[...]we must go on to higher and higher levels, for that is the purpose of the teacher. I would like to look tonight into what it is to my mind, the greatest book in the world, the Bible, and show you a section with which you may not be familiar. It concerns the Seven Eyes of God, from the visions of Zechariah. He saw a stone with seven facets, and the Voice said, “This is actually the seven eyes of God that reach over the entire world.” For these seven eyes are really in man, for man is the earth of God. So forget this little planet and know that man is the true earth in which God is planted. These are the seven visions of God, seven increasingly clarifying visions of the Creator. The Bible names them, but you must look for them.101 ¶1

The first appears only once in the Bible in . . Lucifer, the morning star. And it tells how he is fallen and cut down to the ground . . this shining being. All races have taught that man has fallen. It is not something that belongs to the Christian or the Jewish faiths, but all races have held this concept. So the first Eye of God is Lucifer . . cut down to the ground.101 ¶2

The second is Molech, the strange god that demands sacrifices. Man offers up his sons and daughters to appease this being he conceives to be God. But the Voice said, “I command them not, neither came it unto my mind, that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin.” This Eye is in every man who thinks he has angered God and must make sacrifices to appease Him. All the wars of the world are an appeasement. The Inquisition with its tortures was an appeasement to God. The wicker baskets in which men were burned alive were an appeasement. They did it all to appease God that he might not be angry.101 ¶3

The third eye is Elohim, or gods, gods above and outside of man, the elements he worshipped, the stars and planets he thinks can regulate his life and influence his behavior. He turns to something outside of himself and it fails him and he cries that he is forsaken.101 ¶4

The fourth is Shaddai . . almighty. In this eye, man seeks security and comfort. These are the governments, the mighty political machines, the rulers that man trusts, and all this fails him, too.101 ¶5

And then he turns to the fifth eye of Pahath, which means, “to dig a ditch or to snare animals, dig a pit.” It does not mean the animals of the forest; no, it is man I bring into my little trap. Much of the world functions like that today, everywhere in every business, especially in the great advertising campaigns. These people rule like tyrants over us. Every paper, every magazine, every TV commercial has another method of trapping us into buying all these things, so many things that we never get them paid for before we have still others.101 ¶6

And then the sixth eye is Jehovah . . Yod He Vau He . . or I AM. Man finally grows out of the snaring process. He does not now have to trap anyone in the world, but only boldly assert himself. Bold inner persuasion will create the condition that I AM persuaded of. That is Jehovah, the sixth eye.101 ¶7

The seventh is Jesus, or “Jehovah saves,” or “rescue,” where man boldly asserts himself but his heart is torn for those still asleep, and he sacrifices for the others and gives himself for the whole vast world. Not as the churches teach it, but as the mystic tells you. You will take anyone, no matter who he is or what he has done, for he is only in a state. You do not condemn anyone but you lift him out of the state, and you do it by identifying the one you would save with the idea he wants to embody, and to the degree that you are faithful to your vision of that person, he will embody his ideal and become it. That is the eye called Jesus, or the seventh eye.101 ¶8

There is an eighth eye, only implied in the Bible and it is veiled. On the eighth day they circumcise the child and unveil the organ of creation. There is an eye in man and Blake names it. He says, “He did not come. He hid in Albion’s forest.” Albion is Blake’s name for universal man, male or female. This eye is hidden in “Albion’s forest” . . in the dark convolutions of the brain. There this eye is hiding.101 ¶9

When you finally begin to exercise your imagination for another and actually revel in the joy of others as they become the embodiment of what they desire, and you revel in that far beyond what you would for yourself, that is the eye of Jesus. What begins to be the perfect seeing of the seventh eye of God, then something stirs, and it stirs exactly like something trying to get out of an egg. It is something trying to break through Golgotha . . and Golgotha is “the skull,” that is the meaning of the word. But it is held by five nails, the five senses. The five senses confine man to this world, and then he breaks loose from this skull as the seventh eye is clarified; and the eighth eye sees concrete reality for the first time in his life, and then, once seeing clearly, he never blames anyone. For with this eighth eye, he sees the perfect world. This is called circumcision or the unveiling of the perfect organ, which is man’s Imagination. On the eighth day, he is circumcised. It means that the eighth eye is open. It does not open by the process of time, but only after the clarifying of the seventh eye of Jesus.101 ¶10

Then you see that God became man, that man, awakening, may become God. God contracts Himself to this very limit of opacity, so that living in this state may be called the very grave of man, and “God enters death’s door with them that enter, and lies down in the grave with them, in visions of Eternity until they awake.”101 ¶11

And then there are these seven visions. First . . Lucifer, the fallen one. Second . . Molech, the being that demands sacrifices. They are doing that right now, only they call it Nationalism, and they offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though the Voice said, “I do not command them to do this and cause Judah to fall into sin.” Man sickens of it and turns to the third eye or Elohim, but the stars, the planets, do not respond. Then he turns to the fourth eye or Shaddai . . Almighty, to the financial and political “gods.” And then he separates from that and digs his little pit, Pahath, and snares all the people of the world because he can outsmart them, and because of his smartness he lives very well during this little span from the cradle to the grave, and that is the fifth eye through which much of the world is seeing today. He sickens of it, and then he finds that I AM . . or Jehovah, is the only reality, or the sixth eye of God. And I build my world, as I want it and when I sicken of it, offer myself as a sacrifice for all others and give completely of myself for the good of others, and my good fortune then becomes the joy of hearing their good fortune. As it says in Job 42:5 “I heard by the hearing of my ear, but now my eye seeth Thee.” Suddenly something happens within me, and the eighth eye opens and I am circumcised, in mind, not in the flesh, and as that something opens within you, you see the reason for it all, and you see that Eternity is, and you can take anyone in this world and pull him out of any state in the world. That is the eighth eye of God.101 ¶12

I want to share with you an experience. The true method of knowledge is through experiment. So we invite you to experiment. The true faculty of knowing is the faculty of experiencing. For when you have had the experiences, you no longer care whether anyone else knows it or not. It does not matter. You know it, and you know that you know it.101 ¶13

So I would like to share this with you, this experience, for when you begin to awaken, then you begin to remember. For if Christ is the center, then I can say, “Return to me the glory that was mine before the world was. I AM crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” If the center of man is Christ, and He was before the world was, then when I begin to awaken I only begin to remember. And when that happens, then the world cannot any longer teach you anything. So when man begins to awaken he does not question the things of this world; he knows they are not true.101 ¶14

Psychologists tell us a complete understanding of a dream depends on the knowledge that you are dreaming, and then that wakes you up, for this is the only world they know. They speak of a dream state as being subjective and a deep dream state as the unconscious and doubt the worth of it all. But when you open the eighth eye you will know there are worlds within worlds and you are heirs to all of them. You can test your experiences and bring anything you want into your world and prove it.101 ¶15

Years ago I felt myself dreaming and I was swimming. I knew it was a dream. I looked up and saw the shore of a primitive island, not the little island where I was born, for that is well cultivated and in no way primitive, but this was primitive. I saw it was an island and I knew I was dreaming, and I saw these strange things like cement posts driven down through the water but they were in a state of decay. They could have been at one time part of a jetty. I could see this peculiar primitive beach and I prolonged the dream, for if you know you are dreaming you need not wake. Something in me began to tell me, as memory began to return, that if I would take hold of one of these pilings and not let it go, and awaken, I would awaken there. I felt it and it was solidly real, just as it would feel here, and my hand did not go through it, and I held on to it and made myself awake; and I awoke in that water on that beach and then I waded ashore. I was no more asleep in that sphere than I am here in this one. It taught me a lesson that if I could touch anything in another world and compel myself to awaken while holding it, I would find it was real.101 ¶16

So you do it for your world. A job you want, the home you would occupy, the marriage you want. Sit at the desk at which you would sit, live in the house you want to live in, be married to the sort of person you want to be married to, and if you hold to it in your imagination, then you will make it real in your outer world.101 ¶17

The Ancients called this capacity the Western Gate, and tied it in with the sense of touch. If you can hang on to the thing you touch and then awaken, you will find that the thing has become real. We have it in Genesis in the story of Jacob and Esau. Isaac, the father, who was blind, said, “Come close that I may touch you. Come closer.” And the state symbolized by Jacob, the supplanter, was made real in place of the state that had seemed so real before, symbolized by Esau.101 ¶18

We are told again in how the seven locks were shaved from the head of Samson and then the Philistines came and gouged out his eyes and he was eyeless in Gaza. And they made him dance before the crowd. He asked to be taken to the temple and placed where he might touch the two middle pillars, and then he pressed and pushed and pulled down the whole thing and slew more Philistines than he had ever slain during his life. All this is symbolical of the capacity to touch.101 ¶19

I know, for I have done it. Many a time, finding myself dreaming, I have held on to an object in the dream and found myself awakening in another world. I have also found myself in other aspects of this world. I did it in Barbados when I wished to be seen by my sister who was 2000 miles away. But whether it be in this little aspect or in another world, it does not matter, for there are infinite worlds and you are heir to all of them.101 ¶20

You can get all you want in this world. You can use the fifth eye or the fourth eye. All those who lead us into battle are using the second and third. Few are using the sixth and only an nth part use the seventh eye or the eye of Jesus, and not until it is used and you would rather have the good of another than your own good, and rejoice for another more than for yourself, have you really opened the seventh eye and then you are ready for the opening of the eighth eye.101 ¶21

The seventh eye, the eye of Jesus, has nothing to do with a man born 2000 years ago; it has everything to do with the expanding mind of man. When you exercise the seventh, then something opens. It is the eighth. But until the seventh is fully open, “he hides in the forest of Albion.” He hides in the dark convolutions of the brain. It may scare you a little at first, the feeling of an electric battery moving in your head. You feel memory come back and you feel it on this side and then on that, and then you center it, and then you SEE. Something opens and you actually see a world no one else can see.101 ¶22

The seventh eye is based purely on faith. Man does not know God will actually redeem him and he cries, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then the new world will be seen.101 ¶23

Man seeks security and comfort through the fourth eye. These are the dictators, the political machines, etc. They are always going to save the country, save the world, and then they are driven out . . but they take a half billion dollars with them. We have seen it in this hemisphere . . the very ones impoverishing the treasury that men had just called the saviors of their country. They have not reached the sixth eye, or I AM. He who has reached that turns to no one. He knows, “I AM that I will be, I AM what I AM.” You can be that or anything you want. But then you go beyond it and you want nothing for yourself but only for others. Then he starts giving himself for man and then when that is completely clarified the eighth eye opens. Look in your Bible and read the story of the unveiling of the mind of man. But it comes only after the seventh eye is exercised.101 ¶24

So I must learn to experience feeling and touching. That is called the Western Gate, and it is closed in man, but he must learn about it, and before I close this eye he must learn much about the Western Gate, for I was told not to hold back one secret, and having had the experience of holding on to an object and awakening not on my bed at all, I must share it with you. I awake in the world where I am holding the object. I have been shut out many times from this world by holding on to an object in that world and awakening in it, and it was just as real as this, but I came back to this. I had a body here and one there. When I returned here where was that other body? Have I not many bodies, for I am scattered over all the world, and man, as he begins to awake, collects the scattered portions of himself, and then he finally finds the being that is God.101 ¶25

You can love everyone in this world and you will find joy beyond your wildest dreams in doing good for another; when he asks of you and you, in your Imagination create, and then you have confirmation of it, and then you rejoice as God rejoices. “These things have I spoken that my joy may remain in you.” For whenever anyone awakes, that is the eye of God.101 ¶26

So there are seven stated quite clearly and the eighth implied. I tell you that you will feel it like a chick in the egg of the skull. Christ is crucified on this cross (man) with five nails . . the five senses. The same meaning is in the story of the five foolish virgins. And then he tears himself free from this cross.101 ¶27

Now, you catch it on the wing, but I tell you that you will discover all kinds of wonderful things in the awakening of God in man. For God became man that man may become God. So this wonderful poem that existed only for God is beginning to exist for itself. Sentients begin to appear in the poem, lifting it to higher states and we become at last creators, one of an infinite society of gods.101 ¶28

This eighth eye is misunderstood by the priesthoods of the world and they circumcise the child. It is the Imagination that must be unveiled, not the physical organ, and it comes only after the perfect clarity of vision through the eye of Jesus. Jesus means, “Jehovah saves.” Not one is lost. He has fallen into a state, but you, through the eye of Jesus, save him. You ask him, “What do you want?” and see that condition real for him, and then seeing it embody itself, you rejoice that one has been lifted out of the mire. You do it over and over, and then your head becomes alive and you feel electric currents through it, and yet you will know what you should do, just as a chick knows what to do. It pecks its way out. And then the place where the skull grew together after birth becomes awake again, and you see another world, and you see the world was perfectly made and every state is perfect, and then you will know that you are awake to play beautifully on this eternal world, to bring out these beautiful combinations made by your Father.101 ¶29

If tonight’s talk seems different from what you expected, then nothing is more practical than the sixth eye. You can make your world what you want it to be by the sixth eye; in fact the fifth has done it. You can snare all kinds of people in your little traps. Read the morning papers. Every ad is to snare us into emptying our pockets, and they will be thrilled that they can do it. Every year we find new traps to get what we have. We have new forms of credit. No one dies leaving anything behind any more. The whole vast thing is a trap. It has become the way of life, the fifth eye.101 ¶30

But then come the sixth and the seventh and then the eighth; and when the eighth opens you forgive everyone in the world, no matter what he has done. You, as man, have gone through every eye. You have worshipped Elohim and sacrificed to Molech. But when the eighth opens, you will know that nothing displeases your Father but unbelief. Sin does not displease him. The priesthoods of the world tell you sin displeases him, but only disbelief displeases him, for they that come to him must believe in him. Anything you can believe is an image of truth. Could you believe that someone in dire need is now well taken care of? Then he can become as you see him. But sin does not displease your Father. It means, “to miss the mark,” and He comes to the world to show everyone how not to miss the mark. If I do miss the mark, He makes a greater effort to show me how not to miss marks. . . “Those who come to Him must believe that He is, and that He is the re-warder of them that seek…” So seek Him first and then all these things will be added.101 ¶31

So there are these eight eyes in man. The eighth hides in the forest of Albion, or the dark convolutions of the brain. Breathing won’t bring it out, or diets, or Yoga exercises will not do it. He will come out only when, as you look through the seventh eye, which is the vision of Jesus, you see only the good of another and glory in that beyond what is only for yourself. Then you will begin to see through the eighth eye of God.101 ¶32

Use the seventh eye consciously and take every person regardless of color, race or creed and ask of him only, “What do you want?” For in Him there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor bond nor free. So you take everyone, for he has only fallen into a state and you single out that individual’s request and persuade yourself that he is now the embodiment of the ideal that he wants to embody and to the degree that you use the seventh eye will the eighth come out of the “forest of Albion.”101 ¶33

The opening of the eighth eye is actually the second coming of Jesus. For when the seventh becomes perfectly clear, then the eighth will open, as if it were released from the tomb, and then you see as God.101 ¶34

One cannot be born a Christian. If you are not using the seventh eye, you are not a Christian. If you are the Pope, you are using the fourth eye and all the priesthoods of the world use the fourth eye. So-called almighty powers all use the fourth eye. But you must use the eye of Jesus. Jesus is the eye of God that sacrifices itself for the whole vast world. He gives himself for every being in the world, seeing for them their ideal, their perfect state.101 ¶35

Now let us go into the Silence.101 ¶36

If tonight I had a wish for you, I could not think of anything greater than to wish that you would now experience the story of Paul. I do not know if you have ever asked yourself, “Who is Paul?” Paul is not mentioned in any non-Biblical work of the 1st Century, outside of the Bible, and yet he wrote so many letters seemingly from jail, and they have been recorded. Yet, there is no record of any Paul being in the jail. And certainly, he would be recorded. So, who is Paul? Paul is that last state of consciousness that man must reach if he would experience the reality of God. You and I have ambitions in the world. Some want to be dictators, doctors, lawyers, scientists. All these are in order. But there will come a time in the life of man when there will be a hunger sent upon him, as told us in the book of Amos, “It will not be a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the Word of God.” And only an experience of God can satisfy this hunger. That is that state of consciousness called “Paul.” Only an experience of God can satisfy him. Not a thing in the world could satisfy him. So, if I wish this night that you would have the experience of Paul, I am wishing for you that you would have the experience of God; that that final hunger would be satisfied within you, that you would actually know the experience of the reality of God.100 ¶1

At the very end of the book of Acts, when they tell the story of his end, they said that “he expounded the matter to them from morning to evening, testifying to the kingdom of God, and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the Law of Moses and from the prophets. And some believed from what they heard, while others disbelieved.” That is the story. Some believe it; others disbelieve it. You will find this in every walk of life.100 ¶2

Now, Paul is the one who started the movement, as it were. He found God’s plan of salvation, and he called it a mystery. Paul uses the word mystery no less than twenty times. He tells us, “It is a mystery.” He speaks of it as a pattern . . a pattern of words. When he writes his letter to Timothy, he said, “Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” He tells it in his letter to the Galatians, having spoken to the Galatians and explained the mystery of Christ. Then he says to them, “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 truth of the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” Paul saw that the Godhead was veiled in flesh and blood, and so he could say, “When it pleased God to reveal His son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.”100 ¶3

The outer, rational mind could not understand revealed truth, for revealed truth cannot be logically proven. So, to whom would I turn and ask them to throw light on my experience if my experience is not within the framework of the rational mind? If I tell you what I experienced and there is not a thing that you can do about it on this level, then how would I turn to you or anyone in the world and ask for some light upon the experience? So, having had the experience that only an experience of God could satisfy, he couldn’t go to the rational mind, which he called “flesh and blood.”100 ¶4

Now, when he uses the word “Christ,” remember the word “Christ” means “Messiah.” In the Old Testament the word “Christ” is not used, but the word “Messiah” is, so “Messiah” was the Promise. Now he said, “Henceforth I regard no one from the human point of view, even though I once regarded” . . now he used the word “Christ.” Use the word now, “Messiah,” “Even though I once regarded the Messiah from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” Having had the experience, he was not looking for any flesh-and-blood savior called “Messiah.” He experienced Messiah. “When it pleased God to reveal His son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Now he said, “I have been crucified with Christ” . . which means “Messiah” . . “nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”100 ¶5

Now, you put it all together, and I will try to unfold a certain pattern for you. Jesus is the Pattern Man. That pattern is hidden in man. And he asks the question in his letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless of course you have failed to meet the test.” I hope you realize that we have not failed in meeting the test. But I’ll give you a quick test. “Jesus Christ.” Now what did you, at that moment, think? Something on the outside? Let me repeat it, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless of course you have failed to meet the test.” Now, “Jesus Christ,” what does the mind do? Go on the outside to some existent something external to yourself? Then you have failed to meet the test, for Jesus Christ is in you.100 ¶6

Now, that Pattern has to unfold within you. It can’t unfold within you as long as you have a concept of Jesus Christ as flesh and blood. Even in this morning’s paper, I could hardly believe my eyes. Here is a new paper from the Vatican, giving new guidelines, but insisting on the tradition that must be kept. And the tradition that they mention is that the virginity of Mary must be sustained. Well, if you read the 6th chapter of the book of Mark, I don’t see how anyone with a brain in his head could sustain that story, if you take it as secular history. If you aren’t familiar with the 6th chapter of the book of Mark, let me quote it for you. “Is this not Jesus the carpenter, the brother of James and Joses and Simon and Judas and are not his sisters” . . it’s plural . . “with us even to this day?” So, they mention six members of his family: four brothers and at least two sisters, and himself would be the seventh. And now I must look upon this as secular history and say that the mother of the brood remains the virgin! But they omit the six that are mentioned and say she only had one, and justify it by saying that Joseph had these others by some other woman. That is not mentioned in Scripture at all. Now I am called upon by today’s directive to admit that the Pope is infallible. Well now, that is the height . . but the height . . of nonsense . . just a complete, silly nonsense. I don’t care what you have had as a background in religion, that statement is stupid.100 ¶7

Religion has not a thing . . true religion hasn’t a thing to do with secular history. It is salvation history. The whole thing unfolds in you. It’s all about you! It takes place within your own wonderful skull. That’s where it takes place. The Being spoken of as the Lord in the Bible is your own wonderful “I AM.” That’s God! Your own wonderful human imagination . . that is the Lord. One day when you get rid of some physical “Christ” . . some physical being external to yourself, you make room for the stirring of this Pattern within you, and the pattern unfolds within you. Paul said, “I refuse to admit anyone but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”100 ¶8

You hear the word “crucified” and you think of some cruel act, don’t you? It isn’t. Let me share with you my experience of the crucifixion. It is sheer bliss. The 42nd chapter of Psalms . . or the 42nd Psalm, if you prefer it . . tells a story of remembrance: “And these things I remember…” And now he recites what he remembers: how he went with the throng and led them in procession to a house of God. It was a gay and happy crowd. That night I led them in procession to the house of God. They were altogether . . I would say . . thrilled beyond measure because we are leading to the house of God. A voice rang out as I led them, and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” A woman at my side . . to my right, she answered the voice, and she said, “If God walks with us, where is He?” And the voice replied, “At your side.” She turned to her left, looked into my face; and then she said, “What! Is Neville God?” And the voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.” Then the voice said to me . . and to me only; it came from the very depths of my being, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamt a dream. I dreamed . . and I knew exactly what he was dreaming. He was dreaming that He is I. I also knew that when He woke from His dream, I AM He. The two would cease to be two, and they would become one. He is dreaming my life until He awakes within me, but when He awakes within me, He is not another. He awakes as the being in whom He fell asleep, whose life He is dreaming. That, I did know!”100 ¶9

And then this happened: I felt myself move quickly from this wonderful crowd moving towards the seeming house of God, and then suddenly I am nailed upon this body with these six vortices. My head is a vortex, my two hands are vortices, my right side is a vortex, and my two feet . . the soles of my feet are vortices. And I tell you: it is sheer ecstasy. That’s the Crucifixion! That is when God crucified Himself upon this cross, called “man of flesh and blood.”100 ¶10

Well, no one can attain to bliss unless he is generated here on earth. So, you and I are here, and God deliberately laid Himself down within us to dream our lives, and He’s dreaming that He is you. And one day He will awake, and He is you, and you are God . . without loss of identity. I will know you just as I know you now, but you will be raised to the nth degree of beauty. I can’t quite find the words to describe the majesty and the dignity and all that is wonderful concerning you, and yet, I will know you as God. I will know you as Jim, whom I know and love as a friend, and I will still know Jimmy as God! That is the destiny for everyone in this world.100 ¶11

So, you can forget the historicity of Scripture as organized churches keep it and maintain it. Paul made the statement in his famous 13th chapter of I Corinthians, called “Hymn in Praise of Love” . . the hymn of Love; he said, “When I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” When you mature spiritually, you give up these childish ways that insist on the historicity of Jesus and the secular history of the Bible. And that Pattern will unfold when that child becomes a man, so he stops accepting the flesh-and-blood Jesus and sees him for what he is. It’s a pattern that unfolds within a man as the man in whom it unfolds. And it begins with the Resurrection. The Crucifixion is over for all of us. Everyone has been crucified with Christ on these garments called the cross. The day will come . . and it starts with the Resurrection . . you will rise within yourself, followed instantly by your “birth from above.” For no man can enter that state called the Kingdom of God unless he is born from above.100 ¶12

So, he spent his days from morning to evening testifying to the Kingdom of God, and trying to convince them about Jesus. Then he used as his arguments the Law of Moses, reading Scripture for them, and then the prophets and the Psalms, trying to show these passages paralleled his own experience. What passage would parallel his experience “when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me”? And the preposition is in; it’s not to me, as some translators give it. “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me,” . . that’s where He is revealed . . suddenly within you the Son appears, and the Son is just as told you in the Scripture, the 2nd Psalm: And I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said unto me, “Thou art my son, Today I have begotten thee.” Whose words are these? These are the words of the Psalmist, David. So, when He reveals His Son in you, which is called “Messiah,” it is David. Then you know Who-You-Are, because he is telling of the decree of the Lord. God said unto David, “Thou art my son.” Well, if David now stands before you and calls you “Father,” Who are you? Are you not God? Are you not the Lord? Well, I prophesy for you, you will have it. You will have that experience where David stands before you and calls you “Father.” Then, and then only, you will know that you are the Lord God. All these things are going to happen to every child born of woman.100 ¶13

How do I know when? Let me share with you an experience . . I do not think the lady is here tonight . . she has been coming here recently, and she wrote me a letter, and she said, “I did not understand your books; they were given recently to me by a lady who brought me to your meetings. I’ve only been coming to your meetings recently, and I will come, I think, until the end.” Well, they are not here tonight, but I will tell the story. She said, “The night before last” . . and her letter is dated the 11th of June, so this is the 9th of June . . “in my dream I found myself standing on the corner waiting for a streetcar or a bus, and they came by and the crowds got on, and I let everyone go by. And I wondered to myself, ‘If across the way, from the apartment house, someone is seeing me standing here, they will wonder, What’s wrong with that woman? She could have boarded one of these buses to take her to her destination.’ And here I am, waiting.”100 ¶14

“Then a woman came to me and said to me, ‘The train you are waiting for will be here in a minute. It’s a black train . . a long, flat, black train, with seats on both sides facing the street.’”100 ¶15

“I looked up, and here was a long, black train coming, with seats on both sides facing the street. I boarded it. Up front I saw a crowd around a coffin. The coffin was covered, and they were weeping, and my attention was drawn to the coffin. Then it was diverted, because I looked to the street, and here was a young woman dead . . very dead. Her right arm was eaten away up to the shoulder, and she was dead and really very dead, as she lay there. Then I noticed the feet begin to move, and this woman began to be . . I would say . . restored to life, this young woman. Then my attention was turned now to the coffin, and out of the coffin rises a man clothed in white.”100 ¶16

“At that moment I awoke, and remained awake long enough to record it and to impress my mind with the dream. I went back to sleep, and here I am among a huge crowd. We are all going to hear Neville, but there is a feeling in the atmosphere that Neville is about to die, and we hastened our pace because we wanted to be with him if he’s about to die.”100 ¶17

“So Neville puts a robe upon him, and he lays down in a ditch, and then he crawls through a small tunnel, but it seemed so easy for him to do it. He crawled through the tunnel, which led him into a cave, and when he entered the cave, he stretched himself out in the cave. And all of us struggled to follow the same pattern, so we, too, crawled through this tube, and it was a very great struggle on our part. It was not as easy as you made it. It seemed so effortless when you did it. Then you rose from the cave as though you had a change of mind and you came back out the same way with the same effortlessness. As you came out, we made the same effort. Again, I wondered, ‘Whoever made this, why could they not have made it easier?’ And so we all came out, but not everyone could make it. Many of us did, but not all could make it.”100 ¶18

I will tell you, all will make it, but all are not ready to make it. That was an adumbration. That was a foreshadowing of what is in store for everyone in this world. This is the mystery of life. . through-death. Unless a seed, or the grain of wheat, falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much. So, God dies . . literally dies. God became, as I AM, that I may be as He is. He can’t pretend that He is Neville. He has to actually become me, and therefore, in becoming me, He died. He is buried in my skull. That’s where He is buried. And the day will come, I will awaken, as I have awakened in my skull and come out through that tube . . that very small opening. I pushed my way out, to discover the entire drama unfolding before me.100 ¶19

So, I say to you, you are immortal. You know why? Because you are God! God actually became as you are, and He cannot fail! For if today it is said of Paul, he tried to convince them about Jesus, and some believed from what he said, while others disbelieved: those who disbelieved are only disbelieving for a while. They are still children. They can’t get out of their minds the historicity of Scripture. They must hold on like a child to some little thing that they can put their hands upon and touch it and see a physical Jesus on the outside. The day will come; man will be robbed of the historicity of Scripture. Then the Pattern can stir within him, and the Pattern will unfold itself within that man. And everything said of Jesus in Scripture, he is going to experience in the first-person-singular, present tense experience. Then he will know who Jesus is, for the whole Pattern will unfold within him. He will tell it to the best of his ability.100 ¶20

I thought I told it clearly in my books. Evidently to this lady I didn’t, for she said, “The books were given to me, and I read them, but I did not get them. Having attended a few of your lectures only recently, I now begin to understand the books, but not until I heard you speak from the platform.” Well, that was quite a shock, because I thought the books were simply written, and I still do. I couldn’t quite see how she could not grasp them. But by her own confession, she could not grasp it until she heard me. So, here I am telling it from the platform and trying to tell it also in the books, and some believe it and some disbelieve it. Some will think this whole thing is simply sacrilegious, that I am trying to take from them their gods. I am trying to take from them their false gods . . the god that does not exist . . I am trying to take that god from them, that the real God can begin to stir within them and unfold in them as them. Because until the false god disappears, the real God cannot awake within you. And as long as you have a Christ Jesus of flesh and blood, you do not know Christ Jesus.100 ¶21

Listen to the words again, “Henceforth I regard no one from the human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” These are the words of Paul. “I AM crucified with Christ,” said he; “nevertheless I live, yet not I, Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Well, I am telling you, your Real Being is Jesus. That’s the Lord. Your real son is David. That’s the Messiah. But you do not know that you are the Lord, and cannot know it, until your son appears. The day will come, he will appear, and the minute he appears, you will know exactly who he is. There will be no uncertainty as to this relationship between you, the Father, and David, the Son. It takes the Son to reveal the Father.100 ¶22

Now, no church in this land that I know of is teaching this, so I have been sent to tell it to you. And you are here a small audience, but what does it matter? A small audience started on the Truth can spread to the whole vast world. I am telling you what I know from experience. I am not theorizing; I am not speculating. You are the Lord suffering from amnesia, because you have forgotten Who-You-Are. That’s how complete your gift was when you became man. And the day will come, you will awaken and remember Who-You-Are, and because you are God the Father, there must be a son to bear witness to your fatherhood. And that son is David. Then you will know Who-You-Are. Then, one-by-one, we will reunite into the One Being who is God the Father, without loss of our individuality . . without loss of the being that we are. I will know you in Eternity, but know you as God!100 ¶23

Now, here we only have two lectures left, and these will be in order, even though they seem repetitious. They cannot be repeated too often. Man so quickly forgets! You go away for a month, and those you thought really understood you . . when you return, they try to tell you, “I just found the most wonderful book on diets” . . the most wonderful book on how to get into Heaven in another way. A friend of mine . . I thought he understood it . . I thought he did, for he made extravagant claims, and in the last month he sent me books by men that I knew before they died here. We mustn’t judge from appearances, I know, but as I told him over the phone when I sent the books back, “I had the dubious pleasure of knowing these men. The book that you just sent me . . that man is incapable of writing a decent sentence. I knew him when he sold stocks that did not exist, and there is no transforming power in death. He is still selling stocks that do not exist! And you ask me to read this book? I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.” I am not a strong man today, and he weighed . . when he died . . over two hundred pounds, so you can see how far I would trust him. And I thought that man really understood what I am talking about. I believed that he did. That’s how deceived you can be when you think that they understand you and they go away for a short while . . maybe a year, and then they completely forget the message.100 ¶24

You could tell them over and over that your own wonderful human imagination is God, and there is no other God, and don’t start looking for another God, and that God is forever. His name is “I AM” forever and forever, and you can’t leave it alone. That’s the Lord. But He’s a father, and I tell you from experience, His Son is David. I thought he understood it, because he told me one day that he had an experience. Well, I know it was an adumbration; it was a foreshadowing. He is a very powerful thinker, so he could conjure and give himself a grand hallucination, and thought that was it. It wasn’t it. That was an hallucination, when he thought . . because it doesn’t come that way. The dove does not come the way that he told me it came to him. It doesn’t come that way.100 ¶25

The whole heavens become translucent when he comes, and the dove floats just as though it is floating on water, but it’s translucent. The action of the dove is without effort; therefore it must be floating. Then it descends gently upon you, and then you like Noah, you stretch out your hand for it, and the dove lights upon your hand just as you are told in the book of Genesis, and you bring the dove to you. Then the dove smothers you with kisses. But the other is a wonderful adumbration. It’s a wonderful forecasting. But then, I thought that would be encouraging to him to have the adumbration to sustain him until the reality takes place. Evidently not. That is why I have to repeat it over and over and over, that you won’t forget it.100 ¶26

So, when he wrote his last letter to Timothy . . but Timothy was then a man of God . . he was no longer a child, for he is called a “man of God.” Only two are called men of God in Scripture: one is Moses and one is Timothy. And so he speaks to the “man of God,” but he still has to remind him to “follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” Guard it! Don’t let anything come in and take from you that truth, for there is only one true way to God . . only one living and true way to the Father, and it’s that Pattern. The Pattern unfolds within you. That Pattern is called in Scripture “Jesus Christ,” or “the Lord and His Christ.” That is what it is called. And when it unfolds within you, you are the Lord, and you have a Messiah. He stands before you, and he is David.100 ¶27

Now, I could close my eyes this very moment in confidence that everyone is going to experience this. I only hope you will not be diverted in the interval. I hope that you will actually believe what I have told you, but I know you are going to have it, and it’s not anything that you saw in this morning’s paper if you read what I read. “I am Mary” . . and you can say that too: I am Mary, and birth to God must give, If I in blessedness for now and ever more would live There is no other Mary! That holy womb is my own skull . . that’s the cave that the lady saw . . and you go into that cave deliberately . . voluntarily, may I tell you? And you die in your dream that you are other than Who-You-Are, because you are God dreaming that you are John, that you are Neville, that you are Stanley, that you are Jan. You are dreaming these, and when your dream is over, you are. You have individualized yourself as Jimmy, as Stanley . . everyone in the world. And only God, then, awakes, and when God awakes, we are individualized, and we are God!100 ¶28

So, the true Temple of God is the individuality of man, made perfect by the Holy Spirit within us. He comes within us, and we are made perfect, and we, then . . the individualized man is the true temple of God! So, I will meet you . . yes, meet you in Eternity, and you will know me.100 ¶29

A lady is here tonight who wrote me a letter this past week. She said, “Neville, I was sitting in my living room. My husband had a toothache, and he retired. I thought, Well, I would just sit and meditate. I was meditating in my living room, and suddenly I felt the Presence of God! I looked up, and there in my dining room . . there you were, and I knew you were Neville, but I also knew you were God! There was no uncertainty in my mind. I am looking at you. ‘This is the Neville that I know, yet I know you are God!’ And you were clothed in light . . golden light, and then I must tell you,” she said in the very last, “You were altogether beautiful.”100 ¶30

Well, thank you, my Dear. I do know that when you see the Being that you really are, no human words can describe that beauty. No human words can describe the majesty that is yours, the strength that is yours, the character that is yours, and through these mortal eyes you can look into any mirror, and you could never think that Eternity is long enough to bring you to that state. And yet, when it takes place, instantaneously you are that Being.100 ¶31

So, she saw it, as many have seen it and many will see it until I depart this world. And then many will see it after I depart this world, for I know what I’m talking about. The whole story as told in the Scripture unfolded itself in me, and I am relating my own experience. I am not speculating; I am not theorizing. I am telling you exactly what happened to me. And if this lady witnessed what I’ve told you that I am, all well and good. You are told in Scripture that he appeared first to Peter. Well, I did. She isn’t called Peter here. Then to the twelve . . I did, then to five hundred. I have not heard from five hundred, but I am hearing from them. Then to James, then to the Apostles, and last “as to one untimely born” he appeared also to Paul. Well, that is the last stage, when that one comes. Eventually it is going to unfold in him.100 ¶32

But in her case who sits here tonight, she has qualified for the highest office, for you are told in the 9th chapter of I Corinthians, when they questioned him concerning his apostleship he said, “Am I not free? Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus?” He placed it as an indispensable prerequisite for Apostleship, to have seen the Risen Lord, for he confessed that he never saw any Jesus “after the flesh.” He never saw any Jesus after the flesh, nor did he ever, he said. “Henceforth, I regard no one from the human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” So he saw him, but not “after the flesh.”100 ¶33

Well, this thing talking to you here is simply a veil. The Godhead is veiled in flesh and blood, and you see the flesh. The lady saw that which is veiled. And that’s what I am talking about. Your present garment veils the Being that you are, and the Being that you really are is God! And there is nothing but God. But while we wear it and still are children . . well then, as a child, I think as a child, and I reason as a child, and I talk as a child, but when we become men, we give up childish ways. So we can actually think abstractly, and not have to take this wonderful Pattern and clothe it in flesh in order to understand it.100 ¶34

So, when he speaks of the mystery, he said, “Christ in you is the mystery of which I speak. That is the hope of glory.” “I tell you a mystery,” he said. And twenty times he uses the word mystery.100 ¶35

And the churches speak of Paul’s martyrdom. The Bible, you can scour the Bible from beginning to end, and you will not find one word in Scripture concerning any martyrdom of Paul. Yet the churches teach that he was martyred, that maybe he was fed to the lions by Nero. It hasn’t a thing to do with that. The word martyr and the word witness are one and the same word in Scripture. So, he is a witness to the truth. But now, because the word, translated witness is martyr, they say he was a martyr. The word is martyr, but the translation . . the meaning of the word . . is witness. He said, “I have come to bear witness to the truth,” when he stands before the judge and declares that his kingdom is not of this world. “For this I was born. For this I have come into the world.” For what purpose? To bear witness to the truth. That word, translated witness is the same word martyr. “I have come to bear witness to the truth,” and they claim he was murdered?100 ¶36

No! I tell you what I have told you earlier tonight: I have experienced Crucifixion, as Paul said he did. And it’s ecstasy . . sheer ecstasy! Six vortices . . whirling vortices: a vortex, a vortex, a vortex, a vortex, and then the two feet are vortices, and I can’t tell you the thrill when you are drawn into this body through these six vortices! And then the voice rings out, “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamt a dream. I dreamt . . Yes, I knew exactly what he is dreaming. He is dreaming that He is I, and when He awakes, I AM He! The two shall become one. For here was His emanation, yet His ‘wife, till the sleep of Death is past.’ And when that sleep of death is over and He awakes, He awakes in me as the Being in whom He fell asleep, and I AM He!”100 ¶37

Because He was a father when He laid Himself down within me, when He wakes He is still a father, therefore, I am a father. So, He became me, and therefore that Son that was His Son is now my son. And His Son is David, and David calls me “Father.” That is the mystery.100 ¶38

You dwell upon it. You will be tempted to go astray and follow after strange gods. But stick to it. I have told you what I know, and so, if you are tempted, come back to it. As often as you are led astray, come back to it. Try to remember what I have told you. But don’t turn away. I plead with you because I am telling you what is in store for you: Joy beyond measure. For we are all destined to enter that Kingdom called the Kingdom of God. Let us now go into the Silence.100 ¶39

If you are with us for the first time, this is what we believe and teach here. We firmly believe that you, the individual, can realize your every dream, and the reason is that God and man are one. We believe that the difference is not in the mentality with which we operate, but only in the degrees of intensity of the operant power itself, and that we call human Imagination. Keats said: “You can take any one great and spiritual passage and it will serve as a starting point to lead you to the two-and-thirty palaces.”99 ¶1

Take this simple one in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians: “I die daily,” or Blake’s statement in his letter to Crab Robinson: “Death is the best thing in life. There is nothing in life like death, but people take such a long time in dying. At least, their neighbors never see them rise from the grave.” If you understood Blake you would not think of death as the world thinks of death, but you would see that no one can grow without outgrowing. But man is not willing to outgrow, and yet he wants other things than those he has. But if you remain in one state, you will forever have to suffer the consequences of not being in another state. (From the “Hermetica”)99 ¶2

If I remain in the state of poverty, I must suffer the consequences of not being in the state of wealth. So I must learn the art of dying. Paul says: “I die daily.” Blake says: “People take such a long time in dying.” Man does not outgrow his state of ill health or his old job or his environment. We must learn the art of dying, and this week is the great death and we are told that God dies that man may live.99 ¶3

We say that the Imagination of God and man are one, no matter how far it goes. Universes are created and sustained by “the same power that sustains our environment.” We say the power is the same, but we recognize a vast difference between the power that sustains the universe and that which sustains an environment. The difference is only in the degree of intensity of the center of imagining. So, if we increase the intensity in the center of imagining, we will create greater and greater things. So I see my dream, and I must learn to die to what I AM in order to live to what I want to be.99 ¶4

Now this is the mystical meaning of a death in the Bible - the death of Moses, a story familiar to all of us. We are told that Moses comes out of the land of Moab and then scales the mountain of Nebo, goes to Pisgah, sees Gilead, and finally he looks into the promised land of Jericho. But the Lord tells him: “I will let you see the land, but you cannot go into it.” Then Moses dies.99 ¶5

(The present state cannot be carried into the new; it has to die as a consequence of the new made alive.) “But his eye was not dim and his natural force was not abated.” And no one knows his burial place.99 ¶6

First remember that all the characters of the Bible take place in the mind of man. I am Moses, you are Moses. It means to “lift up” or to “draw out of.” We are told in the very beginning of the story that he was pulled from the bulrushes. The word spelled backwards in the ancient Hebrew means “the Name” or “I AM.” So I am drawing out of my own being, or the I AM. Moses comes from “Mo ab.” This comes from two Hebrew words meaning “Mother-Father,” or “womb.”99 ¶7

Then he scales the mount of Nebo, which means “to prophesy,” or which represents the subjective state I long for. I will prophesy for you, or you for another. You single out a person’s longing. If he longs for something it means that he does not have it, else there could be no longing. But Moses climbs Nebo - that is, he participates in seeing the state longed for. I single out something that implies I am the man I want to be. I scale the mountain. Then comes Pisgah, which means, “to contemplate.” I contemplate what I want to be. Then he sees Jericho, which means “a fragrant odor.” I will contemplate the desired state until I get the feeling or reaction that satisfies. I have not only scaled Nebo but I have reached Pisgah and looked into Jericho. I am filled with the emotion that implies the act is completed. Then there is Gilead, which means, “hills of witnesses.”99 ¶8

Then I, as Moses, die. I cannot go into the promised land, and no one can find where I am buried.99 ¶9

What does it mean? If I am poverty-ridden and frightened and then you meet me and see me as free as a bird and happy, then I am not the man you knew who was frightened. Then where is that other man buried? For Moses is the power in man (generic man, male-female) to draw out of himself anything in this world he desires, and to so enact the drama that he dies to what he was, that he may live to what he is enacting. That is Moses - and no one can know where he is buried.99 ¶10

But we are told: “His eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.” That is to say, when I die, that is when I enact the drama. I do not wait for signs to appear; it is when I am most aware of my restrictions and feel the pressures, then is when I must learn to die. I must learn to let go of what my senses dictate and “go mad” and yield to what is only a dream. But sustaining it and living in it, I die to what was physically real as I gradually lift up what was only the dream. You knew only the frightened man and not the other one. No one can tell where the other has gone.99 ¶11

So this is how the art of dying is dramatized in the Bible as the death of a man. But it has nothing to do with any certain man, for the story of the Bible takes place in the mind of every man.99 ¶12

I will crucify myself, for God crucified himself in me that I might live. But now I must nail myself upon the thing I desire and, remaining faithful to it, lift it up as God nailed himself upon me. (The present body) is believing himself a man called Neville, giving Neville the same power that is his (but keyed low) in the hope that I will lift up the power to bigger things in my world to which I can nail myself, and so lift them up.99 ¶13

There is no possibility of man making his dream alive unless He nails himself to this cross that is man. We are living because God nailed himself to us. Now man, keyed low, yielding to other states and not to what the senses dictate, becomes one with the state and nails himself to it (fixes himself in the state through emotion and feeling) and then he will be lifted up. For crucifixion comes before resurrection. Crucifixion without resurrection would be unthinkable; it would be the utter triumph of tyranny. If I could yield myself to my dream and it would not become flesh, it would be complete tyranny over this wonderful concept of life.99 ¶14

But you cannot fail if you yield. If you hold back within yourself, wondering “What will I play as my last card if this doesn’t work?” then you have not yielded, you have not nailed yourself to it. It is a complete yielding. It is the great cry “My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?” If you know that you’re God doing it, you can yield. But there must be complete abandonment as though it were true and then you make it a reality.99 ¶15

The cost is that form of mental abandonment that Blake calls “madness.” But man is afraid; he dare not so abandon himself to a dream, and so never “dies.” So Blake was right when he said: “There is nothing like death: the best thing in life is death.”99 ¶16

Many people only age, but never change inwardly. They only mature physically, but they have not died in the mystical sense. There is no transforming power in the physical death, and they will still be anchored in a larger world with all the trends of this world. To our senses they seem to be dead but they will still, on another plane, have to learn the art of dying.99 ¶17

I can anywhere so completely detach myself from what is taking place that I can “die” to that state. So every little death is the lifting of the divine image. This means dying as the mystic means it. It means dying mentally. Man dies to ill health, or poverty, or to disharmony, etc., but he does it by yielding to the other states. Blake looks on all states as permanent, as in his great poem regarding the Halls of Los: “I curse the earth for man and made it permanent.” So states remain and man passes through states, as though cities. If I do not pass through some state but remain in it, I think it is the only reality. You cannot conceive of a state that is not, for the whole is finished; but man is awakening only by dying to state after state.99 ¶18

You take a friend who is not well or cannot set himself free from some state. You represent that friend to yourself as he should be seen by the whole world, and to the degree that you are faithful to that representation, to that degree you will bring him out of the old state. It does not matter if he knows you did it or not; he does not have to know. But remain faithful and you will bring him out of the old state into the new state that you are seeing.99 ¶19

All things are burned up when we cease to behold them. Moses could see the promised land but he could not go into it. If I am true to the likeness of what I behold, then I - the “old” man - cannot go into the new state. Something called the power goes into it, but no one recognizes it, for they cannot recognize the transformed being.99 ¶20

We all feel so secure in recurrence. If we know that a thing is fixed and that next week things will be as they are today, I feel secure in that recurrence. I can have done something that violates the moral codes, I can have come from the wrong side of the tracks, but I can accept that, for I am used to it. But to say that something awakes in me and can become what it will - that is frightening to man. So we are told to awake out of sleep, for recurrence brings security to the whole vast world. One does what he does as if he did it in a nightmare. For God had to “forget” he was God to become man, and that whittling down to this level is the very limit of contraction. But then comes the awakening from that deep dream into which he threw himself to make me alive.99 ¶21

So this lifting-up power goes about setting men free, for God became every man, that every man may in time awaken as God. Eventually the whole world will awaken and the poem will be in full bloom and it will be noble beyond our wildest dreams. And then it will exist for us and we will be one with the creator of the great poem. That is the art of dying.99 ¶22

Next Sunday is the great drama. I am riding a beast and I am at the crossroads. “Bring me a colt on which no man ever sat, that is tied by the road where two ways meet.”99 ¶23

Here is state I have never ridden before. It is so unnatural to feel myself to be the man I want to be and to actually get into that state and ride it without being thrown by reason, which tells me I am mad. But if you know the Lord is your Imagination, you can ride it into Jerusalem. We are told we will find the animal at a crossroads where two roads meet. We are always at a crossroads of what I am and what I want to be. So, can I ride the beast I find at the crossroads and ride it into Jerusalem? Then I am going toward “heaven,” but it is not continuous on my line of motion. It is contiguous. It is adjacent to where I am, for heaven is a state of consciousness.99 ¶24

I try to catch the feeling that would be mine if I were the man I want to be, but that involves a death. I must abandon myself to my dream as if it were true, and - living in it - I lift it up and make it real. Everyone must pass through this state, for this is the only true religion in the world. Religion, like charity, begins at home, with one’s self. The mother seed of all religious beliefs lies in the mystical experiences of the individual. All ceremonies are but secondary growths superimposed upon it.99 ¶25

Religion means, “to be tied or devoted to.” But if I am not in love with what I am tied to, I must yield to something more lovely and make it real.99 ¶26

I must bear my cross. I go so far and then I want to cross to the other line where my heaven is. For everything is interrelated. We all interpenetrate each other. We are all one. So there is interpenetration of the whole world and then comes conflict, and from that comes the solution of the conflict. For we must conflict if we are all interpenetrated. But then we must bring about reconciliation. Whatever the solution is, that is the reconciliation.99 ¶27

But we cannot stay in a state or any condition forever. Each new state bears within it the seeds of new conflict. Every heaven becomes in time hell. A thing is ours for a moment, but as we continue in it, it will bring about conflict. As long as there is interpenetration there is always conflict. So live in any desired state and then as conflict arises resolve it and die to it and then move into another state.99 ¶28

Thus we grow and outgrow; thus man awakes. No man can be born in one environment and ever realize another if he does not yield to the state desired. So Blake was right: “The best thing in life is death but it takes man so long to die that his friends never see him rise from the grave.”99 ¶29

Can you not see then how it is with your friend who always tells you the same things, even though you have not seen him for ten years? Everything is still recurring, nothing is new, but that makes him feel secure. Man does not want change; it frightens him.99 ¶30

I tell you that your Imagination is God. Believe it. Exercise it. It is keyed low, but as you lift it up you intensify it and then vision after vision will be yours as you begin to awake. Do not think you are greedy because you are demanding things or the changing of things. You are here to create as your Father creates. Want what you want and yield to it and create it. Then you will want higher and higher things.99 ¶31

But nothing blesses a man unless it comes down from its heavenly state and takes on flesh. You are the only one who can clothe it in reality. But it remains a state unless you yield to it.99 ¶32

This drama in the Bible is all about you, for the Christ Jesus of the gospels is your own wonderful Imagination. There is only an infinite God and the creation he loved. And he so loved it, he wanted to make it alive and then share it and even change it, so God became man that man may become God. That is the great story of the gospels.99 ¶33

Every mystic in the world tells this same story. Then every man is free. There is no judgment, for no matter what man has done, it is God’s doing it in a nightmare. There is only complete forgiveness of sin - no judgment and no argument, but man can change facts. The past can be unmade.99 ¶34

So a man has done this or that. Use your strange Imagination and “turn the great wheel backward until Troy unburns.” It means to revise.99 ¶35

I know a lady who burned her hand and then “unburned” it. She poured boiling water on her hand. She lay on the couch and tried to undo mentally what had been done. It was difficult because of the pain but she kept trying. She redid the scene and poured the boiling water on the tea and brewed it and then she drank the tea. She did it over and over and finally in the act of thus making the tea she fell asleep. When she awoke some hours later there was no trace of the burn. She wrote: “You would have thought I should go right to the hospital, but now there is not even a sign of the burn.”99 ¶36

Comment: The past and present are one in a greater moment. Now let us go into the silence.99 ¶37

Tonight’s subject is “The Supreme Ideal.” But really this is a misnomer, because it would have to be relative to the level on which man is placed. For what is to me today a supreme ideal would not be my ideal tomorrow after I’ve obtained it. But you can, if you have an ideal, you can realize it, and one should have an ideal. Here is a formula by which it can be realized: You sow a thought and you reap an act; you sow an act and you reap a habit; you sow a habit and you reap a character; you sow a character and you reap a destiny. So it all goes back to the thought that you sow.98 ¶1

Here, two stories come to mind. I think, in fact I know, you are familiar with both of them. Here is a North American Indian who had an idea, and he sowed it. I’ll show you later how to sow the idea. He wanted to be a hero, he wanted to die a hero, and he wanted to be given a hero’s funeral. To make it…to summarize it briefly…he joined the forces, went off to Korea, was killed in action, and the body was shipped back to this country. At the moment of internment, a question was asked, “Is he a Caucasian?” and when it was discovered that he was not a Caucasian the minister had to execute the law by which he operated this little church, and he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not permitted to allow it here.” Of course the whole country went up in arms. Then President Truman, who was then in office, offered the widow a plot of ground in Arlington. The entire country was made conscious of it. TV had it, radio had it, newspapers had it, all the magazines spoke about it, and it was the biggest thing of the time. So here, his destiny was to be a hero, to die a hero, and to be buried as a hero. It all started with an idea when he either wittingly or unwittingly sowed that thought. Then it simply fulfilled itself, because he lived in it, it became a habit, it became his character. He had to be killed in action.98 ¶2

And, of course, the most recent one of a similar nature, here is now our president, the late president. I haven’t read it in a paper, I haven’t heard anyone say it, but this is the law and the law operates regardless of individuals in this world. But we know he was a very great student of history. In fact, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage based upon historical characters where these were to him after investigating and doing great research, they were to him the great giants in our land when it came to courage, political courage. So he must have been aware of that strange tradition in our land that goes back 120 years, beginning in 1840, when our president died in office. And then the cycle of twenty years—twenty years later when the next one also died in office, but this time he was assassinated. Then came 1880, then came 1900, 1920, 1940, and 1960, and every president elected in the cycle of twenty years died in office. Well, no one can tell me a man as great as he was, the great student of history, wasn’t aware of it, and might have again, unknowingly, toyed with the idea of going down in history; for he certainly had a sense of destiny. So we go back to the idea that is planted, and then it becomes a habit of thinking, then it becomes one’s character, and finally it fulfills itself as one’s destiny.98 ¶3

So here, we can take any idea…and maybe take a noble idea…but, how can I plant a thought? First of all, a thought, unless it moves man into action, is not creative. A thought by itself does nothing, doesn’t affect anything. So how do I take a thought and sow it that I can really make it become effective and it moves through this series from a thought, to an act, to a habit, to a character, to a destiny? Well, the Bible teaches it, and you listen to it carefully, this is from the 4th chapter of the Book of Hebrews: “Good news came to us just as it came to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers”. It did not meet with faith in the hearers. For are we not told in the same book, the 11th chapter, that “By faith we understand that the world was created by the by the word of God” —by faith—“so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear”. For the word created it, but without being mixed with faith it would be impossible to create anything. It had to be mixed with faith.98 ¶4

So if I take an idea this night, say this noble concept as far as I can conceive it, I must mix it with faith. Can I persuade myself that it is so? Well, I have discovered from my own personal experience that I do it when I feel it. I must in some way persuade myself through feeling, so I captured this phrase, “Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” I always start in the end; the end is where I start from. So I take an idea but the idea that I see it in my mind’s eye fulfilled. I occupy the end, the fulfilled state; there I then view the world and see that world mentally as I would see it were it true. So I start in the end; the end is where I start from. In my end is my beginning. And then it takes me through…it becomes almost a habit of thinking. The next day it seems easier, and the next day it almost becomes my character; and finally I find myself fulfilling it in a way I could not have devised. I didn’t know how it happened. I couldn’t have worked it out. I could not have placed myself in some state where I could just simply devise the means by which it came to pass. It seemed on reflection that it would have happened anyway. But it wouldn’t have happened anyway. It just simply happened that way. So I know exactly what I want, occupy the end, viewing the world from the end, and seeing it in bloom as it were, seeing it fulfilled. Then it becomes a habit, and finally that’s my destiny.98 ¶5

So on this level anyone can be free, anyone. There is another level, it is God’s level, and that’s God’s concern. He gives us this technique on this level—for you and I, while he’s working out our destiny, we can modify the pain, modify the blows, modify all these pressures in this world by the same technique by which he does it. For this is how he does it…and so the same five terms…but they are changed in the way he does it.98 ¶6

In the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans, and the terms used there: “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”. So there still are five stages, beginning with foreknowledge and ending with glorification. Well, what is the glorification? It’s himself, as revealed in the Book of John, “O Father, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do…now glorify thou me with thine own self”. He’s asking God to give him himself. That’s the story.98 ¶7

So the end is the gift of God to man, which will be given to every being in this world, because you and I can’t modify it, you and I can’t change it. We’re allowed within the framework of his plan to do all kinds of things, like dying as a martyr, dying as a great hero, going down in human history. But we are told everything that happens here will vanish, everything. “It will all simply vanish like smoke and wear out like a garment…but my salvation is forever and my deliverance will never end”. So his plan is the overall plan. But within his purpose as he said, “As I have planned it, so shall it be. As I have purposed it, so shall stand”. And no one will change it, so be assured of salvation. Be assured of it! No one in this world could scare you out of it, because they haven’t a thing to do with it. It’s all God’s plan.98 ¶8

God actually became man that man may become God. Well now, it brings me to this picture of the night—that is, the plan by which it unfolds. It is a very interesting plan. I’m here to speak from experience about this plan. But it’s so difficult to change the meaning of an event once certain interpretations of that event become fixed in the public mind. So we read the plan; the plan is in scripture, it’s told in the gospels…that’s the plan. God actually played the part; it’s an acted parable. Only as the parable was acted out could man see the key to unlock scripture. Scripture was a closed book until it was acted out, the acted parable. Then we could go back into scripture and understand it. We didn’t understand it before. And having seen the key given to us by the acted parable, we then could apply it. We can’t unlock it, we just simply wait, and the thing unfolds in us.98 ¶9

Now we are told, the call has gone out to the world, the whole vast world, and the call is this, “Bring the next witness”; for God has taken his place in the divine circle, in the divine council, and there he stands in judgment. He doesn’t judge anyone harshly and he’s not judging anyone with retribution. He’s only asking for a witness to the truth of his word, so “Bring the next witness.” And “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment”. And so, as you have the experience, you’re brought into the divine council. And it starts in this manner.98 ¶10

Believe it, I have experienced it. I have witnessed so far to almost all the things told in the gospels. I wouldn’t say everything but almost all. And it starts with the call. First of all, I am preordained as you are. Those whom he foreknew…we’re all locked within him, like brain cells in the mind of the great thinker. Then he brings one out, one by one; for we’re not brought in pairs, we aren’t brought in groups, we’re too precious. As we are told, “I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel.” You are too unique to be called in pairs, only one by one.98 ¶11

But everyone will be called, and called for what purpose? Called to witness to what?—to the truth of scripture. So, when you are called, you don’t have to say anything outside of the first confession of faith; for you are in the presence of God, and you confess that presence. What is the greatest thing in the world? It would have to be God. But you don’t use the word “God”; that’s a human name. And so, what is the greatest thing in the world? And you answer automatically from scripture, “Faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love”. At that, you are incorporated into the body of God, and there, forever; it is your body from then on. You’re one with God because he embraces you and you fuse and become one being.98 ¶12

At that moment then you are sent—to be called is to be sent—and yet you’re not separated from the being in whom you are incorporated. So I stand here talking to you and yet I am one with God. I can’t show him to you. I’ll try in words; but I can’t show him to you; for God is spirit, God is Father. So as you are sent into the world, you’re sent to bear witness to the truth. He said, “Thy word is truth” and then starts the series of events, all based upon scripture.98 ¶13

Now, let me go back to a passage I’ve never touched before from this platform. It’s taken from the Book of Luke, and when you read it you think it’s an old, old man. His name is Simeon. Simeon was told, “You shall not see death until you see the Lord’s Christ, the Lord’s anointed”. Then, moved by the Holy Spirit, he was moved in Spirit into the temple. Now let me stop there for you must search scripture: “You are the temple of the living God and the Spirit of God dwells in you”. So you are not taken into any temple where men made it with their hands; you’re taken to the temple of your own being. So, moved by the Spirit he’s taken to a temple. Now the word Simeon means “to hear intelligently; to hear with understanding.” What do you hear with understanding? Well, we go back to Nehemiah, the 8th chapter, the 8th verse: “So they came into the temple and then they read from the book of God the law of God, and they read it clearly so that those who heard understood what was read.” They read it with understanding.98 ¶14

So the word Simeon is “one who hears with understanding.” And he heard the word of God and God’s promise that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So coming into the temple, he comes up and here is the child, the babe. He takes the babe in his hands and lifts him up and then he makes this pronouncement, “The child shall be a sign.” He states it: “It shall be a sign that is spoken against. It shall be for the fall and the rising of many in Israel. Now, O Lord, let your servant depart in peace…for my eyes have seen the Lord’s salvation”.98 ¶15

So when you read it you think it’s another. It never occurred to you that it could be you. It never occurs to anyone that he’s reading about himself. Somewhere a long time ago you heard God’s promise to you. You heard it in some way; you either read it in scripture or you heard it. For all this is done to you. And you believed it; it was mixed with faith in you. But you didn’t see it, you only heard it. “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear” and then you go on blind, you haven’t yet seen him.98 ¶16

And so Simeon did not see until the final moment before his death. You think it means the death of this body? No, he’s now going to die to the wheel of recurrence. He’s reached the end, and he wants to depart quickly, like Paul: “The time of my departure has come. I have finished the race, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith. And now is laid up for me a crown of righteousness”.98 ¶17

Righteousness is faith. For this one, Simeon, was called a man who was devout and righteous. It was said of Abraham that Abraham was a righteous man, and his righteousness was accounted for faith. So, to plant the idea you must mix it with faith. So I can tell you of the pattern that you will unfold. You may this night deny it, for this child shall be a sign that is going to be disputed. Some will reject it and some will accept it. But even those who reject it tonight will ultimately accept it. Because you will be prepared as time moves on to accept it, because everyone must accept it to fulfill it. You can’t fulfill God’s purpose which is to give himself to you until you first accept his promise. For his promise is to man, but man has to mix the promise with faith for it to become a saving word. And so, it’ll be done—how and when I do not know. Maybe everyone here has already accepted it, I do not know. There’s no way that I can look at you, mortally, with my mortal eyes and see. I only know that in God’s own good time it happens in the twinkle of an eye.98 ¶18

It could be this very night that everyone here, or one here, will go through the series of events leading up to complete freedom and death to the wheel of recurrence. Why should I die to the wheel of recurrence? Well, listen to these words: “The creature was made subject unto vanity, unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of him who subjected him in hope that the creature would be set free from this bondage to decay, and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God”.98 ¶19

That no one is free, really free, until he is set free as a son of God. Then what is the difference between that and this? Well, I’ll show you the difference…or tell you the difference. I have had moments when I was taken in Spirit, when Spirit possessed me, and suddenly I looked upon this world, the world that I’m seeing now, and I tasted at that moment of a power this world knows nothing about. The power that belongs to that world…when you and I, being resurrected into that world, everything is subject to our imaginative power. I looked upon this world…and I stopped it. Everything froze, as though they were all made of clay; then I started it, and it moved on. I stopped it, and it stopped. I discovered then, not a thing in this world was independent of my perception of it. It all simply was dead…the world was dead. But I didn’t know it and I didn’t believe it until I tasted of the power of that world, the world to come, where man by resurrection enters that world. Then you understand scripture, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself”. That’s life. And then I discovered the origin of life was my own Imagination, that life is nothing more than an activity of Imagination. For when I stopped the activity people couldn’t move, and when I released that activity and allowed it to function people could walk. A bird flying, when I stopped it, the bird couldn’t fly, and it didn’t fall; and when I released it, it continued in its flight. Then, I’m not a scientist, but when I came back from that experience I knew in spite of all the wise men in this world that what we call gravity is only relative. It only is on this sphere, and it’s a grand illusion.98 ¶20

And now we come to that passage which to me is so difficult to explain. It’s taken from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Bear in mind this letter was written before the gospels. The first letter in the New Testament, the first book, is Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and in this he makes the statement, “My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you”. My little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you. “In Christ” is “to be formed in Christ.” To be “in Christ” is formed as Christ. Is he doing it? He said, “Little children, with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.”98 ¶21

Now listen to this passage from the 4th chapter of 1st Corinthians, he said, “You have many tutors”—some translators say thousands of tutors, some translations say countless tutors—“You have countless tutors in Christ…but only one father. I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel: I urge you, then, be imitators of me”. Now isn’t that the most arrogant, arrogant statement in the world—“Be imitators of me”! A man is speaking to you, his name is Paul, and he’s telling you that you have numberless teachers in Christ, people who are leading you concerning their concepts of Christ, but you only have one father, and he is your father. Well, that’s the height of arrogance for a man to make that bold claim…and yet, it’s a true claim, what he’s telling you.98 ¶22

But there must be some missing book of Paul because he doesn’t spell it out in anything I’ve read of Paul. I’ve read the Bible backwards. I haven’t seen anything where Paul spells it out, so there must be some missing letter of Paul. For he tells you…or makes this bold statement…what he’s telling you is this, the time of his departure has come; he’s leaving this wheel of recurrence, and he will be turning it from above. It will be the being that is now one with Christ Jesus. For there aren’t many little Christ Jesuses; there’s only one Christ Jesus. So everyone who is incorporated into his body is Christ Jesus, and he is the creator of the universe, and therefore he’s bringing out himself from this turning wheel. Paul is telling you, you have many instructors, numberless instructors, but only one father; and I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. He discovered the way of salvation. He went through the experiences; for these are his words, “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me…then I conferred not with flesh and blood”. To whom would I turn to explain what I have experienced? What man in this world could tell me what I experienced when I tell them I stopped men in their tracks, without their consent, without their knowledge, and they couldn’t move and they were dead? And then I released in me, not in them, I released an activity in me, and they continued to move. I stopped a bird in flight, and it couldn’t move and it didn’t fall. And then I released an activity in my own Imagination and it continued in its purpose, and went to the limb where it intended when I stopped it. I could have held it there forever. What scientist in this world could explain that power to me?98 ¶23

Well, that’s the power that is your power, tomorrow, when God pulls you out of the wheel of recurrence and incorporates you into his body, which is Christ Jesus. And you, as Christ Jesus, will be turning this wheel; and therefore, you are told, I became your father. I am bringing you out, being born, and when I bring you out, you and I are one. I’ll bring you out, said Paul. And yet, when the Son comes out, that he’s bringing that glorious liberty, the Son is one with the Father. For, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” It’s a peculiar passage, and when you read scholars’ interpretations of it, you just have to smile. The best they can get is this, that if a teacher instructs and converts someone to his way of thinking, then he became their father. That’s the best they can do with that passage. That if a man can convert someone to his way of thinking and you accept his way of thinking, then he fathered your thinking. That’s the best they can do with it. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. You become one with an entirely different world, free, free forever, because everything there is subject to your imaginative power. And you will turn the wheel.98 ¶24

When I say the wheel, it’s the wheel of recurrence. You will allow all the freedom within your plan to bring sons out. You’re begetting sons, because you are father. He said, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Then he makes this bold claim, “I urge you, be imitators of me.” For that statement is in his next letter to the Ephesians, only he calls it God. He’s telling you who he is. He said, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” Now he tells you in this letter, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” and then he tells you, “Be imitators of me.” He’s telling you who he is: There is only God.98 ¶25

So when you are raised up out of this wheel of recurrence, you are not some little thing flying through space, you are God. God is begetting himself, drawing himself out of this predetermined play. When you come out and you are incorporated into the body of God, you are God. There won’t be many little gods running around. Without loss of identity you are still God. It doesn’t make sense…and on this level it certainly doesn’t make sense. You read the morning paper, you turn on the TV…this past Sunday, just in an idle moment I turned it on. Here is this brilliant philosopher speaking and he is telling us that today the majority of the people of the world do not believe in God. They have no feeling about immortality. As far as he personally goes, he said, “I don’t believe in God. Death is the end.” A brilliant mind…alright, with that mind, how could I ever explain to him that scripture is the only reality in the world? And according to this rabbinical principle that goes back for unnumbered centuries, what is not written in scripture is nonexistent. How would I tell that statement to that mind when he knows that he is living in an age that never occurred before? How could I explain to him it has always happened? That the present is not receding into the past, it’s advancing into the future? That the bygone is not bygone, it’s oncoming? And the wheel is turning and this whole vast wheel is turning, and it always has been turning. But man has so short a memory he can’t remember beyond a little, small section of time. He has no knowledge of the past. So when I tell him, and quote from Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? I tell you it has been already in ages past…but there is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things to come after, among those who will come after,” well, who will believe that?98 ¶26

We think we are living in an age no one has ever known or dreamed of before, the atomic age. And to tell men it always has happened, that everything is eternally present to God. But you and I, on the wheel of recurrence, when we were made subject to it—listen to it again, “The creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of him who subjected him in hope…that he will be set free from this bondage of decay, and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” So we didn’t ask for it. I’ll tell you, I was in a world where I saw they wouldn’t believe one word I told them concerning this world. They had not yet arrived here, and they spoke of this world not as Earth, they spoke of it as Woodland, and they did not believe that anyone ever returned from Woodland. To them it was the limit, it was death. And it is death, but we don’t believe that here.98 ¶27

So in scripture we are told, in the 5th chapter of Ephesians, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”. The call is to us, “Awake, O sleeper.” Now, he associates this profound sleep with death, for he said, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead.” That’s exactly what happens. When you first awake, that comes first, you find where you are, and you are where only the dead are placed, in a sepulcher. Only the dead are placed in a sepulcher and you are in a sepulcher, but it’s your skull. But you first awake; you awake in your skull to find you are completely sealed in a sepulcher, and the sepulcher is your skull. So in that 5th chapter of Ephesians, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Well, what is the light? Listen to the words, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. So life in him, and he gives you light, he gives you life. And he’s the Father, so “as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” if you awake. But may I tell you, you will awake, for that is his most mighty action in the world. He awakens you, and you’ve never in your life felt such power when he awakens you. You awake to find yourself in a grave where only the dead were placed, and then you come out. And then comes the story of Simeon; for you do pick him up in your hands and he’s a sign. He’s a sign that this day this great event took place in eternity. Then you pass through these signs, one after the other; leading up to complete deliverance from this wheel of recurrence.98 ¶28

So the Bible, I tell you, is true from beginning to end. Not as people try to rationalize it…leave it just as it is. You will experience it. For every man must experience in himself scripture to understand how perfectly marvelous it really is. He does, he experiences scripture. Then when it comes to the end of this little time, you are Simeon, the one who heard. You went through hell, may I tell you, and you come to that point in time where now you see; and so you say with Job, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” That’s your departure from the wheel of recurrence.98 ¶29

But while you are on it, bear in mind God’s five terms. And you cannot take these five terms and come to any other conclusion other than predestination; therefore, you are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. You’re going to be, regardless of what you’ve done in this world. If you’ve been a murderer, if you are a murderer, if your future state is to be one; if you’ve been a thief, if you are a thief, I don’t care what you have ever done, you are predestined to be conformed to the image of God. But in the meanwhile, take this formula: Sow a thought and reap an act, sow the act and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a character, sow a character and reap a destiny.98 ¶30

It is my hope that you do not wish to die a hero’s death or some martyr’s death, but that you really want to live fully and graciously in this world of ours, live lovingly. If you want money, let no one tell you you shouldn’t have money. If you want to extend yourself and be a great artist in this world, let no one tell you that you shouldn’t be a great artist. You can be anything in this world that you want if you know how to sow the first thing—to sow the thought. You can’t sow a thought in itself, you have to embed it, embed the thought with faith. It must be mixed with faith, and I call that feeling. I assume the feeling of my wish fulfilled and the thought is planted.98 ¶31

I don’t do anything beyond that. If I did it, on reflection it seems a habit now; then after a little while it seems just my character. As my old friend Abdullah used to say, and this was his statement, “I willed it so to be, I still will it so to be, and I will will it so to be until that which I have willed is perfectly expressed.” I haven’t forgotten what I willed, said he, I willed it so to be. I still will it so to be. I will continue to will it so to be until what I have willed is perfectly expressed. So I will assume that I am that which I want to be. I’m still assuming that I am it. I will continue to assume that I am it until what I have and still am assuming is externalized and is expressed.98 ¶32

All that is in the framework of God’s purpose for us, and his purpose is to give himself to us, not as another but as himself. He has one and only one way to reveal it. He gives us the only thing in this world that could ever prove to man that he’s God: he gives us his Son. His Son comes right into our world and he calls us “Father.” That’s the only symbol in the world that could convince a man he’s one with God. Because God, remember, as you’re told in the 18th verse of the 1st chapter of John: “No one has ever seen God; but the only Son, in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” For God is Spirit; so suddenly the Son appears and calls you Father. You don’t see your face reflected in the mirror, you’re Spirit…but you’re real. You’re more real than the whole vast world and yet you’re Spirit. And the Son reveals you to yourself. So he who is in the bosom of the Father makes him known. But no one has ever seen God…but the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he makes him known. So he comes out. Well, where is that bosom? May I tell you, it’s your own wonderful human Imagination. It explodes one moment, completely explodes, and as it explodes, here stands David and he calls you “Father.” So Blake, in speaking of this wonderful thing that is man, he said, “The human Imagination”…“ever expanding in the bosom of God, the human Imagination.” So we are in the bosom; and then it explodes one day and out comes God’s Son, and he calls me Father, as he has called or he will call you Father. And therefore we are one. All of us are one, one being, all incorporated into one body and that body is Christ Jesus.98 ¶33

So until it happens to you, take the formula: from the thought, through the habit, through the character, up to destiny. Just take it right through and apply it. Here in this audience tonight—and I didn’t know it until just before I took the platform—is a lady who was here about five weeks ago. No one knows her, so she need not be embarrassed. She’s been married for a long, long time, longer than most people, especially in California, in other words, forty-odd years. She has a grown family. And then, like so many men in this world, I don’t know what gets into them, I don’t know, but at a certain peculiar moment in time they seem to fly the coop, and they get going. So she came to me here in this very hall five weeks ago and told me her tale of woe.98 ¶34

I told her, “I can’t do it now, but in my Silence I will take you. So when I go into the Silence tonight, I will hear the good news you want me to hear. First of all, do you want him back?” And she said, “Certainly, after forty-odd years of marriage? I want no one else. He might have gone off with someone else, I’ve been told he has, but I don’t care, I want him back.”98 ¶35

So, in my Silence…I only spent a minute in the Silence…that night when she went home he was at home, took her hand, so she tells me, kissed her hand and kissed her hand, and said, “Please come with me to Palm Springs.” That’s where he was. He went on…she didn’t ask any questions (I hope she didn’t)…leave him alone. But he came back, that very night he was home waiting. While we were in the Silence here, he just had to steer his ship right straight to that place and go there. I tell you, imagining creates reality! But an imaginal act must meet with faith to become effective in this world. And so, when I sat in the Silence and believed it, I really believed it. I heard the lady’s voice…and so five weeks later she tells me. And, may I tell you, we are neighbors, she’s next door, but she didn’t call me up and tell me. But I didn’t care, I knew it had worked. If she never told me, I still felt it had worked, and that’s all that matters.98 ¶36

So now let us go into the Silence and take what is to us the supreme ideal, whatever it is, relative to our present state, so that we can transcend what we are by becoming what we want to be. We do it by a simple technique of sowing an idea. But the idea must have acceptance on your part, which is you must mix it with faith. For it did not help those who heard the same thing that we heard—why?—said Paul, because the message did not meet with faith in the hearers. So, “Without faith, you cannot please him.” Now let us go.98 ¶37

W e are told in the 1st Epistle of John, the 1st chapter: “This is the message we have received from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” Is this a figure of speech or a literal fact? I am telling you from experience: it is a literal fact, for God is light! There are three very firm statements made in scripture defining God. God is light. God is love, and God is spirit. John tells us here that God is light, a light in which there is no darkness.97 ¶1

Now try to follow me closely. The final gift to man is God himself and God is a revealer. Man’s knowledge of himself is based on his knowledge of the revealer. Scripture records what is said of the revealer. As he awakens in you, read scripture carefully and you will discover to what extent God has revealed himself to you.97 ¶2

Jesus makes this statement: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” He is the light that lightens every man as he enters the world. Is this really true?97 ¶3

Back in 1926 when I was twenty-one, I was visiting a friend in Larchmont, N.Y. He was the manager of a private club where several hundred boys and girls were gathered to dance. I did not join the group but retired early, turned on the nightlight, and began to read a book. The next thing I knew the sun was up, the light was still burning, and the opened book was lying on my chest. I knew from the page number that I had not read more than a page or two before I fell into a deep, deep trance, because the book had not been disturbed during that long period of maybe ten or twelve hours. I awoke to find myself cataleptic. My body seemed frozen, yet I was conscious of having returned from knowing myself to be an infinite sea of vibrant, liquid, living light. There was nothing but myself. I was the light of the universe and nothing, not one being, existed outside of me. No planet, no sun, no moon – only an infinite sea of light and I the light of the world. So I can say from experience: I am the light of the world!97 ¶4

When God awakens within you (and he will) you too will know you are He who is the light of the world, and if God is light then you must be God!97 ¶5

After this revelation happens in you, every claim made in scripture concerning God will begin to unfold from within, just like a tree in blossom. You will know that God is love, for you will stand in the presence of infinite love, embrace and become one with that body. I am human. I am man, and yet I know I am infinite love. Since my embrace I have no other feeling but the body of love that embraced me. While I am here talking with you now I am wearing but a small portion of myself, just a spark of an immensity of my own fiery being.97 ¶6

I know from experience that I help and teach more when I am asleep then when I am awake, for now when I sleep I pass beyond the world of dream into a world of spirit waking. I know from the thought, the imaginings, the visions I have received from many of you, that they are fiery darts shot from my own fiery self. That same being of love is waking within us all and when he wakes, for an interval you become the new lamp of the world.97 ¶7

But your light is not here. It is beyond the world of dream for here, he who knows he is the light of the world is always rejected. “He came to his own and his own received him not.” Even his own brothers did not believe in him. On this level it is always the same story, but when God awakens in you, you know who you are; and when the world calls you asleep, you are beyond the world of dream, having entered the world of Spirit waking; and from your fiery being you shoot your darts into the mind of those that you want to stir, to accept your message of salvation.97 ¶8

Now let me share with you this wonderful experience which was shared with me. In this lady’s dream I was standing in the center of a raised platform, surrounded by many rows of people, all deformed in various ways. As I instructed them, one by one they were healed, then they rose and departed. Noticing a madonna made of marble or stone nearby, she saw it become animated and dance for joy as the words I spoke so thrilled her.97 ¶9

Then a few weeks ago she had this dream. In it I was a doctor in a hospital which had no surgery or drugs. Everyone simply came to me and was cured. Then she made this statement: “It is my hope that such a hospital can be here.” May I tell her: “No, it is not here on this level at all.”97 ¶10

This is a world of educated darkness where you and I – infinite beings as we are – entered for a purpose, and only a very small part of immortal self entered. That’s what we see here. You are an infinite being, for you are God. Everyone is God, but here we are just a spark of the immensity of our own fiery being. And because ultimately we are one, when one awakens and passes beyond the world of dream, he fires his arrows into the minds of all to stir them, to set that spark ablaze so that everything said of Jesus Christ (God personified in scripture) will be experienced.97 ¶11

When it happens in you, you don’t need a new Bible or any credit on this level at all. You ask for no recognition. It was not granted then and it is not to be granted now. Even scripture tells us that even his own brothers did not believe in him. He came to his own people and they received him not. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world knew him not. That is the story.97 ¶12

So much is said of light in scripture. He lights every man that comes into the world, because without his spark one could not breathe or live. God actually became us that we could become God, who is awakening and unfolding in all. One day you will know that you are all light, then all love, and finally all spirit.97 ¶13

No mortal eye will ever see you, for although your birth from above does not appear in this world, the witnesses to the event are mortal. They see the sign of your birth, but they cannot see you because you are spirit. Talking about you as though you were not present, they speak of you in the most incredible terms saying: “How can he have a baby?” yet you take the sign in your arms and embrace it in the most endearing manner. That is the sign of your spiritual birth, revealing yet another definition that God is spirit. Knowing that God is love and light, when your spiritual birth appears you will have experienced the three definitions of God.97 ¶14

Then, still finding yourself confined to this little tiny portion of yourself, you will teach and help others in this world. Ask for no acclaim, no recognition, nothing – just simply teach it, and night after night as you fall asleep you will pass beyond the world of dream, and from the world of spirit waking you will shoot your fiery arrows into the minds of those who follow you. You will stir them and they will awaken as you have been awakened.97 ¶15

At some time in your life you heard the story and, as you slept in the world of dream, someone who knew God from experience shot an arrow into your mind and your spirit became a flame and God awoke in you. It’s the same being, for there is no race in God, no sect, no color; it’s just God and He is light.97 ¶16

We speak of darkness and light, yet is darkness a thing – or is it the absence of a thing? Is the hole in a sock a thing or is it the absence of a portion of the sock? I am speaking of actual light – vibrant, living, pulsing light, which hasn’t a thing to do with the pigment of skin. I wear all garments – black, yellow, pink and red. I am not greater in one garment than I am in another. In Christ there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no free, no male, no female. God is one in all and He awakens in all, and when he does everything claimed of Jesus Christ is experienced.97 ¶17

One day, having played the central part, you too will close your eyes and leave this world. Having shot your arrows well, those who heard and believed you will awaken. They may forget you in time that doesn’t really matter, for the eternal story is recorded in the gospel. Your name may not be recorded there but it is recorded in eternity, for your true identity is God Himself!97 ¶18

On this level you can start from here, right now, and fulfill any dream. May I tell you: you are going to live the life that you are imagining, so imagine well! Imagine the most glorious thing in the world and – no matter how wonderful it is – may I tell you it is nothing compared to the being that you really are. Nothing in this world can come close to the being you really are.97 ¶19

This world of Caesar is only a tiny section of your infinite being, but while you are here, dream nobly. Dream lovely dreams, for you can realize everything if you are willing to imagine that you have them now. Begin now to imagine you are the man (the woman) you would like to be, and regardless of what happens tomorrow, next week, or next month, if you persist in the assumption that you already are that which you want to be, you will become it in this world of flesh and blood.97 ¶20

Everything here will vanish, yes – but why not test your creative power? Then you will begin to taste the power latent within you, and you will discover that you can conjure out of your own depth things that are seemingly impossible, conjured by the mere act of assumption. If you dare to act and persist in acting as though it were true and it becomes a fact, then you will know the truth of your creative power.97 ¶21

The promise you will have to take on faith. I tell you from experience: it is true. I have experienced the fact that God is love, the fact that God is the Father. Who would have thought that one born in 1905 (and my friend who is here tonight – in 1911) with no social, intellectual or financial background, would experience the fact that we are God the Father: that God’s Son David – he who decreed: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me: ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’” – is our Son.97 ¶22

Who would have thought that we, born in the 20th century, are the Father of one who was supposed to have lived 1000 BC, when we have no memory beyond that little moment in time?97 ¶23

I can return to the age of three in my memory, yet we both returned to the same memory and remembered one who supposedly lived 3000 years ago. We know from experience that we are the ones who declared: “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” We know we are the immortal being who took upon ourselves mortality to test our own infinite power by becoming just a small part of it. Having played the various parts we agreed to play, Fatherhood once more has become a part of our consciousness, and David has stood before us and called us Father.97 ¶24

This is the thrill that is in store for everyone.97 ¶25

So when my friend saw this healing she saw correctly, for in 1946 I was lifted up, and as a heavenly chorus sang: “Neville is risen. Neville is risen,” everyone before me was made perfect in harmony with the perfection springing from within me.97 ¶26

That is in store for everyone in this world, and in the end we are all gathered into one being, yet without a loss of identity. There is a friendship and, as with friends, you accept the existence of others, so God’s name is plural. It is a unity made up of others.97 ¶27

When you and I deliberately entered the state called Abraham we were told: “For a surety, your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and they will be enslaved there for four hundred years. Then they will come out with great possessions.” Four hundred is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is a cross. Now crucified on a garment of flesh, you are enslaved by it and must perform all of its normal, natural functions. Regardless of whether you are a king or a serf, you must perform all of the functions of man. Isn’t that a slave?97 ¶28

But one day “I” who am God will bring my identity with me, out of limitation and darkness into the world of light, for I am bringing out myself. It was God who made the decision and God who fulfills it in this wonderful world. We are told in the 82nd Psalm: “I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you, nevertheless you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes.’” If you are a prince, is your father not a king? Coming out from the Father into the land of forgetfulness, memory died as we fell as one man. But when we return we are the king, for we return as the Father.97 ¶29

Now, Sons of the Most High, God’s final gift to us is himself, and God is Love. God is Spirit and God is Light! And you are destined to experience everything that is claimed of Jesus Christ in the gospel.97 ¶30

Don’t try to change the Bible – leave it just as it is. I stand amazed, yet I cannot be disturbed when I read how the great scholars interpret it. Today I took the word “light” and was amazed how the scholars interpreted it as a figure of speech. They could not believe the word could be taken in a literal sense, so they gave it every kind of interpretation.97 ¶31

These are the great minds of the day, men who are masters of the ancient tongue, but they know nothing because they haven’t had the experience. I tell you scripture is literally true. All the precepts of Jesus Christ must be accepted literally, for they will be experienced literally, in a region so remote from that which man knows or can even conceive. You can’t even think of it here but God does it there, and you will know that you are the central character of scripture, as the whole thing unfolds within you.97 ¶32

On this level, you dwell on what I have told you this night. You will find that it will pay off in tremendous dividends. You will reach the point when you will know that your wish is already fulfilled. Then you will sigh and say: “Thank you Father.” Even though you know you are the Father you can still address him as another, but an intimate self. “He who sent me is with me, he has never left me. If you see me you see him who sent me, for we are one. I and my Father are one.” You can actually have a wish, thank him, and wait for it to appear in this world – and it will.97 ¶33

Now, the same lady who wrote the letter concerning the healing said: “I wanted to see Bergman, so I called the agencies. I called friends whom I thought had influence; I made every physical effort to obtain a ticket to no avail. Then, aggravated with myself, I simply assumed I was in the audience, watching the show and enjoying it thoroughly. A few days later a friend who lives in New York City called to ask if I could see him on a certain night, as he was going to be in town. I agreed and after dinner he took me to see Bergman.”97 ¶34

This lady made every physical effort to get a seat, but not one was available. Yet when she assumed she was there, three thousand miles away a friend decided to come west and take her. Now, people will tell you that tickets are available out of town, or that certain seats are kept aside for special people, for people are forever justifying everything. But my friend didn’t ask for justification, she simply assumed she was seated in the theater and a friend three thousand miles away fulfilled her imaginal act.97 ¶35

You can be anything you want to be, for you are going to be what you are imagining anyway. As man imagines, he lives!97 ¶36

Morning, noon, and night you can’t stop imagining, because the candle has been lit. Job tells us that the spirit of the Lord is the candle on his head. Your candle is now lit and you are moving through a world of darkness towards the fulfillment of all that you have imagined; so imagine the best, for everything is yours for the taking.97 ¶37

Fulfill every desire while you are here, and when you come to the end you will discover that you are God. You began as God and you end as God, for “I am the beginning, and the end, the first and the last, the alpha and the omega.” God can’t bring out another, so out of himself comes all that goes to make God, for he is the elohim, a compound unity. In the beginning God (elohim) is one made up of others. You and I came out of the elohim and in the end we go back as the elohim, but this time we are aware of being the Father. As common sons (princes) we return as the king. That is the journey for everyone in this world.97 ¶38

I am telling you from experience, the story is true. God is light. In the Book of 1 John, he speaks as though he had only heard and not yet experienced, saying: “We will tell what we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” But in the Gospel of John, he speaks from experience and puts these words in the mouth of the central character, saying: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not be in darkness, for I am the light of life.”97 ¶39

Here we see light identified with life. There is something within you which is all light, the light of life by which you animate and start things moving, just as the lady saw the statue. It was dead, made of marble; but as everyone was perfectly formed, the madonna became animated and began to dance. You animate everything, for you are God, buried in your mortal body, which is an eternal part of the universe. The bodies you see here are sepulchers. They appear to be alive while you wear them, but they are dead. You animate them, for you are the princes who – dwelling as one man – became fragmented into all these little parts.97 ¶40

The one who fell was the king. Now a prince, you are gathering yourself together into the one being called the Lord God Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ. I know it doesn’t make sense on this level. It is not expected to, but I tell you it is true.97 ¶41

Night after night I go to bed and move beyond the world of dreams into the world of spirit making, and from there I shoot my fiery arrows, knowing they never miss. Then someone will bring me a message, telling me she saw circles after circles after circles in the air and an arrow penetrate the smallest circle and swivel. She brought back an image, for that is exactly what happens. The arrow never misses its target.97 ¶42

The message always penetrates and sets aflame that which is already there. So I tell you: your imaginings, your dreams, your visions, are fiery arrows shot by a being who is all light!97 ¶43

Now let us go into the silence.97 ¶44

If I title tonight, it will be an invitation to live in the answer. If I can invite everyone who has a dream to live in it as though it were true, I am convinced from experience that gradually and unnoticed it would suddenly erupt into some objective fact. The fact would be the dream made visible. This is based upon not only one’s personal experience and those of others with whom they have spoken; it’s based upon an eternal vision: That the spiritual states of the soul are eternal; distinguish between man and his present state; that man passes through states, he passes on but states remain forever. Man passes through states like a traveler who may well suppose that the places through which he has passed exist no more…as a man may suppose that the states through which he has passed exist no more. The states remain permanent, they are forever. I could this very moment put myself into the state of being extremely poor and I will not need the help of anyone or government in the world to lose everything that I have and become dependent on society. Or I could, without asking the help of anyone, assume that I am wealthy and without doing anything consciously about it—oh, I’ll be forced and compelled into action, I’m not denying that, or maybe I need not—but the state has its own way of externalizing itself if I the occupant remain faithful to that state. If I get into a state and remain faithful to it, it has its own power and wisdom to externalize itself because I give it by occupancy. So I ask, what would the feeling be like? What would I do if it were true? Just how would I see the world if it were true? Well then, in my Imagination begin to do all these things. In my Imagination just do it.92 ¶1

Here is a letter given me this past week. She said, “A friend of mine who is a Mormon has said to me time and again, ‘You’re always reading the Bible, but you never go to church.’” And she explained to her friend that she doesn’t feel the need for a church. She likes reading the Bible and coming to her own conclusions or looking for parallels in scripture that would parallel her own experiences. Well, one day the doorbell rang and here is her friend with a group of missionaries from the Mormon Church. They’ve come to convert her. So she said, “For a moment I wanted to say I’m busy, but I couldn’t do that to my friend. The others were total strangers, they were missionaries. So I said to myself, let them in. No matter how long they remain, they must have a moment when they have to depart and so I would tolerate it. So they came in and started to convert her. Every time she interrupted them by saying, trying to express an opinion of her own, they silenced her. Her friend said, ‘You know, I’m worried about you, terribly worried.’ Well, there came that inevitable moment when they had to say goodbye, leaving the one unconverted. She said, ‘That night as I retired, I was thinking of the day, the events of the day, and I wondered how someone could give so much love, such devotion, such sincerity, such time, energy and money to what I would call “reverent baloney.” Here, all this devotion to such a false god. So that night, dwelling upon it, I fell asleep and this was my dream.’”92 ¶2

Now if you’re not familiar with our concept of dreams, let me quote the 12th of Numbers: “God speaks to man through the medium of dream and makes himself known unto man in vision” . So she fell into this dream. She found herself in a very strange land. She said, “It could have been the moon…just a barren, barren state, all craters all over the place. It could have been the moon from the pictures we’re now receiving back from the moon. There was an enormous long roadway and on it hundreds and hundreds of people were walking, all in the same direction. I enquired where they were going. They weren’t going any place, they were departing from…they were leaving ‘the girl.’ So she inquired, ‘What’s the girl? Who is the girl?’ and they said, ‘the haunting girl.’ Then she asked the question, ‘Haunting with what? What’s all this haunting about?’ Each told her when she asked, they all gave the same answer and they said to her, ‘The voice…there is a voice within her that is screaming and screaming all the time.’ So she said, ‘I’m very curious here on earth and I was equally curious there in my dream, so in spite of their one-way direction I continued in the opposite towards the girl. I came to this very pathetic creature, the girl yes, and here is a voice screaming from her body. I felt sorry, I felt sympathetic; and suddenly the voice is screaming from me, and she gets up and she walks away cured, and then I woke.’”92 ¶3

But I did not lose the lesson—how discriminating one must be! If I give my attention to anything and contemplate it, I will become that which I behold. And here I am now in sympathy with this state, and so I become the very thing I entertained. I entertained it and entered that state. So my Father taught me a great lesson in this experience of a dream: that no matter how I think I am awakened in this world, I’m not exempt from falling into any unlovely state in the world.”92 ¶4

And from this we realize that “We then do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of the sleep that the Soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it left paradise following the serpent” .92 ¶5

So here, the wisest of God’s creation is personified as a serpent . And the wisdom of God and the power of God is defined for us in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians as Jesus Christ . So we will see one personification of this power in the form of the serpent who told man, told woman, “You will not surely die. You’ll become as the gods knowing good and evil.” You’ll go right into a world of death, but yet not surely die. You will seem to those who see your departure and they cannot follow you, as one who died. But to you, you have not had the experience of death, because you cannot feel yourself die. You’re restored in a body same as before—new, nothing missing, young, unbelievably and unaccountably young, because you departed when things were falling apart. You were losing all your senses, losing all your functions, and here suddenly you’re restored and you’re new. So I say, you will not surely die. And he proved himself correct to those who can see, whose vision is open, and see those who have departed this life not gone at all but restored and new and young.92 ¶6

So here, you fall into a state either deliberately or unknowingly. But what you contemplate you’re going to become. So we think that the world…so you’re taught, and all the wise men of the world they’re making their plots and their plans and they really believe that history is an inevitable progress towards a climax of good in this world. Well, it isn’t. The climax has already occurred: Jesus’ words on the cross “It is finished” marks the end of one age and the beginning of a new age, an entirely different age; and all are moving into that new age.92 ¶7

How true this statement of Blake’s is. I have no experience to confirm it or to support it, but Blake treated every thing as a man…this house to him would be a man… because everything is barren where Man is not. He treated Space as a person, he called it woman. He treated Time as a person and he called it “the eternal youth, male, man.” So everything to him was Man and Man is God. There’s nothing but God and God is Man. So here, he makes this statement—and he speaks of the play of 6,000 years—“And every 200 years a door opens to Eden.” Every 200 years a door opens to Eden, but the whole play is taking place now. We think it’s moving in one direction. And the whole thing is taking place and there are intervals of 200 years where an individual could enter the new age.92 ¶8

Now let me give you a vision of this lady. She said, “I went to bed and I was simply going over the events of the day. I wasn’t asleep, my eyes were shut, and suddenly there appears to my inner eye a very long table. At one end of the table here is a judge dressed in black robes and white wig and holding a gavel. I wondered, ‘Why am I here or why is he here?’ But he was looking at me, his whole attention glued on me. Then a voice from within me proclaimed, ‘The incurrent eyewitness, the incurrent eyewitness.’” She said, “I had never heard the word before, it was completely new to me, new as the judge was new. So I simply opened my eyes and got out of bed and sought a definition of this word. So I went to the dictionary and looked up the word.” Well, evidently it’s not an exhaustive dictionary and she came back with the meaning, which concerned her, from the root “incur, to incur a debt or to incur displeasure.” So when I got her letter, I too went to mine, but it happens to be the 3rd edition of the Webster’s International Dictionary, it’s unabridged. This is how the word “incurrent” is defined in my dictionary: “giving passage to a current that flows inward.” Then they give you how they use the word, “in an incurrent pore on a sponge, it flows inward.”92 ¶9

Here is a basin of water and you put the sponge there, and it flows inward, absorbed right inward not outward. So the current is moving inward. She is now the incurrent eyewitness. She now by this vision of hers proved to me at least that she has been actually conditioned by divine providence for spiritual communion. Not a thing anyone in this world can do to stop it. And whether she wants to do it or not, she can’t help it, she’ll be compelled to do it. Because inwardly she is already awake and this young lady—she’s young, mother of two small children—she will bring forward vision after vision to parallel the revelation of scripture.92 ¶10

For scripture only recalls finished history, that’s all that it is. The whole thing is done. People think it was done in the past then came a break, then came something else. Blake describes it as the written, “the divine written law of Horub and Sinai.” That’s the Old Testament. “And such,” said he, “is the holy gospel of Mt. Olivet and Calvary…and it’s done!” One marks one age which is this age, and if you know of one condition in this world that Man could experience that isn’t openly described in the Old Testament, you tell me one. Every conceivable horror in the world is in that Old Testament. Every…well, genocide…we speak of it now with Hitler trying to rub out the Jews. It’s all in the Bible. We speak of this, that and the other as something new. The Old Testament records openly every crime, every horror, every violence in the most detailed manner. You will think, “Are there any decent people in the world?” These are only states. They are not talking of individuals; they’re speaking of states, and describing these states in the most minute detail.92 ¶11

And the New Testament is the entrance of the new age. Where the individual—it’s all the individual, it’s not collective, it’s all the unit— the one moving into an entirely different age. The whole thing was plotted. You read the New Testament, read it as though it happened to one person, read it in that manner as a biography.92 ¶12

But know that he’s only recording states and that the whole thing is going to unfold in you. But everything said there you’re going to experience; and then, and only then, will you know who the Lord Jesus Christ is, who God the Father is.92 ¶13

As we told you last Monday night…last Friday night, pardon me…where he made this wonderful statement and he couched it in a little poem and called it A Little Boy Lost. Well, as you read it, it’s a beautiful poem only six little verses, but what a revelation! For those who were not here, this is what he said, “Naught loves another as itself, nor venerates another so, nor is it possible for thought a greater than itself to know. And Father, how can I love you or any of my brothers more?” Well, when the priest heard this he took the little boy by the hair and then screamed with the trembling zeal of the priest, “What fiend have we here?” and then he burns the little boy as he had burned others before.92 ¶14

Well, the little boy is everyone in this world. You come to these conclusions based upon inward experience when you come to the conclusion that you cannot transcend the thinking being. It’s impossible for me to actually know a greater than myself. Well, if God the creator who created the whole vast universe wants me to love him and wants me to know him, he has to become me; for I can’t discover other than myself. So God becomes as I am that I may be as he is. If he does not become as I am, I am left on the outside because I could never know God. I could not in eternity know a greater than myself, for I am a thinking being; as a thinking being, and if it’s impossible for thought a greater than itself to know, well then, let him become me. Well, he did. God became Man that Man may become God. Before he became man, he was God the Father; therefore, if he becomes me I must one day discover that I am God the Father. If he is a father, then there is a child somewhere. And so, you make the discovery of who you are. Until that moment you didn’t know him. Suddenly you meet him and he calls you Father and there is no uncertainty as to this relationship. So only the Son can reveal the Father . By no other way in the world could man ever know he’s God the Father unless God’s only begotten Son calls him Father. That Son is personified in scripture as “eternity” and contains within himself everything.92 ¶15

Now this is the Son who will do all of the Father’s will: “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will” . He will not rebel; he’ll do the will of the Father…the son of Jesse. Well, Jesse means “I am.” That is God’s name forever and forever. His name is I AM throughout all generations forever , and that’s the father of David. I have found in David, the son of I AM, myself, a man after my heart who will do all my will.92 ¶16

So here, we put it into this play that’s finished and he plays all the parts. You read the story of David and you will think, if this is the honored David, the great King of Israel, what a rascal! He sends the husband into battle knowing he’s going to be killed so that he could get his wife; then he simply dances in the nude before the ark; then he does everything you think man wouldn’t do of that noble stature. But here is David, a man who will do every state, play every state, and still remain faithful to his Father whom he knows to be God. In the end, he’ll reveal every one in this world as God the Father. That same David, not another David, there’s only one Son. And he’s going to take every person in this world.92 ¶17

Now there’s a lady—who isn’t here tonight, and she hasn’t been here since our closing night on the 15th of December—but on that night, I went back to wish a few Merry Christmas and said we would meet in the year. I wished her a Merry Christmas and she said to me, “Neville, I want to tell you, I have had the first three experiences.” I said, “You’ve had the first three experiences and this is the first time that I have learned of it? And you haven’t even told me the best?” Well, she said, “I’m embarrassed.” I said, “Why should you be embarrassed? You should be screaming from the rooftops this glorious thing that has happened to you.” She said, “I’m now waiting eagerly for the fourth, which is the descent of the dove.” So I asked her if she would write and tell me. Well, so far she hasn’t written, but it has been now a month. She tells me she has had the three as described from this platform: the resurrection and birth from above; the discovery of the fatherhood of herself and she’s a lady; and then the severance of the curtain of her own body from top to bottom and the ascent in a serpentine form into heaven; waiting now only for the descent of the dove. And I haven’t the letter. But I can tell you, because she told me here the night we closed on the 15th of December. So, I don’t want to ride her, but I do wish she would simply put it into the written form so I would have some record from her; because I’m only repeating now what she told me in words. But my friend Bob and my friend Benny, they did write it (I have those at home) and they are recorded in their own handwriting. I wish she would. And she is a teacher, by the way, a school teacher, ex, but nevertheless she can’t say that she can’t write.92 ¶18

I tell you tonight, you dream nobly, the most glorious dream in the world. It may seem an impossible dream but you invite it. How do you invite it? By feeling yourself right into the situation of the wish fulfilled. What would the feeling be like were it true? As you feel yourself right into it, go right into it, and wear it as you would a suit of clothes so that it feels normal, it feels natural. When it takes on all the tones of reality, all the sensory vividness, you have it, you’re wearing it. Then in a way that no one knows, it will suddenly appear in your world. This suddenness is only, I would say, the eruption of a continuous thing, for it was started in motion when you wore it; and then the suddenness is simply a hidden continuity coming to the surface.92 ¶19

If you take this in mind and you dwell upon it, you will see that someone is given credit for this, that and the other, for everything has happened before. The most original thought in the world is divine plagiarism…it’s all done. And so, you get into a certain mood and you’d be amazed the ideas that will come to you while you’re in that mood. If you want to be known in this world, feel that you are known. You’ll be amazed how things will re-shuffle themselves in your world, and then if you really want the silly publicity of the world, you’ll get it. It may not be very flattering, but you’ll get it if you want to be known.92 ¶20

But, whatever you want, assume that you have it. As you’re told in scripture, “Whatever you desire, believe you have received it and you will” . Let no one divert you. Go about your Father’s business and do his will by simply living in the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Now you try it. May I tell you, it will not fail you…it can’t fail you. It’s simply a principle, but we are the operant power. It does not operate itself; we have to do it. I can tell you from now to the ends of time, and you may go to bed night after night still in the old state and never change the state.92 ¶21

Now states are permanent; you have to get out of the state.92 ¶22

And do you know, I’ve had moments where just discussing some third matter as it were…a lady came home to discuss one problem and we got off on something entirely different on a higher level. She had this problem with her stomach…she couldn’t eat certain foods as they disagreed with her, and she’d gone to doctor after doctor after doctor. I took her off that state and we were discussing something entirely different, and then I said, “Let’s go into the silence.” So we did, went into the silence on an entirely different matter. She lived—if you’re not familiar with New York City, Staten Island is across the river, and there’s a Staten Island boat, a ferry that would take, oh, a good part of a half an hour to get there—she went over to Staten Island. There’s a very large Germanic element in Staten Island. So when she got off she was hungry and without thinking of her stomach and what she could not eat, she went to a German restaurant and ate all the cabbage and all the sausages and all the things in the world. It didn’t dawn on her that she had done this until hours later when she had no distress.92 ¶23

Now, I’m not a doctor, I didn’t give her a pill, I did nothing concerning her stomach. What do I know? I couldn’t tell you what it looks like. But here, by taking her mind away from one state and dwelling in another state, she departed the state that had the bad stomach.92 ¶24

You can depart any state, the state that has the poverty, the state that has anything, and move from state to state. When you get into a state, may I tell you, it will seem to be the only substance, the only reality. This room is more real now than your home. Your home is shadowy when you think of it. It hasn’t the substance that this has now, because you’re in this state. So if I’m not in a state, if I’m not dwelling in it, it seems a mere possibility; but when I enter into the state, it’s the only reality.92 ¶25

So Blake said, “If the Spectator could only enter into these images in his Imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his own wonderful Imagination, if he could make a friend and companion of one of these images, then he would rise from the grave, then he would meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be happy.” You’d rise from this grave. I’m buried in the state now. I get out of one state into another state and another state.92 ¶26

And so, if I can be the man I want to be, then I am stupid not to do it. But some people would rather sit in a state that they dislike and argue and try to convince you why it is stupid to believe what you teach. Well, if they’ll try it and it proves itself in performance, what does it matter what reason tells me? But after they’ve done it they may go back. We’re told that story in the Bible—he returns to his vomit like the dog. Or Lot’s wife, she looks back and goes back to a former state.92 ¶27

These are only states, not persons, not individuals. Everything in the Bible is a state. When we speak of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, these are states, and the individual simply is a representative of that eternal state.92 ¶28

So you move into a state, but you, the individual, you are immortal, you are forever. You descended into this world of death and you have the experience of passing through states. No one dies, not one person in this world dies, really. As he brought it out so beautifully in his own wonderful way of expressing it, he said, “The oak is cut down by the ax and the lamb is slain by the knife, but their form eternal remains forever and renews itself by this fiery contemplation.”92 ¶29

And so, you drop now this very moment and you are restored to life. You know nothing of the passage. Ninety-nine percent who go through are totally unaware of what has happened. Those who observe their passage think they died. They are not dead and they’re so overjoyed with what they find themselves to be: Same as before only new and young and nothing missing. No need of any aid in this world. And they don’t even recognize the change, any more than you do when you sleep. If you ever became aware that you are dreaming, you would wake up. So man doesn’t wake because he doesn’t know he’s dreaming. So he passes through the gate and we call it death. He doesn’t know that the dream continues, and he takes it for granted just as we take for granted in dream. The minute that you become aware in a dream that you are dreaming, you tend to wake.92 ¶30

The only way you will not wake…may I tell you, it’s a very interesting experience. If you find yourself dreaming, prolong it, and try to find a solid, permanent object. Don’t hold an animal no matter how tame he is, but take something that is fixed. I wouldn’t take a chair like that, I’d take a post, a stairway, something that is fixed, and hold it. In your dream you can hold it. Now wake up. Wake up without letting go and you’ll awake in your dream. The world is just as real as this, just as real as this. But hold an object that is fixed and then make yourself awake, but do not let go of the object, then you’ll awake right in your dream.92 ¶31

May I tell you, it’s the most interesting experience…don’t get panicky…you’ll come back. I have been shut out, oh, many times, and returned to this body that is cataleptic. I’ve been so completely shutout in these worlds that this which I left on a bed or on a chair or on a couch is cataleptic when I return. Can’t move it for a while, maybe twenty, twenty-five seconds, and then suddenly I can animate it again. If I didn’t get back, they’d cut it up to see why I died, and they’ll come to some conclusion. But if they were honest with themselves, they’ll see no physical reason, I just didn’t come back.92 ¶32

But if you know what you’re doing, you won’t be panicky. You’ll simply find a world just like this, and if you have, I would say, any red blood in you, you’ll investigate. It’s really a world just like this. The people are just as stupid and they’re just as ambitious as they are here, and they have all the passions of the world there as they have here. They want to be known, too, in their press as the best dressed and better than Mrs. Jones and better than Mrs. So-and-so. They too have the left side and the right side of the street. It’s just like this and they’re just as sound asleep there as they are here.92 ¶33

But, while we’re here, well, why not play it wisely? I think all will agree it is easier living to have wealth than to be poor, it’s easier. You aren’t any wiser for it, may I tell you, but I find it easier to have something than to have nothing. I have no desire for oodles of things, but it is easier. Well, if it’s easier then take it. If it’s yours for the taking by simply assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled, well then, what’s wrong with assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled? No power on earth can stop you from doing it.92 ¶34

We record in the morning’s paper all the things that happen, but they do not record what caused them to happen. Who knows who is dreaming what happened today? Who knows?92 ¶35

Here is a simple story. You must have heard this or seen it on TV. I saw the race…it was the Kentucky Derby two years ago and Willy Shoemaker was riding the horse. I don’t recall the name of the horse. I thought it was Swaps, but I’m told it wasn’t. Whatever it was, I know I don’t recall the actual name, but I do recall the jockey. And this is the story. The owner of the horse had a dream the night before the race. Now this is the Kentucky Derby, the first of the triple crown. He had this dream that Shoemaker misjudged the finishing line and rose in the saddle to ease the horse up. If you pass the finishing line, you always rise in the saddle and ease him up to bring him to a halt, just before you turn him around. He misjudged the finishing line and stood up. Well, then he couldn’t get enough energy going in the horse after he realized his mistake and, naturally, he lost the race…but he was leading by lengths. And he was the favorite horse, the best horse. Naturally, the steward set him down for a few weeks or a month, because it was a horrible blow to all the people who bet on the horse plus the millions who were watching on TV on that day. I was one of the millions watching it. I could hardly believe my eyes, because here is Shoemaker, a truly great jockey, always ahead of the pack at the end of the year.92 ¶36

And now who controlled that behavior? The man told him before the race what he had dreamed the night before. He told him, and Shoemaker listened attentively, but in the actual state he could do nothing about it. He could do nothing about it, therefore, who did it? We took the brunt and he lost income for the next two weeks or a few weeks…I forget how many days they gave him off.92 ¶37

Now the owner, Ralph Lowe, had the dream. Did he get out of a state or was he so concerned about that state and in it? But that’s an actual recorded fact. So we record the fact and the man who was playing the part was condemned and received his sentence, which was a financial loss to him. But who is the cause of the act? Shoemaker didn’t have the dream; the owner of the horse had the dream.92 ¶38

Well, I do not have to have a dream at night. I can dream in the day, a daydream, and influence the behavior of others, because all are contained in me anyway. “All that I behold, tho’ it appears without, it is within, in my Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” .92 ¶39

So if all are contained within me, I don’t need their permission to dream and use them to externalize the dream. He used the horse, he used the jockey, he used every one to externalize the dream. So he fell into that certainly unknowingly. But he recalled the state and didn’t get out of it. And all of his telling and explaining to the jockey did not help; he still lost it in the same manner in which he saw it.92 ¶40

Well, you can sit down and day dream the most glorious daydream and put yourself into the dream; because it’s very shadowy if you’re not dwelling in it. But it becomes the only reality, the only substance, if you enter into it.92 ¶41

So he makes a very strong point of this—“If the Spectator would Enter Into”—he puts it in capital letters. When Blake wants to call your attention to the importance of a word in a sentence, he capitalizes the word. You wouldn’t normally put a capital when writing a sentence of that nature, but he capitalized “Enter Into” in this statement in Visions of the Last Judgment, calling upon who would change a state to “Enter Into” the state which you desire. But if you don’t dwell in it, it seems a mere possibility and it’s not actual because you’re not in it.92 ¶42

So here, I would call upon everyone to live the answer now, in confidence that in a way unknown by you and unnoticed by you it is moving unseen and suddenly it will erupt and become an objective fact to confirm the truth of what you’ve done. That you dared to take the challenge of scripture: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will.” Well, that’s a challenge! I think that we are all brave enough to accept that challenge. So if I dare to believe that I have what reason denies, what my senses deny, and persist in my assumption, that it will harden into fact? Yes! Well then, try it. Try it and see.92 ¶43

In the meanwhile keep your dream, for your Father in the depth of your own soul is speaking to you every night through the medium of dream, every night, and revealing himself in vision. So share with me your dreams and your visions that I, in turn, may share them with those who attend here and encourage the faith of all…just as this lady gave me these two experiences of hers.92 ¶44

I think it’s a marvelous thing and so I ask her mother to please tell her tonight that incurrent is not necessarily indebtedness. She did not incur a debt there or the displeasure of anyone; but she has now arrived by divine providence at this giving of a passage. She can now become the medium through which…she is that passage through which this current will now flow inwardly…and that is God himself. She’ll bring forward…oh, will she bring forward vision!92 ¶45

She said in one of these, “I got up early in the morning, put my little boy into the crib, cleaned him up, put him there, and I was so alive, alive and alert, and it was early in the day. Suddenly I’m beginning to feel, ‘Why, it’s late, it must be night, well into the night.’ It’s not yet eleven, and suddenly I’m feeling the darkness, and I threw myself on the bed, believing that it was really night. Suddenly I heard this little shaking and shaking; it was my daughter, ‘Wake up, mommy, wake up, mommy.’ It wasn’t yet eleven and I thought that it was dark and way into the night. The room seemed dark, and then when I had this experience, there was nothing but light. I could feel something moving”—she used these words—“I felt something moving in my skull right behind my forehead, like a thought that had taken form. Just like a thought moving as though it had form, I could actually feel the motion in my head right behind my forehead.”92 ¶46

Well, she has started alright and I expect great things from her. So, she may frighten others. She may frighten her husband and may frighten her mother…but so did Blake.92 ¶47

Mrs. Blake said of him, she always called him Mr. Blake, and when this one interviewed him, she said, “Mr. Blake, you know the first time you saw God you was four years old.” You see, she never read or wrote until she met Blake and he taught her to read and write. “You was four years old when God put his face to the window and you screamed.” Then she said to this man, “Well, I don’t see very much of Mr. Blake, he spends so much time in paradise.”92 ¶48

And so, the man was [...]…and they thought he was mad! But he wasn’t mad. How could you write those poems and be mad? How could you draw his paintings and be mad? But it pleased some, because it did not coincide with their concepts of what one ought to think, that he was mad. It was in conflict with the rational mind.92 ¶49

And you pick up the beauty of Blake and try to duplicate it. When someone criticizes the gospel or criticizes the Old Testament and you ask the one who is the critic, “Try to write one verse like it, just try it.” You think you’re educated and you know how to clothe thought in words? Well, try to write the 23rd Psalm. Spend a whole year at it. Try to write any one of the 150 psalms if you think you’re so smart. Write the gospel of John, just a first four verses…and tell me…come back with it after a whole year.92 ¶50

So I tell you, here is a splendid monument to this eternal picture of God as a play…the whole thing is a play. But all will come out of the play, and when he comes out, know who he is? He’s God who conceived it, he’s God the Father. And all return to the one God, all; for we are the gods who came down. The word in Hebrew is a plural word Elohim. So it takes all the gods to form the Lord: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord” . So it takes all the gods, every child born of woman throughout the ages to form the Lord. And you are the Lord, without loss of the identity of being a god, because you share the whole.92 ¶51

Now tonight, take the challenge of scripture and assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled, not only for yourself, you can do it for another. In doing it for another, you are doing it for yourself, because, really, there is no other—the whole vast world is yourself pushed out. Now let us go into the Silence. * * *92 ¶52

Good. Now are there any questions, please? Yes, Ina.92 ¶53

Any other questions, please? Well, if there aren’t any, until the next one and that is on Friday. Thank you.92 ¶56

Tonight’s subject is Power. I do not mean the power of Caesar, I’m speaking tonight of the power of God, for here in this world of Caesar I think all nations would admit that this land of ours is by far the greatest power in the world of Caesar: economic power and military power. And here we are, against a tenth-rate nation, and find on our hands the longest war in our history. We say we have an objective and that we have the means to achieve it, but we are unwilling to use the means that we have. Well, then, modify the objective to fit the means that we are willing to use. That belongs to the world of Caesar. If we do not modify the objective to fit the means we are willing to use, then cut bait and forget it, and forget the so-called “saving face.” But I am not speaking of that kind of power. I am speaking of the power of God, which is called in Scripture, “Jesus Christ.” Paul defines Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Here we find wisdom and power exalted and personalized as God’s companion in the creation of the world. That power is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s the power of God! That is Christ. As far as I am concerned, that is Jesus Christ of the Scriptures.91 ¶1

Now, tonight we are talking about this power. The earliest gospel is Mark, and the first words we find on the lips of this power are: “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Now, the word repent as we use it in the world is not what Scripture means when we use it here. We mean to feel remorse, regret. That hasn’t a thing to do with the word repent. It’s the Greek “metanoia,” a radical, but radical, change of attitude, a radical change of mind. Can I see an objective, and then everything tells me: well, I can’t realize it? Well, do I have the power to realize an objective? I tell you, we have; we have the power. Well, what is the deeper meaning of power but effectiveness in achieving one’s purpose in life! Well, so I have a purpose. Do I have the power? I tell everyone: Yes. You can imagine the end, can’t you? Can you imagine what it would be like if it were true? Can you feel what it would be like if it were true? Well, then, that is power! Now, can you be persistent in it? Can you remain faithful to that end as though it were true? Now, I don’t care what the objective is. You have the power to achieve it if you know this power is the power of Christ. For all things are possible to him.91 ¶2

He is personified in Scripture. Let us go back and see how they first personify him. You’ll read it in the 8th chapter of the book of Proverbs, the 22nd verse through to the end, the 36th verse, and these are the words: “God possessed me in the beginning of his way, the very first of his acts of old.” One translation has it: “He created me.” That’s not a good translation. I can’t say I create my capacity to think. I can develop it, but it was with me in the beginning. I can’t say I created my capacity to imagine; it was with me. I may not imagine correctly, but it was with me. So, God possessed me in the beginning of his way, the very first of his acts of old, before He brought forth the universe, before he laid out the foundations of the earth, I was beside him like a little child. I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, delighting in his inhabited world. Now, my sons, listen to me, he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but he who misses me, injures himself. All who hate me love death. You read these words in the 8th chapter of Proverbs.91 ¶3

Here he is personalized as a little child, God’s companion in the creation of the world. When you read it, it doesn’t make sense, but I tell you from my own personal experience, having practiced the art of repentance and having experienced the birth from above with the little child, I know exactly what the prophet meant when he was inspired to write those words.91 ¶4

One day you will encounter this creative power in you, personified as a little child. The whole vast world has completely misunderstood it and thinks it is a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes that was found by the shepherds two thousand years ago. That’s a sign of the birth in man of the creative power of God. So God is actually bringing forth his creative power in man, and when it is brought to birth in man so that man actually becomes part of the creative power of the universe, the sign of his birth – the sign of his awareness of it – is that of a little child. So, here I was like him; I was beside him like a little child when he brought forth the universe. So, as in everyone, in bringing me forth as part of the creative power of the universe, the sign of my arriving at that point is symbolized in the birth of a little child. When I find the child, I have found life. Now I have life in myself. I’m no longer an animated body; I am a life-giving spirit. If I miss it, I injure myself. “All who hate me love death.”91 ¶5

Now, this world is the world of death. So you tell the story to the world, and the majority would rather have the building across the street or this building – something to them that is secure – than to know of a power. Take the building away, destroy the building, but leave me the power to recreate it. Don’t take from me the creative power, but take all the things I create. The world would rather have the things created than the power to create. And so “Those who hate me, they love death.” They are in love with the whole vast world that decays. Well, everything that is built today gradually fades. It comes into the world, it waxes, it wanes, and it vanishes. But leave me the power to bring anything into this world, and take from me – if you will – anything that I bring into the world. But don’t take from me the creative power, that I may actually create anything in this world.91 ¶6

Now, what does he mean by repentance? It means this: it tests the individual’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. I see someone, and they are behind the eight-ball financially. They have to pay rent, they have to buy clothes, feed themselves, and maybe they have obligations to society – others to feed, others to clothe. They may be a father or a mother. And I meet them, and they are not employed. Now, it tests my ability to put them into the state where they are gainfully employed. I bring them before my mind’s eye, and I represent them to myself as gainfully employed, and to the degree that I am self- persuaded of the reality of what I am seeing and hearing and doing – to that degree they become exactly what I am doing, all in my imagination. Well, if tomorrow or in the immediate present they actually conform outwardly to what I am doing inwardly, I have found the creative power.91 ¶7

I try it again with another one. I try it with yet another one and I keep on trying, and it works. Well, then, I tell it, and ask everyone who will listen to me and believe it to try it. See if you can’t exercise that same power in you. It’s not a different power. There’s only one Christ. There aren’t numberless little Christ’s running around the earth, only one Christ, and that Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. So, if I exercise my Imagination and it proves itself in performance, and then you exercise your imagination and it proves itself in performance, it’s the same imagination – individualized as Neville, individualized as you, regardless of your name. Then you share it with another, and you tell it to others. Well, if I can tell it to the point where they are persuaded to try it, and in trying it, it proves itself in the testing, then we have found him.91 ¶8

So when you read in Scripture, “I have found him,” – found whom? “I have found the one of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’” Well, the word “Jesus” simply means what “Jehovah” means; it means “salvation.” It means, “to save.” If I save someone from poverty by putting him into a state of affluence, well, then, that’s Jesus. I am exercising the same power. If someone is unwell and I represent him to myself as being the embodiment of health and he conforms to it, then that’s Jesus. He saved him. From what? From being unwell! Well, if I try it and try it and try it and it proves itself, what does it matter what others think? What does it matter what anyone thinks about what I am talking about? I only know that it proves itself. It works. Well, if it works, then try it.91 ¶9

So this is the power of which I speak, not some peculiar little thing on the outside. You don’t buy it. It’s innate. You exercise it. So, you are told to repent, in the beginning of the exercise of the power, and when you reach a certain degree of intensity, that power is born. It is born in you and then personified as a little child, and you actually feel yourself coming out of your own skull. And here is a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and it is your child. Now, you didn’t form some little child in your head. The child is a sign of your birth from above. It’s a sign of your arrival into the creative stream of God. You are now one with the creative power of God, and there’s only God, nothing but God. “Man is all Imagination, and God is man, and exists in us and we in him.” The creative power of God is man’s Imagination. That is actually Jesus Christ himself. There is no other Jesus Christ. So all of a sudden you find that this is what the world is talking about. They have put him on the outside and made some little god of him, when he is housed in everyone.91 ¶10

Now, let me show you from my own experience what I know about this law. I can waste power in the world of Caesar. We’re doing it by the billions every year with our little war and all the nonsense we have in the world. This power you can’t waste. You can misuse it, but you can’t waste it. I can misuse it every moment of time by imagining unlovely things about people, unlovely things about myself, and I can use it hatefully – but I can’t waste it. I’ll show you why you can’t waste it.91 ¶11

One night, many, many years ago, I suddenly became aware of two beings. I am the one perceiving them so there are three, but I am the perceiver. Here above me stands the most beautiful woman imaginable, an angel – an angel of beauty and of everything. She was lovely! And below me was the most monstrous thing that man could ever conceive, covered with hair like an ape, but it could speak. It spoke gutturally. I looked at it, and then it looked at me and pointed to this beautiful, angelic being, and it called this woman, “Mother.” Well, I was so annoyed with this monstrous thing that I pummeled it. It gloated. It loved violence; it fed on violence. Every time I was violent, it became stronger. And this beautiful thing, glowing…but this one is calling it “Mother.” And suddenly, as I was beating this thing, I realized: why, this is the embodiment of all my misspent energy, as this other one is the embodiment and personification of every noble thought I’ve ever entertained.91 ¶12

I looked at this thing; I had no one with whom I could swear. I felt a compassion I have never known before. I looked at this monstrous thing and realized it is but the result of my own misused energy. It never should have been given birth. And I said to myself, “I’ll redeem you, if it takes me eternity.” I pledged myself to redeem it, and do you know what happened? At that very moment, before my eyes, the whole thing withered. The monstrous thing, the embodiment of power – horrible-looking thing – it all got smaller and smaller and smaller, and left no trace of ever having been present. But as it got smaller and smaller and disappeared, the energy returned to me! I felt infinite power. I felt like I would have done anything for the power to return to me. It wasn’t wasted; it was misused, but not lost. “Nothing is lost in all my holy mountain.”91 ¶13

So, you can’t lose the power. You can misuse the power, but you can’t lose it. But you are confronted one day with a monstrous thing like that. I knew exactly what I did. You won’t wait to redeem him. At the very moment that you pledge yourself and you mean it, “I’ll redeem you if it takes me eternity” – at that moment that monstrous thing withers. It gets smaller and smaller, and this other one glows; it becomes radiant like a star. She is the embodiment and the permanent personification – getting ever greater – of your own wonderful thoughts. Every lovely act of yours feeds her. Every ignoble act of yours feeds him, and they walk with you. This one whispers the lovely things, encouraging you to be noble, and this other one whispers the violent things. If you are at the crossroads as to what you should do, this one wants to be fed. He can only feed on violence, and this other one can only feed on the lovely, noble thoughts of man. And man creates them!91 ¶14

You see your own creation, and it’s all the same power of your own wonderful human Imagination. From then on, you know who you are. You are a creative power, and you go out to change everything in your world to make it conform to something lovelier. And you don’t do it on the outside; you do it on the inside. You do it all in your Imagination. Imagination is God, and there is no other god! His name is “I Am” forever and forever and forever. That’s God!91 ¶15

And yet, when you do meet the personification as your own Imagination, you see a man, and that man is Infinite Love. You will also meet him in another garment, and he is Infinite Power. He is Infinite Wisdom. And you will realize that the being that you really are is a protean being. He plays all the parts. When you meet him, his fundamental being is love, but he also is power, and you see him as power. And he also is wisdom, and you see him as Wisdom. And you don’t have to ask any questions as to: “Who are you?” It’s so obvious that you stand in the presence of Infinite Power, or Infinite Wisdom, or Infinite Love. And you know the truth of these statements of Scripture when it says, “God is love.” You stand in the presence of God, Infinite Love – and it’s a man! Our scientists tell us of an impersonal force. This is not impersonal. This is very personal. God is a man. “Thou art a Man God is no more Thy own humanity learn to adore,” For everything here is God, and God being man, his every attribute is personified. So when you meet God as power, it’s man. Meet him as wisdom − it’s man. Meet him as love − it’s man.91 ¶16

So I tell you, this power of which I speak is right here in your own wonderful human Imagination. Don’t turn to another. Don’t turn to anything on the outside. It’s all within. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” And God is in his heaven. If I turn within, where do I turn? I turn to my own wonderful human Imagination, and then I imagine what I want as real in my world and persuade myself that it’s true. To the degree that I am self-persuaded, it becomes true. It actually clothes itself in what the world calls reality, but the reality is not the visible thing they see. The reality is the unseen state, which I have imagined. You take the oak. Cut it down. It renews itself by the invisible state. The little lamb – you slay it with the knife, but the reality of that lamb, that form that is forever, is unseen by man.91 ¶17

So, here, in this wonderful world of ours, you have the power. You don’t need financial power. That won’t do it. You can’t buy health. You can’t buy respect. Oh, you can buy it for a little while, but they don’t really respect you. Let the money go, and they don’t respect you. You don’t need anything in the world of Caesar to buy what you want. “Come,” we are told, “buy it without price, without money.” When he says, “Buy it without price,” then, you see, it’s not Caesar’s coin that you use. You use your own wonderful human Imagination.91 ¶18

I’ll give you this story. A friend of mine down south, he went to this barbershop. There were four barbers. He went to the boss barber first. And after about three visits the barber couldn’t take him this day, and he took the fourth one – the last chair. He rather liked the way this man cut his hair. He got to talking to him, and he realized the man loved barbering – he loved it. That is all my friend needed. “You really love it?” He said, “I just love it. I wouldn’t do anything else but cut hair. I just love it.” Now, this is what my friend did. He imagined that man the head of the shop. He didn’t consult him, he didn’t consult the boss barber; he didn’t consult anyone – just this one. He liked him. He imagined that he was the head of not this shop, but a shop. Six weeks later the barber decided (the owner) to unload the shop. How he raised the money, my friend never told me, but he bought the shop and moved from the fourth man, the low man on the totem pole, to the boss barber. In the last year, this one so loved it he came here to this city about two months ago. There was some meeting here, a contest among barbers. He brought two of his barbers with him. One was committed and couldn’t come that day. He brought two. They took back – out of five prizes, they took back four. He won two − a first and a second, and two of his barbers won two seconds. He just entered another contest of the entire region (that is, the seven western states) and he won it, plus a thousand dollars. The big plaque is now on his wall, all because of my friend’s use of Imagination!91 ¶19

This man has a terrific control of this power. He is an advertising agent. About, I would say, in the early part of this year, his boss said to him, “This is our best account, and I don’t want to lose it. But you know the industry today. It’s on the skids, and we must do something to pull it out.” Well, he sat down and said, “If imagining creates reality, my only problem will be to face these men who believe themselves so wise, and persuade them to let me go all out with my campaign from the premise that it is already an accomplished fact. I can’t advertise that this thing is possible. I’ve got to say it has been tried and proven in my ads.” He worked out the entire thing. When these twenty men, all multi-millionaires (for this is one of the huge industries of the world, this is an international industry) – when he worked the entire thing out and presented it to these twenty men on the board, they thought themselves above all this. They were ethically above all things. Their moral code would not allow it, but my friend persuaded them that this is how the law operates, that imagining creates reality. “So if you want something created, leave it to me. I will take your desire and make it something that is already a fact. You voice it.” The first quarter of this year that industry not only arrested the motion downward, but turned it around, and their profits – not their gross – their profits for the first quarter of this year were seventy-five million dollars more than the first quarter of last year – seventy-five million more. I am speaking of a net profit. Now these wise men, with their wonderful ethical codes − they allow it! They saw the money in the bank. They saw all these things, and their so-called ethical moral code went through the window because they saw another principle, which they did not know. His competitor (I saw the letter) – his competitor in the advertising field wrote the boss, my friend’s boss. He said, “You know, I take my hat off to you. You use a principle that we have always used in our work,” (which was a darned lie; he never did it at all). He said, “I know exactly what you did.” He’s trying to fish him out to find out what he is doing, and in this letter he makes the claim that he actually knew and had always used it, “And no one can work for our concern unless he is aware of this principle and lives by it. We aren’t concerned about his religious background. He may be a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or an atheist, but he has to live by this principle.” Well, I saw that letter. The man was fishing, just fishing to get the one who really conceived it to come forward and tell him what he did.91 ¶20

Well, here is the same one in the barbershop. He goes there every Saturday morning by appointment, and the boss barber waits for him right on the dot. Every Saturday he is right there for this chap. He loves him, and he took him from the low man on the totem pole and pushed him right up. He realized the man likes cutting hair. That’s what he likes; he just loves it. All right, then, be the best. If you like it, be the very best in the trade.91 ¶21

Tell me what you want. Maybe you want to be a wife, or “give me a home.” What’s wrong with that! My mother never went to work. She just had ten children and lived at home with her full complement of servants. My sister never worked, so she lives at home with her servants. My wife worked until I could afford to keep her. The day I could afford to keep her, I said, “Now, you stop,” so she stopped. That was almost two years after we got married. Two years afterwards I could afford to keep her, so, “From now on, you don’t work,” and so she hasn’t gone back to work. So, tell me what you want, and then let me persuade myself that what you really want, you have. To the degree that I am self-persuaded you have it, you’ll get it. If I can’t persuade myself, then I have failed, but I haven’t misspent the energy, because I tried it lovingly. So, any time you use your imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you use it wisely. Even if you didn’t succeed in producing the results that you were seeking, you used it wisely.91 ¶22

You will not, then, encounter the monster that I did, but the chances are, everyone in his unknowingness built that monster, for everyone has started to misuse the energy, and it forms itself into this horrible, horrible thing. Did you ever sit down and wonder, “Where on earth did that thought come from?” It wasn’t a lovely thought. It came from a thing that you build, that misspent energy, a monstrous being that one day will meet you on the threshold and confront you, and you have to redeem it, because Christ must be redeemed. And although he is the redeemer, he also is one to be redeemed because he is only energy. He’s power. Infinite creative power is Christ, the power of God.91 ¶23

So the power of which I speak is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God. So when I tell you that “Man is All Imagination, and God is Man, and exists in us and we in him.” “The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God himself – the Divine Body Jesus, and we are his Members.” Well, everyone can imagine, therefore all are members of the one body. So this is that one spoken of in the 8th chapter of Proverbs: I was beside him like a little child. “Find me, and you find life. Miss me, and you injure yourself. Hate me, and you love death.” So, the one who finds him is born from above, and “unless ye be born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” And the birth from above is simply symbolized in that of a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes. It’s not some little event that took place two thousand years ago once and for all. It is taking place!91 ¶24

You start it with repentance. Repent, and believe the story of the Gospel. And “to repent” is simply to challenge you, to test you. Can you take a man from the lowest point in the barbershop and make him the boss? Can you represent him to yourself as one who is really in charge, who loves it and you love him? Well then, try it! So, he loved him, brought him into his mind’s eye as the one who really was important in his life, and the man simply rose suddenly to the highest place in his shop, and now in the entire western area has won all the prizes. And this one, in his advertising agency, he can write his own ticket today. The boss said to him, “What do you want?” The boss gives him – well, I would say three or four times a year – a huge big unsolicited bonus check. He wants to keep him. My friend has no desire to quit, but the boss is so eager to hold him, he gets one bonus after the other. And my friend? All right, he’ll take it. Why shouldn’t he?91 ¶25

So, I ask everyone here to try it. Don’t just listen to it, but try it. You are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. And so when I know what I should do, well, then, I do it! Go to sleep tonight. All right, how am I sleeping? In what state of consciousness am I sleeping? As someone who is unwanted? All right, then I’ll rise tomorrow to find myself unwanted. Ignore the facts of life and assume that you are wanted. Ignore the facts of life and assume that you are affluent, and see how things work in your world. It will all come your way. You are creating out of a power that is infinite, and you don’t need any contacts in the world. You don’t need to know the right people or anything else in the world. All you need to know is Christ, and Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination! What else do you need to know but Christ!91 ¶26

So let no one tell you: he’s out there and he looks like this. There is no personal representation in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ. Not one little thought is mentioned concerning what he looks like. Yet our churches have hundreds and hundreds of paintings, no two alike. Each tells you that is what Jesus looked like. He looks just like you. As you are told in Scripture, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know this much: when he does appear, we shall know him.” Why? “We shall be like him,” just like you when he appears. So, let no one tell you that he looks other than you, because that’s not Christ. And yet in spite of the 2nd Commandment, “Make no graven image unto me,” we have all these little indulgences that people buy, and they bow before it. And they call that Christ, something made with the human hand, and then they forget the maker and worship the thing made. Don’t forget the creator! The creator is your own wonderful human Imagination. Whatever you create is less than you, the creator. So, you can create a fortune. All right, they take it from you – you can create another one. So, whatever you can make, you can keep on making it if they take it from you. This is the power of which I speak.91 ¶27

I am not speaking of any earthly power. Many a man this night – last year I was in Barbados for a few months, and my brother (who has made quite a fortune) was talking about these men, and he didn’t realize what he was saying. He mentioned five men, all multi-millionaires, and he got through telling me how they worked so hard and they did all this and had all this money. I said, “Vic, you admire them?” “Why, certainly! They’re powerful.” I said, “What’s powerful? You just painted five biographies for me, word pictures of five men. The last one you painted is only sixty-three years old. He has, you tell me, about twenty-five million, and they have to tell him when to eat. He doesn’t know – doesn’t know his name, doesn’t know anything. And, all of a sudden they put the food in his mouth, and they say, ‘chew,’ and he chews, and he keeps on chewing forever until they say, ‘swallow,’ and he swallows. And you call that a man? So, he has twenty-five million. So, what! And the others – they gave all their time toward making money, just making things, and everyone you have mentioned and defined for me, I wouldn’t put my worst enemy (if I had one) in his place. So, he has money, but he is totally unaware of the fact that he has one nickel. So he has twenty-five million, and that’s what you call a man? That’s not my concept of a man. I am telling you something entirely different, Vic. You have lots of money, and it may never happen to you. So you have millions, too. Do you want to be like that? All these fellows are demented. They gave their entire life to the making and amassing of things, and they started to worship things. Don’t you start worshiping things! You start worshiping God and only God, and God is you own wonderful human Imagination, and don’t you forget it. So, this building is yours. Suppose it burns tonight? So what? You know what you did to build it. Build another one. Tomorrow you may have the whole thing burn flat. So don’t be concerned about what you have accumulated as things in the world. Find God and worship only God, and God is not on the outside. You’ll never see him on the outside.91 ¶28

You will see himself within, because can you see “I Am”? You can see, “I am a man.” You see the man reflected. You can say, “I am a poor man,” and see the man reflected in the eyes of those who know he is poor. And you can see every concept you hold of self – but the conceiving being you don’t see. That’s God! My concept of myself may be this, that, or the other. The concepts will be reflected in society, and men will tell me who I am conceiving myself to be – but no man knows who I really am! I, the conceiver, they don’t know, but they know what I’ve conceived myself to be. My bank balance will tell the banker what I have conceived myself to be in the financial world. All these concepts – men will see concepts, but they can’t see me, the conceiver. Well, don’t forget the conceiver – that’s God! And that being is your own wonderful “I-Am-ness.” That’s God, and there never was another! There never will be another.91 ¶29

So, God is bringing forth his own being, because he is buried in us. And he is bringing it up into the stream of creativity, so that the same one being – God – is infinite in potential. But God is not infinite in actual fact, because then he would be dead! He couldn’t expand. He couldn’t go beyond what he is. So, God is ever expanding. There’s no limit to expansion; there is only a limit to contraction. He took upon himself that limit when he became Neville. That was the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity. Now, he breaks the shell by my exercising within me the law of repentance. And so I exercise my Imagination, and then he breaks the shell. There’s no limit now to expansion, no limit to translucence. There was only the limit, which he placed upon himself, which was the limit of death – which is opacity and contraction. So God is infinite in potential, and everyone here is going to join that wonderful stream of creativity and be one with God!91 ¶30

Now, when you hear it, don’t just hear it and forget it. Try it. Put it to the extreme test, and then tell another, and have the other tell someone else, and spread the good news. This is called “the Gospel,” for the word gospel simply means “good news.” It’s the good news about God: how God became man that man may become God. Well, if God’s name is “I Am” – I know I say, “I am.” It’s the core of my being. I can say, “I am sick,” but I can get over sickness. But I can’t get over being “I Am.” I can get over being rich and become extremely poor, but I can’t get over being “I Am!” So he actually became the core of my being. That’s the center.91 ¶31

Well now, that’s my being. Well, if that is God, and that’s my being – well, he became me! God actually became me that I may become as he is. He took upon himself this limitation that I may become what he is (which is infinite) and expand forever.91 ¶32

So, you try it tonight. Try it with anything in this world. The unmarried, if you desire to be married – what symbol in the world would imply that you are married? A little band? In this western world a little band around this ring finger – not around any other finger – around this finger. It doesn’t have to be the biggest aspidistra in the world, just a plain little gold ring. If you wore it there, it would imply you’re married. Sleep tonight as though you wore one. Don’t put your physical thumb on it; put your imaginary thumb on it, and feel it in your imagination. You can do it! Feel a ball. Can you feel it? Then feel a piece of silk. Feel this, one after the other. Can you discriminate between all these different sensations? If you can discriminate between this and a tennis ball and a baseball and a piece of silk, then you can’t discriminate between nothings. They must exist. Though unseen by your eyes they still must exist! So, if I can discriminate between these unseen objects, these objects, though unseen, must be real. Well, now take that and put it there, but feel when you wear it, that you are proud of the one who put it there. You don’t have to see what he looks like. When it’s put there, you’ll be proud of his name, to bear it, and you’ll be proud of him. Just put it there.91 ¶33

Do you know why I know that? My wife did it. She did it! Actually, she did it. One day she was in the presence of a so-called sensitive, and this one said to her, “Why did you take off your wedding ring?” She said, “I am not married.” “Oh,” she said, “don’t fool me. You took off your wedding ring.” She said, “But I’m not married.” She said, “I’ll even tell you his name,” and she started off with Neb –Neba – Neva – she didn’t quite get it but she was coming very, very close to it. She was actually sensing what my wife in consciousness was feeling. When I first met her, I wanted her. The very first day I knew her I wanted to marry her, but I was entangled. Was I entangled! But, by this law, I disentangled myself. Without hurting anyone, I disengaged myself from all these complexities so that I could actually legitimately say, “Will you marry me?” But in the meanwhile she was wearing the ring. I hadn’t yet put it there, but she allowed me to put it there and slept as though I had put it there.91 ¶34

So I tell you unmarried ladies, if you desire to be married (maybe you don’t) – if you do, that’s the way to do it. And he’ll come out of the nowhere. You don’t have to go and buy anyone or try to meet the right people. Usually when you try to meet the right one, he’s always the wrong one. So don’t go searching. Those who go searching for love only make manifest their own love-less-ness, and the love-less never find love. Only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it. You draw them; they come to you.91 ¶35

So here, this is the power of which I speak: the power of the universe. The power that created and sustains the universe is resident in you as your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God! Don’t forget it. I know it’s difficult, when man has been trained to believe in an external God. And he goes to church and gets on his knees and he prays to an external God. And he goes home at night – maybe he does say his prayers, and he gets down on his knees and prays to an external God. All right, maybe that’s a nice thing for someone to do, but I tell you: he isn’t out there at all. You won’t be criticized for it, but he is within you – very personal, may I tell you. He is very, very personal, and within you.91 ¶36

When you are told in Scripture, “Of the Rock that begot us, we are unmindful,” and that seems to be all a figure of speech, but how true that thing is! One night sitting in the silence (rather, it was an afternoon) I was thinking of nothing in particular, and suddenly before my eyes came this force. It was an enormous force. As I looked at it, it fragmented itself, broke into numberless little pieces, and then it reassembled itself. As it reassembled itself it was not into a force, but into a man seated in the lotus posture. I’m looking at this man, all seated now, perfect man. As I looked at him, I’m looking at myself. Here I am, the perceiver, observing myself seated in the lotus posture, in this deep, deep meditation, and as I become aware that I am looking at myself, it began to glow, and it glowed and glowed and glowed. When it reached the intensity of luminosity it exploded, and then I returned to this level. Where did I see him? Within me! That being is meditating this. This is but a projection of itself in the world. And when he wakes within me, completely wakes, I am he. God actually became me that I may become God! And he’s put me through all the paces, allowing me to make all the mistakes, to make a monster like the thing that I talked about earlier. I made that, and I made the lovely one, and he allows it in his meditation. He is the dreamer in me, and he is dreaming this, and dreaming everything that I dream in this world. And when he awakes, this will cease to be, and I am he and he is God!91 ¶37

So, I tell you, go out and try it. Begin tonight. I’ll make you this promise; if you try it faithfully, he will not fail. Now, let us go into the Silence.91 ¶38

Good. Now, are there any questions, please? Make it a full evening.91 ¶39

Tonight’s subject is: “The Secret of Imagining.” In almost every particular is the world about us different from what we think it. Why then should we be so incredulous? Life calls on us to believe not less, but more. The secret of imaging is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which everyone should aspire, for supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lie in the solution of this mystery. If you have solved the mystery of imagining you have found Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is defined for us in scripture as “The power of God and the wisdom of God”. As we are told in the eighth chapter of the Book of Proverbs, . . and Wisdom is speaking now, personified as a little child: “When He laid out the foundation of the world I was beside Him like a little child I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always rejoicing in His inhabited world, delighting in the affairs of men. He who finds me finds life He who misses me injures himself; All who hate me love death.” So find that child that is the symbol of Jesus Christ, who is the creative power and the wisdom of God. Believe me when I tell you that this Jesus Christ of scripture is your own wonderful human imagination. “By him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made”. He is in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knows Him not. Look into the world and name one thing that wasn’t first imagined. You name one thing that does not now exist in your imagination . . just name it. Name anything in the world that does not now exist in your imagination: “All things exist in the human imagination.” “God is man, and exists in us and we in Him”. The eternal abode of man is the imagination; and that is God Himself. Try to disprove it. God is my pure imagining in myself. He underlies all of my faculties, including perception, but He streams into my surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy. I can catch Him in the act of producing these images in my mind. Just try it as you are seated here. Try to think of anything. Try to catch Him in the act of actually producing in your own mind’s eye all these images. “For all things exist in the human imagination.”86 ¶1

But how can I single out one and clothe it so that it becomes an objective fact? That is the secret, for they all exist within me.86 ¶2

But how can I catch one and clothe it? Well I will try to show you tonight what I know from my own personal experience. Scripture teaches it, but it tells it in a strange and wonderful way: how to clothe it.86 ¶3

You see this room in which we are now? It’s more real now than your own home is to you; yet you know your home more intimately than you know this room. Yet this room, at the moment, while you are in it, is more real than your own home. How different the cubic reality from the plane of any depiction of it. This room is now so “real” because we are in it, and we are all imagination. We’re in it; and to us, it’s real. Think of your own home. Do we not have the capacity to draw it, to paint it? But in your mind’s eye you have a plane depiction of it, but it’s not as real now as the room is. This room is real because we’re in it.86 ¶4

Now this is what I mean by making something that is only a thought . . something that is real. How do I do it? I single out, out of my own wonderful human imagination, that which I want to make real. It’s all in you. Then I must enter into it as I have entered into this room. “If the spectator would enter into any one of these images in his imagination, approaching it on the fiery chariot of his own contemplative thought”, it would become just as real to him as this room.86 ¶5

You may ask, “What would that do to me? Will it become real in the not-distant future?” I know from my own experience, it will. You can sit here and enter into a state. It may not take on quite the reality of this room, but it will if you persist in it; it will become just like this. When you open your eyes, it vanishes. But does it mean that I tasted that, and that’s all? No. Having gone into it, may I tell you, it will follow you? It will not recede into the past as memory; it will advance into the future and you will confront it. This is the secret of imaging, which is finding out the secret of God.86 ¶6

You are an immortal being. You cannot die because you are all imagination. Man is all imagination; and God truly is man; and He exists in us, and we in Him. And that immortal body of man is the human imagination, and that is Jesus Christ Himself, . . the Eternal Body of man and it cannot die. You cannot die. The body, . . yes, this will fade; but I am not the garment that I am wearing. I am the wearer of the garment, and the wearer of this garment is all imagination. This is the story that the Bible teaches. When we read in the Bible: “I, even I, am He. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and there is no god beside me”. This is not a being outside of you speaking; this is the Being that you really are, speaking within you, trying to persuade Himself of His own wonderful power to create. It can kill, and yet it can make alive. It can resurrect from the dead. And that is your own wonderful human imagination. The day will come; you will taste this power that you possess. You will come into a room just like this, and you will still it . . not by commanding anyone in the room to be still. Leave them just as they are. But you will arrest within yourself an activity that you feel, and as you still it in you, everything that you observe becomes still . . perfectly still. You could go forward and examine them, and they are dead. Everything is perfectly still and dead. The life is in you.86 ¶7

You release the activity, and they once more become animated and continue to do what they intended to do. You could, when you stilled the activity within you, change their motivation; and when you release it, they will do entirely different from what they intended to do prior to your arrestment within you of that activity. “As the Father has life in Himself, He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself”; and you have that within you. You’re not quite aware of it yet, but you will become aware. Those that I am teaching will have dreams, as you have dreams; and in their dreams they will become awake, and then arrest it in the dream and change the motivation and see the intended act change.86 ¶8

Here is one. A friend became aware that she was dreaming, and here’s a man who intended to hurt her. He got out of the car and came towards her, and she became afraid; and her fright woke her; but instead of waking on the bed, she awoke in the dream.86 ¶9

Then she realized, “This is what he teaches. Now I will simply arrest it.” She didn’t argue with him; she arrested, within her, the activity that animated him. And she said to him, “You are tired. You need a good hot cup of coffee and then a good sound sleep,” and then she told him exactly what he needed, and released the activity within her. He shook his head as though something strange had happened within him, and he got back into the car . . all in her dream . . and drove off. You see, she changed his intention towards her.86 ¶10

This may seem impossible to the world. As I started this lecture, almost everything in this world is so completely unlike what it appears to be. And I am telling you from my own experience; I am not speculating. I am not theorizing.86 ¶11

The power of which I speak is a power within you. That power is not something on the outside; it’s your own wonderful human imagination, and you will learn to control it. Your imagination animates the world in which you live. You change your imagination, and you change the world. To attempt to change circumstances before I change my own imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of my own being, for my own imaginal activity is animating my world. If I believe that I am injured or that others are against me, I have conjured them in my world, and they have to be against me.86 ¶12

If I fully believe that all are working towards the fulfillment of my good, they have to work towards the fulfillment of my good. I don’t ask them. I don’t compel them. I simply do it only within myself, and the whole vast world exists within me. Therefore, it is myself “pushed out.” It’s objectified. I don’t have to change affairs; I only change it within myself; and then everyone, though I know him or not by name, . . it doesn’t really matter, . . it’s myself “pushed out.” I couldn’t tell you the atoms of my body, but it is my body. I couldn’t tell you if you took the hand off that it’s my hand I am looking at, any more than I could tell you your name or anything about you; yet, you are myself “pushed out,” as this body is the body I wear. And so, as the body obeys my mind, you . . my “pushed-out” body . . will obey my mind too.86 ¶13

All I have to do is to concern myself with what I want in this world, and try to keep it within the frame of the Golden Rule; doing unto others only that which I would want done unto me, . . nothing more than that; hurting no one, doing not a thing to anyone other than that which I would want done unto me. If you want all the lovely things done, . . do only the lovely, and do it all in your own wonderful human imagination. Then you will realize this tremendous secret of imaging. It is the greatest of all secrets, to the solution of which everyone in the world should aspire, because Christ is the answer. Christ is defined for us in the first chapter of First Corinthians as “the power of God and the wisdom of God”. Here is the power of God and the wisdom of God; and I have found the power to be in myself. “You mean, Christ is in me?” Are we not taught that in scripture? “Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you? Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test?” Well then, test it. How would I test it? A friend of mine, maybe, is unwell; or maybe he’s unemployed, or maybe he is not earning enough to meet the obligations of life.86 ¶14

All right, he is in me. As I think of him, he’s in me. He need not be physically present for me to think of him; he’s in me. I think of him; I conjure him. Well, can I change his entire picture in me? I assume that he is talking to me, and he’s telling me that he has never had more, he has never felt better; and as I believe in what I am seeing in my own mind’s eye, . . I believe in him. That is Christ in me, and all things are possible to Christ. Well then, test it and see if it works.86 ¶15

See if you do not see him in the not-distance future earning more, looking better; and everything in the world that you have done within you, he responds to. He need not praise you or thank you. You don’t need his praise; you don’t need his thanks. You don’t need confirmation from him, other than he does conform to what you have done in yourself concerning him. You ask no one to thank you.86 ¶16

Thank nothing. You are simply exercising the power of God within you. “And the power of God and the wisdom of God is Jesus Christ”. And there is nothing in the world but God. It is all God in you “pushed out,” and God is your own wonderful human imagination.86 ¶17

He can’t be closer. God is never so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. He’s not separated. God actually, literally became as I AM, that I may be as He is. He is not something on the outside. No matter how near He is, He can’t even touch me.86 ¶18

He actually became me, with all of my weaknesses, all of my limitations; and now I am trying to struggle within myself to find out who I AM, . . and that’s His name. My name is in Him. What’s your name? “Go and say I AM has sent you.” “Is that you name?” “Yes, forever and forever it is my name.” “What name?”86 ¶19

Jehovah? “No.” “The Lord?” “No, I AM.” That’s His name. That is His name forever and forever. Well I cannot say, “I AM,” and point elsewhere.86 ¶20

I can’t say, “I AM,” and feel something is near me. It can’t even be near. Something can be near to what I AM, but “I AM” can’t be near.86 ¶21

And that’s the name of God forever and forever. So you are the Lord Jesus Christ. Now a pattern is given to us in scripture by which you will know that you are; and I promise you, from my own personal experience, that you shall have it. It is a true story. The truest story ever told is the story of the Lord Jesus Christ.86 ¶22

When He said, “I AM the Father,” may I tell you, if he’s a father, he has a son, hasn’t he? Or at least he has a child; but I tell you, it’s a son. He said, “When you see me, you see the Father”; but if I look at you and I say, “Well then, you are the father, show me your son.” He can’t show me His son outside as His son, because He and I are one. He has to show me His son not of blood nor of the will of the flesh; it has to be born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And He tells me that He is God, and He tells me that He and I are one. Well then, it can’t be born in any normal, natural way. He has to be born of God. Well then, who is your son?86 ¶23

He tells me in scripture that David calls Him, “Father.” “David calls you, ‘Father’?” “Yes.” He said, “I inspired the prophets,” and read the Prophets; and in the Prophets, David calls the Lord, “my Father.”86 ¶24

“You mean, David, then, is my son?” “Yes, he’s my son.” “But I do not know him,” you will say.86 ¶25

But I will tell you, from my own personal experience, you will know it because I know it; David called me, “my Father.” David called me, “my Lord.” David called me the Rock of his salvation. Everything that is said in scripture concerning what he said of the Lord, he said of me. And so, I stood, and here is David, and I knew it beyond all doubt that here is my son, and my son is David, . . not a David, . . the David . . the only David . . the David of biblical fame.86 ¶26

And as he called me, “Father,” memory returned. So God actually became me, and then He unfolds Himself within me. Well, as He unfolds Himself within me, it’s only the memory of God that He gave up in order to become me. He had to completely give up all that was God to become this little witness that is called a man called Neville. So when His memory returns and He became me, it is my memory returning. He actually gave me Himself as He gave you Himself; and the day will come as He unfolds Himself within you, your memory returns because it’s God’s memory returning. He completely empties Himself in order to become you.86 ¶27

This is the story of the Christian faith; the fulfillment of all the promises made in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is only a prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus Christ. It’s an adumbration, a foreshadowing in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way; but as it unfolds within you, it’s nothing more than God’s memory returning. But having become you, it becomes your memory returning, and you awaken as God Himself.86 ¶28

And there is nothing in the world like God. Now you ask, what, all the horrors of the world, the pain, the suffering? Yes.86 ¶29

It takes all the “furnaces” to prepare you to receive the gift that He gives, and the gift is Himself. God actually became you. He gave Himself to you, that you may be God. And God in you is your own wonderful human imagination, that’s God.86 ¶30

Now tonight try it. I ask you to believe me. But whether you believe me or not, try it anyway.86 ¶31

Take a friend of yours and bring him before your mind’s eye, and then talk to him from the premise of your desire for him fulfilled . . not going to be, but already fulfilled. And having done it, believe that all things are possible to the Lord Jesus Christ; and you just saw Jesus Christ in action, for you saw the creative power of God in action, and that’s Jesus Christ. That is your own wonderful human imagination. Now believe in the reality of what you’ve just done. Believe that this subjective appropriation of your objective hope for a friend is a fact. That is really praying. And all things are possible to God. Go within and appropriate it . . just completely appropriate it, and see it unfold within your own vast marvelous world. So this wonderful secret is the secret of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you turn on the outside and turn to another, you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. You can make all kinds of images of Him. That’s not the Lord Jesus Christ. If any man should ever come and say, “Look, there he is,” or “Here he is,” don’t believe it. Why? Because when you actually meet Him, you are going to meet your Self. The Christ of faith comes to us as one unknown; yet one who in some ineffable mystery lets us experience who He is; and when we experience Jesus Christ, we experience Him in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience. You will never see Him coming from without. Let no one tell you you’re going to meet Him coming from without. You will meet Him awakening Himself within you as you.86 ¶32

That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the great sacrifice. He is crucified on Humanity. Every human form is the cross that He wears; and in that form He awakens as the one in whom He awakens. He awakens as that Being, and that Being is the Lord Jesus Christ. And because He is the father of David, David called that Being, “Father”; then you know, “I AM He.”86 ¶33

Oh, I can tell you from now to the ends of time, and I may not persuade you to believe it; but when it happens to you, you need no further persuasion, for you are confronted with the facts and there you stand in the presence of you own son, and the son is the Son of God. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord,” said David. “He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’” These are the words of David in the Second Psalm. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son.’” That son is going to call you, “Father”; and then, and only then, you will know you are God the Father.86 ¶34

That is the mystery of the entire world. And so, what you accomplish in this world concerning finances is wonderful for you as an individual in the world of Caesar. What you do concerning the social world . . all these things . . it’s marvelous; but you will only really fulfill your destiny as you fulfill scripture, for the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture. “I have accomplished the work Thou gavest me to do.” What work? All that the prophets spoke about me; and beginning with Moses and the prophets and the Psalms; he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. Then said he, “Scripture must be fulfilled in you,” and the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture . . the prophecy of God to man, for He gave man Himself, or promised to give man Himself. And He promised me a son. The son He promised was His Son; and in giving me His Son, He gave me Himself, for His Son calls me, “Father.”86 ¶35

And that is the whole mystery of life. There’s nothing but God. One Being expanding Himself forever and forever and forever, each Himself. And even though he calls you, “Father,” may I tell you, you will not lose your identity. You are individualized and you will tend towards ever greater and greater individualization. And yet, you are the Father of my son; and if you are the Father of my son, then you and I are one. It is a great mystery, . . we are brothers, . . for you do not lose your identity and I do not lose my identity. So you and I, behind these masks are eternal brothers . . the Father of the One and only Begotten Son. Well if you are the father of my son, and my own wife is the “father” of my son, then the relationship on earth of men, or friend to friend and wife to husband, is above this level, and we are eternal brothers, all forming the one Father.86 ¶36

So tonight, you take me seriously; and when you go home . . or start it here, . . you put into practice this greatest of all secrets; the secret of imaging. There is no greater secret in the world. Every child born of woman is alive because it was imagined. And imaging is God in action. That’s the soul of man . . imaging; and that is the power of God. And the power of God is Christ. And that is the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God is Christ. A child can imagine. Well, that’s Christ. That is Christ crucified on that little tiny garment, and it suffers with everything that that little child imagines, or it enjoys with everything the little child imagines.86 ¶37

It wears all the stripes and all the blows that man in his misuse of that power will do. He doesn’t criticize him. He waits upon me as indifferently . . and as quickly . . when the will in me is evil as when it is good. That way, He bears all my stripes.86 ¶38

He bears all of my misuse of His power, knowing that in the end, I will awaken and use it only lovingly. When I completely awaken from the dream of life, I will use this creative power of God only lovingly. But in the meantime, while I am trying to awaken to the use of this power, I misuse it. And may I tell you, you will confront this vision, and you will see what you did from the beginning, for you didn’t begin it a few years ago in your mother’s womb. You have been coming through the centuries.86 ¶39

One night, here I saw this monstrous creature covered in hair. It looked like a gorilla, and the hair was all dark brown from head to toe. It was a monster. And here, the most glorious, heavenly creature . . a female; and this was a male monster. And it called out to this heavenly creature, “Mother, mother.” Well, I knew this could not be . . this radiant, heavenly creature; and so I struck him. And as I struck it, it gloated; it loved violence. And I pummeled it, and it gloated all the more. Well, it could speak in a guttural tone, calling this heavenly being, “Mother.” And that annoyed me. Then suddenly from within me I knew. Why, this is my own creation. And so is this one. They are only the out picturing of my two different uses of the creative power that I AM.86 ¶40

Here (the monster) is the complete embodiment of every misused moment of my life. Every time I was violent, I created and fed this monster. It whispered in my ear to be monstrous, to be violent, to be bad, to be evil, for it fed only on this thought. And here (the heavenly creature) was the embodiment of all my loving thoughts. Every kind, considerate, wonderful thought in my life fed this one. As I saw this monstrous thing and realized that it was my own offspring, . . it was the fruit of my misspent energy, . .86 ¶41

I pledged myself. There was no one to whom I could turn, . . I pledged myself that if it took eternity I would redeem it.86 ¶42

It did not come into being through any power other than my own misuse of my own power. It could not have been brought into being; and that thing could not live, and it could not help itself. I didn’t condemn it. At that moment, I felt compassion beyond the wildest dreams of anyone for this monstrous thing that I had created. And when I made myself that pledge that I would redeem it if it took me eternity, at that very moment, the whole thing got smaller and smaller and smaller; but it didn’t waste . . the energy that it embodied returned to me. I began to feel a power that, until that moment, I had never felt before. And this one began to grow. The beauty that she embodied and personified glowed as the energy came back from this one (the monster) to me; and the whole thing dissolved before my eyes. So, “nothing is lost in all my holy mountain” . I did not lose that energy that I misplaced, . . it returned to me, . . that was embodied in that monster.86 ¶43

And throughout the centuries, it was it who whispered in my ear monstrous things to be done, because it could only feed on violence. It could only feed on evil. Then I realized what it meant: that I ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And so it fed upon evil, and she fed upon the good. And then the evil that was only the energy misspent returned to me; and then the whole thing came back to me.86 ¶44

And then I broke the spell, and I awoke in this world. Well everyone is going to confront that gorilla on the threshold. Everyone has him, unseen by mortal eye, and he whispers into your ear to entertain the unlovely thoughts of the world. And your every reaction that is unlovely, it feeds upon it; and your every thought that is kind and wonderful and loving, she feeds upon it. And the day will come, you will be strong enough to confront this. And may I tell you, it will take you the twinkling of a second to dissolve it? You don’t labor upon it. All it needs is the core of integrity within you. When you pledge yourself, and no one else, . . you don’t swear upon your mother, you don’t swear upon a friend, you don’t swear upon the Bible; you pledge yourself to redeem it. At the moment you pledge yourself, . . and within you, you know you mean it, . . the whole thing dissolves. It’s no time at all in dissolving. And then all the energy returns to you, and you are stronger than ever before to go forward now and eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And if you forward and misuse it again, you start another form building; and one day you will dissolve it again. Eventually you will become completely awakened, and you will use your wonderful power only . . not for good, . . that tree will come to an end, . . for Life itself. For eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is this world. The day will come that you will eat of the Tree of Life that bears the fruit of truth and error. Error will embody itself here, and one day you will confront the error, and the error will dissolve before your mind’s eye as truth begins to glow before you, because you are eating, then, of the Tree of Life as you formally ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the combat of good and evil produces this monster, and the combat of truth and error produces an entirely different form of being, more glorious than that one of good and more horrible than this. The error will dissolve just as quickly when you confront error. So if today your teaching is not true and you live by it, you are building something just as monstrous; but one day you will confront error and you will discover that you lived by a false concept of God . . something on the outside of Self; that you formerly worshiped a little golden figure made of gold and silver.86 ¶45

It had eyes, but could not see. It had ears, but could not hear. It had a mouth, but could not speak. It had feet, and it could not walk. It made no sound within its throat.86 ¶46

And those who made it are just like it. And those who trusted it are just like it too. So all the little icons in the world that people worship . . these are the little things called “error”; and one day you will discover the true God. And when you discover the true God, you will find that He is all within your own wonderful being as your own wonderful human imagination. You’ll walk in the consciousness of being God. You don’t brag about it. As Blake answered when they asked him, “What do you think of Jesus Christ?” Blake answered, “Jesus Christ is the only God”; but he hastened to add to it, “But so am I, and so are you.” So you don’t tell anyone. You simply know that you are the Being spoken of in scripture as “God the Father.” For all that is said of Him, you are going to experience; and you are going to experience it in the first-person, singular, and a present-tense experience. And then you will know.86 ¶47

Today is the eleventh year since it happened to me right here in this city, right across the way at the hotel with the star at the top of the roof, the Sir Francis Drake, on the 20th day of July 1959. It was then that I, at 4:00 in the morning, felt within my head the most intense vibration, and I thought, this is a brain hemorrhage, and this is it. I knew nothing of the human form, and I thought I cannot possible survive what I am feeling; so this must be what they call a massive brain hemorrhage.86 ¶48

But instead of departing this world, I awoke to find myself within my own skull; and I knew that I was entombed completely within my own skull. I was fully awake, as I’ve never been awake before, and here I am sealed . . the skull is sealed, and I AM in it. The skull is not a little thing like this (indicating the head). It’s the size of a huge, big sepulcher, and I knew it to be my skull. I also know intuitively that I could get out by pushing the base of my skull. As I pushed it, a stone rolled away, and I saw the little opening, and I put my head through it and pushed; and I came out, inch by inch, just as a child is born from the mother’s womb. But instead of being born from below of flesh and blood, I was “born from above” out of the skull . .86 ¶49

Golgotha, where Christ was buried. But it was not another coming out, . . I am coming out. There was no other. I had no companion in that skull. I myself was there, and I came out.86 ¶50

And when I looked back at the body out of which I came, it was ghastly pale, turning its head from side to side like one in recovery from a great ordeal. I stood up and looked at it, and then suddenly I heard this strange, strange wind . . this unearthly wind that I had heard in the tomb within my head, . . well now, it seemed to be divided and coming from the corner of the room. As I looked over to see if it really came from that side, and I looked back three or four seconds later, the body had been removed. There is no body; but in its place sat my three older brothers. My eldest sat where the head was, my second one sat where the right foot was, and the third one sat where the left foot was; and they heart this same unearthly wind. They couldn’t see me. I not only saw them, I could read their thoughts as I could read my own.86 ¶51

Their thoughts all were objective to me. Everything was objective. They couldn’t have an emotion that wasn’t objective. They couldn’t have a thought that wasn’t objective.86 ¶52

And yet, I heard their voices. And then my brother Lawrence got off the bed and started towards the same direction that I thought this wind originated . . this peculiar wind. As he took one or two steps, he said, “Why, it’s Neville’s baby. This is the cause of this peculiar, unearthly wind.”86 ¶53

My brother Victor and my brother Cecil, they said, “How can Neville have a baby?” He didn’t argue the point. He lifted from the floor a little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and brought it and placed it on the bed; and I took that infant up into my arms, and as I looked into its face and said, “How is my sweetheart,” this little heavenly face broke into the most glorious smile; and then the whole scene dissolved.86 ¶54

There was the resurrection from the dead, followed by the “birth from above.” So we are “born from above,” as told us in the Book of Peter. “We are born anew through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” There is only one Being resurrected, the Being who descended into man; and that is Jesus Christ. He descended into man, the power of God and the wisdom of God, and united with man; and when they became one and fulfilled the destiny of that Being, only He now wakes as you. And so, you awake as the Lord Jesus Christ, without loss of identity.86 ¶55

So eleven years ago on the 20th day of July, back in 1959 here in this city, that drama took place within me. So it is my birthday today in a spiritual sense. The little body that now stands before you, that came in the year 1905.86 ¶56

It will depart and turn into dust; but that which awoke within me is the Immortal Self that cannot die. And those who have not had the experience, that Immortal Self is still there, and it cannot die. You will be restored to life in a world just like this to continue the drama until that experience that I’ve just told you takes place within you. Nothing dies. The little rose that bloomed once, blooms forever. It turns to ash as the body will turn to ash, but you . . the Immortal You, who is all imagination . . cannot die. But it will awaken one day in the same manner that it awoke within me.86 ¶57

It was buried in Golgotha, which means “the skull.” He is buried on Calvary, which is the skull. It is in the skull of man that God is buried; and there God-in-man will awake.86 ¶58

So here this night you put it to the test as you are challenged in scripture to test Him. And you test, not another, you test your own wonderful human imagination, for that is the Lord Jesus Christ. The truest story ever told is the story of Jesus Christ. Let the world rise in opposition and say there is no Lord. As Blake brought out so beautifully in his poem “Jerusalem”: “. . . Babel mocks; saying there is no God or Son of God; That Thou, O Human Imagination, O Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ art all A delusion; but I know Thee, O Lord, when Thou arisest upon My weary eyes, even in this dungeon and this iron mill. . . For Thou also sufferest with me, although I behold Thee not. . . . . And the Divine Voice answers, . . . . Fear not.86 ¶59

Lo, I AM with you always, Only believe in me, that I have the power to raise from death Thy Brother who sleepeth in Albion.” You can’t get away from your own imagination. You can’t get away from it because that’s your own being. That is the reality.86 ¶60

But it suffers with you. He is the Lord Jesus Christ within you. Now test Him tonight. Test Him for the good.86 ¶61

Do you want a better job when they say they are letting people out? Forget what the papers say. Forget what anything says.86 ¶62

“All things are possible to the Lord Jesus Christ.” If you don’t have enough money, forget what the paper says. You assume that you have it. “All things are possible to God.” He sets no limits whatsoever on the power of believing. Can you believe it? Well try to believe it. Try to believe, first of all, in God. Well God is your own imagination. Well believe in Him; that whatever you can imagine is possible.86 ¶63

Can you imagine that you have now the kind of a job that you want? The income that would come from it? The fun in the doing of the work?86 ¶64

Well then walk as though it were true; and to the best of your ability believe that it’s true. And that assumption though denied by your senses, . . though the world would say it is false; if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. This is the law of your own wonderful imaging. Believe it, and it will become a reality.86 ¶65

Now let us go into the Silence.86 ¶66

So, the Tonight’s subject is: “Who is The Son of Man?” In the 16 th chapter of the Book of Matthew, the question is asked of the Disciples: “‘Who do men say that the Son of Man is?’ and they answered, ‘Some say John the Baptist come again, others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets, others say Elijah.’ And then he said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’” So here He equates the Son of Man with I AM. It is the one title that is most used concerning Jesus in Scripture. We find it in Ezekiel throughout the entire book, and the 7th chapter of the Book of Daniel, we hear “one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him is given dominion and glory and kingdom.” Dominion is supremacy in determining and deciding and directing the actions of others. It is really ascendancy over human and unhuman forces, such as assures being obeyed.79 ¶1

Now, let me give you an experience of mine that you may taste of this power that is in store for you. You will only taste of it before you have complete possession of it. You may not get complete possession of it until you are completely permeated with Love, or you can wreck the world. This is the Power.79 ¶2

You will come upon a scene like this: To give you my own experience, I came upon a scene that I felt to be about two hundred years ago in the New England States of our Country. Somehow I thought it was a Sunday afternoon, and they were all dining. My attention was attracted to a family of four: the father, mother and what appeared to be their two sons in the early 20’s – say, 21 and 22 or 21 and 23. As I stood watching them, I felt within myself that I could stop an activity that I was feeling, and that if I succeeded in arresting this activity within me, everything would stand still. Well, I did it. I arrested an activity within me, and everything stood sill. A bird was flying and it flew not. The waiter was coming in with the next course, and she walked not. They were dining; and one, as I looked at him, he had the soup spoon just about here (indicating a spoon approaching the mouth) and he couldn’t bring it any further. He dined not. The leaves falling, like the Fall of the year, and they fell not. The grass was waving, and it waved not. Everything was frozen, as though made of clay. I looked at them, and one second before they were all alive and seemingly independent of my perception of them; and now I knew they were not – that the whole vast world was dependent upon an activity that took place within me, of which I was totally unaware until that moment. When I released that activity within me, they all continued to fulfill their intentions. The bird flew to the branch where it intended. The waitress continued walking towards the table where she would serve the second course; and the leaves began to fall to the earth, and the little green grass waving continued to wave, and the boy brought the soup to this mouth. Everything continued as it intended to when I stopped it. I know now that I could have changed their intention; and had I changed their intention and then released it, they would have thought they had initiated the change, and they would have done exactly what I had ordered.79 ¶3

That is dominion – complete control over the actions of others so that they must obey you. What enormous power is in store for man when man awakens from the dream of life! That’s dominion. Then comes glory. Well, “glory” in the Bible is equated with God. “I will make my glory to pass before you,” and “…as I pass….” There He equates “glory” with “I”, so He gives Himself to you – actually, literally gives Himself to you, so that you become God! And the kingdom. What is a kingdom but a realm, subject to an anarchical form of government by a king? Therefore, you become the king as spoken of in Scripture.79 ¶4

This is in store for every child born of woman. That One, in scripture, is called the “Son of Man.” We speak of Him in Scripture as the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is in every one, and that One, one day, will awaken as the one in whom He awakes; and then you will have dominion, and then you will have glory, and then you will have the kingdom. That’s what is in store for every one in the world. Not a thing in this world will die, but that which has no right to live. Only that which has no right to exist will be brought to an end, and it is not any child born of woman. Any child born of woman has a right to live, a right to exist; so I show you now – or tell you rather – what must die, what must be brought to an end.79 ¶5

One day you are going to have this experience. You will suddenly be confronted, in vision, with the most monstrous thing that you have seen. It’s an animal, but it speaks. It speaks in a guttural voice. You will see two: a beautiful angelic being, radiantly beautiful, and this monstrous thing covered with hair. In fact, I would not offend the gorilla by likening it to a gorilla, for a gorilla is made by God. But this is made by man. You will confront these two: one, the embodiment of all your misused energies in the world, every unlovely thought formed it. Every violent act of yours formed it, and it thrives on violence. As I looked at it, I did not realize at the moment that I had created it, and it called this lovely angelic being “Mother;” and I struck it, and it gloated. It loved being struck! And I pummeled it, and it grew bigger and stronger through my violence. And as I looked at it, something within me knew that I was the father of it. I brought it into being by my own violence, my own misused of energy, as I brought this glorious being into being by my loving use of the same energy. As I looked at it, I pledged myself that if it took me eternity I would redeem it. I had no one to whom I could turn as a witness to my pledge. I pledged myself to redeem it if it took me eternity. At that very moment of my pledge, which I meant beyond all doubt, the whole thing melted before my eyes, and all the energy that went into it returned to me. Not one little drop was lost. It all came back to me, the one who misused that energy and formed this monstrous thing out of my misused energy. And this other one glowed – glowed like the sun. She simply personified my loving use of the same energy. So the only thing that dies is that which has no right to live. The only thing that comes to an end – ceases to be – is that which has no right to exist. And it is simply made up of energy; so the energy is not lost, but it returns to you who created that monstrous thing. And though unseen by your mortal eyes, unheard by mortal ears, it whispers into your ear the moment in time to be violent, to be unkind, and to be unlovely, for it can feed only on violence. It feeds only on hypocrisy – on every unlovely thing in the world. So you have a constant companion urging you to commit some unlovely act, to entertain unlovely thoughts, that it may be fed. Then when you confront it, you will pledge yourself – without being told by any one else – you will know how it came into being, and you will know what you should do, and you’ll do it. And you will mean every word that you say to yourself, “I will redeem you if it takes eternity.” And it only takes a matter of moment – only moments, and the whole monstrous thing melts before your eyes, leaving no trace of every having been present, when all that energy returns to you, and you’ve never felt so strong in your life. That is the being returning to the Son of Man, who now has dominion and has glory and has kingdom.79 ¶6

So then we are told: “As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” You are that Son! Before we came out from the Father, we were part of the Eternal Being called God the Father, just as a bud or a spur or a little graft becomes a part of the tree and takes its nourishment from the tree. When it is detached and then grafted onto some solid stock, as you and I were – we were grafted onto the stock called Humanity; and then we, the graft, become a father in our own right. So when the graft takes and we begin to grow and produce fruit, we can only product the fruit of the tree from which we were taken, and we were taken from the Tree of God – The Eternal Tree of Life. So grafted onto these bodies as we are, we penetrated these bodies and annexed the brains of these bodies, and the graft took; and then as it took, because the Father has Life in Himself, that spore – that graft called His Son – now has Life in Himself and becomes, in his own right, a father – one with The Eternal Father.79 ¶7

And that’s our destiny! Everything said of this character in Scripture called Jesus Christ you are going to experience, and it will be said of you. Do not be embarrassed. That is the “play.” That is the plan of the entire Mystery of Being. You are destined to awaken as God the Father! So in the end there is only God. For we came out from the Father, and we became one with Humanity; and when the vow takes place and we begin to bear the fruit of our Father, we return to the one Father, and are reincorporated into the One Being, and there is only “… one body and one Sprit… one Lord… and Father of all…” and you will be that one body and spirit and Lord and Father of all, and yet I will know you! You will not lose your identity. I will know you are the being I know now as my friend, and yet I will know you as God! You are destined to awaken as God.79 ¶8

It’s a shock to the world to hear this. It seems blasphemous; so they accused Him of blasphemy. He said, “Why?” They said, “Because you being man make yourself God.” He said, “Is it not written in your Scripture, ‘I say ye are gods, all of you, sons of the Most High? Why, then do you accuse me for blaspheming because I say, ‘I am the Son of God’?” He said that was in their scripture, and Scripture cannot be broken. Man has been trained to believe that he is a little worm – that he is some little outcast that is no good, and that, for most people in the world today, death ends it all, because more than half of the people in the world are under an atheistic regime. They will number far in excess of half of the people in the world; and they claim that death ends it all. And the other half claims that death does not end it all, but they still think of themselves as worms. Any one making the bold claim that they are destined to awaken as God sounds like blasphemy. But I tell you that you will awaken as God!79 ¶9

And you will know that you are God. I got a letter today from a friend of mine in L.A. I have been teaching this Law since 1938, but I did not know the Promise of God until twelve years ago in this City when it happened to me. From then on, all my lectures have been – I would say – geared toward the Promise. So he has been coming to my meetings twice a week in L.A. over the period of the last three years. As I have told them, and I tell you, before I depart this world physically I will appear to you as the Man I know myself to be, for He awoke within me. But he said to me in this letter which I got today: “Last Tuesday morning, early in the morning, I had a vision; and a woman said to me, ‘Neville has risen. Look down there,’ and she pointed down to the end of the corridor. As I looked at the end of the corridor, there as an effulgence of glorious golden light, and I said to myself, ‘My friend, a man called Neville! And I know he is the Lord. I know as a friend of his I could always go to his home unexpected, uninvited, and be welcome; and yet at this moment I have not been invited specifically to come, but he told me – and I remember vividly – that he will show himself to me before he departs. And I knew at the end of that corridor in the effulgence of glorious golden light, out of sight was the Holy of Holies, and there He was, and He was the Lord. And I was overcome with an emotion – a mixed emotion. My emotion was one of fear, one of joy, and one of awe. Knit these three emotions together, and that is what I felt. He promised that he will appear to me, and so now I will wait. I know he is there, I see the radiation of him, and it was a woman who told me, ‘Neville has risen. Look!” and she pointed to the end of the corridor, ‘and there you will see him.’” I am only telling you what I know.79 ¶10

Not only this one, but hundreds must witness before I take off this garment for the last time in this world. For in this City twelve years ago I awoke from the dream of life. I awoke to find myself buried in my own skull, as every one is but he doesn’t know it. And I came out of that tomb – out of that sepulcher, the only sepulcher in which Jesus was ever buried, and Jesus is the Lord Himself!79 ¶11

The Lord actually became as we are -- literally, that we maybe as He is. So, when we were detached from the Infinite Being called Father and started a journey of tribulation, it was for a divine purpose. But we, by detachment, depending on our Father for our own support, or own supply, will now become a being having life in itself, “As the Father hath life in Himself, He has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” The only way it could be done was to detach his spore – detach the graft and implant it to this sturdy stock called Humanity; and then it produces, not humanity, it produces that from which it was taken, just as you do with a tree. You take a bud that can propagate itself, and you graft it onto a sturdy stock; and when it takes hold, it does not produce the fruit of that tree on which it is grafted, it produces the fruit of itself, and it brings forth what it is. So we are sons of God bringing forth all the fruit of God!79 ¶12

Then we have life in ourselves. So I say to every one in this room, as to every one in the world, I do not care what you have heard in the past; this is the greatest of all mysteries which is the Christian faith. I am telling you what I know from experience. I have experienced the Christian faith. I am not speculating. I am not theorizing. It is true from beginning to end, but not as it is taught in the world. It’s taught in the world as secular history, but it is not secular history; it is salvation history. The whole thing is based upon God’s plan of saving His own sons that He brought out of His own body and transplanted and engrafted into the stock called Humanity. So the Son of man – the name given the Lord Jesus – the name that He used most about Himself – is said of every one seated here, regardless of your six. When you say, “I am,” that’s He. When you say, “And who do you say that I am?” you are discussing the Son of man. And now He equates the Son of man with “I AM.” So as you are seated here, that is the Lord Jesus.79 ¶13

As told you in Scripture, you must test yourselves to see whether you really believe it or not . “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not believe Jesus Christ is in you?” When I say, “Jesus Christ,” if you thought of some being external to yourself, at that very moment you failed the test. “Do you not believe that Jesus Christ is in you?” So, you failed if at that moment that I used the term “Jesus Christ” you mind conjured some existence external to yourself in time and space. He is in you; and in you, He awakes. And when He awakes in you, you are He.79 ¶14

And everything said of Him in Scripture you will experience. “All the things that I have done,” said He, “you will do, for now I am returning to the Father. I have accomplished the work He sent me to do, which was to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” And having fulfilled Scripture, now He returns to the Father, and He said, “Return unto me the glory now –” What glory? “—the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.” And glory is God Himself. So return unto me – I was one with you – well, return that same Unity, for I have completed the job that you gave me to do; and I have told them who you are. I have made known unto them Your Name, and I will make it Neville. And the name He made known to us was Father. So God is Father.79 ¶15

If I complete the job that He gave me to do, I must arrive at the point where I, too, am the Father – not just a father, for there is only one Father. So I must arrive at the point where I am the Father! So I found out His Son and the Son’s name, and I must find that Son and have that Son call me, “Father.” Well, he did. So, I know the truth of Scripture, for the Son’s name is David. It is David. That is the Son of God as told us in Scripture, “for David in the spirit calls him ‘My Lord’.” So Jesus is the Father. Jesus is the Immortal Father; and David, which is the symbol of Humanity, calls Him “father.” So here we find in the last book of the Bible, the 22nd chapter of Revelation: “I am the root and the offspring of David.” The modern translation of the word “root” is “scion,” which means a graft. I am the graft, and yet I am the offspring of that graft! I am the scion and the offspring of David – David being Humanity. Engrafted onto Humanity is the Son of God, and He brings forth all that was in God. So if God is a Father, He brings that forth; and because He is one with the Father, He brings forth the Son. The Son calls him “Father.” Now we know who the Son of man is!79 ¶16

The Son of man in Scripture comes before the Ancient of Days – and may I tell you? That’s a true story. I stood in the presence of the Ancient of Days, and He asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, and I quoted from the words of Paul in the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, and I said as he asked me the question: “Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment, Infinite Love embraced me, and may I tell you? Love is a man! The Ancient of Days is a man, and you can’t think of anything in his presence but love. I answered “Love,” and he embraced me; and as we embraced, we fused, and I became one with the body of the Ancient of Days. I became one with the Spirit of God, and then he sent me – sent me to do what I am doing now – to tell you of the true story of the Christian father. It hasn’t a thing to do with rituals, hasn’t a thing to do with form; it’s entirely a mystery hidden within man, which in the fullness of time will unfold within man.79 ¶17

And when it unfolds within man, the man in whom it unfolds is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything said about Him, you will experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience. As David, as told you in Scripture, called Him “Father,” David will call you “Father.” And as David confessed in Scripture, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said unto me, Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” Well, you will know when you see him that he is your son; and that day that you see him as your son is that day that you have finished the drama.79 ¶18

All the tribulations of humanity you’ve gone through; and having gone through all of them, at the very end He stands before you and calls you “Father.” Now we are told: They asked him, “When will the hour be? When is it going to happen?” You can read this in the 13th chapter of Mark and the 24th chapter of the Book of Matthew. And he said to me, as he said to the world: “As the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” What does that mean? The lightning shines from the east and as far as the west, and “so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” He comes only to fulfill Scripture. Well, the only scripture that he could fulfill would be the Old Testament. There was no New Testament. Now where is this in the Old Testament? Where is this splitting of the veil spoken of in the New Testament? Where is this splitting of the veil spoken of in the New Testament – where is it in the Old Testament? Where is the serpent spoken of in the New Testament that is in the old? He said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” And he said, “I am the Son of man.” Now where do we find it? Let us turn, now, to the book called Jehovah Remembers; it is called by us Zechariah, for the “Zechariah” simply means “Jehovah remembers.” The last chapter: “On that day he shall stand on the Mount of Olives . . . and the Mount will be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley: and one half will withdraw northward, and the other half will withdraw southward . . . and then living water will flow out from Jerusalem . . . and on that day the Lord will be king over all the earth; and the Lord will be one, and his name one.” Now when you read it, unless you’ve had the experience, you ask yourself, what on earth does it mean?79 ¶19

Well he is telling you exactly what it means. The drama takes place within man, not on any place called the Mount of Olives in the Near East. The whole drama takes place right here in man. And like the lightning, it will come just as unexpectedly as the bolt of lightning; and it will split you in two from top to bottom. He calls it east and west – from the top of your head to the base of your spine. And they will part leaving a wide valley between the two halves of your body; and at the base of your spine you will see a living pulsing, vivid light. It’s liquid. “Living water will flow out of Jerusalem.” And you will contemplate it; and when you contemplate it, you will fuse with the water – the living water that you contemplated, for you will know it is your Self. And as you become one with it, like a fiery serpent you will ascend your spinal cord into the only heaven that there is, right back within your own wonderful skull. And when you enter, it will reverberate like thunder, as you are told in Scripture: they take it violently. “And the violent take it by storm.” So the only mountain that is split is not the mountain in the Near East, but this mountain right down the middle from the top of your head to the base of your spine. At the base of your spine is the Living Water that will flow out of Jerusalem; and you will contemplate it and know it is your Self, and you’ll become one with it. At the very moment of fusion, like a fiery serpent you will ascend into heaven; and you will know what it means that you stood on the Mount of Olives. And it is split in two from top to bottom. And one withdrew northward and one withdrew southward; and then the living water flowed out of Jerusalem. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” That’s how you are going to be lifted up, like a fiery serpent. You will still be human.79 ¶20

I will know you in Eternity, for I will know you as my fiend and my brother; but I will know you are God! I will know you as the Lord – every one in the world, for nothing in Eternity will die but that which has no right to live; and that is simply the embodiment of your mis-spent energies – all your hates, all your unlovely thoughts, unlovely actions – everything whipped into the creation of a monster. I will call him the dweller-on-the-threshold. No one sees him with mortal eye, but he is ever present, whispering in to the ear of man to be violent. He simply thrives on violence. He loves violence. He loves deceit – everything that is unlovely in the world, and can only feed on the unlovely thoughts, when the other one feeds only on loving thoughts. Feed her with Love.79 ¶21

So every time you do anything lovingly, you feed her, and she glows; and when you do anything unlovely, he is fed, and he gloats with it all. And the day will come, he will leave her alone forever. She is made of the substance of God, which is Love. And here was the embodiment of hate and violence, and you will dissolve him without thinking for one moment that he is going to dissolve. When I made the pledge, I had no idea it would work like this. I thought I would have to spend Eternity to change it and work with it and make something good out of it. I had no idea it was simply the embodiment of misspent energy. As we are told in Scripture, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” I was not wise in my use of that power, and I made that monster. But every one has made it, and every one will redeem it. Every one will be forgiven for his misuse of the power.79 ¶22

So you are not going to any so-called lake of fire, as so many evangelists talk about and our ministers and priests from the pulpits talk about. There is no hell. You are in it right now! This is hell right now. The sufferings of men and women in our hospitals tonight, the sufferings of those who must look for food, not knowing where the next meal is coming from, those facing possibly dispossession and know not where to turn – all these; isn’t that hell? But our priests are not satisfied with that even; they try to make an even more horrible hell than that is. This is hell. Our boys in Vietnam – that’s hell. Those who come back with arms missing, feet missing – isn’t that hell? For the ret of their earthly days, these young men in their 20’s are going to go through life, many of them, with all arms missing and their feet missing, and they are basket cases for the rest of their days, just vegetating. There is no greater hell.79 ¶23

It’s right here in this world. This is the world of death where everything appears in this world; it simply waxes, it wanes, then it vanishes. And the only escape is out of this world – not to make it a better world. When they talk about making this a better world and getting all our energies together to make it something wonderful – no. This is a school – a school of educative darkness, and you don’t turn a school into a home. It is escape from this world, and God has planned the escape for His sons. He has built that bridge of escape, and that bridge of escape is the story of Jesus Christ. There is no other way out. “I am the Way.” I am the true and living way. To what? To the Father. We all go back to the Father. We came out from the Father and we came into the world. Again, we are leaving this world, and we go back to the Father – but not until the job is done. So we came here to fulfill a certain job; and when the job is accomplished that which He gave us to do.79 ¶24

So the Son of man in Scripture, who is brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days, is seated right here in his audience in garments of male and female. And the day will come, you consciously stand in the presence of the Ancient of Days, and you will answer as I did, as thought you were divinely prompted. You don’t have to be concerned as to what you are going to say. In that day you will know what to say. You say it automatically. You will not make a mistake. Don’t be concerned. No one is going to make a mistake in the presence of Infinite Love, for you cannot think of anything but – in the presence of Love, you can’t think of any thing; so when he asks you the greatest thing in the world, you answer automatically, as thought were divinely prompted. And then he embraces you. At that embrace, you are fused with the Ancient of Days.79 ¶25

So you must learn to discriminate between Christ-in-us and we-in-Christ. Christ-in-us is simply – I would say – proof of being sons of God, for Christ in us – Christ being the Son-in-us, we are sons of God. We-in-Christ are incorporated into the body of the Ancient of Days. That is the grand transition. So, thee Son wakens, and he is embraced by the Ancient of Days and incorporated into the body of the Ancient of Days, Infinite Love. And then you are sent.79 ¶26

So to be called is to be sent, and then you tell the story. You tell it from experience. You don’t theorize, you don’t speculate; you tell it as you have experienced it. And having experience it, you can’t change it. You do not modify it to please others. If they are not pleased, you are not concerned. You can only tell what has happened to you, and you go forward and you tell it. As told in Scripture, “They related their own experience.” When they came back, they simply told what happened. To whom? To themselves. “They related their own experience;” and that is our Scripture. We are only telling the drama as we have experienced it. And then they went back into the ancient scriptures and saw confirmation of the experience. They found it there; but finding it there, it was adumbrated. The whole Old Testament is an adumbration. It is a foreshadow in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way, but there it is, foreshadowing the story of standing on the Mount of Olives, and then a bolt of lightning splits it in two form east to west, and one side moved northward, the other side moved southward. Who would have thought for one moment that was going to take place in man and that he is the great Mount of Olives? And the Being stands in you. And that Son of God, which is the Son of man, is you. And He becomes the fiery serpent, and moves up into heaven. After it happens, you say it was always there but I didn’t have eyes to see it – my eyes were not open. He had not yet opened the ears that I could hear. He had not yet opened the eyes that I could see.79 ¶27

So if this seems something other than what you came to hear, again let me repeat myself. Whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. You will find things coming into your world of which you are totally unaware at the moment; they will come because your Father knows your need far better than your conscious reasoning mind does, and it will come. Without any effort on your part it will come. Just be about your Father’s business and “set your hope fully upon the glory, upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” And when He comes, He unveils Himself in you, as you; and then you know who Jesus Christ is!79 ¶28

You will never know Him if you look for Him as coming from without, and the whole vast world is looking for Him to come from without. He can’t come form without because He is buried, and buried in the Holy Sepulcher. And the Holy Sepulcher is the skull of man. Until He comes, He remains buried in the grave – the grave of the human skull. And when He wakes, He wakes as you in the grave. And when He is born from above, as we are told is essential to be born again or you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven; so when He is born from above, He is born out of your skull. The very night when He awakens within you, which is the Resurrection, He is born and He comes out. And then you will find who you are. And then the whole drama unfolds before you, just as it is recorded in Scripture concerning one called Jesus. So Jesus is the Pattern Man. It’s the pattern that every one will follow; and as you follow that pattern, the whole thing unfolds within you. So we are told in Scripture, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children.” Well, here is the pattern of God. Imitate that. You can’t do it deliberately or consciously; it is going to happen in this pattern.79 ¶29

When it happens, you will tell it, as every one in whom it happens tells it. And you will meet with the same response. Some will believe you and some will disbelieve you. Don’t make any effort to force those who disbelieve you to believe you. To try to suppress opinions which you do not share – you will find it far less profitable than to tolerate them. So they don’t believe you; so do not try to persuade them. You simply leave them. You do not share their disbelief, for you’ve had the experience; so you leave them just as they are. And do not try to suppress that disbelief, as the world does. Today we are trying to suppress at a fantastic cost opinions of other governments that we do not share, and they are spending billions to suppress our free enterprises. They can’t suppress it with all of their billions, and we cannot suppress theirs. So it is far wiser to tolerate it than to try to suppress it, just as it is far wiser for me, at any opposition to my experience, to simply tolerate it, and not try to suppress it. Leave them alone. Eventually every one who now opposes it will be brought to experience it; and when a man experiences it, then he can’t deny the experience. So having the evidence as something he himself experienced, all arguments cease.79 ¶30

So the Son of man of Scripture is in you as your own wonderful I-AM. Your own wonderful human imagination is the Christ – the Lord Jesus Christ of Scripture; and the Lord Jesus is God, the Father. And His Christ is humanity personified as the single being called David. David will call you, one day, Father, and you will know you are his father! And David only represents Humanity, that sturdy stock on which the sons of God were engrafted. No let us go into the Silence. Now, are there any questions, please?79 ¶31

[The tape starts in the middle of a sentence]…describing things that happened unnumbered years ago, but I tell you it’s contemporary. You read about the flood, and you think: “Well, certainly that happened unnumbered (if it ever did happen) . . it happened unnumbered years ago.” This morning, as is my custom, I turned on channel KFAC. That is a radio station that plays through the day and night, twenty-four hours a day, only lovely classical music; so you can read to that music . . only a few interruptions. On the hour, you get a five-minute bulletin and weather report. But between 9:00 and 10:00 o’clock there is always a lovely piano recital, as it were . . the great masterpieces played by great artists. So I can sit down with my Bible and read as I listen to the music. And the one interruption that came today was an ad from the Herald-Examiner. They were advertising this paper as the one paper in our city that gives the facts . . only facts, not embellished, no frills . . just plain fact, all facts. That’s why we should buy that paper, because it is simply filled with facts. Well, facts have overflowed the world like the flood. Man actually is “drowned” with facts, victimized by facts. It is in the Imagination that everything lives, and not in its actuality, not in the fact. Unless Imagination penetrates the facts, the deluge remains a deluge. We are now in the deluge. This is the flood!76 ¶1

A man is in jail. That’s a fact. And he knows he’s there for “x” number of years; that’s a fact. And he simply waits and hopes that in some strange way he will get some early release from this confinement. He never uses his Imagination, save in some violent way to get out, but not to penetrate the fact. When in March of 1943, by using my Imagination to penetrate the fact I, too, was in “prison” in the Army, but I didn’t want any part of it. So, I simply penetrated the fact and saw myself in New York City, in my own apartment with my family. And in nine days I was out, honorably discharged, in my apartment in New York City.76 ¶2

I wrote a friend of mine who was in the army. He was my age. He was a Freudian, . . a professional psychoanalyst, but Freud was his background. That was his schooling. When I wrote him in detail exactly what I had done (I didn’t mince matters; I told him exactly what I did): as I physically slept on my little bed in the barracks, I imagined I was simply elsewhere. The “elsewhere” was a definite spot in space: New York City, in my apartment. I told him what I did. I could “feel” the bed. I could “feel” the things in my house. I went about feeling all the familiar objects in my apartment, and I gave it all the tones of reality and all the sensory vividness to the best of my ability. I “touched” everything, and it felt real, and then I went back to sleep. Then I told exactly what happened to me that morning; and then nine days later, I was honorably discharged by the same man who had disallowed my application. He didn’t answer my letter.76 ¶3

In New York City he used to come to my meetings as a friend because he was so convinced that the Freudian concept was true. He said: “I come to your meetings for this reason, Neville …” (We knew each other well. He’d come home for dinner; I’d go to his place for dinner) … but he said: “I come to your meetings because you turn my daily bread into the substance of fairy. I sort of like that,” he said. “But when I listen to you I hold the chair and I put my feet right firmly on the ground to feel the reality and the profundity of things. You aren’t going to take me away with you. You are going to leave me right here where things are solidly real, so I feel the place under my foot and I feel the things next to my hands. I hold on tightly while you weave your story concerning moving off in one’s imagination.” He would not penetrate the facts.76 ¶4

So, when did he get out? When the other millions got out. So he remained with his facts for the next three years! I got out in March of 1943; he came home to New York City in 1946, demobilized as the other millions and millions of boys were. He could not let go of the facts. This is the flood . . there is no other flood . . this is the flood. We are “drowned” with facts, victimized by them.76 ¶5

Now, does the Bible teach this story of getting through the facts using my Imagination? It certainly does. Let me take you into the 27th chapter of the book of Genesis (the first book, the Book of the Beginnings). If you are not familiar with the story of Isaac and his two sons (they were twins) let me just refresh your memory if you have forgotten it. It is said in the story that Isaac had (that is, his wife Rebecca had) the two sons, but he was the father of the two sons, Esau and Jacob. It is said that Esau was a hairy one. He came first. And then Jacob came second, and he had no hair. He was completely hairless, while Esau was covered in hair from head to foot; but he was the first. One was called Esau, and one was called Jacob because he came second and supplanted the other.76 ¶6

Now we are told that when the father, Isaac, was old and his eye was dim so that he could not see (in other words, he was blind), he said to his son Esau: “I cannot see and my days are numbered. I want you to go into the fields and hunt and bring me some well-prepared, tasty venison as I like it, savory venison.” We are told that Rebecca (who loved her second son more than she did the first) overheard the conversation between Esau and his father. And then because she loved Jacob and wanted Jacob to get the blessing … for the father feels his days are numbered and he must now give his blessing to one of his sons, and the first one must get it.76 ¶7

So the mother told Jacob what she had heard and then suggested that: “… we take one of the kids from the flock and we kill it and take the skins of the kid and put it upon you, so that you will have the appearance of Esau.” Jacob thought otherwise. “Suppose my father discovers it?” And the mother said: “Leave that to me. It will be on my shoulder if he discovers it,” and sent Jacob into the field to bring the kid.76 ¶8

Well, he took that kid and brought it tastily prepared for his father. He came quickly into the presence of the father, and the father said to him: “Come near that I may feel you, my son, whether you are my son Esau or not.” So Jacob came near to Isaac, his father, who felt him; and then Isaac said to Jacob: “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” And then he blessed him. He gave him his blessing.76 ¶9

He had no sooner left the presence of his father when Esau comes in now with the savory venison, and the father said, “Who was it that came, for I have already eaten? Who came?” And then he discovered that it was his son, Jacob, who came with guile and betrayed him. “But,” said the father, “I have given him your blessing, and I cannot retract it, and blessed he is. All will serve him. Everyone will serve him, because I gave him the blessing and I cannot take it back.”76 ¶10

On the surface you will say: Now what is the story trying to tell us? Well, in this same book, in an earlier passage, we are told about the ark. “Build the ark with three decks: the lower, the second and the third deck.” You think it’s a huge big building. Well, use your imagination. You cannot conceive of any building that could house all the animals of the world in pairs, and all the so-called “good” ones, who will be in seven pairs, and enough food to feed them for forty days and forty nights. Well, you just simply could not conceive of it; nevertheless that’s the story. But there are three decks. The obvious thing is the facts of life, then the psychological interpretation of these so-called stories, and then the spiritual consummation of the story. So you have the lower deck, the second deck, and then the third deck. So, here is a perfect example of the second deck.76 ¶11

This room, now, is a fact. We are all here in the room. It’s a fact. But suppose I don’t want to be here. Suppose it becomes a prison to me. Can I get out of it? If I know how to penetrate the fact . . if I know that I AM the ark: that “All things exist in the human imagination,” and the human imagination and God are one . . they are one, not two . . I can in my imagination penetrate any wall. I can now, without batting an eye, in the twinkle of an eye I can stand on the street and see this thing without a man standing before it. It is no problem whatsoever to assume I am on the street, and looking from the street to this platform. But you may say: “Well, what would that do?” Well, let me do it and feel the reality, feel the solidity, of the street under my foot and see this building from the street rather than looking to the street from here. If I do it and give it solidity, give it reality, I’ll be compelled to go there. This is what Scripture teaches. That is my “blessing.” I can penetrate a fact, and penetrating a fact I can stand wherever I want to stand in this world. Then the promise is made: “Wherever the sole of your foot shall stand, that I have given to you.” I am not going to make you a promise and not fulfill it; I’ll give it to you if you can stand upon it.76 ¶12

So, I actually “stood” upon my apartment; I actually stood upon that floor and I felt the bed. I felt everything and gave it reality. My friend wouldn’t allow himself to sleep in one place and assume that he was sleeping elsewhere, because that is a divided state of mind. He didn’t want to become a split personality. So, he wanted to be completely coordinated. Well, he was coordinated all right, for the next three years, all in one little spot in his barracks. And for three years he couldn’t get out, because . . first of all . . he wouldn’t try it, because I turned his “daily bread into the substance of fairy.” So he did not answer my letter.76 ¶13

I have reminded him a few times since: “Why didn’t you answer the letter?” “Well, first of all, it didn’t make sense, and I don’t believe,” said he, “that really what you did was the sole cause of your discharge.” He always questioned it. Then I’d repeat it another time and tell him again what happened this time. “Well, that would have happened anyway.” Then you do it a third time and you do it a fourth time. Do you know: if you did it a thousand times he would still say: “Do it once more.” It will always happen, as far as they are concerned. It just didn’t happen because you did something; these things would have happened anyway.76 ¶14

I asked: “Why do you analyze people then and let things happen?” “We are not the creatures of circumstance,” said a man who bears your name, for his first name is Israel; and Disraeli’s name is simply “of Israel” . . Benjamin Disraeli. He said: “Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men.” He knew how to create things all in his imagination. So I said: “You bear the name of Israel, but you don’t apply the story of Israel. If you’d only apply it … why, these things are taught us in Scripture.” Scripture is not secular history; this is contemporary. It didn’t happen thousands of years ago. The Flood is on! This is the Flood. The whole vast world is inundated with “facts,” like the prominent papers, the evening paper, “The Examiner,” and they are proud of the fact that they only print “facts.” They don’t embellish it . . no frills, only the facts. Therefore buy the facts, and they go all over the world to find frightening facts.76 ¶15

I am not denying that he didn’t kill her; I am not denying that he did not receive a sentence of “x” number of years. But when people ask anything of me, I am not concerned about why it happened. What do you want? And I will simply apply my Imagination lovingly on behalf of that request. I don’t care what brought you to that state; I am here to simply get you out of the state. What do you want? All through the Bible: what do you want? He didn’t condemn anyone. The woman taken in adultery, he didn’t condemn her. What do you want? “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t call the act of adultery a sin. If she called it (or they called it) a sin . . all right, call it a sin. Therefore, don’t repeat it if you call it a sin. “Sin” is simply knowing what to do, but not doing it. That’s sinning.76 ¶16

So, if I discover what to do to penetrate a fact: to go beyond the fact and create a condition for myself and dwell in it and think from it instead of thinking of it … for the great fallacy of the world is perpetual construction . . deferred occupancy, to create and create in my mind’s eye all kinds of lovely things I would like to realize but never occupy them. I do not penetrate the state and go right into it, and give it cubic reality. But I know . . and you know . . and it’s not difficult to understand why the sense of touch is something we believe in more profoundly than we do in, say, the sense of sight, or the sense of hearing, or the sense of smell.76 ¶17

I stumbled upon this one day in a dream. In my dream I came upon this huge, big pillar . . a pile driven into the ocean, and the bridge that it formerly supported was gone now. Only the piles remained. And I knew I was dreaming, and I figured to myself if I held that pile and I could touch it, if it seemed to me solidly real, what I am going to do: I’m going to hold onto that pile in the dream. I know it’s a dream, but I am going to hold that as solidly as I can and compel myself to awake holding the pile. Well, I did. I held the pile with all my might. I said, “Now, Neville, you know you are sleeping. You know that you are dreaming now. So awake!” And I awoke in the water, actually holding that pile and I am standing up in what formerly I knew to be a dream. It ceased to be a dream; it’s real. I’m in a world just as real as this and here I am, holding this enormous pile, and it’s in the East Indies (not the West Indies where I was born) . . it was in the East Indies, a very primitive area. And then some animal came down to the beach . . a strange. . looking creature, and at that moment I was a little bit … I was panicky. In that moment of shaking emotion I awoke on my bed in New York City. But I discovered that secret of feeling.76 ¶18

So, he said: “Come close, come near, that I may feel you, my son.” He heard the voice; he said: “Your voice is the voice of Jacob. Come near and let me see really if you are Esau.” And he did it by feeling.76 ¶19

So, lying on my bed one night right here in Beverly Hills many years ago (it must have been fourteen or fifteen years ago) I suddenly became aware that I am seeing what I shouldn’t see. I am looking into the most marvelous interior of a plush hotel, it seemed that way to me. So, consciousness followed vision and I found myself in the room, but I knew I was on the bed. So I came back to the bed. I am still seeing the interior of the room, and I went back into that room. I came back again. I must have done it twelve or twenty times. It was fun going into the room; and the room was just like this . . real, and then I came back to the bed. Now I said: “l am now going to explore. Regardless of consequences I am going to explore.” So I went into the room. It seemed like a room thirty-by-twenty from the bed, but when I entered it with the decision to explore, the room closed in upon me and became a third of itself. Say, it became ten-by-seven, and I found it was a dressing room for a huge, big suite, beautifully done, but it wasn’t yet occupied. It was there to be occupied, but the room at the moment . . that is, the suite . . was not occupied. And I thought: “Well, now I will go through the door.” I didn’t go through like some gossamer; I opened the door with my hand and I walked right through that doorway. I was solidly real to myself. Then I walked down the corridor, and the corridor that I walked down was intersected by the main corridor and all the lights were on. And two ladies were coming down that corridor, the main one. But I knew this thing began as a dream. So, I knew that all ends run true to origins, therefore if the origin is a dream, this is a dream. So I said to the ladies: “Ladies, this is a dream. This whole vast world is a dream.” Then they were afraid of me. Who wouldn’t be afraid of a man who suddenly appears at a place where you are walking and tells you this whole vast world is a dream? You would think he’s nuts . . he is insane. So, they thought I was insane and they got just as far as they could from me and walked right next to the wall, duck-style . . one behind the other, looking at me very suspiciously.76 ¶20

Then I saw this object hanging from space. It reminded me of a similar object I had seen in a friend’s home in North Hollywood. So, I said to them: “Look, see this?” And I held it, and to my surprise it isn’t gossamer. This is not an after-image. This is not a memory image. This is real. The thing is solid. Well, I held it; and by this time, they were way down. They took one last look as they looked back at me and then darted into the main room. And here I am, standing alone holding onto this thing. I said to myself: “Neville, you know this is a dream. The origin is a dream; the end is a dream. Come on, wake up!” I closed my eyes to the obvious and held this thing here, and I couldn’t … I opened my eyes again I am still standing there. I said: “How am I going to get back to my room in Beverly Hills?” I didn’t know what … there was no place I could go to take me back there, but I remembered: Feeling is the secret.76 ¶21

I am holding this here now, and it’s real. It is solid. I am solid. They are solid. They heard my voice. And I walked down and every step was solidly real as walking here now. So, I imagined that my head was on a pillow; and when I could feel a pillow under my head while I am standing, I suddenly felt myself in a horizontal position, and my head is on a pillow. Then all of a sudden I could feel that pillow, but I was cataleptic. I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t move a hand. I couldn’t move a finger. Here I am, a living being in a dead body! So I said to myself: “They will find the body tomorrow morning, and they’ve got to cut it up,” because I am insured for a little bit, and to prove that nobody took my life they have to cut it up to find out why he died. They always have to ask that question, and they give it a name. If they can’t find it they have to give it a name anyway. So, here I am. I couldn’t open my eyes; I couldn’t move my hand. In about fifteen or twenty seconds (it seemed much longer than that) my little finger, I could move it, and then I could move my hand a bit. I still couldn’t open my eyes. We were sleeping in a double bed so I pushed my hand out . . my left hand . . and I could feel the warmth of my wife’s body. At that, I knew I was back on my bed. In another fifteen or twenty seconds I could, with great effort, open the lids of my eyes, and here came all the familiar objects . . on the walls, on the bureau, everything returned to consciousness.76 ¶22

Now, I had stepped into a world just as real as this. I am telling you, there are worlds within worlds within worlds, and they are all here . . right here . . just like turning on a radio. You turn it ever so slightly, and you have a new wave length and a new station coming in, bringing in something entirely different. And they are not interfering with each other! And these worlds are all here now and they are peopled, just as we are peopling this world, and they are just as real as this world. It’s terrestrial and it doesn’t…you don’t have to walk to it. I was on the bed. I seemed to walk into it . . I would say … what? ten feet away, but the same area permeated the bed, and the bed did not obstruct it; and that world into which I stepped did not obstruct the house that I lived in, in Beverly Hills. It’s all here . . the whole vast world . . worlds within worlds within worlds!76 ¶23

So, I tell you: “facts” are the Flood. That’s the deluge. There was no other kind of flood. We are actually inundated with the “facts of life.” And these facts . . we change them every day. Today this is the cause of so-and-so. Tomorrow that’s not so; it is another cause we have found, and the next day another cause. But while we haven’t found the next cause, we believe that to be the fact, and we worship the facts.76 ¶24

So I tell you: all things are in the human Imagination. “Man is all imagination; and God is man, and exists in us and we in Him.” “The Eternal Body of man is the imagination. And that is God Himself.” There is no other god. It’s all your own wonderful human imagination. And the one thing the whole vast world aches for is the awakening of the imagination. And when it comes, it comes with the birth of the promised child which sets a man free from the horrors of this world we call “the world of nature.” For Nature is simply that principle on which depends the sameness of forms in transmitted light.76 ¶25

And so the thing goes, over and over. Haven’t you observed a year . . that at a certain time of the year . . money is tight? All of a sudden it flows and then at a certain time of the year it stops. Why? It’s a habit. It’s a transmitted state. You fix that fact in your mind’s eye; and if you got fifty thousand dollars today and say it’s the month of December when money is always tight . . you are going to loan the money out or give it away before December comes by; so when it comes by, you are going to be tight again. It’s a peculiar . . I would say “slavery” . . this thing called “Nature,” in the sameness of forms in transmitted light.76 ¶26

Now, you can penetrate the fact and break it; and that’s what we are here to teach. “I come, not to abolish the law and the prophets” . . I come not to abolish them . . “but to fulfill them” . . and to tell you the real Law. It’s not washing your hands before meals, although that is a very nice, clean thing to do. It’s not giving certain diets, doing this, that and the other. He explains that the entire Law is psychological. He takes one of the Commandments, which is a graphic one, to show you how everything must be interpreted psychologically.76 ¶27

He said, “You have heard it said of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I, say unto you, any man who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act in his heart with her.” Well, what man hasn’t? What man has not violated that? So, he tells you the whole thing is a psychological thing. You cannot restrain the impulse. You may restrain it, based upon a thousand little reasons. Maybe you are afraid of the consequences. Maybe you are afraid that someone will find out. Maybe you are afraid of this, that and the other; but the impulse was there, and he tells you the impulse is the act. Well, if the impulse is the act, then creative acts are imaginal, for it was an imaginal act; so I have to observe my imaginal acts, for the imaginal act is a fact. It’s going to actually become a fact, and then it will confront me.76 ¶28

There was a lady in San Francisco. She said, “My brother”. . and she said to me, “I think he’s innocent, but I do not know the facts of the case; but he was given six months at hard labor. He is in the Army. And I don’t think my brother should get six months’ hard labor in the Army.” I said, “You want him out?” She said, “Certainly I do.” I said, “I tell you what. You may try it, so that you may give all praise to yourself and not to me. You do it.” “Well, what must I do?” “If he was out, would he come home?” “Oh, yes, he’d come straight to my place.” “All right. And if he came to your place, what would you do?” “Well,” she said, “I would throw my arms around him and kiss him, feel him.” I said, “All right, do that. When you go home tonight sit where you would normally sit, and just imagine that your brother is there and that you have thrown your arms around him and you are holding him and hugging him, and kissing him.”76 ¶29

The next Sunday morning in my meeting in San Francisco, that woman could rise and tell this story. She said, “I went home, and I imagined I heard the doorbell ring; and the doorbell is downstairs. I have to run down one flight of stairs to answer that door. So, I heard it ring and I ran downstairs, and I flung the doors open, and here stood my brother. I went back upstairs. There was no brother, but I did it so vividly that it was almost like a disappointment that I didn’t actually see him standing there, because it seemed so real to me.”76 ¶30

Well, a few days later she was sitting upstairs and the doorbell rang. She said, “I almost broke my neck to get downstairs. I knew what was going to happen.” As she threw the door open, here was her brother! She stood up in the audience and told that story to the thousand who were present that Sunday morning. They all saw her. No one, I presume, would go and verify it; I trusted her implicitly. If she lied to me, then it’s entirely up to her; but I am convinced the whole thing was true. I don’t check on you. I believe you when you tell me that it happened.76 ¶31

But the thing is to practice. We are the operant power. And the Flood is on. Let no one tell you the Flood is over. And the Flood is deeper and deeper, because we are more and more inclined for facts . . the “facts of life.” Do you want the facts? Well, you had better make the prison walls all the thicker. But learn how to penetrate the facts. As you penetrate the facts, you must go to a certain objective beyond the fact. What do you want now? Well then, you go into the state of the wish fulfilled. What is the state? You decide. You determine what you want in this world, and you go right into that state, and then ignore the facts. Suppose the facts now still deny what you did. It doesn’t matter. Let the facts remain; they will dissolve. They will all dissolve because you are going to remain faithful and you will occupy the state. No longer are you going to construct it and not occupy it. You are going to occupy the state. And as you occupy the state, it is going to work.76 ¶32

You can do that with a job. A friend of mine in New York City . . he came from out west. He was an engineer, and he said, “Neville, I want more money and I want more responsibility. I want to work for a certain firm.” I said, “Do you know where they are?” He said, “Yes, on Madison Avenue. They do international work. They build bridges, they build dams; they build things all over the world. And I would like a job that would send me away because I could get three times the salary.” I said, “Well now, go to the place and see where you would sit if you got the job there. Before they send you off, you would work in the home office first, wouldn’t you?” He said, “I think so.” “Well, go up there and just take a good look.” He walked into the place, picked out the desk, picked out the place; and then he assumed, when he got back home, he was seated at that desk, and that was his job, and he named the sum of money, which was a considerable sum of money. He and his wife and daughter used to come to my meetings. Within a month he was in that job, and within two weeks he was on his way to the Near East, building bridges.76 ¶33

Unfortunately in a way, he did not live very long. He was a young man. But in about three years he was gone. He had a heart attack, and he was gone. But he would have gone anyway, whether he was here or there, for we come on time and we go on time. But at least, before he departed this world, he found the Principle, which he will carry with him into the next world, for there is no “death.” He is restored to life in a world just like this, clothed in a body just like this, only young. Young as he was then, he’ll be younger. But he has at least the memory of what he did to get what he wanted, and it worked. So, now he goes with the Principle in his mind’s eye.76 ¶34

So, when you tell me of your dreams, and that you in your dreams are applying this Principle, like the lady tonight . . she is here. She told me her dream. I asked her to write it out for me. But right in the dream she is actually discussing with others this principle of imagining and how you imagine a certain state and you produce it in this world; and that there is nothing in this world that dies. All things are restored to life, and she is carrying on this conversation in her dream. Well, that’s most flattering and very thrilling, when you can carry it beyond into what the world would tell you is a state where you are not in control of vision; that you are simply the slave of vision rather than its master. You don’t direct it; you simply follow it. Well, she didn’t follow it; she directed vision. When you get to the point that you can direct in what they call a state called “dream,” where you are not supposed to be in control but you are simply the victim of your vision . . well, she is not the victim of her vision; she actually controlled the vision.76 ¶35

So the day will come . . it’s inevitable . . we all take off the garment. But I tell you that you are going to find yourself completely restored instantly . . not waiting for anything . . instantly restored . . in a terrestrial world with the problems that you have here, but you will know how to solve them. You will solve the problems because you know the Principle.76 ¶36

So, the Flood is on. The whole Bible, from beginning to end, is contemporary. Jesus is not something that died. He is something that lives within man, and he is dwelling in man. God Himself came, and comes, into human history in the person of Jesus in you . . in me . . in everyone in the world. And the day will come, you will know it when you are the Lord Jesus, but asleep to what you are. The day will come, you will be completely awake to the fact that you are the Father, and then you will know.76 ¶37

I have been asked, “Why do you express it all the time?” This is important. It is so important . . the Father is the most important part of Scripture . . the most important part of Scripture. Oh, I can have all the power in the world and yet not know I AM God! I can have a sense of awareness where there is not a thing in the world but myself, and yet not feel that I AM God. But when the Father comes and I know that I AM the father of that one and only Son of His, then I know I AM God! There’s no other way to know it. If I had the power that I could destroy the universe, I still wouldn’t know I AM God.76 ¶38

And if I was completely aware, as I was in 1926 while reading a book, it fell upon my chest . . it must have been not more than 10:00 o’clock; when I woke next morning, it’s 9:00, and I had not turned from left to right in the entire interval, because the book was still on my chest and the light was still on by my bed. Usually in the course of the night, a man turns often from side to side. How often, I do not know, but they all do. No one goes to bed on his back and remains there for nine unbroken . . or, in this case, almost eleven unbroken hours. So, I went right down into a deep, deep sleep in a trance; and in that state, I became Infinite Light. There was nothing but light, and I was It. There was no circumference. I was the center of it all . . no light outside of this Light that I AM. No sun, no moon, no stars; but nothing outside of the Being that I AM. I was infinite, pulsing Light. But still, I did not bring back the feeling of being God. That evaded me.76 ¶39

But when you see His Son, and that Son calls you “Father,” then you know; and there is no doubt in your mind as to Who-You-Are. That’s why I say this is the most important part of Scripture, and yet it’s the one thing that people will question me on: “Why do you emphasize it? Why do you repeat it over and over?” Because it’s the one thing in the world that you will . . one day . . experience which will convince you that you are God. Not a thing in the world will convince you outside of that.76 ¶40

But in the meanwhile, we can penetrate the facts. The man imprisoned need not be behind bars. We are imprisoned by the things that we do. All right, we can break them . . break anything in this world. A man can be imprisoned by gluttony. He can break it if he knows what he wants. Maybe he doesn’t really want to give it up. If he wants to give it up, let him create within his mind’s eye a scene . . a simple scene . . that if he had given it up, a friend or some relative would know. He doesn’t brag about it; they simply know, and there is a normal discussion that he has no longing for it any more. He has no desire for it. He didn’t take any drugs for it; he didn’t do anything to feed it. Just simply . . it wasn’t there. That certain taste that we have in this world . . all of a sudden . . you’ve had it; you are saturated with it, and you don’t want it any more.76 ¶41

All things are acquired. Today, I like . . for instance . . a thing called an oyster. I love them, especially those lovely eastern oysters. But the first time I had an oyster, I thought I’d die. I was a small boy. I must have been about nine or ten, and I went down to the . . it was then called the Virgin Islands . . owned by Denmark; they are now our islands, St. Thomas, St. John and Santa Cruz. And my mother said to me, “Now, Neville, you know, you are going to a strange place, and they speak Danske. You don’t understand the language but you’ll get by. You are going to a boarding house where there may be twenty or twenty-five boarding. You will all sit at one big table together. Now you are a boy, and you do not know their habits; so watch what the lady does; and whatever she does, you do it.”76 ¶42

I sat down at the table, and here was this plate of oysters. I had never seen oysters in my life before, and then all the little things before it. I saw this lady take a little fork from the side; so I picked up my fork, and then she took a little horseradish, she took something else, then a little Tabasco and did all these things to it; and then she stuck it into this oyster and dipped it into all that she had done; she closed her eyes and ate it as though she had honey in her mouth. I expected the same thing; so I did the same thing. And when I got that thing in my mouth, . . Lord! It wouldn’t go down, and I couldn’t bring it up. I’m not supposed to bring it up . . Mother told me that. So, here it stuck. But the funny part about it, I not only had that one; I looked down to find there were five others, and they had to go down. Well, that was my introduction to oysters. But now today I love them. I have acquired the taste for oysters.76 ¶43

The first time I had a drink, I can’t tell anyone that it was something like honey to me; but I acquired the taste, and today I fairly enjoy a drink. I try not to go beyond a certain point, because I want to keep my faculties alive. But I enjoy a drink. I’ve tried and tried and tried to acquire a taste for smoking, but I can’t. Therefore I gave that up after I tried it for about six months, and I couldn’t do it. I was then only twenty-one or twenty-two, and I couldn’t seem to enjoy a cigarette, a cigar or anything. It made me sick. So, I gave it up; I never acquired it. But all the other things we have acquired. We don’t come into the world with these tastes; we acquire these tastes.76 ¶44

You can acquire the taste of living in comfort. You can acquire the taste of living as a gentleman, or a lady. Acquire the taste. If you want to actually live like a lady, live like a gentleman, with no pressure to pay the rent, no pressure to do these things . . all right. Assume that you are that lady; you are that gentleman. Penetrate the facts. The facts tell you that you are not; you don’t have it. Penetrate the facts and live in the state as though you had it. And may I tell you from experience, you’ll have it. You will actually have it!76 ¶45

Don’t ask me how. The ways and means are contained within the state that you enter. So, you enter a state. It contains all that is necessary to externalize that state. So, pick out your state . . a lovely state . . and go right into that state and dwell in it. I call that “occupying the state” and thinking from it instead of thinking of it, just as you now think from your present state with all the facts around you to anchor you into it. Get into another state, all in your imagination, and the facts will appear to anchor you into that state. And the day you tire of it, you can get out of it and go into another state.76 ¶46

You know when you move into a new home or move to a new city, you have to actually adjust yourself to it. Well, you are the Pilgrim passing through unnumbered states. The states remain, but you . . the Pilgrim . . pass through them, like a traveler passing through a city. The city remains, but you . . the traveler . . pass through it. So, you go right into another city. You don’t rub out the state. Poverty remains a state when a man who was once poor moves out of it. He moves out of the state of poverty into the state of affluence, but he doesn’t destroy the state of poverty. Anyone can fall into it. As Blake said: “I do not consider the just or the unjust to be in a supreme state, but only to be in these states of sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” Now let us go into the Silence.76 ¶47