any physical being; you see the resurrected Christ, the risen Christ. There will always be in this world of ours that remnant who will be called, who will stand in the presence of the risen Christ, and who will be sent by that very being into the world to tell his story, and to still play his part in this very limited world. When he departs, alright, so what? There’ll always be that remnant in the world who will be called, and he calls us one by one to complete the great temple that was predetermined by him.277 ¶25

So here in this world of ours, you can own the world, and when you own it, if you want it, but it will mean nothing to God’s plan. All it means to God’s plan is that his witnesses testify to the truth of his word. So you can start tonight by testing his law, as he tested it and my other friend tested it, and many of you [...] your faces. Practically everyone here has written me a letter and testified to the truth of God’s word, almost everyone here. So everyone will be able to tell it. Come round to the Promise, that is all in the hand of God; that Promise is completely unconditional.277 ¶26

Now, I asked you last Friday night to identify yourself with Jesus Christ as you retired, and I gave you my reasons for it—that man is born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as told us in 1st Peter, the 3rd verse. That man’s spiritual birth is as natural as his physical birth. No man is born physically by the action of powers that are really his own, that all is beyond. So here we see in this story that he is born by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…that’s spiritually born. So I asked you to go home and instead of taking to bed John Brown or Mary Smith or whatever your name is, to actually be bold enough to feel, I am Jesus Christ, just feel it. Don’t ask why, just feel it, I am Jesus Christ. Others may tell you that that is blasphemy. Forget what they tell you. I’m speaking from experience; they are only theorizing, and they are simply limited by certain concepts. You take it to bed and feel I am Jesus Christ.277 ¶27

Well, a lady called on me yesterday who took me at my word and took it to bed. She said, “I am Jesus Christ.” She said, “Neville, during the night I suddenly heard a lecture. I didn’t see anyone giving it, but I heard the lecture and it was all on Peter, James and John. Then as I heard it, I heard it coming through, I understood it clearly. I can’t write it out for you, I have to tell you in words because I can’t get it down on paper. But I heard a whole lecture on Peter, James and John, and I knew that these three were equated with faith, hope and love. That these three were not persons as we know persons, they were simply these qualities, eternal qualities of God, and they were simply equated with faith, hope and love. I knew that James in scripture meant Jacob.” For you’ll find that in your dictionary—that James is simply the Anglicized form of the ancient word Jacob, and Jacob was a supplanter. “I knew that James, which was Jacob, meant hope, Peter meant faith, and John was love. The whole drama unfolded before me in an audible form as I heard it. I didn’t see who was giving it, but the whole thing was so clear as I woke from this wonderful dream—because I took itto the depths of my soul, I am Jesus Christ.”277 ¶28

Well, they were the ones that he called. He calls these qualities into being, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love. So here, as the whole thing unfolded within her, it came as a result of taking the great claim, I am Jesus Christ.277 ¶29

She said, “The next night, the same thing begins to unfold again, and I didn’t see that man but I felt the presence of Blake, and then I heard words that are only from the words of Blake. Blake said to me, ‘You become what you behold.’” Well, Blake uses that expression two dozen times in Jerusalem: “You become what you behold.”277 ¶30

Well, if I behold that I am Jesus Christ, I will have to draw into my being the significance of that which he drew, personified as Peter, James and John. If they really are equated in the true sense of the word with faith, hope and love, it would have to be unfolded within me if I wore that feeling of being Jesus Christ. As my friend wore the feeling of being a lady he wanted to help; and my other friend—I call her a friend, I don’t know her—a feeling of being in a home that would satisfy her client.277 ¶31

So I say, don’t take to bed tonight the feeling of being this little being that walked the earth this day, with all the problems; take to bed with you the being that you really are, and persuade yourself that “I am Christ,” go sound asleep in that assumption, and see how it unfolds as it did in my friend in this world.277 ¶32

She said, “I can’t wait to write it out for you, I must come and tell you.” So I see no one, really, at home. Rarely do I see anyone at home, but it was so pressing. She said, “I must see you today,” so she came up yesterday and told me the story. I wish she was not as excited, because she could have told me more, but fifty words came where maybe two should come. All words, words, words…so completely carried away with this expression she couldn’t find words to tell me. So please go back and do make an effort, if you only get one page, and write it out for me what you just spent the longest while trying to tell me, because she was simply bubbling over with the experience.277 ¶33

Well, I know exactly how she feels about it. I’ll say to you, tonight you take it; if you didn’t take it last Friday, take it tonight. You will become what you behold.277 ¶34

Then she said, “The second night, like an unfolding drama, I found myself brushing my hair, as getting something out of my hair. I went to a little mirror and suddenly it’s not a little mirror, it’s length size, the whole thing takes in my entire being, and I’m transfixed before it. For what I am seeing not in eternity could I ever resemble, and yet as I move my hand forward the hand comes forward, as I brush my hair the hand brushes the hair, as I smile this heavenly smile with teeth as described in the Song of Solomon—they all came up in pairs, like sheep that came from the bath, washed and in pairs, and not one barren among them, as told us in the Book of Solomon. Everything was perfect!”277 ¶35

She couldn’t believe she could ever be that lovely. These wonderful lovely eyes, that radiant skin, the hair of gold, everything was perfect. And no matter what she did, it reflected her, it responded, and she stood transfixed before a being which was herself that she could not in eternity conceive it could ever be. That was the second night…by taking to bed the assumption of being Jesus Christ.277 ¶36

Well, he’s perfect. He’s as perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect, so if you take perfection with you and he’s one with God, what would you expect to see if you really succeeded prior to sleep in identifying yourself with the perfect? What could you see but the perfect? So there she saw reflected in this length-size mirror the being that she is. So I tell you, do it. These are things we share with all…as she shared it with me, I tell it to you. You take it to bed. I’m quite sure today she’s not the girl she was last Friday. May I also tell you, she never will be the same one that she was last Friday. You’re never again what you were after these experiences.277 ¶37

So today, after 2,000 years or more theologians are still arguing the point as to what part God and man play in this new birth of the Spirit. But for those who speak from experience, there is no doubt as to the fact that God initiated the whole thing.277 ¶38

And so, I told her a story and she acted upon it. What did she do? I said to you earlier “We love, because he first loved us.” Well, today she asked the question about…she’s a grandmother, she knows what it is to love, so God so loved her she could now love. You couldn’t love before God loved you, you couldn’t. So when you see a violent creature in the world incapable of it, it’s because he has not yet been touched by the love of God. So forget it, and have compassion for him.277 ¶39

But she, as a grandmother, can love her grandchildren, love her two daughters, and love her friends, and love the world. So she can love. Well then, go to bed and fall in love with being the embodiment of love, the personification of love. And then came a response; she saw herself in the nth degree of beauty, of perfection. If she hadn’t yet been touched by love, she couldn’t do it. The chances are she wouldn’t even try it.277 ¶40

So I say, today we see the whole vast world of hate this and the other. Well, I’m not saying they haven’t yet been loved, but not to the degree that you have loved, you have been loved. You wouldn’t be here were you not loved to that degree.277 ¶41

Now tonight, be imitators of God as beloved children. If no response from me until God first loved me, well, now I can love, well, then he must have loved me. I can’t possibly love unless he loved me. Well, if I am capable of love it’s because God first loved me. Are you capable of love? Well, then God first loved you or you couldn’t love. Dwell upon that…just dwell upon the fact that God singled you our as a unique being and loved you or you couldn’t love. Listen to it carefully, “We love, because he first loved us”…incapable of the response of love unless we were first loved by God. I’m quite sure everyone here is capable of love, therefore, you’ve been singled out. And yet there are in this world those who are incapable of love. Doesn’t make sense, does it?277 ¶42

Well, today’s Time magazine came…and I happened to live physically when I was born in that same area. If you subscribe to it or you have it, you’ll find it in August…there is a very short article on Santo Domingo in the Caribbean where I was born…not Santo Domingo…I was born in Barbados. Well, there’s a story told in there, supposed to be historically accurate. You can’t believe that these things happened in our century! As it ended with Trujillo and prior to that from the time that Columbus discovered the little island and named it after Spain, because it reminded him of Spain—when the Spaniards landed the first thing that they did they slaughtered the Indians. But not just killed them, tortured them. Then it goes from there to when the French came, and what they did and how they brought in the slaves and what they did to the slaves. Then it goes on…it’s only a short article, but in that crowded article, the horror! You can’t believe you are dealing with people that God loved. One fellow got in there, called Trujillo, and in a short little interval of time he left behind him, when they shot him—had the presence of mind to do that to him—he left 800 million dollars. A little island, not three million people live on it, and he left—and he was “the great benefactor”—$800 million is what he gathered from looting these people and the torture chambers that he erected for them.277 ¶43

Well, now forgive him, because God hasn’t yet smiled upon him. When God smiles upon him and calls him, he will go through all the furnaces of affliction, but he will come out just like his Father who is the embodiment of love.277 ¶44

So I know from experience, God is love. If a man as bright as Huxley could not find him searching through the world, all well and good. He was a humanist, a kind man. I have no doubt in my mind he is loved by God, but for the moment lost in this human sphere and trying to unravel all the structure of God’s outer world, so he has no time for higher things. When he has time for higher things, the day will come, he too will be taken in Spirit into the presence of the risen Christ. Then he stands in the presence of the risen Christ with only one emotion permeating him, which is infinite love. And then when he’s embraced by him because he will answer correctly, too, and becomes incorporated into the body of Christ, one with that body forever and forever. As we are told in scripture, he will transform our lowly body to be one form with his glorious body . And we will not see it happen, not through mortal eye; and the one who has been incorporated into that body does not know the glory that is his body while he’s still veiled in flesh.277 ¶45

So I say to you tonight, test God. Test the law of God. If you want a home, if you want a job, maybe you want a better job, more money, I don’t care what you want, wear it as she wore the house. She occupied it, she was on the inside, she had coffee with her client, and looked through the window and saw this wonderful garden patio, saw this beautiful living room. Then, she didn’t seek it, the phone rang and her very client is asking her to investigate an unknown district, a district she had never seen before. The one who had the listing, she didn’t know the man. So she went and became transfixed when she entered the hallway and saw to her right the living room that was the biggest and most beautiful one she had ever seen; and to her left this wonderful formal dining room with a view of a garden patio. Then it was the price they could pay. They paid it, they bought it, they are living in it, and they are blissfully happy. At least, that’s her letter to me. I do not know the lady. She said she came here five times and read four of my books, over and over, and then one night began to apply it, after being turned down by her clients after showing them home after home. So having applied it for six consecutive nights, then she found it without seeking it.277 ¶46

Tonight you try it. I promise you that if you do, you will be a witness to the truth of the law of God. And in time, you will be a witness to the truth of God’s Promise as played and experienced in scripture, recorded for us in the life of Jesus Christ. Now let us go _.277 ¶47

Are there any questions?277 ¶48

Tonight’s subject is “Inner Talking.” And may I tell you, if you really believe it to the point that you really apply it, nothing is impossible. If you really believe it to the degree that you are moved to really try it. Costs you nothing; all it costs you is simply a little time. But you must be diligent and really watch to see what you’re doing on the inside. Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians, “Put off the former conversations which are corrupt”—-he calls it “the old man”—“and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Now he tells us, “Put on the new man, which is created in righteousness” . Righteousness is right thinking—always in the direction of your fulfilled desire, that’s right thinking. He tells us “You did not receive this that you are now doing”—speaking of the old man—“of Christ. You did not so learn Christ!” . That’s his word. Can you conceive that you learned Christ? Yes, you learned about Christ as you do about mathematics, as you do about music, as you do about anything in this world. You have to learn about Christ. And the entire Christian world, by confining themselves to the human biography of Jesus, has robbed themselves of the knowledge of Christ. They don’t know who Christ is. Because they think if I know and believe implicitly that a man was born supernaturally, and then he lived on this earth, and then he had the most horrible death, and then he rose, if I accept that story, that is Christ. There is so much more to Christ. So Christ, tonight, we will discuss as this inner talking.272 ¶1

First of all he tells us, And those who reproached thee fell on me…“The reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me” . Here is a principle. Like any principle in this world it’s impersonal. “In Christ there is no Jew, there is no Greek, there is no free, there is no slave, there is no male, there is no female; all are one in Christ” . So, in Christ, one, no division. And everything that man has ever done to you, or you to man, fell on me. Well, who am I then?—the one on whom all of these things fall, your own wonderful human Imagination. So Blake cried out, “What have I said? What have I done? O these immortal words, these all-powerful Human Words!” So I sit, and I think no one sees me, no one hears me; I’m all alone. I can just feel sorry for myself and go to the backyard and eat worms. And so I sit down and I feel very, very sorry for myself; I carry on these inner conversations feeling horrible. And then he comes to the conclusion, “What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful Human Words!” If man would only understand that it is falling upon himself, all that he’s doing. And that being is Jesus Christ. There is nothing in this world but God, and God became man that man may become God. And in becoming man, he is one with human Imagination. That is God!272 ¶2

Now, I can sit quietly and carry on the most heavenly conversation, and I know it will come to pass. No power in the world will stop it if I’m faithful to it.272 ¶3

Now, let me share with you a simple story that came in this morning’s mail. He is here tonight. He said, “I called on a customer down in the beach area, and during the conversation something came up about Imagination. I became all excited and told him what I knew of Imagination. Well, he said to me, ‘You seem so enthused, so completely carried away, would you address my club? It’s called the Unity Men’s Club.’ He said, Well, certainly! Right away he set the date. This was last month, only a month ago. My friend then went home after he heard this invitation. The man said to him, ‘We get eighteen, twenty people at a time, but what I will do is this, I will have a ladies’ night. So we’ll have a ladies’ night, and they will bring their friends. So we’ll try to get as many as possible. For it doesn’t hold too many, said he, it holds maximum sixty-five.’”272 ¶4

So my friend simply imagined that it held almost capacity or capacity. He did it three times, said he in his letter to me…“three times I controlled my Imagination where I heard people congratulate me for what I had said. I heard them all say how they liked it, how they would apply it, and try to apply it…and all these things in my Imagination, an inner conversation with self. “On the day that I gave my talk, there were sixty-four people present, one less than capacity. At the end of the meeting I was congratulated left and right. One lady said she represented the Norwegian Club, would I speak for her, which I accepted. That I have done; that came the early part of this month. One from the Kiwanis Club, one from another club, and many of the ladies thought I was a member of the cloth, because they said they had never heard any minister so liberal in his interpretation of scripture.”272 ¶5

Well, he said, one thing I do know today, this nail is driven in more deeply than ever before in my own inner conviction of the truth of what you talk about.272 ¶6

I said to him tonight as he came back to see me, take a goal this year. If you have a goal—I do not know his goal—I said, if you have a goal and it’s dollars and cents, whatever you have made this year, make it ten times, make it twenty times what you made. Now you know it’s all inner talking anyway. What does it matter what others make, what they have made? Make it! You’ll be no better off because you made it. You may be no nearer the goal of awakening as God himself, but you’re living in the world of Caesar, and you’ve discovered now how you do it. Put off the former conversations that belong to the old man for that is corrupt; and put on the new man, and he’s created in righteousness, he’s created in the right use of thinking.272 ¶7

So if every day you catch yourself doing what you should not do, come right back. Don’t criticize yourself, don’t condemn yourself. Just simply take your wonderful Imagination, bring it back to the goal, and simply carry on these inner conversations from premises of fulfilled desire. So you will not have to be stunned and say as Blake said in his 24th Plate, “What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful human words” . Man has no idea what he is doing morning, noon and night with his inner conversations, and no power in the world can stop you from reaching your fulfilled desire if you are consistent with these inner conversations. That’s what you and I are moving towards.272 ¶8

So here, these inner conversations…take the story of my friend Freedom Barry. He told all of his friends in June what he wanted for Christmas. He’s passionately fond of music and he wanted the interpretation of Tristan and Isolde as given by Flagstad. He wanted it above all things. Christmas came. He had many records, but he didn’t have that. They all told him they had tried all over this area, but they couldn’t get it.272 ¶9

So after Christmas was over and there was no record of Flagstad, no Tristan and Isolde, he then got into a moment of silence and carried on an inner conversation between himself and the salesman. He asked for his record and the salesman said, “Yes we have it, sir.” When the whole thing was real to him, it took on the tones of reality, all natural. Then physically he made a trip to the store and he asked for it. The man said, “We do not have it, sir.” And mentally he said to the man, “That’s not what I heard you say.” He put beyond what he heard with the outward ear what he had heard with the inward ear. That must take precedence over the outward ear; the outward ear must confirm what he heard inwardly. He said, “That’s not what I heard you say.”272 ¶10

As he was about to leave the store, he noticed a record, like a sleeve, these empty sleeves just advertising a record, and it was Tristan and Isolde as interpreted by Flagstad. He said to the salesman, “You shouldn’t advertise merchandise that you do not have.” The salesman said, “You’re right, sir” and reached up right there and then to take it off to find it was not an empty sleeve, it was the complete album of Tristan and Isolde. It had been there for over eight months, and in that interval dozens, maybe a hundred people who wanted that record asked for it; and thinking that to be an empty sleeve advertising the record, he said nothing about it. He was prompted to say you shouldn’t advertise merchandise you do not carry in stock, and the man agreed with him and lifted it off the top to find it was not empty—-here was Tristan and Isolde as interpreted by Flagstad. He would not take no for an answer.272 ¶11

In yesterday morning’s Times, L.A.Times, there was an interview with the Prime Minister of England Wilson, and the reporter asked him what was his reaction when the head of China and the head of North Vietnam said no to his request to let his Foreign Minister, who was a roving minister, Walker, visit them concerning bringing this thing in Vietnam to an end. They said no, they would not accept him. So the reporter said to the Prime Minister, “What do you say to that?” And his reply thrilled me: “You never accept no on my job.” You never accept no on my job.272 ¶12

So you go and you ask and they say no. You don’t take no! So the salesman said no we do not have it. He didn’t take no for an answer. The hundreds who went through looking for that record couldn’t see it. If they saw it, it was only an empty sleeve. But he was prompted to say don’t advertise merchandise you don’t carry, so he naturally agreed with him and took it off to find it wasn’t empty. Here was the record waiting for him for over eight months. His friends couldn’t find it. They took the word of the salesman, “We do not have it.”272 ¶13

I say to you, start these inner conversations. You will notice, because we are all creatures of habit, you have a habit to overcome. In the course of a day you’ll find yourself thinking negatively a thousand times, and you will carry on arguments with a thousand people from premises of unfulfilled desire. Don’t try to justify it. The average mind, not knowing this, and knowing this story, will say, “Well, let me finish it first, let me finish my negative conversation first, and then I’ll do it. I want to tell him off.” So we bring before our mind’s eye someone and we carry on this negative conversation. We become aware of what we’re doing, but it’s so pleasant from a negative point of view we want to finish it. So we carry on the negative state and finish it before we’ll turn to the positive. Don’t waste your precious time! The minute you become aware that you’re carrying on these negative conversations, stop it, and come back without any conversation with self, no condemnation of self, no justification of what you did, don’t do it, and come back to the new man. Put off the old man which he said is corrupt, and the old man is tied to conversations. Put off the former conversations, the old man which is corrupt; put on the new man, which is created in righteousness. Well, if the old man is tied to my former conversations, the new man must be tied to my future conversations. Well, start it right now. This whole thing is all within us.272 ¶14

Now, Hermes, in his great Hermetica, written just about the time that our story of Christ is being gathered together—some people say it’s fifty years B.C., some claim it’s fifty years A.D.—but it’s within the same time that the great evangelists were gathering together the story of Christ, this fantastic story of the world. And he said, “There are two gifts that God has bestowed upon man alone and on no other creature, no other mortal creature.” He names the gifts as “mind and speech.” And he tells us that these gifts, mind and speech, if used rightly will make the user of this no different from the immortals; and when he quits the body, mind and speech will be his guides, and mind and speech will take him into the company of the gods and the souls that have attained to bliss. For if what my friend told me tonight in his letter and confirmed it verbally just a few minutes ago is true—and I know from my own experience it is true—-what power in this world can stop me from reaching my goal if I use rightly mind and speech?272 ¶15

The same Hermes tells us that speech is the image of mind, and mind is the image of God. Well, if speech is the image of my mind and my mind mirrored in speech is the image of God, then I know God. I know what he’s doing within me. But who is doing it? I am doing it; therefore, he and I are one. So he tells us, that which is manifested or that which is is manifested. That which has been or shall be is unmanifested but is not dead, for, so the eternal activity of God animates all things. So that which has been or that which shall be is not dead, it’s not now manifested. But I know now how to manifest it. It is not now manifested, but I can manifest it. For if speech mirrors my mind and my mind mirrors God and soul, which is my own Imagination (for that’s the only soul I can think of; for I have proved it by experience) it animates things that seemingly are not so. For soul, the eternal animation of God, the eternal reality of God animates all things.272 ¶16

So I will think of you and hear you tell me the most exciting news in the world concerning yourself, sit quietly and listen just as though I heard. Well, who is listening? I am listening. Well then, I am animating what I’m hearing. If I listen as though I heard and remain faithful to what I have heard, and this principle is true, then there’s no power in the world that can stop it from coming to pass. It doesn’t matter whether you are good in the eyes of the world or evil in the eyes of the world. This is a principle. If I’m going to confine my knowledge of Christianity simply to the biography, human biography of Jesus, I’m going to rob myself of the reality of Christ. Christ is all encompassing, he’s everything. To say I believe in Christ and then go to church on Sunday or go to church like today…millions went to church today for these three hours. What did they hear? They heard the story of Jesus, a story as recorded in the gospels. He was born in a strange way, lived a normal life, accused, well, wrongfully, and paid the extreme price, and then rose from the dead…which will take place this coming Sunday in the eyes of Christendom. But have they been told of the power of Christ? Have they been told that Christ is the creative power and wisdom of God? No they haven’t told that at all. They see a little man who sacrificed himself 2,000 years ago, a man who gave himself for us. Certainly he gave himself for me; he became me, he became you. He is buried in you right now as your own wonderful human Imagination. I must now test it. My friend tonight having tested this, he knows tonight from experience who Christ is. For Christ does all things: “By him all things were made; without him there is nothing made that is made” .272 ¶17

If he actually stood still and carried on a conversation where about eighteen people are present…but he has a lovely attendance and he’s telling them to the point where they congratulate him and they ask him to speak at other clubs, and then in one month to receive an invitation from four different clubs to speak. No one met him before, just the one person who was a customer. And here, tonight he knows exactly how he went about it. He said, “The whole thing was prompted by a thought that you expressed just about a month ago. You said to those who were present, ‘Go out and tell the story of Jesus Christ. Tell Jesus Christ as your own wonderful human Imagination and, therefore, imagining creates reality.’” Well, he said, “I went out charged with that thought. Well then, the opportunity arose in a matter of days. Called on a customer and we got talking when suddenly I used the word Imagination and he used the word Imagination, and I began to explain it to him, when the invitation came to speak to his Unity Men’s Club. Well, I didn’t plan it that way. I simply went out charged with what you said, ‘Go out and tell the story of Christ.’”272 ¶18

I was told to tell the story of Christ. Well, certainly, the story as recoded in the gospel, that’s true. It will all unfold in you; every bit will unfold in you.272 ¶19

But long before the whole story, the drama unfolds in you, use the power of Christ. If you really want to transcend your present financial status, you can do it. Your status in this world, no matter what it is, you can do it. You can do it by controlling your own wonderful human Imagination as you control it in words, for we are talking animals as it were. You can’t stop talking. You get up in the morning, before you even see anyone that is conscious you’re talking to yourself, aren’t you? In your dreams you’re talking to yourself and all through the day you’re talking to yourself.272 ¶20

And may I tell you, as one who takes this platform twice a week and who will answer letters brought in and all these things, devoting my entire life to it, in this strange and wonderful world of ours I have to arrest my inner talking every moment of time. So let that encourage you. Every moment of time I find myself, inwardly, from a letter received where there was no gratitude whatsoever—nothing but complaints, even though a dozen things worked beautifully—-and then your reaction is, So what! And you have to stop it right away. As you become aware of what you’re doing, you’ve got to stop it and get back on the beam of positive thinking. Therefore, if I, a teacher, can confess to you that every day I become aware of negative inner talking and must arrest it, then my heart goes out to everyone who is not doing the professional job of it, because what must they be doing in the course of a day!272 ¶21

But nothing in this world comes into being unassisted by these inner conversations. We’re told in the Book of Isaiah, “My word shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.” . Every word…so that’s positive thinking now…every word will accomplish that which I please. Not one word can return void if I do it in that manner. For you can spend…if you think in the course of a day you waste your time, spend five minutes in constructive inner conversations. It will overcome so much of the negative! Spend five minutes, sit down quietly with yourself and carry on these wonderful inner conversations from fulfilled desire. May I tell you, no power in the world can stop it from coming to fulfillment; it must accomplish that which I please. So you are being pleased with this inner mood, and you do it.272 ¶22

So if I take this story of the word of God…alright, the word is my inner speech. Life, said Hermes, is the union of mind and words; that is life. So I make something become alive; I call a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen. How do I call it? I call it by my inner conversations. So I sit quietly and carry on an inner conversation from premises of fulfilled desire, and all of a sudden, the unseen becomes seen. For as Hermes said, “That which is is manifest, that which has been or shall be is not manifested, but the Soul which is the eternal activity of God animates all things.” For, the Soul is my Imagination that I do know. I don’t divide them. When I speak of the Soul of man, I’m speaking of your own wonderful human Imagination, and that’s Jesus Christ, that’s the creative power of the universe. So I will take something that is not seen as though it were seen, carry on a conversation from the premise of fulfilled desire, and bring it into the world.272 ¶23

May I tell you, men will not even be aware of it, but everyone who has succeeded they’ve done it. There are men today so completely geared to making money that they don’t think of anything else, so all their inner conversations are from premises of successful ventures in the making of money. I’m not saying you want money, I’m not saying that you are satisfied with what you have, I’m not saying that. I am just telling the whole vast world, whatever is the thing you desire in this world there is an inner conversation that if true would imply that you’ve realized it, and you carry on these inner conversations. Let no one tell you that anyone can stop you. They can’t stop you. Someone this very night in a dungeon may be actually setting in motion tomorrow’s conflict. They carry on a conversation within themselves from some horrible premise based upon a feeling of being abused or being ill-treated or being taken advantage of. There they are and they’re carrying it and no one can stop it. They can’t stop it! But you and I knowing this let them alone, because you can’t stop them anyway, leave them and let them be exactly as they are. But you and I can start our own positive conversations and in some way modify it in our life. If we don’t live in this manner, we’re going to fall victim to what they’re doing. I tell you from my own personal experience.272 ¶24

So these inner conversations are part of the mystery of Christ. To go out of here tonight and say, I believe in Christ, I believe he was born as the churches teach and the gospel implies, and I believe that being a Christian, eventually because I believe in him, I’ll be saved…all that’s wonderful, perfectly marvelous…but if that’s all that I believe, I will live a horrible life here, because I don’t know the real mystery of Christ. To believe only in that human biography is not enough.272 ¶25

Listen to these words…how true they are, how simple they are—you learn Christ—“You did not so learn Christ.” Can you imagine that? Read it in the 4th chapter, the 20th verse of the Book of Ephesians. You did not so learn Christ, for they carried on as they were. They believed the story of Christ. But that was not all. That’s all that they believe and he tells them, “You did not so learn Christ. Take off the old man. Take off the old clothing.”272 ¶26

And now he extends it to a change of character. For these verbs “to put off” and “put on” this really means simply a change of clothing. Well, he extends it to the significance of a change of character. I change my character by changing my inner conversations. How long will it take? Wouldn’t take long…if I’m consistent, it should not take long. If I did it for a whole day…someone said if you did it for three minutes you would change your entire world, well, maybe you would. I will say if you did it for a day, become completely aware of what you’re saying inwardly and change it to conform to the wish fulfilled for a day, I do not know any power in this world that could uproot that tree from bearing exactly what you want. You couldn’t, really.272 ¶27

So this is the inner speech, the inner conversation that the Bible tries to tell us to put into practice. “My word shall not return unto me void, but it must accomplish that which I please.” Every word! Well, what do I please? Well, for you, I can take you in my mind’s eye and hear good words for you, just as though you were telling me what I am listening to. I listen to it as though I heard it coming from without when really I’m whispering the whole thing from within myself. If I do it and believe in the reality of it, it must produce in me a certain emotion. For, if a thought is only a thought and doesn’t produce some motor element, it doesn’t work.272 ¶28

Now, what would be a motor element? A laugh, a tear would be a motor element; it must become emotional…as Peter, in the end, “And Peter wept.” The story that he heard he believed it, but it didn’t quite reach the point of emotion. In the end Peter wept…it became emotional within him. And so, if I could sit quietly and listen carefully, just as though I heard exactly what I want to hear and it produced in me a smile, that’s a motor element. So that an idea that is only an idea produces nothing and does nothing. It is only effective if it produces in me, the one who is listening, a motor element. So you sit down and you can’t stop it, you feel like laughing on the inside, you feel a smile coming over you because you like what you’re hearing, and it produces that motor element…and then it’s done. So we are the one who heard the story and accepted it but didn’t put it in to practice.272 ¶29

So we are told, “Test yourself. Do you not believe that Jesus Christ is in you?—-unless of course you fail to meet the test!” I trust you will discover we have not failed to meet the test. These are his words in the end of the 2nd chapter, or the 2nd Book of Corinthians, the 13th chapter . We’re called upon to test ourselves and see if we are meeting the test.272 ¶30

Well, so I sit quietly and test myself. I think of a friend, think of someone, and then listen just as though they’re present physically and tell me the most exciting news in the world until they produce in me the emotion of joy. When I feel I can laugh and rejoice with them and have the most wonderful view of them and a certain empathy on this rejoicing with them, well then, it’s done! I don’t have to really do anything beyond that if this thing is true. Well, I tell you it is true. So I call upon everyone here this night to test it.272 ¶31

And may I tell you, my friend who never spoke in public before, to do it and in one month he [...] challenge: go out and tell the whole vast world that you meet of the reality of your own wonderful human Imagination. When the man said to him, “What will you title your subject?” he said, “Inner Speech.” That was the title he gave to his talk when he spoke to this gathering of sixty-four, “Inner Speech.” Then the one who invited him to the Kiwanis Club, which he hasn’t yet faced, they requested something similar to that because that would really fire them. And what the Norwegian Club requested I don’t know, but that’s already behind him, he’s done that.272 ¶32

But you can’t go beyond simply Christ, you can’t get outside of Christ…but Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s all that Christ is. He actually became us that we may become God. He’s sunk in us, so when you wake in the morning and you begin to imagine, that’s God in action. And so, you carry on any conversation, good, bad or indifferent.272 ¶33

Listen to the words, and this is the 15th chapter of Romans. It’s a quote from the 69th Psalm, but they don’t quote it accurately, but the meaning’s there. The new translation uses a word “reproach”: “The reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me.” Well, the 69th Psalm, the 9th verse, gives the same sense, but they use the word “insult”: “The insults of those who insulted thee have fallen on me,” same thing. So if I’m reproached, it can’t fall on someone else. The one who is reproaching me, he’s exercising Christ, and when he reproaches me it’s falling on Christ, it can’t fall on another. There is only Christ in the world. So your own wonderful human Imagination in exercise, good, bad or indifferent, that’s Christ in action. So you don’t think well of me…so, those who reproach me are reproaching Christ. Are you embarrassed? I am not embarrassed, for I know it tonight more than ever before how true that statement is!272 ¶34

So before I became awake, long before I rose from the dead to find myself resurrected, then to find myself born from above, long before that I was still the same being who afterwards woke. When I woke, I was not other than the being who was asleep. When I was born from above, I was not other than the being who was not born from above. When I ascended as the serpent in the wilderness, I was not other than the one who had not yet ascended. When the dove descended and smothered me in affection, I was not then other than the one who had not yet been smothered with affection. So these words are true in that 15th chapter of Romans, “And the reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me.”272 ¶35

So he bears—like the 53rd chapter of Isaiah—he bears all the stripes of man; everything in this world that is happening to man is happening to Christ. There is only Christ. So when I use my Imagination unlovingly on behalf of another, I am actually reproaching Christ because the other, the reality of that other, is Christ. When he thinks well of me, he is exercising Christ in a real and wonderful way, in a loving way towards the Christ in me. So there’s only Christ.272 ¶36

So tonight, the easiest way out of the maze is to control your own wonderful inner conversations. You can start right now.272 ¶37

But, again, let me repeat that it may comfort you, I have been teaching now since 1938, the 2nd day of February of 1938 across this country, as I am to you—small audiences, large audiences, vast audiences on radio where you could not number them where twenty-six states were tuned in, on TV where you go and maybe half a million people tune in on Sunday afternoon—and after all these years, 1938 to now, I still find myself in need of constant watchfulness. So I, a professional teaching others what to do, find myself in need every moment of time of watching what I inwardly say to bring myself back to the wish fulfilled. Then don’t condemn yourself, just don’t spend one split second in justifying failure. Come right back to what you want and not dwell on what you don’t want. Do it and finally it will become a habit; but after all these years it has not yet been so much a habit in my own life that I don’t have to constantly watch. So everyone is watching and watching…or they should watch and watch.272 ¶38

But again, the lovely thing is this, if I who can confess failure in my watchfulness could still be singled out to be raised from the dead, and to be numbered among the elect, to be born from above, to discover David is my son, and all the other lovely things, how infinitely merciful is God! He is not looking for that nth degree of perfection or no one would ever attain it. In fact, I am convinced that fitness is the consequence of grace and not the condition of grace. When he gave me himself, he fitted me, not because I earned it at all, so that, really, fitness for the kingdom is simply the consequence of his grace and not the condition of his grace.272 ¶39

Now let us go into the Silence.272 ¶40

The lady here first…272 ¶49

Tonight’s subject is “The Bible is the Word of God.” And we are warned not to change it, not to add to it, not to take from it, just leave it as it is; it will prove itself in time that it’s for our instruction. So we open the Bible…say it fell upon the 4th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, and you and I read these words, “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” . As we are seated here tonight and as I am standing here tonight, we are carrying always in our bodies the death of Jesus; and the reason behind it all is that we may also carry the life of Jesus in our bodies that it may all be manifested in us. Well, we read this and we wonder, what is it all about?269 ¶1

Then, the death of Jesus must be a creative act and that we are going to share this creativity with him. So then Blake makes the statement, “Unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me.” So actually we are carrying in our bodies the death of Jesus, and the purpose behind it all is that he will awaken in us and we will share with him the life of Jesus. Well, let us look at it through different eyes tonight.269 ¶2

I say Jesus Christ is a wholly supernatural being. Everything said of him, everything written about him, everything about him, everything he is supposed to have uttered, everything that he is supposed to have experienced, everything is experienced supernaturally. His birth, his resurrection, his death, his discovery of himself as God the Father, his ascension into heaven, the seal of the Holy Spirit upon him, his walking on the water, his feeding of the thousands, the curing of unnumbered people of all kinds of disease—the blind, the lame, the halt, the withered—-everything recorded of him is experienced supernaturally, but experienced in these bodies where we carry his death. So always in these bodies we carry the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in these bodies. You and I are born normally in this world, born of normal parents, where a man knew a woman, and the result was a child; and you are that child, grown now to manhood, womanhood. This is how the story starts. And here, in us, this normal being, is a being that is a supernatural being.269 ¶3

Now does the Bible throw any light upon it? The seed plot of the entire Bible is Genesis, and Genesis begins, “In the beginning God…” and it ends “…in a coffin in Egypt” . So God is in a coffin. Am I that coffin? For, if I am carrying in my body the death of Jesus, I must be that coffin spoken of in Genesis. Now, we are told it’s a sarcophagus; it’s a limestone coffin that is supposed to consume the flesh, and turn it into dust. So God is put into this coffin that consumes him and turns him into dust. And the great miracle: Though turned into dust, he shall rise and I with him, that I am the coffin in which he is buried.269 ¶4

Now, let us turn to the 6th chapter of John, which we may almost give a name to it and call it the chapter of cession. For in this chapter they couldn’t understand him, and we are told the disciples left him, never to walk with him again, and only the twelve remained. He said to them, “Would you also go?” Peter became the spokesman and Peter said, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” . What a progression! We have believed it…that was simply a venture in faith. The most fantastic story in the world was told and they believed it, and believing it, after a while they came to know it from experience, no more faith. Faith was turned into knowledge, knowledge based upon something that was solid, solid facts of personal experience. They knew and knew then that he was the Holy One of God.269 ¶5

But who is he? If he’s buried in me, I have to find him in me. He has to rise in me and rise as my very being, and I know myself as the Holy One of God, it can’t be another. For, if always I carry in my body the death of Jesus, and I do this for a purpose, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in my body, well then, he has to awaken in me all that he foretold. Though it seemed the most impossible thing in this world, I must know it from experience. So, I became one of those who believed it. I hope everyone here became one of those who believed it. It’s the most impossible story in the world. The story is this in essence: It’s God’s purpose to give himself to you, individually, as though there were no other in the world, just God and you. Believe this and this most impossible story not only becomes believable but possible. And it takes the Son to reveal to you how it really is.269 ¶6

Now everything told in this story is true, but it’s not as it’s taught from the pulpits of the world. It is true supernaturally. Now, it is not recorded in our gospels in chronological order. Some scholars believe that maybe the parchments before they were copied were dislocated, either dropped and put together, and the one who copied them did not correct it, and copied them as they were presented, because they are not in the same chronological order in the four gospels. But I can give you the chronological order if it’s the same chronological order for all of us, and I do not see why it shouldn’t be. Because a little child forming itself in the womb of woman—I am not a biologist, I am not a scientist, I know nothing of the growth of the embryo—but I dare say it follows an identical pattern. Do the hands come before the feet? I don’t know. Do the feet come before the hands? I don’t know. Do they come together? What portions appear? I’m quite sure our scientists throughout the years studying this growth of the embryo would know if they saw one exactly at what moment in time of the nine months it is. They should know. If I gave them, say, the month growth or the five- month growth or the seven-month growth, they should know looking at it just how far along it is in that process of nine months. They should know. Now, if this thing is the growth of Christ in me—-for I’m carrying his death in me that I may have manifested in my body his life—-well, these things that happen in scripture as they’re recorded, they should have a definite pattern, so that certain things should come first and other things should follow [...].269 ¶7

But I can tell you, in this 6th chapter, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you have no life in you; but if you eat my body and drink my blood you have eternal life, and I will raise you up at the last day”. Well, if he’s buried in me and I am the limestone coffin spoken of in scripture that consumes the flesh, I must eat his flesh that’s buried in me. I am his coffin. As I absorb him and feast upon his ideas and feast upon the very being himself, then he becomes alive in me. This is the great mystery, the meaning of life through death. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit”…the mystery of life through death. So his death was not some willful self-mutilation but a creative act in which I share. He buried himself in me and I am the limestone coffin that consumes him. As I consume him and turn him into dust, this infinite power rises in me…and I am he. And we rise together.269 ¶8

Now, in this 6th chapter he tells the story of feeding five thousand; he said, “Have them all sit down.” He tells the story of walking on the water; he said, “Be not afraid, it is I.” Well, chronologically speaking I can tell you when it took place in my case, for back in 1948 I walked upon the water…but it was a supernatural act. I had no knowledge of this. I went to a party and strangely enough it was a party given by a very prominent New York judge in East Hampton, Long Island. At this party—-a huge crowd came—-he was introducing—-he should not have because it was already introduced, oh, many years before—-but he was introducing Bacardi rum. He had a huge buffet and everything was, naturally, on the judge, and so, we had a delightful evening, and I went home. And that night, sleeping at my friend’s home, because I was a household guest for five days at my friend [...], who is now gone from this level, that night I found myself on the water. It wasn’t frozen…water just like the water in your bathtub…and suddenly out of the nowhere came a goose, a huge goose the size of a swan; but it was not a swan, it was a goose. I took out from nowhere a very, very thin silver chain and slipped it over its head, and I held the chain. This goose took off and became my power and pulled me all over this fabulous area of water. I didn’t guide it, I simply remained standing perfectly still while this thing moved me all over the water, and I’m perfectly still and on the surface of the water. So here, I know the act is a supernatural act. Now, what is the silver chain? If you read the 3rd chapter of the Song of Songs, when Solomon made himself this wonderful setup, this chariot, and he used silver and he used gold and he used purple. Silver in all of the language of symbolism is simply knowledge. So in this statement in the 6th chapter of John, “We believe and we have come to know…” so that was the night of knowing of the truth of this statement of walking on the water. Here, I took this and slipped it over the head of a goose and the goose in symbolism is the symbol of the Holy Ghost, that’s what the goose is. So here, I know from experience that everything said in this is supernatural.269 ¶9

In 1945, two years before, coming through the Caribbean Sea, I felt myself lifted up and here an infinite crowd. Well, the Bible tells me 5,000. It seemed bigger than that to me, but we’ll say 5,000…but they were all seated, just as the Bible tells me, they were seated. Now, did I break bread and fish to give them? No, I did nothing. But you’re told in scripture he fed them to their fill, and then took up twelve baskets after he fed them to their fill. How would I feed the blind, the lame, the halt, the dumb, the deaf, how would I? What kind of food would I put before them that would really satisfy them? Well, we read now the 35th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “And then the blind and those who have no eyes shall see; and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; and the lame shall leap like hart; and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for joy”. What food would I give the blind but to feast upon sight, that he’s never seen so perfectly in his life? What food would I give the deaf but to unstop his ears so he can hear sounds beyond the wildest dream of man? What would I give to the lame but to let him leap like the hart? And so, I feed them all with everything that they want. They don’t come to a table where they all feed on the same food; they feed on their heart’s desire, and they feed to their fill, so that there’s no unsatisfied desire to frustrate the believer. When I go by everyone is made perfect, and this heavenly chorus sings out, “It is finished!”269 ¶10

I could take this and if the same chronological order holds good for the birth of the spiritual man that undoubtedly holds good for the physical man, then the story as recorded in scripture is not chronologically correct. No criticism, I do not say for one moment they attempted to write it in chronological order. They were simply recording the visions, and they did it as they thought best. But my memory is very vivid, I recall the day in summer of ’48 when this happened in Long Island in East Hampton. I recall the late spring, coming through the Caribbean, of ’46 when the feast took place. It was the Messianic feast, because in the 14th chapter of the Book of Luke when he gives his feast and invites all of the prominent people and they all give an excuse. One bought five yoke of oxen; he had to go and examine them. One bought a piece of land and he had to go and examine it; asked to be excused. One got married and said he couldn’t come because he was married. So he said, “Go into the highways and the hedges and bring everyone, the poor, the lame, the halt, the withered, bring them all,” for they come to Messiah’s feast.269 ¶11

So all these experiences… As we are told, “I carry in my body the death of Jesus, so that I may actually experience in my body the life of Jesus.” So I read the story of Jesus and these things he is supposed to have experienced and these things are told about him, and suddenly these things I am experiencing. And therefore I know the truth of scripture, this 4th chapter, the 10th verse, of 2nd Corinthians, “I am carrying his death in my body.” But this mysterious death was a creative act, not some strange thing where he was murdered on a tree, or murdered on some cross of wood. This is his cross on which he is buried, he’s crucified here. And in this limestone coffin he was placed and he’s becoming alive based upon the experiences of scripture. For as I experience these things supernaturally, I know he is a supernatural being. As he rises in me, he is rising into an entirely different world, a supernatural world, where everything becomes subject to my imaginative power. So I must go through the entire story of him and see how these things unfold in me. I have tried to relate them chronologically and they do not fit with my experience. My experience differs chronologically. My experiences do not differ from the stories of scripture, only as to how they happen and where they happen.269 ¶12

Now, there’s no mention of the goose in scripture, but I know from my own case how I slipped it over its head, and this wonderful, beautiful goose pulled me—-that was propellant power—-and pulled me all over this fabulous body of water. I’m standing erect holding a thin, thin little chain. It was so thin a lady could wear it around her neck as an ornament, it was so thin. For many a lady wears a far thicker chain than that which I held in my hand. I simply slipped it as a noose over the head and I held it, and it took off and there I am standing perfectly still being pulled all over. It was not ice, it was not a frozen lake, it was water. So I know everything said of him is supernatural. Jesus Christ is wholly supernatural, belongs to an entirely different world, but buries himself in these coffins.269 ¶13

And having gone through the hell which is hell, for this is hell. Life on earth is hell. The horrors that we pass through, these are the fires of affliction. Don’t think of any other greater hell than hell on earth, this is it! Where a man is poor and unwanted because of his poverty, where a man is dispossessed because he can’t pay his rent; where he can’t find a piece of bread and he’s embarrassed to beg and he cannot steal, he will not steal and slowly starves, isn’t that hell? All the things that happen to man in this world, this is the hell of hells. Blake saw it so clearly when he said: “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 achieve perfection. You follow this course, you take this path, and it will reveal to you this ever increasing beauty of the world”. And in the very end you also will know why you are put through this entire purpose. In harmony with scripture: “I have 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”.269 ¶14

Now, in this same chapter, the 6th chapter of John, which seems to be the mood of the night, he tells them of being lifted up. He uses many examples of it and he goes into, all in John, in other portions of John. So what I did, I took the 3rd of John, where it first begins the theme of being lifted up: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up”. When you have lifted me up—-so he identifies himself with the Son of man—-then you will know that I am he. So here, he equates himself with the Son of man. Now he goes on. And when this Son of man is lifted up, you will know that you are he. I am the Son of man; you are the Son of man. But until this coffin eats the flesh of Jesus Christ and actually reduces it to dust, it will not spring. So everything that is taking place in your world is to reduce the Son of man, who is Jesus Christ, to dust in you. For you are the coffin, you’re the limestone coffin that consumes the flesh and turns it to dust; and from the ashes springs, like the Phoenix, this being beyond the wildest dream of man that is God.269 ¶15

And how do you know? Read the scripture and see if he’s coming alive within you. Well, if he comes alive within you—-and he will, for he cannot fail—-all the things said of Jesus Christ you begin to experience. But you don’t go out and brag about it, and take a blind man on this level and give him eyes, and take a man on this level and do something to him…don’t think these things happen. The blind are there. For when I came upon that scene, there were blind, there were deaf, there were people who had no arms, people who had no feet. They were completely, I would say, of the dregs of the world. And as I walked by, everyone who couldn’t see saw, and those who couldn’t hear, they heard, and those who couldn’t walk, they jumped. But when I came by they were all seated, everyone was seated as told in scripture, “Make them all sit down.” As I walked by, everyone was made perfect. So I know the truth of what I’m talking about. He is a supernatural being, and all the things said about him are supernaturally experienced…not here at all.269 ¶16

So they said to him, “Are you not Jesus, the son of Joseph, and your father and mother we know? How do you say that you came down from heaven?” It seemed such a stupid thing, that you of all people and in our neighborhood where we know you from the time that you were born. They knew not the scripture. They didn’t know that in the body of every child born of woman that Jesus Christ is buried…that God is actually in every child born of woman. They didn’t know that in this one they knew so well—-they knew the father well, they knew the mother well, they knew the brothers, they named the four brothers and speak of sisters, at least plural—and didn’t know that as a man walks the face of this earth suddenly that which was reduced in him to dust over a stretch of time, of which they were totally unaware, for he didn’t begin in a woman’s womb a few years before. They thought he did; they knew that garment; but they did not know the soul of that man, who had experiences that go back in time beyond the wildest dream of man. And suddenly something is happening in him, and he’s telling what is happening in him. And being a good student of scripture he goes back into the ancient scripture and shows them where it was foretold these things would happen. They laughed at him, because that’s not the kind of Messiah they were looking for. They were looking for some strange thing to come out of space and simply conquer the enemy of Israel, and become a king, an earthly king.269 ¶17

He said, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…that the flesh profiteth nothing…the Spirit makes alive”. He’s speaking only of something that’s coming alive in man that is an eternal being forever and forever, a mighty being. And it rises just like the serpent that Moses lifted up upon that rod of his, a flaming serpent. Should it surprise you to look into the mirror and see man, and then to think that something other than what you see reflected in that mirror is going to come out of you? Would it disturb you to know that your face will be human, your hands human, your feet human, but it’s not going to be that body? If you look at a caterpillar, could you ever predict the fruit which is a butterfly? Does the butterfly have any feeling towards the caterpillar which was its womb? It was its tomb and its womb, and out comes a butterfly, a painted butterfly from a caterpillar. Well, here are these forms, and these forms are giving birth to that which is buried within it. That which was buried within it, as told in scripture, is a fiery serpent. The very being that fell is the being that will rise, the fiery serpent. And you do rise just like a serpent.269 ¶18

So here, I do not know whether the chronological order is necessary or not. I only know from my own experience these things I have experienced, and therefore I know that the story is true. For I know no one goes out to the lake here and walks on the water. I know that no one suddenly becomes a serpent and moves up on some little rod like that. And yet, everything told in scripture is true, for it belongs to an entirely different world. You are a being that is not of earth. You don’t move around as slowly as we move, and the fastest motion known to man with his rockets would be like a snail compared to that. For there you are entirely different, a being where everything is subject to your creative power.269 ¶19

So the creative power buried in you which the world weeps about and calls it a tragedy, a horrible tragedy that he was crucified and it was not a tragedy at all. We share his creativity in his death. It was a deliberate act to extend his power of creation, and he took upon himself the form of man and became obedient unto death, even this death upon the cross of man.269 ¶20

So this is the story. I must give birth to Christ, you must give birth to Christ, for he dies in me. I must bring forth. Is there some scriptural passage for it? The 3rd chapter, the 16th verse of Galatians, there you read the story of the promise made to Abraham, and this promise was that he would bring forth. And Paul very cleverly noticed when he read that passage in Genesis that it was singular, it wasn’t plural; and he drew our attention to the fact that the word is “offspring” and not offsprings, referring to many—-but “to your offspring which is Christ,” these are the words. So he’s addressing you, he’s addressing me. The promise is made to you, the promise is made to me, that I must bring forth this offspring which is Christ. And may I tell you, when you bring him forth it’s not another, it’s yourself. He so completely gave himself to you there aren’t two of you any more. He tore down the wall of partition between you, and there is only one now, and you are he. So God’s purpose is completed: To give himself to you so completely that there really aren’t even two of you, you and God, just you.269 ¶21

Well, how would I know it? Only his son can prove how true it is. As I said earlier, it takes the son to reveal to me how true this promise is. So, all of a sudden, his son comes before me and he calls me “Father.” I look into the eyes of a being that I thought died thousands of years ago, that scripture tells me he’s God’s only son, and his name is David. As I look into his face and he calls me “Father,” I know he was always my son. So in that one act God revealed that he gave me himself, for he gave me his son as my son.269 ¶22

So here, when you read the scripture hereafter, let no one tell you that Jesus Christ is other than the one that became you. He became you and you are his tomb, you are his coffin; on this body he is crucified. And you will eat him—-“Eat my flesh and drink my blood”—-you’ll eat him and turn him into dust. From that dust he will rise within you as you. Then all said about him in the story of the gospels you will experience, and you will experience every one supernaturally. You come back and you wonder, How can this thing be, that I walked upon water? Yes, I did. That I walked all over? Yes, I did. That I could feed 5,000 people and feed them with such magic food that the blind would receive sight, and the deaf would hear, and the lame would leap for joy, and those who were dumb would sing praises? Yes, I did that. And then I know what kind of feast that he gave. He didn’t take five little loaves of bread and two fishes on this level and feed 5,000. In spite of our unnumbered tens of thousands of ministers who would try to in some way justify it, that couldn’t satisfy the blind, couldn’t satisfy the dumb, couldn’t satisfy those who were maimed. I sent into the highways and the hedges and brought in everything that was in need and fed them. I fed them with myself—for I did not break bread—as I walked by every one was made perfect. And when they all became perfect, that heavenly chorus that simply sang my ascent, at the very end it exulted and said, “It is finished!” The feast is over and they all were made perfect.269 ¶23

I returned to the garment…for things were not yet completed. For in that day, it was ’46, I hadn’t yet walked upon the water, and I hadn’t yet been resurrected or been born from above, nor did I find David. I had not yet found David; I knew nothing of the true fatherhood of God. I had not ascended like a serpent in the wilderness, and the dove had not yet descended. So it was unfinished business to which I returned and came back into the same coffin where in the beginning Jesus Christ laid himself down to dream. As he dreamed, he dreamed, yes, he dreamed…he’s dreaming that he’s me. And then the dream really took on and then I consumed him. I took all of his ideas and I fed upon them. Feeding upon the ideas and his teaching, everything, I ate him. As I ate him, I turned him into the very dust within me, and he rises from that dust. And now he’s risen from that dust in all the stories as recorded in scripture.269 ¶24

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *269 ¶25

When asked: “What must we do to be doing the work of God?” he answered: “Believe in him whom he has sent.” That’s all you have to do. Salvation is yours when you believe in him. There is no aristocracy of privilege, and to believe that Jesus exists means nothing. The question is: can you believe in his story? He tells us he was sent, and everyone who is sent is Jesus, the sender.265 ¶1

Those who are called from the world of death do not volunteer or choose the task. They are selected, called, incorporated into the body of the Risen Lord and sent as the sender, and can say: “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” After incorporation into his being, the individual is sent - not to tell that he has a large family, a lovely home, or lots of money, but that he has fulfilled scripture. When Jesus entered the synagogue he began to teach, and those who heard him wondered how he had such learning, since they knew he was only the carpenter’s son. They knew his mother’s name was Mary, his brothers’ James, Jose, Simon, and Judas, as well as his sisters. Here we see a large family, and a man with little or no learning teaching the scholars of the day. He tells them that he was sent - not to build a house or to tell others how to do it, but to fulfill scripture. Then, beginning with Moses and the law and all the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.265 ¶2

Not realizing that scripture was all about him, a normal man from a large family whose trade was that of a carpenter was called, incorporated into the Risen Man, and sent, knowing he was one with the one who sent him. I can’t divorce myself from the being that incorporated me into his body. He sent me to tell you that if you believe my experiences, you will also do the works that I do. If not, you will not do them, for there is no other way to salvation. Unless these mystical experiences unfold in you, you will never leave this world of death to live in the world of life. In Adam all die. In Jesus all are made alive. He made me alive, in him, and sent me to tell you of my experiences - for the need was great - and to say that if you believe me, you will experience them and be saved, as they are your departure from this world of death and your entrance into the world of life.265 ¶3

I tell you: in spite of the fact that I have an earthly father and mother, brothers, and a sister, I am no longer of this world. I am from above and you are from below. If you will believe me, you, too, will be born from above. Then you will no longer be from below, but will be an entirely different being, living in an entirely different world.265 ¶4

Now, in the 16th chapter of Acts, we read the story of a slave girl who possessed the spirit of divination and was making a lot of money for her owners as a soothsayer. And when Paul came by with his associates, she said: “These men are proclaiming the way of salvation,” and she followed them for many days. This story is followed by the imprisonment of Paul and a mighty earthquake, which awakened the jailer, who - trembling with fear - said: “What must I do to be saved?” And he was told to believe in the Lord Jesus.265 ¶5

To believe in a man? No. The Lord Jesus is only a pattern of salvation which is now encrusted with barnacles. I was called, incorporated into the body of love, and sent into the world to scrape off the barnacles by telling the path of salvation I have experienced. You may think that the few hundred or thousand people I have told would mean nothing against three billion people in the world; but I know a remnant has been prepared, and they believe. That is all that is needed. Having heard, their belief causes it to happen in them; and salvation’s story spreads once more, until those without vision organize and make a business out of it. Then it will once more grow barnacles and become a tradition, minus the spirit.265 ¶6

In 1929 I did not volunteer, but was called. I stood in the presence of Infinite Love, who incorporated me into his body. I was sent as love - the body of the Risen Lord - back to a physical garment which is fragile, to tell those who are equally fragile that God is their own wonderful human imagination. Many, knowing my biological background, my large family with its limitations, reject my words. A few, however, have accepted them, and to that remnant it will happen. So what must you do to be doing the work of God? Believe in him whom He has sent. I tell you He has sent me. You may or may not believe me, that is your privilege. But I tell you: the experience so changed me that I have walked by faith in this vision through the mire of doubt, even when it came from my intimate circle.265 ¶7

One is first called, incorporated into the body of love, and then sent. This goes on eternally until all are redeemed, for not one will be lost. Just as by Adam all die, so also by Christ shall all be made alive.265 ¶8

This Christ is a pattern of the eternal purpose of God, for there is only one way to escape this world. The pattern begins by your birth as spirit. This is followed by the discovery of the fatherhood of God. Your spiritual body will be torn from top to bottom as you ascend into heaven. And the symbol of the Holy Spirit will descend upon you to smother you with love, completing the pattern. Jesus Christ is not a man, but a pattern, which I have come to renew. To believe that Jesus Christ existed is not a belief in him, for he is the way to salvation!265 ¶9

Now, once the ship is encrusted with barnacles, one is called and sent to scrape them off by retelling the story as something that happened to him. When I told my family, they could not believe me and questioned me, saying: “Neville, you mean you do not believe in Jesus Christ?” And I replied: “I believe in him far more than you do!” “Don’t you believe that he existed?’’ ‘‘Yes, but not as a man.”265 ¶10

To believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in the pattern of salvation of which he is. If you believe in a man, you believe in Neville, and Neville means nothing. If Neville was called and incorporated into the spiritual pattern of salvation, he is sent bearing the pattern which erupts within him.265 ¶11

This pattern has erupted in me and I have told my story as I was sent to do. It is said that Jesus began his ministry when he was about thirty years of age. That doesn’t mean thirty physical years, for he was not speaking as a biological man. Thirty years after he was incorporated into the body of love, he was qualified by the eruption to tell what had happened to him. He told his visions and pointed out their fulfillment of scripture, and some believed while others - so conditioned to believe in a physical Christ - could not understand.265 ¶12

The splitting of God’s temple is told in its symbolic manner in the 14th chapter of Zechariah, as: “The Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west as one half moves north and the other half moves south leaving a very wide valley.” It is told as a metaphor, but you are its reality. Scripture is all about you, and that splitting is yourself.265 ¶13

Taken in a secular manner, David lived unnumbered years ago; but in the spirit, he will call you father. When I share my visions and their scriptural confirmation, some believe me, but the majority think I am sharing a fantasy; yet I still walk with faith through the mire of doubt as I tell my story.265 ¶14

My background is known. I have no education, no wealth or social position, yet I do know that I was chosen to be called and incorporated into the body of love and sent. Love could have called a financial or intellectual giant, or someone handsome and wonderful, judged by human standards; yet he called me in the spirit.265 ¶15

I was not initiated in the flesh, but was taken in spirit; for God is spirit, and those who worship him do so in spirit and in truth. It was a spiritual incorporation into the body of love, yet it seemed to be solidly real. As Spirit, I returned to the garment I had left on the bed.265 ¶16

It was that spiritual body which unfolded his plan of salvation. Now I know that this is the only way man can depart this world of death, and his departure begins by simply believing the story.265 ¶17

Don’t believe in Neville as a man, for he is frail and subject to all of the weaknesses of the flesh. Rather, believe in what I have experienced. I have unfolded scripture for you and shown you where my experiences were foretold. I have repeated this over and over in the hope that those who hear my words will believe them, for I have tied the gospel to its reality.265 ¶18

The Book of Acts, once part of the Book of Luke, was detached for a purpose. The story of Jesus, the pattern man, is not found in the Book of Acts. Rather, the story of the apostles is recorded there; for the apostles are sent to tell exactly how it happened in them. I do not know, however, of any part of scripture where the story is told as graphically as I have told it to you.265 ¶19

In the Old Testament, the question is asked: “Can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands pulling himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why does every face turn pale?” “To us a child is born; to us a son is given.” When a woman forms a child within herself, is that child not part of her body? And when she is in labor, does she not pull a part of her body out of herself? Primitive women did not go to a hospital. While working in the field, these women would stop for a moment and pull that which they had formed within themselves, out of themselves.265 ¶20

This is exactly what I did. I pulled myself right out of myself.265 ¶21

Five months later I fulfilled the 89th Psalm. When David stood before me, I knew I was his father, as there was no uncertainty as to this relationship. I am telling you what I have experienced. Scripture foretold these visions, which must take place before you can depart this world. What must you do to bring them about? Believe in the story I have been sent to tell; for if you do, and set your hope fully upon having these experiences, your salvation is assured.265 ¶22

Eventually everyone will believe. Rejection delays the birth, however, for it comes only after acceptance of the story told by the one who was sent.265 ¶23

I did not choose to be sent. When I fell asleep that night, I would have been the last person I would have chosen as worthy to be called into the presence of the Risen Lord. The Beatitudes tell us that only the pure in heart will see God, and I certainly did not feel myself to be pure in heart. My wife and I were separated, and my little boy was moving back and forth between us. With the conflicts which go with all these silly little things, I would never have judged myself worthy of being pure in heart.265 ¶24

But God does not see what man sees. God sees the heart. He sees the motive behind the act, never the outer picture. Was the thought brought forth in love, or to get even? Was its motive to inflict pain, or to express love? God sees the heart, and when He judges it as pure, that individual is called.265 ¶25

In 1929 I was called, and for thirty years I only taught the law. The promise was there in scripture, but I did not know it until it erupted in me thirty years later. From that moment on I could do nothing but think about it, talk about it, and share my experiences of it; for that is what I was sent to do.265 ¶26

My genealogy is known. My biological background - my father, mother, brothers, and sister, as well as my lack of education - is known; yet it is all recorded in scripture. When I shared my experiences with my family, they rejected them one hundred percent!265 ¶27

My earthly father came the closest to understanding. One day a minister was at the house, and when he could not answer my questions, or throw any light upon my visions, my father said: “Son, you must be an apostle.” My mother felt it in her womb when I was coming into this world; but she had no confirmation, as I became a dancer - and she had thought I would be a minister in the Anglican church.265 ¶28

But I tell you: this is the only way to salvation. Don’t believe in Neville. He is not the way. I could go out with you every night and thoroughly enjoy matching you drink for drink. No food is distasteful to me, as I enjoy it all. I am told I am not discriminating enough, for I can find nothing to condemn. I do, however, admit to all of my weaknesses of the human flesh; yet in spite of that I was called and sent.265 ¶29

At the time I did not know God’s purpose; but after his message erupted within me, I knew I was sent to refresh the atmosphere, and clean it up after centuries of misunderstanding of the Christian mystery.265 ¶30

Christianity fulfills the promise of Judaism. Fulfilling the pattern called Jesus, we are gathered one by one into that one resurrected man, to be that one being in Christ. I don’t care what name you bear on earth, you will be sent as Jesus. You will play his part and share your experiences with all who will listen. Do not elaborate; but tell them that unless they believe, it will not happen to them and they will remain in the world of death.265 ¶31

It is not enough to believe only that Christ existed. That is like saying to a friend: “I believe you exist.” What an insult! The question is: do you trust Christ? Do you believe in him? Now I - a man - tell you the story of salvation as I have experienced it. Do you believe in my story?265 ¶32

If you do, you believe in me; then forget all you hear about me as a man.265 ¶33

A friend recently told an acquaintance the story of my experiences, then later mentioned that I had been divorced and had remarried. The moment the lady heard I was divorced, she closed her mind and could not accept the story that I was called, incorporated into the body of God, and sent to tell. She judged the outer man and could not believe in him whom God has sent.265 ¶34

She could go across the street, however, and believe that if she only ate corn she would be saved, because the person who told her so wasn’t divorced.265 ¶35

I tell you: you can eat corn from now on, but you will still remain in this world of death until you believe salvation’s story as I have experienced it.265 ¶36

I don’t care what you have done or are doing; if you believe my story and set your hope fully upon that grace which is coming to you, He who sees your belief will call you and erupt within you. God sees your heart. He sees that you are capable of believing the incredible story of Christ and fulfills it.265 ¶37

Ask the doctor who brought you out of your mother’s womb to explain how the bones grew there, or how they were covered with flesh; and - although he can give you reasons why they appeared - he cannot tell you how it is done; as we are told in the books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs: “Who knows how the bones grow in the womb of woman?”265 ¶38

Now I tell you of another birth, which is greater than that which comes out of woman. No one sees this birth, yet it is real, for it is the birth of God. He is born out of this body of death and takes you with him into the body of life.265 ¶39

It is not necessary to understand this birth, only to believe in it.265 ¶40

So, what must you do to be doing the work of God? Believe in him whom he has sent. And what must you do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus, who is the pattern you have heard about from me. Then go about your business and live fully; enjoy life and all that it has to offer.265 ¶41

A lady recently called, who had heard me many years ago in Detroit and Minneapolis. Although she and her husband had nothing, she believed what I said and imagined having lots of money. Her husband spent many years in different mental hospitals, depleting the little money they had, and then one day he took his own life. Her only brother was a very thrifty businessman, who lived frugally. He died, and three weeks later his wife died, leaving everything to this lady. Now she has the money to live in luxury, just as she had imagined.265 ¶42

This lady assumed wealth without knowing where it would come from, and now she has it. The law will not fail you here or in the world of God, for you must believe both stories.265 ¶43

I tell you: an assumption, though false, if persisted in will prove itself in the world of Caesar, as it did in her case. I also tell you an incredible story: that you will awaken in your skull and experience a spiritual birth as described in scripture; for you are the one spoken of there. Can you believe both stories? If you believe one enough to test it, and it proves itself in performance, try to believe the other; for unless you believe both, you cannot prove them.265 ¶44

If you believe the one in the world of Caesar, you can have money as this lady has. But you must believe the other in order to live where you do not need money, for there you know that the earth is yours and all within it.265 ¶45

When you are incorporated into the body of God, you know you are God and everything is yours. Then you will tell your story, depart this world, and return to the Father - who is yourself!265 ¶46

But while you are here, where you do not know the world is all yours, apply the law of assumption. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let God’s law work for you. Learn to believe the story on this level through application, and one day you will believe the incredible story on the higher level.265 ¶47

What must we do to be doing the work of God? Believe in him whom he has sent. Though born of flesh and blood, with four brothers and sisters, and a carpenter by trade, after the second birth he was no longer the man one knew, but an entirely different being. After telling you what happened in him, he asks you to believe it. If you do, you believe in the way you are saved. If you do not, you believe in and will remain in the world of death with its many blows.265 ¶48

Hundreds of millions of people call themselves Christians and believe in the existence of Jesus; but they do not believe in him, for if they did they would believe his story.265 ¶49

I have told it in my book, Resurrection. The story is true. I have come to bear witness to it. God incorporated me into his body and sent himself with me, so whoever sees me, sees him who sent me. You will never see the one who sent me by looking at the outer man. It is only the inner man who bears God’s likeness, for that is who I am!265 ¶50

Now let us go into the silence.265 ¶51

Tonight, as I told you recently, is for my friend who is taking flight and she wants the law, so this will be on the law. All things exist in the human Imagination and by all things I mean it literally, all things. “All that we behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow”. If you could now think of your Imagination as the most sensitive instrument in the world, and compare it, say, to a piano; you can’t conceive of a tone or a combination of tones that it could not express. And so you can imagine, so you own the instrument: it’s your very self. But if you owned the most wonderful piano in the world, it wouldn’t mean you could play it, not play it really intelligently. You would have to find out some wonderful method and then practice. So here is this wonderful instrument, which is your Imagination, and so you own it, and that instrument is God.261 ¶1

God actually became man that man may become God. So we can’t think of God as even near, for nearness implies separation. There is no difference between divine imagining and human imagining save in the degree of intensity of the two. When you and I are born anew, it means an expansion of the same power, which is imagining, and we rise to higher and higher and higher levels. On this level it is the same power but it’s keyed low.261 ¶2

So here, when I speak of God I’m speaking of your own wonderful human Imagination. Now we can put it to the test, actually test it. “Come test me and see,” that’s what we’re invited to do in scripture. So I say that the actual source of all phenomena is one with imagining that is active in you and me. There is no other origin for phenomena in this world. Now, let me share with you one story that was given to me this week, rather, a couple of weeks ago.261 ¶3

This friend (who is here tonight) he said, “I’ve known this man—I’ll call him Pat—I’ve known him for about six months. He’s general manager of an auto supply firm. I also know his boss. I’ve known him for about four years, a very difficult man, so let us call him, say, Mike. One day, in fact, the day was the 5th day of December of last year, I stopped into this firm and chatted with my friend Pat.261 ¶4

Talking with him I discovered he would like to buy the firm but he had no money, so I explained this principle of imagining to him. I said, Forget the means, forget the money, and if you really want to own your own firm, this is what I would do were I you. Tonight when I go to sleep I would make a certain drama. Take people who sincerely love you, your wife, your children, and I think I love you, so include me if you want to use me. But make a scene which scene if true would imply the fulfillment of your desire…that you own this auto supply company.261 ¶5

Now, this is how it works. But you must, above all things—when you carry on this inner conversation with those who will be sincerely thrilled because of your successful transaction in closing the deal to own the thing, but also in the successful running of it, the operation of it—you must capture the feeling! Feeling truly is the secret. You must feel the reality of what you are doing.261 ¶6

And this was December the 5th. “On January the 5th, one month later, I received in my mail an advertising letter announcing the new owner of this firm. It was not that particular auto supply company, it was another, and he was the owner of this auto supply company. So I stopped in to see him, as a friend, to congratulate him and this is what he told to me. A man came in who owned an auto supply company and in the course of conversation he let it be known that he would like to dispose of some of his properties. He has many parcels and one was an auto supply company.261 ¶7

Well, then because of my interest I simply perked up and told him of my interest in owning my own company…but that I had no money. He said that you don’t need money—‘you can just take possession of this company, we’ll sign the papers, and you pay me out of profits. You be the owner and you will pay me out of profits.’ We received the announcement in the mail of the new ownership of this company…a man who heard on December the 5th how to operate God’s law, and by January the 5th, one month later, he has successfully closed the deal for his own company by the sheer operation of the law.261 ¶8

So I say, imagining contains the whole; all things are contained in the human Imagination. Now, how could I do it? Well, try it in this way. Bring before your mind’s eye anyone in this world, or any combination, and then listen to them tell you a story, a wonderful story. You listen carefully as they unfold the story and you become excited, just as though you’re hearing the most wonderful story, and when you reach a certain point, which is the climax of the story, take a deep inhalation and feel thrilled all over. It doesn’t really matter after that…it’s like taking a picture.261 ¶9

Life develops it then. Life has a strange way of developing that picture. And you will see a negative in the solution—it’s an acid solution and it burns it, it has to be burnt—and then you take it out, and you dry it, and you have your picture.261 ¶10

So, life actually is just like that. As we are told, “He whom he hurts and afflicts for secret ends he comforts and heals and calls them friends.” Learn how to play this wonderful role. All things are contained in the human Imagination, but all things. Not a thing outside of your Imagination. Try this very moment to think of something in this world of ours that is part of the affairs of man that wasn’t first imagined. You may say, well, a tree wasn’t.261 ¶11

Well now, on a higher level it was. On our level, automobiles, clothes, chairs, buildings, on our level; then he said, go to another level, the animals; then we go to another level, the plant world; another level, the mineral world. But, may I tell you, on higher levels they too were first imagined. On our level we are learning and trying to experiment. And so, this building first had to be imagined, the flag had to be imagined, the suit that I wear, everything in this world that is related to man had first to be imagined by man before it could be brought into this visible world of ours. And so, all the other kingdoms—the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, the mineral kingdom—they too had to be first imagined.261 ¶12

On a higher level you are that being. You are moving towards that being to be one with it, because you are one with it now anyway, but you are keyed low for educative purposes. And so, just as this chap in one simple moment…had no money…he only had a desire. God, who is your own wonderful human Imagination, speaks to yourself through the medium of desire.261 ¶13

He desired to own his own automobile supply area; he wanted his own auto supply shop, but no money. Now, the man who he worked for—and my friend knows both of them—and he tells me the owner of that shop was the most difficult person to deal with. He had meetings with both of them. But he didn’t talk to the owner; he talked to the one who wanted to own it. What he really wanted was to own his own shop. He knew these auto supply things, so he wanted it. Well, he got it. A man comes in and in the conversation reveals he would like to unload this parcel. He had so many pieces of property, and this he would like to unload and made it possible by saying to him, “It’s yours. We’ll sign the papers and you simply pay out of profits.” I can multiply this kind of a story by the thousands. If you will actually believe it! And the day will come that you will simply find that everything in scripture is true. The law is all there, but man doesn’t see it. Our ministers are not telling it. As Lord Lindsay, who is the Master of ___(?? College of Oxford, he said to a group of ministers one day, he said, “You ministers are making a mistake. In your pulpits you are arguing for Christianity. No one wants your arguments. You ought to be witnessing: Does this thing work? Then share it with the rest of us. Don’t give us all this business of the arguments for Christ. Share it with us, does it work? Well, then share it with us, let us prove it in performance.” My wife here recently gave me—as a little joke on Valentine’s Day—a little book called The Gospel According to Peanuts.261 ¶14

Well, in this little paperback book Peanuts is making the statement—and you listen to it carefully—“The church is the greatest non-profit organization in the world,” but spells profit, p-r-o-p-h-e-t. There is no voice of God from the pulpits of the world, none whatsoever. They will take one little passage of scripture and never refer to it, quote a little passage, and then talk about the President or Vietnam, about some other thing on this level—not a thing to do with interpreting the word of God.261 ¶15

Now, we go back to the word of God, the Book of Nehemiah, the 8th chapter, the 8th verse: “And they read from the book, from the law of God clearly with understanding; they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” So they take the law and explain it. That’s the purpose of the book! If God is sent into this world, he’s sent only to teach the law of God, that’s all he’s sent to do. He’s told to go and tell them of the law of God and the Promise of God, and to repeat it forever and forever.261 ¶16

Tell them of the Promise. What is the Promise? That God is going to give you his Son, not as a companion, he’s going to give you his Son as your Son. If he gives you his Son as your Son, he gave you himself. For if you are the father of the Son of God then you are God. It’s God’s purpose to give himself to man, and to give it so thoroughly that there is no other in the world, just you and God; and because he gave himself to you, just you, and you are he. That’s the story. That’s his Promise. Let them wait in hope. But now, to comfort them while they wait tell them of God’s law, and explain all about the law. It’s a simple law based purely on belief. “Whatever you desire in this world, believe you have received and you will”. Now I have found this simple technique…honestly, it’s so simple…I feel I’m taking pictures, that’s all that I do.261 ¶17

You ask something of me. I don’t know a thing in this world about the human body. If you brought me a bone, I couldn’t tell you if it came from the foot or the hand, I wouldn’t know. I know nothing of the human body. I don’t know how it operates. I know nothing of diet.261 ¶18

I try to satisfy a hunger. One day I might want fish. I want fish; don’t tell me about meat. Next day I want meat, whether it’s Good Friday or not.261 ¶19

And so I satisfy hungers that way. Well now, you have a hunger so you come to me to ask me—I think I know the law—to satisfy or aid you in the satisfaction of your hunger. So you name something and you want…just like my friend, he went into this shop and he found a man who had a hunger to own his own business…that’s a hunger. Now, all you do is this.261 ¶20

You meet someone. Don’t wait until tomorrow to do it, right at that very moment as they depart from you. Let them go on their way. And if they ask you “What must I do?” Do nothing! They’re not taking the picture; I’m taking the picture of them. All things exist in my Imagination, so I can’t ask them to cooperate. If I ask them to cooperate with me, I’m sort of shifting the weight and preparing a little cushion in the event of failure. Then I could say you didn’t do your part.261 ¶21

I don’t need them. Let them get out of my sight—I know what they look like, I know what they sound like—and then bring them into my mind’s eye and animate them. Have them all animated. If I need another one to come with them, if I need six more, or some other thing, another person, alright, bring it all in and set it up as you would set it up in a studio. You’re going to take a picture. And then let the whole thing become animated. Just as you get it all animated, they’re all telling this wonderful story concerning the fulfillment of the desire—this is the end, you always go to the end—then as you become more and more excited, one deep inhalation. And may I tell you, every atom of the body explodes. You can try it right now, or try it when you go into the Silence. You can’t stop it…you get excited…and suddenly everything explodes. It’s really a creative act. It doesn’t have the physical effect here; there is no physical evidence there was a creative act, but it’s the same sensation. Only every atom of your body explodes, the whole thing explodes.261 ¶22

Then, as he said to this man in the store as he was teaching him how to operate this wonderful, sensitive instrument, he said, “Should you tomorrow or in the interval between now, this night, and you do it, and the fulfillment of it, should one little doubt enter your mind, do this: just remember “But I experienced it, I experienced ownership, so I don’t care if at this very moment something denies it, I experienced it!” And therefore that little doubt will go to sleep. If some little thing comes in the interval to disturb you, remember you’ve experienced it. You took the picture.”261 ¶23

Well then, life develops it. Life is the acid and life develops it.261 ¶24

Then the whole thing becomes externalized in no way that you could ever have devised. How could he have devised the means that a man, an honest man, a decent man who was a business man would say to him, “Well, pay me out of profits. What sort of business is that…pay me out of profits?”261 ¶25

And yet, that is exactly how it was consummated. He bought it only on faith, only on his own honesty. So this is the simple, simple law that I am trying to get over to all. But to my friend who departs a week from today on this very long tour—London, Russia, Tokyo, Formosa and other areas—let her tell this story to everyone who will listen to it, that imagining creates reality. That’s basic. But you’ve got to know how to do it.261 ¶26

I could own the most glorious, the most sensitive violin in the world. Give it to me, I could take it to a dealer and he’d say, “You know what you have here?” and he could give me some name that I don’t even understand, and say to me, “You know what, well, that’s worth $500,000.” So I have it…all I have is $500,000 and I can’t get one note out of it. And so, you have something far more sensitive: you have God—the world’s greatest in the world creative instrument.261 ¶27

So because it’s you, he became you, your own wonderful human Imagination. But you’ve got to learn to play it. And you make unnumbered mistakes, just as a child playing a violin, and you put your fingers in your ears to stop the sound coming from it. But he is learning how to play. Well, you and I make mistakes.261 ¶28

We become violent, we become thieves, we become this, become the other…all by imagining. The terror that confronts man today is simply man. It isn’t Russia; it’s his own conception of himself that is the terror. My conception of myself is the thing that terrifies me. What is it? I’m a little man, unwanted, unschooled. Is that my concept of myself? Well, it terrifies me, because if it is my concept of myself, everything in this world reflects it and runs at me to bear witness to my own concept of myself. But if I know that all things are within me and I could by changing my conception of myself change the world in which I live, well…let me try it.261 ¶29

William James, one of our great educators at Harvard University, he made the statement that “the greatest revolution in my generation was the discovery that man, by changing the inner attitudes of his mind, could change the outer aspects of his life.” Well, here is the great William James. Well, that was told us in scripture in a very simply manner…but William James, this brilliant philosopher, great, great man, great educator…and he took all these things. You might have read one of his books A Variety of Religious Experiences. It’s really worthwhile re-reading, because he took all these cases, these strange experiences. It was he who said that “the mother seed and the great function of all true religions begin in the mystical experiences of the individual; that all theologies, all ecclesiasticisms are secondary growths superimposed. That these great experiences that give birth to true religions come from the depths of the soul, belong to a region that is deeper and far more real and vital than that which the intellect inhabits; because of this, they remain forever secure from all intellectual arguments and criticisms.” This is the great William James. Well, when he made the statement that here, the greatest revolution in his generation was the discovery that man by changing the inner attitudes of his mind could change the outer aspects of his life, comes right back to that simple little verse: “Whatever you desire, when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will”. Well, do you know the word “to pray,” both in Hebrew and in Greek, if you look it up in your biblical Concordance it’s defined as “motion towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of.” That’s what it is. So I stand here, and now it’s motion towards, motion towards ownership of that auto supply. Well, if I could really get near enough so that I could get accession to, I would sleep this night in the consciousness of ownership, wouldn’t I? As I get nearer and nearer and nearer to it, it’s like a motion within one’s being. If this night I would go to New York City, and time would not allow it, my commitments would not allow it, oh, thousands of things could stand in the way, but I still want to go, what I should do, I should this night assume as I go to bed, assume that I’m sleeping in my hotel room in New York City, and then view the world from New York City. Just see the world as I would see it were it true. When I think of Los Angeles I can’t see it around me here, as I would tonight when I sleep, I must see it 3,000 miles to the west of me. Well, if I fall asleep in that state, I have prayed…for prayer, to pray, is to move towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of. If I want to go to New York City, let me get as close as I can ‘til finally I can get right into it. As I get into it, then think of the world for confirmation.261 ¶30

Motion cannot be determined except by a change of position relative to some other state. If I move from here to the end of the room without some fixed frame of reference against which I move, I wouldn’t know I moved. I would have no way of knowing that I move at all. There must be some frame of reference.261 ¶31

Well, this is a frame, the world is a frame; it remains fixed relative to me the pilgrim who moves. So I move from poverty to security, or from illness to health, and so there’s a frame of reference, and my world will reflect that motion that I make…and this is praying.261 ¶32

So everyone in this world contains within himself all that it takes to become what he wants to be in this world; for all things are contained in the human Imagination, and that is God. So God actually became man that man may become God. Don’t think of him on the outside; he can’t be even near. If God actually became me, he cannot be near, for nearness implies separation…can’t even be near.261 ¶33

So listen to these words from the Book of John, “You will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he”. This is not a man talking to others; this dream takes place in the individual. I am saying to myself, “You don’t believe in Neville? Well, then stay and stew.”261 ¶34

You will stew in your limitations and therefore miss your mark in life, which is sinning. For, “to sin” is “to miss the mark.” You miss the mark and go on forever missing the mark unless you believe that I am he. He what?—am, that which I would be. I desire to be other than what I am. I’ve got to believe I am it; and unless you do, then you sin.261 ¶35

But you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Well, what is truth? We say a true judgment must conform to the external facts to which it relates. I say that isn’t true at all.261 ¶36

Truth depends upon the intensity of imagining, not upon facts. The man had no external fact to support his imaginal claim that he owned a shop, none! But he actually believed he owned it and slept in that assumption. So truth does not confine itself to the external reality to which my judgment relates.261 ¶37

It isn’t so at all. You can simply know what you want—don’t ask how you’re going to get it—assume that you are it; and if you can become self-persuaded that you are that which you’ve assumed that you are, in a way that no one knows it becomes externalized in your world. This is God’s law, and it’s God in operation, because your own wonderful Imagination is God.261 ¶38

So an imaginal act is God in action. But God creates not only by the imaginal act, he mixes it with faith. Imagination and faith are the stuff out of which man creates his world, so it has to be blended with faith. I must believe in the reality of my imaginal act, and remain faithful, loyal to that unseen reality, just as though it were true. Now, if you really believe that your Imagination is God, and believe implicitly in God, you can go from here to goal after goal after goal.261 ¶39

Just try it. And may I tell you, share with me your experiences, just as my friend shared with me this experience, so that I in turn may tell it from this platform and encourage everyone to go on from wherever they are to where they want to be. I could tell you unnumbered stories and repeat the thousand I’ve already told you, but why? Bring in new ones by taking this simple, simple technique and trying it. As you try it it will work…it will prove itself in performance. No power can stop it.261 ¶40

So here, this is God’s simple, simple wonderful law. So when you read scripture most of it will be on the law. Great promises are made, but most of it is simply law…it’s all conditioned. It’s called in one book “repentance,” that’s simply conditioned states.261 ¶41

Repentance is a radical change of attitude towards life. And God repented that he promised the good and then God repented that he promised the evil. As they change, he had to change. It’s the same being; he’s only reflecting himself.261 ¶42

As told us in the 18th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah: “And the word of the Lord came to me and said ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my word.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel that he held in his hand was spoiled, but he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do”.261 ¶43

Well, the word translated “potter” in Hebrew is “Imagination.” So I went down to Imagination’s house. Well, what Imagination’s house?261 ¶44

I turned my attention inwardly and thought on self and found what I was imagining. But I was thinking of a friend of mine; he wasn’t well. Well, that’s the marred vessel…I am fashioning a vessel of a friend…that’s not a nice picture. Don’t discard it, take the same vessel and reshape it into another vessel, as it seemed good to you to do. Never discard anyone; you don’t have to.261 ¶45

So just as you think of someone…and you feel sorry for him, well, why feel sorry for him? Take the same one and so reshape it that you feel happy for him. I know in our language we have so few words to express rejoicing with those who have great joy in the world, and so many words to feel sorry for those who are in pain—compassion, sympathy, pain.261 ¶46

If I use the word “empathy” there isn’t one person in a million who would know what I’m talking about. It’s a word, it’s in the dictionary. But have you ever heard of anyone actually saying…save in literature, yes, you can put it in a book, and the average person reading it runs to the dictionary for the very simple reason he doesn’t practice it.261 ¶47

So you empathize, and they say, “He does what? He empathizes?” And so he goes to the dictionary to find out what is he doing. Because we don’t really empathize: We don’t rejoice with those who rejoice. But let something be wrong with someone, oh, all run right over and meet with them…because it’s happened to him, not to me. That’s the attitude towards life. So we have to start taking something entirely different out of life and rejoice with people who find something wonderful smiling upon them. They come into a fortune…are you envious? Why envious? Rejoice with them. But he lost a fortune…run right over and sympathize. He’s down to my level now. Well, that’s not the picture, because all things exist in the human Imagination. And because they do look upon it as the most sensitive instrument in the world, because it is, learn to play it. You can buy the most expensive instrument, but you’ve got to learn to play it. A friend of mine (he’s here tonight) he has a music shop—a little while ago, someone came in and wanted a machine, a guitar. He said to him, “Can you play it?” He said no. He took the guitar from him and he made a few chords on it, and he said, “It will take you a year to do what I’ve just done so casually. You shouldn’t buy this.” He could have made money on it by selling it to him, but he wouldn’t sell it to him. This boy, whoever he was, thought that by owning a machine you could go right out and simply become a Beatle. Well, that was not it, so he didn’t sell it.261 ¶48

You have the greatest instrument in the world, and that is your own wonderful human Imagination. Look upon it as the most sensitive instrument in the world and learn to play it. Because it is an art, a great art, you must first of all acquire a nice method. There must be a method and then constant practice…constant practice. So every moment of time you have the opportunity to practice. Somebody needs something and you can play that tune for them. Whatever they need, you can play it for them and bring about a harmony in their world. Bring them before your mind’s eye and rearrange the chord. The chord is made up now of things. You assemble things which if true would imply the fulfillment of your desire for them. So you are going to assemble the notes that would make the perfect chord, the harmony, and then you breathe them in, you strike it that way, and then it externalizes itself. And you do not a thing beyond that…that’s all that you do. This is the simple, simple technique of the working of God’s wonderful law. Tomorrow, when you rise to higher and higher levels, which you will, the whole vast world will respond instantly to your imaginative act. For man, as God rises within him and expands within him, he finds himself in a world completely subject to his imaginal acts. They spring out of nowhere. It will not take an interval of time between the imaginal act and the fact, instantly it’s right there. You create your own world.261 ¶49

And we’re all moving towards that direction, because we’re all one. There’s only one God. God became man that man may become God, and that is literally true. Now let us go into the Silence.261 ¶50

May I call your attention to the book table. You’ll find my books and books that I recommend. I mentioned a book about two weeks ago written by a friend of mine who is here tonight, Mr. Whitelaw, Life is Only a Journey.261 ¶51

As I told you then, he goes to many speakers. This is his own…I would say, the essence of what he has gathered from the many. He’s been coming here over the years. He’s gone to others, my old friend Dr. Bayles, and all the speakers, and from all of us he has gathered what is his, and he has written this book and he’s titled it Life is Only a Journey.261 ¶52

Are there any questions?261 ¶53

But if you go on living fully in the joy of others…live always for others, as Job did. Job revised his past by praying for his friends. Because his present was an awful mess, he lost everything, and then Job prayed for his friends and then his captivity was lifted. All that he had lost came back multiplied 300-fold.261 ¶56

As you are told in scripture, even those who were dead, because all were dead, they all come back. So nothing was dead. Not just the lambs came back and the cattle came back, but his sons and his beautiful daughters, and all these were dead. So nothing dies.261 ¶57

It returned as he prayed for his friends, so lose yourself in praying for others and you’ll be amazed how the lovely things of this world will fall upon you out of the nowhere. Because, really, in the end there is no “other,” not really.261 ¶58

Someone is unwell—that’s an empty lot relative to health—“I remember when he was sick.” When you are looking at him and the doctor’s said he can’t live—“I remember when he was unwell.” Well then, he can’t be unwell now to you and you rejoice in this state of his health: he’s well.261 ¶65

Because, I have had the experience of coming into a room just like this, only it was a dining room, and arresting my own Imagination, something in me that was active. As I arrested it, everything stood still, including the bird in flight, and the leaves falling, and the grass moving…everything stood still and they were dead. Then I released not them, I released that activity that I had arrested within myself, and as I did so, all became re-animated.261 ¶68

So I know that the creative power of the world, the animating power of the world, is my own wonderful human Imagination. I call that my soul. So to me, soul and Imagination are identical. It’s the animating power of the world…animates it…makes it alive.261 ¶69

But, they thought the word heart…but you and I…the heart is a physical organ and we think in terms of the heart. Well, it isn’t quite what they intended. And yet the heart is so essential to vitality, to life, can’t do without it, so they call that the center. As a man thinks in the core of his being, that’s what they really mean; the word heart or the word mind, same thing. But as we read these words because of our association with the word, we are anchored by the use of the word, and we are stuck with the word heart, for instance.261 ¶72

We speak of the word loins…well, it isn’t so at all. In that wonderful chapter of Jeremiah, “Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor?”. The word translated loins is an entirely different Hebrew word. “Why do I see every man with his hands,” yes, “pulling himself out of himself just like a woman in labor?”261 ¶73

For the primitive world, even to this very day, all ___(?? China wouldn’t send their women to hospitals to bear a child. While plowing in the fields when that moment of delivery is upon them she delivers herself. She uses her hands and draws from her own being what she formed within herself.261 ¶74

That’s what the prophet meant, that’s what he saw, but our translators had to relate and say, “Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor”…isn’t so at all. I will say to everyone, as you read this greatest of all books, the Bible, if you don’t have a concordance, it will be wise to get one, really, if you’re that interested. And take not one word for granted, look it up. Because, through habit we quote scriptures as we remember hymns and we think that is it. When you start to really find the true definition of the words, you stand amazed. Yet, our scholars have done a wonderful job, no question about it.261 ¶75

Yet words change in their meanings, and because they change in their meanings, there must always be a need for revision. Right now we’re working on a new Old Testament. We’ve just brought out the new one, called The New English Bible. So words having lost their meanings over the years, they’ve gone into refreshing as it were.261 ¶76

So taste and touch are closed in man; he doesn’t know how they feel. And he makes the statement, “Why is the Bible more entertaining and more instructive than any other book in the world? Is it not because,” he answers, “it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding or reason?” So the sense of touch is missing in man. But he can see, that’s not missing, and he can hear and smell, but he can’t quite touch. How can I touch? But you can touch, learn to touch.261 ¶79

So the woman from the south, the queen from the south came. She could see the glory and she had heard about the glory of Solomon. She came and she saw this fabulous kingdom, and she heard of the wisdom of this one.261 ¶80

You and I must try to open up that gate that is so closed, which is the sense of touch. I use the little picture of a ball, a tennis ball, and then a baseball, a billiard ball. Can you discriminate between these three sensations? They are not unreal, though invisible, because you couldn’t discriminate between nothings. If they did not exist, you couldn’t discriminate.261 ¶81

So if I can learn the sense of touch…I put a ball in my hand, it’s a tennis ball. How do I know what it feels like? It gives. I have a baseball. That doesn’t feel like the other one. I can discriminate. Then I take a billiard ball or a ping pong ball. If I can discriminate between these “feels,” well then, I must be feeling something that actually exists though to my mortal eye invisible. Goodnight.261 ¶82

Tonight’s subject is “The Womb of the Universe.” You and I are called upon to experience scripture. Every word of scripture is true, every word. I know the great scholars of the world look upon it as myth, and they say the entire story is simply a myth. I tell you it is true, every word is true.255 ¶1

Tonight we will take two words of scripture. A word of scripture is not necessarily a word; it’s a thought that might take fifty words to express. You can say, “Jesus wept.” Now, there are two words…but that is called a word. Take any passage, when you get to the end of the thought, and it’s clear, that’s considered a word in scripture. So we are told not to alter the words, leave them just as they are, and when you are ripe, you will experience the word and be a witness to the truth of God’s word. So let us take two words.255 ¶2

We go back to the 2nd chapter of the Book of Genesis, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept” . Then we are told, while he was in this profound sleep that something was taken from him and from that something was formed, a woman. That’s what we’re told, a woman came out of man; called woman because she came out of man. And then, the man was told to leave father and mother and cleave to the woman and they become one person. Now, there is a word, there is a thought, a clear thought.255 ¶3

Well, every scholar in the world believes that to be just a simple little story that is a myth, told and recorded in scripture to in some way aid the mind and focus it as it were. Suppose I told you that that is literally true and tonight I hope to explain what I mean by being literally true. It doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?255 ¶4

Now we’ll take another word. That was from the 2nd chapter of the Book of Genesis. We’ll take one from the 54th chapter of the Book of Isaiah and put them together: “Your Maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For a brief moment, just a brief moment, I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. With overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer” .255 ¶5

Now we are told, “In the volume of the book it is written about me” . Well, the reader, anyone reading the book, as he reads it, it’s written about me. So everyone present here, in the volume of the book it’s all about you. So regardless of your present sex now, your Maker is your husband. So regardless of sex here everyone is the wife, the bride of God. Can that be true? Everyone is truly the woman called Eve in scripture.255 ¶6

Is anyone here, I would say, able to testify to the truth of that? I can testify to it, but I would rather call upon another witness. And so, the other witness that I call upon is here tonight.255 ¶7

I asked you when I opened last fall to share with me your experiences. Nothing thrills me more than when you have a goal and you apply this technique and realize your objectives in this world. Whether it be an increase of business, increase of finances, a settlement of some problem at home, some family problems, all these things thrill me. But nothing thrills me comparable to that which is testifying to the word of God. So when someone comes here and they have an experience of this nature, and they are big enough to share with me that experience that I in turn may share it with you, nothing thrills me more than that!255 ¶8

Now let me tell you a story as told me in a letter last Tuesday night. When I got home I had the letter with me and before I retired I read it. I can’t tell you my thrill! I know that he, the one who had the experience, is now in spiritual shock, just as I was in spiritual shock and remain there since 1959. For when these things happen to you you’re not the same person. You’re not the being that your friends think you are; something entirely different has happened. You walk as though you were the same person, but you’re not the same person. You can’t be the same person. So I know that he is now in, really, spiritual shock.255 ¶9

Let me tell you the story. Remember the two passages—-one from Genesis and one from Isaiah. Here, out of a man…and you may think a man is this little thing standing before you…this is not “the man” spoken of in Genesis. That man spoken of in Genesis is God. There’s nothing but God. The real man is God and God is man. I mean a person who imposes upon himself a profound sleep, and while that sleep is on, comes an emanation of God: His emanation yet his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past. And he cannot leave her. It comes out for a creative purpose, and he cleaves to her; and when the death has come to its end and he awakens from his long self-imposed sleep, they are not two, they are one. He cleaves to her and they become one being; the same God only infinitely greater for the experience which the self-imposed sleep aided him to perform.255 ¶10

This is what he writes. He said, “I was lying on my bed in a semi-trance, and then I allowed myself to fall into a deeper state of my own being. Then suddenly, like lightning, I made a journey that seemed like a million miles, and I discovered that I, my very being, that I am the womb of the universe.” He discovered himself to be the womb of the universe…the womb of a universe which encompasses the universe, enfolds it. “That I was that, the womb.” He said, “I used the word in this sense: I contained a female element I have never in any sense of the word been aware of before. I discovered that the sexual act on earth is denser and gross compared to this creative act on these higher intensities. I actually was the creative function itself. I cannot describe it, he said, the nearest term that I could use would be self-contemplation.”255 ¶11

“But,” said he, “that is completely inadequate, because it doesn’t take into consideration these incredible intensities, compared to which the sexual act on earth would be like a couple of out-of-season slugs. I actually experienced that creative act as the womb of the universe.”255 ¶12

“And I also discovered the fantastic levels of intensities. I saw numberless vortices, the vortices by which we are nailed to our bodies; but aside from that, vortices that cram creation, infinite vortices cramming creation. A vortex as an imaginal act…all these vortices…Imagination in action. I saw these vortices gathering density to become apparent to the senses.”255 ¶13

He said, “I saw many other things that I cannot describe, for the very simple reason there are no such words to describe them. I saw many things I can’t remember. I feel as though I must have been a traveler moving rapidly through a foreign land and on my return only bringing back the highlights. Try as I can and I do, this memory eludes me, and yet it slips in; from time to time more and more of it returns, and I discover that I experienced more than I had realized.”255 ¶14

Now here is one who can stand before the whole vast world and say, I can testify to the truth of that statement in the 54th of Isaiah: “My Maker is my husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is my Redeemer.” Now, I can promise him from that experience he will know that act of redemption, as given us in the 2nd chapter of Paul’s first letter to Timothy.255 ¶15

He describes, first of all, Adam and Eve, and then he turns from the word Eve and now he calls it woman, just as we do in the 2nd chapter of Genesis. He said, “The woman will be saved by the birth of the child.” Here, I am told in Isaiah that I forsook you just for a brief interval, just a short, short time I hid my face from you; but I will redeem you. And here is man, generic man, this whole vast world, the womb of God. Here is a man, a normal man, not ashamed to make the confession in print of the experience of being the bride of God. But this bride of God, in the end, there is only God, because he cleaves to her, and when he awakes there’s only God. Infinitely greater than he was prior to that act, because he cleaves to his bride and they become one person.255 ¶16

Now the word translated “husband” in that passage in Isaiah, “Your Maker is your husband,” look it up in your Concordance, it also means “dreamer, person.” Your Maker is your dreamer. He is dreaming me and when he awakes I am he. He’s dreaming me; I saw him. I saw the dreamer and I knew he was dreaming me. But what beauty, what radiance, what strength of character on the face of that dreamer, in a profound state of sleep, sitting in a lotus posture, and there I’m looking at him. And suddenly I am looking at myself. But I’ve never seen myself with such strength of character, such beauty of form, such radiance. So you couldn’t improve upon the beauty of that dreamer. He is dreaming you. Who? My husband.255 ¶17

Then if he is my husband, well then, I must be his bride. I’m not ashamed to say I am his bride…and here I am a man, the father of children. Yet the Spirit of this being that is wearing this garment—-which is only a garment—-is the emanation. I am his emanation yet I am his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past. When the death is past and he awakens from the great self-imposed sleep, I am he. So the scholars laugh at it and they think now this whole thing is completely insane. How could this story as told in Genesis really be factual? It doesn’t take place on this level at all. He saw these intensities, he saw these vortices. If you’ve never seen them you can’t quite appreciate it.255 ¶18

Today, I saw in the papers that two scientists have just, so they claim, brought to successful conclusion the great task that Einstein set for himself: the unification of the great field. That everything is being [...], it all makes sense, the unified field theory. They feel they’ve found it, everything whirling, spinning in its orbit within the atom, but everything. Nothing is stationary, all alive, and all unified, and all with a reason, so they claim. My friend saw it. He saw the entire world whirling around, numberless vortices, and every imaginal act is a vortex. And here it is gathering density that it may make its appearance to the senses in this world.255 ¶19

So I think of you, and I imagine anything in this world about you, and I set in motion by that act a vortex. The vortex in this world is gathering density to make itself apparent to the world. So I bring before my mind’s eye you or others and imagine you as I would like you to be. Then I try to find out how I set it in motion, by speculating, by experimenting. And I found one little thing that I’ll share with you and you’ll find it very, very successful.255 ¶20

We are told, to make it alive he breathed into it. Well, if I breathe into something you may think I’m exhaling, wouldn’t you? It’s just the opposite. He breathed into it and it became something alive, a living soul. But it’s not breathing into something outside of himself, because God can’t get outside of himself. It’s inhalation in which you breathe. You don’t exhale, you inhale. So you think of someone and you get yourself worked up to a certain state—-just like the creative act—and when you bring them to a certain pitch within yourself, then a deep inhalation. At that moment every atom of your body tingles and you feel as though something has gone out of you. Then you’ll know the words, “Don’t touch me, for I perceive virtue has gone out of me” . Something alive seems to go out at that moment when you bring it right straight to a certain focus, and then with one deep inhalation you explode your whole body. Now, what do you do after that? Nothing! That is a self-impregnation. There is nothing, as he saw, nothing but himself. He was the womb of the universe. All these things he saw taking place here and the whole “here” was contained within himself, so where could he go? He can’t go outside of himself.255 ¶21

So then Blake said: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” .255 ¶22

So here, you look at it and you breathe with a certain rhythm. Try it, experiment, costs you nothing. Then when you reach a certain apex of intensity—just like a creative act, that explosion is from within—you inhale deeply. That one deep inhalation explodes your entire body, and everything tingles. And you have no desire, just like a creative act, to repeat it, it’s done. And just like a creative act you leave it just as it is, for that’s pregnancy now. Just let it unfold in its own wonderful way. You can do nothing about it. You try it; try it just like that, for that’s how it works.255 ¶23

But here is this man, a normal man, an intelligent man, a successful man, with this experience. And may I tell you, these experiences belong to a region that is much deeper and far more real and vital than that which the intellect inhabits. For this reason the experience remains indestructible by all the intellectual arguments and criticisms in the world. Tonight, in his spiritual shock, there is no great scholar in the world that could persuade him that that was hallucination. When you have these experiences, may I tell you, and they are confirmed by God’s word in scripture—-and I’ve just shown you the two passages that confirms it for you—-all the arguments, let them come, they will make no difference whatsoever.255 ¶24

In his present state of spiritual shock…as you’re told, “How could this thing be, seeing that I know not a man?” . Well, he found himself to be the womb of the universe; for the man is that man spoken of in Genesis, and that man is God.255 ¶25

Now listen to these words from the 8th chapter of the Book of Psalms, “When I behold thy heavens and the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou carest for him? Thou made him a little less than God” . If you have a Bible called the King James Version, it’s going to read “You made him a little less than the angels.” But the word translated angels in the King James Version is the Hebrew word Elohim. In no other passage in the entire Bible is it translated in any other way other than God. It’s the first time it appears in the Bible, in the very first verse: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” . That word God is Elohim. And “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’”—-that word God is Elohim. The translator comes to the 8th chapter of the Book of Psalms and he sees the same word, spelt the same way, Elohim, but he can’t bring himself to believe, or they can’t bring themselves to believe, of the greatness that is man. Because the words read, “What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou made him a little less”…and they can’t believe for one second it is God so they say angels. Hasn’t a thing to do with angels, it’s all to do with God.255 ¶26

God imposed a restriction upon himself, so he’s a little less than himself…that’s man. So this is that profound state called man: The sleep of God, for a creative purpose. So this is the man that is God that is the husband out of which comes the emanation, like a womb. So you’re going to create. And that womb is the womb of the universe. It contains the whole within it…there’s nothing outside of it. He cleaves to it, he falls in love with his own emanation, and his emanation is his wife, his bride ‘til the sleep of death is past. When he awakens, he and it are one, they aren’t two. So, “In that day, the Lord is one and his name one,” not two . And so, you bear his name and that name, call it by any name, the name is I AM .255 ¶27

So you could not in any way disturb this experience of this man, any more than you could take the speaker and disturb any experience he’s had. Because when you have these experiences, it’s simply something entirely different. It’s truth unmodified by the conceptual mind. Can’t reason with it; it’s outside of this thing altogether.255 ¶28

So when you see—if you have this experience and you will—and you see yourself in profound meditation, so deep you could never awaken it, it’s so deep, and you’re looking at yourself. So you are told, “Your Maker is your husband” and the word husband is dreamer. I saw the dreamer and he looked just like me. Then you will understand the words, “It does not now appear what we shall be, but we know when he appears we shall be like him” …when he appears just like you.255 ¶29

And then you see this one being with unnumbered facets, and yet only one because he contains all. All these vortices were contained within himself and he was the womb of the universe. And every imaginal act of a man is a vortex, and every vortex, which is an imaginal act, is gathering density for one purpose only: to become apparent to the senses.255 ¶30

So it may take a little while, and you don’t recognize your own harvest when it appears because you don’t remember what you did in an idle moment. You disliked that one, or you disliked it, or you reacted to the morning’s paper. Then you went about your business, completely forgetful about what you did in that short interval of reading the paper. Or reading the morning’s mail when it came and you reacted to the letter, and before you answered the letter you answered it mentally. You may modify it when you sit down to write the letter in answer, but before that as you read the letter you are reacting. Every reaction is an imaginal act, and all these are gathering density for the purpose of becoming apparent into the world of sense.255 ¶31

But here are the higher intensities. He said, “I actually experienced the creative act.” Well, can you imagine the thrill? I know what he’s had, because I know the thrill. What a thrill! Of course, I never had the use of words as he has, to liken the earthly act to a couple of out-of-season slugs. It’s just about that, too. Just imagine two slugs that are not in the mood. Even if they are in the mood, just imagine slugs! But they are out of season, two slugs that are out of season. And that’s exactly…if you want to compare it, this creative act on higher intensities to the most intense physical act, the physical act is simply a couple of out-of-season slugs. That’s what is in store for everyone.255 ¶32

But we are the selves that imposed this upon ourselves. So when we are told that “The Lord God caused a profound sleep to fall upon the man,” that is, generic man, the pneumana, it is to himself. God became man that man may become God. So that is God in man. So in that state comes the dream and the dream is his womb. He has to create. And here is a man who’s actually had the experience and he uses the word advisedly, for that’s what woman really means in the true sense of the word. Isha—ish comes first, that’s man—and Isha in Hebrew they call it woman. That all you’re having there is a little “b” that is missing in the word. It’s the womb of man, that’s what it really is; that’s what woman really is, the womb of man. So he brings out his womb; out of himself he brings out the womb, and he goes in unto his own being, and knows it, and creates. And to feel that creative act on high intensities, well, you can’t find any analogy on earth that you could use that vaguely suggests the thrill that is yours when it happens.255 ¶33

But until it happens, I tell you every word of scripture is true. And here tonight, in my gathering here, there is a man who can stand in the presence of the whole vast world and say, “That passage in the 2nd chapter of Genesis is true, I experienced it. That passage in the 54th chapter of Isaiah is true.”255 ¶34

So I promise him he will also stand… because the promise is that the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, and he redeems you, the woman, because he is the womb now. He knows he is the womb of the universe; and the womb, or woman, is redeemed by the birth of the child . That is the true translation of the original Greek. But again our translators can’t bring themselves to believe that’s how man is redeemed, so they say woman is redeemed by bearing children. Hasn’t a thing to do with bearing children; it’s the birth of the child, the Christ child. So everyone is the womb of God.255 ¶35

So standing before you a man, every atom of my being is male, I’ve never known any other sensation in the physical world. But the sensation of which he speaks, yes, in the spiritual world, to feel and know you are the womb of God, and that you truly are the very being that is your husband, and create in that manner. And so I know how true his experience is. I can promise him, having had that experience, he is about to be redeemed, and he’s redeemed by giving birth to the child. For that’s how man is redeemed. Everyone has to bring forth the child, for everyone is the womb of God.255 ¶36

It’s only a sign of what he really has done that is now, in a merciful manner, remaining hidden from him. As you’re told, it’s called only a moment in the 54th chapter of Isaiah, “For a brief moment I forsook you”; again, “For a moment I hid my face from you, only for a moment.” But that moment in our measure of time is six thousand years. Six thousand years was his moment when he put us through all of the furnaces of affliction and then redeemed us by making us bring forth his creative act, and that was the Christ child. By then we became one flesh; we became one person; we became one being. And then you take off the garment that you put on for the purpose of sleeping; and when we take off the garment after bringing forth the child we don’t put on any more sleeping garments. You are one with infinity, one with God…and you see everything is perfect, everything is ordered.255 ¶37

So here, you can tell everyone, the minute they imagine they set in motion a vortex, and that vortex having been set free by their imaginal act is gathering density. It may take a little while, and when it gathers enough density to become apparent to the senses, you who gave birth to it don’t even recognize it.255 ¶38

Let me give you a very vivid story. It happened only yesterday. I went to the window in my apartment; I live on the second floor, a duplex apartment. Looking out towards a little side street I saw a car come quickly, it turned into our street. Our street is a very short little interval; it only runs a block, from Sunset to Phyllis. And this lady turned in and she saw a parking space on the left side. Well, the left side of the street they are all parked diagonally. She is coming at this direction and a gentleman is coming down in this direction, and he saw it, and she cut right in front of him. But she could never make it that way…she almost caused an accident. But she turned right in front of him, and then he said something to her, what I couldn’t hear, I was in my place, and she undoubtedly answered him too.255 ¶39

So he backed up and pulled around and went down Phyllis and turned towards Doheny. She knew she couldn’t get in that angle so she was struggling. Backed out and backed out and backed in, and finally she got all the way out, and then backed out.255 ¶40

Another car is coming down now and sees the open spot and goes right into it. This one honks and honks, and then she jumps out of her car and she was tearing her hair apart she was so annoyed at this lady who came in. The lady got out. I can see her now, flaming red hair, and she had on the little outfit of a waitress, and I’m quite sure she works at the Cock and Bull. I think she’s waited on me there, because we go in quite often and I’m quite sure I’ve seen her there. But this one, she came right in quite normally and parked the car. The two of them had their little words. The waitress just looked at her, slammed the door, waved at her, kept on going up to Sunset.255 ¶41

And this one was burnt beyond measure. She knew she did the wrong thing in the first place. But now does she really know that she set that in motion? She got the better of the man, but she didn’t get the better of the woman. I saw it, I was standing at the window and I could hardly believe my eyes.255 ¶42

Well, here was an imaginal act gathering density so rapidly that it could become apparent to the senses. Now, if it had not happened that quickly and happened to the same lady, say, a month from now she may never relate it…even if she relates it now.255 ¶43

She may know nothing of the law of cause and effect, and causation is mental. What she saw that [...] on the outside, these solid, crystallized states, are only effects bearing witness to our own imaginal acts. For here was this perfect answer to what she had done. Maybe she’s totally unaware…maybe she’ll go home and say this horrible redhead that did this horrible thing to her and never mention the fact what she did to the man. It’s always what the other fellow did to me.255 ¶44

So I say, every imaginal act in this world is gathering—as he saw it so clearly—gathering density; and he said in his letter to me, “Right here on earth, which I contain within myself.” He wasn’t outside of the earth; he saw it gathering on earth, all these vortices, on earth, which, said he, I contain within myself. Up to that very end he was still the womb of the universe, and the whole vast world and worlds were contained within the womb, and it’s the womb of the universe.255 ¶45

He was not ashamed to admit being a man that for the first time he had any knowledge of there was a feminine element that he had never before experienced. And he experienced the creative act on the highest intensities. Then his analogy was beautiful, to compare it to anything here, the creative act, well, you can’t. What he did pull out of the bag to use as an analogy I think very, very graphic…if you make a mental picture of a couple of out-of-season slugs.255 ¶46

For here is this story of the womb of the universe. You are…don’t be ashamed to admit it…whether you are ashamed or not you are the bride of God. So the book comes to an end, you read it in the end of Revelation: “And I saw the new Jerusalem, adorned as a bride, descending out of heaven, for her groom” . The new Jerusalem…the very end of the book. There are sixty-six books in the Bible, and the very end, when the whole thing is done, she becomes adorned as a bride and coming down out of the heavens for her groom. And so they become one; they aren’t two any more.255 ¶47

In this world we have shadows of it. In the Western world, a girl gives up her name and takes the name of her husband. So she becomes from that moment on while she still remains a wife she bears his name. But that is not close enough. In the very end you will bear his name but you will be the very being himself. There won’t be two of you, only one, and that one is God.255 ¶48

So, “Not one will be lost, not one in my holy mountain; all will be redeemed by the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole world he is called.”255 ¶49

If these little moments seem trying and frightening, go back and read the scripture: “I hid my face for a moment, and only for a very brief moment did I actually forsake you. But I forsook you for a purpose.” We seem lost, that no one cares. I’m being dispossessed for want of money. I can’t pay my bills and they are going to repossess the things that I got, and all these things…I feel forsaken. He tells me he forsook me and he loves me? Yes, he forsook me for a brief moment. But it seems so long.255 ¶50

But he’s asking me now to create, to actually create. I’m a womb, let the womb create and bring forth all kinds of lovely things in this world. But in the end, he will redeem me; he redeems me by the birth of the child.255 ¶51

When that child comes into the world, you will know the mystery of Simeon: He holds the child in his hands and he said, “Now let thy servant depart according to thy word” . He saw it! He heard of this child, but he hadn’t seen him. And now that he sees the Christ child, “Let thy servant depart according to thy word.” As Job said, “I’ve heard of thee with the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees thee” . Then you see exactly what was foretold you, but you couldn’t believe it . I, at my age, an hundred…when it’s long ceased to be after the manner of woman, that I would bear a child? And so she laughed .255 ¶52

But the child came. It’s not a physical child, it’s a spiritual child. We must always think of Isaac not as the result of generation but of the fashioning of the unbegotten. God forms himself: God is the unbegotten. He forms himself, the unbegotten, called Melchizedek in scripture; and then you, his bride, bring forth the unbegotten. Then you hold it in your hands, for you are the bride. You are man, as far as you are concerned, but you may say with the poet, “I am Mary and birth to Christ must give if I in blessedness for now and evermore would live.”255 ¶53

Then Blake has a wonderful thought concerning this being called a womb, he calls it The Virginity of the Virgin. This is what he said: “What ere is done to her she cannot know, and if you ask her she’ll swear it’s so. Whether it is good or ill, there’s no one to blame, no one to take the pride, no one the shame.” We don’t know what is being done to us. But in the end we know. So if you ask her why she [...] all this, we don’t know. Why am I doing all these things? Why are all these things happening to me? So, what ere is done to her she cannot know; if you ask her, she’ll swear it’s so. Ask her, ask anyone, they don’t know. And whether it’s good or ill, there’s none to blame. No one to take the pride—no one can claim they did it—and no one the shame.255 ¶54

Because the whole thing is being done by your husband, and your husband is your Maker, and your Maker is the Holy One of Israel. Your Maker is Jehovah: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; and besides me there is no Savior” . So man is saved at that moment in time when he gives birth to the child. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *255 ¶55

I know that many people say, After all, there are many kinds of religions in the world—-you have your Oriental religions, you have this religion, the other religion. I still maintain from my own visions that the true vision is the whole Old Testament and the New Testament. When we have the experiences and we go back into the great scriptures and fit it here, here you have the Word of God confirmed by your own experience. You didn’t induce it, it just happened as promised.255 ¶56

Just imagine that small…there are only about eleven or twelve million Jews in the world and they just slaughtered six million. There were still only twelve million then and there are still twelve million today. So no matter how they try to slaughter them and exterminate them, God’s remnant remains in this world. Without that as a backbone in the world, we really wouldn’t have a world. That seems crazy, rub them out and you wouldn’t have any world, really. It’s a peculiar mystery. Right in that great Hebraic scholar you find it.255 ¶57

Oh, we find rascals all over the world; there are rascals in the Jewish faith too. But I mean as faith, as a belief. Don’t try to rub it out; you’ll never succeed in rubbing it out. It’s there forever…until God’s purpose is fulfilled. There is no Christianity without Judaism.255 ¶58

Where would you stand as a Christian? He said, “I’ve come only to fulfill the scriptures.” Well, there wasn’t any such thing as a New Testament when these words were voiced. And [...] in the New Testament did he quote. He quoted none, because there was no New Testament. He said, “All that Moses and the law wrote about me and the prophets and the psalms…and I have come only to fulfill scripture.” Well, the only scripture that he spoke of was the scripture of the Old Testament and that’s what he fulfilled.255 ¶59

These things began to unfold within him…the buds came to fulfillment. Just as my friend tonight can sit in here and hear me discuss his letter to me of last Tuesday; for he fulfilled the Old Testament. That’s the testament that he fulfilled. That story in the 2nd chapter of Genesis and the 54th of Isaiah, he actually fulfilled it. He knows he is the womb of the universe. Well, the womb of the universe is the bride of the Lord: “Your Maker is your husband”—-that’s the 54th of Isaiah. You tell that to some great scholar, he’d laugh at you. Let them laugh…doesn’t really make any difference what they think.255 ¶60

Tomorrow, the whole vast world, hundreds of millions, are going to be glued to the TV set to watch that which is not. A great man, no question about it, a wonderful man; played a marvelous part, I’m all for it. But what pageantry tomorrow, I’ll look at it too. At seven in the morning I’ll be looking at it, seeing this thing come before me, for I love pageantry, I love the theater. That’s all that it is.255 ¶61

And some simply little soul walking the street, who is too busy to look at the TV tomorrow because he has a little errand, he might be aware through personal experience of being the womb of the Lord. He might have already given birth to the Christ child and therefore he’s on his last lap, the 6,000 years are over. And the one that we’ll pay homage to tomorrow—and 400 million will glue their eyes to the box to look at him—-may this very moment be now inserted in an entirely new part. Because you will be; you’re restored to life and inserted into a section of time best suited for the work that is being done on you as the womb of the Lord. And who knows how long he has to go before he gives birth to the Christ child? But God in his infinite mercy has hidden from us the painful memory of our past. But you know you’re at the end of the road when you hold him in your hands and look into that smiling, heavenly face.255 ¶62

But I say, the 144,000 represents humanity, and these are only garments. We are Spirit, God is Spirit, so don’t confuse the man with the garment that he wears. As Blake said, “Oh, my Satan, thou art really but a dunce, and canst not tell the garment from the man.” Goodnight.255 ¶63

A miracle is the name give by those who have no faith to the works of faith. So the important question is not did Jesus work miracles in Galilee, but is he miraculously present, miraculously potent now? The answer we give to the second question is the only important answer, really. If we cannot give to the second question a confident and adoring yes, it doesn’t really matter what we say of the first. Is he present and is he potent now? I tell you that he is, but you must find out who he is and trust him implicitly.253 ¶1

Well, let us turn to the 25th chapter of the Book of Genesis, for this is all revelation. We’re told in this chapter that two were struggling together within the womb of Rebecca and she wondered why, “If this is thus, why do I live?” So she sought the Lord to inquire of the Lord as to why should this thing be. And he said to her: “Two nations are within thy womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder shall serve the younger. And then they came out, the first one hairy all over; they called him Esau. Then came the second, a hairless lad; and they called him Jacob.” When you read the story you might think a woman had twins, two little boys that came out. Hasn’t a thing to do…all symbolism…not a thing to do with that picture of a woman conceiving and bringing forth twins, twin boys.253 ¶2

This is true of every child born of woman. You have an immortal twin brother. Jacob is the first name given to him, the offspring of the promised child called Isaac. For the real you descends from Isaac, the child of the promise. This outer garment is Esau; the immortal brother is my own wonderful human Imagination. You can’t see him. You only see the mortal Neville. You do not see the immortal being that is expressing itself through this mortal being. So this is Esau. Under some microscope it’s hair all over, just like Esau. Some men you don’t need a microscope, but it’s hair all over. The being that is called “the smooth skinned lad,” you never see him, for he is Jacob, the prototype of the one we speak of in the New Testament as Jesus Christ. His name is I AM; in action, it’s all Imagination.253 ¶3

So now, “There are two souls within my breast. One to heaven doth aspire and one to earth doth cling.” Here, the battle is on within us. I am looking at the world through my senses and I accept as fact what they dictate and what reason allows. But there is someone within me that is a miracle worker if I would only exercise him and let him speak. If I could only trust him implicitly and know that he’s as present now as he was in Galilee 2,000 years ago; that God himself became me that I may become God. This is the battle within me, the battle between the outer man of the senses and the inner man of Imagination.253 ¶4

Then the day will come, there will not be two, there will only be one, as told us in the 2nd chapter of the Book of Ephesians. He will create within himself one new man in place of the two, and put an end to the hostility. That happens in the most miraculous way. It happens with a bolt of lightning out of the nowhere splitting man in two, from the top of his head to the base of his spine; and then at the base of his spine he sees golden, liquid light. It’s molten gold, and he knows it’s himself, and he fuses with it as he looks at it. He ascends this spinal column of his right up into heaven.253 ¶5

Now, the word translated nations in the passage that I quoted—“two nations are in your womb”—the word nations is goyim in Hebrew. A gentile is a “goyim, a foreigner, a stranger.” But in essence it means your backbone that is split in two. If you have a good concordance, a Biblical concordance, look it up, the word goyim. In fact, the word nations…and here it is split right down, every little segment of the entire thirty-two bones, from the top to the bottom, is split; at the base, this molten gold.253 ¶6

And then think in terms of a sculptor making a beautiful image. He works from within. When he completes what he wants, then he covers it in clay, and then he pours his molten metal within and it takes the form of the mold. When it takes the form and coagulates, then he takes off the outer part and discards it. The outer part is this body. The day will come, I will discard it like an Esau, discard it like an Ishmael; send it off. As we are told in the very last book of he Old Testament, “Esau I hated; Jacob I loved.” And these are the words of the Lord. You wouldn’t think that the God of love would hate, but he discards the outer part. It has no place whatsoever in the eternal kingdom. So, the outer man may have a bulbous nose, a horrible form…hasn’t a thing to do with the work that is going on in the inside. That inside is all that matters, and when it’s finished in the eyes of God, he pours himself into it. He is the molten gold…that’s the blood of Christ…and you see it at the base of the spine when you are severed in two from top to bottom.253 ¶7

Now, how do I prove it? I can tell you my experience that I’ve just told you, but aside from telling you my experience, we can prove the existence of Christ within us, prove it in the most simple way. This is how I prove it. Tell me what you want…just tell me what you want…and let me assume that you have it. I simply imagine that you’re telling me that you have it, rather than you’re telling me that you want it; and then I believe in the reality of my imaginal act. I try to remain loyal to this unseen reality. I firmly believe that that was an act of Christ when I imagined. So I try to guide it along the, I would say, rails of love. If it is something that I would want for myself, I would willingly hear it. If you ask me to hear that someone is hurt, I couldn’t hear it. If you ask me to hear that you are gainfully employed or that you have a large sum of money, I could hear that for myself, so I could hear it for you. If you ask me to hear that you are happily married, well, I am so I could hear it for you. If you ask me to hear that someone is unhappy and through their unhappiness you’d be happy, I couldn’t hear that. So I will simply guide it by love. Every time that I imagine anything and I feel that it is with love, I am exercising this inner man wisely.253 ¶8

So will it work? Well, try it. All I can say to anyone simply try it. A friend of mine told me tonight, but I didn’t have time to hear the whole story. He’s a teacher. Another teacher in the same school took my book Awakened Imagination and took the chapter Revision, and having revised it in his own mind’s eye, how to apply it, he took a class of thirty and had them start with a story, an unlovely story, and had each pupil revise it, and practice in our schools the art of revision. Well, that is exercising Jacob—-that’s sheer power.253 ¶9

The day will come that Jacob’s name will be changed to Israel. Then the day will come, you move forward in time “a man after my own heart.” And then you reach the state called Jesus Christ. And then, that man will be born, born from above. Everything I have told you I’m speaking from experience. I am not speculating, I am not theorizing, this is all true. So there are two within us until the end when he breaks down the wall that separates us, that wall of conflict, and makes within himself one new man in place of two. That one new man is Jesus Christ. So I tell you, in the end you and I are one. There is only one Jesus Christ. There aren’t billions of him; billions of drops of blood of Jesus Christ, but every drop of blood is himself. So when you see it at the base of the spine, you are it. And then come the revelations, one after the other, and the one who called him Father, calls you Father.253 ¶10

Are you not then Jesus Christ? If his own son…and you may be shocked to hear he had a son…but he can’t be a father unless there’s a child. “Show me the Father and I will be satisfied.” “I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how then can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” So if I am father, I can’t be father and not have a child. That’s the most shocking thing to the priests that I’ve spoken to, and the ministers that I’ve spoken to, and the rabbis. As I go across the country I meet them. If I’m on a panel on TV with them, that question is always brought up and they’re always shocked when I say that Jesus Christ is Father, and as a father you can’t be a father unless there’s a child. I can call all the priests of the world “Father” and they’re all celibates…there is no child. Where is the father? There must be a child if there is a father. So, “When you see me you see the Father.” Then who is the Son?253 ¶11

And then he tells the story. The story he tells, you’ve all read it and you’ve heard it from my lips time and again, the story of David. For in the 2nd Psalm it said, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” That’s said of David. And who spoke the words? It is said the Lord spoke the words. And so, he said, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” And all the rabbis would answer, “Why, naturally, the son of David,” for it’s promised that he would come from David. Then he replied, “Why then did David in the Spirit call him Lord?” The word is Adonay, a word used by every child of his father. All would refer to his father as “my lord”; that’s what the word Adonay means, my lord. “If he calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” and no one asked him any more questions after that. First of all, they didn’t ask that, he brought it up. He’s trying to reveal the great mystery of being: He found that he was God the Father, because if he is God the Father he has to be the father of God’s only begotten son, who is David.253 ¶12

So David in the Spirit comes and calls him Lord. I prophesy for every one of you, you’re going to have that experience. When you have that experience and you meet anyone in this world, you can’t meet another. The wall has all been torn down, there’s no hostility, for everyone is the father of that only begotten Son of God. Therefore, then you know the fatherhood of God and then the brotherhood of man. We’re all one, every one of us equal, not one greater than, because we’re all the same being, all God.253 ¶13

All of this cult of the heroic personalities vanishes. You don’t care what the man has played in this world. You played all the parts, but in his infinite mercy he has hidden from you your past. It’s a plan. Let no one tell you this is not a plan: “As I have planned it, so shall it be; as I have purposed it, so shall it stand.” And, “My anger,” he said, “will not turn back until it has executed and accomplished the intents of my mind. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” So you and I are put through the furnaces of affliction, playing all the parts in the world, while he forms his image within us. When it is completely formed, he pours the molten gold-—the molten gold being his own blood—and it takes the form of that image produced by the lives we have lived. No one can pour it until the image is perfect, and you form that image by the life that you have lived. Not in seventy years, from the cradle to the grave; you’ve been here a long, long time.253 ¶14

Now, they said to him, “One whom you love is ill.” He said to them clearly, “Lazarus is dead,” and then he restored Lazarus to life. Who is Lazarus? May I tell you, you are. He loves you; that’s why he became you. So you will die, everyone dies, but you don’t really die; he restores you to life. You die here to find yourself restored to life automatically, just as solidly real as you are now, in a section of time that is in harmony with the work to be done on his image. It’s the only purpose for the whole vast world. Not to be known, not to be fabulously wealthy, not to be anything, just the image of God being fashioned. And when you leave here, you’re restored to life automatically and inserted into a section of time—not necessarily 1966; it could be the year 3,000, it could be the year 1,000— all based upon the work to be done on that image.253 ¶15

But when it’s done, at that very moment that it’s done and not one moment before or one moment later, it will be simply torn apart; and then the golden molten light is poured upon you, and it takes the form, the eternal form. But he likes and loves this—it’s called Lazarus in his eye—and he keeps it forever, for the 6,000 years as he wears it. It dies and he restores it; it dies again and he restores it. He keeps restoring Lazarus until finally he himself resurrects.253 ¶16

The restoration to life is not the same as the resurrection. Resurrection is the end of this age: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” The end of the age or the close of the age is when this age comes to its end relative to the individual, and it doesn’t restore Lazarus anymore. That’s forever behind me, and God has risen from this state called death. So you have an immortal brother and he’s known in scripture as Jesus Christ. He will not leave you until he tears down the wall of partition, of hostility between you, and you and he are one, not two. When you become one with him, then you have all the experiences that are claimed in scripture of Jesus Christ. In scripture it is claimed he is the Father. In scripture David calls him Father. In scripture he ascends like a serpent into heaven. In scripture the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form as a dove and smothers him in affection. In scripture he is born from above in a supernatural manner. All these things you will experience, and having experienced them you are the being spoken of in scripture as Jesus Christ.253 ¶17

If you talk about it, you’ll get the same reaction as recorded in scripture. They will say, “You’re blaspheming, for you being man—we know your parents, we know your brothers, we know your sisters—and you dare to claim yourself one with God?” So, whoever has the experience, tell it, but expect the same reaction as recorded in scripture: What an arrogant, blasphemous man he is or she is, he dares to claim he is one with Christ…because they expect him to come in some strange way out in space, and they have the strangest pictures of him. You never see a picture of Jesus Christ who resembles the one who owns the picture, yet you’re told in the Book of John, the epistle of John, that when he appears we shall be like him. You’ve never once seen a picture of him that faintly resembles the one who holds the picture and adores it. It has to be just like you, but it’s you raised to the nth degree of perfection. You’ve never seen such majesty, you’ve never seen such beauty, such strength of character in your face before as when you see that face, that living, living you. You look at it and it’s your own being. It’s not another, it’s your own self. Here is the hero of billions of faces and yet we are one being wearing all these faces. Yes, you will not lose any identity, not for one moment. None of us will lose our identity, and yet we are one with Jesus Christ…only God, nothing but God.253 ¶18

So, in the end, you’re told, “The Lord will be king over all the earth; and his name will be one and the Lord one.” Only one Lord, and yet you and I that Lord. So, until you actually have the experience, believe me, Jesus Christ is present in you right now. Don’t look back in the pages of history 2,000 years—right now! The same miraculous power that operated in Galilee 2,000 years ago operates now, in a very simple, simple way. What did he do? He simply believed his imaginal acts. “It’s done!” said he, and “Go! The child is alive.” And he believed. Well, the same power is in you now. If you could now think of any person in this world, any friend, and imagine him or imagine her or imagine them to be as you would like them to be, and believe in the reality of your own imaginal act. For faith is simply loyalty to unseen reality, that’s all that it is. I remain loyal to what I have imagined. I imagined it, I’m still imagining it, and I will continue to imagine this state until what I have imagined becomes objectified as fact within my world.253 ¶19

So if I’ve imagined, then it’s done…if that is Christ in action. I tell you that is Christ in action. So we are told, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless of course you fail to meet the test.” I hope you will discover we have not failed in our test. Well then, let us feel the same confidence that we will not fail in our test. You and I know nothing of the human form, we’re not doctors, yet I don’t have to be a doctor to assume that things are perfect. I couldn’t put a knife into your body and do anything but injure you, but I could assume that things are right. Then if there is a surgeon and you need surgery, alright, his hand will be guided based upon my assumption. Let him use the knife; he’s trained in the knife, let him use it. I’m not a dentist, but I could assume a perfect state, and let the perfect man trained in that aspect of life perform what he must perform. But let me assume the state.253 ¶20

All you are called upon to do is to believe that you are what you would be and sleep just as though it were true. Fall asleep this night in the assumption that you are now the man, that you are the woman that you want to be. If you dare to do it, then some little bridge of incident will appear. And you don’t consciously devise it, it simply appears. You are compelled to walk across this little series of events moving from where you are to where you’ve assumed that you are.253 ¶21

Now, if this very night you dare to assume that this immortal brother is your own wonderful human Imagination and he is Jesus Christ, you know what you are doing? See, character becomes destiny. The moment you dare to assume that your own wonderful human Imagination is Jesus Christ you adopt that character. Well, your destiny is automatic then, for you know his destiny—straight to the Father, one with the Father. You aren’t going to avoid the problems of life, no, that’s what this world is about. You aren’t going to avoid anything, but you’ll pass through them because you know the end. The end is resurrection; the end is one with God.253 ¶22

But who is one with God?—Jesus Christ. So you must assume that I am he, as you are told in the 46th Psalm, “Be still and know that I am God.” If you are afraid to do it, embarrassed to do it, alright, I can’t force you to do it, but the day will come you’ll have to do it. You’ll be moved from place to place in this world, through the gate of death, restored to life, and through other experiences until finally you come to the state that you dare to claim “I am he.” When you claim it, that’s your character. Whatever you claim that you are, that’s your character and character invariably becomes your destiny. The destiny of Jesus Christ is God.253 ¶23

So start tonight. Let no one tell you not to start it, start it tonight. Test it with a friend. A friend may be now unemployed and you want to see him or see her gainfully employed, just assume that they are. Don’t even tell them that you’ve done it. You want no reward; costs you nothing to do it. Just simply assume that they are, and fall asleep this night in the assumption that they are. May I tell you, you’ll get the good news. They will be employed and gainfully employed, and then you’ll have that satisfaction of knowing that you sent a word on its way and the word could not return unto you void. It had to accomplish unto which you had sent it. So you assumed it and it had to go that way.253 ¶24

And then you will know who Jesus Christ really is. You won’t stick him all over the place and look at him in some other way. You will know that he walks with you. He is you. He’s your own wonderful human Imagination. That is Jesus Christ. Because he is the essence of love, you will only exercise your Imagination lovingly on behalf of anyone in this world. You will never under any circumstances exercise your Imagination in any unloving manner, never! It becomes something you can’t do, that’s all there is to it. Not even in dream do you do it. A dream is supposed to be a state where you have no control. You will find yourself in your dreams not doing it in any unloving manner; you’ll do it only lovingly. So I tell you, I’m speaking only from experience. I know how this thing works.253 ¶25

So let me tell everyone here, do not turn to the left or the right to find him. As you walked through the doors tonight he walks with you. He is your immortal brother. He’s taking himself and his mortal part through all the furnaces until that day when it’s completed within him and he makes of two one new man and you and he are one. Then he unveils himself and you are he, not another.253 ¶26

Well, how does he unveil himself? In the very things recorded in scripture. Everything said of him happens to you; that’s how he unveils it. He doesn’t all of a sudden pour something on you; he brings into your presence his immortal Son. You don’t see this man over here and the immortal Son there and you here; only two of you, the immortal Son and you. Then he calls you Father; then you know who you are. Until that moment in time you had no idea that you are God the Father. You thought yourself some little worm because you had an earthly beginning and you know you must have an earthly end. So the cradle to the grave is our little stretch of time. You thought that, until this moment in time when you realize you are the one spoken of in scripture as Jesus Christ. Yet no loss of identity; you don’t change your name. There’s no break with the past, and because there’s no break with the past, you hesitate to make the claim. You make no claim to another. You only know within yourself what has happened to you. You go on and tell your story to the world, tell it or print it. But in some way you tell it to another, that this word may be spread abroad and all may believe, and begin to adopt the attitude of being Jesus Christ before they have the experience, because you’re going to have it, anyway.253 ¶27

So here, in a simple way, as told in the Book of Genesis, this is how he exercised it. Isaac is blind. But I am blind right now to the actual fact of the fulfillment of your desire. I heard it as you voiced it, but I don’t see it physically standing before me. So you voiced it and I heard it. So Isaac can hear but he can’t see…Isaac is blind. So he turns to his son, and he calls and asks him to go and fetch some nice tastily prepared venison for him. Jacob puts on the clothes, the outer clothes of his brother Esau to deceive the father into believing that he is Esau. He said, “I can’t see you, my son, come close that I may feel you.” The emphasis is now on feeling. So he comes close and he feels the hairy hands and feels the hairy shoulders and smells the odor of the coat of his son Esau. He said, “You have the odor of my son Esau and you feel like Esau, but your voice sounds like Jacob.” But based on feeling, rather than sound, he pronounces the blessing. You sound like Jacob, but you feel like Esau…so he gives him the blessing. Esau returns from the hunt to discover his brother Jacob had deceived the father and took the blessing that belonged to Esau.253 ¶28

Well, this is how you do it. Here I am in this room. Now this is my Esau. It’s so real; my senses dictate the reality of this room. But I would like to be and I name it. I won’t do it really because I know I’ll go there, because I’ve done it…and you go there. So I would say now, if I desire to be in San Francisco, I would, while standing here knowing from my senses that I’m in Los Angeles in the Ebell Club, I would close my eyes and become blind to this like Isaac, I wouldn’t see it. I’d become just as blind as Isaac. Then I would depend upon touch. I would feel…I’d go to the St. Francis Hotel…I’d feel the St. Francis Hotel. I would sit in the lobby and feel that very chair that I sit in daily when I’m there. I’d go ask for my mail. I’d go to the elevator and then call my floor. I would walk through that by touch; I would sense it and touch it. I’d open my eyes once more and I’m back here. I came back from that 500 mile journey to find that I’m here. That was only in my Imagination…I didn’t really go…all in my Imagination. Then things are going to happen rapidly and quickly and I will have to make my changes in my world to make that journey.253 ¶29

That, again, I speak from experience. In 1941 I brought out my first book Your Faith is Your Fortune. It came out in the month of February. There was a snow storm on in New York City. Twelve inches of snow! I went to my meeting. Instead of having the usual hundreds that I always had, about 150 came out; they couldn’t get through the snow. When I came out it was still snowing. So my first night with my book I expected to find about 500 people would want the book, but only 150 came. They came, I would say, just through sympathy, because they really had to struggle to get there. Well, that night when I went to my home I assumed I was in Barbados, and I actually slept in the belief I am in Barbados. I could hear the sounds that you hear only were you in Barbados; the odors that come only were you in Barbados, the tropical odors. I could hear the palm leaves and the coconut leaves on the shingles of the house. I slept in my mother’s home in Barbados. The next day when I woke snow was even higher—not Barbados at all, I’m still in New York City.253 ¶30

But that day, or rather that year, my wife and I made plans to go off to Maine for a vacation and sent off our reservations to go to Maine. Then I got a cable from my family saying, “We never told you because the war was on”—that is, we in Barbados were at war, Briton was at war—-and so they said, “Why tell you to disturb you, but mother has been desperately ill, and now it’s terminal, no possibility of any change in mother, and if it’s possible for you to come, come.” They couldn’t send me a nickel because the pound was frozen. They could not transfer dollars, so they couldn’t get one dollar out to send me. So they did not know what condition I was in financially, whether I could come or not, if my business would allow it. But they sent a cable saying, “This is the terminal state of mother, and if you can come, come.” My wife and I sailed the very next night on an American ship that was leaving at midnight for Barbados. It was the old Argentina [...]. Went home and there I slept in the very room that I had slept in back in February. I hadn’t the slightest idea of going to Barbados, but I slept in Barbados in the month of February, and physically I was there in the month of August. A bridge of incidents appeared. I had to go across that series of events that led up to my sleeping in my mother’s home in Barbados. Then three weeks later we returned, and two weeks later mother closed her eyes to this age, this world.253 ¶31

So I tell you, don’t do it lightly, for you will have to go. So he said in this story, “Come closer, my son, that I may feel you. You sound like Jacob, but you feel like Esau and you smell like Esau, so come closer.” And it was so real to him that he pronounced the blessing. What blessing?—-the fact. He gave it the reality; he gave it the right to be born in this world. That’s the blessing. So you can sit here physically, shut your eyes to the fact, and then assume that you are elsewhere and feel the reality of that elsewhere-ness, and give it the right to be born. You can do it with anything in this world.253 ¶32

Now, this is exercising the Jacob within you who is the prototype of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. You will not actually know he is Jesus Christ until the day David comes into your world, for that marks it. From then on you know who he is; until then you don’t really know. You will have heard it from me and you have read about it in the few little things I have written, but you will not actually know that it is Jesus Christ until David appears and calls you Father. For he calls Jesus Christ, Father, and he can’t have two fathers, he can only have one. So he calls Jesus Christ, Father, Adonay. So begin to exercise it lovingly, and do it on behalf of everyone in this world. It costs you nothing to sit quietly for one moment and exercise your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another. Take anyone in this world and just simply do it, and feel the thrill of accomplishment when you hear via the grapevine that it worked to know that wonderful power resides in you! Now let us go into the Silence and play the part of Isaac, Jacob and Esau. Let Esau go hunting and you bring your Jacob clothed in the skins of reality, and make it real by touching it. Now let us go.253 ¶33

* * * [...] your results so that I may in turn tell others. It encourages people. You can just tell me tomorrow or next week of the results that you got, and I can from the platform just tell your story. It does help people…it encourages them. Now, are there any questions?253 ¶34

Tonight let us discuss the name. If you find this name or believe in it, really there is nothing impossible to you…if you really believe in it. Moses said to God: “If I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me unto you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say?” The Lord said, “I AM who I AM”—sometimes it is translated “I AM what I AM” or “I AM that I AM”—but any form of the verb “to be.” I AM who I AM. Then he said, “Say this to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you. The Lord God, the God of your father Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob has sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.’” No change in this name, my name forever. This comes in the Book of Exodus, the 3rd chapter.252 ¶1

If you read the Book of Exodus you will find that this is sheer power completely unmodified by any justice, any love, no mercy, no pity, no peace, sheer power. So Moses stands in the presence of power. That’s the first revelation of God and it’s I AM. May I tell you, when you believe it that’s how you use it. Your first use of it is sheer power unmodified by any mercy in this world…just power. So in this same Book of Exodus he is told to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let his children go free; then he hardens the heart of Pharaoh. Therefore he’s playing all the parts. He sends his servant Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go free; then he hardens the heart of Pharaoh. So who is playing all the parts?252 ¶2

Since Jehovah, which is I AM, is the primary actor in every event, if you adopt this name of God this is what will happen to you. If you really believe it and adopt it, then the cult of heroic personalities will be unable to take any foothold in your faith. You can’t turn to any being in this world as an important person in your life, but no one. You can’t point to anyone. This night a great man is making his exit from the world, and we all admire him as a person, but when you adopt the name of God, the God of Israel, and actually believe in the God of Israel, which is I AM, and know he plays all parts, then you cannot really turn to any cult of heroic personalities. You’ll find none in Israel, none whatsoever. There’s only I AM.252 ¶3

So the first revelation is sheer power. You can do it and you’re invited to do it. So Pharaoh, who was condemned by the world, was hardened by the very one who asked him to set the children of Israel free. So when you see it, you can say at the very end of the drama, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”. For God the Father played all the parts. But you don’t know he is God the Father in the early stages of the revelation of the name; the name is revealed as sheer power, nothing but power. And then it unfolds itself and finally comes to the end, and the end is God the Father. And the Father is infinite love…but we don’t know that until the very end.252 ¶4

So we are told, “In various and many ways God spoke to our fathers through his servants the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us through a Son”. Now we know he speaks through a son; then he must be a father. You can’t speak through your son unless you are a father, and the Son reveals the Father. But until you reach the point where you see the Son and know who God the Father is, you are moved to use sheer power. And so, you are invited to use power.252 ¶5

So, may I tell you how to use it? The name is simply I AM. It’s not Neville, it’s not John Brown, it’s not Mary Smith, it’s not any name outside of I AM. That’s God and it is infinite might. You could this night seated here close your eyes to the obvious and dare to assume that you are now the one that you desire to be, and assume that you are it. Don’t ask how…this is a power, sheer power, and in a way that no one knows this assumption would rearrange the entire structure of your world and mirror the fulfillment of that assumption. You could this very moment assume that you are elsewhere, though you are here, and you have no means of getting there. And suddenly, if you dare to assume it, believing in the name, the only name the God of Israel possesses, I AM, if you dare to assume it, then a bridge of incidents would form itself across which you would be compelled to move. You would move across this bridge of events leading up to the fulfillment of your assumption…if you believe in the name of the God of Israel.252 ¶6

You never leave Egypt until you accept the God of Israel, no one leaves it. Everyone is in Egypt. Every one is buried in a coffin, as told us so beautifully in the seed plot of the Bible, which is Genesis: “In the beginning God…” it begins, and the Bible ends, that is, the Book of Genesis “…in a coffin in Egypt”. And who is put into a coffin in Egypt?—Joseph the dreamer. Well, who is the dreamer? Aren’t you a dreamer? “Behold this dreamer cometh,” Joseph, the prototype of the fulfillment of God’s purpose. He said, “You meant it for evil”—you meant it to be evil to me—“but God meant it for good”. So God played both parts. He made you sell me into Egypt, and yet he did it for a purpose: That I would show the whole vast world who God is. He’s the dreamer; the dreamer in man is God. When you say “I am” that’s God. The Bible recognizes only one source of dreams: All dreams, all visions proceed from God.252 ¶7

So as I stand here I can dream a day dream or I can close my eyes and fall into a little nap and have an uncontrolled night dream. Or I can open my eyes upon the world and ignore the entire world and have a controlled day dream…still the same dream. This is the power that is God which is I AM. So if you accept the God of Israel, you begin to move out of Egypt. That is the beginning of the exodus.252 ¶8

But man has great trouble in keeping the tense; he’s always turning here, turning there, turning elsewhere. He can’t seem to be faithful to the tense: the tense is “I am.” If I say, “Thou art,” I’m away. If I say, “He is,” I’m away. If I use the word Lord and think of something else than “I am,” I’m away. If I use any name used in scripture for God and do not allow it to register in me as “I am,” I’m completely away.252 ¶9

So the Yod He Vau He—which is “the Lord” in scripture which means “I AM”—it is the verb “to be.” But it has no sound, there are four consonants, and no one can really sound it. My old friend Ab tried to explain to me how to sound it, but he couldn’t sound it. You can’t sound Yod He Vau He in Hebrew, there’s no way to sound it. But we have added something to it and tried to give it a sound; we call it Jehovah, some call it Yahweh. But you can’t sound the name; it’s the unpronounceable name this power that is I AM. If you always remember that when they use the word Adonay they use the word Adonay for the saying Yod He Vau He; because they can’t sound Yod He Vau He they say Adonay. Sometimes they use another word [...], Aleph Lamed, and they will use many words. But no matter what word you hear for God, you can always remember it is I AM and no one else. Then you can’t go wrong.252 ¶10

All things are possible to God. If a man can stand before a board and simply see on that board what he wants to see, which if he saw it would imply that he owned the building, well, who’s looking at it?—I am. Well, what are you seeing? I am seeing and I tell him exactly what I am seeing. Well, if I am seeing it, it would imply I own the entire block…and that’s all that I do…so I am doing it, and two years later without a nickel in the pocket I owned the block. And this is true, I’m not manufacturing this, I’m telling you a true story. That building was bought in 1924 for $50,000 and he didn’t have a penny in his pocket. He sold it this past year for $840,000, and there is no tax on capital gain. That is the man who is my second brother, who is simply looking and simply using God’s only name which is I AM.252 ¶11

This is sheer power when it first reveals itself to man. So we go forward condemning Pharaoh. Why condemn Pharaoh when the being who plays Pharaoh plays the part of Moses? He’s playing all of the parts in the world, but every part. After you use it—and quite often unwisely, unlovingly, unmercifully—still in the end there is no condemnation. You’re moving towards a predetermined end to find that God is Father and infinite love is God. But tonight I share with you my own knowledge and use of this name in power. I can also share with you (and I will) this name in its final state in love.252 ¶12

For when you come to the very end of the unfolding of the name, you are God. So you start in the beginning…and so you are told: “I have tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another”. God alone is praise unto God; Spirit alone is praise unto Spirit; life alone is praise unto life. So If I would receive the praise, the glory of God, I must become God first.252 ¶13

And so here are the words in the 17th of John, “Father, glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee”. The Son can’t glorify the Father until the Father first glorifies the Son. Now he makes the statement: “I have accomplished all the works thou gavest me to do; now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before that the world was”. Well, who is asking this question?—you and I when we have finished the work. When we’ve accomplished all of the work given us to do, we only ask for the return of the glory that we gave up to assume the limitation of flesh. For the one that is asking is the creative power and wisdom of God personified as man.252 ¶14

So to come here we came with a purpose. And to come here we were the creative power and the wisdom of God. For that’s who Christ is, as told us in the Book of Corinthians, 1st chapter of 1st Corinthians: “Jesus Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God”, and so here personified as man. But when he’s completed the work—which is the unfolding of the name of God—when it comes to the very end and he [...] as God the Father, now “I’ve accomplished the work thou gavest me to do; now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.” And so God glorifies the Son that the Son may glorify the Father, because the Father alone is glory unto the Father. So you can’t really glorify the Father until the Father first glorifies you. And he doesn’t glorify you until you come to the very end. When you return, that creative power has returned from its mission. Having accomplished all that it was sent to do it comes back…and then it returns. And the Father glorifies it first that it, in turn, will glorify the Father.252 ¶15

So this is the great mystery of this name. So in the Book of Exodus when Moses begins to sing the song called The Song of Moses, he said, “God is a man of war; the Lord is his name”…only power, sheer power, “God is a man of war.” For he saw it, every child died that was the first child, from he who sat on the throne to the one who was in the dungeon. Go and ask him to let my people go, but I will harden his heart; and then you tell him that every firstborn this night will die, from Pharaoh’s firstborn to the lowest in the land of Egypt. And that night they all died, and the firstborn of the cattle died. They said, “We are dead men, let these people go.” Well, who did it? Was it not the same God? Only one God plays all the parts in the world. There’s nothing but God; God is playing every part.252 ¶16

But now, if you want to really start the exit from the world of death, you must accept the name of the God of Israel. This is monotheism in the extreme. You can’t have two gods and be a true Israelite and only the Israelite comes out of Egypt. As told us, “Truly thou hast been good…the pure in heart,” the 73rd chapter of the Book of Psalms. Then he looks and he sees Nathan, who was called Nathaniel “the gift of God”; and he said, “Behold, the Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile”. No two gods; just one God. So he calls Israel. He only calls Israel a man after his own heart, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile, and he calls him. Well, if there is no guile, then you are only worshipping one God.252 ¶17

But, to worship means “worthy of one’s attention”…so you pay attention to the headlines tomorrow morning, you pay attention to something else tomorrow, are you paying any attention to I AM? Would you spend five minutes tonight before you go to bed, or five minutes tomorrow, just to contemplate being, just being—not John, not Mary, not anyone in this world, simply being—for that is to worship God. So you worship only I AM. So you dwell upon just being. You’d be amazed what you will see and what will happen as you dwell upon being. You’ve never seen such glorious light as you dwell just upon being. This golden, golden light begins to appear all around you, liquid light. As we are told in the Book of Wisdom, like gold in the furnace he has tried us and received us unto himself as pure gold. That’s right, molten gold. You are tried in the furnace and all of a sudden you turn into molten gold, and he receives you unto himself as pure molten gold.252 ¶18

Then you leave this world, called the world of Egypt, which is the coffin. So then he was placed in the coffin in Egypt—the very last verse in the book, the 50th chapter of the Book of Genesis—“And he was put into a coffin in Egypt”. But he exacted a pledge from his brothers that he would not be left in Egypt; they would take him out of Egypt and bring him into the land that was promised. So the whole vast world could be almost within that little statement, “In the beginning God…in a coffin in Egypt.” And then the dreamer is dreaming this fantastic dream of life. All must dream the dream of life, but he will come out of it when he discovers the name of God.252 ¶19

The first discovery of the name is sheer might, sheer power. I saw it so clearly when I was a lad in my twenties, taken into the divine society, and the first one I encountered was infinite might, sheer might, not a shred of mercy in his presence, no peace, no love. But in the same society was infinite love who embraced me; and at that moment of the embrace I became one with him, fused with infinite love that is the ultimate God. Then I was sent back before the first one, sheer might. I had to start there. It was might who commanded me to go into the world and tell the story, it wasn’t love. Love embraced me, and while mingled with love I was brought before might for the second time, and might sent me into the world with this ringing command in my ears: “Time to act!”252 ¶20

That was the word, with emphasis on “act.” “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men. So let us to him who only is give decision”. He only acts. I started in that manner, trying to test it, and it worked like a charm. Then from then on the name itself began to unfold into higher levels. Always might, but from the higher and higher levels, until you finally reach the ultimate, and the ultimate is love. God is infinite love and God is Father.252 ¶21

But you will never know the Father save through the Son, so the Son reveals you to yourself. When God’s only begotten Son stands before you and you know that he is your Son, then you know who you are—you are the Father. So can’t you see in this affirmation, I AM, this strange, wonderful unity of God and man? “That is my name forever.” When I say “I am” and you say “I am,” well, isn’t this a strange, wonderful revelation of the unity of man and the oneness with God? Then we understand that greatest of all statements when asked what is the greatest of all commandments and he answered, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God the Lord is one”.252 ¶22

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord”—the word translated “the Lord” is I AM. The word Elohim would be “the I AMs”; it’s gods, it’s plural. Then comes again “The Lord, I AM, is one.” So here is a compound unity, one made up of others. So, all of us together form the one Lord that is the God of Israel.252 ¶23

So no one departs from this fabulous world of death until he first accepts the God of Israel, which is I AM. Then he starts. He may make numberless mistakes. As you’re told, in the journey they turned back, they made every effort to go back into Egypt…because they forgot the tense. They couldn’t quite remain faithful to the tense, which is I am. So they brought in [...], they built a golden calf, and they built something else, they made something else…all in conflict with the Second Commandment, “Make no graven image unto me”. Well, the graven image need not be something physical, it could be an idea. I met a wonderful person they will tell you, come and hear him, come and hear her. Oh, he is so altogether near God. So you forget “I am” and you go to “he is.” That’s not God; it’s not out there at all. God does not wear the name called Neville or John Brown; these are masks, forget them—it’s simply I AM.252 ¶24

So wherever you are in this world, whatever you’re doing, if you could only remember the name of God and call upon it, instantly you would be—redeemed from whatever you are if you call upon it—in another state. He said, “I am the Lord.” Rightly translated it would be “I am the I am.” “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…and besides me there is no Savior, I know not any. I know no other Savior, I am the first and I am the last; and there is none beside me.” Read it in the Book of Isaiah, the 43rd chapter, the 41st, the 44th. Tie them together and see this wonderful revelation of the name of God who is the Savior of the world.252 ¶25

So tonight, instead of praying to someone, may I tell you, if the name of the God I worship is I AM, then it follows only what I am. Can I pray aright? I can’t pray aright in any other way other than by what I am. He doesn’t hear my words. There’s a little story told that Michael turned to the Lord and said, “Allow me, Sire, but I think you’ve made a great mistake in permitting man to learn how to talk.” All of the prayers were coming up and it sounded just like Babel, everyone was asking something entirely different, all were asking. So he said, “If you did not allow them to talk, we could then understand what they were praying for.” God said to him, “I never listen to what they say; I listen only to their lives.” That’s all…I listen only to their lives…so only what I am is answered. No prayer of mine goes beyond the roof but the prayer of what I am. That’s all that I can answer.252 ¶26

So this night if I would be healthy, I must assume that I am. If I would be wealthy, I must assume that I am. Don’t ask anyone in this world for permission. If I would be anything, I must assume that I am; for that is asking in the only name that really responds. I only listen to their lives. And my assumption need not be based upon the evidence of my senses, it need not be based upon reason. My assumption at that very moment that I assume it will actually build a wonderful series of events; and then I, standing here, will be compelled to walk across this series of events, across that bridge of incidents, and move exactly where the assumption leads me.252 ¶27

I have done it time and time again. When things seemed so black, I couldn’t turn for light, I didn’t know where to turn. Had no money, had none of this, none of that, and I dared to assume that I was the man that I wanted to be, and I was where I wanted to be—which would have taken quite a fortune. And strangely enough it all came out of the nowhere. I didn’t have to put my hand in the pocket of another to get it. I did nothing of which I was ashamed to get it. It just happened.252 ¶28

But on reflection one is inclined through past training to believe it would have happened anyway, and that’s when you go back to another god, and forget the God of Israel. One must ever remember the God of Israel, and the God of Israel is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s the God of Israel…that’s the God that created the whole vast world and brought it into being and sustains it. Not a thing comes into this world unsupported by your own wonderful imaginal act. It does not remain in the world without such support, and when it ceases to receive that support, it vanishes as though it were never present. That is the God of whom I speak. This is the God of Israel, your own wonderful human Imagination which I speak of as I AM, that’s God.252 ¶29

Start this night, because you are encouraged to do it. Go back to the Book of Exodus…it’s sheer power. If you are in business, try it. The day will come you’ll move through the entire series and come right up to the fulfillment of it all, and find him to be the God of love, not only the God of love but Father. So God has to give you in the end himself to receive glory, because he cannot receive glory from anyone but himself. So to receive glory from you, he has to give you himself; and he’s a father, so he gives you himself as father, and in so doing he gives you his son. Then you see his son and his son calls you Father. And you know it, there’s no doubt in your mind as to who he is, he is your son. You look into this heavenly face, which is God’s only begotten son, and you know that you are his father and he is your son. Then the drama is over.252 ¶30

But the inheritance which is God himself cannot be actualized, or is, at least, not fully realized by you who has had the experience so long as you still wear the garment of flesh. This is a veil of forgetfulness, this is amnesia, this little garment, complete amnesia when you step into this world and assume the limitations of the garment of flesh.252 ¶31

So you play the part, and then you hear from those whom he has sent into the world the real meaning of his name and the power of his name. You take it and you use it. If it proves itself in performance, does it really matter what others think? What do we know in this world better and more thoroughly than that which we have experienced? Do we know anything in this world more thoroughly than what we’ve experienced? So if I’ve experienced it, does it really matter what anyone in this world would tell me? I will say to you, you haven’t experienced it or you would not tell me that it is wrong. Had you experienced it you would have agreed with me, and so you haven’t experienced it. Wait…you will experience it.252 ¶32

After a man has experienced God, it doesn’t really matter what the world would say about there is no God. Many of them say there is no God, doesn’t really matter. They go blindly on not knowing first they’re going to find him as power…that’s when they first find him. When they find him as power they’re going to use him and misuse him, and as they misuse him, who’s misusing him? God’s misusing him. He’s misusing his own name. He hardens Pharaoh’s heart and then kills all the firstborn…in one night they all die. The locusts come and devour all the land. Every plague, one after the other, is the use of power; but in this way a strange, peculiar misuse of it.252 ¶33

Well, that’s alright, you’re invited to use it and misuse it. Then comes the pain…he puts you through the furnaces. “I’ll try you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how shall my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another”. So he has to bring me into that state that is just like himself before he can give me his glory, that I may reflect his glory. He can’t possibly give it to me until I become one with him. He takes me through all these furnaces, and finally I become molten gold and can be quickly molded into his image. In the twinkle of an eye that molten gold takes on his image, and then you ascend right up into heaven with God the Father forever and forever.252 ¶34

I can share it with you; I can’t convince you by words. I can only tell you it starts with the first revelation of the name and the first revelation is power, sheer, unmerciful power, that’s power. He’s called a God of war, and this is his name. But after you’ve gone through it and you see it and you’ve used it unmercifully, you will come out of it. And you’ll use it on a higher level and a still higher level and finally you reach the highest level, and it’s the level of love where God is infinite love. And may I tell you, there is no power in the world comparable to God. We speak of this power on this level, but love is greater than all. That’s the greatest of all, for it’s the ultimate of God that is love.252 ¶35

So tonight, you take this wonderful name and you try it. It won’t fail you! I promise you, it won’t fail you…just “I am.” Forget what you’ve done in this world, forget what people think that you are; forget all the little tags people put upon you. Do take off everything and simply dwell on “I am.” Repeat it to yourself quietly without any audible sound, just “I am.” You’ll be amazed what happens…just “I am.” Then in that I-am-ness clothe it with your wish fulfilled.252 ¶36

Just try it. I’m telling you what I have experienced. This is not any theory, this is not speculation, this is pure experience. It comes that way in an ultimate bliss. I can’t tell anyone in words what it is to reach a state where there is no one but “I am.” You are infinite being…pulsing, liquid light. There’s no world, no people, nothing, just “I am.” It’s a state beyond any way that man could describe in words. And so, you and I, separate as we are seemingly, in that state we are one.252 ¶37

So if you bear his name—as we’re told, Go and call my daughters from the ends of the earth, and call my sons from afar, all those who are called by my name—aren’t you called by his name? Before you say anything in this world you say “I am,” don’t you? Well, that’s the name. Call my daughters from the ends of the earth and call my sons from afar, all who are called by my name. Well, we’re called by the name because “I am”…you can say “I am.” If you first are not aware of being, then you can’t be aware of being anything. You must first be aware of being by saying “I am.” Call all my daughters, call all my sons, who are called by my name, and let them know that I am the only Savior. Besides me there is no Savior. He calls them all and gives himself to the called.252 ¶38

But tonight, if you are now looking for a better job, or a job, or a change in your social world, or your physical world, or whatever it is, start with the sheer power of God which is I AM. And then, God can conjure anything in this world. All things are possible to God. Then dare to assume that I am…and you name it. As you named it…it is that…then “I am.” So what should I say? Just say, “I am that I am.” When you go to them, just simply say, “I AM has sent me unto you.” That’s all that you say. Some will believe you and some will not. That’s all that you say, just say, “I AM has sent me unto you…for that’s my name forever…throughout all generations”.252 ¶39

So tonight, you just simply assume that I am…and then you name it. The minute that you name it you put “that” on it, and then affirm it, “I am.” You say “I am healthy”—the word healthy would become “that” in the sentence—I am. “I am wealthy, I am.” “I am employed, gainfully employed, I am.” So that sentence—in the middle “gainfully employed” becomes “that” in the sentence. I am and you affirm it. Then fall asleep in that statement just as though it were true, and test God and see. As you’re told, “Come test me and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless of course you fail to meet the test”. “Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God”. It’s this power. So you try it this night and see if you do not externalize in your world that which you are affirming as true of yourself.252 ¶40

Now let us go into the Silence.252 ¶41

Tonight’s subject is something different. If you’re not familiar with our terminology I’m going to invite you to listen carefully. It’s always on the same theme, really, that God became man that man may become God. In 1803 William Blake wrote a letter to his friend Captain Butts. In this letter he said that he’d just completed the poem Jerusalem, and he said, “I may praise it, because I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary: the authors are in eternity. And I consider it the grandest poem that this world contains. It’s addressed to unborn tomorrow. It’s a sublime allegory.”250 ¶1

Well, in this poem if you’ve read it…and may I tell you, do not take any commentaries on it, just read it. If you can’t grasp it at first, read it over and over and over again. It’s pure vision. He will use certain words that you will think, why did he use a word like this? But eventually they all come to the surface and you understand why he used these words. He wasn’t trying to confuse, he was simply writing something that would exercise the mind of man. And in this he makes the statement that “The spiritual states of the soul are all eternal. Distinguish between man and his present state.”250 ¶2

He speaks of these eternal states; they’re all fixed forever. But man must learn to distinguish between man and his present state. Then he makes the statement, “As the pilgrim passes while the country permanent remains, so men pass on but states remain permanent forever.” So the poor man is only in the state of poverty; the rich man is in the state of wealth; the weak man and the strong man, the man that is known, the man that is unknown, all these are but states. You and I, the man of whom he speaks, could move at any moment in time from any one state into another, and occupying it we fertilize it. We actually by entering a state make it alive, because we are the living presence. As we enter into a state, it’s like an egg that we penetrate without breaking its shell—penetrate it, fertilize it, and then if we remain faithful to it, it grows and bears the fruit that it must bear because all things bring forth after their kind.250 ¶3

But people now jump from this level to the other level in the same poem. He speaks of twenty-seven heavens that Los hammered out in the mundane shell, twenty-seven heavens and their churches . Bear in mind he was one of the greatest students of scripture. He could read it in Hebrew, he could read it in Greek, and he was a master of the English tongue. This is Blake who never went to school, never saw the inside of a school, but he taught himself Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Italian, and he could read the ancient scripts. So few, if any, could transcend him in the knowledge of scripture.250 ¶4

So he speaks of twenty-seven churches, twenty-seven heavens. Now, whether he related them to the twenty-seven letters of the Hebrew alphabet—there are twenty-two original and five final; so there are twenty-two letters and then there are five extra letters, making twenty-seven in all. Whether he meant it that way or not is not revealed in his book. But this is what he did, he took the genealogy of Jesus as given to us in the Book of Luke, which begins, as you know, it comes with Adam. In the Book of Matthew it begins with Abraham, which is quite a jump. In the Book of Luke it starts with Adam, and he takes it without breaking any word that you will find in that book. So if you don’t have Jerusalem, you can take the Book of Luke tonight and see how he starts it. He starts it with Adam, then he goes to Seth—-he skips Cain and Abel—-he goes to Seth just as the genealogy does, and he goes all the way back and he comes to Lamech. Well, that makes nine. He claims that they are hermaphroditic; this is the beginning of man’s journey, all hermaphroditic. Then he jumps to the next which is Noah, a new beginning; and from Noah he goes to Terah, that gives us eleven, Terah being the father of Abraham. But he stops at Terah. And so you have one column of nine, the second column of eleven, that gives us twenty, and these he calls…he doesn’t call them states, he means states…he calls them heavens and their churches.250 ¶5

Then he starts the third column and there are only seven. The third column he begins with Abraham, and he goes Abraham—-that’s the last name in the genealogy of Jesus that he will use, then he goes entirely different—from Abraham he goes then to Moses, to Solomon. And, by the way, Solomon is not in the genealogy of Jesus in the Book of Luke. It is in the Book of Matthew, but not in the Book of Luke. So he goes from Abraham to Moses to Solomon to Paul, who certainly is not in the genealogy of Jesus; then he goes to Constantine, Charlemagne, and ends with Luther. Imagine that! And then he said, “After Luther, the circle starts all over again.”250 ¶6

Tonight, we will just simply take it in our interesting world here, and that is from Abraham to Luther. But the emphasis is on the fourth one which is Paul; for his is really vision, true vision. If you go back to Abraham, the first generation Abraham, the second is Isaac, the third is Jacob, and then the fourth as mentioned in scripture would be Jacob’s son, but it is named Judah. The fourth…he starts with the fourth and Judah is the fourth of the twelve sons. You come forward now into David, he is the fourth and the last of the sons of Jesse. He is picking out a certain mystical state in this world through which it breaks forth, Christ breaks forth into the world.250 ¶7

Now he picks out Paul and Paul is the fourth one he names in this series. Let us tonight look at Paul. Paul’s name was Saul. Do you know the definition of Saul? It’s a Hebrew word, we find it all through Hebrew, the word Saul, what the boy called that you and I know as Paul. Paul is never mentioned in any ancient non-biblical source; he’s only mentioned in scripture. Here Blake treats Paul as a state, not as a man as you are a man and I am a man, he treats Paul as a state. Let us see the state that is Paul tonight and see how you can enter it, if you are not now in it. I hope you are. First his name is Saul, and Saul is defined in the concordance as “desire, to ask, to seek, to be zealous to the point where you cannot bend him from his direct purpose.” You cannot turn him from his purpose, that’s Saul. His hunger was for an experience of God, and nothing in this world could satisfy that thirst but an experience of God, no argument of man…he had to experience God. The word Paul that he bears after the experience means “to desist, to stop, to come to an end.” He’s arrived at it. He came to the end: He experienced God.250 ¶8

So in the story of Acts, speaking now of Saul: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he replies, “Who are you, Lord?” He said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” That’s the beginning of the story of Paul. That only when that hunger comes upon man, a hunger that not a thing in this world can satisfy but an experience of God, has man entered the state called Saul. If tonight you can be satisfied with a billion dollars as a substitute for an experience of God, you are not yet at that state called Saul. If tonight fame means more to you, if tonight some great state in this world means more to you than to experience God, well, then you haven’t reached the state called Saul. But when nothing matters—-you will turn your back to all the wealth of the world, all the fame of the world, everything in this world, and you’ll be satisfied with nothing but an experience of God to prove that there is God—-then you are in the state. And no power in the world can stop you from satisfying that hunger; for God made man not for frustration but for satisfaction.250 ¶9

This is not something that man is made for; man is the object of God’s love. Never would he have made him had he not loved him, and God became man that man may become God, and he took him through these states. So you can forget the Adam state, all the way down to Lamech. He calls it hermaphroditic…it’s something that is a primitive state that all pass through. In the second column, you can forget that too—-that’s from Noah to Terah. He calls that by a strange way, he said, “These are the female males, a male within a female, as an ark in a curtain.” Don’t try to understand it, leave it as it is, it’s a vision. The third column, he calls them male-females. And this is the interesting point, a female hid within the male. That’s where we are now. Regardless of your present sex, we are in that state. There is a female hid within the male; because you are not female or male, you are man. You are the wearer of the garment, and whether you wear the garment as a male or a female, there is in our present state, he calls it the dragon form—-the female hid within the male. If the female is hid within me, I can bring forth the child. And it only happens within that section from Abraham to Luther. So this is the female-male state in which we find ourselves.250 ¶10

You don’t know, but I have had the experience of seeing the female. Let me share it with you. One night I became completely awake, more so than I am now, because in these states there is a translucency of mind—and here standing above me is this most glorious, beautiful woman. I have never seen anything before or since comparable to the beauty of this woman. And below me here is the most monstrous beast in the world, covered from head to toe in hair, a brownish yellowish hair covers the entire body, and it’s a monster. It looks like an ape. I looked at this beautiful creature and this monstrous being, and this monstrous being is calling this one “mother.” And I got so annoyed I pummeled it and it kept on calling this one “mother.” “She’s my mother” and I would beat it. As I beat it, it gloated and it had a guttural voice and yet it was an ape. And here was this thing glowing with my blows. As I would beat it, it would get stronger; it so loved violence. Then, at that moment, I knew, I knew beyond all doubt here was my creation. Here was the personification, the embodiment of all of my misspent energies. Every moment in my life that I was violent rather than loving, when I was hateful, when I was mean, when I deceived someone; every unlovely act on my part made it. It became the personification of every unloving thing that I had ever done…and I knew it. Then, I can’t describe the feeling that came over me, I decided right there and then—-I made no pledge to another, only to myself—-that if it took me eternity I would redeem it. No matter what pain I would suffer to redeem it, if it took me eternity, I would redeem it. With my pledge made and the deep inner conviction gelled, before my eyes it melted, the whole thing melted and left not a trace of ever having been present.250 ¶11

But as it melted, the energies that it possessed came through me and I felt a strength I had never known before. As it came through me, my misspent energy returning to me, this woman glowed, she glowed like the sun, and beautiful beyond the wildest dream of man. So Blake said, in this section there is the female-male, the female within the male. So everyone, regardless of sex, in that section between Abraham and Luther is the dragon-being where they are actually carrying within them a woman made up of all the lovely things of the world. That every time man uses his Imagination lovingly on behalf of another, this one glows and it adds to the beauty of this woman that is hidden within. It is that that can bring forth the Christ child and bring him into this world.250 ¶12

So here, who is Paul? He isn’t mentioned in any ancient non-biblical source, and yet here next to the central character in scripture he is the most important. There is no character in the New Testament that is discussed more than Paul. In the Book of Acts, which once formed a part of the Book of Luke, sixteen chapters, the last sixteen, from the thirteenth to the end are devoted to Paul. He comes into the picture in the seventh chapter; and here in the ninth he has the vision, he has the experience of God, and he knows the risen Christ is a fact. Then the entire book from then on is devoted to this biography of Paul; then we have his letters; but who is the character? He is treated in Blake as a state, and he is a state. Everyone must experience what Paul experienced, everyone must. You reach that point and suddenly this hunger possesses you and you cannot, you cannot in any way be diverted. You have the same zeal that is Paul’s. As you’re told where the Book of John begins one of the first acts, he turns over the tables in the temple…that is, the character called Jesus Christ… the state towards which all are moving. As he turns it over, they remember the 69th Psalm, for he only comes to fulfill scripture, and the zeal of the house of the Lord would destroy him. His zeal for the house of his Father would destroy him. He would take nothing but that. And here was the story of Paul, the identical story.250 ¶13

So everyone reaches that state where there’s a thirst beyond the wildest dream, and no matter what inducement is made you, you cannot take it, you can’t be diverted. It is something that no one can turn you from. It’s just you are moving towards the satisfaction of that hunger, that thirst. And then you arrive there. Arrive where? To find that there is a risen Christ. I’m speaking from experience, I am not speculating. I was taken this night in Spirit into the presence of the risen Christ, infinite love, but infinite love! That’s the form that he wears.250 ¶14

So Blake, who begins the story—-and he claims that the Savior dictated every word to him, he said, “Every morn it awakens me and I see the Savior over me, spreading his beams of love and dictating the words of this mild song.” Well, in this wonderful poem Jerusalem he makes the statement, “Then Jesus appeared and Albion knew that it was the Lord.” Take the word Paul and put it where he uses the word Albion and it brings all the sense in the world into that story. The universal humanity was Jesus. And that’s true, for every one of us will be embraced by the risen Christ, one by one, and we are the risen Christ; and we wear his form, as we’re told in that 96th plate of Jerusalem. Here, I am embraced by the risen Christ, the universal humanity, as he gathers us all together, one by one…and he had the appearance and similitude of Los. Now you know who Los is in the poem. For I tell you it is love; for when you stand in his presence you can’t think of anything but love. And when he embraces you there is an ecstasy that no power in this world could describe…the joy that is this infinite love…and you are it. You are wearing the form, the body of love.250 ¶15

And then he sends you. So Paul makes the statement, when someone questioned him, he said, “Am I not a free man? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus the Lord?” Here is an indispensable qualification for apostleship: An apostle means “to be sent.” So he was sent to tell what he had experienced. And those who did not see it questioned him. But I will say to everyone who has not seen him, there’s a benediction pronounced upon all who have not seen and yet believed. You’ll find it in the end of John—the most glorious benediction for those who can hear the story, the good news of salvation and believe it before they have experienced the risen Christ .250 ¶16

So here, you can take this on every level. Take it from the level of being, well, what you want to be; because the whole of life is only the appeasement of hunger. That’s all that it is. Hunger comes from one level to the other. Tonight if I want to pay my rent and I’m embarrassed, I may want that more than I want any experience of God in this world. Just let me get the rent first and I’ll think of God afterwards. But may I tell you, in the days of the Depression in New York City, I can see it now: I didn’t pay rent. I was sitting in the Silence all day long, just meditating, imagining myself on the ceiling and feeling myself up there looking down at the body below. I can see the landlady now. I was living on 4th Street in the Village, in old Bohemia…that’s the Bohemian area of New York City. She came in and saw me sitting in the Silence, completely out like a light—-out to her but not to myself—-and she bawled me out beyond measure because I already owed her sixty-five dollars for that month, and to her I was making no effort to get out and get a job to pay her sixty-five dollars. And I was sitting in the Silence seeking God. And so at the end when I didn’t pay her two month’s and three month’s, she could take it no longer. I said, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you, I’ll paint your house for you in lieu of the money. Well, it was much cheaper than if she could have taken some union member, and so she got the paint, and I painted the house for her in lieu of the rent that I owed her. But it didn’t drive me to go out and wear out the only pair of shoe I had trying to find a job that was not. I simply sat in the Silence and simply contemplated God, and hungered for God, and nothing in this world could have satisfied me but the experience of God.250 ¶17

Well, it didn’t come that day, that year, but it came in 1959. So here, in 1959…prior to that I had had the experience of meeting God, embraced by him, but it was almost like something too green to be understood. It didn’t really come into the mind with understanding until July of ’59. Almost thirty years prior to that, yes, I met and stood in the presence of God, infinite love; but you can’t believe that you, this small, little thing, could be that welcome, could be that, I would say, graced. Because you know your limitations, you know your weaknesses, you know all that you are, and you can’t believe for one moment that you could possibly be chosen, how could you be? And so, you come back with the whole experience, and yet because you know how weak you are and how little you are, you can’t quite believe that you, of the billions of this world, could be chosen as Paul was.250 ¶18

Only years later you realize that Paul was a violent being, violent! He went out to imprison every one who belonged to The Way, to bring them bound into Jerusalem. And he carried letters with him to assure him that he had the authority to pick up anyone on the way as he was moving towards Damascus to bring them, men and women, bound into Jerusalem to receive the same fate that he allowed of Stephen; for he consented unto Stephen’s death, and Stephen was stoned to death. Here was this violent man, a man of zealousness, of passion…and yet he was chosen. And then it dawns upon you that God has his own peculiar way of calling us, one by one, and he brings us to the point where you’re so zealous and you’re so hungry for the experience of God that in spite of your limitations, both intellectual, moral and every other way, he wants that. As told in Revelation, “Would that you were either hot or cold. But because you are neither hot nor cold, but you are lukewarm, I’ll spew you out.” And so, you’ve got to be hot as he was or cold; either for it with your entire heart or against it as he was. He was for the law as exercised outwardly one hundred percent, and against those who gave an interpretation to it that he had never heard before; completely against it, and completely for the law as he understood it.250 ¶19

And you reach that point, and you go through these extremes in this world, as I was forced through it. Seven years, at the tender age of twenty-odd, in my twenties, having born a son, and knowing the joy of the love of woman, and then by some peculiar thing to swear myself to celibacy; and then knowing the joys of food and to swear myself to being a vegetarian. Well, I had not yet acquired the habit of enjoying a martini, so I couldn’t say I gave that up. But I did…no alcohol, no smoking, this extreme violence to my body. I thought violence to my body was “the way,” and it wasn’t the way. But for seven years I did violence to the body by these non-doings, by the giving up, a complete restraint. That was zealousness! And then he called me. He was looking for something just like that in the heart of a man. He could trust him then. He could show him the truth. He would be equally zealous in the right direction. I was on the wrong course…but, at least, I was zealous in my approach; not a thing could divert me from these states. Dancing on the road, and I was a professional dancer, I would ask the waiter, “Is there beef stock in this soup? Take it away!” Well, no restaurant in this world would serve you any soup without a beef stock in it, not a real restaurant. They could open a can of Campbell’s and serve you tomato soup, but not really a good restaurant. And yet, I would ask them if it had it and when they said yes, “Take it away.” And a strict, strict diet for seven years; and over night it vanished from me when God called me, called me in an entirely different way, and you see how true the entire story is of scripture.250 ¶20

Peter said, “I cannot eat the unclean thing,” and then a sheet came down with all manner of food upon it, and the voice of the Lord said, “That which I have cleansed, I have cleansed; slay and eat. There is nothing unclean in my world.” As Paul himself could write to the Romans: “I know and I am persuaded by the Lord Christ Jesus that there is nothing unclean in itself; but any man to whom it is unclean, to him it is unclean.” That’s the 14th chapter of the Book of Romans. It’s unclean if you think it unclean. We’ll, I thought all these things unclean and they were. Then he showed me there was nothing unclean.250 ¶21

Leave man alone. God is calling us one by one and God is the actor, the only actor in this world. He’s playing all the parts to expiate himself. It was God who actually sent himself, his creative power known to us as Jesus Christ, into this world, occupying all forms. And anyone hurt, it is God; and anyone who has to atone, it is God. God is doing the atoning, because like Job here is the most cruel, horrible experiment perpetrated on innocent man; and, therefore, he who conceived it, who is executing it, will atone for it. And he atones for it.250 ¶22

Now, you take…if you are students of the Bible, you take the 3rd chapter of Romans, and you only have to go a few verses, the 21st through the 26th verses; and they’re not put in chronological order the way they’re put, but there are only from the 21st through the 26th verses inclusive—-and see this wonderful story of God atoning. He sent him; it was God who sent Jesus Christ. It is God. And he tells us now of the blood, the sprinkled blood of Jesus is better than the blood of Abel. Abel cries out for revenge, for retribution; and the blood of Christ cries out—which is God himself, for Christ really is the power and wisdom of God—for forgiveness and mercy. For God did it all.250 ¶23

So what could he do to me having put me through it all? If you can conceive of these twenty-seven heavens and their churches, and you are the temple of the living God. So “the church” is the modern way of saying temple or saying synagogue or saying tabernacle. As you are told, “You are the temple of the living God.” So when he speaks of these heavens and their churches, he’s speaking of us, closed and clothed as we are. So here, can you conceive of these twenty-seven through which we have passed? Anyone here in this world of ours, they have passed through them. You don’t go back and start all over again; you’re moving towards the inevitable climax which is to awaken as Jesus Christ who is God. Everyone is moving towards one and that is God. And not one will fail in all eternity, not one.250 ¶24

So here, I can share with you my own experience. I have experienced it. I stood in the presence of the risen Christ and he’s all love, just as Blake saw it so clearly. And strangely enough, why should I use the words of Paul? For when he asked me a question, he asked me, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” My reply came in the words of Paul. I answered from the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians…and I answered, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide; but the greatest of these is love.” And he embraced me, God himself embraced me, and I became one with God, and wore the divine form, the form of love. And then he sent me…infinite power sent me. He who embraced me didn’t send me; another one sent me who represented infinite might. I stood before him, and here is power without any feeling whatsoever, sheer power. It could shatter the universe if it so desired, and it sent me into the world to do what I’m doing. So I am sent by that. So I could say to anyone today in the year 1965, “Am I not a free man? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the risen Christ?”250 ¶25

And so, he comes to the end, “Hereafter let no one trouble me, for I bear on my body the very marks of Jesus.” The marks of Jesus are the experiences recorded in scripture as of Jesus: his birth; his discovery of David as his son; his ascent in a serpentine form; and the sealing of God’s word upon him in the form of the dove. And so, these are the marks. He said, “Hereafter let no one bother me and make trouble for me; for I bear on my body the very marks of Jesus.” Read that in the very end, the 6th chapter of the Book of Galatians. So he’s seen it. This is only a state. So everyone must enter the state of Paul, and playing the part of Paul you are Paul. You simply go out and you tell it all, just as it happened to you. That’s what happened to the state. So Blake treats it as a state.250 ¶26

But he goes through, strangely enough, from Paul he goes through to the great emperor, the first one who accepted Christianity and made it the state religion. Then he jumps to a legendary figure…because Charlemagne, no one knows anything of Charlemagne. All the stories told of Charlemagne are like those told of King Arthur. But, all these stories of Charlemagne, these are only states. So he picks that which is pure legend and tells us that is the sixth in the states through which man must pass in this final picture. Well, what did Charlemagne do? You can go back to Constantine…alright, you’ve accepted Christianity as a fact, that’s Constantine. Then you go to Charlemagne, would you defend him, because all of his battles were against the so-called infidel who would destroy Christianity. There was a war all over the vast land of Europe.250 ¶27

And then comes the last one, Luther. Well, who was Luther? What is the state? We know he was a man. They burned him at the stake for doing what he did, and yet Blake treats Luther as a state. What is that state? When you break all restrictions, all organizations within your mind’s eye that would completely confine you to an ism; when the whole thing gets upon you so thick that you can’t stand it and you see the chicanery behind, the whole thing becomes an organized political setup in the name of religion and you can’t stand one moment of it, and then you burst through the bridges as it were. Then it starts all over again…but you have escaped.250 ¶28

But the important one in the entire series of the seven is Paul. You start with the vision, which is the faith of Abraham. And faith to Abraham was seeing and reading the promises from afar: “He rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” This happened before the birth of Isaac, this happened before the exile and the slavery in Egypt. And then he brings in Moses, the great law-giver, who is also the one who leads every exodus in this world. When anyone moves out of something that is a tyranny, it’s the Moses leading him out. That’s Moses in him…these are states. You move out of the state of alcoholism by the leadership of a Moses who leads you out. You move out of the state of any poverty by a Moses. It’s a Moses that’s the leader in man that leads us out of one state into the other. Then he brings us into the wisdom of Solomon. That’s the third state, infinite wisdom. No one was wiser, we are told, than Solomon, therefore, take the essence of man’s discoveries, put it all together, that’s the Solomon. Man passes through that state; for he thinks that is the only thing that, really, what man can discover by his own energies.250 ¶29

Well, then comes Paul, the fourth one, and Paul doesn’t call it anything but revelation. He said: “The gospel that I preach is not man’s gospel. For I was not taught it by man, nor did I receive it from man, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.” And revelation to Paul was God revealing himself in action for the salvation of man. He reveals himself, he unveils himself. So you stand in the presence of the risen Christ and discover that he is the very one that you have been opposing. “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Well, who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting”. And then a complete transformation!250 ¶30

Now, let me assure you, Paul never became what the world would say a Christian. Paul never gave up this faith in Judaism. He realized that Christ was only the flower, the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham. For in the very end, he claimed “I am of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” Did you ever look up the word Benjamin to find out what it means?—“The son of the right hand.” Well, who sits at the right hand? Are we not told that Christ Jesus sits at the right hand of the Lord? And he calls himself Benjamin the son of the right hand. So he found him, he was embraced by him, became one with him, so he sits at the right hand. For when you are embraced by Christ Jesus you’re not another; you become one with him. And from then on you have no sense of being divorced from him. Yes you are in the world of flesh and you cannot fully grasp the glory of your inheritance, or at least you cannot become fully aware of it so long as you’re still in the body. But you know at the very moment when this is taken off it’s for the last time; and you’re wearing the body, that glorious body, of the risen Christ. Until then, you simply must go on and play your part among men.250 ¶31

Well, tonight you can come back to any level and take the theme on which we started tonight: the spiritual states of the soul are all eternal; distinguish between man and his present state. Don’t condemn the man for his present state…he’s only in a state. He could have entered that state knowingly or unknowingly, so you must create a state to deliver man forever more. Pull him out of the state if it’s an unlovely state into another state. But the man is not the state. He’s fallen into a state, and because he is life itself, he animates it, and the state becomes alive in his world, good, bad or indifferent. And he falls from state to state to state until he passes through these eternal heavens.250 ¶32

Then he arrives at that state where the hunger is not for money, it’s not for glamour, it’s not for health, it’s not for that, it’s only for an experience of God, and nothing in the world would actually satisfy that hunger but an experience of God. And so, when he has the experience of God he is Paul, he’s no longer Saul. For Saul was the hungry one, the desiring one for that one experience. Now the word Paul means “to desist, to stop, to come to an end.” The search is over; he’s found the risen Christ. He knows it is true, and he knows it from his own personal experience, and it came by revelation. It pleased God to reveal his Son in him…and so he did not then confer with any flesh and blood . So when that happens to the individual, he knows who Paul is. And yet there is no loss of identity, he still remains the John Brown or Mary Smith of this world, but he has played the part of Paul.250 ¶33

Now let us go into the Silence.250 ¶34

Any other questions, please?250 ¶37