I do hope we can make this the most productive session that we’ve ever had. If you apply it, I know we can. What I tell you is not speculation; it’s all based upon experience.248 ¶1

Tonight’s subject is “The Real Man.” If I tell you that the real man is your own wonderful human Imagination, would you believe it? If I speak of Imagination, you don’t think of man, you think of, well, a faculty, a power, some creative productive power…but you don’t really think of man. But if you ever hear the word “Jesus,” you think of man, don’t you? One billion persons in the world call themselves Christians and they believe in Jesus Christ, and they believe in Jesus Christ as a man…a man that is God but man. But if I tell you that Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, would you believe that? Would you really believe that Imagination is man? Well, tonight I hope I can in some way persuade you that Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination.248 ¶2

I do not know if you have seen the current issue of Life Magazine, it’s a double issue. Well, in it the whole book is devoted, this coming issue, to the Bible. But one thought stands out, the thought of Albert Schweitzer. You must have heard of Albert Schweitzer. He is a great philosopher, theologian, musicologist and doctor of medicine. He made a concerted effort to find the historic Jesus; then he brought out his findings in a book called The Quest of the Historic Jesus. In the last chapter, we begin with, on the negative note, that the Jesus of Nazareth has never existed…never existed, the Jesus of Nazareth. But he ends the book on this note: “He comes to us as one unknown, without a name. He commands us, ‘Follow me!’ and to those who will obey him he will reveal himself.” And how does he reveal himself? He reveals himself, as Schweitzer said, in an ineffable mystery. How? In this manner: To those who will follow him through the trials, the conflicts, the sufferings, as they must pass through them, he revealed himself in this strange manner: In their own experience, and then they will know who he is. That’s how he comes to man. He had no existence and yet he comes to one as one unknown, one without a name, and yet in man’s personal experience he reveals himself in this strange peculiar way. And then you have the experience, you know who he is.248 ¶3

We are told in scripture, “Be imitators of God as beloved children.” In other words, experience the biography of God. Well, I can’t induce it, it’s not something that is self-engendered; it’s something that comes out of the nowhere. But do set my hope fully upon this experience, this grace that is coming to me at the revelation of Jesus Christ . Let me understand who he really is.248 ¶4

Well, who is Jesus Christ? I said earlier it’s your own wonderful human Imagination. Well, what in scripture tells me that Jesus Christ is my own Imagination? Turn to the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and these are the words of his first letter: “The Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; to the Jews it’s a stumbling block and to the Greeks it’s folly, all foolishness, but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God!” .248 ¶5

So he takes Christ and makes it now the power of God, the wisdom of God. Well, you can’t separate your own creative power from yourself. So “the power of God and the wisdom of God,” you have to think in terms of God.248 ¶6

Well, is God man? Well, standing before you, yes, I can confess God is man. I stood in the presence of the risen Christ. I stood in the presence of man…not some huge force, not some strange, peculiar light, a man. Infinite Love was the presence that stood before me and asked me and talked to me, face to face, and asked me, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I answered in the words of the one who wrote the words I’ve just quoted, whose words are the words of Paul, and I said, “Love.” Infinite love embraced me, and I fused with Love, and we became one man; not two men, one man, one body, one being. And then I was sent to tell you what I’ve been trying to tell you over the years; for to be called also means “to be sent.” You can’t be called and not be sent. Everyone that is called knows who he is, and to those who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.248 ¶7

Then you come back into this world and you experiment, and you tell it, and you try it out. You try it out in a thousand ways and it proves itself in performance every time you try it…if you really get fired within yourself. You must be fired…you must want something, really want it. Sometimes you make mistakes, make a thousand mistakes, and you hurt; but, nevertheless, you are trying a power and the power is Christ. So, Christ is this wonderful power that is your own wonderful human Imagination.248 ¶8

Now, you might have read in the papers recently of the great meeting that took place in Montreal, Canada, the hundred and thirty-first anniversary of the American Association of the Advancement of Science. All of the great scientists of our land and from other lands came together and they all contributed what they had discovered in the past year…or maybe they had been trying for years and didn’t quite discover something until now. But whatever they discovered they brought to this great convention in Montreal, which ended the last day of last year. So it’s only a week ago. And here, one scientist made this strange statement, he said, “We have taken the body, we’ve dissected it, we’ve analyzed it, we know everything about the human body, but everything. We have put it under the microscope. We can see something beyond man’s eye to see under the microscope. We’ve cut every little portion of it. We have seen it in operation. But one thing still remains a miracle.” And he hated to use the word miracle because as a scientist there aren’t any miracles; it appears to be a miracle until we find the cause behind the phenomena. But this is what he said, “The sperm somehow easily penetrates or passes through the surface of the shell, the egg, although on the surface of the egg there are no holes either before or after fertilization.” The sperm passes through so easily the surface of the egg, and yet the surface of the egg has no holes either before or after.248 ¶9

In the Book of Ephesians, Paul’s letter, he speaks of this, and he tells us how that which is the seed is Christ. The promise was made to Abraham and to his seed—-not to his seeds, referring to many, but to his seed, referring to one—-and the seed is Christ . I say Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. Can any power in this world stop you from imagining that you are in an egg? Could any power in this world seal something completely and make it hermetically sealed? Can any power in this world stop you from assuming that you are in it? No hole on the outside, none whatsoever.248 ¶10

Well, may I tell you from my own personal experience, when I awoke within this skull of mine there were no openings. How did I get into it in the first place? Did someone put me there, or was I led there, was I enticed there?248 ¶11

Listen to the words of Blake, “When weary man enters his cave, he meets his savior in the grave.” This cavern, this cave suddenly becomes a grave. Well, who is this one that I meet? For when I woke I was alone, there was no one with me. So “When weary man enters his cave, he meets his savior in the grave. Some find a female garment there and some a male, woven with care.” So I go into this cave. How can I get into the cave? When I awoke in my skull, there was no opening whatsoever; it was completely sealed, hermetically sealed. And I broke it like a chicken coming out, and I broke it from the base of the skull and came out. But there was no opening, not one hole from without. Looking at my head now you see seven openings—-two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth. But that’s not the skull I entered. That’s not the skull that you enter .248 ¶12

This creative power that you are, you enter this sealed shell…he calls it the “mundane egg.” When you enter the mundane egg, then you find a veil, he tells us, and you find veins of red blood woven into the scarlet robe; and the scarlet robe, which is like a sleeping veil, is really a funeral mantle…for you’re dead. You enter that area and there you dream and dream for unnumbered years. This world, the whole world, is our dream because we are the creative power of God. We are all Imagination and Imagination is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. There is nothing but God, only God. So God became man deliberately, to what? To simply expand his creative power beyond what it was when he limited himself to this egg, this shell, this mundane shell, this mundane egg that is man.248 ¶13

So I say, everyone here you can prove it now. If this is not true you can disprove it in twenty-four hours. You can’t disprove what I’ll tell you later, but you can disprove the power, just in twenty-four hours. How would I disprove it?248 ¶14

Well, here is one…he writes me a letter, I got it yesterday morning…I don’t see him here tonight…he said, “I went to bed as I always do thinking of nothing in particular, and then I said, ‘What am I doing? I have gone to Neville, I have his books, I believe him, but I don’t apply what he teaches. So I’m going fishing, but literally fishing.’” He’s a member of club that’s called The Gun (and something else) Club, The Gun and something Club. I’m not familiar with these clubs, for I’m not a joiner, but he’s a member of a club where it’s called by some other hunting name, and he was going out fishing. Well, you cannot unless you bring back at least a six-and-a-half pound trout even be mentioned among the members. Well, he wanted to be the biggest aspidistra of them all. So in his Imagination he puts himself into this stream where he’s fishing…and he calls it the silver head trout. So [...] goes with the crowd. No one is catching anything, but he caught one. It was only about six pounds and a little boy caught one that was something like almost nine pounds. Well, he threw his line in again…all in his Imagination, and before he went to this place he’d done it in his Imagination. And one little hook, and he thought he held some kind of a piece of timber. But it wasn’t, it began to move and it buried itself, and he waded out to his waist and disengaged his hook, and here was a twelve-and-a-half pound trout, the biggest thing the club has ever had. All in his Imagination he did it first. Now he goes out. He may forget it from that moment on…he’d be so lost in his twelve-and-a-half pound trout. He never tried to catch twelve thousand dollars. He never tried to catch a million dollars. You can catch anything in this world…they’re all fish…everything is fish in this world, but everything in the world just like that. But he thought, “Alright, I’ll try it, I’ll try it tonight,” so he tried it. And the very next day he goes out and he brings back his twelve-and-a-half pound trout, and a length beyond anything this club had ever received. I say, he may go sound asleep once more and completely forget the creative power that is his own wonderful human Imagination that is Jesus Christ.248 ¶15

Now in this world today there are one billion persons who call themselves Christians. And you say “Jesus” to them…“Oh, yes, we believe in Jesus” and they think of a man who lived and died 2,000 years ago. But they don’t for one moment identify this Jesus Christ with their own wonderful human Imagination. Then what are these words, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” I am quoting from the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians: “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” . If he’s in me, then where is he? I read from the same letter, but the 1st letter, that he’s my power—-“Jesus Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Well, then who is God? I am told that his name forever and forever is I AM. His name is I AM…well, I am. Well, I can imagine and the act of imagining is power, it’s a creative power…and that’s Jesus Christ? Well, I hadn’t thought of that. You mean that is true, that I AM is God? And the act of imagining, the creative power of God, that Jesus Christ? That’s Jesus Christ.248 ¶16

Now here, let me show you. What is the greatest commandment in the world? This question is asked in the 22nd chapter of Matthew, and the answer is given, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” . If you’ve ever gone to temple and you hear this chanted, it’s glorious in the Hebraic tongue. When you hear it it’s something fantastic…when you hear this peculiar sentence sounded (even in our English tongue)…but hear it in Hebrew it’s fantastic. It’s a sacred, the most sacred statement made or sentence in Hebrew. They will not even sound the word when it comes to “the Lord” they’ve changed it. So, instead of saying which is the Yod He Vau He, which, on the other hand, it’s a word you can’t even pronounce. It’s almost…my old friend Abdullah in trying to show me how to pronounce it he would have to belch. It’s a belch; it’s something you can’t pronounce, Yod He Vau He. But the Hebrew, the orthodox Hebrew will take the word and because it’s too sacred to be sounded, they will take it and put another word in its place and call Adonay, Yah-Adonay…which is in the place of Yod He Vau He, which you can’t really sound. But it begins this way, “Shema” which is “hear.” In the Hebrew text the last letter of the word Shema is enlarged, several times the size of the other letters; and the last letter of the entire sentence, Achad, which is “one,” that’s enlarged. So you take “Shema, Israel”—-“Hear, Israel”—-and then comes “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” That’s the sentence.248 ¶17

This word Achad, one, is a compound unity—one made up of others. We are the others, all of us; the whole vast world, we are the others. But this enlarged letter in the first word, or the last letter of the first word Shema (to hear) and the last letter of the last word, Achad (which is one), and you put them together and they form a Hebrew word meaning “witness.” Everyone in this world will witness this greatest of all commandments: “The Lord our God the Lord is one.” Everyone will witness that. You will stand in the presence of the risen Christ who is the Lord. He will embrace you and you’re not two anymore, you’re one. You are called one by one by one and we will answer correctly. As we answer that love is the greatest thing in the world, Love embraces us. That’s the risen Lord, and one by one are gathered into one body. So the Lord our God, our I AM, the Lord is one I AM. So in the end all are one.248 ¶18

So I’m telling you this night who this power is. The power spoken of in scripture as Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. “By him all things were made and without him there was nothing made that was made” .248 ¶19

Well, you can test that…that’s easy to test. You mean I can assume that I am where I want to be, without means to get there, without the time to get there, and find that things will so rearrange themselves that I will move across a bridge of incident and be compelled to move to fulfill that assumption? Yes! I’ve done it. You mean I can assume that I am in some other part of the world across water and have someone see me as a man? Yes, I’ve done that…where my sister came into the room. I just deliberately did it. I wanted her to see me as though I were there. She came into the room and came over to the bed, and instead of seeing her son who was desperately ill she saw her brother Neville.248 ¶20

Now, anyone who came into my room in New York City would have seen this body and thought that was Neville. Well, is this Neville? This isn’t Neville. This is not the real being that I am; this is the garment that I found when I entered the cave. And so, “When weary man enters his cave he meets his Savior in the grave. Some find a female garment there and some a male, woven with care” . When I entered I found a male garment, but I am not male, any more than anyone is male or female—-we are man and man is above the organization of sex. He finds garments and they’re male and female garments that he finds when he enters the cave, which suddenly becomes a grave. Enters a cave and suddenly it’s not a cave, it’s a grave, and completely sealed. He entered it without going through any door.248 ¶21

How could Imagination enter? Well, anyone could see that. How could I go to Barbados thousands of miles away and be seen, visibly seen, and my sister writes a letter telling me exactly what she saw which I told eight days in advance to my wife and to a friend what I had just done? So I told exactly what I had done, to have confirmation come eight days later by mail. How could I get there? You can get any place in this world in your Imagination, but any place. You could be anyone you want to be if you really believe in the power of God; and the power of God—-and don’t bend your head when I tell you—-is Jesus Christ. And his power and himself are one: “I and my Father are one” .248 ¶22

And so when you really know who this real man is, suddenly the whole world takes on a different color. Everything changes in this world. And I am telling you, when you’re told “Be imitators of God as beloved children” you’re invited to experience the biography of God…and you will!248 ¶23

Well, how will I experience it? Well, read the scripture, read the story of God, for the Bible is God’s biography. The day will come you’re going to have the experience of that biography. I’ve tried to express it in a little pamphlet called He Breaks the Shell. It’s a true story. I could express it in the form…it’s a confession of faith in terms of a series of experiences. I don’t have any longer to believe in the story, for I’ve experienced the story. So no one can say do you believe it? I don’t have to believe it, I know it. I’ve experienced the story and the story is true. For all that is said of the power of God, personified as a being called Jesus Christ, and all the experiences described in scripture concerning him, you will experience.248 ¶24

Every one of you will. I could take a bullet and put it right through your brain right now, but I can’t touch that shell that you entered. This skull is not the shell; this is only a symbol, a shadow of the place that you are. No power on earth…take an atomic bomb and disintegrate all of us here, they can’t disintegrate that shell that you entered when you, the weary man, entered your cave and found your savior in the grave. That sealed shell cannot be touched by anything known by man. No power on earth could disintegrate it. You remain there until you from within break it. And you go from here to another state to another state until finally you ripen from within, like a chicken. As you ripen from within you break it and you come out, and you’re born anew. Every one in this world will be born anew…and no one can stop it. No power in this world can, by decapitating you, by disintegrating you, in any way touch that shell that you entered.248 ¶25

So he made the statement: “Those who will obey him and follow him, when they follow him then by an ineffable mystery…” Well, if he meant what the dictionary means by ineffable, I wouldn’t go along with it. Because as I looked it up to get the true definition of it, it means “that which is too sacred to be told.” Well, I can’t…I go along with Jeremiah: “If I say, ‘I will not mention or speak any more in his name,’ then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my veins, and I’m tired with holding it in, and I cannot” . I just cannot. To say he mustn’t talk about it because it’s too…no, listen to these words, “And now I will tell you before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe.”248 ¶26

So I will tell you before it takes place that when it does take place you will believe. You will, right after the breaking of the shell and the coming out, finding all the imagery as told in scripture, you will find that only being in this world that could ever reveal you as God the Father. I can tell you from now ’til the ends of time, the whole vast world could tell you, you could read it in books, but you will never know it, actually know it, until God’s only begotten Son stands before you and looks at you, and you know the relationship instantly. The relationship is father to son, and son to father. No power in this world can reveal you as God the Father but the Son.248 ¶27

So we are told in scripture: “No one knows who the Son is but the Father; and no one knows who the Father is but the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” . Well, that choice is automatic.248 ¶28

And may I tell you, it happens just as you’re told in scripture, just as it’s described in scripture. And like a birth, it’s an explosion. Your skull seems to contain many flowers, they’re buds, and they burst into flower, and each flower is an experience. And so this bursting, it’s really the most terrific explosion, your head simply explodes; and suddenly, when the whole thing gathers and collects itself, there stands David. And then you know, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you” . I brought you home…and here this fantastic boy just as he’s described in scripture.248 ¶29

You never dreamed for one moment he was contained within the stem of Jesse. Who is Jesse?—-I AM. The word Jesse means “I AM.” What is God’s name? “I AM, this is my name forever, for all generations”…just I AM . And contained within the stem of Jesse, here comes David. The 11th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “Out of the stem of Jesse will come one” and he brings him out. To reveal what?—to reveal you as God the Father .248 ¶30

It seems strange, it seems fantastic to tell you this, but I can’t restrain the impulse because it’s true. I’ve experienced it.248 ¶31

Between now and our closing day I would like everyone to put it to the test, put it to the extreme test. I don’t care what the test is; believe in the reality of your own wonderful imaginal act, for that’s Christ in action. There’s nothing but God and God is your own wonderful I AM. God in action is Christ and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Christ, that’s God.248 ¶32

The day will come, yes, you will stand in the presence of the risen Christ, because it has been taking place now for quite awhile that God has been awakening. Everyone who is awake, awakened from this wonderful state, he’s absorbed, without loss of identity, into this one being. We’re all being gathered one by one until the end. All are one because all are the Father of the same Son. There aren’t many sons, only one Son. You’re gathered; and gathering yourself into this one being, you look out and here is this one Son calling you Father.248 ¶33

So here, regardless of the pigment of my skin I am wearing the scarlet robe. I could be this night as black as black coal; I am wearing the scarlet robe. I could be as white as snow; I’m wearing the scarlet robe. It’s a veil. When I meet…in that cave I meet a veil, and the veil simply has veins of red blood and it weaves itself into the scarlet robe. Is it not a scarlet robe of blood? Cut any skin, regardless of pigment, it’s all blood, the same blood, same red blood, regardless of how we do it, and so all must wear the same scarlet robe.248 ¶34

But it is not only a sleeping garment, for I entered that state for I’m weary—as Blake said, “When weary man enters his cave,” so I’m tired—to find that it’s not just that I sleep, the sleep is so profound the garment becomes a funeral mantle. There I am in this state wearing my funeral mantle until I awake. I awake to find myself completely sealed, but completely sealed. And then I break it, and breaking that shell, that egg, I come out, to be awake for the first time in unnumbered ages, and the whole drama unfolds before me. But it was all contained within that little stem of Jesse which is I AM.248 ¶35

So beginning tonight and through the weeks to come and the months to come we will show you how we would do it. How I would become, if I desire to be other than what I am, what I would do to realize it. It’s very simple. It’s generating within oneself a certain heat as it were of enthusiasm. I can tell you something and you can be repulsed by it…that’s all cold. Or I can tell you something and you get all awake about it…that’s enthusiasm and how to do it. The minute you become enthused about something it’s easy. You can span almost infinity by being enthused about being something other than what you are. And so, that will be our technique from now on.248 ¶36

So this coming Friday, we’ll tell you that a falsehood, an ordinary lie, is prophetic. And so, as Blake brought it, “She took it in her left hand and she enticed the daughters of Albion (humanity) to believe what was a lie forgetting that falsehoods are prophetic.” Everything became exactly what she told them. She completely forgot. She thought she would trap them with a lie, but a lie is not a lie because imagining creates reality. So you can imagine yourself to be other than what reason at the moment tells you that you are, what your senses dictate; but because imagining creates reality you can by the lie be very, very prophetic.248 ¶37

And so, here one of the daughters of the twelve took in her left hand…and in Blake’s symbolism the left side is always descending. So if you see in his pictures the left foot forward, he’s descending; if the right foot is forward, he’s ascending. If the right hand is up, he’s ascending. So the left is always descent with Blake. And so, she’s bringing them into the world of Babylon and bringing them here to entrap them, forgetting that falsehoods are prophetic. Then she cried out when she saw the whole thing coming to pass. Everything was taking place just as she had foretold in a deceitful manner.248 ¶38

So here, I want you to take this, and as we go through the weeks and months to come, take your every dream, which may be a lie when you begin. But you take it and apply it in the way that we’ll try to explain it through the weeks and months to come and see if you can’t bring it to pass in the immediate present.248 ¶39

Then may I ask a favor of you? Share it with me, in the sense that you tell it to me that I in turn may tell it to those who are present—not only here but when I leave here in the summer to go north and then to go to New York City in the fall—that I can share with them your experiences. Because nothing encourages people more than proof that it does work. Does it really work? Well then, tell me about it.248 ¶40

As someone said to the minister—-he was the head of this great, in fact, the oldest college at Oxford University—-and he said: “You ministers are making a great mistake. There you are in your pulpits trying to persuade man about Jesus Christ. You should be witnessing: Does this thing work? Then share it with the rest of us. Don’t try to tell us about some being who lived 2,000 years ago, some being that I must worship…does it work? If it works, then share it with the rest of us.” And this was Lord Lindsay, who was Master at the oldest of the colleges of Oxford University.248 ¶41

And so, I want you to share with me that I in turn may share with others. So that I can tell everyone from here to the East Coast, to the north, as I travel, how this thing does work.248 ¶42

Well, I may not have the desires, because my world is a simple world; it’s not as complex as many, and so I have no real desire at the moment to transcend the way that I now live. The world in which I find myself seems quite nice, it’s comfortable, and so there’s no irritant in my world to make me want to transcend it. But maybe in your world there’s an irritant and there’s a reason for it. So if there’s an irritant—-that you want to make more money or this, that or the other—well then, after applying this principle then tell me of the results that I may share your good fortune with others by telling them.248 ¶43

Now let us go into the Silence.248 ¶44

Now, first of all, may I call your attention to the book table. You’ll find books there that will interest you and my little pamphlet that came off just about a week ago—-that’s the week before I closed, which is about a month ago—-called He Breaks the Shell. It’s simply, as I told you, a confession of faith in terms of a series of experiences. But the other books are there, and maybe you’d like to look over the table.248 ¶45

Now are there any questions, please? None? The night is young.248 ¶46

Any other questions, please?248 ¶55

GOD UNVEILS HIS IMAGE IN FOUR ACTS247 ¶1

“Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the Testimony of Jesus! Let me Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law!” “I am but a fellow-servant with you and your brothers who bear their testimony to Jesus.” “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” “The yoke of the law” is a common rabbinical expression for the study of the scriptures. “Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead” proposes an exchange of the Scriptures based on his own personal experience for others based purely on speculation.247 ¶2

It is very difficult for man to change his understanding of the meaning of an event, once old accepted interpretations have become rigidly fixed in is mind. But the four acts of God which veil his “Image” — “Let us make man in our image” — appear in a quite different light in prospect from what they really are seen to be in retrospect.247 ¶3

The Resurrection is God’s first act in the unveiling of his “Image.” It is fulfilled in a way man could never have guessed, by an awakening in his skull, not at the end of his history, but within his history. Resurrection is an event happening within the earthly life of man. Our human life has its significance only and always in relation to our resurrection.247 ¶4

The man so awakened is “declared Son of God by a mighty act in that he rose from the dead; it is about Jesus Christ our Lord”. Participation in the life of the age to come depends on God’s act of awakening the dead. We are resurrected one by one to unite into a single Man, who is God: “And the Lord will become king over all the earth: on that day the Lord will be one and his name one.”. Resurrection is an individual experience, an awakening in one’s own skull, followed instantly by a supernatural birth from his skull, a privileged birth in a new creation. This is effected by the grace of God alone; and only of such an awakening does the New Testament use the term “the resurrection.”247 ¶5

All other men apart from the resurrected are, at death, restored to life only to die again. “There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and died without children; and the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.247 ¶6

And Jesus said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”247 ¶7

“He hath awakened from the dream of life ‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife.” God’s purpose lies not in evolving the natural order but in awakening his sons associated with it. “For the created universe waits with eager expectation for God’s sons to be revealed.”.247 ¶8

“Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to complete. I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke will disappear from the Law until all that must happen has happened.”. “My task is to bear witness to the truth. For this was I born; for this I came into the world, and all who are not deaf to truth listen to my voice.”. “I was dead and now I am alive for evermore.”. “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead”.247 ¶9

The testimony of Jesus should be heard and responded to. Some will be convinced by what he says, while others will disbelieve. The testimony of Jesus cannot be induced at will. It is the unveiling of God’s Image. This sudden and completely unexpected awakening in one’s skull, to find it to be a sepulcher in which you had been entombed, is bewildering and perplexing. The Resurrection is God’s first act in the unveiling of is primal wish, “let us make man in our image”.247 ¶10

“The one who started the good work in you will bring it to completion by the Day of Jesus Christ”. Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God”. God’s work in you is completed, when “you take the shape of Christ”. Then you will be awakened and raised from the dead.247 ¶11

The first act by which God unveils “the Son who is the effulgence of God’s splendour and the stamp of God’s very being” is a double act. It awakens the sleeper and brings him forth from his skull: Born anew. “Awake, sleeper, Rise from the dead, And Christ will shine upon you.” He is “born anew … through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for him”. The “new birth” follows “the resurrection.” “Flesh can give birth only to flesh; it is spirit that gives birth to spirit. You ought not to be astonished, then, when I tell you that you must be born over again. The wind blows where it will; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it is going. So with everyone who is born from spirit.”247 ¶12

Man awakens within his skull to discover that he is entombed within it. Intuitively he knows that if he pushes the base of the skull an opening will be made and he will emerge. He pushes the base, finds an opening and comes out the head first in the same manner a child is born. As he contemplates the skull out of which he has just emerged, suddenly there comes a sound like that of a strong driving wind which fills the whole room; he hears the sound of it, but he does not know ‘where it comes from or where it is going.’ His attention is diverted for a moment from the body out of which he has just emerged by the sound of the wind.247 ¶13

When looking back to the body he is surprised to find that it has been removed and in its place sit three men; one sits where the head was and two sit where the feet were. They, too, hear the sound of the mighty win but do not know “where it comes from or where it is going.” They do not see the man who is born from his skull but they find the sign of his birth; a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying on the floor. “Today in the city of David a deliverer has been born to you – the Messiah, the Lord. And this is your sign; you will find a baby lying all wrapped up, in a manger”.247 ¶14

They find the sign of his birth but not the twice-born man, for he is now “declared Son of God by a mighty act in that he rose from the dead.”. “My Father and I are one”.247 ¶15

The second mighty at unveils the mystery of the fatherhood and Brotherhood of Man. Man finds David of Biblical fame and discovers that David’s nature and mission are spiritual, not physical or historical. “I have found David…. He shall cry for me, Thou are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation”. “You’re my son, today I have begotten you”. “No one knows who the Son is but the Father, or who the Father is but the Son, and those to whom the Son may choose to reveal him”. “He said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is son of David? For David himself … calls him “Lord”: how then can he be David’s son?’”.247 ¶16

David in the spirit calls him “my Father.” When the “Messiah”, “the image of the invisible God,” is formed in man, that man will find David and David will call him Father. Eventually, all men will say to David, “You are my son, today I have begotten you”, and all will know Fatherhood and Brotherhood of Man.247 ¶17

“Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we ask no more.’ Jesus answered, ‘Have I been all this time with you, Philip, and you still do not know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Then how can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?’”.247 ¶18

The third mighty act unveils God’s Image is of two-fold nature. “You are God’s temple and God’s spirit dwells in you”. “And the curtain fo the temple was torn in two from top to bottom”. “So now, my friends, the blood of Jesus makes us free to enter boldly into the sanctuary by the new, living way which he has opened for us through the curtain, the way of his flesh”.247 ¶19

A bolt of lightning splits man in two from the top of his skull to the base of his spine. He is cleft as though he were a tree that had been struck by lightening. At the base of his severed body he sees “the blood of Jesus,” a pool of molten gold; he knows it is himself; then, fusing with “the blood of Jesus,” he ascends his severed spine in a serpentine motion into his skull. This is to fulfil the Scripture: “This Son of Man must be lifted up as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness”.247 ¶20

The fourth and final act is an expression of God’s satisfaction with his work. “And God saw everything that had made, and behold, it was very good”. Man’s skull suddenly becomes translucent. Hovering above him, as though floating, there is a dove with its eyes focused lovingly on him. “And behold, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him and lo, a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”. The dove descends upon him and smothers him with love, kissing his face, his head, his neck.247 ¶21

These four mighty acts though separated in time by approximately three and a half years are all parts of a single complex. There is conferred upon the risen Christ- in these four mystical and supernatural experiences of man- the divine names of Jesus, Father, Son of Man, Son of God.247 ¶22

The Resurrection is a unique personal experience; it is by definition the resurrection fo the Christ. Though the resurrection itself is nowhere described in Scriptures, it represents the central point of the Christian faith. It marks the division between this age and that age in which even the law of death is broken -where one does not die any more, where all are equal to angels, sons no longer of this world but of that world, of God and of the resurrection: it is a new creation.247 ¶23

To become someone else is to extinguish one’s self – in effect to die. It is in this sense that God died for man. “He was in the form of God … but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men”. God became man that man may become God. “I lay down my life, to receive it back again. No one has robbed me of it; I am laying it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to receive it back again.”.247 ¶24

After the Resurrection, man reads back into the ancient Scriptures intimations and foreshadowings of the truth as he experienced it. “In the role of the book it is written of me.”. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?”. Christ could not “emerge” from the man in whom he did not exist.247 ¶25

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him … for as yet they did not know (i.e. understand) the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”. One of the men at the tomb found “The Babe”, the sign of the supernatural birth “but him they did not see”, the man who was supernaturally born. He is risen! He is born anew. He said: “but these words seemed to the others an idle tale, and they did not believe them”.247 ¶26

To be raised is to “bear the image of the man of heaven”. There is no loss of identity but there is a radical discontinuity of form. “He will change our lowly body to be like (lit. of one form with) his glorious body”.247 ¶27

God’s primal wish “Let us make man in our image” is maturing to its appointed hour. And “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority”. “The vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens, it will flower; if it be long, then waits, for it is sure, and it will not be late.”247 ¶28

Israel’s sacred history, as it is recorded in the Old Testament, is a completely prophetic history which God brings to climax and fulfillment in Jesus Christ in you. “The Lords of hosts has sworn: As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” Isaiah 14:24. The promises of God, so long cherished as buds upon the tree of his unfolding purpose, will burst into flower – in four mighty acts – in Christ in you.247 ¶29

The full force of this truth may be missed because you are not conscious of any sudden break with the past. A new thing has happened. You are born anew. “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion.”247 ¶30

Everything written in the Scriptures about Jesus Christ is written about Man. “And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him”. The “rock-hewn tomb, where no one had ever been laid.” is the skull of man. And “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his”.247 ¶31

I have related my own experience that you may know the truth concerning the Christian mystery – the message of salvation as I myself have experienced it. The Divine image is unveiled in this series of supernatural events which evoke the response of awe and wonder. Personal experience must seal the truth of Scripture.247 ¶32

God is buried in the skull of man. His name is I AM. He will awaken in the skull of man. He will emerge from the skull of mn and be born anew. God became man that man may become God. Jesus Christ is the true identity of every man. “And now, go write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness for ever.”247 ¶33

Well, this is our closing night for a little while. We close tonight and reopen on January the 5th, which is really three weeks from tonight. I will not be sending notices. I will take an ad in the Times just about a week or a few days before we reopen, so do not expect a notice and titles. It will be appropriate, the title and the subject, when we reopen.246 ¶1

Because I am not speaking beyond tonight and this is the Christmas season, I would like to tell you the story of Christmas, the true story, not as hundreds of millions of people really believe it. For ten days from today, hundreds of millions will celebrate Christmas, and they will think in terms of some being who was born 2,000 years ago in some strange and unique manner. And that is true…but not as the story is told. Any attempt by theologians to equate faith with historical information or scientific facts or philosophic, I would say, speculation, is bankrupt. That is not the story of the birth of Christ. When Christ is formed in us, he is born. We are the cocoon as it were; we are the egg in which Christ is being formed. And when he’s formed, at that very moment when he’s formed, and the time is fulfilled, then it is alive, it is awakened—-it’s our very self—-and we come out and we are born. This is the story.246 ¶2

I wouldn’t care if the whole vast world rose in opposition. I am only telling you what I know from experience. This is not theory, I’m not speculating. And so any attempt to put it into any other form is folly. It isn’t so at all. Everyone in this world is simply being formed into Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God. It takes all the pains and the sufferings of the world to produce it, and when it’s completely formed in us, at that moment then it comes out.246 ¶3

Now, let the churches this coming fortnight be bursting to overflowing. It makes no difference, it’s good. Let them hear it even though it’s distorted. Let all the priesthoods of the world tell their story in a distorted manner, it’s perfectly alright. But I’ll tell you, the few that are here, how it really takes place. And may I tell you, no one knows until that moment when the hatching is about to take place, but no one knows. I will tell you this night and tell you in detail in the hope that you’ll remember it. But when it happens, it is so startling, so bewildering, you will forget, but not really. Something in the depths of your soul will know what is taking place, and then you will simply return to the outer scripture and read it for confirmation of the experiences that you’ve just had. It will come in the most wonderful manner.246 ¶4

You’re told in scripture that it came so suddenly and unexpectedly in an unobserved inn. The inn was completely unobserved. No one knew that something great would take place in this inn, and no one knew that the occupant of the inn was selected that moment in time. And here, you make a journey from wherever you are living. So you were living—wherever you are that’s home, that’s base—and for reasons that you need not explain you make a journey. The scripture tells you that they went off because it was decreed they should all pay taxes. And at that moment came this moment of delivery. Well, paying taxes…we all pay taxes, it’s been going on forever. So if you go from here on a journey, it’s a vacation. If you go to visit a friend, if you go on a business jaunt, whatever you do, it’s removed from where you are, and you invariably stop at an inn. You may call it a hotel, call it a motel today, call it a friend’s home, I don’t care what you call it; it is that you are removed from where you were. And so, you make your journey physically.246 ¶5

And you retire quite normally in a simple inn, not knowing that this is the moment for you to be delivered of that which has been formed in you, your very being. And while you retire quite simply, suddenly the most intense electrical power seems to be applied to your brain. You’ve never felt anything in this world like it. Here, you begin to awaken and awaken and awaken, and then you are completely awake as you’ve never in your life been awake before. I think I’m awake now. I see you, I see you vividly. Everyone in this room I can spot and those that I know by name I could call by name, in this area. But this is like a dull, dull state compared to this awakening. There’s a clarity, there’s a translucency you’ve never known before, and you awaken, and you find yourself in your own skull. And then one moment not of panic but of deep concern that you are in a skull. You don’t think of it only as a skull, you think of it, strangely enough, as a sepulcher.246 ¶6

You know that you are in a sepulcher, and if you are in a sepulcher then someone must have thought you to be dead to have placed you here. For here I awake…I awake in a tomb. Why am I in a tomb, and the tomb is my own skull? So if I’m awake in this tomb, someone placed me here…or did I voluntarily go into it and fall asleep? I don’t know. I simply found that I am in a tomb, and for a moment I think it’s sealed, completely sealed. Then one moment later I feel that if I could but push the base of the skull, something would give and I would come out. And so I push the base of the skull and I come out just as I thought I would, head down. When I start moving out, pushing myself out, then I pull the remaining portion of me out, and there I am, I am out. That’s the beginning.246 ¶7

I awoke from a state of death. I didn’t realize I was dead. Someone thought me dead because I was placed in a tomb. I come out of it, I find myself now completely out of the tomb. I open my eyes to the world and I look back, and strangely enough although I am out of the tomb, the thing out of which I came is still present. That’s the strange part. For I came out of the tomb and the tomb was my skull; and yet here is the thing, the body, out of which I came. That doesn’t make sense but it’s true. There it is, I look at it, it’s ghastly pale, pale as snow. And then a wind, the most unearthly wind is disturbing me, and I cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. I look around and then I think it’s over there. I turn my attention for a moment over there. As I look over there wondering is this thing so strong it’s going to blow the whole area down—I’m not diverted more than moments—when I look back and the body is gone.246 ¶8

In its place sits—and I’ll tell you because you are few tonight; I didn’t tell it in my little circle, in my little booklet; I told it impersonally, but I will repeat it—-my three brothers were there. I say this to you tonight for a purpose, my three brothers were present. The oldest, called Cecil, was at the head; the second, called Victor, was at the right foot; and the third, called Lawrence, was at the left foot. They heard the same wind that I heard; but they didn’t see me, they couldn’t see me. I could see every thought that they entertained. My vision was so clear that they couldn’t think unless it became objective to me. Everything they thought I saw. That’s what I was at that moment. They couldn’t see me for one moment. Lawrence, my third brother, was the most disturbed and he went off to see where the wind was coming from.246 ¶9

He hadn’t gone more than one or two paces when something attracted his attention, and looking down, he said to my two brothers who were sitting on the bed, “Why it’s Neville’s baby!” and they in turn said, “How can Neville have a baby?” in the most strange, unbelieving manner. He didn’t argue the point. He lifted up the evidence and placed it on the bed. Then I took the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and into its little heavenly face I looked and I asked, “How is my sweetheart?” It just simply broke into a smile. And then the whole thing dissolved.246 ¶10

Now, I tell you tonight from experience, everything written about Jesus Christ in the Bible is a sign, but everything, from beginning to end. The manner of his birth is a sign to those who know who he is. But everything, I don’t care what it is, it’s all a sign if you know who Jesus Christ is. I tell you this for a reason. It’s all true, every word is true. It happens to us when Christ is formed in us. And you have no way to reveal it to another on this plane, if they are anchored on this plane, to satisfy them.246 ¶11

A few days ago, last Saturday, the religious editor of the Los Angeles Times received a letter. In the letter he was offered five thousand dollars if anyone in this world could produce evidence that Jesus Christ lived. One condition imposed upon it: he would give $5,000 to anyone who could prove that Jesus actually lived, but you cannot produce any book, any writing in evidence. He wanted scientific facts. He wanted historical truth, as he considers historical truth, not even philosophic speculation, just scientific facts, archeological facts. Well, he will hold that check forever. He will never be able to part with it, because this is not based upon this world at all.246 ¶12

You are told a story and you either believe it or you don’t believe it. When you believe it, it takes root. You may be here for unnumbered centuries. You don’t begin because you come into the world; you are already in the world. “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which is an act of mercy.” So the whole vast world is here, and you don’t move from where you are to the formation of Christ in you by the mere passage of time. You move only when the idea of God’s plan of salvation is heard and believed. When you hear it and believe, then you start a journey…still in the same world. And the journey, may I tell you, is a journey of horror, a journey of dismay, of real affliction. But the affliction is for a purpose: It fashions you into the image of God. When it is completed you are awakened and brought forth, and you are one with God.246 ¶13

So you could be here and reject it completely. And the mere passage of time in this world— as the tyrant of tyrants, as the wisest of the wise, as the richest of the rich—will mean nothing until heard and accepted. Not just heard, but you hear it and you accept it on faith. You can’t have…you can have no proof in this world based upon scientific facts.246 ¶14

So I stand before you to plant the seed. I tell you it is true. Every thing that happened in my world is recorded in scripture. This is a sign, you are told. A sign—what sign? That something has happened—that a savior was born. What savior? Well, the only savior mentioned in scripture is God. He has moved to a higher level of his own being. His creative power came into the world of death personified as a man, and the whole vast world takes the personification and worships it. And that’s not it at all. Hasn’t a thing to do with the personification. It’s his creative power buried in us in the world of death. Then he tells a story and we hear it and we believe it. Those who believe it have accepted the seed which is the seed of God, and then we come out. For this remains, the whole vast world of death remains. Everything here is part forever of the eternal structure of the world. And he simply plants his seed upon man and lets it grow…if it is accepted.246 ¶15

I hope you will accept it. I tell you every word I have told you is true. The child in my hand is a fact, I can feel it now, I can see its face now. I can see the entire picture from beginning to end, as this power took place in my brain and awoke me from a long, long sleep. Then I found myself in the sepulcher. I came out. As I came out I looked back and that out of which I emerged was ghastly pale, as told in scripture. And here was the evidence of my birth in the form of a child, and those who witnessed the sign couldn’t see the twice-born man. Now, how could I prove to anyone save in faith that I’ve experienced it?246 ¶16

Well, let me tell you a story. You and I speak of death; it’s obvious things die every moment of time. You and I have gone to funerals and we’ve said goodbye to friends that we hope we will see…but we hope. We speak of the cold hand of death, we speak of the jaws of death, we speak of the king of terrors, and people speak, “Oh well, alright, that’s just some poetical expression.” Is that really true? Is there such a thing as a hand of death? Well, let me share with you an experience. It took place six years ago. We were living then on El Camino, it’s a little street just at the end of the Strip, north of the Strip. One morning my wife said to me when we met for brunch, “I had the strangest experience this morning.” She said, “I awoke and I sat up in bed, and then you came into the room and you sat on the bed. And then as you sat on the bed, a hand came out of nowhere and a hand grasped my hand. I didn’t see the face of the hand, I didn’t see what possessed the hand, it was just a hand and it held me in a firm grip. Then you looked up seemingly at the body where the hand was attached, and you said, ‘Oh, my friend Death.’ And then I said to you, ‘But I don’t want to die.’ I said, ‘Are you afraid to die?’ and she said, ‘No, I’m not afraid to die, but I don’t want to die now.’ Then I said, ‘Alright, if you don’t want to die now, alright’ and the two hands disengaged, and she returned to her normal state here.”246 ¶17

May I tell you, at that time in her life six years ago, she felt quite low in spirits, quite low physically, and really entertained the thought that she would make in the not distant future her exit from this world. So the hand of death is not, as the world thinks, some wonderful poetical figure of speech. God is man and everything in this world is personified as man, yes, even death, but everything in this world. And I knew him well. And that was before I had the experience of being born from above. I would have to have known him well to reach the point where I could be born from above, for every man goes through death after death after death in this world having accepted the idea that he would come out as God. And so I saw what I called my friend, I knew him so well.246 ¶18

So here, I tell you everything in scripture is true. This story of Christmas is a true story, but not as hundreds of millions will be told it ten days from today. They will be told that some unique experience took place 2,000 years ago, and they’ll be told that it was something that happened in a natural thing, like a man not knowing a woman and the woman having a child through her womb. Christ is not born that way. Christ is formed in the skull of man. You and I are born naturally in this world from the womb of woman. But Christ in us is being formed by our life in this world, fashioned and shaped into the image of the invisible God. And when it’s perfect, but really perfect, then it is awakened; and it’s you and you are Christ. And we’re all gathered together into one body and that body is Jesus Christ. You are Jesus Christ, the being formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ; and when you are completely perfect you are extracted from the skull and brought into the body of Jesus Christ.246 ¶19

So if I say I stood in his presence, what presence?—the presence of the risen Christ. Jesus appeared, this universal humanity, and I saw his form, and it is man. He embraced me when I knew who he was, for he asked me a simple question, “What is the greatest thing in this world?” I answered, after stating faith and hope, I said, “Love, the greatest of all is love.” And then love embraced me. Now, may I tell you, when John wrote these words in the epistles of John he wasn’t speculating (whoever John was). I believe the character, which is not really Lazarus; it’s called Lazarus, the one who’d experience the [...], restoration from death, that was Lazarus—but whoever wrote the epistle when he said “God is love,” I tell you he didn’t speculate. This was not his conclusion after he thought in some philosophical manner. This was revelation, when God revealed himself. I didn’t know that God…I heard it…but I didn’t know that God was actually love, infinite love, until he unveiled himself before me. So when I was brought into his presence and stood in his presence, I couldn’t think of anything but love, infinite love. Here, when he asked me the question and I answered as he intended that I should, and he embraced me, I became one with the body of love. And may I tell you, from that day to this, I am never divorced from it. I am in the Father and the Father in me, even though he sent me to do what I’m doing.246 ¶20

As Paul made his statement to the Philippians, he said, “Whether I should depart from this world and be one with Christ or remain”…he didn’t know. But he had no choice; he said there was a work to be done—this is the first chapter of Philippians —and there’s a job to be done while he was in the body. He thought he had to remain in the body to complete the work and tell the world, but his longing was to depart from this world and to be one with Christ. For having felt the ecstasy, who on earth could find anything comparable to it? There’s nothing here that compares to it, and you long to be one with that which you felt. You’re still with it, but you’re insulated because you’re still wearing this body. And he uses the word “while in the body.” And so, “I am in the body,” said he, “and I long to depart from this world and be one with Christ, but there is a job to be done while still in the body.”246 ¶21

So anyone who has had the experience, they cannot for one moment find anything in this world that holds them, that interests them to the point where they want to succeed in it…they really don’t. I’m speaking from experience. I can’t conceive of anything in this world that I have as an objective, really, save for individuals. But I don’t have an objective for myself beyond that. I can’t conceive of another objective, I just can’t. And so I will take anyone’s request and hear it and I’m quite confident it will work. I am confident that every request, if I hear it and accept it, it’ll come to pass. Of that I am sure! Because I will hear nothing that I would not myself want as man. If you ask me to hear that someone is hurt, I couldn’t hear it. If you ask me to hear that someone is unwell, I couldn’t hear it. It’s not part of my world. If you ask that you should have money, I could hear that; that you have a better job, and all these things, I could hear these things, and they’ll all come to pass. I know it! But for myself I have no desire for these things at all.246 ¶22

I feel like Paul. I can’t wait for that moment of departure and yet I know there are things to be done while I wear the body. I must, too, wear the body. That’s what he said in his first chapter to the Philippians. You read it carefully. If you take the new translation, called the New English Bible, it will give you a little different slant on the original Greek, but they’re all good anyway. But the archaic language of the old Bible doesn’t quite reveal what he intended to tell the world.246 ¶23

So I tell you the story of Jesus Christ is true…not as the world understands it. Jesus Christ is being formed in man. He’s formed in the skull of man, and the very moment that he is formed he is awakened, and that is called resurrection. God’s mightiest act is resurrection. Then comes the birth on the heels of the resurrection, and then comes the unfoldment of the entire picture. He knows who he is now. Because the purpose of it all is to give himself to his image, that’s God’s purpose. Not just to make an image but to endow it with the same power that he possesses, which is life in himself. Well, if he gives himself to his image that he has formed and he was prior to that attempt a father, then the image at the moment that he succeeds in his transference of himself must be a father. And that’s the second act. And so, he actually transfers himself, he gives himself to his image; and the image awakes; and the image becomes the Father; the very Father that is God. For God is the Father of this heavenly Son. He sees his Son and the Son calls him Father.246 ¶24

And after that comes the next sign—-they’re all signs—the splitting of the temple from top to bottom; and he sees the sacrifice that was God. For now God is himself, and he sees the blood of himself which is called in scripture the blood of Jesus Christ, and he fuses with his own blood. Then he moves up into heaven. And then comes the final picture, where God sees the whole thing and it’s good and very good, and smothers him with affection, in bodily form of a dove. And he sees the whole thing unfolding within himself.246 ¶25

So I tell you the story that will be told ten days from today, where they have a little child on the outside, and animals all around, and wise men. I said earlier the wise men come…tradition has it that the wise men were brothers and they were kings, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar, that’s what tradition has it. Scripture does not record it. But as far back as we can go, the early fathers, someone had the experience; and now tradition has it that there were three brothers, one the king of India, one the king of Arabia, one the king of Persia. These were three kings and they were brothers, and they came to witness the event.246 ¶26

So I record this to this small audience that you may know the thing is true. Whether it is always so that you have three brothers, I do not know.246 ¶27

On the other hand, when David appeared in my world and I was David’s father…and not one moment prior to that event did I ever entertain such a thought. Well, three could come into your world and strangely enough they could be your brothers. You can have the same feeling, the same certainty about this relationship that you’ll have to David. For I know these three brothers in my world, Cecil, Victor and Lawrence, I know them. They are still in my world. It was Lawrence (who was a doctor) who got off the bed in search of the wind to find the babe. And the Book of Luke tells you that he was a doctor .246 ¶28

Well, this thing is so fantastic, for it happens in the mind of man. So, all…I consider every one…just as David came into my world—and not for one moment prior to that entrance into my world did I entertain the thought that we were related—to discover he is my son and always has been my son. Then, these brothers that I know now…if you do not have brothers, it could happen tonight and the three who would come into your world would have the same sense of relationship that my three earthly brothers have to me. I’m only suggesting that; I do not know that from experience. But I do know that when David came, I had no sense of uncertainty about the relationship. And so, when these three men come into your world, whether you have brothers here in this world or not, they will to you be like three brothers. For somewhere along the centuries back they felt that the three wise men were brothers, and they called them Gaspar, and they called them Melchior and Balthazar, and said they were three kings who were brothers. So I leave it with you to do what you will from this.246 ¶29

But the story of Christmas is a true story, eternally true. And when you’ve had the experience and you make your departure from this world, you leave it just as it is, having told your story. I can’t conceive…as Paul said in his letter to the Philippians, he wanted so much to make his exit on the heels of the experience but he could not. He had to wait, wearing a body, tied to this earth, to tell the story to all who would hear it and would accept it, but eagerly waiting for his departure. For as far as he was concerned, the race was over, the fight was over; he kept the faith . He heard it somewhere along the way. So don’t think for one moment that this story took place once and forever 2.000 years ago; it is ever taking place every moment of time the world over.246 ¶30

May I tell you that the story of the Bible, this is sacred history, it’s not secular history. You begin with Abraham and come all the way through the entire line. Read the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews and these are the characters that are eternal in you. And whether someone believes it or not, until you accept this story it doesn’t matter what you do or accomplish in this world. There’s no record of any Buddha, or Confucius, or a Plato, or an Aristotle, or a Socrates, or a Karl Marx, or a Hitler. These are not mentioned in this sacred history. None of these characters are mentioned, only from Abraham through to the end of the prophets. And Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the entire picture. The Old Testament ends upon the note of expectancy, and the New Testament begins on the note of fulfillment; and the two are one; you can’t separate them. The Old and the New are one; you can’t interpret one without the other. The New only interprets the Old and the Old expects the New. And here is your story.246 ¶31

So everyone in this world has it, but it’s not fertilized. In woven into man is the story. He hears it and the hearing would fertilize it if accepted. If he doesn’t accept it, it bounces off. He remains in the world and moves from state to state to state, and makes every effort to anchor himself here forever. And they do today, trying to live physically for an extra hundred years…and vegetate. When I think of these lovely fellows that have lived so beautifully in this world I think of Winston Churchill. Here is a perfectly marvelous wonderful fellow. He’s done such a marvelous job in the world, but at ninety the body shows its age, and here, well, he’s not the Churchill that you and I knew. None of them are and yet someone today wants to put it on for 200 years and maybe a thousand years. If you lived a billion years and Christ was not formed within you, it wouldn’t really matter.246 ¶32

Christ has to be formed in man, and Christ is the image of the invisible God. When formed, he awakens his image and gives to his image himself, and calls his image his son. He is declared son, why?—through his resurrection from the dead. You can’t quite grasp…you can grasp it in a way, but when you find yourself waking in your skull and know what it is, it’s not just a skull, it’s a sepulcher. So that lovely thought: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” May I tell you, you can answer, “Yes, I was there.” “Were you there when they placed him in the tomb?” Yes, you were there. Do you know where the tomb is? Maybe, that you don’t know. May I tell you, the Bible tells you. Well, some call it Golgotha and others call it Calvary and still others call it “the place of the skull.” Well, then I must go and awaken my Lord, for they took my Lord and they crucified him, crucified him on the place of the skull.246 ¶33

So the father goes…this is the story told in scripture…that they were servants, the prophets, who went into the field and asked for some return of the vineyard, and they beat them and chased them away. Then he sent other prophets and they beat those and threw them out. Then he sent his son (his creative power) and they said, “Now, he is the heir, let us kill him, for the whole thing will be ours if we kill him” . So they killed the son. And then the father went and the purpose of the visit of the father was to awaken his son: “This my son was dead and he’s alive again; he was lost and he’s found” . So here is the story of every one of us sent into this world of death, and then told the most heavenly story of recovery. Some believe it and some don’t. So I ask you to believe it tonight, for if you believe it I can’t tell you when the thing will be finished in you, but only after belief does the work begin.246 ¶34

Now let us go into the Silence.246 ¶35

We’re closing tonight and opening three weeks from tonight, on the 5th of January. So may I call your attention to the book table. My little booklet is out, called He Breaks the Shell. It’s the story of the unveiling of the image of God. And so you may take a look at it. There are other books there that I think you would like. Are there any questions, please?246 ¶36

Well, what I told you this night is true. Every word is true, because I’m speaking from experience. I am not theorizing. This being my last night until the new year, may I wish you all a true Christmas in the sense that may it happen to you! Thank you.246 ¶41

Tonight’s subject is “The Primal State.” We read in the works of Shakespeare, “It has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were.” For the primal state with us is “Let us make man in our image.” That’s the very first wish recorded in scripture. And we are told that he who began this work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ; that no power in the world will stop it. That was his wish and he will complete it. Now, in the Book of Ephesians, the first chapter of Ephesians, we read the words, “In Christ, he chose us before the foundation of the world”…that you and I were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Christ is the power and the wisdom of God, so by his wisdom and by his power we were chosen. Now he tells us why: To be full of love. These are the words, the 1st chapter, the 4th and 5th verses: To be full of love; God being love, to be full of God. He is filling us with himself until we overflow with God. Then we are told “He destined us” and then it’s explained why he destined us. For this, we’re told, such was his will and his pleasure that we may be accepted as his sons. For the whole purpose, the whole vast world was brought forth as a theater wherein God and God alone might develop beings fit for his sons. So let no one scare you about not being saved, because you choose yourself. Let no one tell you that you are not being brought out just as God, for it is all God doing it. He began the good work in us and God will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And no one can be lost, but no one. Our sonship is not earned, it is all grace; and our fitness is the consequence not the condition of his choice. And so, everyone in the world because they can’t earn it, everyone is given it, but everyone.244 ¶1

Now, let me share with you a letter that came to me last Tuesday. This lady writes that she was dreaming and she knew she was dreaming, and in the dream she remembered this teaching and said to herself, “Neville tells us that if I know that I am dreaming and decide to awake in it I could; and awake right in the dream and prove to my own satisfaction that a dream is not what the world thinks it is. If I awake in it, it takes on objectivity and becomes just as real to me, the dreamer, as the world is to those who think they are awake. So I will awake in it. Well, I know it was a dream and I did what you told us to do. So I sat at a desk, and I discovered that the desk was joined to the chair, one piece of furniture. I realized that this enormous hall was the hall in some institution of higher learning. When I made my decision, I awoke in my dream. The professor was giving a lecture. There weren’t very many people present, but he was talking to the few who were present in this very large hall. I noticed to my right a stairway led from the upper floor. At the base of the stairway there was a group of young men, all talking. So I sat at the desk, and two of them detached themselves from the little group and came over to where my desk was and got on both sides of me and locked me in. Well, here the desk was attached to the chair, and the only exit for me would be to the sides, and they stood at my sides.244 ¶2

“Then one shouted to the crowd, that is, the group gathered at the stairway, ‘Here is another one of them,’ said this youth to the others over there. ‘Here is another one of them.’ Seven left the little gathering and came over and got in front of me, implying that I was a visitor, and I was not the first visitor from a very strange land…that they were seeing something, and I was one of them. I realized from their attitude towards me that I should get out of there. Again, I remembered your teaching, that if I could feel a bed under me and a pillow under my head I would depart from this area. Quickly as I imagined I was on a bed and a pillow under my head, I felt myself dissolve from this chair and felt myself on my bed, leaving an empty chair for the nine of them to observe. So they all thought they saw someone who was a visitor from some other world or some other planet, as far as they’re concerned, and they shouted to the crowd, ‘Here is another one of them.’”244 ¶3

Now, that same technique you use to put yourself into anything you want in this world. You don’t have to use it only to return to this world from another place; you use it here to put yourself from one state into another state in this world. You take the state of poverty…now what, instead of a bed and a pillow, on what would you rest if now you were not poor? On what would you rest if now you were gainfully employed? On what would you now rest…and you use the same technique to move from one state here into another state here. You don’t have to use it only to get back to this world from another section of this world. Because, really, she was really in this world, but “this world” runs thousands of years. She was in another time sequence, and if at this very moment she went back in time and you saw people dressed differently, if you slipped back in time a thousand years and you saw people dressed a thousand years ago, you would think you were in another world. You’d be forgetful of the fact that that same world in which you now slip was once called “this world,” and we now reflect upon it as the past history of this world. But to you, relative to this it’s another world. It’s only this world, and you slip into all these different time sections of this world. If you don’t know it, anyone functioning there now will look upon you as a visitor from another planet, from another world. It’s another section of this world.244 ¶4

But while we are in this section of this world, we can use this same technique to move from our present state into another state. To understand this principle, you must always bear in mind the great distinction between infinite states and the occupant of the state. When I speak to you I’m not speaking to states, I am speaking to the occupant. And tonight, no two are in the same state in this room, we are in different states. But I am speaking to the occupant of the state, and that occupant is God. Actually, I’m speaking to God. I can’t speak to anyone else; there is no one else. And so, God became that state, entered that state, regardless of the nature of that state. Whether it be restricted or free, it’s a state. Man, not knowing it’s a state, he thinks he is the state and he doesn’t know how to get out of the state.244 ¶5

Well, you take this lady’s experience. For I can tell you from my own experience unnumbered times of finding myself deliberately making a choice to wake in a state. And so, I could wake in a dream to find that I could explore that dream, and the world was just as real as this, solidly real. The people are real; I talked with them, they talked to me. And then I could dissolve from that world and find myself back here in this section of time, pick up the threads where I left them the night before when I fell off to sleep.244 ¶6

This seems mad, but as Blake said, “There are states of consciousness in which the visionary is declared a madman.” Yes, there are numberless states where you would be considered, if you told it to another group other than you, I would be declared an insane person. But I can trust you. You know I am sane (I think I am) and yet I can share with you all these strange experiences, because I am not confined to the evidence of my senses here. Falling asleep and deciding—not every dream of mine I want to awake in it—some dreams are not pleasant. I wouldn’t want to awaken in that section of time. Other dreams are most pleasant, and so you could awake in that. Consciousness follows vision, you awake in the dream, and the dream takes on all the properties of this external world. While you’re in it you explore. But the technique by which you awoke and the technique by which you return is the same technique to move from one state to the other in this world. If I use it to move from one section of time here to another section of time of the same world, yet the time stretches, say, 6,000 years…but I don’t want 6,000 years…I want to take it back now in another state right here.244 ¶7

So there are infinite states and you are the pilgrim moving through states. You’re moving toward the ultimate state, which is the inn. The inn wherein the symbol of your awakening takes place: It is called the birth of Christ. The birth of Christ is simply a departure from the entire wheel of recurrence into a new creation altogether. But you don’t depart that night. You reach the end of your road and you remain long enough to tell it to encourage every being (who happens to be God) that the word of God is a true story. Everything is true about it. And so you remain, but when you do depart it’s your last experience on the wheel of recurrence. You can say with Paul, “The time for my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” . But that may come tonight, it may come next month, may come next year, or, maybe, ten years from now. It doesn’t matter, because you reach the end of the road when you reach the inn.244 ¶8

That lovely little poem of Christina Rossetti, she calls it Uphill: “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting place, a room, for the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn.” Don’t be concerned, you cannot miss that inn. You come to it and you don’t even realize you’re on it; and suddenly you’re in the inn, and the child is coming forth, bearing witness to the event that was in the beginning predetermined. You didn’t determine it. “Let us make…let us make man in our image” . We didn’t say, “Let us make God in our image.” God said, “Let us make man in our image”; that’s the primal wish. It is his responsibility and no one in the world can stop him from bringing to fulfillment that which was in the beginning that primal wish. And it ends…it comes to fulfillment in the inn, when suddenly all that was foretold concerning Jesus Christ…for he is the image of the invisible God. Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God. So when he completes the image he has completed Christ, because as he completes his image you are Jesus Christ.244 ¶9

And Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom; but the power and the wisdom of God is personified and it’s you. So let no one in any way divert you by telling you of some other concept of salvation. He prepared the way of his return before the world was made. Listen to these words, and how can you interpret these five terms and reach any other conclusion other than that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” . But I don’t see how anyone could take these five terms—-foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified—-and arrive at any conclusion other than that we are predestined to be God. For to be glorified…listen to the words, “And now, Father, glorify thou me with thyself with the glory that I had with thee before that the world was” . He asks for the return of a glory that is his, that was one with God the Father, therefore, he is God the Father. It’s God’s purpose to give himself to us, as though there were no others in the world, just God and us. But the us is a compound unity, it’s a oneness, because all of us form one. He’s bringing that one being out of the seeming many and yet we do not lose our individual identities.244 ¶10

But here, you take this simple, simple picture of withdrawal from one state into another and you work it out. She said, A bed and a pillow, and so I’ll return because it didn’t look…but I thought it might be…in the beginning it seemed a bit threatening when these seven came and stood before me. I said, get out of here quickly…and I remembered the teaching. Having remembered, I put it into practice and I felt myself dissolve from that chair, leaving it empty for them to contemplate the empty chair, while I felt myself securely placed upon my bed. Well, you can take anything and do it using the same principle. I have taken ladies who want to be married. Well, alright, what dissolved from one state, what state? Where I can’t feel a ring here; and then all of a sudden I feel a ring, a ring that would imply the fulfillment of my desire to be married. Well now, put another quality to it, to be happily married. Not just to be married but to be happily married, to be proud of the name I bear and to be proud when you say, “I want you to meet my husband”; or if it happens to be a man, he may not wear a ring, but there’s something else he could actually feel, as the lady would feel the ring, and then be proud to say, “I want you to meet my wife.” So whatever you would do, do it in the same way, so you would move from one state to the other state.244 ¶11

They’re all states, infinite states, but you, the occupant, you are not a state. Imagination is not a state. Imagination is the man himself, and that man is God. For, “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination; that is, God himself” . So here, when we speak of the real you, I’m speaking to your Imagination, and that is God. Well, what did she use to move back? She used her Imagination. She imagined a pillow under her head, she imagined a bed under her body, and felt herself detach itself from that chair, and she found herself safely back in her own room. A mother of five small children, she certainly didn’t want to leave five small children in this world. They’re all just simply tots. The fifth one happens to be named after me and Blake, his name is Neville Blake. And so I’m a godfather, I’m the godfather of all five of them. So she didn’t want to leave five children in this world. But she did remember the teaching she got from this platform, which to me is a marvelous thing, because the waking person remembers. If you don’t remember, you’re sound asleep. While in it she remembered the teaching and decided this is the one dream in which I want to awake. Her husband is a teacher. She is qualified to teach and it interested her that here is a hall of higher learning and here is a professor giving a lecture—-not many listening to him, but, nevertheless, he’s giving a lecture. And so, she awoke in the dream to discover that what I’m saying from this platform is true. And then while in it, she also remembered when it became threatening and someone said “Here’s another one, someone from outer space or from some other world, here she is.” And so she felt a little bit uneasy with this threatening attitude of the nine of them, and decided to return. But how to return? And she remembered. She remembered that I told her what happened to me.244 ¶12

Now may I tell you, as I’ve told you, not recently but a long time ago, one day you’re going to see it: This whole vast world is dead and you are the life of it. The whole vast world is dead and you really are the life of it; for what God is giving to his sons that he formed is himself. And God is the God of the living, God is life; so “As the Father has life in himself, so he’s granted the son also to have life in himself” . And how do I know it? I knew it from many experiences as I’ve shared them with you in the past. Well, here is one. I said earlier, the whole vast universe was brought in to being as a theater for God to manifest his power and his love in the development of beings fit to be called his son. And his son is life, for the son has life in himself. Well, one night from this platform I couldn’t answer a question that was asked by a lady. She said, “Neville, I’m terribly concerned about the future development of the animal world. Could you throw any light upon the evolution of the animal?” Well, I couldn’t. I had never had an experience, and any answer that I might have given to this lady would have been based upon speculation not upon anything that I knew from experience. So I told her, I can’t answer you intelligently now. I could tell you what I’ve read. I could tell you what the evolutionists claim is the future of an animal, the survival of the fittest, and so on. We can project some picture, but that may not be a true picture. So I can’t really honestly answer your question, but if I ever have a vision where the answer is given in vision, I’ll tell it to you.244 ¶13

Well, I was blessed with the answer a few days later. A few days later, I found myself at the top of a very tall ladder and down below were all the beasts of the jungle, the tigers, the lions, every wild animal down below…and they were angry, really angry. And I was afraid. I was alone at the top of a very tall ladder and all these were living, moving, angry, beings. And then I remembered that the whole vast world was myself made visible, so the animal would have to be myself made visible. I saw it one night with people, and a bird, and leaves, and all these things, where they were alive because I made them alive; and when I stopped that activity in me they all stood still. Well, the same thing should be true here now. So at first, when I lost my fear, these enormous big cats became docile like domesticated cats. The tiger wasn’t angry, the lion wasn’t angry, and they were simply lovely, lovely living things, but not angry. And I was completely unafraid. When I lost my fear I went beyond it now and I stilled in me the activity that allowed them to move. As I did that, they all froze; then I went down that stair. When I came back down, they were all dead, just as though they were made of clay. Every one was just as still as this, as though they were made of clay. So I looked at them, and then once more I began to release them from that [...] from within me. They became once more alive, but not angry…and I dissolved back into this section of time.244 ¶14

So I know there are levels in man where he will discover that this whole vast world is simply fixed states forever and forever. It’s fixed. It was brought into being after God made his decision to bring forth sons. You and I preceded, as told that story in the 1st chapter of Ephesians, you and I were part of this plan of God before he brought forth the world. This is not an after-thought, this is not some emergency thinking on the part of God. The whole thing was planned in detail before he even brought forth the universe. The universe was brought forth for a purpose, and the only purpose is to beget sons, sons like himself, companions forever. Infinite sons and yet altogether form one being…and that one being is God.244 ¶15

So here, take this simple technique, and while we’re still living in the world of Caesar use it. I can’t take you in detail and show you what I would do were I you to change a state. But you have intelligence, you can do it. The one with the lady with the ring, I’ve see that many, many times working beautifully; the one with the change of position, change of this or the other. What would you feel if now you were the person that you want to be? What would you feel? Well then, feel it…as she felt the pillow to prove she was back from that world into this world. Then what would you feel? For, really, feeling truly is the secret.244 ¶16

Blake tells us that the door of feeling is closed in man. Yes, it is closed, but I’m trying with you to open it. Because feeling is the Western gate, he tells us, and the Western gate in man is closed: It’s the sense of touch. He calls it “the tongue.” Well, the tongue is touch, and so, the sense of touch or taste, and these are one in scripture. They only speak of four rivers in scripture and four senses: sight, sound, scent, taste and touch. Sight, sound, and scent are three separate ones in the fallen state; and taste and touch form one, for both depend upon contact, and he tells us that is the one that is closed in man. So what depends upon contact? Well, touch. You can feel the pillow, you can feel the bed. And that gateway in man is closed; man doesn’t know it. But he speaks of Imagination as spiritual sensation. Just extend your feeling and just feel what is not here to be felt, if you’re going to use only your eyes to see it or your other senses. But now, what is here that if you could touch it would imply that you have or you are what you want to be? Whatever you can touch, for that’s the closed door in man. So extend your senses and feel it. You’ll feel it; then you’ll find yourself actually moving from one state into another state, the state that you are dreaming.244 ¶17

So this is the story of this primal wish. “It has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were.” And so, you wish it. Do the same thing. We’re called upon to imitate God as dear children. Well, if this is the way God does it, well then, I’m told to imitate him, and “he calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.” If that’s how he calls it into being then I must do the same thing. That verse is taken from the 4th chapter, the 17th verse of Romans: “He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen.” So I will call the bed that isn’t seen. I’m sitting in a chair at a desk and there are seven men in front of me and two at my side, and so there’s no bed here and there is no pillow. But if I could only feel the presence of a bed under my body and a pillow under my head, then I would detach myself from this strange behavior of these nine men, and so I would actually find myself where I want to be. Well, we do the same thing in moving from any one state into another state.244 ¶18

Just…well, I don’t know what you really want this night. It could be money…and may I tell you, not a thing is wrong with wanting money. I don’t care what the world will tell you. They’ll tell you, you shouldn’t want it. If money, said Blake, is something we should not pray for, there’s practically nothing left to pray for. So when they told him that he shouldn’t want money, he said, well, if you don’t want money and that’s one thing you shouldn’t pray for, well, there’s nothing one should pray for. He was the most down-to-earth practical being in the world. Didn’t care for it, yet he had to have it. Went to his grave not having any to leave behind him, but he lived seventy wonderful, marvelous years, and left behind him a wealth you cannot estimate in dollars and cents. There’s no money enough that you could bring out to buy one of his [...]. How could you buy one of his six copies of Jerusalem? He has one that is now the only one that is in color at Yale University. Well, you couldn’t offer Yale two million dollars for it and have them accept your offer. And so, he left behind him what today runs in to…you can’t measure in wealth…plus what he’s done to the minds of those who really found him.244 ¶19

So imagining is spiritual sensation and use that spiritual sensation to touch the object of your desire. For, he who is was wished until he were. Well, now the thing that we want to be, touch it, and wish it to be real until it becomes fact.244 ¶20

Just as someone one night in my Bible class in New York City, I asked if she knew what she wanted. She named it down to the penny. She said, “My withholding tax is so much, and I don’t want less than so much in my envelope.” I asked if she could feel it? She said, “I could.” Could you now count the contents? Yes. Can you smell money? Yes. She brought all of her senses to play upon the contents of that envelope. She could shake the contents; then feel paper plus change, and then she counted off right down to the penny what she would receive were it true. Within one week she had that job, earning that amount of money.244 ¶21

It can’t fail you. But it doesn’t operate itself. We are the operant power because we are God, and there’s nothing but God in this world. So God actually came down to the limitation here, and then he’s moving up to where he was before, taking with him, us, taking all of us…but one by one.244 ¶22

So I am inviting everyone to try it. And do share with me your results, because I want stories to tell to everyone to encourage all to try it. Because unless I can take these stories and bring new stories all the time, people get tired even of the thousand and one stories that I could tell you. They don’t want to hear the same thing, they want another story. So don’t be silent about it, tell me your stories, that from this platform—with your permission, naturally—I can encourage others how you can move from one state into another state and externalize the contents of that other state. For, they’re only states, infinite states.244 ¶23

When you open the Bible and you read of these characters like Abraham, and you read Isaac and Jacob and David, they are states. The persons represented are not really meant there; they only simply represent the state, the significance of that state, but not the individual. Every one there is a state, and we pass through all these states. Our journey starts when we enter the state called Abraham…that’s the state of faith. We can hear the most incredible story and believe it because we believe him who said it. And we believe that all things are possible to God, and we heard it from God from the depths of our soul. And so, we enter that state and then the journey starts, and we remain faithful across the journey until we come to the inn when it comes into fulfillment. For, “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” .244 ¶24

You come into the state of Moses. The word Moses means (from its Egyptian verb) “to be born.” Yet it’s a play on the word “to draw out”; for the word Mosheh is “to draw out.” For she said, “I found him and drew him out of the water.” And so, not the mother, she claimed she adopted him, who was the daughter of Pharaoh. So the word Mosheh, Mem, Shin, He, does really mean “to draw out.” You turn it around, it’s Heshem, and the word Heshem is “name.” You take the middle letter out and put it first, it’s Shema, and that is “heaven.” So, heaven is within you. So you’re really drawing out, out of the depths of your own being by the power which is symbolized here as Moses. But the word actually means by its ancient word, it’s really an Egyptian word, “to be born.” It’s a prototype of what is really to be born…because Moses could not enter the Promised Land. He came to the end and then he turned all the power over to Joshua.244 ¶25

Joshua is simply the Hebraic form of the Anglicized word Jesus; Jesus and Joshua are the same word. And so, Joshua is spelled…I think it is spelled Jehovah—-Yod He Vau Shin Ayin. Yod He Vau He would be Jehovah. You put a Shin and you put an Ayin in the name, but the base of the word, which is Yod He Vau begins Joshua, and it is the same word for Jesus, and therefore the same. Jehovah is the same. So it is Joshua who moves into the Promised Land. So this is another state. Now the whole vast world has been trying to find over the centuries a real live living history of Jesus. You aren’t going to find it, because you are he…this is his history and he wakes in you. The whole story is told so beautifully, but people are looking for him on the outside, and trying to find confirmation in fact in the pages of history when the whole drama unfolds within us. The whole wonderful story of Jesus Christ is taking place in us. It starts with the call of Abraham and comes to its culmination in the inn at Bethlehem…and that’s you.244 ¶26

So tonight you try this, just as the lady did. I don’t know what you’re going to use to touch, to imply that you have what you want. I have seen people take with the piano…when you couldn’t buy a piano during the war years…and this lady took an area of her apartment in New York City, cleaned off everything in the area where the piano would go had she the piano, and would actually feel the piano in that presence—when someone called her and said to her, “I’m moving to the coast, and I have a wonderful piano, and I don’t really want to sell it, could you use the piano? I don’t want to sell it to you. I will give it to you if you will take it. I don’t want to take it to the coast.” And she fell heir to the piano, a wonderful concert grand piano. I know the family well, I know the piano well. And she simply cleaned the area where the piano would go when it arrived, and she got the piano. This happened in this last…the 2nd World War.244 ¶27

So as you’re told in the Book of Kings, “You say you want rain, dig ditches”—-prepare for the reception of what you say you want. So you won’t dig the ditches and you say you want rain…and there isn’t a cloud, not the size of a man’s hand…but I say, in spite of the absence of the sign of rain, prepare for the reception of rain. So prepare for the reception of the good that you seek by actually feeling its reality now, and then it comes into your world. Well, if you do so, you enter the state and then all these things belonging to that state externalize themselves in your world.244 ¶28

So the primal state began with a wish, and he which is was wished until he were. So you begin and imitate God like a dear child. And so you want something, begin with the wish, and then wish it until it is. You wish a thing by assuming that it is. For this grand being within you which is your Imagination will do nothing that you wish until you have imagined the wish fulfilled. You must imagine the wish fulfilled before you can get it into action. If you don’t imagine the wish fulfilled, it remains quiet. So not until the wish is imagined fulfilled do you move the being from one state into another state.244 ¶29

And may I tell you, as Blake said in his wonderful Vision of the Last Judgment: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” So all these states are; every conceivable state is already part of the eternal structure of the universe, and you the pilgrim, you move from state to state. And it’s entirely up to you. As we are told in Deuteronomy, “I place before you this day life and death, good and evil; choose life, choose blessings” . But it is entirely up to you. He said, “I made the good; I also made the evil. I fashioned the light and form the darkness…and there is no one to deliver out of my hands” . Who else could make darkness? Who else could make evil?—none but the only creator. So he made every conceivable state. When you read the Bible carefully, there isn’t one thing possible for man to experience, good, bad or indifferent that is not openly discussed in the Bible. Every conceivable vice, every violation of the so-called moral code, everything is in the Bible. And so, it’s entirely up to man to choose what he wants. You can choose this, that or the other; and as you choose you move into it, and you will experience the results of your choice.244 ¶30

If you don’t like it, you get out of it, just like the lady. It was her decision to awaken in this particular dream. It had something about it that interested her. Her husband is a teacher, she is qualified to teach, and this was simply an institution of higher learning. So she awoke in it to find it was not quite as desirable as she thought in the beginning. But instead of regretting it, she detached herself from it and returned to her home and her family. And so, I invite everyone here to single out the dream, the initial wish now, this night, and then wish it until it is.244 ¶31

Yes, Tom?244 ¶36

[...]in which he asked the question, “Have I not told you from the beginning and declared it? Is there a God besides me? There is no God, I know not any” . Now the word translated God in the first is the Elohim; the second is singular, and it’s translated in the Revised Standard Version as Rock. So when we read it in the Revised Standard Version “Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock, I know not any,” we search the scriptures to find out what is it all about, what is this Rock of which he speaks? Well, tonight, you and I are called upon to be witnesses, to witness to the truth of God’s word. For we are told, “Every word of God is true. Do not add to it lest he rebuke you, and find that you are a liar” . So do not add to the words, just leave them just as they are until you actually have the experience of the words of God. Now what is this Rock of which he speaks here? In the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke a question is asked and the words are put into the mouth of Christ Jesus, and the words are, “What does this text of scripture mean?”—and then he mentions the stone—“the stone that the builders rejected that becomes the chief cornerstone?” . Then Paul in his 9th chapter of his letter to the Romans, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone.” He tells us it will be a stumbling stone to some and it will fall upon others. But the stone suddenly turns into a person: “He who believes in him will not be put to shame” . I am laying in Zion a stone, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame. Now, you and I are called to testify, to witness to all these things.243 ¶1

Now, first of all, let us see what is a witness. A witness is one who has firsthand knowledge of a fact or an event. We are told in Deuteronomy, the 19th chapter, that unless there are two witnesses or three witnesses, then a charge cannot be sustained . There must be at least two, but, alright, have three or more, but not less than two witnesses to sustain a charge. Well, if two different persons agree in testimony, then it is conclusive. We are told, “Write it, inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.” We have that witness today in the form of our Bible. You who are not familiar with it possibly or you want to check it, the 30th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “Inscribe it in a book, because it will be for the time to come as a witness forever” . So we have an external witness called the Bible.243 ¶2

You and I must now be the second witness; you and I must experience scripture. As we experience scripture, we form the second witness. And we stand self-judged. If our witness, our experience coincides with that of scripture, then we know how true God’s word is. Now, can I really stand here tonight and testify to the truth of this strange statement concerning a Rock? “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you and forgot the God who gave you birth” . I begotten of a Rock? “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you and forgot the God who gave you birth.” And they are associated, the Rock and God. Can I stand before you tonight and swear I have had that experience and tell you that it is true beyond the wildest dream of man? I can. So I’m called upon to testify to the truth of scripture.243 ¶3

Here, what is this Rock? We are told in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke: If this stone falls upon you it will crush you. If you should fall upon it, it will break you into pieces . The word fall is “to alight; to come upon it suddenly, unexpectedly.” Well, one day, sitting in the Silence, thinking of nothing in particular, turning my attention inwards, as always happens with me, all the dark caverns of the brain began to grow luminous. As they grew luminous, suddenly before my eyes came the rock, a quartz. I never thought anything of it, just looked at it, and suddenly it shattered, it fragmented into numberless pieces. Then it was gathered together by some invisible force or hands, and as it was gathered together it formed itself into a lovely seated, meditating form. As I looked at this meditating being, I discovered I’m looking at myself: I am the Rock that was fragmented. I came upon it. As I’m told in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke, If you come upon it—and it’s called “if you fall upon it”—and the word fall is “to alight, to alight upon; to simply come upon, simply come upon it unexpectedly.” You come upon it and suddenly it fragments. But you are told in scripture you are broken. Well, if it that is broken into numberless pieces now are gathered together, all these pieces are gathered together and forming itself into one being, and I am the being that I’m looking at, then can I deny that I was broken? I’m looking at my own being and the being is the most majestic being that one could ever conceive—a strength of character, a beauty beyond the wildest dream of man, majesty, you couldn’t conceive of such majesty, all in this wonderful being that is meditating me. And I realized then that he is my very being. It glowed like the sun. So here is this wonderful Rock spoken of in scripture, and everyone will have this experience.243 ¶4

You are called upon to simply not touch the word of scripture, leave it just as it is. Do not add to it, do not take from it, leave it. What is it trying to tell me? Here are the words, “Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock besides me, I know no other.” You mean I must have such faith in myself, such complete confidence in my own wonderful imaginal acts that these are creative? I must! There is no other. I must actually believe in this Rock. And I saw the Rock…and the Rock fragmented, reformed; and when it reformed itself, it formed itself into a form, and I am that form. Here is a being looking at me and I’m looking at him…he’s not looking at me…I’m looking at it. Because it’s in profound meditation, deep, deep meditation: It’s dreaming me. And when it comes to the end and the whole journey is over, I am he. The journey begins with the call of Abraham, this wonderful state of faith. As we are told, “I told you from the beginning,” said he, “Have I not told you from of old?” Everything was foretold man, and the state called Abraham is the one that could say, I believe the most incredible thing in the world, I believe it; and then I enter the state called Abraham, and I move through the most horrible dream. This is all a dream. It comes to a climax and fulfillment in the little inn in Bethlehem, that’s the climax. It comes from Abraham who believes the most impossible thing to the climax of the little inn in Bethlehem. Everyone is going to have this experience.243 ¶5

Now, before we testify to other things tonight, let me tell you one simple little story concerning this fragmentation. How you and I…right now you must hear it and respond. You may not believe it. That is also stressed in scripture, that man is free to reject it completely or to accept it. If you accept it, go all out and let no one disturb it, no one. If you really believe that this Rock is your own being and there is no other God—when you say I am, that’s God, and there is no other God— believe it implicitly. I have experienced it. I saw the Rock fragment itself, gather together, form itself into the form of a meditating being, and I am looking at myself, and he is the one meditating me. I can suggest a change in pattern; I cannot change the ultimate dream. For you and I in the beginning, as we entered into that state called Abraham, we agreed to dream in concert, and we will not violate that covenant. All of us agreed to dream in concert. But within the dream I can change and modify certain states. But I am called upon to tell every person in this world that they can change anything within the framework of this little field in which we now operate.243 ¶6

Now let me be very, very personal. I told you the story of my daughter who when everyone tried to help her failed. They loved her dearly and tried to get her into certain jobs. All the doors were open, but there was no job, and on her own she answered a little ad, just a little box number to the L.A. Times. They responded and she got the job with Prudential Life, and they started her at a hundred and ten a week, her first little job, she’s never worked before. But on one of these many doors that opened prior to this, one lady said to her in a very insolent way, “What makes you think you can come in here and get a job in the script department before you have any experience?” When she came home that night, she was really burned up because of the attitude of this one who interviewed her. “What makes you think you can come in here and do these things?” And she said to us, “What must someone do to get a job? Here I’ve graduated from college, I’ve majored in English, I want to write, and this is what she told me, ‘Go and get something published before you can dare come in here.’”243 ¶7

Alright, there’s a lady present tonight…whether she knows this story or not I do not know, a very dear friend of ours…and she took my daughter into her confidence and told her a story of a horse, a blind horse that she owned, the family owned, that was brought into the High Sierras, and this other horse that was not blind would bring it down when the snows began to fall; and bring it down through all these crevices and all these rocks, all the way down to safety. My daughter went home and banged that story out, just in synopsis form, moved beyond measure, and then said to me, “Daddy, post this for me to Disney.” Alright, I think I’ll register it for you, so I did. And today, this very day, came a letter from Disney accepting the story, asking her to name her price and saying, “You must remember that it will take a lot of professional work to bring it to maturity,” but they liked the story and they want it, and asking her to name her price. So if she only got one dollar, at least she has a check from Disney for the story, and they will undoubtedly give her credit because it’s the idea that she presented. She can go back to the same woman and say, “Alright, you want some professional recognition, here it is.”243 ¶8

To whom did she turn? She didn’t turn to me; I never saw the script. Didn’t turn to her mother; her mother never saw the script. Didn’t turn to anyone. To whom did she turn?—that Rock that begot us. “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you and forgot the God who gave you birth.” The Rock is God. I saw it. I saw the Rock inside, I fell upon it, and then the Rock fragmented. It gathered itself together in to a form, the human form, and here it was in deep, profound meditation. As I looked at it, I’m looking at myself, I am the Rock. There is no other God. That being is meditating me. That being—-looking just like you, raised to the nth degree of beauty and perfection—-is meditating you. You and I are the Elohim. We are the gods who agreed in the beginning to dream this dream in concert, and then we forgot the being that we are. Well, that’s alright.243 ¶9

May I tell you, the crowning infamy is not that you and I forgot God, but to apologize to anyone for the faith we have in God. All of the wise people of the world, they’re always apologizing for their faith in God. The wiser they get in the eyes of the world the more remote they become from this faith in God; there is no God to them. Half the world, two thirds of the world deny the existence of a God, and a very large section of the remaining third have little icons that they make and call that God. That’s not God. There is no God but your own wonderful human Imagination; that’s the only God.243 ¶10

And when you see it, and you come upon it and you stumble upon this—-as the word fall means “to light upon”—-unexpectedly you light upon it, and here it is a rock, this huge quartz, and before your eyes it fragments. And before your eyes it gathers itself together, forms itself in to a form. You look at it and you stand amazed that you’re looking at yourself, only glorified beyond the wildest dream of man. It’s yourself and he is meditating you. You can modify his dream by wishing for wealth at the moment you may be impoverished, wishing for recognition when at the moment you’re unknown, wishing for an open door to get in and write a script when they all are closed against you. So don’t take it out on anyone. She drove my Vicki to go home and bat that thing out, and send it off in this amateurish way to have it accepted. So here is acceptance of a script. And the lady who gave her the idea happens to be here this night. Whether she’s heard it before this meeting, I do not know. It only happened today. And what she’s batting out now, I don’t know…maybe another Shakespeare [...].243 ¶11

But I mean, this is the concept of this Rock that we are. There is nothing but God. But don’t think of a “him”—I’m speaking of you. Listen to the words, the Rock becomes a person: “I am laying in Zion a stone, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame.” I’m laying a stone…and suddenly a stone becomes a person…and the “him” becomes the being who is reading it. The whole vast Bible is about you. There is nothing in that book but you, and may I tell you, there’s nothing in the world that is not in that book. If it’s not in the book, it’s non-existent. That’s the story of scripture.243 ¶12

Now, let us now testify this night to other aspects of the great story, the 82nd chapter of the Book of Psalms. And here in this 82nd chapter we read that “God has taken his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” . Is that true? May I tell you, I know from experience that is true; for I was taken in Spirit into that divine council and stood in the presence of the Ancient of Days, infinite love. Infinite love asked me a very simple question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I answered, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is love.” At that, he embraced me and we fused and became one body, one with infinite love who is God. So I can say to you standing here, I know that God is man. I don’t care what the whole vast world will tell me, I know God is man and that man is infinite love. You can’t conceive until you are embraced by him what such love is. And from that union you are never divorced. You are sent off to tell the story supported by that memory, but you are never separated from that love. So I know the truth of that statement of the 82nd Psalm that “God takes his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.” You are the gods. We are the Elohim and we are called, one by one, into that divine council and asked a very simple question.243 ¶13

So that 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians is true; for when it comes to the summary and names all these things, it summarizes all the talents and all the powers of the world, and then it comes down to love is the greatest of them all. So he asked me a very simple question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and I answered correctly. Having answered correctly I was embraced by him. So I know that that is true.243 ¶14

Now, return [...] to the Book of Luke where he’s speaking now of bringing man forward towards a new concept of life altogether. First of all, the Pharisees asked a question, and then come the Sadducees; and the Sadducees are asking questions that they do not believe. They ask the question concerning resurrection. They said, “Moses in the law said that if a man marries and dies leaving no children, well then, if he has a brother, the brother should marry the widow to raise up offspring. Well, there were seven brothers; the first married and he died leaving no offspring; and the second took the widow and he died; then the third took her, and finally seven took her, and they all died leaving no offspring, and eventually she died. Whose wife is she in the resurrection?” Then he said, “The sons of this age, they marry and they are given in marriage, but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age, to the resurrection from the dead, they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore. They are sons of God and sons of the resurrection” .243 ¶15

Now, I know from experience…I have had that experience, actually resurrected from the dead. It’s not at all as churches teach it. Hasn’t a thing to do with what the world tells you. I am only speaking from this platform of you. And know who you are?—you are Jesus Christ. There is only Jesus Christ in the world. Jesus Christ became us that we may become as he is. “Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom of God” . And the power and the wisdom of God actually sunk itself or emptied itself or limited itself to take upon itself the limitations called man. In this limitation it travels for these unnumbered years—Blake calls it 6,000 years. The journey regardless of the years, the journey starts in Abraham and climaxes in the inn in Bethlehem. So I know from experience the climax.243 ¶16

And the resurrection precedes that little picture of the inn only by moments. You awaken in a tomb and the tomb is your skull. You come out of your skull and find yourself in an inn. The inn, a very simple, very modest inn, and in this, here is the Christ child wrapped, just as you’re told, in swaddling clothes. It’s put into your hands and like Simeon you rejoice because you know now, “Let your servant depart in peace” . You’ve served him faithfully, served yourself faithfully, and now let your servant depart in peace. For I have held in my hands the infant Christ which is a symbol of my own redemption, my own, I would say, release from this world of recurrence. So that, I can testify to that as I stand before you.243 ¶17

I can testify to the fatherhood of God, for no one in this world will ever know truth, God the Father, unless it’s revealed to him by the Son. And the Son of God in biblical language is David: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee” . And so, David comes into your world and David calls you Father. And there is no shadow of a doubt of this relationship. You know him more intimately as your son than you know anyone in this world. I who love my daughter Vicki dearly, and I trust my wife implicitly that I did sire that form called Vicki—but the relationship between Vicki and myself, dear as it is, is not as intimate as the relationship between David and myself. I know David so intimately…it was always so…before the beginning of the world this relationship was established.243 ¶18

And then came this forgetfulness; I forgot the Rock that begot me. Then comes that very end of the journey, and when you come to the end of the journey, David comes back into your world, and here is your only begotten son. You know him so intimately and you love him beyond the wildest dream—all your whole spring of love rushes towards him, and it’s returned from David. So I know the truth of that statement in the 2nd Psalm, the 7th verse: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.”243 ¶19

So I can testify to this—the outside word called the Bible, that’s one, and my inner experience parallels it. So I brought the two witnesses and if two different persons agree in testimony, it is conclusive. And so, I have the testimony to match that of scripture. So I know today beyond all doubt of the reality of the fatherhood of God, that I am truly that Father. So I can say with the 14th chapter of John: “When you see me, you have seen the Father. You ask me to show you the Father? Have I been so long with you and you do not know me? He who sees me sees the Father; how then can you say, ‘Show me the Father’” .243 ¶20

Everyone is going to have this experience, therefore, in the end everyone having had that experience will be the same Father and we will be this compound unity that makes one God. And we’ll understand that greatest of all commandments, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” . The I AM, our I AMs, is one I AM. This is a compound unity; all of us together form the I AM. But each must have the experience of being father; for the I AM is the father of David, and everyone must have the experience of being that father. And you can’t know it unless David calls you Father.243 ¶21

And now the story of the ascension, I can testify to that. I can witness to the fact that the Son of man must ascend as the serpent ascended when man departed from Egypt. The Son of man must ascend just as the serpent did; and when he does ascend he ascends in the manner of the serpent . And that, I can attest to that, I’ve experienced it. I can attest to the fact that the temple of God which is man…as you’re told, “Ye are the temple of the living God” , and “the curtain of the temple must be split in two, from top to bottom.” . And that I have experienced…the top to the bottom, from the top of my skull to the base of my spine.243 ¶22

I know this day what it is to be saved by the blood of God; for when you are split in two you behold at the base of your spine this pool of golden light. It’s liquid, moving, living gold, unalloyed. And you know it’s yourself. You fuse with it; and as you fuse with it, you move up in the serpentine form right into your skull. And that I can attest to that.243 ¶23

I also can attest to the fact what he does when he completes his work and unveils it and is satisfied with what he has done, he descends upon that work in bodily form as a dove. So he comes down in the form of a dove, and he descends upon you and smothers you with affection, kissing you all over your face, the top of your head, your neck, all over from your neck up, and completely smothers you. There is a voice who does say to you—not what you read in scripture, it wasn’t my experience—-but there is a voice and the voice does say to you, “He loves you.” Scripture records it “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” . But there are many modifications of that phrase in scripture; none of them agree, and none can really be superimposed one upon the other.243 ¶24

I will give you my own experience: There is a voice and a very objective voice, because she stands at your left, and she does speak and she makes a statement “He loves you.” Then you reply… it’s obvious that he loves me because you couldn’t deny the smothering of this affection of the dove that moves all over your face. Then she tells you what is not recorded in scripture, and so far I have not found it in recorded scripture. It may be in Apocryphal scripture, I do not know. But she said to me, “They avoid man because man gives off the most offensive odor, and to avoid the odor they avoid man. But he so loved you he penetrated the ring of offense, and came down to demonstrate his love for you.” Now, that I have not found in scripture. I only know the dove does come down and rests upon you and smothers you with love.243 ¶25

What I am trying to get over to you this night is that you are the Rock spoken of in scripture. I have experienced it. And that Rock when you light upon it fragments itself, as told. You’re told in scripture you are broken, well, you are broken. If the Rock breaks, and then you see the Rock reassemble itself into human form, and you are the form into which it is reassembled, was it not you that broke? So you’re told, “If anyone lights upon it”—-the word is called falls; the word “falls” means “to alight or alight upon, to come upon suddenly.” So if you do come upon it suddenly, then you are broken in pieces. But who is broken in pieces? The Rock was broken in pieces. But am I the Rock? Yes. Because I saw the Rock before my eyes…then reassemble all of these broken pieces into this wonderful human form, the most glorious vision; and I am looking at myself. So I was broken into pieces when I lit upon the Rock. How true scripture is! And then you look at this glorious being, majesty beyond the wildest dream.243 ¶26

And then you return to the world of Caesar to tell it to anyone who will hear it. Alright, some will hear it and believe it; others will hear it and deny it. It’s entirely up to them. But the story of Jesus Christ must be told to everyone in the world. Everyone should hear it and respond to it. So the little story I told earlier concerning Vicky, take it to heart. She didn’t turn to the left or the right, and here she simply trusted only herself, only herself, and the courage to send it off this way. And then in two weeks to get a response that it is accepted. She only trusted that one Rock…and the Rock is herself. “Of the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful, and you’ve forgotten the God (which is that Rock) who gave you birth.”243 ¶27

For this is the emanation of this meditating being. I am meditating this for purposes not quite made clear in this world. For all of us, together, agreed to dream in concert and meditate all these forms, through all the horrors of the world, and then to awake. And awakening from it all, we have expanded beyond what we were when we agreed to this play. So all of us together—not one greater than the other, not one—all of us are one, for his name is one and God is one.243 ¶28

So let no one tell you that one, because he actually encountered one of these words of God within himself and experienced it, that he is, because he preceded you in it, is better than you are. Let no one tell you that. Jesus Christ is called the faithful witness, the first fruits of those who slept, the first risen from the dead. But don’t let anyone tell you because it’s the first that Jesus Christ mentioned in scripture is other than the Jesus Christ in you. When you awake, you are that Jesus Christ. So in the end, all, only Jesus Christ awakes in everyone, and everyone is God.243 ¶29

Now tonight, you try it, you just try this simple thing of believing in this Rock that you are. For I’m testifying to the truth of scripture: the Rock is literally true. I think I mentioned it in my latest book that the truth is literal, the words used are figurative. But, nevertheless, on a higher level it is literal. So when you read the words that you are a Rock and God is a Rock and that Rock begat you, don’t let anyone tell you although it is figurative on this level it isn’t literally true on a higher level. For I speak from experience, it is literally true on a higher level. And so you see the Rock, so you can’t rub it out. So you’re told in the 30th chapter of the Book of Proverbs that every word of God proves true—-do not add to his words lest he rebukes you and calls you a liar. So the wiser you become in this world the more you tend to change the word of God to give it sense, to give it meaning on this level. It doesn’t belong on this level, because on this level you will find experiences related to the world of Caesar. But, may I tell you from my experience, every word of God is literally true on a higher level.243 ¶30

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” On this level, it doesn’t make sense, and yet I tell you from experience that is true. Just as a serpent was lifted up on that rod that budded, so must the Son of man, which is the title of Christ, be lifted up. And you are lifted up in the same serpentine manner just as the serpent was lifted up.243 ¶31

So I ask everyone to come with me and believe me implicitly. As I stand before you, I’m only testifying to what I know from experience of the word of God. And it’s far more important than all the things in the world. What would it really matter if tonight you had a billion and you didn’t have any experience of the word of God? You would like the rich man of scripture be called this night and to leave it all behind, to be restored to life and inserted into another aspect or time sequence of this long 6,000 years. You leave here the billionaire to find yourself, still without loss of consciousness, inserted into a time sequence best suited for your awakening. Why not believe now and start to awaken?243 ¶32

Now there is a passage in scripture that is very comforting. It’s the 5th chapter of John that “He who hears my word and believes him who sent me, will inherit eternal life…and pass from death to life” . To hear it and to completely accept it seems to, in some strange way, bring it all together and one passes from death to life. Read that in the 5th chapter of the Book of John. I’m glad I’ve had the experiences, but if I standing here being very human could relieve the whole vast world (because it’s all myself anyway) of having experiences as witnesses, I would this night grant it. And the 5th chapter of John grants it, based only on the acceptance of his word. He who hears my word and believes in him who sent me will inherit eternal life and pass now from death to life. Let us go into the Silence. Now are there any questions, please?243 ¶33

Tonight’s talk is “Advent.” Should it seem a bit mystical and therefore you call it spiritual, let me remind you, whatever is profoundly spiritual is, in reality, most directly practical. You need not always think in terms of some earthly objective in order to realize it. You could be far removed mentally from the immediate pressure and dwell on the mystery of God, and that which is now your great need will find itself wrapping itself in some objective fact, and you’ll realize it.242 ¶1

Today, the 30th of November is called in the church tradition Andrew’s Day. The church has taken the twelve apostles, Christ and John the Baptist, and given a day of the year to each. So this day has been given to Andrew. It’s not in scripture. In fact, Paul in his letter to the Galatians warns us against such a practice. He said, “I notice that you observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain”. Because, this day could take place any moment of the day, any day of the year—you don’t have to wait for any 30th of November to experience this day.242 ¶2

It’s all built around the first chapter of the gospel of John. We’re told in that first chapter that John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples and he looked and he saw Jesus, and he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God”. One of the two present was Andrew, so Andrew followed him and came to his home and remained with him because it was the tenth hour. The tenth hour is the creative hour. Every letter in the Hebrew tongue has a numerical value as well as a symbolical value. So the letter Yod which begins the name of God—Yod, He, Vau, He—has the numerical value of ten, but the symbolical value of “the hand of the Creator”; it’s a creative hand. It also has the symbol of a seal, the creative seal. It was the tenth hour. He first found his brother, Simon Peter, and told him he had found the Messiah which means “the Christ.”242 ¶3

Then in the same chapter we’re told how we know he is the one. So we’re told, “I have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote.” For everything is foreshadowed in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, or the story of the Old Testament, is a prefiguration of the Christ. In fact, according to certain rabbinical principle, what is not written in the scripture is non-existent. All of the accomplishments of men are as nothing if it is not in scripture. Well, it will not be in scripture, all of the accomplishments of men, because this of which the scripture speaks takes place in the depths of the soul of man. There is no secular history in the Bible; it’s all sacred history.242 ¶4

So let us turn to the first word that designated him as the Christ: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” So we search the scripture, naturally meaning the Old Testament, to find where it is used. Here we find it in the 22nd of Genesis. Here is a prototype of the real sacrifice. And so Abraham takes his son Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him. Isaac said, “Father, I see the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a sacrifice?” The father said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a sacrifice”…and the two went on together.242 ¶5

You know the story—a substitute was found, that the lad was not sacrificed; a goat was sacrificed in his place, a substitute. But there’s no substitute for this sacrifice in the real drama of the soul. God actually becomes man that man may become God: “Unless I die thou canst not live, but if I die, I shall arise again and thou with me”. This sacrifice is not vicarious; it’s an actual sacrifice where God empties himself of his creative power and takes upon himself the limitation of a man, man being his sepulcher. This is the great mystery of life through death: Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it will bring forth much…thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold.242 ¶6

So here is the mystery of life through death. Today they are looking for the coming of Christ. This has been going on for centuries and they’re looking in the wrong direction. For the word advent is a term used to designate the coming of Christ at the end of this age. The end of this age begins a new creation altogether. But the turning of this age into the new age is not a matter of the future; it is the coming of Jesus Christ. Well, then where is he and where should I look for him?242 ¶7

Jesus Christ is buried in you. Were he not in you, you couldn’t live, you just couldn’t live. You couldn’t breathe were God not actually buried in you. You are his sepulcher. He could not rise in the man in whom he does not exist. He could not emerge from the man in whom he does not exist. And so, his coming cannot be from without; his coming must be from within. You’re going to find him—everyone will find him—from within. But when he finds it, it’s not another. The sacrifice was so complete, he gave himself to you. He first made you alive, a living being, and his goal is to make you a life-giving spirit. For the purpose of the whole vast creation, this infinite universe is to create life. That’s the greatest creation in the world. To create a house, to create a solar system, to create a galaxy, great as they are, they are as nothing to the creation of life. For we are told, “I came that they may have life and it abundantly”. So the only purpose is to add to his creative power of life so that there is life in us—not animated beings but we are life-giving spirits. When he rises in us we will be like him and he will be like us; and there won’t be two of us, just one.242 ¶8

So he comes from within; he cannot come from without. So we are warned, “If any one should say to you, ‘Look, there is Christ!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ do not believe it”. “It does not yet appear what we should be, but we know when he appears we shall be like him, and see him as he is”. You’re going to see yourself and not another. He actually became man. God became man that man may become God.242 ¶9

So these four Sundays we call the season of Advent. The Sunday nearest to today, the 30th of November, is called The Day of Christ or Christmas. The churches will simply have great rituals, ceremonies, all kinds of external [...], and they are missing the point. They should tell the story of the great mystery. For the gospel is a mystery to be known only by revelation. You can’t speculate, you can’t rationalize it, it unveils itself in man. If you do not let it unfold within man, you’ll never find out the mystery of the gospels.242 ¶10

Let us turn to one of the letters of Paul. He’s so very fond of using the word mystery, and he speaks of the mystery of his will, the mystery of his purpose, the mystery of his plan. And he puts it in this phrase, he said, “The mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time”. There is a plan set forth in Christ for the fullness of time: when the time has fully come then he awakens in man. He awakens in man as that man. And that man stands bewildered, he is awestruck. It never occurred to him until that moment in time that the one he sought, and sometimes even questioned the reality of that one, was really himself. As we are told in Peter’s letter, the 2nd, “Scoffers will come scoffing in the last days, saying ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation?’”.242 ¶11

And you hear that word today, “Well, is he supposed to come after 2,000 years?” No, he didn’t come after 2,000 years as the world thinks—this act of creation began before that the world was. You have been united to the Lord, and that union with the Lord took place in the beginning of creation, not 2,000 years ago. Two thousand years ago was the fullness of time when the first was born from the dead; when the first was raised from the dead and called “the first fruits of those who slept.” But in the very beginning of creation, God himself entered death’s door, the human skull, and laid down in the grave with man, and shared with man visions of eternity until man could awake. And when man awoke, he saw the linen clothes lying that the female had woven for him. The female garments of the world wove the linen clothes, these flesh and blood things. And you emerge from it. There it is, it’s flesh and blood, and you always think it was yourself. You come out of it. Then you are invisible to the world, and more real, more alive, well, more of everything; and you are a life-giving spirit, which you seemingly were not when you wore the garment of flesh and blood.242 ¶12

So when he comes, he comes in this manner, and you realize that the resurrection is a fact. It’s true, and everyone will experience the resurrection. It precedes the birth from above. And the birth from above allows the one who is born to enter into an entirely different world, a new creation. But the glory of that inheritance cannot become actual, or at least it’s not fully realized by the individual so long as he is still wearing the garment of flesh and blood. When it happens, it doesn’t mean at that moment he departs from this age. He remains in the age for a little while and tells his story, as the writers of the gospel told the story.242 ¶13

For the writers of the gospel, unknown as they are—for no one knows the identity of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. These are anonymous, no one knows these writers—we’ve been searching for 2,000 years to find something to support the reality of these writers under these names, and they’re all anonymous. They were not recording or describing events of the past as historians. They desired to pass on to us and to other generations the message of salvation as preachers who themselves experienced salvation…experienced it in a way that no one could have foreseen. When it happened to them, they simply recorded it and told it in story form.242 ¶14

We have taken the story which is the vehicle that conveys the message for the message, and we have made of that vehicle an idol. One billion of us in the world call themselves Christians and we have made of this Christ an idol that hides from us the true God. Well, that’s what we have done. We are waiting for him to come in the image of some artist who painted him. There are hundreds and hundreds of different pictures of what the artist believed Christ must look like, and I’m quite sure he hasn’t painted his own face into the picture; he’s painted an ideal as he conceived the ideal to be. If you saw the German artist, or the German picture, it differs so radically from the American Christ. In New York City in the public library on 42nd Street and 5th I one day saw forty-six portraits, all claiming to be the true, authentic picture of Jesus Christ, no two alike. But they do bear the stamp of the nationality of the artist who painted the picture. He painted the ideal Italian as he the Italian saw it. The German did the same. Well, we, a young nation, you wouldn’t think that we would actually paint a Christ, but we did. He’s a young man in his twenties, blond, blue eyes, with an open shirt, and the artist swears that he appeared to her that way. But all these are simply ideals built into the minds of man, and with the ability to put it down you put it down on canvas and record it.242 ¶15

But I’ve got to go back to scripture: “If anyone should say, ‘Look, there is Christ!’ or ‘Here he is!’ believe him not.” For “it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know when he appears, we shall be like him”. He either has your face or he has no face. He will have your face because you…but your face will be lifted to the nth degree of beauty and strength and character that you couldn’t conceive if you lived forever you could ever obtain that look, and yet there it is…it’s all you.242 ¶16

God became you that you may become God. You say, “What, a man?” Yes, God is man; infinite love and yet man. It seems incredible, but I’m not speculating. I stood in the presence of the risen Christ, and here it’s man. I had but one emotion permeating my whole being and it’s love. But the love isn’t confined to the garment, radiant as it is, without circumference [...], still it is love, infinite love. Then he embraced me and we fused and became one. I wore the human form divine, and that human form divine is love, nothing but love.242 ¶17

So then he sends you. Because to stand in his presence is a prerequisite to apostleship; no one can be sent save he stands in the presence of the one who sends him. As Paul said, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus the Lord?”. To have seen him was something that was necessary to be sent; for he embraces you, incorporates you into his body, and you are the form divine. So when you are sent, you aren’t left alone. No one sees it, for they have not yet awakened the eye that could see the garment that you wear. They see the mortal form that must one day be put down, and then the age comes to an end as you enter the new age, qualified, wearing the garment that is the human form divine.242 ¶18

This watching for his coming…you will watch in vain if you watch on the outside. He will come and he will come in the most simple, simple manner, like a thief in the night when you least expect him. You retire as you retire night after night, and suddenly the mighty power of the resurrection is upon you. It’s a power alright. Paul prayed that he would experience the power of the resurrection: Not that I have obtained it, but I pray I will obtain the power of the resurrection. And it comes upon you, you can’t stop it. You don’t seek it. Out of the nowhere, suddenly, you are waking, as you feel it in your head a power you’ve never known before. You feel yourself waking alright, but you had no idea that you weren’t completely awake…that you were prior to that moment dead.242 ¶19

What person in this vast world of ours of three and a half billion would now entertain the thought as they walk the earth they are dead? We speak of the dead. We say this one was killed in battle today, this one was an accident, this one died normally…and so they are dead we say. And the dead remain around the so-called dead and mourn. And everyone in this world is dead. I had no idea this was true until it happened. How, how would I have known?242 ¶20

Well, you’ve never had such an awakening in your life. You wake morning after morning and you think, “Well, this…I’m awake,” and so you get up and shave, [...] with the day, and you think, “Now I’m awake.” But this kind of waking is something entirely different. You find yourself sealed in your own skull. There you are, completely sealed. You know in the depth of your soul what to do, you need no external help. But you didn’t know at that moment who you really are until the thing begins to unfold. You only know you have no loss of identity. You simply awake, and you push the base of your skull. You are fully awake and fully standing. All things being relative, relative to your skull, it’s like you were lying there. I am just about equal to my skull as I stood here and you are seated there. That’s the difference. A little tiny skull like mine; and I am in it, and still a fully grown man in a place like this, and it’s a skull. No opening, either in or out.242 ¶21

I do come out, head first, and you’re coming out in a peculiar way like a child being born, but you’re a man. Then you pull yourself out, just as you’re told in the 30th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah. He does not answer the question; he asks the question, “Can a man bear a child?”—the obvious answer is no—“Why then do I see every man with his hands on his hips, drawing himself out of himself, just like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?” That’s exactly what you’re going to experience. So you come out, and here is the thing out of which you’ve just emerged.242 ¶22

Well, you emerged from it, because you know exactly how you came out. And then comes the unfolding of the picture to fulfill scripture. For in the Book of Hebrews, he’s asking a thousand questions. In every chapter he supports his argument by either referring to or quoting scripture. He said, “To whom did he say, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’?” And again, “I have proclaimed thy name to all my brethren.” He’s not ashamed to call the whole vast world his brothers. Not only will I proclaim thy name to my brethren, I will praise thee in the congregation. And again, “Here I am and the children God gave me.” “Here I am and the children God gave me.” What did he give me? He gave two. Both are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of Hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. They’re only signs.242 ¶23

So the first one he gives me is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes; and then I know who I am. For I look and here are the witnesses to the event. They don’t see me…how could they see the risen man? They still belong to this age. They see the sign of something that has happened and they know the meaning of that sign, but they questioned. They cannot believe that it could happen to one they knew so intimately in this world of mortal men. How could it happen to him? We know him backwards, his weaknesses, his limitations, all the things about him. And here, he sees it, and one of them proclaims it, affirms it, and presents the evidence—here is a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. He puts it on the bed. I asked no questions of them. They can’t see me. But I have the power to lift the symbol, the sign of the child he gave, and picked it up. And I pick it up and speak some endearing term to it. Then the whole dissolves.242 ¶24

The second one he gives me. Because he gives me two in fulfillment of the 9th of Isaiah: Upon this day “to us a child is born, a son is given”. They are two entirely different children: The child is born, the son is given. Yet they are both signs and portents in Israel from the God of hosts. They’re all signs. The first one is the sign of your own birth into an entirely different world, and the second one is a sign of the risen Father in you.242 ¶25

“For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation”. Well, who are the fathers? You. Regardless of your sex here, you are the fathers who fell asleep. In the very beginning of creation we were the Elohim and we deliberately…this is not emergency thinking…this was a plan in the beginning to create life. And we had to purposely, deliberately die. No one took away my life. As you’re told in the 10th of John, “No one takes my life, or has taken my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again…I and my Father are one”. We are the fathers. The fathers are the Elohim…it’s a plural word meaning God. But we are the gods who decided in the beginning to create more life. Because without life, what would the dead universe be? They say this planet is dead, the moon is dead, that’s dead; other areas, bright as they are, they’re dead; they could not support life. And the greatest creation in the world is to create life. So we decided to create more life, and to do it we had to die. So we died to our Godhood and took upon ourselves the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity, with a plan wrapped in us that we would one day realize. Realizing the plan, we would unfold and come out of the grave, emerge from it, to find ourselves bringing back what we had created: life in ourselves, abundant. That we just move into an entirely different world where everything then is completely subject to our creative imaginative power.242 ¶26

So here, this wonderful season of Advent…don’t think it happened 2,000 years ago once and for all, and we’re waiting for a second coming. The drama took place in the depths of the soul, not here in this world called the world of man. As you’re told in the 1st verse, the 3rd chapter of Galatians: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you ending with the flesh?” And the whole vast world is looking for him to come in flesh and blood. Here is a drama unfolding before you, portraying the crucifixion, and you’re now waiting for his return as a man in flesh and blood. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. It is Spirit. So when you saw the play unfold for your edification it was a play, and you were shown the play, and heard the play, and extracted the meaning of that play, now are you going to end seeing the actors who play the parts as realities? What did the play convey? It conveyed to you God’s plan of his self-redemption, for in the end there is only God.242 ¶27

So here, the wonderful story of Advent, which culminates in Christmas, every child born of woman though he lives but a second will experience, and know it is not speaking of another who was born supernaturally from above but speaking of him. That out of nowhere when he least expects it, the drama will unfold. But it cannot unfold before the fullness of time. So the mystery of his will, according to his plan, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, there was his purpose, there was his plan, there was his will. No one’s going to thwart it, no one will stop it.242 ¶28

And in the very end, as you look at the story you see everything was foreshadowed. It reminds me of that lovely poem of Edward Thomas: “At first as I closed the door I was alone in the new house, and the wind began to moan. My ears were teased with the dread of what was foretold: Nights of storm, days of mist without end, sad days when the sun shone in vain; all griefs and griefs not yet begun. But I learned how the wind would sound after these things should be.” All these things man has to go through, all the sufferings of hell, but in the end he comes out, and who is he? He’s God. He brings out his purpose fulfilled which was to create life.242 ¶29

So should you attend service this coming month, any Sunday morning—they call it second Sunday in Lent, third Sunday, fourth Sunday—try to remember what you heard here. This whole story is true from beginning to end. It did not take place here on earth; it took place and will continue to take place in the depths of the soul of man. What we see in these orthodox churches are simply secondary growths superimposed upon the vision of the gospels. But this belongs to an entirely different region, something deeper, more vital, more real than that which the intellect inhabits, and for this it remains indestructible by all the intellectual arguments and criticisms in the world. You could rise before the speaker and be all the giants of the world intellectually, it would make no difference what argument you presented. You are theorizing, you’re speculating, and I am not. I am telling you the story as it unfolded in me.242 ¶30

So they give us four Sundays and there are four outstanding events. The first is a double event, the second a single event, the third a double event, and the fourth a single event. Put them together they form the six-pointed star of David, the Mogen David, the great emblem: he who symbolizes the whole of humanity, all the generations of men and their experiences, fused into a single being and personified as a youth, that youth is David. It is that that was placed in man in the beginning—the sum total of all that men could ever do, all put into one single youth and called eternity. And so, “He put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man could not find out what God had done from the beginning to the end”.242 ¶31

Because it was there in the beginning, but man had to sleep and forget. In his sleep, the sleep is so deep it is called in scripture death; so it is “he dies.” He dies because he loses all memory of his heavenly estate and dreams the dream of life. As he dreams the dream of life, time is being filled up; and when the fullness of time comes then out of the blue—though his hands are still unclean and his heart unclean, and he’s still capable of violence in this world—he of all people, with all these potentials, he is chosen because the time was fulfilled and the plan could then unfold. What plan? That plan of salvation that was in the beginning. He prepared a way for himself to return. Because he entered death’s door, the human skull, he has to return from there.242 ¶32

So let no one lead you to the outside and take you to see some holy man…there aren’t any, forget them! While you wear these garments of flesh and blood, you are not really the holy man. These must come off, that you may wear the human form divine, the form of love. But while we still wear these, under certain circumstances we are still capable of horror, of violence…everything that you would simply condemn…yet while you are still and your sins are like scarlet you are being washed white as snow. Because he brings you out and you are the Christ you heard about. You are the Christ that scripture speaks of, and everything written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms was all about you; but you didn’t believe it and people never told you it was all about you. You thought it was about some wonderful, unique, holy man, 2,000 years ago. No. That’s the first fruit, the first fruit of those who slept, the first to be raised from the dead. But all will be raised from the dead.242 ¶33

So when Blake comes forward with his wonderful poem Jerusalem, he asks the question: “Oh, when shall the morning of the grave appear and when shall our salvation come?” Then he answers, “Repose on me ‘til the morning of the grave. I am thy life.” There is no other. Your own wonderful being…you say “I am”…that’s he. But you don’t know it, not until that morning of the grave when you waken in the grave to find you must have been dead or you never would have been placed here. And there aren’t any two of you, just you.242 ¶34

When you come out, the birth has witnesses; the resurrection has no witness. So in the Bible there is not one word of the witness to the resurrection. It is said “He is risen”; but no one was present to observe it. Early as they came, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty…but no witness. So it was spread abroad they hid the body and said “He is risen.” But he never could rise. They simply came earlier before others could, while the soldiers slept, rolled away the stone while they slept, and then said to the public “He is risen”—because there is not one shred of evidence in scripture where anyone witnessed the resurrection.242 ¶35

And it’s true. When you awake you are alone; there is no one in the tomb but yourself. You know where you are and you come out, unassisted. You yourself roll the stone away by pushing the base of your skull. But when you come out, you’re being born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, you resurrected, and then you know who you are. You come out and now come the witnesses to the birth; but no witness to the resurrection. So you can search the scripture, you’ll find no witness in the gospels.242 ¶36

So these are witnesses, the writers, to the truth of God’s word. Because they are witnessing the truth of God’s word, they were not going to do what so many priests and scribes through the ages have done—they added to it to give it substance; they inserted a witness. There is no witness to the resurrection. So the scribes wisely told of no witness. All they could say is he is risen because he isn’t here…so he must be risen because he’s not here. “They’ve taken away the body of my Lord.” But no one person saw him rise. How could they? Something entirely different is coming out…and no mortal eye could see the human form divine that rose from that dead state.242 ¶37

So when he comes out, then they can see the sign and the portent in the first child, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then, when it comes to the second, they can see that too. Because here comes the true Fatherhood of God, revealed in his Son, David; David calls him Father.242 ¶38

From then on, one after the other, and they all add up to these four mighty events leading up to the fullness of the drama. And he’s still held in his garment, waiting for that moment when he puts it down for the last time, but enhanced because he brought back the fulfillment of his purpose, which was to create life.242 ¶39

What would it matter if I owned the earth and changed the whole face of it? It’s not recorded in scripture, therefore it’s not non-existent. But if I owned nothing on the face of the earth and had these experiences as foreshadowed in scripture, they are eternal and no man can take them from me. They all symbolize and signify certain things. Well, the four signify your entrance into an entirely different age, qualified as the Elohim, to create greater now because you have more life. You’ve added to the life that was yours when you willingly sacrificed it, gave it—not vicariously but really gave it—and completely forgot who you were when you believed yourself man and walked the earth in this dream of life.242 ¶40

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *242 ¶41

As I said when I started, don’t let this disturb you concerning the law, the law came after the promise. The promise came first, the law was added. Four hundred years you’re told—that’s symbolic. It doesn’t mean 400 years as you and I measure time. Again, 400 is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its symbol is a cross, Toph, the twenty-second letter. You’re told, after the 400 years the law was given to man. After he was nailed upon the cross and started his journey then comes the law to cushion the blows that are inevitable. So learn the law, rejoice in it, and realize your dreams on earth. This is not to turn you from the law, but the promise came first. And if at the end of the journey you never owned anything on earth, you will own all when the journey comes to an end, for you return to your Godhead.242 ¶42

Tonight’s subject, that is, the title of the subject is taken from the Book of Micah, the 6th chapter, the 8th verse. In this verse, he asks a very simple question. First, he makes the statement, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to be just and kind and live in quiet fellowship with your God.” Nothing else is required of man after man has been told what is good, these three fundamentals. Outside of these, the outer ceremonial is an affront to God. It’s an attempt to bargain him into accepting from man less than he wants of man. So, all the rituals, all the ceremonials, everything on the outside is really an affront to God. All he asks of us is to be just, to be kind and to live in quiet fellowship with our God.240 ¶1

Well, how would we go about living in quiet fellowship with our God? I think tonight you are going to find this a very, very practical approach to living in this quiet fellowship with your God. To understand it, let me go back now into the Book of Psalms, the 4th chapter, the 4th verse: “Be angry, but do not sin; commune with your own hearts upon your own beds, and be silent.” How would I do it? Would that really be living in quiet fellowship with God? Yes. Well, how do I know? I’ll tell you this night how I do know.240 ¶2

There are supposed to be a billion Christians in the world. And I wonder what percentage…it would be so small it would be ridiculous. If I would ask a very simple question of the whole billion, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-I’m quoting from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter, the 5th verse; he’s asking the Corinthians, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-if we were honest, the billion of us who claimed that we are Christians, our answer would be, no, we do not know that Jesus Christ is in us. All you have to do is go to any home, especially the homes of those who put up pictures and little icons, and look and see what they have on the wall to represent Jesus Christ. It doesn’t faintly resemble any member of the family, far less the one who occupies the home as owner. It doesn’t resemble in the most remote manner any member of the family. And most of them are painted or done by very poor artists…they’re monstrosities. But there they are, all over the walls, all over the places in all these homes that call themselves Christians. They do not know that Jesus Christ is in them.240 ¶3

Tonight, you do this in a simple way, for I’m speaking from experience. You are told to be angry, and the word translated “angry” is “perturbed, enraged.” So something disturbs you, burns you up, but do it in the seclusion of your bed. Do it in the silence of the night, the darkness of the night. Let it off your chest. You’re required to help someone; and that someone has been helped, then they go back and go back a hundred times, and you are made aware of their falling back. How often, Lord? …seventy times seven. But get it off your chest, tell them exactly what you think, and then, do not sin. These are the words, “Be angry, but sin not.” Sin is missing the mark; sin is having a target and failing to hit it. You have a goal in life, either for yourself or for another, and if that goal isn’t reached, well, then you’ve sinned. So be angry, but sin not. Then comes the technique: “Commune with your own hearts upon your own beds, and be silent.”240 ¶4

So after you’ve gotten it off your chest, you bring them into your focus once more and see him as he ought to be seen, hitting the mark. You bring about your inner conversations either with this individual or with others, implying he, she or they have realized the goal regardless of what that goal is. If you now put into your picture that you are kind, would you like it done to you? Yes! Well, then that’s right. That’s one of the fundamentals. Is this now just? That’s just, you can forgive sin and you must be kind, and now live in quiet fellowship with your God.240 ¶5

Well, am I communicating with God? I am. Well now, do I know that what I am doing now is really seen by God? How do I know that God is actually seeing this…because with God all things are possible. Well, I’ll tell you exactly how you can know, if you’ll trust me. I now turn to the 42nd Psalm, and in this Psalm (you’re all familiar with it), “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” That’s how this wonderful Psalm begins. He wonders when he will come and behold the face of God, for all day long men say to him, “Where is your God?” As he pours out his soul, they are always asking, “Where is your God?” Then he calls upon a memory and he said, “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: when I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God, in joyful songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.” He remembers that.240 ¶6

Well, now let me share with you an experience that parallels this—-how I know that Jesus Christ is in us. I’m not unique, Jesus Christ is in every child born of woman, but people do not know it. So when they ask “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” they can’t honestly say, “Yes, I know.” They might have heard of it through someone else, they might have read it, as you read it in the scripture, but they don’t know it. They haven’t experienced it and they have not that inner conviction that it really is true.240 ¶7

Now, what I’ll tell you now I did not hear from a man. I was not taught it. It came to me by revelation of Jesus Christ.240 ¶8

Many years ago I found myself in vision leading a throng in a gay procession towards some invisible house of God. The crowd was thick, and as far as vision could go, an enormous crowd, all in gay Near East costumes. As we walked toward this invisible crowd, a voice rang out from out of space, and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” To my right, this woman (she appeared to be Arab) and she asked the voice, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice replied, “At your side.” She took it literally and turned to her side. I happened to be on her left side as we were leading this procession. Then she became hysterical. I mean, it struck her so funnily that she simply had hysterics. She said to the voice, “You mean Neville is God?” and the voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.”240 ¶9

The same voice, now heard only by me, not by the crowd…for everyone heard that voice, in her voice and the voice, the announcement that God walks with them; the question “Where is he?”; “At your side”; “You mean Neville is God?”; “Yes, in the act of waking”—-all that was heard by the whole throng as we moved in procession to the house of God. But now the voice speaks in the depths of my being, heard only by me, and the voice said, “And God laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream, he dreamed…” and I knew exactly the finish of the sentence: “He is dreaming that he’s me,” I knew it. And at that moment, sheer ecstasy, for I was actually sucked into this body by whirling vortices. This hand is a vortex, this hand a vortex, my soles of both feet a vortex, and my head a vortex, and the right side of my body a vortex. Far from pain it was sheer ecstasy as I was nailed upon this body. Well, who was nailed upon the body? For I was not the body…this thing took place in vision and I, a living reality, a soul that animates bodies, actually was riveted on this body; and with a joy, an ecstasy that you can’t describe in words. It’s something entirely different.240 ¶10

And I knew what it meant to be asked, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” I knew then, at that very moment, from experience that the dreamer in me is Jesus Christ, for he laid himself down within me to sleep—there was a purpose—and as he slept he dreamed a dream. Well, who is dreaming a dream but the dreamer, and he’s dreaming that he’s me. Don’t I feel I am the being that I am? Am I not the dreamer dreaming this that I am? So commune with your own power upon your bed and be silent.240 ¶11

So tonight when you are in your bed and you think of someone and you set up a pattern that you want to hear for them—-whether it be health, wealth, good fortune, success, I don’t care what it is—-and just simply bring it into your mind’s eye, believing that the being who has done that is Jesus Christ. If he annoys you prior to that or something disturbs you, you are told in the 4th Psalm, Be angry, be perturbed, be enraged, but do not sin. In other words, get it off your chest, but sin not. The next stage is now to set up the pattern once more.240 ¶12

You took a picture and you either over-exposed it or maybe destroyed it after it was realized…can’t find it now. You brought success into his world or you brought him into some other state of joy, a state where he’s gainfully employed. Then he’s fired at the end of a day, week, month or maybe some time later, and you hear of his distress again. You hear that, well, he got into the people’s hair as it were and they simply couldn’t keep him any longer. And he’s lost job after job after job and he turns to you once more. Seventy times seven! And being very human you are invited in the 4th Psalm to be angry, to be enraged, to be perturbed, but now do not sin. Right after it gets off your chest then go [...].240 ¶13

Who is doing it? Jesus Christ is doing it. Christ actually laid himself down with man, humanity, for a purpose: to sleep. What is the call in scripture? “Wake, sleeper, arise from the dead,” as you’re told in the Book of Ephesians. As we’re told in the 44th Psalm, “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” Well, who is the sleeper? He is calling upon God to awaken. Well, where will he awaken if he entered me to sleep? This seems to be his sleeping place. He sleeps in man and the sleep is so profound it is to the world death. So he’s called upon to awaken from this state called death. While he’s in it, he’s dreaming and he’s dreaming the dream of life.240 ¶14

Now, you can modify that dream by communing with your heart on your bed at night, just as simple as that. You read it when you go home, the 4th chapter, the 4th verse of the Book of Psalms. After you get it right off and you explode and just tell them off as it were; but do it at night in your bedroom, in the seclusion of your bed, in the stillness of the night, when you are quiet. That’s when you’re told to do it.240 ¶15

All you need do is to see does it fit now these three fundamentals. Does it fit justice? Am I asked now to do to someone else what I wouldn’t want someone else doing to me? If someone came here this night and said, “You know so-and-so is in my way and I want him fired.” Well, is that justice? No, it doesn’t fit my code; it isn’t my code, so I couldn’t accept that request from anyone. Someone said to me, “You now, he’s in my way, I want him to die. Get him out of my hair altogether, I want him to actually die.” Would I want someone to ask that for me? No I wouldn’t. So do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. It isn’t just…that’s not one of the fundamentals. Now the next one is kind, be kind. Alright, would it be kind if I saw the man promoted? Oh, yes, that would be kind. Would I want to be promoted? Yes, well, now that’s alright. It comes within, it fits the frame.240 ¶16

And the last one—-there are only three he gave us—-what does the Lord require of you? The third one is so very simple: to live in quiet fellowship with your God. Well, I found who he is: he is the dreamer in me. I must be in quiet fellowship with that dreamer. I don’t want any bad dreams, that’s not being in quiet fellowship with the dreamer. I have found Jesus Christ to be the dreamer in man, in every man in this world. And by man, I mean generic man—-male, female. Every child born of woman…the dreamer in that child is Jesus Christ.240 ¶17

So when you go to bed tonight, do not let the sun go down upon the anger. Be angry if you want to, to clear the whole atmosphere like lightning clears the atmosphere. And after the whole thing is cleared, then come and set it up again, and set up that scene that you really want to take. For the being that is setting it up is Jesus Christ. He actually became man that man may become Christ.240 ¶18

So I am not quoting only Mr. Blake; I know this from experience. Long before I read Blake I had this experience. I was not the poet to put it into words like Blake. So when Blake said that God became man that man may become God, I read the words of Blake long after I had the experience. But I was not given to writing. I do not consider myself at this very moment, though I have brought out twelve books, I am not in my own mind’s eye a writer. Blake was a writer, he was the grand poet. He was a painter, the artist in every sense of the word. So he could take an experience like mine and put it into such beautiful, beautiful English.240 ¶19

And he 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.” How beautifully he stated it. Well, if Jesus Christ is the core of my being, the dreamer, and he fills all, he’s all in all, what could I encounter that is really in a true sense without? He is dreaming it into being.240 ¶20

Well, I can modify the dream, for it isn’t going to alter the pattern that I gave him. I give him a pattern and he’ll perpetuate that pattern indefinitely unless I modify the pattern. So how often must I do it?—until it’s done. If it comes within the code of these three fundamentals…that’s all he asks of me. What does the Lord require of you? And then he answers it, But to be just and to be kind and to live in quiet fellowship with your God.240 ¶21

Well, having found God as my own wonderful Imagination, for my Imagination is the dreamer in me, I can’t think of anything without Imagination. I couldn’t dream anything whether it be a daydream or a night dream without the use of Imagination. So isn’t my Imagination Jesus Christ?240 ¶22

When Blake said that “The eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that is God himself” he had the experience. He must, to have remembered walking with the throng and leading them in procession to the house of God. I know I did. And I heard the voice at my right, I heard the voice in space, and I heard the voice in the depths of my soul—-when it said to me, God laid himself down within you for a purpose, to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream, he dreamed…and I knew exactly what he was dreaming: He laid himself down within you to dream and he’s dreaming that he’s you.240 ¶23

And that dreamer can take any dream and externalize it, because with God all things are possible. So you start with the dream; and no power in this world can stop it from externalizing itself and becoming objective in your world. They can’t stop it. You don’t need them!240 ¶24

As you are told, “Go within, shut the door and your Father who sees in secret he’ll reward you openly.” In the Psalm you’re told, “Commune with your own heart upon your own bed, and then be silent.” That’s all you do, commune with your own heart and then be silent. You don’t raise one finger to make it so. You simply believe in the reality of this imaginal act, that’s all that you do. You must give reality to what you’ve done.240 ¶25

So I know from experience that revelation is the principle source of religious insight. Revelation has made me the speaker feel so secure in what I tell you. Before it, I might have speculated, I might have trusted wise men, and because they could speak in so many ways and they were so brilliant in the eyes of men, I might have repeated what they said. I don’t any more…it doesn’t matter what they said.240 ¶26

My only source now outside of vision is the Bible. So I go back and I read the Bible after the vision, and I search it thoroughly for confirmation of the vision, because if it’s not recorded in scripture it’s non-existent. This is an eternal word, and everything else comes and goes and vanishes, but the word remains forever.240 ¶27

And so, I went back and here came the 42nd Psalm. I do remember this, I remember when it happened to me, exactly the night it happened, and how this crowd appeared and suddenly I am leading them in this gay procession, where?—-to the house of God. I had no doubts in my mind where we were going. I knew we were on our way to this invisible Mecca, the house of God, and all these lovely gay clothes around me, a festive crowd. I knew the search that was mine prior to this, for the Psalm begins, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Well, that was my search from the time I was a child, that constant search. It was a thirst that not a thing in this world could satisfy but an experience of God.240 ¶28

Then comes this fabulous night of the crowd and the voice telling me exactly who I am: A sleeping garment as it were of God. That when he entered this death’s door with me he did it for one purpose: To share with me my visions of eternity and dream with me until together we awake; and we aren’t two then, we are only one.240 ¶29

So he came into this garment and it’s dead. He emptied himself of his primal form, took upon himself the limitations of this form to dream with me my dreams of the world of death, really. . For things come, they wax, they wane, they vanish; and all things come and vanish in this world, all things begin and end. The world of death…he took upon himself the world of death as he entered this garment which I now call myself. But I know it isn’t my being, because I was actually nailed upon it. No, I know what I am.240 ¶30

So I can say to the world that that act of the crucifixion where six points were pierced (not five)—-my two hands, my two feet, my head and my side; there were six like the Mogen David, the six-pointed star—and they were whirling vortices and they produced in me a joy that you can’t describe. So this was the remembrance of the initial crucifixion.240 ¶31

For we are told, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” So everyone is united in this death, just like that; and it’s God in you or you couldn’t even breathe, you couldn’t move, you couldn’t be here this night. You couldn’t in any way be a conscious entity were it not that God is in you as the dreamer.240 ¶32

Now tonight when you go to bed, don’t think of some little being that must rise before morning and rush off to the job; it is God sleeping that night and all things are possible to God. Regardless of what happened to you today on the job—-you might have been threatened with being discharged, maybe your creditors are pressing you—-alright, everything is possible to God. So when you put your head on the pillow commune with self and that communion is actually in this quiet fellowship with your God. This is the God of whom the Bible speaks—when you say “I am” that’s he.240 ¶33

Now, what are you doing? You say, “Well, I’m thinking of John, and John needs, well, he needs a good job. He has a wife, he has children, he has to support them, and it’s not enough.” Raise him up in your mind’s eye. Well, how would you raise him up? Well now, do you know a friend, a third party who would tell you of John’s good fortune after the event? Alright, bring that third party into the picture and just hear the conversation between you and the third party discussing John’s good fortune. That’s all that you do. Now believe in the reality of that imaginal act. That’s all that you do. Just trust it and know, really know that the being that is doing it is Jesus Christ.240 ¶34

So that’s why I said earlier, go into the homes and say, “Where is a picture of your Lord?” and they point to the wall. And then you say, “Bring your children, your uncles, your aunts, your grandparents, bring me all the pictures,” and it doesn’t faintly resemble the picture on that wall. And yet he became you so thoroughly that he is you. Not like another, just like you. He took that mold and is raising you to be just as he is, without loss of identity. So when you see him he’s going to be just like you. That is Jesus Christ.240 ¶35

So you’re told in the same Psalm, “When will I come and behold the face of God?” In the 27th Psalm, “Thou hast said, ‘Show me thy face. My heart longs to see thy face” . And I tell you, you are going to see that face. The day you see it, you’ll be startled beyond measure—-you’re going to look right at your own face, not another. It’s you raised to the nth degree of beauty, of majesty, of dignity, of a strength of character, of…you can’t conceive of your beauty when you see the being who is meditating you. You’ll actually have an experience where you come upon a being; as you look at him he’s glowing and it’s yourself. That’s Jesus Christ who so became you that he doesn’t resemble anyone but you. And so you’re told: “If any one should say, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ believe him not” . Why should I not believe him?—because, “When he does appear we shall be like him” . So don’t be ashamed to know that the being in you is actually Jesus Christ. “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in thee?” Well, the honest answer to that question from the one billion Christians actually is, “No, I don’t know that at all.”240 ¶36

But I tell you from experience this is all revelation and revelation makes us sure. So you can argue the point, do all kinds of things. What does this same 5th verse of the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians tell us? He tells us to test it and see. He said, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourself and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” So we are invited to examine ourselves to see if we are holding to the faith.240 ¶37

So tonight after you do what I hope you’ll do, tomorrow examine yourself to see if you really believe in that creative act. That was a creative act; see if you really believe in it. Now you put yourself to the test: In the not distant future, what you did tonight should externalize tomorrow or in the not distant future. See if you are holding to your faith. Well, that’s your faith.240 ¶38

Your faith may be…but no one here, I doubt that anyone here, would have faith in some little icon or in some little service at the altar. I tell you, it is an affront to God, all this palaver that goes on all the time, as though some being on the outside is watching it and is chalking up to our little credit what our little attendance inserts. Hasn’t a thing to do with true Christianity.240 ¶39

Christ walks wherever you are in this world. If this very night you stand at a bar, or you leave here and you go into a coffee break, wherever you are seated that’s where God is seated. But he’s dreaming; he hasn’t yet awakened in man. He awakes in the individual, one after the other. He will awake in every being in the world. Until he awakes in all it isn’t over. It can’t come to an end until all awake.240 ¶40

But do believe the words of one who has had the experience of waking; and the being who awoke, may I tell you, was the being who became me. We aren’t two anymore, we’re only one.240 ¶41

In the story as told in the scriptures, you and I are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead . I speak of a universal Christ, not a little Christ, a universal Christ. He actually became every being in the world and so you are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, when he resurrects, it’s you—-because you have no change of identity and you have no feeling that another one rose with you, it’s all you. That’s how unique it is. You rose from the dead. And yet scripture tells you, only Jesus Christ rises from the dead. So if only Jesus Christ rises from the dead and you have the experience of having risen from the dead, well, then you know who you are. And you aren’t ashamed of it. You make no excuses to those who think this is blasphemy. You go back to ancient scripture and that’s what they said 2,000 years ago, and that’s what they’ll say every moment of time to anyone who makes a similar claim.240 ¶42

Have you ever wondered why in all that is written of Jesus Christ in the scriptures that there is no personal description of him? There isn’t one word to describe him in any of his person or in his habits. Others are described, but not one word to describe Jesus Christ—-whether he was tall, whether he was short, whether he was fat, whether he was thin. Why do you think that there is no description of him? Because there was nothing unusual about the outer man. He is the supernatural being. You can’t see him. He’s just like you when you see yourself supernaturally; therefore, why describe the outer garment, which is his sleeping garment? So it isn’t described at all. More words are written about Jesus Christ than about any man that ever walked the face of the earth. I don’t care who may have these biographies. There is nothing said about our great Lincoln…or go back beyond Lincoln, go back to the early characters…nothing is said of any character that faintly comes to what is said of Jesus Christ—and yet no description of him. You write some story of our late President…or you go back, say, to Mr. Roosevelt. You couldn’t write a biography of him without saying the man was paralyzed; he couldn’t stand on his own feet unassisted; that he always had a cigarette in his face with a long holder, and you’d paint such word pictures of a man and you can see him vividly in your mind’s eye. But not a thing is said about Jesus Christ.240 ¶43

The 11th chapter of Matthew makes one little statement, comparing him to John. They said John had a demon because he came neither eating nor drinking; and when Jesus Christ came, he came eating and drinking and they called him a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of sinners and tax collectors. But that doesn’t describe the man. I could be a drunkard and be very, very thin or very, very fat, or I could be a glutton and still be very, very thin or very, very fat. I could be a small little fella as a glutton and a drunkard or a very big fella. But that doesn’t describe to say that I’m a drunkard, I’m a glutton and I love sinners. He didn’t come to save the righteous—they are already in their own mind’s eye so complacent, he left them alone—only those who were missing the mark in life. So he was a friend of sinners.240 ¶44

So who is this being who is not described in scripture? His personality is not at all described. He sits right here this night in everyone who is here. And when you just think of your home right now, that act of thinking that was Jesus Christ. You think of a home that you wanted to have, instead of what you have, that’s Jesus Christ. Is everything possible to Jesus Christ? Well, then trust that imaginal act and see how he externalizes that act in your world. He will! He doesn’t need the help of any being in the world to do it.240 ¶45

But when you tonight do it, do it quietly. Get it off your chest first if you are going to think of someone else who has annoyed you—it could be a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, and you would like to tell them off and tell them something. So you’re told to do it: Be angry, but sin not. Don’t carry it with you into the depth. Don’t fall asleep in the act of telling someone off. Tell him off and clear the atmosphere, just like lightning clears the atmosphere. And then, in the silence of that room, in communion with your own heart, bring it into your mind’s eye, if it’s now seventy times seven, and just take another picture. And hear the voice of either the individual or a friend of that individual or some mutual friend telling you that the one is all of the things that you wanted for him. And then drop off, in confidence that that is a perfect picture and it’s done! You don’t need anyone else.240 ¶46

Paul came saying you need no intermediary between yourself and God. Rub out all intermediaries between yourself and God. When God revealed himself to him, he said, “To whom would I turn?” Then in that 6th chapter when they all left him and he turned to Peter, he said, “Would you go also?” He said, “To whom would I go? Have you not the words of eternal life?”240 ¶47

This drama is taking place in man. Peter finds him; because when Peter found him and named him, he said to Peter, “Well, where do you get it?” These are the words, “What do you think of the Son of man?” Instead of saying Son of man now, which is the title he always used, he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He said, “Flesh and blood has not told you this but my Father who is in heaven has revealed it unto you.” So he found him, and having found him to whom now would he turn? Because he made the most fantastic statement in that 6th of John: “Drink my blood, eat my flesh or you have no life in you.” “My blood and my flesh are the words that I speak and they are living words”—feast upon them, assimilate them—“because no man can come unto my Father save through me.” They said, “That’s a hard saying; who can accept it?” and they all left him, never to walk with him again. So he turns to Peter, “Would you go also?” He said, “To whom, to whom would we go? Have you not the words of eternal life?”240 ¶48

These are things that you didn’t compose yourself; they are revealed from the depths of your soul. Just like that journey was revealed. I certainly didn’t sit down after having read the 42nd Psalm…I didn’t read the 42nd Psalm prior to it. I went back and searched the scripture for the experience. Because it happened to me in New York City on a night I didn’t really expect at all. In fact, you go to bed quite quietly and simply and these things happen.240 ¶49

Then you go back to God’s word, the external witness, and see if you have any external witness to support the internal witness of the Spirit.240 ¶50

Because you must have two witnesses, for only on the evidence of two witnesses shall a charge be sustained. So you have one witness, the witness of the Bible, that’s one external witness. But you can’t bring one, you must have two, and the second witness is the witness of the Spirit, where you have the identical experience, and then they agree in testimony. If two different ones agree in testimony, then that testimony is conclusive, it’s done. You can’t change that if two different ones agree. Well, the Bible is one and your experience is another, and they come together and they parallel. So you go back and you read the scripture. So when my eyes fell upon the 42nd Psalm, after the experience, I knew I had my two witnesses. I couldn’t deny my own experience and here is something written 3,000 years ago.240 ¶51

So, I’ve come, as everyone has come, really, to bear witness to the scripture. I’ve come to experience scripture…but nothing else. So I can do anything here in my outer dream if I know who I am; in the hope that night after night I will have the experiences of scripture until I completely fulfill them. For all that is written about me has its fulfillment and must be fulfilled in me.240 ¶52

So then you go tomorrow into the world of Caesar once more. While you’re in the world of Caesar, why not be comfortable? Why not have a good income? Why not have all the lovely things in the world of Caesar? You don’t have to be saturated with it, but you can do it if you want to. The day will come you will not really want things. They’ll be there for the dream if you want a dream; but you won’t find security or think you want security in things, you won’t really. But while you’re in the world of Caesar dream the things. You have to pay taxes, pay rent and do all the things that you’re told in scripture.240 ¶53

They asked him, “Do you believe in taxes?” He said, “Give me a coin. Well, whose inscription is that?” He said, “Caesar’s.” Alright, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Does he want taxes? Bring me the gold from that fishes’ mouth. He doesn’t say, I will not pay the tax—he knew he could simply dream anything. And so that same being spoken of in scripture is the being seated here tonight—when you say “I am,” that’s he.240 ¶54

So tonight you go back…just the few verses I quoted, read that 8th verse of 6th of Micah, and the 4th verse of the 4th chapter of Psalms, and then the 42nd Psalm (it’s a very short one). These are the only ones I pulled on tonight to illustrate this point that you can’t answer in the affirmative when the question is asked of you, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”240 ¶55

So when it is asked of you in the future you can tell. You take the whole verse, the 5th verse of the 13th of 2nd Corinthians, so just the one verse, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Now test yourselves and see. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if tonight you do what I ask you to do, you’re putting it to the test. If tomorrow the results appear on your tree, then you’ve found him.240 ¶56

Now don’t forget him after you’ve found him. And keep on dreaming noble dreams day after day after day, not only for yourself but for everyone. See that it comes within the framework of these three fundamentals as named as the thing that God requires of every man: “To be just, to be kind, and to live in quiet fellowship with your God.”240 ¶57

Not a thing you do on the outside. If you want to give to charity, give. It doesn’t mean a thing as far as the scripture goes. You have to live in quiet, wonderful, simple fellowship with your God. So whatever you do mentally see that it fits the framework of justice and kindness, that’s all. So if it is just then it’s right. Is it kind? Alright, if you are in doubt, ask yourself a simple question, “Would I want it done to me?” Well, no. Well, then that’s not for you; it doesn’t fit the frame. And then after it fits the frame, very simply commune with your own heart upon your own bed and be silent.240 ¶58

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *240 ¶59

Tonight’s subject, as usual, is all about the reality we call God. We titled it “You Shall Be Gathered One by One.” Tonight I hope to make it a very practical picture. Do not be ashamed of your own testament to our Lord, for our Lord, as far as I am concerned, is our own wonderful human Imagination. If you’ve experimented and you’ve proven it, then don’t be ashamed no matter what the world would say to tell it. I have just quoted from the 1st chapter of 2nd Timothy: “Do not be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord.” If you’ve proven it in performance, so what does it matter if the whole world denies it? You tell it, because what you and I know from experience we know more thoroughly than we know anything else in this world…if we know it from experience. So don’t ever hesitate to tell it. In fact, the individual who has actually experienced God’s word cannot escape the responsibility of telling its meaning to others. He just can’t do it. He must tell it to everyone in the world for the simple reason we’re only one.239 ¶1

There’s only one being in this world and that being, when one awakes, they call Jesus the Christ, the only being in the world. So you put yourself to the test—-not another, not testing another—-testing self. There is no other. And when you test yourself and it proves itself in performance, then because there is no other you share it with every being in the world. The Old Testament is simply a series, the most marvelous permanent series of states through which you and I pass. The New Testament is its fulfillment.239 ¶2

Last Friday night, I asked you who were here to read the 13th chapter of 1st Kings. I hope you did. I hope you read it seriously and contemplated it. If you were not here, and there is someone tonight who is here for the first time, or maybe was not here last Friday, let me give you the highlights. And behold, a man of God came from Judah and he came with a message. The message was the destruction of that which was not faithful to God. It worshipped false gods; it was the altar of Bethel, the house of God. But he was given a certain condition: He must not eat bread and drink water in the area that he came to pronounce this prophecy, and he must not return the way he came…he must not. In the story he was deceived by a false spirit; and so he ate of the bread of that area and he drank of the water. Then the prophet who had received the false message said to him, “Because you disobeyed the word of the Lord your God you shall not return to the tomb of your fathers.” In other words, he would die on his way back. And it was fulfilled. He was killed on his way back.239 ¶3

When you read that you wonder, “What is it all about?” Let me share with you what it’s all about, for I have experienced this in its positive state. I did not eat or drink in the area where I was sent to give a message, and I returned to the tomb of my Father. If you do not, you cannot return to the tomb of your Father. So let me share with you this strange and wonderful mystery. If you haven’t had it, you’re going to have it, because there is only one being in the world and that being is God…and you are God. You’re playing all of the parts in the world, and these are placed like an obstacle race and you and I pass through them, coming towards the ultimate end which is God awakening, that’s all. You begin as God, the way is God, the end is God…there’s nothing but God.239 ¶4

Well here, maybe ten years ago, I saw what I should not see if reason prevailed, for I’m seeing the most wonderful interior of a fabulous building. Consciousness followed vision, and I stepped into the vision that I contemplated, and I explored. Then I saw two ladies and I told them, “Ladies, this is a dream, this is a vision.” They were afraid. They were frightened because to them that world was no vision. That was real. Like this, it was solidly real. Yet I knew the origin was vision, and because all ends run true to origins, if the origin was a vision, the end is vision. So I told them this whole vast world is a dream and I am the dreamer of the dream. Well, they were afraid, they were frightened, and they got as far as they could from me; and then when they got out of sight practically they ran. I did not eat their bread. To eat of one’s bread is to believe one’s beliefs. They told me that what I said wasn’t true. I was adamant. I believed it implicitly because I saw it. It began as a vision, the end must be vision. So I was not diverted by their behavior, therefore, I did not eat of their bread. I did not drink the water of their truth, because they believed that they were living in a solidly real world as this is real.239 ¶5

And I returned not the way I came. How did I return? I stepped into that world as I came onto this stage tonight. I walked onto this stage tonight; that’s how I walked into that world. But I didn’t return walking from that point in space back to where I was on my bed. This is how I went back…another vision.239 ¶6

Many years before, I found myself in a dream, and I knew it was a dream, but I prolonged the dream ’til I got to a stationery object. It was a huge pillar driven into the sea, a pillar about that [...] in diameter and I felt that if I could hold it—-it’s stationary, it’s not a movable object like an animal or something, say man, it was simply stationary—-if I could hold it and not let it go, I may prove to myself what inwardly I knew. I felt that if I in a dream could hold an object and not let it go and make myself wake, I would awake in the dream. I found myself in water and there were these pillars driven into the sea. The bridge that it formerly supported was gone, but the pillars remained. And I held it, I wouldn’t let it go, and I made myself awake, and I awoke in my dream. I was just as awake as I am now in this room. I am no more awake now in this room than I was then when I held this pillar. And I knew that feeling was the secret…if I could but touch it. And then memory returned…I went back to the 27th chapter of Genesis. These fantastic stories…empires come and go but the truth of the word of God remains forever.239 ¶7

Isaac is blind and he said to the voice that he heard, “Come close, my son…you sound like my son Jacob, come close.” So Jacob came close. He said, “Who are you?” and Jacob answered, “I am your son Esau.” “Come close, for I am blind, I cannot see.” So Jacob clothed in skins to resemble his brother Esau came close and the blind father touched him and the blind father said, “Your hands feel like Esau and you have the smell of Esau, but you sound like Jacob.” But I will now pronounce the blessing based upon feel. And he pronounced the blessing and he gave reality to what he felt, and Jacob supplanted his brother Esau. Jacob means “the supplanter.”239 ¶8

So I felt this thing and I felt it to be solid. When I touched it my hands didn’t go across each other and meet this way, they simply were as far apart as the object of my vision, and I held it and I wouldn’t let it go. I said, Wake, come on, wake up! And I woke. I woke in my dream and my dream was just like this, just as real as this. Then I waded ashore. As I waded ashore onto this tropical isle—-not the Caribbean for I know them well. I do not know the Pacific as of this moment in time, but it seemed to me like the Pacific, homes built on stilts, either to avoid the animals or to avoid floods, but what I don’t know. Homes were built on stilts. As I got ashore, I saw a strange looking animal, a horrible looking thing, and it came towards me. Then I returned by a way I did not come. I was frightened out of my wits as it were. So the statement “frightened unto death” isn’t really far off, amiss. As it came towards me I was simply frightened, and then I broke the entire thing and found myself back on my bed. But the world from which I returned was just as real as the world to which I returned.239 ¶9

So I know that it started as a dream, the end must be a dream. It started as vision, the end must be a vision. This is just as much a vision. It started as a vision and the end is a vision, and we are the dreamer of the dream, and that I do know. I know it from my own personal experience.239 ¶10

Now in the 13th chapter that I asked you to read of 1st Kings he was warned not to eat the bread of that place and drink the water of that place. He was deceived by a lying spirit, and he ate the bread and drank the water. Then the old prophet said to him, “Because you’ve disobeyed the word of the Lord your God you shall not return to the tomb of your fathers” and so he was killed on the way. Had I not obeyed the voice of God the body to which I returned would have been dead. I returned to this body. When I told the ladies the whole thing is a vision and the end is a vision, they did not believe me. Their disbelief would have caused me to actually live in that world of reality. It seemed so real just like this. I would have feasted on their beliefs of that reality and not been faithful to the message that I brought, which was: It began as a vision; the end is a vision, for all ends run true to origins. I remained faithful to my message that I took.239 ¶11

So when I came back the body was cataleptic…it was dead. I entered it…I’m a living presence in a dead body…I animated it after how long I do not know. But I animated it and it returned, it was restored to life. Then I experienced the 11th chapter of the gospel of John. That’s the story of John the Baptist. No “other” did it; there is no “other”; you are Jesus Christ. So when Jesus Christ restores the body and makes it once more alive, it is from within, it’s not from without. “Jesus Christ in you is the hope of glory” . “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?” Not outside animating you .239 ¶12

So I returned and found the body dead, but I did not disobey the word. I delivered a message. The message is: The whole thing is a dream, it’s all a vision, for it started as a vision and the end must be a vision. And then they tried to give me other bread and other water. But their world is real and it was real. This is no more real than that world, may I tell you. This little thing here, this lectern, is no more solidly real than the things I touched in that world. But I did not forget the origin of the whole thing: it was all vision. So I couldn’t forget the origin and the end had to be consistent with the origin. So I did not eat of their beliefs, I did not drink of their truth, and I did not return the way I came, for I walked into that world just as I walked into here tonight. But I returned by a way I discovered years before that—the way of feeling—where I actually felt this huge pillar and woke within a dream. And so I knew if I could now feel a pillow behind my neck and actually feel it, I would return by the way I did not come. So I felt a pillow under my head while standing in this hallway, and then in a little while I could feel the pillow, and instead of being vertical I was horizontal.239 ¶13

And I am in a dead body: This body here that is now animated was cataleptic and dead. I came into it in a dead body. How long I remained trying to animate it I don’t know. Could have been a minute, could have been an hour, I don’t know. I only know that after awhile the little finger could move, and then the wrist could move, and then the elbow could move, and then the body could move, and finally I, with tremendous effort, I could open the eyelids. The eyes opened upon a familiar scene that told me I was back in my home on El Camino in Beverly Hills. So I returned not by the way I had gone into the other world.239 ¶14

The command was, “a man of God suddenly appeared…” Where? He appeared from Judah. The word Judah is spelled Yod He Vau Daleth He. The name of God is in the name—Yod He Vau He is in the name of Judah. Only one letter is put into it—-other than Yod He Vau He—-and that letter is Daleth. Daleth is “a door.” He said, “I am the door” . You get it? Who sent him? The word Judah is defined as “he himself”; it’s defined as “the hand, the creative hand of God.”239 ¶15

If there is one thing in this world that separates man from the whole vast world of creation it’s the hand. A monkey thinks it has a hand…or you think it has a hand…no, it’s used only to convey food to its mouth and to swing from branch to branch. A man’s hand fashions. You could be the most brilliant being in this world, without a hand you could only be a smart monkey. It takes a hand to create in this world, and the hand separates the whole vast world of creation from man. Man is God! He has a hand, he can fashion, he can create. No matter how brilliant the mind is, if you didn’t have a hand you could not express yourself. So the word Judah—-Yod He Vau Daleth He—-is defined as “a hand, dominion, power, that creative power that is God.” So when you are told, “Behold, a man of God came from Judah,” came from what? He himself came.239 ¶16

But in these stories of the Old Testament they are told negatively, and so you do not return the way you came. You fail to be faithful to the vision. You entered a world that was real, so real you’re carried away with the reality of it. And so, when you told your story, and they showed you how real it was and you could actually test the reality of it, you forgot the origin, you forgot God. For, the origin of it was the dreamer, and the dreamer is God. It started in you as a dream. That dreamer which is yourself is God. You didn’t forget it (after awhile) that it started as a vision and therefore it still is a vision. So you did not go into a false god. So when the man of God came, in the Book of Kings he came to destroy the altar that worshipped false gods. They were carried way. And he ate of the bread of the world into which he came. It seemed so real he partook of it. He drank the water of that world, the truth of that world he partook of it, and forgot the origin of it all. So on his way back he did not return by another way. He came back and he was killed on the way.239 ¶17

In the New Testament, the positive aspect of it is: He did not return the way he came; he remembered. He remembered the cause of it and, therefore, the end of it must be equal to the cause. In the Book of Zechariah, which is almost at the very end, the 38th book of the Old Testament, “On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.” The word Zechariah means “Jehovah has remembered.” He remembered. He didn’t forget the origin of the phenomena of life. He remembered. His name is one. We’re all one. And that one, when we awake, we will call Jesus the Christ, and you and I are he. As we actually awake we are he.239 ¶18

So I told you a week ago that the one whom he loved is the one that he restored to life. It didn’t fail, memory returned. So he came into a dead body. And the story is told as though someone on the outside awoke him; no, not someone on the outside—from within himself. He was faithful to the vision and he returned and came out, for he is Jesus Christ. He had not yet realized the grand turning point which is resurrection—that comes after—but he restored his body to life.239 ¶19

A friend of mine in San Francisco last September, a surgeon, and he told me that ten percent of all autopsies reveal no cause of death. Now you will see who they are who were not faithful to the vision. So they fell asleep one night and suddenly vision took place, and they went into the world that they contemplated, and it seemed so real. And it is, may I tell you, there’s nothing in this world more real than these worlds into which you step. And the world is so real they are carried away with the reality of it and they eat of the bread and drink of the water of that world and they never get back. They never return to the tomb of their father, for the tomb of the father is this body. We are buried in it. We are the fathers and we’re buried in these bodies. You never return to the tomb of the fathers as told you in the 13th chapter of 1st Kings. But if you do not eat of that world and accept the solid reality of it, as we do here, you will return by a way you did not come.239 ¶20

May I suggest, if this night you have not had the experience or you can’t bring it back and you find yourself moving into such a world, the way back is feeling. You feel anything in this world—which is the world of your father, for this body is the tomb of the father—so anything that is familiar here and you touch it and you don’t let it go and make yourself wake within, you awake here in this tomb. If it takes you a minute or an hour or longer, you will activate it, you will animate it. You will restore it to life in this world, and they won’t take your body to the morgue and cut it up to find no cause of death.239 ¶21

And I am told this is a universal picture, that all over the world those who operate on dead bodies as they do day after day to find the cause of death—-especially in a world where everyone is insured they must for insurance reasons find out some cause—-and ten percent reveal no physical cause of death. They are the ones who did not obey the command of the Lord, not to eat and drink in the place where you are sent…just give the order. In my case, I was sent to tell them the world is a vision; that I know it because it just happened to me. It started as a vision, therefore it still is a vision and the end is a vision. And they didn’t believe me. But in spite of their disbelief they did not persuade me to modify my conviction. I was persuaded and remained convinced that it is a vision, and I returned convinced, and animated my body.239 ¶22

Therefore, that was the story of Lazarus . He was the one that Jesus loved, you’re told, and Jesus is the reality of every being in the world. Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. It’s called the soul of man and the soul is the animating principle of a being. It animates anything and makes it alive. That’s Jesus Christ.239 ¶23

So here in this fabulous world…he goes on in the very end of the story, in the Book of John we’re told, it is he, the one he loved who now tells the story. He tells us all these words are written by the one who testified to the truth of these things. Only a very small section of the tradition of Jesus Christ is recorded. He tells us in the very last verse, if everything that he did were recorded, the world itself would not be big enough to hold the books . These are the experiences that you pass through.239 ¶24

So I say everything in scripture is true. The Old Testament is simply, these are states, eternal states through which you and I pass. I can share it with you. I would be amiss if I did not this night tell you of my personal experiences. For the individual who has experienced the Word of God, I can’t see how he can avoid or escape responsibility of telling the meaning of that experience to others. So you read it as something that took place a thousand years or 2,000 or 3,000 years ago to find you experience it, and it’s contemporary, it’s taking place now. It’s not something that happened 3,000 years ago, it’s happening now as we become more and more radiant as it were, and begin to awake.239 ¶25

So we are told in the last book of the Old Testament, “A son honors his father. If then I am a father, where is my honor?” . A son honors his father. If then I be a father, where is my honor…where is my son? And you turn over the page, you come into the New Testament and you find the son. So the last book, the thirty-ninth book, Malachi, which means “the messenger or the angel of God” and the angel of God was strictly called Jehovah Elohim: God himself. But here was the grand forgetfulness, the dream. He knew the story in the depth of his soul but he hadn’t found the son. And then comes the fulfillment of it, as you turn the page over, and here you come into Matthew. Matthew shows you who the son is that honors the father, and I and my father are one. Then comes the unfoldment of the picture.239 ¶26

So tonight, may I tell every one of you, if you have an experience don’t conceal it. Any experience that you have of the word of God, scream it from the housetops, no matter who believes it. Because tomorrow—-maybe in twenty-four hours or twenty-four years, when I do not know—-you, too, will find yourself opening, and the eye within you will open, and as they open you are seeing a world just as real as this. Consciousness will follow vision and you will step into that world, and you will be tempted to feast on the reality of that world, for it’s not less real than this. And if you do, you will not return…not to the tomb of your fathers. They will find your body and they will call it dead.239 ¶27

If you do not feast and remain faithful to the vision—-the origin is a vision, therefore the end is a vision; and you tell them whether they believe it or not—you will come back knowing that in this world that seems not more real than that, it too is a vision. And this whole thing here is a vision. For the origin of it was as much a vision as the origin of that world. That is as real as this was vision.239 ¶28

Then one day you will awake for the last time and you will say with Paul: “The time for my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” . And so when you close your eyes here, after your faithfulness to deliver your message, and your return to re-animate and restore this garment—like a Lazarus coming out of the tomb—you will have, before you make your exit here, you will have the experience of the true resurrection, which is not described in any page of scripture. It’s only mentioned but not described.239 ¶29

I have described it to you to the best of my ability in my latest book. I am now bringing out a little tiny pamphlet, not bigger than the size of The Search, where the whole thing is confined to the four acts of the unveiling of God’s image. When my friend Jack will bring it out, I do not know…it’s entirely up to him. But I gave him the script confined completely to these four scenes. It is not described in scripture. I have made every effort to the best of my ability to describe it in detail just how I experienced it. For I know that everyone in this world…now he who wrote that story and the four evangelists did not describe the event. They named it but they didn’t describe it. And I feel no compunction to be, I would say, modest about it. Whether the world believes it or not, I have told it in detail just as it happened to me and given the scriptural support for the event, knowing that there is only one of us in the world: Everyone in the world is Jesus Christ.239 ¶30

If you have the works of Blake, the 38th plate of Jerusalem : “We live as One Man; contracting our infinite senses we behold multitudes, or expanding, we behold One Man”—only one man if the centers begin to expand—-“and that One Man we call Jesus the Christ; and he in us and we in him live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life, giving, receiving and forgiving each others’ trespasses” . Only one man when the senses begin to expand. The whole vast world is one man.239 ¶31

I saw it one night with Blake. Blake tells you he dined with Isaiah and Ezekiel. May I tell you, I didn’t dine with him, but I certainly spent the night with him…yet he died a hundred-odd years before I was born, seemingly. But I wasn’t born in 1905. As you’re told in scripture, “Before the world was I am.” So we are all in one before that this world began. And Blake showed me so clearly how to fall and to look. So I took his advice and I fell backwards like some meteor falling through space. I came to a moment of stillness, and looked as he told me how to look. I saw one man; the man’s heart glowed like some living ruby, and he glowed. I contracted my senses and there were multitudes of nations within one man. I expanded it, I saw one man, and that one man was myself containing the whole vast world of humanity. All races, all nations, every one was contained within the one man. And one day, you’re going to see yourself containing the whole: Only one man and that one man is Jesus Christ.239 ¶32

So if anyone should ever tell you, “Look, there he is!” or “Here he is!” don’t believe it . Why? Because, “Although it does not now appear what we shall be, we know that when he appears, we shall be like him” . When you see him it’s just like you, and it contains the whole vast world of humanity.239 ¶33

So tonight I’ve shared with you two great secrets. One in the negative state, the 13th of 1st Kings—-that if you are not faithful to the message you take into that world when you step into it, you will not return to the body of your father, to the tomb, which is this. If you are, you’ll return (that’s the 11th chapter of the Book of John), you’ll return and although it seems dead you will animate it, you’ll make it once more alive and restore it to life. You will do it, for you are Jesus Christ.239 ¶34

But you’ll go through to the very end and then you’ll write the story, because you will have the experience of the true resurrection. That’s restoration; that’s not resurrection. You will have the true resurrection not recorded in any book in scripture, and you, too, will tell it just as it happened to you. And so you’re told, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me” . And this is the disciple whom Jesus loved, who testifies to all these things and who has written all these words. And we know that his testimony is true. So you, too, will tell it. You write the entire story and leave it behind you, because you’re departing from this world for the last time.239 ¶35

But because you are every being in the world you can’t be detached from it. You become one of those Blake spoke of “Those who in Eternity contemplate on death,” knowing that “what seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be” . You contemplate on it, because they actually become what they contemplate and believe; what seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be. You become one with the immortals, the eternal beings who contemplate on death, knowing and waiting eagerly to step beyond and redeem one in the body of Jesus; for there is no other body into which anyone can be redeemed. All eventually become one being, one body and that body is Jesus Christ.239 ¶36

Now let us go into the Silence.239 ¶37

First of all, before we take questions, my friend Jack has a small book at a ridiculous price, one dollar and fifty cents. It’s only the Bible. Who arranged it no one knows, so I’m told, so there’s no royalty on the book. It’s arranged in 365 days for a daily reading. The first page you may completely discount, it’s just a little thought by Billy Graham, but he didn’t write the book. It’s all Bible, no one word in the book is other than the Bible. A week ago they gave me this sample copy that someone sent them. I must tell you it’s perfectly marvelous. Pick it up at random and read any page…only the Bible…and the way they’ve arranged it, Old and New Testament all in the book. Not one word is changed and no comments, no commentary, no analysis, just a simple lovely arrangement in a peculiar manner. So the first page by Billy Graham, you can tear it up if you want to (unless you like him), but the book itself, this simple little thing, for only a dollar and a half. So, it isn’t one nickel in my pocket, but I so liked it that I would like to share it with you. It’s called Daily Light. He doesn’t have more than a dozen. Why he doesn’t have more I don’t know, but it’s a little wonderful book of 365 days [...], morning and evening. You have a morning reading and an evening reading. Now, are there any questions?239 ¶38

Tonight’s subject is taken from Isaiah, the 26th chapter, just as a title because it’s really not on that chapter. The title is “Thy Dead Shall Live.” To understand this we have to go all through the Bible and take pieces from here and pieces from there and put them all together. So we turn now to the Book of Romans, the 6th chapter, you’ll find it in the 3rd and 4th verses. I am quoting from the New Age Bible. I find it far more clear when it comes to this passage, in fact, many, many passages. But in this a question is asked—-in the other Bibles they state “Do you not know?”—that passage has been interpreted “Have you forgotten?” All the difference in the world! Have you forgotten that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death and lay dead? By baptism we were buried with him and lay dead, in order that Christ would rise in the splendor of his Father; then comes a hope, so also we would step into this new life .238 ¶1

So you and I through what he called baptism—-it doesn’t mean the baptism that you and I experience when we couldn’t even experience it, for we were just simply days old—-hasn’t a thing to do with that earthly baptism. He’s telling us, before the whole thing was, you and I were incorporated into one body, all of us, and we lay dead. And then like life coming out of the depths, like the seed falling into the earth—-“Unless the seed falls into the earth and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”—the mystery of life through death. So, all of us have union with Christ. You can’t think now, if you believe this, of God as “other,” can’t be other. So we are told, “As a body is one and has many members, so it is in Christ. By one Spirit we were all baptized into Christ, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Well, that you can see. I say, “Who are you?” and as you reply you say “I am John.” And before you go any further I can stop you and turn to another and another and all will begin “I am” and then they’ll say so-and-so. We all say the same thing. You ask me “Who are you?” I am…I may say Neville, I may say I’m an American by adoption, I may say anything; but before I say anything I first say “I am.” So we’re all made to drink of one Spirit and that Spirit is God. There’s nothing but! So God is not “other.” Until that comes into man’s consciousness and remains there and he feeds upon it, he will die in despair.238 ¶2

So, have you forgotten? He asked. So we’ve all forgotten. We’ve drunk deeply of the Spirit and lay dead; and now we’re about to be resurrected, raised from the state of death. But how did we simply die? Now let me tell a story.238 ¶3

It’s taken from 1st Kings, the 13th chapter. It’s a strange story but a fascinating story…the entire chapter, not just a verse. “And the man of God came from Judah by the word of the Lord, and came to Bethel.” As he came to Bethel, he pronounced this I wouldn’t call it a curse but a prophecy on the altar of Bethel, for it was used for idolatry, and said it would be destroyed and all the ashes would be poured out. The king, Jeroboam— whose name simply means “may the people be multiplied, may they become numerous or unnumbered like the sands of the sea,” that’s his name, that’s what it means—he was at the altar and when this prophecy was made against the altar of Bethel the king stretched forth his hand to injure and the king said, “Take hold of him, this man of God.” And as he did so his hand stiffened and withered so he could not bring it back to himself. And he knew he was in the presence of the man of God. Then he said to the man of God, “Entreat the Lord your God to restore my hand” and so the man of God entreated his Lord and the hand was restored to its former healthy state.238 ¶4

Then the king said to him, “Come into my house and refresh yourself and dine and drink with me.” He said, “By the word of the Lord I cannot eat in this place or drink in this place, neither can I return by the way that I came.” And so, he started by a different way. Then there was an old, old prophet in Bethel, and his son came to him and told him of the man of God and what he had done to the altar of Bethel. The old man said to his son, “What direction did he go?” and the son pointed the direction where the man of God departed. So he said, “Saddle my ass,” then the ass was saddled and the old prophet started in search of the man of God. When he came to him he found him under an oak tree—-think in terms of Abraham the father of the multitudes found under the oak tree as you read that in the 18th chapter of Genesis. And he said to him “I too am a prophet. An angel of the Lord said to me, come after you and have you dine with me, eat with me and drink with me.” But he said, I cannot, because the Lord told me, he said, “I am the prophet and angel of the Lord.” Of course, the angel lied. It was a lying angel. And so he did, believing it was from the voice of God.238 ¶5

Having dined, then the old prophet said to him, “Because you disobeyed the voice of the Lord your God, you shall not be buried in the tomb of your fathers”—-a nice way of saying you shall not reach home, you shall die on the way. Then the prophet saddled the ass and gave it to the man of God. The man of God started on his ride and a lion destroyed him, a lion came out of the nowhere and killed him. Then the people passed by and here was the ass, here was the lion, and here was the man of God lying dead. So when news came to the old prophet, the old prophet set out in search and came upon these three—the man dead (the man of God), and the ass and the lion. The lion killed him but had not eaten him, and the lion had not torn the ass. Then the man of God was taken by the old prophet and buried in his own grave, in the old prophet’s grave, and then he said to his son, “When I die, bury me in the grave of the man of God that my bones be with his bones.”238 ¶6

Now you read that story and you say, what is it all about? What a glorious story! The man of God disobeyed God. Well, then who made him disobey? Now we turn back to Romans, the 11th chapter from which we quoted earlier. In the 11th chapter it is said that “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” . So who is playing the part? It’s all God! There is nothing but God. Now this 11th chapter ends on this note, that God is the source, the guide and the goal of all things. The source, the guide and the goal of all things! There’s nothing but God. God is not other.238 ¶7

He has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all. So, “Unless I die,” said God, “thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me.” .238 ¶8

You couldn’t possibly breathe were it not for this death of the man of God and when we die we are buried in the same grave. And so, the weary man enters his grave, his cave, and there he meets his Savior in that grave. So when I die—as the prophet who was fooled by the so-called angel of God—I am buried in the grave with God. So the question is asked, Have you forgotten when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus that we were baptized unto his death? That by baptism we were buried with him and lay dead, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead in the splendor of the Father, so also we would step in this new way of life .238 ¶9

Now I say experience must seal the truth of scripture. Everyone is going to have this experience, but everyone. It must be sealed only by experience. He said, “The word is true, every word of it is true.” Well, I could tell you unnumbered stories to show survival, but that’s not what the Bible is speaking about. Survival is—that I know. As Blake said, “Death awakes to generation.” That I know from my own personal experience. “Death awakes to generation. O Lord, arise and rend the veil.” I don’t want to awake to generation…I have it here. I live in a world of generation, and all death unless resurrected awakes the generation. “Arise, O Lord, and rend the veil”: tear it so there is no more generation in my world.238 ¶10

For, all the dead are restored to life only to die again, as told us in the 20th chapter of the Book of Luke. When we are asked by the Sadducee…and the Sadducee simply is the man who does not believe in the resurrection. That is the wise man of the world, the scientist of today, the brilliant mind who understands the structure of the physical world. And he can’t find the soul no matter how he opens up the brain. He can’t find anything that could survive the dissolution of the body. And so they’re called in the ancient world the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection. And they said to him, “Teacher, Moses in the law said that when a man dies and leaving no children and having a brother, the brother should marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well, there were seven brothers. And one died, leaving no offspring, and the second took her. He died leaving no offspring, the third took her, and finally they all married her and left no offspring, and finally she died. Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” He answers, “The sons of this age marry and they are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain unto that age and to the resurrection from the dead, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, for they are now sons of God and sons of the resurrection” .238 ¶11

He distinguishes between this age which he calls “the age of death” and that age which is “the age of life.” So Blake was right. The dead awake to generation. They don’t realize that this is the world of death, none of us do. We think this is the world of life, and when a man goes to the grave that’s the world of death. No, that’s simply going through a little veil to be once more awake to generation. You’re restored to life, automatically inserted into your wonderful time sequence best suited for the awakening as the being that you really are who is God.238 ¶12

This is a self-imposed state of sleep, a sleep so deep that it appears as death. As you are told, “In great Eternity those who contemplate on death said thus, ‘What seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be, and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be, even of despair and eternal death. But Divine Mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus’” . So while we are here, what seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be, and is most productive, whether it be for something lovely or something horrible. But it’s only a grand dream. You and I are in the body of Christ and we are here dreaming until he awakens us in his body as that body, as that Christ. There aren’t two Christs. So when we awaken, his body is our body, and he and I are one. We are all one in the end.238 ¶13

So “In that day the Lord shall be one and his name one.” All awaken…but in our own good time, that is, in his good time. But when we awaken we are he, therefore, it’s really in our good time.238 ¶14

So do we really survive? I could tell you of unnumbered cases where I know from my own experience and from the experience of my friends who shared with me their experiences in continuity. For you meet someone who died…many years ago, while I was here in this city, the first year I came here, my secretary died. I received a cable saying that Jack was dead. Well, Jack had no one but the speaker. He had a sister living somewhere, where I didn’t know. She popped up at the last moment to get some money out of me, I know. But before that, I knew nothing of her and Jack never breathed anything of any relative. He was simply a lone wolf. He simply died on one hot August day when I was out here, my first year. So I went back and took care of the funeral, buried him up in Haverstraw, New York.238 ¶15

My sister-in-law always said to me, “I love you because you take care of my sister, but I don’t believe one word that you say. I don’t believe in immortality. I believe that we are immortal only through the loins—-our children who are our extension in this world.” I said to her, Aren’t you a good Christian? She said, “Oh, yes!” Well, she is a pillar of her church, the Episcopalian church. So I said, “How can you say you are a good Christian and say there is no immortality? Why, the foundation stones of Christianity are: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and life everlasting. You can’t remove one of these stones and not have the whole thing topple. So you say you are a good Christian, but you do not believe in life everlasting. You may have the first two—-fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, but you can’t rub out the third, for this is a God of the living, not a God of the dead.” She said, “I still don’t believe in your teaching.” Alright.238 ¶16

Six months went by after Jack died. One night in question, I’m fully awake but I am not in this world, I am in that world, through this little gossamer…it’s sort of…thin little veil between here and there. And so, here is Jack standing in my room and here is my sister-in-law, and she said to me, “I still don’t believe what you teach, you know.” I said, Well, how can you say that and see Jack? She said to me, “What has Jack to do with it?” I said, Jack died you know. I came back and buried him. At that moment her face becomes now aware of the truth of what I’ve said. She’s fully conscious that Jack died and she’s seeing Jack. But Jack now intercedes and Jack said, “Who’s dead?” I said, “Jack, you’re not dead but you died.” He said, “That’s stupid! I’m not dead but I died.” I said, “Jack, you died. I came back from California and I buried you. You’re buried, that little body that you wore is buried right now in Haverstraw, up in New York.” With this, he thought the whole thing was stupid. I said, “Come over here.” He did. I said to Al, “I’ll show you how solid he is.” I put my hand this way on his thigh and squeezed it. I said, “You see my hand doesn’t go through the thigh, he isn’t made of gossamer, he’s as solid as I am, as you are. And Jack did this to me as he would have done in this world. He said, “Take you hand off!” just like that and slapped my hand with his hand in a very friendly manner. And suddenly the whole thing after a few more scenes, then the whole thing dissolved.238 ¶17

I could multiply these experiences of the reality of continuity. Jack was not transformed one iota, not one change in Jack, the same Jack that he was here. I say, death here is simply a passage through a door where you can’t see them from this side, and they are restored to life to continue. It’s a continuous state, but resurrection is discontinuous. It’s a different world altogether, things that the eyes have not seen and ears have not heard what God has prepared for those in that day of resurrection. And the resurrection is taking place now at every moment of time, for all of us are one in Christ Jesus. When we awake, we aren’t another; we are Christ Jesus, and that body we wear is that glorious body of God. And it isn’t another, all one.238 ¶18

So I can say when the question is asked, “Have you forgotten?” yes, the whole vast world has forgotten. “Have you forgotten when you were baptized into Christ Jesus, into that union with him, and that that baptism meant death with him?” Well, the old prophet knew it. Whoever wrote that Book of Kings, that 13th chapter, he knew it: “So when I die bury me in the grave with the man of God.” And may I tell you, all of these experiences you are going to have. You, too, will be called the man of God and strange powers will be yours.238 ¶19

The first night I was called the man of God I found myself in a strange, strange area standing at the opening of a cave, and in that cave lived the most horrible, monstrous looking thing, the witch of witches, a horrible thing instructing a brood of children in the misuse of Imagination, complete misuse. The witches of Macbeth had nothing compared to this thing. She looked up and she screamed at me and she called me “man of God” and she said, “Man of God, what have you to do with me?” Well, she knew as far as she was concerned she was powerless in my presence. But I wouldn’t raise, in that moment, I wouldn’t raise a finger to stop her misuse of my power.238 ¶20

For Christ Jesus in scripture is described as the power and wisdom of God. You read it in the very first chapter of the 1st epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, “Jesus Christ, the power and the wisdom of God” ; only one power, only one wisdom. And so, the power is Christ. You stand in the midst of some misuse of the power that is yours, that you are yourself, and you wouldn’t raise a finger to change…it has all to be done.238 ¶21

Then, a second time that I came upon this same strange power, I found myself in a city that I knew so well, but it had changed, the whole thing had changed. I came to a junction and I thought, “Well, this is a radical change of the city since the last time I saw it.” And a policeman dressed in black across the way—the voice of authority. Whether it be a king, a soldier, or a policeman, any form of uniform would be one of authority—here is the law. It could be Jeroboam as king or it could be a simple policeman across the way; in this case, a simple policeman. As I looked around wondering of this radical change, he rushed across the square and took me by the arm and started leading me away. I asked him, “What are you doing?” He said, “Your actions look suspicious to me.” I said to him, “For the insult to the man of God, your voice is now still and the hand that touched me is just as still as the voice.” And they were. He couldn’t move the hand and he couldn’t speak, and the expression on his face was one of stark fear. Then that scene came to an end.238 ¶22

So I know all of these things of scripture are true and every child born of woman must experience it. As he wakes in us, you are the man of God deceived by yourself, by a false, lying prophet. For in the very beginning there was only God who deceived man, the first man. For you’re told, the word Yod He Vau He in its base although we interpret it as I AM (good interpretation, it’s true), still it’s primitive meaning, the primal meaning was “to fall or to cause to fall; to blow or to cause to blow.” So who caused the fall was Yod He Vau He, the I AM. So I caused myself to fall for purposes beyond the wildest dream of man on this level.238 ¶23

So the whole thing is done by God; he’s the source, it’s now through God, and the goal is God. So he crystallized and took upon himself the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity which is man; and then he starts bursting through from here, because there’s no limit to translucency and none to expansion. It begins to burst beyond the wildest dream. But he took upon himself…like the little story of the seed, the grain of wheat, falls into the earth and dies…if it doesn’t, it remains alone. But if it falls and dies it brings forth much. And so, here we are the great grain of seed, all gathered together in one body, one Spirit, and we all drank of that one Spirit, so we can all say “I am.” And though we can say “I am” and do marvels in this world by the wise use, or even the misuse of Imagination, it’s the same power. One day we suddenly are awakened from it all, and we enter the world called the world of resurrection—-not continuity, but discontinuity.238 ¶24

Now here is a story told me this past week. A lady said she bought a franchise—didn’t tell me the nature of the franchise—-to discover right after she’d paid for it that the president of the concern was a fraud. And so, the investigator downtown asked her to secure a photostatic copy of the check she paid. But, she said, “I couldn’t produce it because it was a check given to me by Bache and Co., the brokers. They sold some stock of mine for a little over $3,000, and I took that check and endorsed it over to the person with the company for the franchise, and I couldn’t produce the check. That was in the company of Bache. But I applied this principle towards it and kept on working on it, just as you teach. Four months went by and Bache called me up and said that “the check issued to you for over $3,000 has not passed through the bank, therefore, we have put a stop on it, it’s too long, and now we will issue you another check.” And so, she got every penny back. How that check did not go through, who knows? She said, “I’ve never heard of it before, but, nevertheless, I have all the money that I gave this so-called fraud.”238 ¶25

Well, he might have been a fraud in her eyes and maybe he had intentions that way, but it’s God. Maybe this wonderful story of having faith in God’s promise, God’s law…that whatever you desire in this world, believe you have received it and you will . Even though reason denies it and your senses deny it and everything denies it, could you at a moment like that, knowing the man is a fraud, or you believe he is, and you gave him over $3,000, and time goes by, and you can’t locate the check because it wasn’t your personal check, it was a check that you endorsed that you received from your broker, from Bache and Co., and could you in the face of all that still believe that you’d get it back, and feel the reality of it, and actually believe in the reality of the imaginal act? Well, she did.238 ¶26

Now, what caused the displacement of that check she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care; she got the money back! So Bache called up and said, “It hasn’t passed through, so we’ve stopped it and now we’ll issue another check in lieu of that.”238 ¶27

So I say to everyone here, it doesn’t matter what the world will tell you, when you know what you want, assume that you have it and then walk just as though it were true. Even though you haven’t yet been raised from the dead, while you are dreaming dream noble dreams. For this death spoken of in scripture is a death of a profound sleep, that’s the death; for in the 2nd chapter of Genesis we’re told, “And God caused a profound sleep to fall upon man and he slept” . Not a thing is said of waking that man until Christ awakes. So all through the Bible the command is, or the plea is, “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” . Not another, God is the one that fell into that state. It is God in man who is dreaming.238 ¶28

And the Bible recognizes only one source of dreams: All dreams, all visions proceed from God, whether it be a waking dream or the dream of the night . So why not have lovely dreams if everything comes from the same source. Your dream produces an effect in the world. It can either scare you to death (your own dream) or enlighten you. So everyone here can dream the most marvelous dreams in the world, because it comes from God, and all things are possible to God.238 ¶29

So in this story of…there is no death, really, although you see them die. I can tell you—and multiply it many times over, when I talked with friends—that continuity of the same state, same pattern in this world. But like Blake, let your prayer be “Arise, O Lord, and rend the veil.” You reverse all the currents of life when the veil is torn from top to bottom; and then what goes out in generation turns into regeneration and you rise into a world completely subject to your imaginative power. No waiting for it…you are now God and create by simply imagining.238 ¶30

In this state, you are still God but in a state of dream…and we’re having bad dreams, horrible dreams. This past week I bought Wednesday’s New York Times. To show you there is not anything in this world called fiction…don’t believe it…there is no fiction! If you conceive something and you call it fiction because it’s not based upon external fact, you may think, “Well now, this is fiction because I have no external fact to support my theory or my Imagination,” don’t believe it!238 ¶31

A month ago, two of my friends, who come with me every week here, and my wife and myself went off to see a picture. Here was this comedy laid in Greece and Turkey, and the story is the plot to steal this fabulous bejeweled sword that was under real strong guard in Turkey. They had this fantastic way of getting this sword. Well, they got it, but they were caught and imprisoned. While they were all in jail, the one who held the idea was a woman, and the men were simply tools of her idea. And so, they were parted by the rails, she’s on the one side, and as the curtain is coming down, she said to the men on the other side, all in their prison garb, “I have an idea: the jewels in Russia. I know a secret pass way into that fabulous museum there.” And so, as the curtain is coming down, here they are trekking through the snows of Russia towards the fulfillment of her idea.238 ¶32

Well, this current week, this past Wednesday, on the front page of the New York Times, Russia for the first time revealed this fantastic robbery that took place of this jeweled sword this past year in Russia. The most unique way they got into that museum and took this bejeweled sword. They finally located it. They did not bring it out in the papers of Russia until they redeemed the sword. It took them about a year before they could find where the thieves had taken it. In the same paper two different articles, one is saying such things couldn’t happen in Russia as they could happen in a capitalist country. But it happened in Russia!238 ¶33

Just as this so-called fiction just to give a good laugh, because as the curtain is coming down here she is in her prison garb and she has another idea which will put them in jail again. And if it didn’t take place in Russia! I say there is no fiction! You can sit here alone and think, “But no one knows what I’m thinking.” Not a thing that you do in the dark is kept in the dark; it’s always revealed in the light. And so, you could be this night in a dungeon and you could hate the world and lose yourself in hatred and be the invisible cause of the most fiery conflict. The cause need not spring from the leaders of the world at all. Some woman in a dungeon treading the winepress of hate could produce tomorrow’s real, real conflict.238 ¶34

So that no one really can stop you, because who can stop you from doing it? You’re a dreamer. And while you are in the state of sleep not yet awakened, not yet resurrected, it’s entirely up to you to use your talent, which is the talent of dreaming. If you hear someone who knows the story, and believe him, you will stop the bad dream and produce the good dream but still a dream; in the hope that it won’t be too long before you are resurrected from this wheel of recurrence and enter into the world of resurrection. We’re all destined to enter that world anyway.238 ¶35

I tell you, the whole story as recorded in scripture is true, and it’s all about you, every word is about you. So you’re the one that he made in the very beginning, so you can truly say, “Before that the world was, I am.” Because, before the thing is made the creator must exist. So, before the world was, I am. And if in the beginning I was actually by baptism united in the body of Christ Jesus and buried with him, well then, before the world was, I am. I can say, when the world shall cease to be, I am. For I am a world within myself…the whole vast thing is contained within me…and now I’m dreaming.238 ¶36

You can’t conceive of something in this world that isn’t possible to God, you can’t conceive of it. Everything possible to be imagined is an image of truth. It could be a horrible state, but it’s still truth. So tonight, I appeal to everyone to take the most glorious concept of yourself and your friends and your circle, and though at the moment everything denies it, dare to believe that it’s true. Just dare to believe it’s true and feel yourself right into that state as though it were true, and then let it unfold in your world. It will. No power in the world can stop it.238 ¶37

So here, when you go home read that 13th chapter of the Book of 1st Kings, and as you read it put yourself into the place of the man called the man of God. He comes from Judah. Now a lion killed him—-that’s all imagery, beautiful symbols. The words for “scatter” in the Bible—-“and he scattered them all over the face of the earth”—-they were one people with one language, and the Lord said, Let us go down and scatter them, and give them all the different tongues of earth so they will not understand each other. The word translated “scattered” in scripture is defined in the biblical concordance as “the fall.” For here I point it this way, then scatter it; yet it is still bound, one body…many members but one body. And so he breaks it and becomes fragmented. So the “fall” killed him by being scattered. So he was simply a scattered being or a fragmented rock. So you’re told in scripture, “You’ve forgotten the Rock that begot you” . So the Rock is fragmented and we are all the pieces. But when we are gathered together, we form one body, one Spirit, one God, and we are that being.238 ¶38

So you take it tonight and try it…costs you nothing. Doesn’t cost you a penny to imagine that things are as you would like them to be, and see how they mold themselves in harmony with your assumption. You remain faithful to your assumption and they all become a dream projected, objectified, in your world; for we are dreaming it until we awaken from the dream. Now let us go into the Silence. If there aren’t any questions, thank you. Goodnight.238 ¶39

[...] which is the last for a little while. We’ll be returning on the 6th of October. And this has been a perfectly marvelous session. I want to thank you for your case histories. As far as I’m concerned they are tops, not only in the working of the law but in your visions which you have shared with me and allowed me in turn to share with others. Well, tonight’s subject is “Call the Next Witness.”236 ¶1

Everyone in the world will be called as the next witness. We are told in the Book of Isaiah: “And now go, write it upon a tablet and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.” So the first witness is the book. That book is our Bible. It is a witness forever. But our Bible, in this instance, is the Old Testament, that’s the witness. That is the external witness. But, as we are told in the Old Testament, in the Book of Deuteronomy, the 19th chapter, that only on the evidence of two witnesses, or three witnesses, can a charge be sustained. So here we have one witness, the external witness of scripture, and there must be a second witness to sustain the charge. This is God’s promise to the whole vast world. And then we are told we are called one by one: “I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel”. Everyone is called and the one who is called is the witness, the next witness; and he has to parallel by his own experiences this that is the external witness, recorded in scripture. So when the first one comes into the world who has the witness of scripture, it is said of him he is the first-born of the dead, the faithful witness. You read this in the Book of Revelation, the 1st chapter, the 5th verse: “And he is the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead.”236 ¶2

But no one believed him, or few believed him, because they expected a different kind of a witness. They thought some mighty giant would come from outer space and be their leader, to enslave those who had enslaved them, and raise them to some victorious state in the world. And that’s not the picture of scripture. You and I will be, one by one, called as we can parallel that testimony as described in scripture. So we are told, if two persons who differ, like two witnesses, if they agree in testimony, it is conclusive. And so we have the Old Testament and we read it carefully—that is the external witness. Now, I differ from that, for I will say I didn’t write it but I was told about it or I read it. Now, can I actually have an experience that parallels that which is recorded in the external witness? So there must be an external witness of scripture and the internal witness of the Spirit. So here comes one who makes the statement: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me. For all that was written about me has its fulfillment, and beginning with Moses in the law and the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Every passage in the Old Testament that was in any way related to himself he showed them where this had to be experienced by him. He couldn’t share it with them, for the experiences take place in the soul of man. It doesn’t take place that the mortal eye could see.236 ¶3

And then he began to tell them what had happened to him. Then we are told the one who really believed it in this world, though he fought him in the beginning, that in the end of his days he expounded the matter from morning to night, trying to convince them of the reality of Jesus, using all the scripture as his argument; and some believed while others disbelieved. And that’s the entire story. I can tell you this night, you may believe it or you may disbelieve it, but the story is this: It’s not enough to hear the testimony of Jesus, one must hear it with faith. For we are told that those who heard it heard it as we hear it; but it did not profit them who heard it, because it was not received with faith in the hearers. Let us not now fail as they failed by not mingling what we have heard with faith.236 ¶4

So I can’t take you with me into the depths of my own soul and show you the moment in time and the experience that was my experience when it happened to me, I can only tell you. But we are told when this was made aware, they asked, “When is this going to happen to us?” and he said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons, seasons fixed by the authority of the Father.” “Wait for the promise of the Father, for you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” But I can’t tell you the time or the season. Everyone here this night would ask me, “When is it going to happen to me?” I can’t tell you. I do not know. It’s not given to us to know the times or the seasons. They are fixed by the Father by his own authority. I can only ask you to wait for the promise of the Father, because I know from experience that you shall receive power when this is given to you when the Holy Spirit descends upon you. You’ll have the power, the most fantastic power in the world. Nothing in this world…you speak of nuclear energy…there’s nothing comparable to the power that is given you.236 ¶5

Here you come into room like this, you could take a bomb and blow everyone up and destroy it. You think you could. You could destroy it, but that moment prior to the moment of destruction remains forever, so you can’t really destroy more than the instant that you think you did, and that instant remains in time. But with this power of which I speak, you come into this room, and you could turn off from within yourself that which allows everyone to be aware of being alive. And turning it off, they will believe themselves no…as a lady present knows from being turned off…that they are nothing, but absolutely nothing. That there’s nothing, they are nothing. And then you turn it on and then wherever you stopped it, they simply pick it up at that moment in time, and they go on, and they become someone again. So you know the power that you can really exert. You can turn off. You can not only turn it off, may I tell you, I’ve done it. Not on this level, I have done it. You turn it off and then you rearrange the structure of the intentions of those that you turned off. When you turn it on again they have not the intention they had when you turned it off, and they move in an entirely different direction. You could take the whole vast world, may I tell you, if you were so given…but you would not be given this power were you not completely immersed in love. For were you not completely immersed in love, you could turn it off and rewrite the script on the minds of men and march them, without effort on their part, into the ocean beyond their height, and fill it with humanity, and therefore drown them. You could; that’s the power. There’s nothing in this world comparable to the power that is yours when you awake from this dream of life.236 ¶6

So you’re told, wait for the promise of the Father, for you shall be given power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. That’s the kind of power, for “as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself”.236 ¶7

Now, this is the witness of which I speak this night. The Bible is the first witness, it’s the external witness. Now “bring me the second witness,” and you one day will be called that second witness, because you will have all the experiences as prophesied in scripture. For scripture is only talking about you, your biography. Everything said in scripture you must experience, and then you’ll know beginning with Moses and all through the prophets and in the psalms, that everything said about you must have its fulfillment. You will interpret to those who will listen. They may not listen, but you’ll interpret for them. Now let us begin with the witness, “Bring me the next witness.”236 ¶8

Now we are told in scripture “God has taken his position in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment”. Is that true? I know from experience that it is true. I was taken in Spirit into the divine council, and presented to the Ancient of Days. And God, may I tell you, is man. When you stand in his presence, you stand in the presence of infinite love. Infinite love! And he’s going to ask you a question and you will answer based upon scripture. I am not going to say tonight that the question asked me will be the same question asked you. A friend of mine, who is present tonight, was asked a different question, but he answered it based upon scripture. He did it just as automatically as I did it. I was asked the question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and my answer came from the Book of Corinthians, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter, “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that, infinite love in the presence of man, embodied man, embraced me. As he embraced me our bodies fused and we became one body. I have no consciousness of any separation after that embrace. I have never felt such joy in my life when he embraced me and I became one with infinite love. And then I was sent to do what I’m doing, to tell the story, a command that I could not resist: Go and tell the story.236 ¶9

Well, this is the 82nd Psalm. So I’m a witness to the truth of the statement in the 82nd Psalm that God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. The gods are simply you, the whole vast world, awakened. When man awakes he becomes a part of the gods where God holds judgment. He doesn’t judge you and then gives you some sentence. He’s not a God of retribution; he’s a God of love. He’s only asking you a question, and then you are divinely prompted to make a confession of faith. So he’s not going to condemn you. You, first of all, couldn’t possibly make a mistake because you are prompted by God what you ought to say. So when you are brought into the divine council, don’t be concerned what you are going to say; for you are going to be prompted and you’re going to be prompted what you ought to say.236 ¶10

Here’s one. I can say now that wonderful chapter of the 42nd Psalm…I can testify to that. For I, too, found myself in a moment of a sadness of heart…and who hasn’t…when you are sad and you wonder, “Why am I so down within me, why is it?” And then you turn to memory and suddenly this thing happens. I can say with the Psalmist today, these things I remember, when I joined the throng in this grand procession and I led them in procession, and there was joy, a multitude keeping festival—that I recall vividly walking in an enormous crowd. I can’t measure the number, but in that crowd I walked with them. The 42nd Psalm tells us, I remember these things, when I joined this crowd and led them in procession to the house of God. Well, we were moving toward some invisible Jerusalem, invisible Mecca, it was the house of God, when a voice rang out and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” Then a lady at my side said, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice answered, “At your side.” Then she turned to her left and looked into my face, my eyes, and then she became hysterical. She said, “What, is Neville God?” and she was really hysterical with laughter it struck her so funnily. The voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.” And then that same voice heard only now by me—not by the multitude, this festive multitude— heard only by me, and it came from the depths of my soul; and the voice said to me, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and I knew exactly what the finish of the sentence was: He was dreaming that he’s me. But at that moment when I heard it, the thrill, the joy! Then I was nailed upon this body as though nailed on a cross, but unlike what the world talks about the crucifixion it was sheer delight. My hands, my feet, my head, my side were vortices, and each vortex was joy beyond the wildest dream of man. And so, he nailed himself upon me (the dead). And so “I have been crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” So to that statement of scripture I bear witness…I have experienced it.236 ¶11

Now we come to the series of events which is God’s plan of salvation. God’s plan of salvation was made very, very clear from the scripture, once the key was given to us by the testimony of Jesus. No one believed it. And you can’t really blame anyone for not believing it. Because a man, a normal man as I’m a normal man, you’re a normal man, walking the earth not knowing the time is now fulfilled, at this moment in time it is fulfilled, like an egg coming to its ripeness. You don’t know the contents of the egg and suddenly this little thing breaks. You look at a caterpillar and it seems to you nothing, and suddenly it breaks and out comes the butterfly. Out comes from the egg this glorious feathered being. Out comes from this concept of God, which is man, the being you cannot describe: It is God coming out.236 ¶12

And so, who could actually believe a man who was born a normal person, one of many brothers, who had sisters, who lived in a normal environment, who had no background whatsoever, and suddenly out of this, when the time was fulfilled, that the prophecy is really true? That man who was made an animal, as told us in the 4th chapter of the Book of Daniel: He took himself and put himself in the form of an animal, gave himself the mind and the heart of a beast, and allowed seven times to pass over him until he knew that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gave it to whom he would, even to the lowliest of men. So he takes the lowliest, a man who has no qualifications whatsoever for the claim that he could possibly be the fulfillment of all that was prophesied in scripture; and suddenly it begins to happen in him. It didn’t happen in some little physical manger in the Near East, no three shepherds came out of the night to see the event; all of this takes place in the soul of man. So he tells what happened to him. He goes back into scripture and searches the scripture and finds where it was prophesied. He tells them this is what it meant. No one believed him. He believed it. And then came a second event, the third event, the fourth event, and event after event, as he found it in scripture, it is taking place in the soul of an individual. He is the first-fruit of those who slept, the first-born from the dead.236 ¶13

And so, he comes into this world, as you came into this world, and maybe you this night will be that witness, I do not know. For no one knows the time: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons fixed by the Father by his own authority. But wait for the promise of the Father, for you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” And no one in this world knows and no one can prophesy for you. Let no one tell you that they can read some horoscope or some chart to tell you when that time will arrive. It could come this very moment to anyone in this room or the world. But, when it comes, you are then the witness that is called; so only God sees the second witness. Man judges from the outward appearances, but God judges from the heart. No one in this world unless he believes me could actually know what I have experienced. My most intimate person, my wife, where I’ve shared it with her and tell her these experiences, I believe that she believes me one hundred percent, but I can’t share with her the experience. Neither can I tell her that she will be the next in line, I cannot. Much as I love my daughter, I can’t tell her that she will be the next in line. She may be a way down the line to be called to witness to the word of God. So bring me the next witness. And only God knows when he calls them: “I call them one by one, O ye people of Israel”. And so he’s calling everyone in his own good order, but I don’t know the order that he calls them. I only know that he called me.236 ¶14

He called me and everything said in scripture concerning Jesus Christ I have experienced in the soul of my being, beginning with the first one. All the others were preparatory, like finding myself in the divine council where God was holding court, and being welcomed, embraced and then sent, like an apostle. That preceded…all the other things preceded it. My finding myself in that section of the book of the [...], where I’m in this enormous multitude keeping festival, that preceded it. But the real beginning of the awakening began with the resurrection, where suddenly a power that I’ve never felt in my life was applied to my head. And I don’t know, I can’t tell you how it was applied. I only know it was applied to my head—and I who thought up to that very moment I was always awake found myself waking. I’m waking and I thought this is a normal waking, and it isn’t a normal waking; I’m awaking in my skull. My skull is not just a skull if one woke in the skull, but at the moment that I awoke I knew it was a tomb. That’s the strange part of it, my skull was a tomb. Here was a tomb, and suddenly I’m being born out of the tomb, so the tomb becomes a womb.236 ¶15

And this begins the birth of God in man. I come out as one that is being born, and everything said in scripture concerning the birth of Jesus Christ I experienced. So I came out of it. The three men were present to witness it. And then comes the most unearthly wind that man could ever experience. And so we’re told, “All was foretold me, naught could I foresee. But I learned how the wind would sound after these things should be.” I couldn’t envision the wind. I didn’t know. I was told it as you were told it, everyone was told the story of God before we set forth; and so, all was foretold me but I couldn’t foresee it. But after the event I knew what that wind would be. And so, here I heard this fantastic wind. And then the whole thing was over; that was the fulfillment of scripture of the birth of God which he promised: “I will bring forth out of man a son, but that which I bring forth will be my son and I will be his father.” May I tell you, you are the one brought forth. You’re not something that you remain here and something else comes out of you, you are pulled out of yourself. This thing here was the dead, this was the sepulcher; this was the tomb into which God immersed himself. He is extracting himself individualized as you.236 ¶16

So when he brings himself out, you are he. To prove now that you are he, he gives you the next event. For he only extracts himself. God could not emerge from man in whom he was not present. Christ Jesus could not come out of one in whom he’s not present. And so, he draws himself out of you. When he draws himself out of you, to prove it is himself, the next event is the one that reveals it. And the next event is when he shows you his son, and his son is your son. So you look into the eyes of God’s only begotten son and that only begotten son calls you Father, as told you in the 89th Psalm. “I have come only to fulfill scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me”. So the 89th Psalm: “I have found David and David has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and he Rock of my salvation’”. So you find him, and there’s no uncertainty in this discovery: He was always your son. So if he is your son and he is God’s only begotten son, well then, God succeeded in his purpose in extracting himself from that tomb into which he had entered. He enters the tomb of man; man is dead; and then extracts himself multiplied a thousand-fold beyond what he was when he buried himself in the tomb called man. He comes out, and to prove it, comes the third event. The resurrection is first, the birth second, and this one is the third: The discovery of the fatherhood of God where he succeeded in giving himself to you as father because you have a son.236 ¶17

Then comes the fourth event where he raises himself into Zion: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must man be lifted up.” So man, you, you are lifted up in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent—-which is only a symbol, all the outside things were simply symbols—but now inwardly you must experience what outwardly was only a sign. Inwardly you become alive and you lift yourself up in the most miraculous manner, right up like a serpent into your skull. So that’s the next one.236 ¶18

And the final one is when he succeeds now in really giving you the power, which you will not exercise save governed by love. There is no temptation in this world that could make you turn a stone into bread, or cast yourself down to prove to anyone that his angels would bear you up, or in any way take any temptation of sleeping humanity. That’s why he now gives you…and the last gift is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which descends upon you in bodily form as a dove, and smothers you with love, but completely smothers you with affection. And while he is enveloping you in love, the whole thing vanishes, and you awake on the level of Caesar. You’re here, endowed with the power that he gave you, but you could not in eternity use it save governed by love.236 ¶19

So when you first encounter love, you first see the one that is infinite might. And then you know, as the years go by, that you will have infinite power in proportion to your capacity to love. For love is the greatest in the world. That no one in this world could ever have infinite might until he’s first embraced by love, for what would he do with it if he was not actually embraced by love? He would destroy the universe; he would destroy anything in this world.236 ¶20

So he asked this little question: Who told you of things from of old? Ask him and let him tell you of what is yet to be. Did I not tell you the things from of old? And so, the old is that Old Testament, the 44th Book of Isaiah I’m quoting, 44th chapter: “Did I not tell you these things from of old?” If there’s one who can tell you, let him tell you the things yet to be. I have told you all the things to come, and then he closed the book. But the time has not yet fulfilled. When it is fulfilled, I will come forth, and then it will never end; my salvation shall never have an end. My redemption shall never come to an end. So one by one by one I call them.236 ¶21

So the witness is simply when you suddenly—-maybe this night, it’s my hope it is this night—-that it will break. For, may I tell you, you could have a billion, and you may, you could have all the glamour in the world, and if you were not awake, what does it really matter? You’re tied to the wheel of recurrence. And tomorrow…as my friend saw his mother, radiantly beautiful and moving through the year 1953, suddenly finding herself in the year 3804. But no transforming power in that transition, the same lovely lady, this time more beautiful, married, [...], with the same fear of death that she had here prior to her own death at the age of seventy but now at the age of thirty and beautiful beyond measure. As happy as any beautiful lady would be here with means, at the age of thirty, but in fear of death. Death follows man forever on these wheels within wheels within wheels. It is only when we are lifted out of the wheel of recurrence that we have conquered death, for we die no more. So what does it matter if you owned the earth and you were not extracted from the wheel of recurrence?236 ¶22

All you have to do is to turn on the radio or the TV and hear the junk that is on today in this election year. Someone will quote a man, doesn’t tell you who he’s quoting, but he quotes the most marvelous things concerning a person; and he tells you everything about this wonderful man, that he really should be our leader of leaders, as I got it exactly before I came out. And then you heard… I’ve just quoted you the words of Nelson Rockefeller, what he said two years ago about Goldwater, the most marvelous things…that’s two years ago. They’re only quoting, they’re quoting exactly what he said when he introduced him at this party, but you could never improve upon the joy of that moment. But now this is two years later…now he wants the same job…because the other fellow was less fitted for it…and so now we have Rockefeller today. But all of this is part of the wheels within wheels of a deadly sleep.236 ¶23

And so I tell you, I come here to bear witness, the second witness—“Call me the next witness”— and I’m telling you what happens. You can hear what happened to me, but it will not benefit anyone who hears me unless they accept it with faith. If you think this is all hallucination, if you think, well, this is a strange dream the man had, and you don’t believe it is true concerning you as of tomorrow, well then, you heard it but you did not mix it with faith; and the word of God falling upon the mind, which is the soil, did not receive the necessary fertilized and prepared soil, and you’re simply tied upon the wheel, the wheel of recurrence. I can only hope that when I talk to you that I will actually receive from you a certain receptivity that it may bury itself in you and grow; for unless it is accepted by you it can’t grow. So how long you remain on the wheel, may I tell you, is irrelevant. It doesn’t really matter. It is only when it is accepted—after he sends one as his witness to tell you what has happened to him, and you hear it and accept it—will it grow. How long that interval of time between acceptance and fulfillment? That I do not know. I only know until he is accepted that the wheel…it doesn’t really matter.236 ¶24

But may I tell you, when you see the wheel and you stop it, and see that the whole power is turned off within you…and they are nothing, they’re dead, I mean really dead. It doesn’t matter what you do to the dead, it doesn’t really matter, any more than they took off that head of the mermaid in Denmark. It was dead. You desecrate something and they were all annoyed that someone would dare take a lovely piece of art and do it…but it didn’t hurt her. So when you see the whole vast world and you turn it off and everything stands still. And you can turn it…I have turned it and changed the pattern, and it moved in an entirely different direction. I’ve done it with a train. It seems so fantastic to tell you this, but you can not only turn it, you can turn it backwards. You can do anything with this wheel; it’s a machine. But out of this machine God is bringing himself, extracting himself from the wheel of recurrence which is the wheel of death. And the day will come every word I’ve told you you will know is true.236 ¶25

So let me go back to the Book of Acts. You “wait for the promise of the father…for power will come upon you when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” You, every one in this world, will be a witness to the truth of what I told you this night. I don’t care who you are and what you are. Your social position, intellectual position, financial position means nothing in the eyes of God, but nothing; for you are destined to inherit the kingdom of God. You are destined to inherit God: “Give them no inheritance. I am their inheritance”. That’s what we’re told. So man himself inherits not only the kingdom of God, he inherits God. He inherits the power that is God, the wisdom that is God. And so, out of this fabulous world of ours we’re extracting the being that is buried in it.236 ¶26

So believe me, I am a witness to the truth of all that is recorded in scripture, first in the Old Testament and then in the New where the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Listen to it carefully. There is nothing more important for any of us than to hear that testimony and then respond to it. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. If you’ve been horrible, brutal, unkind, you may be sorry for it, but, may I tell you, these things in themselves, that’s not important. Hear the testimony and accept it, for it grows, it grows within you. You may be kind and generous and wonderful and not believe in the testimony. Until you hear it and respond to it with acceptance, it can’t take root and it can’t grow.236 ¶27

So here, we go back to our premise, only on the evidence of two witnesses can a charge be sustained. The first witness is the external witness of scripture; the second witness is the internal witness of the Spirit. If these two agree in principle, in testimony, it is conclusive. I don’t care what the world will say if they agree. So when you have an experience, go back and see if the external witness of scripture in any way parallels what you had. If they agree, then it’s conclusive. Read the scripture and see if it is something that parallels your own experience.236 ¶28

Now before I close tonight I want to tell you, the Promise is a gift, you don’t earn it. God’s law you operate. I’ll be back in October and everyone here could be any being that they want to be, really they could be if they were really faithful to the law. He said, “I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets…I have come to fulfill them,” to tell you what the law really means. So he reinterprets the law and shows us that the law is mental, it’s not physical, that causation is imaginal.236 ¶29

So when a man imagines himself to be what he wants to be and remains faithful to that imaginal state as though he were, he becomes it. There’s no power in the world that can stop him. That, when you know what you desire, “When you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will.” If you can really be faithful to the imaginal act, knowing that you are what you want to be, the whole vast world would reshuffle itself to mirror the fulfillment of your imaginal act. Everyone in this room if they are faithful to it could give you not one but dozens of case histories when I return in October as many of you have given me in the past few months. If you are faithful to it! You could this night assume that you are the man, the woman that you want to be, and believe it implicitly, that you really are, and view the world mentally as you would physically, and see it mentally as you would see it physically were it true. Night after night, sleep in that assumption just as though it were true and it will become true. You’ll become the man that you want to be, you’ll become the woman that you want to be. That is God’s law.236 ¶30

His Promise comes in its own good time, for it’s not for us to know the times and the seasons when it comes. So I can tell you, because the Promise has been fulfilled in me, I am a witness to the truth of scripture. I only hope that you will believe me and accept it, that in the not distant future you, too, will be a witness to the truth of scripture. For everything said in scripture concerning Jesus Christ, the first witness—-he is called the first-born from the dead, the first-fruits of those who slept—-there isn’t a thing said in that book concerning him I have not experienced in the deep of myself. So it doesn’t really matter now when my physical departure takes place, for that has happened in me. I know it will happen in every child born of woman. But we may delay the planting, for the word falls upon man and man rejects it. I hope that you will not reject it.236 ¶31

So tonight, when we call the next witness, we’re simply asking anyone who had the experience…as my friend Tom did today and Larry the other day…all this is scripture, all these visions that they gave me. That’s part of the preparation for the grand events that begin to unfold the Promise of God. All things come just before it, and so both of them really are fulfilling scripture.236 ¶32

But Christianity is based upon the affirmation that a certain series of events happen in which God revealed himself in action for the fulfillment of his promise to man. So what they have brought forth or through, they come prior to the unfolding of that definite series of events, beginning with the resurrection and ending with the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.236 ¶33

Now let us go into the Silence. * * *236 ¶34