Tonight’s subject is “The Divine Body.” The Bible speaks of two bodies, one belonging to this age and one belonging to That Age. It speaks of the body of this age as flesh and blood, and it speaks of the body of That Age as the body of Spirit. Blake made the statement that, “Man has no body distinct from his soul. That called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age.” I will share with you tonight my experiences of the two bodies, and then you can form your own conclusions.74 ¶1

Metamorphosis is the central theme of the Bible, the transformation of man into God. Well, here we are in garments of flesh and blood . . garments that grow, they wax, they wane, and they vanish. We all reach that inevitable point where we say that they are dead, and they turn to ash, turn to dust. Yet, I know from experience that man does not die. I do know from my own experience. This is not theory. I am not asking any person in the world to support it. I only know what I know from experience.74 ¶2

The wise men of this age will say, “No, that’s stupid.” One just died here recently, and on his 90th birthday, with all the honors that man can confer upon him, they gave a birthday party for him. His name is Bertrand Russell. And this lady friend of his sat next to him at the party and said, “Bertie, you know, undoubtedly you are the most famous atheist in the world, and after today, at ninety, you undoubtedly are the oldest atheist in the world. But, Bertie, suppose you are wrong. Suppose . . and it can’t be too far from now . . when you depart this world you should meet Him. What would you say?” And with a twinkle in his eye, pointing his finger toward the sky, he said, “Well, I would say God, you gave us insufficient evidence.” I can almost hear him say, “You gave us insufficient evidence,” because as a brilliant mind, brilliant mathematician, philosopher, plus the fact of his rigid belief that there is no survival, he couldn’t conceive of anything outside of the brain as a physical organ, and its activity made man, and its disintegration was the end of man.74 ¶3

But I have news for him that man does not cease to be when men call him dead. I know from my own experience with those who have gone beyond, many of them . . the majority of them . . do not even know of the transition, they do not even recognize the fact that they have made the transition.74 ¶4

So, let me share with you one experience of this . . a very close and very dear friend of mine. His name is Jack Butler. He was my secretary. When I came out here, either my second or my third year, he was just about 50 years of age. In fact, he would have been, the following December, but he departed in late August. But the day I was leaving for New York City, I received a cable saying that Jack had been found on the floor, that Jack had a heart attack and was dead. So, I went back to New York City and attended to his funeral. I took care of all the things for him. His sister wanted a Catholic funeral, so we gave him a Catholic funeral in Haverstraw, New York. I went up and took care of all the affairs and paid for the funeral. My sister-in-law . . I have two . . and this sister-in-law of mine always said to me, “You know, I like you personally. I really do, Neville. I like you because you are very kind to my sister . . a good husband and a good father. But I don’t believe one word that you teach, you know, for I am a Christian in the orthodox sense of the word.” She was a pillar, and still is a pillar, of the Christian Church in Summit, New Jersey. But she said, “I don’t believe these things that you teach.” It’s perfectly all right.74 ¶5

Now, Jack died in August, and she knew it. In the month of January, the following year, say, almost now six months later, I am thoroughly awake, but I am not in this body. This body is on the bed, and I am fully aware of where the body is. I meet my sister-in-law in a world just as real as this . . just as real, just like this, and she said to me, “I still do not believe what you teach, you know.” I said, “That’s perfectly all right, Al, but look at Jack,” and she said, “What has Jack to do with it?” I said, “Don’t you know that Jack died?” And she said to me, “Jack died?” Before she could say anything further, Jack said to me, “Who is dead?” I said, “Jack, you are not dead, but you died, you know.” “Oh,” he said, “you are stupid. I am not dead, but I died?” Al recognized the fact that he had died, for she knew that I came back from California and had paid for his funeral and took care of the entire thing. I said to Jack, “I gave you a good, wonderful, Catholic funeral, Jack, in Haverstraw where you were. And your body was put down in a grave. By now, it’s all decayed right in that little bit of earth. If it hasn’t yet, it will soon decay and turn to dust, and here you are, solidly real.” I said to Jack, “Come over here, Jack.” He came over. I put my hand upon his thigh and squeezed it. It was solidly real, as it was Jack’s thigh before he died! Jack looked about 20 or 22 years of age. Now here is a man, 50 when he died, he never wore glasses, he never had any false teeth, he missed a few, naturally . . some were missing. But here is a man who could look into the mirror, see the reflection of his face, and not recognize the fact that something had happened. He was gone six months, and he did not know of the transition. He knew nothing about it. My sister-in-law, Al, she knew he had gone and the next day Al did not remember the experience, any more than 99 per cent of the people today remember these experiences, but Al changed from then on. She became hungry to learn more and more of God. She lessened her hold, as it were, on that orthodox concept, but Jack did not. He did not know.74 ¶6

And Bertrand Russell, at the age of 97 when he died . . wearing glasses, wearing false teeth, wearing all the aids that a man of that age needs in order to function here, would look into the mirror and see a young Russell . . a young Bertie in his 20’s, and not recognize the fact that he had departed this life. You see, the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, and in this world of ours, we think ourselves so wise. He said, “Since, in the wisdom of God this world did not know God through wisdom, it has pleased God through the folly that we teach to save those who believe.”74 ¶7

So, I meet them time and time again, and they are totally unaware. You know why? Because the world is just like this; you depart this world, and you are instantly restored in a body that is new . . unaccountably new . . in a world that is terrestrial just like this, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in you by He who started it. Your Father started that work in you. He is transforming you into Himself. He will not complete the work until He makes you Himself. So you are God the Father! “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”74 ¶8

Jesus Christ is the image of the Invisible God. You are destined to be Jesus Christ, but until that day He unveils Himself in you as God the Father, you will be in a world just like this, doing what you do here. It may be an entirely different kind of work, but it’s a terrestrial world. You suffer there as you suffer here. You go through all the experiences that you have here. And may I tell you . . you die there, too! You reach the age when you die there and are restored to life in a world just like this, in bodies just like these, only the body is almost new . . not a baby or child . . new, always around 20, 22, 23 years of age. That’s about the time that you pick it up.74 ¶9

Now, it’s a mystery. How on earth does it work? Well, let me share another experience to see how it works. Fifteen years ago in Beverly Hills, I am asleep in my bed, and yet I became aware, and I am seeing a bed that I should not see from the position that I am occupying on my bed. Here I am, looking at the interior of quite a plush hotel, and yet, on my bed no one in my room could see anything but the four walls and the things on the wall . . the bureau, the little objects on the bureau. Not a thing could be seen concerning what I am describing. I am seeing the interior of a wonderful hotel. I am looking into a wonderful suite of rooms. Consciousness follows vision, and I step into that room, my body is on the bed; I know exactly where it is. My wife is sharing the bed with me; it’s a double bed. I went into that room and returned to my body in the bed. I did it, maybe, a dozen times. Then I said, “Now I will adventure. I will take the plunge and remain in this room, and then explore.” When I made my decision to remain as consciousness followed vision and I stepped into that place, the room closed upon me. Here I am, in a world just as real as this, in a body just as real as this, and then the world closed upon me, and I am completely shut out in body, but not in consciousness. I know exactly where a body is. The world calls me by a name called Neville. I am still aware that I am Neville. I know there’s a body lying on that bed next to a woman bearing my name. She is Mrs. Goddard. I am Neville Goddard. And I’m going now to explore.74 ¶10

I see the entire room close upon me, and what seemed from the bed, to be a 30-by. . 10 becomes just a third of itself. It’s now an anteroom, just a dressing room. I do not go through walls; I act there just as I act here. I went through the door into the hallway. I started down this lovely hallway, with plush carpets, and when I came into another hallway intersecting this, it is all lit . . beautifully lit with chandeliers . . perfect. Two ladies are walking down the hallway, and I say to them, “Ladies, this is a dream,” because I knew exactly how it started, and I am telling them, “This is a dream,” and they are afraid of me, as though I were stark mad. I hear something that seemed to float from the sky. It wasn’t floating from the sky; it was attached to the ceiling. But I remembered something similar that I had seen in a friend’s home that I had seen not more than six months before, so memory tells me, because I know where my body is, that this is only a dream. So I started there, and I heard it, and it seemed to me very solid, very real. But remembering that I encountered something similar in a friend’s home in the hills of Hollywood, I said, “You see, this is a dream.” I thought at the moment that this would simply be gossamer . . just a shadow of what I had remembered. It wasn’t any shadow; it was a solid as this (touching the podium). My hand could not go through it; it was solid. I am solid to myself, and the ladies that are walking down . . they are as solid as you are. They followed what I call the “duck file.” One got in front of the other, and they got as close to that wall as they could, because they were afraid of me, and they hastened their step and kept on moving toward the end of the hallway. And, then, before they disappeared, they looked back to see if this thing is still in the hallway talking to them. Then I realized, now there is no way back to my body. I can’t go back to the room, and from the room go back. I am shut out!74 ¶11

I am locked out completely from this world, and I am in a world just as real as this. That world was just as solidly real as this world, but here I am, shut out, with unfinished business. My business is, I have a wife. I have not provided for her adequately. I have an uneducated daughter. She hasn’t yet gone through high school. She is qualified, I know, and she desires to go to college, and I have not made provisions for her college, and I have unfinished business in that section of a world that this seems to be but a section of it. If I do not return to that body and re-animate it, they will find the body and they will call it a dead body, and they will give some reason for the dead body. They will say it is heart failure. They will find some way to account for it. They have to, first of all, operate on it, for I carried a small insurance policy. So, it is customary to open it up to see why it died. I knew that that is simply the end of that body unless I got back.74 ¶12

I closed my eyes; held it for a few seconds. When I opened my eyes, I am still standing in the hallway. I close my eyes again, and I could see nothing any more than I can see anything now with my eyes shut. I open my lids, and I see you. I opened my lids, and I see that wonderful hallway, with lovely chandeliers and everything lit. And here I am, fully aware of what I did deliberately. Then I remembered something I did many years before when I found myself awake in a dream. I wanted to experiment, and I held the object in my dream, and I wouldn’t let it go, so I said to myself, “I know this is a dream. Now hold an object and don’t let it go” . . something that is stationary, not a living animal that can move, but something stationary, which I did. And holding it, I compelled myself to remember what I did! And I awoke in the dream . . and here I am, completely awake in my dream. I realized then that I awoke by feeling the solidity of that world. I remembered that I returned to this world by feeling the solidity of this world.74 ¶13

So, then, standing there, with my eyes shut now to the obvious, I assumed that my head was on a pillow . . the pillow that I knew I had placed my head upon before the whole thing started. I could feel the pillow. That’s all that I did. Then I felt myself, instead of standing vertically . . I assumed I was lying horizontally, and then I could actually feel myself in a horizontal position with my head on the pillow, but I could not move. I was cataleptic. There I am, now, with a body that is as dead as bodies can be, and I am alive in a dead body. I couldn’t move my finger. I couldn’t open an eyelid; I could do nothing! Now, I know exactly where I am. I am back in Beverly Hills, and the body is cataleptic and I can’t move it. It seemed an eternal time, but after, maybe, about twenty-five or thirty seconds I could move the little finger, and then a few seconds later I could move some more, and then I could move the elbow. I pushed it out, and I could feel the warmth of my wife’s body. And after tremendous effort, I could open the eyelid, and there I saw the familiar objects on the wall. I saw the bureau. I saw all the things return, now, to consciousness; and here is my body that I have shut out completely.74 ¶14

What is a body? Blake is right: “Man has no body distinct from his soul. That called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age.” The body I left on the bed is only a portion of this activity of my imagination, which is the real body, and the body that I clothed myself in when the ladies passed by and I talked to them was only a portion of the soul, but still related to this world. That’s not the Divine Body. These are the bodies of flesh and blood. That body would have bled as easily as this body would bleed if I cut it. It’s a mystery. It’s a miracle how you can produce that body and see it just as you see this reflected in a mirror; how that body can grow, as it grows here; how that body can suffer, as this suffers here; how that body is entangled with the relationships of men and women, as this body is entangled here.74 ¶15

Now, before we come to the Divine Body, let me give you a story taken from the book of Luke. The wise men of that day are called, in the Bible, Sadducees. They are the scientists of their day. Like Bertrand Russell, they did not believe in the Resurrection; they did not believe in survival. If they kept the law outwardly, they kept it only for political reasons. It was wise to be seen in the Synagogue. It was wise, for business purposes, to be seen as a holy man keeping the laws of Moses, so they abided by the external law, and they observed the dietary law and all these things. But they did not believe in the Resurrection. So, they turned to the central figure of Scripture, and they said to him, “Master, Moses in the law said that if a man marries and dies leaving no offspring, and he has a brother, the brother should marry the widow and raise up issue for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers, and the first one married and died, leaving no offspring. The second took her as his wife, and he died leaving no offspring, and the third, and eventually all married . . the seven married her. All died, leaving no issue, and then the widow died. Now, whose wife is she in the Resurrection?”74 ¶16

He answered and said, “In this age, the children of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are come to glory to attain to that age, they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, for they are Sons of the Resurrection, and they die no more. They are now Sons of God, being sons of the Resurrection.” Something entirely different when one reaches that age; the body differs completely, and he is above the organization of sex. He is neither male nor female there; he is Man, and “God is Man and exists in us and we in Him.” The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is then the Lord Jesus Christ, functioning in an entirely different body. It’s not this body that waxes, wanes, and disappears. It’s not this body that needs the companionship of the opposite sex. It is not this body that, between this and the opposite, produces something similar and calls it a child. Well, it neither marries, nor is it given in marriage . . not when it is in that body, which is the Body of the Resurrection. They asked him no more questions.74 ¶17

Now, what is “that body”? I will tell you my own experience, and you draw your own conclusions as to this Divine Body. I was coming through the Caribbean Sea on a freighter . . my wife, my little girl and myself. We were bringing boxite. That is the ore from which we make aluminum. The ship is going to British Guiana, and they load up just a certain amount, and then they come down the river at high tide, and they can get over the bank. If they took a complete load, they could not get over the bank, so they put on just enough cargo that when the high tide comes, it floats them over the bank. Then they come to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and fill it to the gunnels, for they are bringing all the boxite from British Guiana and storing it in Trinidad, for these ships are taking just a certain amount of the load, come to the Port-of-Spain, and then fill it. We flew from Barbados to pick this boat up in Trinidad. The ship is down to the water’s edge. I wonder how on earth this thing is going to take us to Mobile, Alabama, for that was the port. But we got aboard. They were only allowed to carry twelve passengers, on American freighters, unless you had a doctor. So, to avoid carrying a doctor, they only carry twelve. We had not a thing to do at sea.74 ¶18

The Captain called me in the very first morning. He was in an open shirt . . a khaki shirt. He said, “I am dressed for the entire voyage, Mr. Goddard. We have our breakfast between 8:00 and 9:00, our lunch between 12:00 and 1:00, and our dinner between 5:00 and 6:00. If you are hungry in between, in this little kitchen here you will find coffee 24 hours a day. There is milk in the refrigerator, cold cuts, cheese; the breadbox is always full of bread, with butter. You’ve got everything you need if you are hungry in between. This is a union ship, and we do not serve before or after time. You see all the buttons in your stateroom; everyone works. Everyone is perfect, but don’t push one of them, because no one is going to come, and if they do come, at the end of the voyage, I am going to get a huge, whopping bill for overtime. This is a union ship.” I said, “All right, Sir. I will not be pushing any buttons. I will go into the kitchen and get myself coffee if I need it. If my little girl wants milk, there’s milk. I have all it takes.” “If you drink,” he said, “I hope you brought your own with you, because we don’t have it aboard the ship. But the ice is there, and the setups are here, so you can have everything you want right here, but not alcohol, although you are allowed to have all you want if you have it already aboard.” So, I thanked him and told him, “Yes, I had my supply.” So, the ship started. You could do nothing of an evening . . just a small little deck. So, I retired quite early for my entire trip.74 ¶19

Well, this night in question, out of the blue . . with the most thunderous suddenness it came, and I found myself fall like a spiral out of my head. And here I am, fully aware, and a heavenly chorus is singing, and they took just three words, “Neville is risen,” and this heavenly chorus is singing, “Neville is risen.” And I found myself in a body of fire and air. It felt that way to me, and the body was self-luminous. I didn’t need the sun, the moon, the stars. Wherever I wanted to go, I just simply floated . . I glided. Here is a body that is fantastic. I did not lose my identity; I am still Neville, but I am clothed in an entirely different body, and the body, though human, is a body of fire and air. And I am a little bit off the surface of the earth. And, then, as far as my eye could see, I saw this sea of human imperfection. There were the blind, lame, halt, withered, shrunken . . you name it! Here they were in this enormous sea of humanity. I had no compassion. I simply glided by, and I knew they were waiting for me.74 ¶20

And the chorus is simply singing out. How they could take three little words, “Neville is arisen,” and play upon it as they played upon it, is beyond description . . but the most heavenly music, only using three words, “Neville is risen.” As I glided by, eyes that were missing . . empty sockets; they came out of nowhere and these beautiful eyes reappeared in the sockets, seeing perfectly. Arms that were missing came back. Feet that were missing . . the lame jumped for joy. The deaf heard. Everything in this world was made perfect as I walked by! That is the Divine Body. I know now, from my own experience, that Heaven is not a realm. It is the Divine Body; for wherever you are, clothed in that Body, everything is perfect. Nothing can remain imperfect in your presence when you are clothed in the Divine Body. Trees long dead, if you walk through the forest of dead trees . . petrified forests . . they would all burst into blossom. Barren fields must erupt into lilies of the purest white. The blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame jumped; everything was perfect as I floated by! And when I came to the very end and the end was made perfect and everyone was perfect, then this heavenly chorus exulted, and it said, “It is finished.”74 ¶21

Well, I felt myself actually crystallize into this body that is really like, I would say, a strait jacket that you put the insane in. This body, to me now, having experienced that, is just like a strait jacket. I must wear it, and I must suffer in it, and I must take care of it like a slave. I must feed it, water it; I must assimilate all that I put into it. And what I cannot assimilate, I myself must expel, and no one can do it for me. I am a slave of the garment that I wear here in the world of flesh and blood, but I have tasted of the power of that garment when the chorus sang out, “Neville is risen.” That is the Divine Body that everyone, one day, will wear! And that Divine Body is in you now. It came out like a fiery serpent, but it came out of my head, and I was it. I was the body. I was not only wearing it; I am that body when I am clothed in it. It needs no substance from without. It needs nothing. It is self-sustained, and it’s perfect. So, when you read in Scripture, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” it is that body. And that is Heaven itself!74 ¶22

So, when we read in Milton, where Milton makes Satan say, “Wherever I fly is hell, for I myself am hell,” . . this body is Heaven, and wherever it goes is Heaven, for I myself am Heaven! I cannot go anyplace clothed in that body and not find it perfect as the body is perfect. Nothing can be made imperfect in the presence of that body. It is Heaven! So, Heaven is not a realm. Heaven is the Divine Body. It is waiting in every man to clothe that one when the work in him is finished. It will be finished. No one will be lost!74 ¶23

Tonight you may drop, this very moment, and find yourself not necessarily in the year 1970. You could find yourself in the year One Thousand, and be just as comfortably adjusted to the year One Thousand as you are now adjusted to the year 1970. You could find yourself adjusted to the year Three Thousand just as easily now as you are adjusted to the year 1970. But the work that is to be done in you will determine what section of time you will find yourself awake in, but the body in which you will awake will be just like this. And if marriage is in order because it is necessary for the work yet to be done, you’ll be married. If something else is necessary, that’s going to happen to you. You can drop now this very moment, and you could be the Queen of England and find yourself tomorrow the maid of the latrines. It hasn’t a thing to do with your present position in this world. You could be now the biggest thing in the world in the eyes of the present world and find yourself tomorrow, if that is necessary, shining shoes for a living. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”74 ¶24

He does not judge anyone from their present external position in the world. What you are is irrelevant. It’s what He is doing in you. And what is He doing? He is transforming you into Himself! Metamorphosis is the central theme of the Bible . . the transformation of man into God the Father. And when He has completed the work, because He is God the Father, His son stands before you and calls you, “Father.” And then, and only then, do you know who the Father is . . only when He, the Son of God, calls you, “Father;” for, “No one knows who the son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal it.” So, when the Son reveals you and you are unveiled in the presence of the Son, you are God the Father. That is the end, the climax, the purpose of it all.74 ¶25

So, judge no one superficially. Judge no one by his position in this world, for you do not know how near he is to the unveiling of the purpose of God, which is to unveil him as Himself. It is God’s purpose to give man Himself, actually and literally so that, when the work is done, you are God the Father, and you will wear the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that body . . I can’t tell anyone what it is to wear the body of the Lord Jesus Christ . . the Divine Body. It is perfect!74 ¶26

And may I tell you, when I walked by this sea of human imperfection, I did not heal them by stopping to ask anything of them. I did not raise a finger in compassion. Where I am, everything must be perfect. If they are blind, they cannot remain blind. If they are dumb, they cannot remain dumb. If they are lame, they cannot remain lame. No matter what they are, they must be perfect in the presence of the Body that is perfect, and everything is made perfect. That is Heaven. So, Heaven is not a realm. Heaven is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, and everyone will be saved by being incorporated into that body. So, this is what I mean by the Divine Body.74 ¶27

If, in this world, you have to feel important . . all right, feel important. It’s far better than feeling unimportant! If in this world you’ve adjusted yourself to a way of living, and you must have a certain income, adjust yourself. Don’t think for one moment that poverty is nearer to God. Don’t think for one moment that wealth is nearer to God. None of these things have any indication as to the nearness to the end of the work that is being done in you. You can’t judge by any outside picture as to how near you are to the unveiling of the work, but when the work is unveiled, you are Jesus Christ. You are the Divine Body of the Lord, and this is the great mystery that you find in Scripture when you have experienced it.74 ¶28

I can’t tell anyone the thrill in store for him . . laid up for him until that day when he experiences Scripture. When you actually, literally experience Scripture, it’s the one true book in the world. It is not based upon theory. It’s all reality. And the day will come; you will experience it. So, behind the masks we now wear . . these garments of flesh and blood . . the male and female garments and all their children . . male and female, but in the Resurrection we are above the organization of sex. We do not need any sex split into two in order to create. We create by being the Divine Body! And when we create, it’s automatic, and it’s perfect. Everything is perfect.74 ¶29

Now, you draw your own conclusions. Can it be that men who depart this world not yet resurrected, clothed in their broken bodies, are gathered together and wait for one who has been missing to walk by to set them into a new frame in new bodies? My Mother, when she died at the age of 61, looked about 90. She died wracked with cancer. She bore her twelve children. Nine boys and one girl survived, and one boy and one girl died at birth. And my dear Mother . . and she was altogether precious . . a wonderful mother. At 61, she looked about 90, a thin, small, little, withered creature. Mother was always plump, blonde, blue-eyed . . a precious person. For the last two years of her life she came down with cancer . . riddled with cancer, and she was in constant pain. The pain showed upon her body. The day she died I was seated in my place In New York City, and she appeared before me, a girl of 20.74 ¶30

Mother was actually fond of flowers. She had a lovely garden. She had two gardeners always doing her bidding. I would see her in the morning . . she didn’t call it an umbrella; she called it a parasol . . taking her parasol, giving orders to these two young gardeners: how to cut it, how to do it, what to do. In her garden, she was always with these two gardeners, telling them what to do. She appeared before me, and she was under an arbor of flowers. There she had a brush in her hand, brushing this long, beautiful, blonde hair. She was very, very blonde. She had the lightest blue eyes. And there she was, brushing her hair, and she looked to me as a girl of 20. Mother died in ’41; I was born in 1905. So, you can see how much older I was than the girl who appeared before me, yet, there was my Mother! She appeared as a girl of 20, but she didn’t talk to me. I spoke to her; she looked at me and smiled.74 ¶31

I sat right down and wrote my sister, Daphne, and told her what I had just experienced, in the hope that it meant . . it seemed beyond the wildest dreams that man could ever hope for . . that something had happened and Mother was released at that moment. There is a difference of one hour in time between New York City and Barbados, where Mother died. And in that interval of one hour’s difference, my sister wrote and told me that Mother had passed, and she gave me exactly the time. You see; the war was on. There were no airplanes flying to Barbados, and you had to wait for an occasional ship, and they censored every cable. All things were censored. So Daphne wrote, and placed it into the normal mail, so I didn’t get the letter for eight days . . eight or ten days, and she described the entire passing of Mother. And allowing for one hour’s difference, that was the moment in time when my Mother passed, wracked with pain, looking like 90, and she appeared before me at 20!74 ¶32

The same thing happened with my father. He died at 85. And here was my young, wonderful, handsome father. He was a tall, strong, strapping man . . a man of my pigment. And here, my father appeared young.74 ¶33

Others I knew appeared in the distant future, but because they are in the year Three Thousand, it doesn’t mean they are wiser than they were when they were here. In this 20th Century we’ve had the Einsteins; we had men in the 30’s that could unlock the secret of the atom. And, yet, in the Twentieth Century, they are just as dumb people as they were in the Year One! They are just as stupid as they were then. You go all over the world, there are three and a half billion of us, and there are those who do not know how “to come in out of the rain!” And this is the Twentieth Century! They are just as foolish . . don’t think for one second that we are moving forward into some wonderful, progressive understanding. No! In the midst of stupidity you find Einsteins; you find the “this,” you find the “that.”74 ¶34

So, to find yourself tonight, should you depart this world, in the year Three Thousand . . there is no transforming power in death. It is He who is doing the work in you that is important, and He is God the Father. And when He completes the work that He set out to do, you are God the Father. And, then, all wisdom is yours, and it’s not the wisdom of man, for, “The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.” It is the Wisdom of God. And what is the Wisdom of God? The Bible defines the Wisdom of God as Christ, in the first chapter of I Corinthians, the 24th verse, “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” So, you find yourself in possession of the power and the wisdom of God. You don’t need any wisdom of man, when the work is completed in you. And may I tell you, all the world will not undo what your Father has done in you! He will not turn back until He completes the work. He said, “I will not turn back until I have executed and accomplished the intents of my Mind. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.” And the “latter days” are simply when He unveils Himself in you as Him.74 ¶35

So, this is what I mean by the “Divine Body.” It’s a real body. All I can say to you: it is simply the most glorious, luminous thing you’ve ever known. It is something that you are. You are the Body itself! Rather than wearing it; you are the Divine Body . . your Immortal Self, your Eternal Self. And wherever you are is Perfection. So, you could go right into hell, and hell would cease to be where you are! You will transform hell instantly into the harmony that is Heaven, and if you are not clothed in that Body, you can go into Heaven and transform it into the hell that you are. So, this is the Divine Body that is housed within everyone, and one day we will be awake in it, and the heavenly chorus will sing your praises too.74 ¶36

When I told the story in my little book called “The Search,” I was persuaded by a dear friend of mine not to tell it in the first person, for people would think me arrogant and think it blasphemy, so I told it in the third person. I should not have listened, but I told it in the third person. I told it saying that they said, “He is risen.” They did not say, “He is risen”; they said, “Neville is risen.” When I said in the story I knew intuitively that they meant me, I did not have to know it intuitively . . they were calling me by name. I knew I was the one who was risen. I knew I was the one of whom they sang and I was the one who wears the Body of the Risen Lord, and I was the one whose presence transformed the sick, the lame, the dying, the dumb into perfect states, and certainly once more in the world terrestrial just like this to continue the work that must be done in them.74 ¶37

So, I have shared with you my own personal experience concerning the Divine Body! And my experiences with this body are like a body within a body within a body, because this was on the bed in Beverly Hills, and yet I was clothed in a body just like this, just as limited, just as weak. Fortunately I remembered what once I did through feeling to return and, so, with unfinished business, with a wife not yet provided for and a daughter not yet fully educated, I knew I had to return or I should return. So, I took the feeling that I once experienced and I felt the pillow and returned through feeling to that body, to find it cataleptic . . to find that I could not move it, and after a while I could move it, and then a little bit more and a little bit more and then it came back to a normal state. So, I know that it is like bodies within bodies; that you seem to exude with them in this world terrestrial, until that Body, which is the Immortal Body . . and it doesn’t need anything but itself . . and, clothed in that, you are Heaven itself! You are the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s enter the Silence. Now, are there any questions?74 ¶38

Tonight’s subject is: “Predestined Glory”. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author speaks of God as “bringing many sons unto glory.” What is “bringing many sons unto glory”? Well, if you read the Scriptures carefully, you will see that glory and God are synonymous, “I will make my glory to pass before you,” or, “While my glory passes by… I will cover you with my hand,” and, “When I pass by, I will remove my hand.” So, here we find “my glory” is equal to I. “My glory passes by,” and “When I pass by…” What is He doing? He is bringing His sons to Himself. He has chosen His sons . . unnumbered sons, and, yet, there is a number to it, but it seems like an infinite number. And the word glory means to magnify, to “make self many.” So, He is transforming us into Himself . . actually one with God, as God. That is the story . . the great mystery of the Christian faith. He said, “I consider the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Then He tells us that He calls us “according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be . . conformed to the image of the 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, here we have five terms: “foreknew,” “predestined,” “called,” “justified,” and “glorified” . . the affirmation of predestination. And there is no way of interpreting these terms to avoid such a conclusion. You are predestined to be God!73 ¶1

Now, you may say, “Well, now, look at the things that I have done, the horrible things that I have done!” It doesn’t really matter. We have all done them, or we are doing them, or we will do them, but that does not interfere with God’s predestined plan. There we have in five terms the structure of God’s plan of giving Himself to us, not as something that is great on the outside, but giving Himself to us. So, we actually become God!73 ¶2

Now, I know the priesthoods of the world scare us to death trying to make us conform to their concept of what a man ought to be in order to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. May I tell you, fitness for the Kingdom of Heaven is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory. When He calls you . . and He calls you individually . . you could be the most unclean being in the world, judged by human standards, but God calls us according to His purpose. Now, when He is ready, He’ll take you into His body, for His body is the Eternal Temple, now made up of living stones . . not dead stones, and only God knows that you are not fitted, but you are fitted by reason of His call. When He calls you, He incorporates you into His body, and that incorporation fits you for the Kingdom of Heaven! So, fitness is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory.73 ¶3

Now, let me share with you my own experience of the Call. It was this month back in 1929. I was then a dancer. I was 24 years of age, searching . . searching for an experience of God. If anyone went into blind alleys looking, I did. I tried everything, trying to find Him. No, I didn’t try dope; I didn’t smoke marijuana. No, I didn’t go in for that. First of all, I couldn’t afford liquor, and Prohibition was on in those days, and I wasn’t in the habit of drinking. I couldn’t afford it, and there was no liquor around unless you went to some expensive speak-easy. Well, I couldn’t afford it. But I was searching for God. I thought maybe a certain diet, like a strict vegetarian . . maybe that would do it. I tried that.73 ¶4

When I was 24, I went to sleep perfectly normally, as I do today, and during the night I was taken in Spirit into the Divine Assembly, and I was taken into the presence of a Recording Angel. And here sat this heavenly being . . a desk at a slant, with a huge ledger open before her, with a quill pen. She said nothing. I said nothing. I was simply taken in Spirit. I had no control of the action; it was all automatic. I stood at her side . . at her left side. She turned, and she looked me in the eye . . turned her left face and just looked at me. Then she turned back to the ledger, and wrote something or checked something in that ledger.73 ¶5

Then I was taken into the presence of the Risen Lord . . Infinite Love . . Man. Yes . . Man! And here is the “Ancient of Days” . . not an old man . . but a man without beginning, without end . . an Eternal Being . . all Love. All I can say of this one: He is the “Ancient of Days.” And he asked me to name the greatest thing in the world, and I replied with the words of Paul, automatically as though I were prompted. I didn’t stop for one second to think. I just simply automatically used the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment, He embraced me. At the moment of our embrace, our bodies fused, and I became one with the body of the spirit of the Risen Lord. Until you experience it, you will never know such infinite love . . just love, sheer love. And while I am embraced by Infinite Being, who is all Love, a voice rang out . . out of the blue, and it said, “Down with the bluebloods.”73 ¶6

At that moment, I found myself in the presence of Almighty Power . . Man. Yes, it’s a man! Not the Ancient of Days . . the face differed now, and here is Almighty Power, but a man, and without using his vocal cords, without using his lips, I heard what he thought. He commanded me, without using words by the use of lips, and I heard within me that which he thought, and he said to me, “Time to act.” And with that, I was simply propelled . . catapulted out of that Divine Assembly back into this little body that was reclining on its bed, about 4:00 in the morning in the month of July of 1929.73 ¶7

From that moment on, things began to happen within me. I had no idea what it meant to act. But he said, “Time to act,” and then within me things began to unfold.73 ¶8

Everyone will be called. Everyone will be incorporated into this one body, for “There is only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.” Each will be called in his own good order. No one can tell me that he feels himself fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. There is not one man in the world . . by man, I mean generic man . . that thinks himself so good that he thinks he is worthy of it. No one can tell me honestly he thinks himself worthy of it. So, forget it when someone tries to scare you into believing you’ve got to make an effort beyond the effort that you have made in order to qualify for the Kingdom, for fitness is the consequence, not the condition, of His glory.73 ¶9

When He fuses us, He has already made the choice at the beginning. “Before the foundation of the world, He chose us in Him” . . then sending us into this world of horror. This is a world of horror, a world of death, and we pass through all the furnaces of experience in this world, and while we are in it, we are called. At the very moment of being called, the embrace purifies you . . at that very moment.73 ¶10

Now, the body of flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, so I was not in this body when I stood before His presence. I was in a spirit body, but I was conscious of being Neville. I was conscious of being all that, as a man called “Neville,” I thought I had done. I wasn’t proud of my 24 years on this earth. I had done many things of which I was ashamed, and yet, in spite of all the things I had done in 24 years, He still called me, for at that moment in time that one stone was necessary. He is rebuilding His temple.73 ¶11

The temple has been shattered purposely, deliberately, and we are the fragmented parts of that temple. And the parts go through all the furnaces of experience in this world, and He knows exactly what stone He wants now, at this moment. And He calls that stone. It’s a person . . it’s you! And He is calling you to glorify you, but He glorifies you with Himself.73 ¶12

So, here are the five terms: “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 justified, and those whom He justified, He glorified.”73 ¶13

Justification is the Divine Acquittal. Whatever I did in all ages that passed between that moment when I fell with God . . for He brought us all into one body, and one body fell and fragmented itself into the unnumbered races and nations in the world. Now, He calls us, one by one, and when you are called, though unfit, He justifies you; and justifying you is simply Divine Acquittal. You are acquitted of all the things that you have ever done.73 ¶14

Then comes glorification, and glorification is the gift of Himself to you. You become one with God . . because there aren’t two gods; you are God, though you remain in the little garment of flesh for a while. You remain in this little garment of flesh . . still weak, still limited, with all the limitations of the flesh, until that moment in time when He takes it off for the last time, and you awake then as God, without loss of identity.73 ¶15

So, let no one scare you that you are not fitted for the Kingdom of Heaven. That choice has already been made, “You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world,” and you are sent out and told that you are going to suffer.73 ¶16

Read it in the book of Genesis. You will go into a land . . a strange land, and you will be enslaved there . . enslaved for “four hundred years” . . not four hundred years as you and I measure time. This cross of flesh is “four hundred,” for four hundred is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, whose symbol is that of a cross. It is the taw, the 22nd letter, and this is the cross on which God is crucified, and you suffer while you wear the body of flesh and blood. We are enslaved by the body that we wear. No matter what you own in this world . . if you owned the whole vast world, and all were your slaves, you could not command one slave in your world to eat for you and assimilate for you. You have to eat, assimilate and eliminate for yourself. You are a slave of the body that you wear, and you will wear it for the “four hundred years,” until that moment in time when you are called.73 ¶17

Now, when you are called, you are incorporated into the Body of Love. From then on, you “taste of the powers of the age to come.” The powers are so fantastic; nothing known to mortal mind compares with the power that is yours to be exercised after you are called. And then the body comes off for the last time.73 ¶18

But you could not exercise this power until you are first incorporated into the Body of Love. For, if you had this power, minus Love, you could destroy the universe! Nothing in the world compares with this power. You could stop the whole vast world, and make time stand still, then change the motivation of these slaves on earth, and make them do your will, and it would be the most horrible will in the world. But you wouldn’t after you were incorporated into the Body of Love; your every motive, then, is governed by Love.73 ¶19

So, first comes the call. Predestined, yes, foreknowledge, yes, before you are called, and He predestined. But now comes the break, and now He calls. And He calls us, one by one, to be incorporated into His own Being, the one Spirit. For, he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. So, in the end, you and I, without loss of identity . . we are God Himself!73 ¶20

This is the Glory of which I speak. This is the glory that was foretold in Scripture, the greatest book in the world, and the most misunderstood book in the world. It is all about you.73 ¶21

So, we are told, “And the Lord will rise upon you, and the Lord will be seen upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” His glory is Himself.73 ¶22

And I am telling you from my own experience, we will be seen by others, and be identified by others as God Himself! And, yet, the friend of the one who sees you . . they will stand amazed, knowing you as their friend, and yet they cannot deny what they now see. They will see you as God Himself, and there will be no uncertainty in their minds when they see you as God Himself . . a face raised to the nth degree of beauty and majesty and character beyond the wildest dream of anything on earth. And, yet, you are God, and they will know it. The day you wear the actual Body of Love . . anyone who sees that will see the most glorious sight in the world. But the glory of which the Bible speaks is God Himself. “For I will make my glory to pass by; when my glory passes by, I will cover you with my hand.” And then I pass by. So, the I is equal to “my glory.” “Though you will not see my face, you will see my back, when I pass by.” Why? Because, “Only the Son knows who the Father is.” So, when Paul speaks of this revelation, he speaks of it in the text that “when it pleased God to reveal His son in me.” When He reveals His son in me, He reveals me as Himself, because “No one knows who the Father is except the Son, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father.” And, so, no one has ever seen God, but the only Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known, for it takes the Son to reveal me. When God’s son stands before you and calls you “Father,” then you know who you are. And that son is David. “I will tell of the decree of the Lord, and He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’” And the Lord is Jesus Christ Himself, let no one tell you otherwise. They will tell you, but don’t believe them. Jesus Christ is God the Father!73 ¶23

And David is the sum total of all the experiences that man has ever had in this world. Take all the generations of men and all their experiences, and fuse them all into a single state. The state personified comes out as God’s son, and that is His anointed one called “David.” And David said, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, ‘Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.’” He stands before you, and from then on, you know the Eternal Son, and the job, so far as you are concerned, is over.73 ¶24

Now you will understand the words, “Return unto me the glory that is mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was. Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, for I have accomplished the work thou gavest me to do.”73 ¶25

What work did He give me to do? What work did He give you to do? Well, in the world of Caesar, I have been a dancer, I’ve run an elevator for Macy’s, I’ve filled bins for J. C. Penney; I did all kinds of things. And, then, in 1938 I started telling this story, and I haven’t stopped since then, but before 1938 I had many jobs. But they are unimportant . . it doesn’t really matter.73 ¶26

The only thing that man has come to do, and must accomplish, is to fulfill the Word of God. And don’t be concerned . . you are going to fulfill it, for the simple reason, God fulfills it in you. He has completed it, and He’s buried in you. The whole thing is brought to a climax already. It’s assured. You cannot fail. No one, in eternity, can fail, because it already has been brought to its climax, and it’s finished. “I have accomplished the work Thou gavest me to do.”73 ¶27

Now, the One who made that proclamation is buried in us. He is the Pattern Man buried in every man, and that pattern will unfold in man, and everyone will be the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is God the Father! There is no other “God the Father.”73 ¶28

The day will come, you will know it . . you will experience it. And what you know from experience, you know more thoroughly than you know anything else. I can tell you now that you will do it, and I trust you will believe me. I can’t persuade you to the point of conviction, but when you have it, it doesn’t matter what the whole vast world will say. The whole world could rise in opposition . . it would make no difference to you, for the evidence has already been given to you. “And so, when it pleased God,” Paul said, “to reveal His Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” What man still in the consciousness of being a man of flesh and blood could in any way illuminate it for me? How could he analyze it for me? He would tell you, maybe, that you are suffering from some hallucination.73 ¶29

But the great poet saw it so clearly. Robert Browning, in a poem called “Saul” . . as you know, in Scripture Saul was demented; he was insane. He was the choice of man for a king. Israel said they wanted a king, and then the Lord said unto the Prophet Samuel, Warn them as to the result of wanting a king, that he will enslave them; that he will simply take from them their sons and their daughters and everything, and their money, to keep his kingdom going. But Israel wanted to be like other races and other nations, and she insisted on a king, so Israel selected Saul because of his outer appearance. He was tall and handsome and strong. So, they got exactly what they wanted . . a king. He was insane. He was rejected, and the Lord picked David in his place, and anointed David. And so, from that moment on, the Spirit of God came mightily upon David and never left him, for David was the choice of God, and Saul was the choice of man.73 ¶30

Now, this poem called “Saul” is based upon the 16th chapter of I Samuel, where David is explaining to the demented king the meaning of Messiah and the coming of Messiah. And these are the words of the poet Browning. David stands before Saul, and David makes the statement: “O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!” They called Saul.73 ¶31

Here, David stands before the demented king who does not recognize his own son, for you would have to be suffering from amnesia not to know your own son. So, he stands before him and tells him a prophecy and declares, “A Face like my face shall receive thee.” What is “my face”? Then he tells him: “…a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!” Now, said he, “See the Christ stand!” He was the Anointed One. David was the one whom the Lord anointed. He said, “That is he. Rise and anoint him.” And from that moment on, the Spirit of God never left David.73 ¶32

David is the sum total of all the generations of man and all their experiences fused into a single being and personified. And that is the resultant state of our experiences in this world of sin and death.73 ¶33

So, really, in the end, there is only God. And God is Jesus Christ. There is no other God. So, let no one scare you. Your salvation has already been predestined. You are already redeemed because you have already been predestined. Predestined glory, and glory is nothing more than the magnifying . . “making Self many.” So, each becomes the Face of God, everyone knowing that he is God, and everyone knowing that the other . . his brother . . is God. And there is nothing but God! So, God is made up of the brotherhood behind all the masks . . whether they be male or female . . is the brother, and that brother is God. We are the sons of God that God redeemed and brought to glory. “He is bringing many sons to glory,” as we are told in the 2nd chapter of the book of Hebrews: bringing us all to glory, and glory is Himself. So, He is bringing us all to be one with Himself, because there cannot be two Gods . . only the one God. And, so, you are destined to be that God! I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you the night that it happens. And when it comes, it comes so suddenly –as told you in Scripture, “just like a thief in the night.” No preparation for it! You go to bed feeling just the normal person that you are; not overly proud of what you have done, not ashamed beyond measure, but you wish it was a better sort of a day. You wish you hadn’t entertained the thoughts you did that day, but in spite of your uncleanliness in your own eyes, and maybe even in the eyes of others, it was the moment in time that was ripe, and God chose you at that moment in time. So, He chose us. We didn’t choose ourselves. He calls us when that stone is ready to be inserted into the Body of the Living Temple.73 ¶34

But while we are here in this world, to cushion the blows . . and only to cushion the blows . . He has given us a Law. And the Law is simple . . very simple. And the Law is: IMAGINING CREATES REALITY. It’s a simple, simple law. These are my words, but I only take them from Scripture . . based upon Scriptural words, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have, and you shall.” So, putting it into my words, I say, “Therefore, imagining creates reality.” I have to imagine. So, if I imagine now that I AM what, at the moment that I imagine it, reason denies and my senses deny . . if the Scripture is true and I persist in that imaginal state, it shall become a fact.73 ¶35

Well, having tried it . . and it works . . I share that knowledge with others. Know what you want. Try not to hurt another. It doesn’t really matter about others. Others will aid you in the birth of that assumption. So, you assume that you are the man that you want to be, though at the moment of your assumption, reason denies it and your senses deny it. But you dare to assume it and persist in that assumption, and your assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact.73 ¶36

So, you cushion the blows in this world while you wait for the Call. But the Call will come. You can’t rush it. Everything comes in time. We are all called according to His purpose, and when the stone that you represent is ready in His eyes . . not because of your fitness, but because that is the time for it to be incorporated into the Body of the Risen Lord, you will be called.73 ¶37

And you will tell the story that I am telling. And you will have the same reception: some will believe you, and some will disbelieve you. Don’t stop to persuade those who disbelieve you. Encourage those who do, that they too may be called. On the other hand, you can’t promise them that tonight will be the night or tomorrow night. “No one knows the hour” . . only the Father. So, they will be called in the Father’s good time. But you can tell everyone they will be called.73 ¶38

I can tell that to a Hitler, if he stood before me with his hands dripping in blood, as they are. If I told it to a Stalin, who was a monster on earth, “You will be called,” I am not sanctifying or justifying his behavior as a man . . no. But I can say that the Being behind the mask that is a Stalin, that is a Hitler, is God, and in the end, God forgives all. He said, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”73 ¶39

But you, knowing now what you do know . . you can play this game beautifully, all in love. All you do is follow the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” You can’t go wrong! You can’t go wrong.73 ¶40

If anyone asks you to hear that someone is dead that he may get their estate, that is not what you want done to you, therefore you would not accept that request. “Go elsewhere, but don’t come to me.”73 ¶41

But if they ask you to help them hear that they have a fortune, or that they are secure, or that they are contributing to the world’s good, believe them, because I would like to do those things myself. Who wouldn’t want to be secure? Who wouldn’t want to feel that he contributes to the good of his environment? To the good of his country? Anyone wants to feel that. Therefore, if the request was along that line, believe it when you hear it. So, dare to assume that they have what they now request, and if you persist in that assumption, they will get it. You don’t have to concern yourself as to how they are going to get it.73 ¶42

A friend of mine wrote me concerning my book, “Feeling Is The Secret,” that we never get what we want, we only get what we are. Well, he knows if he reads the book carefully that you can make what you want what you are, by an assumption.73 ¶43

I start with a want. Yes, I want to be. By the mere saying that I want to be, I am confessing that I am not. Well, if I dare to assume that I AM what reason tells me that I am not until that wanting ceases to be, because I feel that I AM it . . before I have the evidence to testify and to bear witness to it, I must precede it by an assumption that I AM it.73 ¶44

When you know what you want, you are told in Scripture, “Believe that you have received it, and you will.” That follows your daring mood to believe that you are what, at the moment, reason denies that you are.73 ¶45

So, I would not go back on what I have said in that book. I maintain, I’ve said it correctly; that you do not get what you want, only what you are. Through what you want to be, you can live to be what you are. Assuming it long before there is evidence to support that assumption, then the evidence will come like the fruit coming out of a tree. If you do not know the nature of the tree, wait until the tree is bearing, and when it bears, all arguments vanish, for the fruit will tell you what the tree is.73 ¶46

So, all of a sudden, things will happen, based upon what you are. You don’t have to will it. No, people are always trying to will things into being. It is not done willfully, nor even carefully. People gather around themselves everything, and they call themselves “careful operators” . . taking advantage of. No!73 ¶47

It is simply the core of integrity. You come right down to: Am I really that? Am I really serious? Well, if I am serious, I should see it all day long as I walk the earth.73 ¶48

My friends know me as I AM now. Any change in me, they will see the change; they will hear it through the grapevine, if suddenly something happens to Neville. Whatever happens, one friend will tell another friend, and the other will tell another, and then finally they all will become aware of changes in me.73 ¶49

Well, now, let the change take place in me first, that I may see them in my mind’s eye.73 ¶50

Today I see my wife. She knows all the things that are taking place in me. Any change in me, she observes it. A change in my fortunes, she knows it. If the bank deposit goes down, she knows it . . she keeps the books. If it goes up, she knows that. If I get a big dividend check one year, she knows it. If the next year, they perhaps don’t give a check . . they simply pass it, she knows it. So, anything that happens to me so far as my fortunes go, she knows it.73 ¶51

Now, would I like to change that and see it tripled? Well, assume that it already has been deposited and is tripled. Well, now, let me think of my wife. Wouldn’t she see it in me? Wouldn’t she know it? Certainly, she would. Well, I assume that she knows it. I let her see me as she would have to see me if it were true. And, so, another feeling.73 ¶52

Now, in the course of a day, am I going to go back on that? I think of her whether she is physically present, or if she is absent, I think of her. So, when I think of her, would she see me in that change? She would. Well, then, let me be constant in myself. Let me be constant to that change in me until it becomes the very core of integrity. I am faithful to that change in me, and I use her, and use my friends, as the barometer to register the changes that I have tried to produce in myself. So, if I produce them, they would reflect it. If they are not reflected, I have not succeeded in producing in me the necessary change. If I succeed in producing the change in me, they should reflect it.73 ¶53

So, I will not go back on what I have said: You don’t get what you want . . you get what you are. But take what you want and make it what you are. Let go of what the present state is, and put that in its place as a substitution. It’s called in Scripture . . I call it revision, but Scripture speaks of it as repentance; but unfortunately the word repentance has been misused. It originally meant, and still does mean, what the ancients intended that it should mean. Originally it meant a radical change of mind. It wasn’t remorse. You don’t go down and be remorseful and regretful. That has not a thing to do with the word repent.73 ¶54

Repentance is a radical change of attitude towards yourself, towards the world, and to the degree that you succeed in changing that attitude towards yourself, and therefore the world . . to that degree, the world will change to reflect that . . all taking place within you. So, you make what-you-want what-you-are come now and then into a sense of being, for whatever I AM, I am going to raise it. I am going to expel it into my world.73 ¶55

So, here, you are predestined to be glorified, and when you are glorified, it is because God at that moment of glorification has succeeded in giving you Himself. That is why we are told in Scripture, “The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”73 ¶56

Grace is God’s unmerited, unearned gift of Himself to you. That’s Grace. You don’t earn it, and you certainly do not merit it. It is God’s unmerited gift of Himself to you. So, Grace comes through Jesus Christ. And the Truth comes through Jesus Christ.73 ¶57

We talked a bit last night about Truth. Truth: He said, “I AM the truth, I AM the way, I AM the life.” He is the Pattern Man.73 ¶58

So, when Paul writes his letter to Timothy, he says, “Hold fast to the pattern of true words which you have heard from me.” I have given you the pattern of the true words.73 ¶59

Now, read his letters, because they came first in the Bible. They preceded the Gospels . . preceded everything else in the New Testament. They came first by twenty-five or thirty years. He tells us to hold onto these patterns “that I have given you.” There is no other pattern. There is no other way to the Father, other than this pattern “that I have given you.” Now, read it carefully, and you will find the pattern.73 ¶60

When it unfolds in you, you ask yourself: Who is Paul? Just who is he? He is named in Scripture, but he is not named in any book of the First Century outside of the Bible. Well, how could a person like Paul go through all that he claimed that he did? He was imprisoned in Rome . . imprisoned in all these places all through the Near East, and yet there is no record of his imprisonment . . not any record outside of the Bible! If he was imprisoned, and we take it literally, then the record ought to be there, for these records were kept. Yet his name is not mentioned in one book in the First Century outside of the Bible.73 ¶61

So, who is Paul? He is you! He was first named Saul. When that amnesia fades and then memory returns, you are God! God is a father, and as a father, He has a son, and His son is David of Scripture. So, when memory returns, you recognize your son, and you don’t have to ask him, “Whose son are you, young man?”73 ¶62

You see, his first name was Saul, of the same tribe of Benjamin, a descendant of Abraham, the same identical descent and background of Saul the king in the Old Testament is that of Paul in the New. They name him, but the name has changed now. A radical change took place in him from Saul . . from asking, for Saul means “to ask.”73 ¶63

So, if I put my daughter before me or my son before me and ask them, “Tell me, whose children are you? I can’t remember.” Well, am I not insane? Am I not suffering from amnesia?73 ¶64

So, Saul looked into the face of the Only Begotten Son . . and he is supposed to be the king, and he doesn’t recognize his son. He can’t, because his name is Saul.73 ¶65

Now, his name is transferred from Saul to Paul, and Paul knows the Son. “And it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, and I conferred not with flesh and blood.”73 ¶66

So, we all pass through the identical pattern, and the pattern will come to you, and suddenly when it appears, may I tell you, it’s like something coming out of the blue. And there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you . . the Father, and the Son . . who is David.73 ¶67

And the Son sets you free. You are told, “You are free indeed,” for he has promised to set the father free . . the father of the one who destroyed the enemy of Israel. And David destroyed the enemy, the Philistine giant, Goliath. And having destroyed him, the king is looking for his father, and he asks him, “Whose son are you, young man?” because the king did not know his own son, therefore, he is still waiting . . waiting . . waiting.73 ¶68

When the king’s mind returns, he is no longer Saul, his name is Paul. And then Paul recognizes the Son. “And it pleased the Father to reveal His son in me, and from that moment on, I conferred not with flesh and blood.”73 ¶69

What man on the face of this earth would I go to, and ask him to explain to me the meaning of this experience of mine when David called me “Father”? If I went to the most outstanding psychiatrist, psychologist . . call him by any name in this world, he wouldn’t understand it. What on earth would they know about this mystery of Christianity when, to them, everything is sex? They will tell you, you are simply disturbed sexually, or something, because that is all they have put it on, the Freudian concepts of life . . some sex complex. It hasn’t a thing to do with sex. It is the vision returning, and suddenly memory returns, and there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you, the Father, and the Son who calls you “Father.”73 ¶70

All you can do, then, is simply go and tell it, and try to change somewhat the prefabricated misconceptions of Scripture.73 ¶71

For the whole vast world . . if you are a Christian, as I was born and raised one . . I was taught to believe that Jesus was the Son. My Mother never taught me that Jesus was the Father! When I went to school, they never taught me that Jesus Christ was God the Father.73 ¶72

It happened, and when it happened, I knew it, because in Scripture, David calls him, “my lord.” David calls him, “my Father.” “If David calls him, “my Father, how, then, could he be David’s son?”73 ¶73

So, here is the story. He unfolds within you, and the whole thing is contained within you. It was God’s purpose in the beginning to give Himself to you, as though there were no others in the world . . just you and God, and then eventually, only God . . and God is you!73 ¶74

Just before I came up, a friend of mine who has a wonderful incurrent eye . . an incurrent eye is the eye that actually sees inward in to the world of thought, into Eternity. And that eye is ever expanding within the bosom of God. So, an incurrent state is that which gives passage to a current flowing inward, like a sponge giving passage to a current flowing inward. And she said, “I came in vision into a place and I wanted to borrow some money. It was like a loan company. And I went in to the owner, who was also Chairman of the Board. I went to the door, and as I came through the door, there you stood behind the desk. All the papers on the desk, and you were the owner and the Chairman of the Board. And I became almost hysterical, because I knew that whatever I asked of you would be granted. You were Infinite Love, and granted every request ever made of you. No collateral . . just ask. And I said, ‘He is a victim of his own love,’ to myself I said it, not to you. I looked at you, and I knew you would not say ‘No’ to my request, no matter how fabulous it was. I also knew that you were a victim of your own love. When I went out from where I saw you in the role of Love, I met a woman who was distraught and she was downcast, and she was at her very wits’ end. She had tried every place in the world to get a loan, and was turned down. And here she came. Her last resort was to come here, and I smiled to myself because I knew she was going to go through that door and she would get it, and then I woke.”73 ¶75

Well, that is the God-in-you. He grants every wish that you ask. But when you ask, ask believing. If you ask believing, you will get it.73 ¶76

As we told you last night, when you ask believing, it’s nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. What do I wish for as an objective fact? Well, the subjective appropriation of the objective hope is prayer. And it never fails you!73 ¶77

So, tonight when you go out, go in the deep conviction that you are predestined to be glorified, and know that the glorification of which the Bible speaks is God’s gift of Himself to you. He doesn’t give you His son as a companion. He gives you His son by giving Himself to you. For if you are God, and God is a father, I must be the father of God’s son! So, God gives me His son as my son, and in that way, I know I AM He.73 ¶78

So, I am told, “Unless you believe that I AM He, you will die in your sins.” And you will know it, and won’t have reason even to believe it, because you have an assured “I know” after the experience. Now, let us go into the Silence.73 ¶79

Tonight’s subject is, “Order Your Conversations Aright.” As we are told in the 50th Psalm: “To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God.” Have we any instructions in Scripture concerning how we order our conversations aright? We do have it in the 4th chapter of Ephesians. We are told, “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former conversations” and put on the new nature,” except for the word “conversations,” which occurs only in the King James Version. If the “old Nature” belongs to the “former conversations,” then the “new nature” has to have new conversations. “Put on the new nature, created after the image of God.” Well, now, what is this nature? “Nature is that principle upon which we depend for sameness of form in transmitted life.” If my conversations determine the things that project themselves upon the screen of space in my world – until I change my conversations, I cannot change the forms. For that is the principle upon which man depends for the “sameness of forms in transmitted life.” If these forms that come out – good, bad and indifferent – are the results of my conversations, then I must change my conversations.72 ¶1

We are told in an ancient book, a book written in the First Century – I have a translation by Walter Scott; it is called “The Hermetica,” and in it is said: “God has given two gifts to man alone, and to no other mortal creature. These gifts are Mind and Speech. And these gifts, if used rightly, will differ in nothing from the Immortals.” Now, when man takes off the body – when he quits the body, they will be his guides, and by them he will be led into the Troop of the Gods, and into the souls of those who attain to bliss. Only to man is the gift given of Mind and Speech. Now I could tell you the story of how easy it is to do, but in the doing, may I tell you, it really is difficult. You will think, “Why, certainly I can change my conversations, and then remain faithful to the change.” But we are such creatures of habit. So, Shakespeare could say, in “The Merchant of Venice,” where he put the words into the mouth of Portia: “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, then chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.” So, it’s simple on the surface, but in practice it is not as simple as it appears to be.72 ¶2

But if man could only take an inner conversation and control it – a conversation which implies the fulfillment of his dream – and remain faithful to that inner conversation, this inner dialogue – a controlled inner dialogue – possibly could be the most fruitful conversation in your life. Man talks all day long inwardly. He may restrain the impulse to say it outwardly. He may feel like saying it, but he has cultivated – he’s an educated person; he feels himself under restraint. He might feel like telling you to go to the devil, but he restrains the impulse to say it audibly. But he has said it. It was born with the impulse. If I could only now take my objective in this world and dare to assume that I’ve achieved it, and then carry on conversations, inner conversations, from the premise of that assumption, I should put this to the test and prove it. Would it really achieve a change of form in my world? I am telling you from my own experience, it does. It absolutely does.72 ¶3

As we are told in Isaiah, the 55th chapter: “And the word that goes forth from my mouth shall not return unto me void; it must accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” But you will say, “This is the Lord speaking, and certainly the Lord can do that.” Well, now, let me quote the last words of David as said in the 23d chapter of II Samuel – and these are the last words of David: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, his word upon my tongue.” The “Spirit of the Lord” – he never had that revelation until that moment. He realizes now that all along everything on his tongue was the Lord speaking. “The Lord speaks by me, and his word is upon my tongue.” The word “Lord,” as we told you earlier in this series – if it in any way conveys the sense of an external something, external to your own being, you have the wrong lord. If the words “Jesus Christ” convey the sense of an existent something outside of man, you have the wrong Jesus Christ! For Jesus Christ is in us, and if He is in us, and by Him all things are made and without Him was not anything made that is made, and He is called the “Word of God,” and you understand that the very word was created by the Word of God – and David tells us that God is upon his tongue. The very Word of God is upon his tongue. Then we are told: “I am the Lord. There is no other god. Beside Me there is no god.”72 ¶4

Is it true? Well, you and I are called upon to put it to the test. Can I actually now, this very moment, construct a simple conversation, which, if it is true, will involve that I realize my objective? Can I then be faithful to that conversation, or will I wander from it? Well, I’m telling you, it’s very difficult – It seems so simple. I certainly could take a little conversation between a friend and myself in a dialogue and tell him that all things are, as I would like them to be that I have this goal and that goal, and “Do you realize, I have realized it?” It all came so simply and so naturally; it all fell into place. Could you really believe that? Well, the thing is to try it. See how long you can carry on that conversation without wandering away. I’ve tried it over and over. Every time that I am successful in keeping it to where I demand in words – but again to quote Shakespeare: “It is a great virtue, and the one who can do it, it is a noble virtue” to follow your own instruction. So, I can teach you. It is easy – far “easier to teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”72 ¶5

But now let me share with you a story I know well, the story of my father. He was born a very poor white man in the Island of Barbados. My mother was born poor. She had nothing; he had nothing. And they proceeded to have children. Twelve children were born; two died at birth. Ten survived. He had nothing. How he got hold of this, I do not know, but the first time he heard me speak in New York City was a Sunday morning, and when we went back to the apartment, he said, “You know, everything you said this morning is true. But why do you tell the people to close their eyes? Don’t close your eyes. Keep them partly shut. You can control your imagination and you can control your attention better if the eyes are not completely closed. When you see me in the morning after breakfast reclining in my chair, you might think that I am just sleeping it off – because he’s a heavy drinker. “You might think I’m simply sleeping it off. I am not sleeping off anything. I am doing my day’s work then, I bring before my mind’s eye the men that I want to deal with that day, and I control the conversation. I tell them exactly what I want to tell them, as though it were true. I let them tell me – confirm that it is true, and then when I am completely satisfied with my inner conversation, then I go to town. And it works that way.”72 ¶6

Now, he started behind the 8-ball. He had himself, my mother, my grandmother, and the ten of us to feed, plus a few servants. It was not easy. But when he died in 1959, he could leave his ten children – because my mother preceded him by many years, and he never remarried. She died in ’41, and he said, “No, I’ve been so blissfully happy with your Mother, I could not ever get married again,” so he remained single until he died at the age of 85. But when he died, that poor man could leave a family of ten independently wealthy – each, not just collectively. He gave it to each individually as a block of stock in the company, just to the ten of us. In 1951 it was then equal to an independent income for each of us. It has tripled since he gave it to us when he died in 1959, under the control of my brother Victor, who practices the same thing.72 ¶7

Victor doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t drink, but he sits alone, and in his room he, too, is carrying on his little inner conversations, premises of desires fulfilled. And he can completely control that imagination of his. He can completely control the inner conversation, and things work just as he has determined them. He never goes to church. He’s a religious man in the true sense of the word. He gives generously to charity and to all people – you would never know how many people he helps in the Island because he doesn’t publicize it. That works for him because he has found out inner conversations will do it.72 ¶8

So then, we are told: “To him who orders his conversations aright, I will show the salvation of God!” Then we are told how to do it: “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former conversations.” And you know how, day after day, there are certain people who will run the same thing like a record, and do it over and over and over and when you meet them, they start just where they left off the last time that you talked with them. They tell the same story over and over and over. “How rotten she is to me,” or “How rotten he is to me.” And after one solid year when you return to the City, they take up just where they left off before! And they wonder, “Why are these things happening to me?” Well, here in the greatest book in the world we are told why. For, if my conversation determines my nature – my nature is that principle upon which I depend for the sameness of forms in transmitted life – how can I change the form when the form is dependent upon my inner conversation?72 ¶9

So, my inner conversation is actually determining the entire thing, but man thinks it was only some external being called God whose word could not return to him void; that it had to prosper in the thing for which it was sent, because he has divorced himself from God. God’s name forever and forever and forever is I AM. He said, “That is my name forever, and by that name I shall be known throughout all generations.” Well, before you were given the name John or Mary, you had God’s name. God’s name is I AM. That should precede the name you now use as John, for should I ask you, “What is your name?” before you say, “John,” you are going to say, “I am,” and you are going to say, “I am John.” So you preceded the little mask called John and declared that I am. Well, that’s God’s name! So, that is the One spoken of in Scripture Whose word cannot return void but must accomplish that which He purposed. It must prosper in the thing for which He sent it. You may say, “How simple this thing is. You mean, I could start tonight? I don’t go to church; I am not a religious person. I have done nothing in the world. But do you mean, I have that talent?” Is this the being of whom Hermes spoke when he said, “God gave a gift to man and to no other creature. And this gift is Mind and Speech”? Well, I can talk, and I have a mind. And then he tells me that speech reflects mind, and mind reflects God, that as man, so is God. As is God, so man. And if God reflects my mind, and my mind reflects my speech, to change any production in my world, I’ve got to change the speech. So, it is simply that the mind reflects it. And the mind reflects God. So, my God goes back, then, to my speech. So, I am simply reproducing the same old story in my world when I could easily change the record.72 ¶10

Back in 1953 my wife had a vision. It was an audio-vision. She jumped out of bed and came into the living room. I always rise early. She came barging through looking for the dictionary, and she said, “I’ve just had the most wonderful experience. I saw nothing, but I heard the most wonderful voice – a voice of authority. And the voice said to me, ‘You must stop spending your thoughts, time, and your money. Everything in life must be an investment.’” So, she wanted to see the difference between spending and investing.72 ¶11

According to the definition in the dictionary that she had at the time: When you spend, you give out without any hope of return; it’s a waste to spend. When you invest, you expect a return on equity. When you invest, you always expect a return on your equity. So you must stop spending and everything you do from now on must be invested – and it stated what they are: your thoughts, your time, and your money. These are three things that man thinks he has in abundance, and he is spending them morning, noon and night. He wastes his time in trivia. He wastes his thoughts. He wastes his money. So, if this vision of hers is actually put into practice – and she is the first one to admit that she does not practice it; she was the instrument through which it came, but she would be the first one to admit that, raised as she was, in the most conservative environment, that she doesn’t really live it, because she lives a restrained life. She would think it only becoming of a lady to express herself – well, I would say – openly. She feels it, and she knows now that she was thinking of saying it, but she restrained the impulse. She said it anyway, and she knows now that her body is an emotional filter, and it bears the marks of her prevalent emotions.72 ¶12

So, all day long you and I are making, little tiny speech movements are being made in us. We are not hearing them audibly, but the inner ear hears them. So, I need not hear them on the outside, and no one need hear them, but I see the results in my world. My whole vast world could not bear anything other than my speech. That’s what the Book teaches! I must “put off the old nature,” it belongs to my former conversations. And then it tells me, “Now ‘put on the new nature.’” The “old nature” belongs to my former conversations; the “new nature” belongs to my new conversations.72 ¶13

Can I put on the new and make it so natural that I will do with that as I did with the former one? And can I, now, so completely change the record and play it often enough that it becomes a habit, within me as I walk the earth, so that things are perfect? So that things are easy? So that when I read the headline of a market crash, it doesn’t disturb me? So, when I read the headline that something has “gone to pot,” it does not disturb me inwardly? Since this is based upon Principle, it doesn’t matter what happens in the world, because the world is simply the outpouring of the conversations of men and women in the world. If I change my conversation in the midst of a depression, I am still going to be successful in my world. There are men today that were hugely successful when millions lost so much during the depressed market. They are not concerned about the market; they don’t watch the market at all. But they must be controlling their inner conversation.72 ¶14

I know in my father’s case; he was a living example. My Brother Victor is a living example of this technique, but I don’t think my father taught it to him. He really got it innately, because he told me that when he saw the sign on a building that had the name P. N. Roach and Company, he made it spell “J. N. Goddard & Sons.” When he confided to my Mother, my Mother said, “Vic, don’t do it. We have no money, and it’s only going to hurt you. You can never own that building.” Two years later the building was up for sale; the business that was in it failed. A total stranger came in. When I say, “total stranger” – he knew us only as a family, but he had never come to our home for a cup of tea. We were never entertained in his home for a cup of tea, and he was not a drinking partner of my father. He knew him. The day it went up for sale, he came in and said that he would buy it for us. All he would take as collateral was our signature, for we had invested in it our honesty and the bank assured him that if we pledged ourselves, we would do it. If we had to starve to pay his note, we would do it. He said, “That’s all I need, so if you will sign this piece of paper, I’ll buy the building. I will have my lawyer bid for it. If I bid for it, they will bid me up, but if my lawyer bids for it, he represents more than one client, and they do not know who he represents today. They wouldn’t think for one second that a planter – he was a planter – that he would bid for a business on Main Street which carries groceries.” So, that day the Goddard’s owned it, and all we had to give was our signature on that paper that we signed. And he said to reduce the principle in ten years, and as you reduce it, you simply pay 6 per cent on the principle; if you keep on reducing it every year, in ten years it must be completely paid off. Well, it was. And when he died, twenty years later, he said his greatest friend was Victor Goddard, and he left him an estate in excess of a quarter of a million, tax-free. Everything was completely paid off when he gave that to my Brother Victor. He said, “You have been my friend.”72 ¶15

So, I know that today we have at least one member of the family who does put this into practice. I try to the best of my ability to practice it, because I get requests morning, noon and night in my mail asking me to hear this, hear that, and hear the other. I never fail to hear it. I try not to dwell upon it after I have heard it. I must believe that what I have heard must come to pass, as told us in the First Epistle of John in the 5th chapter: “If we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know we have obtained the request made of Him.” What a challenge! “If we know that He hears us in whatever we ask – no restraint upon the things we ask for, then – “we know we have”” There’s the past tense. “We have obtained the requests made of Him.” Read it in the 5th chapter, 15th verse, of the First Epistle of John.72 ¶16

Well, what a fantastic promise to make to man. I don’t have, then, to keep it going. It’s like putting the seed down and having full confidence in the planting of that seed, for it contains within itself the power of self-expression. The Word of God is like the Seed of God, and it is planted at that moment that you actually carry on the conversation. So, I bring before my mind’s eye the one who has asked of me if I know them. If I do not know them, I imagine that I have heard from them. They will not always confirm it, but I imagine they wrote me and thanked me. But as we are told in Scripture: There were ten who received the gift. They were all lepers. Only one turned back and said, “Thank you.” But the nine went on, and they got their help, but never turned back to say, “Thank you.” So, it doesn’t really matter as far as I am concerned. I do my work. They may never write to tell me that it worked, but quite often I meet them, maybe a year later, or three or four years later, and they will say, “You know, so-and-so happened.” I ask them, “Do you know why it happened? Then they will give me the means that were employed and tell me that is why it happened.72 ¶17

Mrs. Archibald Roosevelt, who was just killed in an automobile accident in New York City – she would come home once a month. This was always a problem with her family – never her husband, but her children and in-laws. One day she said to me, “My son has returned from Egypt, and he has an enormous beard, and I am so ashamed to walk down the street with him.” Here was this young, good-looking lad – now, this was before the hippies when people began to grow long hair and beards. He was unique. So, I said, “Now, Mrs. Roosevelt, you know what a kiss of your son would be like without the beard, don’t you?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “Well, kiss him and he doesn’t have a beard. Put your arms around him, and kiss your son, and see the nice, smooth skin and feel it.” “Well,” she said, “I’ll do it.” Well, she never once told me, but because of her position in the world, I read in the morning paper – on a Monday morning. Here was this big spread of a wedding. He got married on Sunday, a smooth-skinned lad, Mrs. Roosevelt, Archie Roosevelt, the bride – the whole gang of them. When she came the next time, I said, “You know, your son has shaved his beard.” She said, “Yes. Do you know why? You know, he married a girl who disliked it. Because she completely disliked it, he shaved it off.” I said, “So that’s why it happened? Tell me, Mrs. Roosevelt, did you do what I asked you to do?” and I reminded her of what I had asked. She said, “Oh, yes, I did that, but why he did it was the girl.” You see, they always go back to the means employed. The girl could have loved him just as much with the beard, but she had to initiate the drive. He shaved it off, and then the mother gave full credit to the girl.72 ¶18

I have seen so many things happen and they never turn back but forget. We have a very short memory. We do not remember when we set in motion the events or when we planted the seed. So, if nothing comes into this world by accident, it is produced by some principle, and the principle is told in this talk tonight, and the principle is simply our conversation – our little simple inner conversations when we are alone.72 ¶19

The conversation when you are putting on a mask and meet someone at a cocktail party and you are all lying – everybody is lying; you have a few martinis and this one lies, that one lies. Little do they know that what they are doing is a lie. But I don’t mean that; I mean when you are alone.72 ¶20

Knowing this principle, it doesn’t really matter if what appears now to be a lie – you know, an assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact. So, now you are going to put that principle into operation. We will take an assumption. I will assume that things are, as I want them to be. Now I will carry on a conversation based upon that assumption, and that controlled inner conversation will be possibly my greatest success – my greatest conversation ever – far, far greater than the conversations that we hold at a dinner party. You sit down, and here is a dinner. You are not going to tell your host that thing is horrible, are you? But anyway, you wonder what on earth possessed her to make this. But you don’t say it because that would be unkind. But you did say it anyway; you said it inwardly. But I am speaking now of this productive principle.72 ¶21

When you are alone and you know exactly what you want for yourself or for a friend or for the community. Then what conversation would imply that you have yours, she has hers and the community has its? Well, carry on with that conversation. If this statement in the 4th chapter of Ephesians is correct, then it should prove itself in the testing: that if I could put off my old nature, which refers to my former conversations – don’t just put it off, because I cannot live in a void, but put on the new nature. If the old is related to my former conversations, well, then, my new nature must be related to my new conversation.72 ¶22

Well, I will start a new conversation, and talk with my brother Victor and tell him of the success I am having. This is going to amuse him, because he likes success. He loves success in the world of Caesar. He thinks that what I do, well, he would not say it’s insane – he doesn’t understand it. He says, “I have one thing to do in the world of Caesar. We are a large family, but I have no children of my own. I am the one that’s a mule,” he says. “All you fellows seem to be bulls, but I am a mule – I have no children. So, I have to make it, in the event you fellows will need it.” Well, we aren’t going to need it, but he keeps on making it. So, he enjoys money. He enjoys making it. He enjoys actually doing things in a big way. He thinks in a big way. And he does it by inner conversations. And he started, I’d say, behind the 8-ball when as a poor white family in little Barbados, or in any of the islands, for that matter, because the white man who has it ignores the white man who hasn’t anything. A white man in Barbados has to put on shoes. A Negro in Barbados can go without shoes; he can go without a jacket, and they will tolerate that. But they will not tolerate that from a poor, poor white man. So, I know what I talk about. We were as poor as they come. Today no one tops them in Barbados regarding money, and they all come to him for advice. Those who thought they had it; they come to Victor. They don’t venture anything, not even the government, until they come to Victor. They value his opinion. He gets a piece of it all. “If they want my advice, I’ll take a piece of their stock. Give me a block of stock and you’ll get my advice.” So, he has stock here, stock there, stock everywhere. And, so, that’s Victor. He loves it. I tell him that I do my work alone, and I love it. I love this as he loves making money. Fortunately for me, I don’t have to go to him for advice.72 ¶23

So, here, I spoke of two men tonight: my father and my brother, and they do it by inner conversations. But the Bible supports it. If the Bible did not support it, I wouldn’t tell you, but the Bible supports what they are doing. How they found it, I do not know. My father – the only book he ever read was the Bible. I wonder if he got it when he read it?72 ¶24

When I wrote my first book, “Your Faith Is Your Fortune,” I sent the first copy off the press to my father and mother. When I wrote the inscription, I said, “If there is such a thing as reincarnation and I have to come back to this world again, I would ask for nothing greater than to have you two as my parents.” So, Daddy, because of that inscription, started to look at the book. It has 26 chapters, and each chapter began with a quote from the Bible, so he closed the book. When I went home a few years later, I asked, “Daddy, did you read my book?” He said, “Oh, why should I? You took 26 little verses from the Scripture and wrote a book of 200 pages. I know the 26 verses.” So, that’s how he said it. “Why should I read it? I know those verses.” And it’s the one book he always read.72 ¶25

Perhaps he did find it – I do not know. But we are told to alter our old conversations, and if we do it, He will show us the salvation of God. Blake, whom I am always quoting, in his book “Jerusalem,” he says, “Oh, what have I said? What have I done, O All Powerful Human Words!” You realize that you cannot pull them back, so you said them. Then how are you going to pull them back?72 ¶26

Now tonight it shouldn’t take you long if you know it’s true – and I know it’s true – to change the entire world if you put on a new record. And you can easily put on the new record. Just what would it be like if it were true? And if it were true, would anyone know? Yes. My wife would know it first, my daughter would know it, and then my circle would widen. Then my circle of friends would know it. Well, start with the one you know best first. My wife would know it; I share all things with her, and then my daughter would know it. So, I carry on a conversation, first with my wife and then with my daughter Vicki, and then try to make it a lasting conversation so that it becomes a habit. Instead of going back into the negative, make it a positive statement, and try to make it so natural in yourself that it’s easy to pick up that record and put it on. And see how it works in your world. It doesn’t cost you anything! It costs nothing to do it.72 ¶27

And this is what Scripture teaches. And it cannot but return to you if you know Who-You-Are. And I am trying to convince everyone that I reach that they are God! It’s a shock to them, because they have been told that they are little worms. You aren’t a little worm! You are God wearing a garment of flesh for educative purposes. But you are God! You have His name, and He will not give His name to another. But He puts you through the furnaces of affliction to receive His name. You are going through the furnaces. As Blake says in the statement speaking of those who call God a non-existent being – he calls them fools as we are told in the Psalm: “The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God.’” But Blake calls the fool Babel. “Babel says ” there is no God or Son of God: That Thou, O Human Imagination, O Divine Body ” are all a delusion; but I know Thee, O Lord, when Thou arisest upon My weary eyes, even in this dungeon and this iron mill” Thou also sufferest with me, although I behold Thee not.”72 ¶28

You cannot see your imagination. And he equates human imagination with the Divine Body of the Lord and the Lord. These three are one, in the eyes of Blake, in this marvelous poem “Jerusalem.” So, you can’t see imagination; you see the fruits of imagination. So, no one has ever seen God, because you are the reality called “Imagination.” And you don’t see imagination, but you see the evidence; you see the fruit of it. “”And the Divine Voice answers:” Fear not! Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of time. Only believe in me, that I have power to raise from death – Thy brother who sleeps in Albion.”72 ¶29

So, who is the brother? You are the brother; I am the brother. Humanity is “Albion.” And then, buried in Humanity is the Lord Jesus Christ; and this one is speaking, saying, “I have power to raise from the dead thy brother who sleeps in Albion.” But he has not for one moment denied the human imagination as the Lord. They are equated. They are all one. You have the Lord always with you. You can’t take imagination and put it out there. Wherever you go, you are always imagining. You cannot leave the Lord behind you! You cannot sit here and wish imagination away as you can the body. I can stand here and assume that I am at the end of the room and imagine that I am looking at this one. But where am I? I am in imagination. I can look at the body as something that I have put away for a while. I return to it. But I can’t put away imagination. I cannot get away from the Lord, because, being all imagination, I must be wherever He is in imagination.72 ¶30

So, if I now, in imagination, feel things, as I desire them to be, that’s the Lord doing it. And because “all things are possible to the Lord,” I must believe in me; I must believe it is the Lord doing it, as we are told in the last words of David. “Now these are the last words of David: “The Lord is upon me; his word is upon my tongue.” Then he discovers that that’s why he was victorious. He never lost a battle. When the giant put on the armor and he had the sword – and he was a giant and little David comes out only with five feathers. They were not stones. He took five. Well, five is the number of Grace, and Grace is God’s gift of Himself to man. What other armor does he need, other than the gift of God? So, he goes on with that. What giant could stand before him when all he needs is the Grace of God? So, he goes, and the giant comes down. So, he realizes then that everything he did was done because he went in the Grace of God.72 ¶31

So, wherever you are – you are in a bar – that’s a holy place. Why? Because you are there. If you go into any place that the world would judge harshly, it is holy because you are there! And you can sit any place in the world. You don’t have to go into a church. You can sit at home in any room, sit in the garden; sit any place in this world and just carry on a conversation with yourself, this controlled dialogue. This may turn out one day to be the most fruitful conversation that you’ve ever had.72 ¶32

So, we all need something tonight. We all do, even those who have a billion. They still want more, and I wouldn’t judge them harshly. They want it. Let them have it, if they want more, because as Blake said: “More! More! Is the cry of the fool; All or nothing.” And I have covered the 50th chapter of Psalms tonight, and that’s the chapter – you read it carefully: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, because the world is mine and all within it. “More! More! Is the cry of a mistaken soul; less than ALL cannot satisfy Man.” “The cattle on a thousand hills are mine” .72 ¶33

But who is speaking? Asaph is speaking, and Asaph means, “to gather together.” He has been recalled – he records all the history of Israel. From the famous 78th Psalm he says: “I will open my mouth in a parable, and utter dark sayings from of old.” And he records the entire history of Israel, and how in spite of all the great things the Lord did, Israel went astray to false gods. Then we come to the end, and David appears. The Lord awoke as out of sleep, like a man from strong drink, and He appoints David.72 ¶34

But here is the entire history in a parable; the whole history of Israel is a parable. It is a story told as if it were true, leaving the one who hears it to discover its fictitious nature and then extract its meaning. So, the entire history of Israel, as recorded in Scripture, is not secular history, but it is divine history. You have to find out what it means behind that story, and when you find out, it is the most thrilling thing in the world. It’s all about you! As we are told in the 40th Psalm: “In the volume of the book, it is all about me” I have not restrained my lips;” I screamed it from the housetops when I discovered the whole thing was all about me! The whole Book is all about you. It’s all about you. But it is adumbrated. The whole thing is an adumbration.72 ¶35

Now, when we come to the New Testament, it takes on a cubic reality. The Old is a rough sketch, but the New Testament takes on a cubic reality, and it all takes place within you, the individual. Then you will realize the whole thing is all about you – everything in the Bible. It is not understood in the Old Testament because that is a foreshadowing, it is told in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. When we come into the New Testament, and He tells it all about the individual, that’s not what they were looking for. They were looking for an external Savior, one who would come and destroy a physical enemy of Israel. So, that’s not it. He comes from within. And this is what was meant in the very beginning of days. He comes to us as One unknown, but One who in the most mysterious manner lets the individual experience Who He is. And when you experience it, you experience it as yourself. You are The One spoken of!72 ¶36

Now, if all things are possible to Him – remember now: You are The One spoken of in Scripture. And if what I have quoted earlier tonight can be put to the test and proven in the testing, don’t hesitate to do it. You can speak. You have the two gifts spoken of by Hermes, and we are told that no mortal creature has it but man, and these are the gifts of Mind and Speech. So, if you use them rightly, you will differ in nothing from the gods! And when you drop off the body and you quit it; these will be your guides. They will lead you into the troop of the gods and into the souls of those who have attained to bliss. You will have the same mind; you will be using Mind and you will be using Speech. So, you will find all through Scripture the words: “And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.” “The Word of the Lord came unto Ezekiel.” All these are the Word of the Lord, and you are the one spoken of.72 ¶37

So, tonight in a simple way this is what I would do: I would be brutally frank with myself, and don’t modify it. If there is no restraint on what God offers, and you have a desire – nothing is impossible to God. So, know exactly what you want, and be honest with yourself. Now, if it were true, what would it feel like? And if it were true, could I restrain the impulse to talk about it? No, I couldn’t. I would have to tell it. As we are told in Jeremiah: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, Or speak any more in his name,’ There is in my heart as it were a burning fire Shut up in my bones, And I am weary with holding it in, And I cannot.” Well, do it! He has to talk about it when he discovers a principle that works and proves itself in the performance.72 ¶38

Now, don’t modify your objective. You know what you want? Well, that’s it. Now, what would the feeling be like, and what would I say, and to whom would I say it? Well, now, carry on that conversation from the premise of the wish fulfilled, and try to keep it up until it is natural – feels natural. When it takes on the tones of reality and the feeling of naturalness, you’ve got it – the thing is working now.72 ¶39

You can play it over and over as you play a nice record. If you like good music, you never tire of listening to it. You can play it every day and several times a day and never tire of good music, if you appreciate it. You could get tired of the be-bop, but how could you ever tire of the beautiful classical pieces? I know, I don’t, so I could listen to them every day, and I do when I am at home. We turn on our radio to a certain station, and it’s 24 hours a day of classical music – KFAC – with very little advertising and a small little 3-minute newscast on the hour; and then throughout the hour – unbroken hour, wonderful music: piano music between 9:00 and 10:00, the Beethoven’s and the Brahms and the Bach’s for one solid hour. I just enjoy it – feast upon it.72 ¶40

Well, you can take a record – your own record – and do that, and then let it come back into this world bearing fruit. So, I do hope you will take me seriously. You haven’t a thing to lose and all to gain. That’s why you are here, and that’s why I have been sent to tell you.72 ¶41

There is a Law, and there is a Promise. The Promise is going to come, regardless, but while you are waiting for the Promise, you could make life more comfortable with the use of the Law, because the Law must be operated. We are the operant power. It will not operate itself.72 ¶42

But the Promise is coming. You can’t stop the Promise. The Promise is that you are going to be God! That’s the Promise. You are going to wake up one day and know that you are God, and all the symbolism that confirms it will stand before you, and then you’ll know Who-You-Are. His Son will call you, “Father”; and you will know that you are God when His Only Son calls you, “Father,” you will know that he is your son, and he’ll know that you are his Father.72 ¶43

So, that Promise is coming. But while you wait for the Promise, take the Law and use it. I quoted very much this night on the Law, which is – the inner conversations. Use your inner conversations, because if you do, you will have the salvation of God. And because your former conversations were related to your old nature, and He tells you to put it off – you can only put off the old nature by putting off the old conversations, because they are related. The former conversations were producing the old nature, and if the “nature is the principle upon which man depends for sameness of form in transmitted life,” the same form is going to be transmitted until you change the former conversations. When you put on the new record – the new conversations, you are going to change your world, and people will meet you and wonder what has happened to you. “Why, he now is moving in the most marvelous manner! Things are just going perfectly for him.” Why? He changed his nature. How did he do it? He changed his inner conversations.72 ¶44

But do you know, there are people – my mind goes back now to the last war – World War II, and this young man – a fine chap, an only child, and he told me quite innocently that he so hated Roosevelt that in the morning while he was shaving he told him off. He told him exactly what he thought of him – bawled him out. I said, “Why do you do it? Don’t you know you are only hurting yourself?” He said, “I know it. But, oh, if I told you what a thrill, I get out of it!” You know, he wouldn’t change it. He so despised the man – he didn’t know Roosevelt, he didn’t know any member of the family, but he simply disliked him. And inwardly – not on Mr. Roosevelt, it worked on him. And he knew what he was doing! If he didn’t know, that’s one thing, but to know and not do it – that is just the opposite. Well, that is what he did. He said, “Why, Neville, the shows on Broadway today are $10 a seat. There is no show on Broadway that could give me the thrill of those fifteen minutes in the morning when I shave. He just simply delighted in telling off somebody that he didn’t even know. And if he thought for one moment, he shouldn’t do it, he said, “Well, let me finish this sentence anyway.”72 ¶45

Well, people do that. They know they are doing the wrong thing, and yet they’ve got to complete the sentence. It’s a stupid thing. So, I ask you to try it. But work it radically and go to the very root and put on the new record. You can do it! I warned you earlier, it is not the easiest thing in the world, because we are creatures of habit. But when you catch yourself going back to the old record, just put on the new record again, and the new one will become just as easy to play and as natural to play as the old one is now.72 ¶46

Now, let us go into the Silence. Now, I will be here the five nights next .72 ¶47

Tonight’s subject is “One Greater Than John.” I think you will find this a most practical approach to this teaching. When we open the Bible we think it is just a normal book. May I tell you, it is not; it is divine history and all the characters in scripture represent states of consciousness, from Adam to Jesus, every one. They’re not individuals as you and I are; they’re simply representatives of these states of awareness. And the very last before the page turns into an entirely new age is called John. And so we are told in the earliest of the gospels, which is Mark: “After John was arrested, Jesus came preaching the gospel of God” . After John was arrested then he appears preaching the gospel of God. What is this story trying to tell us?71 ¶1

So here, let me share with you my experience. I didn’t know it either, but I’ll tell you how this thing works. John, we are told, is the very last of the great prophets. As we’re told, “Of those born of women, none is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he” . None greater than John in this world, yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he. And John came not eating or drinking. If you take that on this level, that’s nonsense, because the body could not survive. Another gospel states it, “He came neither eating bread nor drinking wine.” That tries in some way to, well, explain what he did not eat or drink. Well, there’s no statement in the law of Moses against eating bread or drinking wine – unless you are one of the Nazarenes and it’s true as to wine, but certainly not eating bread. The last supper was the eating of bread and the drinking of wine. But he came, neither eating bread (if you want to take it certainly not eating bread). The last supper was the eating of bread and the drinking of wine. But he came, neither eating bread (if you want to take it that way) nor drinking wine. But the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.71 ¶2

But we think, this night, of one greater than John, who was the greatest in this world, yet not equal to the least in the world called the kingdom of heaven. Now these are only states of consciousness through which every man passes. If you are not now in the state of John, may I tell you, you’re going to be some time in the state of John; if not now in this present little environment, when the wheel turns and it returns, you will be in that state. Everyone passes through the state of John before he comes into the state of Jesus Christ.71 ¶3

Now, what is the state of John? We come into this world . . . now let me share with you my own personal experience. I was born in a very limited environment, small little island in the West Indies called Barbados. My father ran a little grocery store, but it was a general store, not only groceries but meat, fish, fowl, liquor, wine. I mean, it supplied everything for the table. I was raised in that environment where it seemed the most normal, natural thing in this world to eat anything that was placed on the table, and so I did. I left Barbados at the age of seventeen and came to America, believing as I did everything placed before me that was edible was right. And then, I fell into a state, the state called John. John came not eating or drinking. And then I fell into the state where I gave up all the things that I did normally as a boy, right through until I was seventeen years old. I fell into the state at the age of twenty, a little after twenty, say, twentyone, where I would not eat any meat, any fish, fowl, not even eggs. Naturally, in those days I didn’t drink so that was not giving up wine, but that couldn’t cross my lips. I did violence to my own appetites, because as a child, as a boy, I indulged in everything that my father placed before me. And suddenly I gave it all up and for seven years I was a strict vegetarian, teetotaler, celibate. John represents that state in man’s ongoing when he does violence to his appetite.71 ¶4

And yet life is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. God gives to every man in this world a hunger that he can, if he knows God’s law, satisfy. He can clothe himself with the fulfillment of his dream and satisfy it. But there’s a state where man passes through, and it is called John the Baptist, where he does violence to his appetite.71 ¶5

I met a friend of mine in New York City, his name was Abdullah. He said to me in 1933 (I met him in ‘29). . .and he did everything, he ate everything, he drank everything. He didn’t smoke only because he just didn’t enjoy it, but he did everything. An old, old man, he was then in his late eighties when I met him. And he said to me, “So you’re going to Barbados? You want to go to Barbados?” I said yes. Now, this is where the good news of the kingdom comes in. Then, when I met him, I did not eat flesh in any form, I did not drink alcohol in any form, and no smoking and a celibate. He said, “Well then, you are now in Barbados.” I said, “I’m in Barbados?” This is on 72nd’ Street in New York City, where the buildings can go thirty and forty stories high. Barbados, if you find a three-story building, you’re lucky.. . the little one and two-story buildings, and no sidewalk, but no sidewalk. One little tiny street we call Broad Street, to this day we call it Broad Street, and that’s the only place that has a sidewalk. All the other areas no sidewalks, you walk in the street or you walk in the gutter, but there is no such thing as a sidewalk. And he said to me, “Now clothe yourself with Barbados. Put it on as you would another garment, just as you would another garment, so that you would smell the tropics and you would see what you would see were you in Barbados.” Well, I did to the best of my ability, and I clothed myself with Barbados. And when I thought then that night—the first night that I clothed myself with Barbados—I thought of New York City, and I saw it 2,000 miles to the north of me. Then I had succeeded in clothing myself with Barbados. I fell asleep in the assumption I am in Barbados.71 ¶6

Well, the days went on from this I would say, late October through November, and yet I am not physically in Barbados. So I tried to open up my discussion with Abdullah, and I said, “Ab, I did all that you told me. I clothed myself with Barbados, I am sleeping in Barbados, and yet here I am in New York City.” He would not talk to me. He turned his back upon me the very first time I brought it up; he walked towards his studio and slammed the door in my face. And if you knew Abdullah as I knew him that was no invitation to come in.71 ¶7

So, if I am clothing myself in Barbados and with Barbados, then I must be faithful to this clothing. That’s the good news spoken of after John is arrested, not before. John is doing violence, trying to gain the kingdom of heaven by being good. And he said to me, “You’re so good you’re good for nothing. And you’re trying to get into the kingdom by being good. You don’t eat meat, no kind of meat, you don’t drink any alcoholic liquor, so you’re so good. And you’re celibate at the age that you are today, and so all the fires you’ve bottled up in you, trying to be good.”71 ¶8

So I kept on wearing my garment: I am in Barbados. On the morning of the 4th of December a letter came to my door, stuck under the door, from my brother giving reasons why he wanted me to come to Barbados, and enclosing in that letter a ticket for Barbados. I had not gone home to Barbados in eleven years. I made no request. I didn’t write the family. My brother Victor writes me saying that you must come and no response other than yes would he accept, and enclosing a little draft to buy shirts, if I need them, or a pair of shoes, and stating in the letter to use the check to the fullest advantage. Charge everything and when I arrived in Barbados, well, he would board the ship and pay all expenses that I had signed. If I use the bar, use the bar. He didn’t know I wasn’t drinking. But, all expenses. . . the tipping of the steward, the tipping of everyone in that ship. He would board the ship, take care of all my expenses, but I must come! Then he gave me his reasons for it, he justified why. I went down to that ship on the morning of the 6th and got my passage and off I went.71 ¶9

Before I went, Abdullah said to me, “So you’re going to Barbados. May I tell you, you’re going to die but you will not surely die. . .but you will die.” He didn’t explain. Like Blake he never would tell me the interpretation of his statement “you will die.” Well, I went off thinking, well, I’ll die, die in Barbados. I didn’t die in Barbados but I died: I died to everything that I was doing. I lived in Barbados for three months, which is the Christmas season and everyone is entertaining. I’m returning from America after eleven years, and party after party is given for my honor. It’s Christmas, it’s New Years, they’re all drinking, all having fun, and I simply drank water. Mother prepared all kinds of meals, and I would have just a vegetable meal. She never heard of it. We were raised supplying the entire island with meat, with fish, with fowl, with everything… with all the wine… everything was home… and I just said, no, I would take vegetables. I was there for one solid three months.71 ¶10

I came back to that ship going north. And the night I entered that ship, we sat maybe six or eight people at table, and we all introduced ourselves. “My name is Neville Goddard,” and so I would shake hands, and this one is so and so – you all introduce yourself aboard ship. Then the man to my right said to the waiter, “Let us see what you have for wine.” The waiter brought the wine list, he said, “We’ll have that.” I didn’t say wine, so he ordered that wine. Then came the first course, soup. So I didn’t ask if there’s meat stock in this as I’d done for seven years; I drank the soup. Then he brought the second course, it was fish; I ate the fish. He brought the third course, it was meat; I ate the meat; all the time pouring down the wine. Every thing that I had not done in seven years I did that night, and then from then on for the ten or twelve days at sea till I got off the ship in New York City.71 ¶11

Then I understood what he meant “you will die.” That state called John the Baptist, which does violence to itself, you must pass through it. If you are not now in it, you will be in it. It’s part of the eternal drama of God. God has prepared a way to redeem himself. It’s God and only God playing all these parts. So God has prepared the way to bring himself back individualized as you. There’s no other way. So from Adam to Jesus Christ they are only states of awareness through which God and only God passes. And the last state of the old dispensation is John the Baptist. That is the last stage. And so, man must pass through that state. Don’t try to invite it. It happens, and you don’t understand why it happens.71 ¶12

In my own case, raised normally, with all the food before me, because my father made a living feeding us by selling this, fish, fowl, meat, eggs, butter, everything that was normal, all the rum in the world. We make rum in Barbados. He drank heavily; my father was a very heavy drinker. All these things were exposed to us, so we took it and suffered it. My Father, the depths of my own being, moving me through all these furnaces, put me into a state where I was married at the age of eighteen, father at nineteen, separated at twenty. And then I became so disillusioned with marriage, I vowed I would have not a thing to do with sex – my own disillusionment, my own, not hers, my own. That was part of the play where he put me through these furnaces and brought me out seven years later.71 ¶13

I know friends of mine who have been in that state of John the Baptist for fifty years, and they have died in it. But the wheel turns; they will come out, the wheel turns. Although they cease to be here as a flesh and blood being, they were in it when they died. Others came out after forty years. Here was George Bernard Shaw. He died in it after seventy years. He was ninety years when he died. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was in it, but he died in it; he had not come out. He died not believing in Christ. He died an atheist. He didn’t know the good news. My friend Abdullah who taught me this story, he was in it for forty years. He hadn’t touched anything that was meat, especially pork. He was born and raised in the Jewish faith, and for forty years he touched nothing that was meat. But certainly he, not only forty years, but from the time of birth up until he was almost eighty years old, he hadn’t touched pork. And then came the same thing to him that happened to me.71 ¶14

So man passes through this state called John the Baptist, and he comes into the state called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the freedom of the world. So, it’s said of John he came not eating or drinking. It is said of Christ, called the Son of man, he came eating and drinking; and they say of him, “Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” So you pass through it and then you know what he is talking about. He doesn’t come to destroy the law. He said not one little dot will be rubbed out of the law, all will be fulfilled, but he interprets the law as John could not interpret it. John thought that by doing violence to his appetite he would get into the kingdom. He thought that he could scare a man into salvation. And the next state beyond John tells you you can’t do it that way. He interprets the law and shows the law as something that is mental, not physical. And then he puts it this way: “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you anyone who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed the act of adultery with her in his heart” .71 ¶15

He takes it from a physical state to a mental state. If I look upon a woman lustfully and I think I can get away with it, and it seems pleasant, I may be inclined to do it. If I contemplate that act along with its consequences for myself and my family, I may restrain the impulse. But, he tells me that’s not good enough – in the contemplation of the act I did it. So, causation is mental, it’s not physical. John didn’t know that. The state called John didn’t know that. If I restricted myself and resisted the impulse, I thought, “Well, am I not wonderful! I have just abided by the law ‘ye shall not do.” Then comes the next state called Jesus Christ, and that state tells me that wasn’t good enough; the wheel is turning and you are going to do it tomorrow. The wheel will turn now and tomorrow when it turns all over again, you will be performing the act. And you’ll wonder why has this happened to me to the disgrace of my family and myself? Because you thought by the restraint of the act you didn’t do it. And now he interprets the law for us, and tells us the very contemplation of the act was the act. And so, when one gets to that point where they don’t even contemplate it, well, then off the wheel of recurrence we are lifted, one by one. And that is the story of the one that is greater than John.71 ¶16

So everyone is moving through a series of states, and it starts from Adam through, well, we can stop the Adam and start it from Abraham, for that’s where real civilization begins. So you start from Abraham and you come all the way through into Jesus Christ. And they’re only states of consciousness where God passes through individualizing himself as you. And everyone goes through the state called John the Baptist. So of all those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John. So how great we are in this world, that doesn’t really matter; because the least in the kingdom of God has a greatness beyond the wildest dream of this world. The least has a greatness. . .you can’t conceive the greatness of the least in the kingdom. And he’s brought there not by anything he’s done. For, may I tell you, I did nothing to do it; I fell into it. But who made me fall into it? God. And so, we can’t take any credit for having fallen into the state called John.71 ¶17

It seemed to me, if I reflect upon it, prior to when I fell into it, that I was disillusioned in marriage. A young man of eighteen getting married, and then being a father at nineteen, and then at twenty separated, and becoming disillusioned. And then pledging myself not to have anything to do in the sexual world and then to give up completely all the food that I loved. I love food, love all the things that the world would offer. And then to go through it and a man would tell me on a certain day, “You’re going to die, but not really die.” And then you’re bewildered—”I’m going to die, but I’m not going to die”—what is he talking about? Well, he was talking about the state. I will die to that state. And when after the things happened and I said to him, “What did you mean and who told you that I would die and yet not really die?” He said to me, “The Brothers.” That’s all that he would tell me: “The Brothers told me that you would die and not really die. The Brothers told me you were coming to me.” And what did he mean by the Brothers? – The Elohim, the gods who made us all in their own image.71 ¶18

So tonight, may I tell you, let me share with you the good news. You are told, the very first words given into the world in the mouth of Jesus Christ in the earliest gospel is in Mark, the 14th and 15th verses. The words are: “After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” The first words put into his mouth.71 ¶19

Someone asked the other night concerning changing the picture of this world – the word is “repent” in the first statement made in that gospel. “Repent” is “a radical change of attitude towards anything that happens to you in this world.” I don’t care what is happening, repent! Don’t let it happen as it is happening. Change it in your mind’s eye, solely, as I did standing in New York City, without one nickel in my pocket, not a nickel, and Barbados is 2,000 miles away, across water, so you can’t walk; and he tells me, “You are now in Barbados!” I’m in Barbados and Barbados is 2,000 miles away across water. “Clothe yourself with Barbados. If you are in Barbados, how would you know you are? Look at the world.” For motion is relative: I can only detect that I have moved relative to something that is stationery to my motion. So, New York remains where it is, and if I assume that I am in Barbados, and I think of New York, I should see it 2,000 miles to the north of me. So, I clothe myself with Barbados and think of some stopping place where if I am in Barbados that vision would tell me where I am. So I think of Barbados and there it is 2,000 miles to the north of me. So I sleep in that state, to find that someone 2,000 miles away is moved to bring me a ticket to go to Barbados, with a little small check to buy the necessary things to get aboard the ship. So you clothe yourself in a state. That’s the good news: “I bring you the good news of the kingdom of God,” for man is rising into a kingdom where everything is subject to his imaginative power. But before you get there you start to test it here. . .and you test it. So I’m telling you of a kingdom.71 ¶20

What kingdom? The kingdom of God, well, what is it? It’s a place beyond the wildest dream of earth, the world of Caesar, where when you arrive there everything is subject to your imaginative power. But I’ll tell you, start it right here. And how do you do it? You clothe yourself with this state just as though it were true, and as you clothe yourself with it, wait. As you’re told, those who really believe do not make … If they really believe it, they don’t make it so, it is so. That’s why when I discussed it with Abdullah he never discussed it with me. When I asked him how would I go there he wouldn’t even answer me. Because what he was trying to show me was, “If you really are clothed with the feeling of being in Barbados, how could you and I sit down and discuss how you’re going to get there? How could we possibly discuss this?” And so, he wouldn’t discuss it with me. “If you really are doing what I told you to do, you say you are in Barbados,well, then you can’t discuss how you’re going to go.”71 ¶21

If I said to you, “You are now rich,” and today you owe rent, can you and I discuss how you are going to become rich if I tell you that you are, and ask you to clothe yourself with wealth? If I ask you to clothe yourself with any state in this world; and then it doesn’t hatch out tomorrow because tomorrow is not the moment of hatching out, but you’re anxious; and then you say to me, “But where is it coming from, how will it come?” should I really discuss it with you? Would not…that is a lack of faith on your part if you say, well, I’m wearing it. If I’m wearing it, it should be just as real to you as the room is real. That’s the good news of the kingdom.71 ¶22

If I really want anything in this world, I clothe myself with it, just as though it were true, and then let it hatch out. All things have moments between the moment of assumption and the fulfillment of that assumption. We either believe it or we don’t believe it, and not a thing I can do to persuade you to believe it. I can just simply throw it out, and in this audience this night there are those who will accept it and those who will reject it. . . not a thing I can do about it. I can only tell you of the kingdom of God and tell you these are the states through which we pass.71 ¶23

So, I hope you’ve passed through the state of John the Baptist. But it makes no difference. If you haven’t passed through, I’ll tell you, you will pass through it. And so, when the wheel turns as it will turn; for all come to the inevitable end and so everyone will make their exit from this world; and if they haven’t before they exit from this world passed through John the Baptist, they will when the wheel comes back again pass through it. For there is no death; nothing dies in God’s world. It seems to die, but the world does not end where my senses seem to disappear from it. . . it doesn’t. So if the wheel is turning and turning, and you and I are turning on the wheel until by. . . except after John the Baptist, before we are plucked from the wheel, we begin to live by the promise called the gospel or the good news of God.71 ¶24

So here, this night you take it and test it. If you test it, may I tell you, you’ll prove it in performance; if you don’t test it, you will never know. And so, it is Christ in you that you must test. Christ became man, God became man, that man may become God. So this John the Baptist spoken of in scripture is not a little man born of Elizabeth, who was a cousin of Jesus. Forget it! These are only related states – a cousin is a relative – and so these are related states that’s all. It hasn’t a thing to do with my cousin born of my sister. No, that’s not the cousin. They were cousins separated in time: John came before and Jesus followed. Jesus is not a man. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s plan, God’s promise, God’s purpose, where he comes forward and he awakens as himself, and that self is Jesus Christ.71 ¶25

So, the last state man passes through is John the Baptist, where he does violence to himself. Now, he is clothed in camel’s hair and a leather girdle. The most external parts of a man is hair and skin; so he’s clothed in camel’s hair and a leather girdle. So here, he’s. . .the most external thing that man could ever have on a body would be the camel’s hair and the leather girdle. And he said, “If you will accept it, he is Elijah come again.” Go back and read the story of Elijah. He was clothed in camel’s hair and a leather girdle. It means that the mind is clothed with something external. I think if I give to the poor, if I contribute to the church, if I go to church every Sunday, and I do all the external things then I am now getting into the kingdom of heaven. So I abide by all external things and that doesn’t get me any place into the kingdom of heaven.71 ¶26

Then I begin to do violence to my appetite. I restrain the impulse to do this, that, or the other, not knowing that life itself is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger, and God and only God gives me the different hungers. And the final hunger he gives me is the hunger for the word of God. The very last hunger, as told us in the Book of Amos: “I will send a famine upon the world. It will not be for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God”. And so, the last hunger to come upon man is to hear the word of God. To hear it is to experience it. I want to experience the reality of what is said in scripture. And so I will hear it, and I’m so hungry to hear it I will experience it; then comes man’s individual experience. So man must experience scripture for himself to understand how wonderful it is. When he experiences scripture, the hunger that preceded the experience is now satisfied by the experience. And so that is what comes out when he enters into the state called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the flower, the fulfillment of God’s purpose.71 ¶27

So in the end there’s nothing but Jesus Christ. So then we are told, in that day or, “On that day the Lord is one and his name one,” and that name is Jesus. All come out as he.71 ¶28

But they must pass through the state called John the Baptist, and John is but a state. And all must pass through that state doing violence to themselves in the hope that in some way it is seen by someone above him, and by that seeing he enters into the state called salvation. You cannot save yourself. No man can save himself. It’s the gift of grace; it’s the gift of God. You could this very moment become the most strict vegetarian in the world, teetotaler, non-smoker, celibate – go to the extreme state and make yourself so impotent that you couldn’t possibly even entertain the thought – and yet you cannot by such violence to yourself enter the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is entered by grace. But you pass through the violence to self, and then you come out.71 ¶29

May I tell you, when you do come out, there’ll always be those who mock you. . . always those. So, when he comes into the world they call him a glutton, and they call him a drunkard and the friend of sinners. And may I tell you, when I came back after seven years of this rigid discipline, and those who saw me in this meeting one night, when I got up and suddenly confessed what I am now doing, that a few ladies in the audience cried. Because they thought they had in me some personal savior, and I became to them an image that cracked and broke; and they saw in me now an utter failure, one who normally drank and normally ate meat. To them I was a complete disillusioned being. And it happens to every being in this world. You’ll pass through it. I am sharing with you my own experience. And no man can speak with any grater authority than when he speaks from experience; for a truth that man knows from experience he knows more thoroughly than he knows anything else in this world, or than he can know that same truth in any other way. So if I tell you of this experience, you may believe me or you may disbelieve me. Even those who believe me will not know it to the extent they will know it after they themselves have had the experience. And so you pass through.71 ¶30

But don’t encourage it, don’t this night say, “I will simply go on a vegetable diet, I will give up liquor, I’ll give up smoking, I’ll give up sex in the hope that I’m going to pass through this state.” It doesn’t come that way. It comes in a strange way. . . it came to me in the strangest way. I ordered the most wonderful roast beef, may I tell you—I was in Syracuse, New York—and I love my meat, and I ordered the most wonderful roast beef. And as I put my knife into it, I actually felt I was cutting the animal alive. I took the plate and pushed it away. I could not take one piece from that plate. . . and for seven years I couldn’t. So it happened that way. I couldn’t touch a piece of meat, a piece of fowl, an egg or fish for seven years. But it happened…I was… for seven years. And I ordered from the menu roast beef, as I always loved it, and as it was delivered I just thought it would be marvelous, and as I put my knife right into it, I was cutting into the animal and pushed the whole thing away. For seven years it was that way. And coming back to the States I did everything I had not done in seven years. That’s how you pass through the state called John the Baptist and come into the state called Jesus Christ.71 ¶31

But before you are lifted off the wheel, you must prove that this is good news. And good news is that everything in this world that you want you can have if you clothe yourself with it. It doesn’t mean you’re lifted off the wheel, but clothe yourself with it. You want to be rich? How would you feel were you rich? You want to be healthy? How would you feel were you healthy? You want to be free of all embarrassment? How would you feel this night if you were not embarrassed, that not a thing in this world could embarrass you? How would you feel were it so? And you clothe yourself with these states, one after the other, and be faithful to the clothing that you wear, and let it unfold in your world. It will! It will completely unfold in your world and you will see it. Then as you practice with it and actually believe in the good news of the kingdom of God, suddenly, when you least expect it, one after the other, a series of events that God predetermined to awaken himself will awaken within you. Because, God has prepared a way for himself to return individualized as you, completely prepared, and no one can stop the way. He’s prepared that way, and so, at very end, all of a sudden the series begins to unfold, and you are it unfolding; and you are he — the one who became you and took himself through the furnaces, all through John into Jesus Christ—and you awake as he.71 ¶32

There’s not a thing I can tell you to persuade you to accept it. And I wouldn’t raise a finger to make it so, because I am not convinced by speculation: I am convinced by knowing having experienced it. And so, if all the great teachers of the churches of the world stood before me in opposition, it would make no difference to me whatsoever. They, too, will pass through these states because they aren’t elected to these states by men. So the heads of all the great churches of the world, if they stood before me now, I could say to them, if you have not experienced it, you will. And your greatness in this world is as naught, it is nothing, for the least in the kingdom is greater than you; for the least in the kingdom has a greatness that you cannot measure by anything on earth. And if you have not experienced this, no matter how great you are with all the medals pinned upon you by men who vanish in this world, it is as nothing. But the day will come you’ll go through John the Baptist. He’s not a man who lived 2,000 years ago. He represents a state of consciousness that’s eternal, through which every soul must pass, and passing through they do violence to their appetites. They come out of it and enter the state called Jesus Christ; and they believe the story of the good news of God, and actually prove it in performance. They prove it and prove it until that moment in time when they’re lifted off the wheel of recurrence, and they enter the kingdom of God.71 ¶33

But, here we are told concerning John, the law and the prophets until John. It starts the great law and all through the great prophets until John .. .there comes a stop… from then the good news of the kingdom is preached. And everyone enters the kingdom violently. I read here in the most recent scholarly works this passage, which is the 16th chapter, the 16th verse of the Book of Luke, and these great scholars, and there were hundreds of them in discussion, and they confessed it doesn’t make sense. It only adds confusion to confusion, based upon an earlier passage that they can’t understand what he means that all of a sudden everyone enters the kingdom violently, and this thing happens after John.71 ¶34

Well, may I tell you, it’s true; it happened to me, and I can’t tell you how violent you are when you enter—not angry but sheer, sheer energy. You use a power that you have never heard of on earth. We speak of a power, of blowing up a whole city with one bomb, blowing up a country with a bomb. It doesn’t compare to the power that you exert in that moment of entrance into the kingdom of God. When you are whipped up in the form of a spiral into your own skull, it is as though it takes that energy to ram you into the eternal structure that God has predetermined; as though the whole vast skull is being filled, and you fill one niche forever and forever. But you move into it with such power the whole thing radiates, the whole thing shakes like an earthquake; as though the whole vast world is an earthquake. And then suddenly when you are completely in it and then riveted in, then it subsides, and it’s all quiet, and you return here to the world of Caesar. So the world is stating in that 16th verse of the 16th chapter of Luke: “Everyone enters it violently.” May I tell you, it must, because it takes an enormous power to drive you into that part prepared for you. It’s been waiting for you since the beginning of time, and you move into that one part prepared for you, and you move in so forcibly the whole structure vibrates. Then it subsides and you’re back.71 ¶35

So, you go home this night and clothe yourself in the joy of being the man, the woman that you want to be. I tell you it will not fail you!71 ¶36

Now let us go into the Silence.71 ¶37

Tonight’s subject is “The Promise Fulfilled.” Now, here we are gathered together, and I daresay if I asked anyone here, including myself, the speaker: Are we really known in the world? I think we would all admit, “Only to a very small circle, our relatives,” and then we could think of those who are so publicized the world over throughout the ages, and you might think that you are not really known, that not a thing is ever mentioned about you in any book ever written. But I want to tell you that the greatest book ever written is all about you. The Bible is your biography. It is also your autobiography, because you inspired it. It is you who dictated it, and it’s all about you . . every word in it. You came here for one purpose, and one purpose only . . to fulfill it. You came into the world to fulfill your own prophecy! So, you are far better known than anyone in this world, for when we speak of the “outer man,” it vanishes and his little accomplishments, but your accomplishment is to come down into the world and conquer it, and actually rise out of the grave and return to the Being that you were, only enhanced by your victory over death. That’s the thing that you really are.68 ¶1

Now, I am not making this up. I tell you what I know, for I have had the experience. I am not alone. The Bible is my biography, for I have fulfilled it. It is your biography, and if you have not yet fulfilled it, you will. That is the story of Scripture. The One spoken of in Scripture . . he said, “All the promises of Scripture find their ‘Yes’ in Him.” You might think this refers to someone other than yourself who lived two thousand years ago. It is said of Him, “He is clad in a robe, in blood, and the name by which He is called is ‘The Word of God.’” “And the Word became flesh and dwelt within us,” “born not of blood, not of the will of the flesh… but of God.” The Bible speaks of two births in the world. It’s told in the most glorious way. Paul tells it in the book of Galatians.68 ¶2

But we will go back to the Promise as we find it in Genesis, for this is the basic promise in Scripture, a promise made to Abraham. Now, the word “Abraham” means “the father of the multitudes.” He was old. This is the story . . a hundred years old, and had no heir, although he did have a son, and the son was called Ishmael. It was said of Ishmael that he was a wild ass; his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand against him. But he was born of a slave, Hagar, in the household of Sarah. Sarah was barren, and she was ninety and “it ceased to be with her after the manner of women,” being ninety years of age, and Abraham was a hundred, and there was no offspring from that union. The word “Sarah” means princess. And they prayed to the Lord for an heir, not one born of a slave, and the Lord granted their prayer, and said, “You will have a son, and the son will be the heir, and you will call his name Isaac.” “Isaac” means “he laughs.” But they laughed at the very thought that at their age they could have a child. And then the question was asked: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And Abraham replied, “No.” Abraham believed all things were possible to God. At the appointed hour the child was born, and they called him as the angel said, “Call him Isaac . . he laughs.” That is the story.68 ¶3

Now the story, as explained to us in the book of Galatians, which is considered the earliest book written in the New Testament, and in this he tells the story. “The promise was made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, offsprings, referring to many, but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ.” He states it clearly . . offspring. The offspring promised is Christ, and it was promised to Abraham. Then he states, “This is an allegory,” as he goes on to explain the story of the birth. He said Abraham brought forth a son. We have only one son . . the offspring, which is Christ. He speaks now of two sons, one born of Hagar, which he likens to the present Jerusalem, and that son was “born from below;” another son came, born of a free woman and “born from above.” The one born of slavery brings her sons into slavery and is enslaved with them, and the one “born from above” is born of our Mother, Jerusalem, born into liberty. And again he states that this is an allegory.68 ¶4

Having experienced it, I can tell you a story. You and I are born of Hagar, Ishmael, as the garments of flesh go. All these garments of flesh and blood are “the sons of Hagar, born into slavery.” You are enslaved by the bodies that you wear. We are told in Scripture, “They will go into a land, and they will be sojourners there.” They will be enslaved, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years. Then, afterwards, they will come out with great possessions. “Four hundred” is not 400 years as we measure by the calendar. We are speaking now of the great mystery of Scripture. Every number has a symbolic significance. Four hundred is simply the numerical value of the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That letter is tav, the 22nd letter. They do have five other letters, but they are repetitions of five of the original twenty-two. The 22nd letter is the last letter. Its numerical value is 400; its symbol is that of a cross. So, as long as we wear the cross . . this burden called the human form . . we are oppressed in this world. We are enslaved by the cross that we wear.68 ¶5

When we “come out,” we will receive “great possessions,” Paul tells us in the fourth chapter of the book of Romans. The possession that is ours is the world itself! Not a little section of the world . . the world we inherit when we come out of this tribulation. We receive the Promise, and there’s a difference between receiving the Promise, and receiving what was promised. In receiving the Promise, we are declared heirs; in receiving what was promised, we will accept it and receive and obtain our inheritance. In between receiving the Promise and receiving what was promised, so that we actually obtain the inheritance, lies the great tribulation of the “four hundred years.” When it comes to the actual obtaining of the Promise . . with no warning whatsoever, suddenly you come into your inheritance. And you come into your inheritance by the “second birth.” You are “born from above!” Born of the Jerusalem from above, who is our Mother.68 ¶6

In the 87th Psalm, it is said, “The Lord chose Zion. Zion is His perfect dwelling place.” The word “Jerusalem,” the word “Zion,” the word “Bethlehem,” the word “City of David,” and the word “City of God” are synonymous terms. In this 87th Psalm, it is said, “The Lord records as he registers the peoples, and the Lord said, ‘This one and that one were born here, and this one was born there.’” Born where? Born above. If I liken, now, this above to an Infinite Mind . . and you and I are brain cells in the Mind of the Dreamer, every cell has to be born. And because it is one with the Dreamer, every cell as it unfolds and explodes, it is the Dreamer Himself. He is simply bringing into birth His Own Being! And you are that Being!68 ¶7

So, far from being unknown, you have the greatest biography in the world. The Bible, the most popular book in the world . . they don’t mention it when they speak week after week of the popular books; they put at the top of the list the fiction book that sells the most, or non-fiction, and they would pale into insignificance concerning the sale of your biography. Your biography has been translated into over twelve hundred languages, more or less. Take all the best sellers put together, and they pale into insignificance concerning the sale of our biography, for your biography is the Bible. “I have come to fulfill Scripture.” “Scripture must be fulfilled in me.” And, then, beginning with Moses and the Law, and all the Prophets, with all the Psalms, He interpreted to them all the scriptures and things concerning Himself. And then He said, “In the volume of the book it is written of me.” It is all about Me. I have no other book.68 ¶8

Then comes the fulfillment of the Promise, and the Promise is: You will have a Son, named Isaac. It’s like saying, “Name him, ‘He laughs.’” Well, I can’t tell you the thrill that is in store for you when that child appears; in spite of your age, in spite of your seeming barrenness, suddenly the child appears. Others find it. You hold it in your arms, and in the most endearing mood that possesses you, you look into the face of this wonderful infant and you say, “How is my sweetheart?” He will burst into the most heavenly smile. He laughs. Well, that’s Isaac. Then you will know who Abraham really is! He is the son of Abraham in his old age.68 ¶9

I was only in my 50’s when it happened, and still could have sired a child, but I had been coming through the tribulations for thousands of years. I reached the end of the journey, and the journey takes thousands of years . . by implication, six thousand years, if you read Scripture carefully. For Peter said when they asked him, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of the world.” And then Peter answered that these wonders will come, but they do not know that one day of the Lord is equal to one thousand years. A thousand years here is but a day of the Lord. So, “Let us make man…” on what day? Oh the sixth day. So, six thousand years you’ve been traveling. You actually came down and annexed these bodies called men. You never were these bodies. These are garments that you wear, and you are enslaved by the garment that you wear. Yet only as you enter these garments and penetrate them and annex the brains of these garments, can you enter this world of death. And by entering this world of death, you experience death, or you could not have died! You are immortal . . you were immortal . . and you return to your immortality! You cannot die.68 ¶10

Although you seem to die, you cannot die, I assure you. My father and my mother are as alive to me today as they were before they made their departure from this world. My brother Lawrence, who took part in my drama of the finding of the child, departed four years ago; he’s just as alive to me, only he is young. He was 62 when he departed. When I meet Lawrence now, he’s young. And strangely enough, all the intelligence of my brother . . not a thing is lost. But he’s young now, in his 20’s. He knows what happened, and I prophesied with him, “Lawrence, you will be the next member of our little family to have the experience, because you found Him. My other two brothers laughed when you said, ‘It’s Neville’s baby,’ and you found Him in that drama. You played the part of Simon. ‘Oh, God, let me now depart according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,’ and you are entitled now for the unfolding within you.”68 ¶11

Everyone in the whole world will have it. No one will fail. I don’t care what you have ever done in this world. I don’t care what you are planning to do; it could be the most unlovely act in the world . . you are my brother before that the world was. You were God’s Son “before that the world was.” And you were addressed as His son and told that you would come down into this world and die . . what? “Like men.” If you die like men, then it would have had no meaning whatsoever if you were a man when you were addressed. Obviously, if I am a man, and men die, why tell me I will die like a man if I am a man when you address me? But I was not a man and you were not a man. You were sons of God. You were all sons of God, and only through the act of Crucifixion will we be exalted to God. Through the Crucifixion, the sons become the Father. If I was not crucified on man . . man is a cross . . I could not be raised to the exaltation of the Father. And because in the end there is only God the Father, everyone has to be raised to God the Father.68 ¶12

So, the Promise has already reached its climax, but it is taking place. If I could only get this idea over to the whole vast world that would listen! Think of a drama that is actually taking place written in the imperative passive mood . . a command to be done absolutely and continuously, without any reference to completeness or incompleteness. It is taking place. The curtain doesn’t come down on it. It is always taking place, with no reference whatsoever to its position in time, whether it be 1971 or the Year One, or the Year Three Thousand. It’s always taking place. There is no reference to position in time, no reference to its duration or repetition. So, in 1959 the drama repeated itself. Where? In me. What drama? The one recorded in Scripture in the 1st Century. How many times it took place? I can only believe it must have taken place unnumbered times in that interval, because there are billions of us to awaken, and I can’t conceive for one moment that there are long intervals between times for all to awake.68 ¶13

But not everyone tells the story. The only one who tells it is the one who is called, and then sent. He is sent for a purpose: to get the barnacles off the wonderful story. Organized religion simply is stranded, really. It is stranded on form and vested interests. They have so much to take care of in the world of Caesar there is no time to tell the story. So, once in a while He calls one who is about to have the experience. You are now going to be sent into the world to tell it. And everyone who is called has the same sense of . . not guilt . . a sense of inadequacy. Moses said, “I have an impediment of speech. I cannot tell it; I cannot talk.” He said, “I have sent you.” He didn’t volunteer; he was drafted! When Paul was called, Paul said, “I have a thorn in my side.” He was inadequate. He didn’t feel qualified to tell it. And He said, “My Grace is sufficient for you.”68 ¶14

When I was called and sent, no one could have felt more inadequate than the speaker. I had had no formal education. I had no background, socially, intellectually, financially, or anything of that nature. Whatever I have today, it is quite current. My family made it in this generation. What they gave me is now; there is no background of wealth, and certainly no background that is social, prominent, and no intellectual background. So, I felt inadequate. How on earth could I face an audience? But I didn’t know that He was coming, that He would unfold in me what the wise scholars of the world did not experience. When you face the wise scholars of the world, they are theorizing, but you are speaking from experience. So, you are not standing even on the same level. You don’t make any apologies because they are not on the same level. They are speculating, and you are not speculating. You tell exactly how this thing has happened in you, and how it must happen to them. So, you are not making any excuses now for yourself, for no one could have foreseen that that would happen in me to give me the courage to speak, to give me that feeling of adequacy when inwardly I felt so inadequate.68 ¶15

So, I tell you, you have the greatest biography in the world! The Bible is your book. It’s all about you from beginning to end. You are the Jesus Christ of Scripture! You are the Lord God Jehovah of Scripture! And all these characters of Scripture are phases of your being. Abraham . . that represents a state. All these characters, the Disciples . . all of them are only aspects of your own wonderful Being. You are the Lord Jesus Christ! So, He only speaks of two, the Father and His Son. Jesus is the Father. His Son is Christ, and Christ is David! David is the sum total of humanity. If you take all the beings of the world, all of their experiences, and then fuse it into one grand whole, that concentrated time that represents humanity’s history . . personify it now. It comes out as David, and that is your son! That is David, for David will call you, “Father.” And then you know who you are. You are God the Father!68 ¶16

Even though you are still a little man, weak with all the limitations of the flesh, you still have to play the weakness of man until the very end when you take it off. In my own case, when this thing drops . . tonight, tomorrow night, or any other night . . when it drops I am through with the drama. I can say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid out for me the crown of righteousness.” The whole thing is over. All I can do from now on is to tell it. I tell it tonight with force because I have no premonition about it, but I am speaking to you tonight as if it were the last time that I will be addressing you. I have no plans for my future. [Note: At this point there is a flaw in my tape, during which interim Neville explained that he normally makes plans, both in Los Angeles and San Francisco, for the following year’s appearances, but he did not do it this year.] I made no plans for the fall in Los Angeles this year; I am not doing it here this year. I am speaking to you tonight just as though this is the last time that I will address you. I have no commitments whatsoever beyond tonight. I leave tomorrow morning; I am going back to L. A. to my wife and daughter, and that is it. So, I could be actually speaking to you for the last time . . I do not know. I only know I have finished the work. I have done everything that Scripture foretold that man must do.68 ¶17

“I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was,” for I was one with God the Father, and He detached me . . as He detached you . . for purposes of His own; and He actually implanted us His Word in this stock called “Humanity,” that we may become as He is. For, while we are part of that wonderful Eternal Tree, we partook of the nature of the tree . . yes. Our substance was supplied by the trees; we had no life in ourselves. We were part of the Life of that tree. By detachment and incorporation in the stock called “Humanity” we, the grafted bud, now bear the fruit from the parent tree from which we were taken. And now we bring forth everything of that parent tree. Well, He was a Father; I have to bring forth fatherhood. In order to bring forth fatherhood, I must bring forth a son, because He was a Father of a Son. The same Son must come out when I begin to bear the fruit. I have borne the fruit. I have brought forth David, and David revealed me to myself as God the Father. And now it is coming into my world day after day, writing me the letters, telling me in visions they saw me as the Being what I know that I am. So, it has to take place just as we are told in Scripture! So, I am sharing it with you.68 ¶18

Everyone in this world will have it . . everyone. What hour, I cannot tell you. That day no one knows but the Father. The Father-in-you knows the hour and the day, but no one else knows it. I tell you, when it comes, it comes like a thief in the night . . unexpectedly. It comes with such shocking suddenness! Then, all of a sudden, you are The Being. And what an awe! What a feeling that you . . and you have a memory, remembering the weaknesses of your past . . you know the things you did, things of which you are ashamed. What man walking this earth is not ashamed of things that he has done? Maybe he didn’t have the courage to do them, but he did them in his thoughts. He wished he had the courage. Maybe he didn’t have the courage, but he still entertained such thoughts. And in spite of these weaknesses, God erupts within you, and the story of God becomes your story! Here is a mingled mood . . you know you are incapable of doing those glorious things, and yet those glorious things written in your biography you are now actually experiencing, for you know the story of the Bible is your story.68 ¶19

So, I tell you, no one ever walked the face of this earth whose history is written in the world of Caesar that is anywhere near your biography. I don’t care who he is. I admire the great Lincoln. I have his biography by many who wrote it . . wrote the story of Lincoln. He fades into insignificance when you compare it to your biography, for your biography is the Bible! Can you get any greater biography in the world than that? It’s all about you, written in the 40th Psalm. Read it in the 40th Psalm. Everything said in that book, it’s all about me. And when you hear it, you cannot restrain your enthusiasm. You tell it to the whole congregation, and tell it to the world, especially when it unfolds within you. Now you speak from experience. You aren’t theorizing, and you aren’t in any way speculating. So, all the Promises of God find their “Yes” . . their affirmation in you. And The One spoken of is seated here in this audience tonight, clothed and clad in a robe of blood. You aren’t clothed in a robe of blood? But you do not know your name, and the name by which He is called is “The Word of God.”68 ¶20

Now go back to the first chapter of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Now the Word is detached from the Tree of Life. “The Word became flesh and dwelt within us.” He detaches it. God tears out of His own Being His Son, that they all may become as He is, and he actually engrafts them, as we are told in the book of James. “Receive with meekness the implanted Word.” And, so, that’s the Word, and you are that Word, that spore that is now engrafted into that wonderful stock called “Humanity.” And, now, when you come out, you do not bear the fruit of man; you bear the fruit of that Tree from which you were taken, and that was God Himself. And the Bible tells you the fruit, so you follow the pattern.68 ¶21

When you go home, if not tonight, in the not-distant future, take the book of Hebrews. Every chapter quotes the Old Testament. Numberless verses all the way through quote the Old Testament. No other book is quoted . . only the Bible, and that “bible” is the Old Testament. It lays out the pattern for you, the most marvelous pattern all the way through. You will see, beginning with the very beginning “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son.” Then he tells you who that Son is. And the first quote that he makes after that, of whom did he say . . and he quotes that 2nd Psalm, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.” There he is quoting the words mentioned by David. Then he goes on, and you receive it in faith. Then he takes the entire 11th chapter, which is a hymn in praise of faith, and goes forward into the 12th chapter, and shows you these characters who did not receive it, but still they are sustained by the faith of the Promise, and they are moving forward until that moment in time when the whole thing unfolds within them. He names all these wonderful characters in Scripture who had it, who accepted it on faith but not by works, because works cannot produce it. You either reject it, or you believe it. If you accept it, then it is engrafted, and that wonderful spore is engrafted by your acceptance in faith alone. So, go and tell them, and keep on telling the same story over and over and over. Then it will be grafted, and the whole thing unfolds within you.68 ¶22

I can’t tell you anything more wonderful than to tell you who you are. You may think you are Mr. Brown or you are Mrs. Smith, and that’s lovely. You are important in your own community in the world of Caesar. But it fades to nothing compared to the Being that you really are! You may not have one dime tonight, but if you really believe what I am telling you, you are far richer for your inheritance. In the 4th chapter, the 13th verse of Romans tells that you “inherit the world.” That is the Promise. It’s not just a little inheritance; you inherit the entire world. Well, the word translated “world” does not mean just the earth; it means Eternity! The same word translated “world” in the Old Testament is used to translate “eternity.” The word is “olam.” He puts “olam” into the mind of man, “yet so that man cannot find out what He has done from the beginning to the end.” In the end, he comes into his inheritance, and that is the Universe. He owns everything; he owns Eternity!68 ¶23

So, that is the glorious Being that you really are, and no one can paint it on earth. You can’t paint the Being that you are. I could begin . . and how I would fail would be miserable . . to tell you how glorious you really are. To try to describe the glory of your body . . and it is a body. May I tell you . . this is not some fable; it’s a body, a living, living body that is so altogether right, it is perfect. You cannot improve upon perfection. As your Father in Heaven is perfect, you must be perfect, and clothed in that body wherever you go, it is perfect, and you don’t raise a finger to make it so. There is no effort on your part. You do nothing. Everything transforms itself before you, and it’s all perfect . . all unearthly beautiful. That’s the Being that you are! And you dwell upon it. When you go to bed at night, dwell upon it, dwell upon what you really are, as against what your bank balance tells you. That’s not the thing that you are.68 ¶24

You are destined to inherit the world, but there is an interval between receiving the Promise of the inheritance and then actually coming into possession of it. When you are given the Promise . . and we are all given the Promise . . we were declared heirs. When we actually obtain the Promise, we receive our inheritance; and that is the difference between Christ-in-us and we-in-Christ. Christ-in-us is the universal gift of God. It means His Son buried in all, therefore, sons. Now, We-in-Christ is when the individual comes out, and the individual is incorporated into the One Body, as told you in the 4th chapter of Ephesians: “ …one body … one Spirit … one hope … one Lord … one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all.”68 ¶25

If He is above all, He is transcendent. If He is through all, He is omnipresent. And if He is in all, He is imminent. I can’t turn any place to touch Him, because He is imminent . . He is in all. If He is through all, He is omnipresent, therefore He is present, and He is never so far off as even to be near, for nearness would imply separation. He is not separate. He is not only transcendent, He is omnipresent and He is imminent, and He is the Being you are destined to be. In spite of the fact you have a body, yet you are omnipresent. You can’t describe it in 3¬dimensional terms, you can’t describe it in the world of Caesar, but that is the Being that you are. And wherever you are, you are perfect, and the world is perfect.68 ¶26

So, I can tell you from my own experience that the Promise made in the beginning of time, before we started the journey . . and if you read it carefully, you will read it in these words, “And a deep, deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and he slept. A darkness descended upon the earth, and a deep sleep fell upon him and he slept, and as he slept, then the Lord spoke . . and gave that foreshadowing . . “Your descendants will go into a land that is strange, a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved, and they will be oppressed four hundred years. Afterwards they will come out with great inheritance” . . and then comes the statement of the Promise of the child. How will I know it? He is going to laugh. And I can’t describe the laugh of the child, any more than I can describe the beauty of David. I know great sculptors have tried their best to paint and to sculpt David. They can’t! He is too beautiful. You cannot describe the beauty, which is the essence of the experiences of being Man. It all comes out as one Being . . a youth, an eternal youth. He’s not an old man. Eternity is youth, but man paints him as an old, old man; and yet Eternity is eternal youth, and it’s David. And that is the result of your oppression in the world of Caesar.68 ¶27

And having reached the end, I share it with you. No one will crow. No one will be better than the other, because all will be God, and you can’t transcend God. Everyone is destined to be God! And there’s nothing but God!68 ¶28

Now, this being the last night . . and it may be my last night in a literal sense of the word . . let us, after the Silence, bring any question that is on your mind to clarify the evening or whatever you want from the last ten lectures. Now let us go into the Silence. Now, are there any questions, please?68 ¶29

Well, the time is up. And thank you for coming. Thank you so much. Good night.68 ¶38

Tonight’s title is: “The Most Precious Gift.” If He Who created the Universe and all within it gave it to you, and with the whole vast universe owned by you, you would consider that the greatest gift in the world. And, yet, He gave you something far greater than that. He gave you Himself! God actually became as you are, that you may be as He is. If you owned the Universe and it slowly . . through unnumbered trillions of years . . should melt away and you could not recreate it, though it’s a marvelous gift, it could not compare in any manner whatsoever to the gift of Himself to you that could recreate it. For, God actually became as we are, that we may be as He is.66 ¶1

Now, how do we know this? Scripture reveals it . . literally tells us how it happens in us. It is revealed in Scripture that God is a father. That’s the ultimate revelation of God to man. It started off as God Almighty. “I made myself known unto Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty . . El Shaddai, but by my name, the Lord . . which means, ‘I AM’ . . did not make myself known to them.” Now, He is speaking to the character called “Moses,” but ultimately He reveals Himself as God the Father. If He gave Himself to me, and God is a father, then I, too, must be a father . . but not just a father; I must be the Father . . the very father that God is!66 ¶2

And if God is a father, there must be a child to bear witness to His fatherhood, and Scripture reveals the name of that son. We are told, in the book of Samuel, that He will actually raise up out of him a son, and he will be the father of that son. And the son, coming out of Samuel, will be His son, as we are told in the 7th chapter of I Samuel. This is now confirmed in the last chapter of the New Testament, “And I Jesus” . . the Lord “have sent my angel to testify unto you to declare … I AM the root . . being the Father . . “I AM the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star” . He is both the father of David and David’s son. He did not say he was David. He was the father of David and David’s son, so the grandfather and the grandson are the same Being.66 ¶3

“David” is the symbol of Humanity. The whole vast world of man is symbolized in a single being, and his name is David. Jesus Christ is God the Father! “He who sees me,” said he “hath seen the Father.” “How then can you say, Show us the Father? Have I been so long with you that you do not know me, Philip? He who hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Here is God the Father, the Creator of it all, Who actually gave Himself to us in the most literal sense, and He is the Father, and David in Scripture calls Him, “my father, my lord.”66 ¶4

So, in the 2nd Psalm David said, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” Here David tells us that the Lord said to him, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” So, the question is asked in the book of Luke, and they answered when he asked, “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he? And they said, ‘The son of David,’ and then he answered, ‘Why then did David in the spirit call him, my Lord?’ If David thus calls him, my Lord, how can he be David’s son?” He is David’s father!66 ¶5

Now, if God succeeds in His purpose to give me Himself, I must be David’s father. Am I David’s father? Born in this Century, in the year 1905, and David, chronologically speaking . . if you take it as secular history, which it is not . . it would be that I am the father of one born three thousand years before I was born, if you take it as secular history. But the Bible is theology. The Bible is sacred history. The Bible is the story of Salvation; it is not recording any records of things on earth. The whole thing takes place beyond the wildest dream of man on earth.66 ¶6

I speak from experience. Now, let me share with you my experiences, for this is my last night. I am giving you tonight what I personally have experienced. I did not know until it happened. I was born and raised in the Christian faith; I have never wavered from it. Nothing has ever turned me from the Christian faith. I was first taught it at my Mother’s knee. Then, where I was born, the Bible was taught in our school; it was compulsory, but we were taught it as secular history, as my Mother taught it to me, because she understood it as secular history. And I believed it just as she taught it to me.66 ¶7

Then one day, without warning, with the most sudden, sudden shockingness, the story of Jesus unfolded itself within me, casting me in the central role. Then I knew He actually gives Himself to me! He is not sharing it. He literally died for me! He is not pretending that He is I. He literally died. And all that is true of Him repeats itself in us individually, and because He is the Father of Humanity, and David is the symbol of Humanity, when the individual has gone through all the experiences of Humanity . . good, bad, and indifferent . . and he has been tried “furnaces of affliction,” the Lord Jesus Christ . . the Father of it all . . brings him out, awakens him from the dream of life. Then the whole drama unfolds within him, and David calls him, “Father.”66 ¶8

You are first awakened in the tomb where you are buried. “For God Himself enters Death’s Door always with those who enter, and lays down in the very grave with them, in visions of eternity, till they awake, and when they awaken, they see the garments that the female had woven for them . . that my Mother wove for me, this garment. And here was a garment that Mother wove, born from the womb of my Mother. But my Father . . Jesus Christ . . Who gave Himself to me, awoke within me as my very Being, from the skull of my Being, which is Golgotha. And then I came out of my skull, and here surrounding me is the imagery of Scripture: the child wrapped in swaddling clothes. And here are the witnesses to the event that is now taking place, three men . . they were my brothers in this world . . my older brothers. And, here, they heard exactly what I heard; this fantastic, unearthly storm of wind, and they were just as disturbed as I was disturbed. Then one of my brothers, Lawrence, went over to investigate the nature of the disturbance, and he announced, “It is Neville’s baby.” And my other two brothers, Cecil and Victor, asked, “How can Neville have a baby?” with the most incredulous voice. He didn’t argue; he raised from the floor the evidence of what he had said, a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes. And going over to where I was, he placed it on the bed. I took that infant up and looked into its face, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” It broke into the most heavenly smile, and the whole scene dissolved.66 ¶9

Then, a hundred and thirty-nine days later, a vibration similar to the one that started in me began, but now, it is centered, not at the base of my skull (which was the first), but at the top of my skull, and when it reached the apex of intensity, it seemed as though my head exploded. And when the whole thing gathered itself together, I found myself seated and looking at a lamp and here is David of Biblical fame, leaning against the side of an open door and looking out at a pastoral scene. He is just as he is described in the book of Samuel, the 16th chapter: fair . . the blonde. . beautiful eyes. He is a blue-eyed blonde. You can’t describe the beauty of David! No one could paint him. No one could make a sculpture and fashion the beauty of that lad . . a lad in his early teens, and here I am looking at David, and David calls me, “Father.” And I know I am his father, and he knows he is my son!66 ¶10

And here, the entire imagery of Scripture surrounds me: the very head that is spoken of in Scripture as the head of the giant that he brought down, meaning that when man has played all the parts, he has overcome the enemy within himself, for he has discovered that the only enemy he ever had was his own thoughts that he entertained and harbored within himself, and what he entertained within himself objectified itself among men, and men played the part of the enemy, and they then injured him. They abused him, and it was all himself. He was the enemy of himself.66 ¶11

When man brings down the enemy within himself, he brings down the enemy of Israel. Here is the giant head right before me as my son stands and leans against the side of the open door, and this beautiful relationship between the two of us . . my son, who is God’s son. Then, and then only, I knew that God literally gave me Himself. He is not sharing His son with me; he is my son. He gave me His son.66 ¶12

And I’m going to tell you, He has given you Himself! You are going to have this experience, and you will see David, and David will be your son. Therefore, you and I are one, for God is One! The word “God” is a compound unity. The word is “Elohim.” It is one made up of others. We are the Brotherhood.66 ¶13

We are the “unnumbered sons of God” that God decided to give Himself to His sons and raise the sons to Himself . . the Father, as told us in the most difficult Psalm of the hundred and fifty. It is the 82nd Psalm. Thomas Paine, who was the editor of the most scholarly criticism of the higher nature of Biblical works . . for he was the editor of the Encyclopedia Biblica, says, “This is the most difficult of all the Psalms to decipher. And I hope my guess comes near the meaning of the one who wrote it.”66 ¶14

Well, listen to just a few passages: “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…” Now, the word translated “God” and “gods” is the same word there . . “Elohim.” “Elohim” is a plural word, but it is first translated in the singular as, “God has taken his place in the divine council.” The first time that word appears in the Bible is in the very first verse of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That word is “Elohim.” It’s a plural word, but translated there in the singular. Here (the 82nd Psalm) it is translated both in the singular and in the plural. “And God has taken his place in the divine council; In the midst of the gods . . he holds judgment.” Now God, collectively, speaks as a single Being, and speaks to all of us: “I say, “Ye are gods . . Sons of the Most High, all of you: Nevertheless, you shall die like men, And you will fall as one man, O ye princes.”66 ¶15

We are the gods and . . in the beginning we are the brothers who actually form the One Man, the Lord Jesus Christ! And the Lord Jesus Christ fell “as one man,” carrying all that is within Him, and then came the fragmentation . . Humanity. And after He passed through the “furnaces of affliction” and experienced death, as we were told we would, “you will die like men,” then we are called back into the One Body, one-by-one-by one, because you are too unique to be called in pairs, to be called as a nation, to be called as a group. You are so unique, no one can duplicate you; therefore you can’t be lost in the Divine Body. If one is missing, the Body is not complete.66 ¶16

So, every being in the universe will be redeemed, and they will be redeemed in only one manner. There is only one play that redeems you. It’s the story of the Gospel. “I AM the way, the truth, the life: No one comes to the Father, except by me.” Read the story of the Being who is speaking. You are going to duplicate it, because He indwells in you, and because He indwells, He will repeat in you His story. Well, when He repeats it in you, you are not a spectator viewing it; you are cast in the central role. You are the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other story worthwhile in the world. There is only God the Father, and God the Father is Jesus Christ. So, when Paul said, “The truth of Christ is in me,” then he said, “He has made known unto me” . . speaking now of the Lord . . “the mystery of His will which, according to His purpose, He has set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time,” the plan is buried in us. You will go astray, yes, we’ve all gone astray. But you will never find the Heaven that you seek . . you will never find the Father that you seek, save through this way. There just is no other way.66 ¶17

It doesn’t come in any other way; there is only one way. God unfolds Himself within you. As He unfolds Himself within you, it begins with the Resurrection. If I told you now that you are sound, sound asleep, you wouldn’t believe me. I would not have believed it either if anyone had told me on the night of the 19th day of July in the year 1959. I was in this City. If you had told me the night I went to bed . . it was the 19th of July 1959 . . that I was sleeping, and the world was my dream, and that I was dreaming this dream of life, I would have laughed at you. And, yet, I’ve been telling this story of God’s law since my first time on the 2nd day of February 1938. I had been telling it week after week, and I did not know it! I only knew the Law. I knew nothing of God’s Promise. I did not realize that His Promise really entails His Self . . that He actually gave me Himself. I didn’t know that. I went to sleep here in the hotel . . the Sir Francis Drake, and had anyone told me . . the greatest authority in the world, I would not have believed it.66 ¶18

And, yet, on the morning of the 20th the whole drama erupted within me. It began with the Resurrection; I awoke within my own skull to find myself completely sealed within this sepulchre that is my skull. It is Golgotha, and I had been dreaming all along, and I didn’t know it. I have never been so amazed in my whole life. Here I am, completely sealed in my own skull, and I knew it to be a tomb, and I knew that someone placed me there. I did not know that God Himself entered death’s door with me when I entered, and that He laid Himself down within the tomb with me and shared with me this dream of life. And then He actually broke down the dividing wall between the two, and fused with me, and we became one Being. And, then, He awoke as me. He actually awoke within me as my very Being. Then I came out of that tomb like a child being born from the skull . . from the tomb . . of man, where God is buried.66 ¶19

I can tell you now, the world is a dream, and you are The-Dreamer-of-the. . Dream. You can change the dream if you know you are dreaming, but if you don’t know you are dreaming, you can’t change the dream. If you know it’s a dream, you can dream, because the power of The Dreamer is in you. And that Dreamer is God. You can bring before your mind’s eye what the world would call a daydream . . it’s still a dream . . and you can give reality to that daydream until it will objectify itself and become real in your world, but you are still dreaming. You are dreaming until that moment in time when God, Who is the Lord Jesus Christ, awakes within you.66 ¶20

And, then, as He awakes within you, you are all alone, but He has the power to come out and break the seal of that tomb, and you do know exactly what you are doing, and you are breaking it. Another doesn’t break it. You break it. No one on the outside rolls away the stone. You roll it away from within. You push the base of your skull, and something rolls. As it rolls, there is an opening . . not a very large opening, but you put your head there, and you push yourself out, inch-by-inch-by inch, and then you pull the remaining portion of you out of that skull. And when you rise, you look back, and here is the body that your mother had woven for you, signified in Scripture as the “linen clothes.”66 ¶21

And then the wind . . the unearthly wind spoken of in the 3rd chapter of the book of John. “You must be born from above; for unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” And, then, the wise man of the Sanhedrin . . and he asks, “How can this be? How can a man who is old enter once more into his mother’s womb and be born?” And he said, ‘You, a master of Israel, yet you do not know? Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Now he makes this marvelous statement, “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended.” But no one but he who descended! The One Being carries all of us within Him. And, then, in this stage we become That One Being, and now we ascend into Heaven. And this is how you ascend. He tells us now . . He says, “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who has descended, the Son of Man.” That which came out of man is one with the Creator of man, which is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can ascend. And he is called the Son of Man, and he refers to himself as the “Son of Man.”66 ¶22

Now, he says in the next verse, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Now, a hundred and twenty-three days after David calls you, “Father,” a bolt of lightning tears your body in two from the top of your head to the base of your spine. One blow, and you are cut . . no pain, no pain whatsoever . . just one sharp blow of a bolt of lightning and you look at the body, and it’s torn from top to bottom, and it is separated about six inches. At the base of that spine is golden, pulsing, liquid light.66 ¶23

Now, we are told, “At this moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” People think it was a church made with human hands. No, it is the Temple of God, and we are told in I Corinthians, the 3rd chapter, the 16th verse, “Ye are the temple of the living God, and the spirit of God dwells in you.” Well, if you are the Temple of the Living God, and the curtain of that temple is split in two, you are split in two from top to bottom! And you see this pulsing, golden, liquid light. It is the blood of God Himself. Now, you fuse with the blood of God. You are the blood of God. Now you ascend as a fiery serpent, like fire, itself, spiraling up that spine right into heaven. And when you enter, you enter like thunder. As we are told in Scripture, “And those who enter, enter like thunder.” The whole thing reverberates when you enter. And you are that fiery being that goes up.66 ¶24

Only he who descended can ascend, and only Jesus Christ descended. He was the One Man who “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,” and He was God the Father, and He chose all of us in Him, and then one man fell and became fragmented. We are the fragmented body of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one way for the redemption, and He has mapped it out in Scripture. He played the part and brought it to its climax, and now the pattern of that play is buried in us. We receive it in us, and we simply go right up into the skull, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ, once more rebuilding the temple that He deliberately shattered.66 ¶25

Then, nine hundred and ninety-eight days later, completing the cycle of one thousand two hundred and sixty days . . as told us in the 12th chapter of Daniel and the 12th chapter of Revelation . . from the birth of the child, from the birth of the child, as told us in Revelation, when this miraculous child appears, it will take twelve hundred and sixty days, and on that twelve hundred and sixtieth day the heavens open . . and Heaven is within you. Your skull opens. Everything becomes translucent. There is no circumference, but none whatsoever! It’s not bounded by anything . . a complete infinity of translucence. Complete . . well, you describe it; there is no boundary, and that’s your skull. And then hovering over you, say about twenty feet above you, as though floating, is a dove. This heavenly dove floating . . it’s not using its wings; it is simply floating. Therefore, it must be on fluid, for it’s floating. And you look up, and its eye catches your eye. The most heavenly love is pouring from the eye right into your eye, and you do it automatically . . you raise your hand. In my case, I raised my left hand and protruded the index finger, and it simply descended. It descended and lit on my finger, and I brought it automatically to my face, and it smothered me with love, kissing me all over my face, all over my neck, all over my head, and while it is kissing me, a woman to my left made the statement, “They avoid man, for man gives off the most offensive odor. But to prove and demonstrate his love for you, he penetrated the ring of offense and came down to demonstrate his love for you.” And while he was still kissing me, the scene dissolved.66 ¶26

The whole thing actually begins and ends in man, and that’s the drama. Then you remain in this world, and you tell your story to the best of your ability. If you are a painter, you’ll paint it. If you can write, you will tell it to the best of your ability in writing. If in some other way you could fashion it in the form of a sculpture, you will. If you cannot express it in some artistic manner, then you will tell it to the best of your ability to those who will listen. But the journey . . as far as you are concerned, the journey is over.66 ¶27

Then, in a moment when you do not expect it, He will call you back. Now, you do not find yourself as the world without this experience will find themselves, for everyone in the world will be redeemed, but this is the plan of redemption, and if the plan has not yet unfolded within the individual, at what he calls death, that individual is restored to life in a world just like this . . terrestrial, in a body just like this, only it is young . . unaccountably new. Nothing is missing, eyes are perfect, teeth perfect, the body is perfect. Everything is perfect; not a thing is missing, regardless of the condition of the body when we called it dead . . to continue a journey that started in this world, for it’s the same world . . this identical world, and you will do there what you do here, and then what I am telling you now, when you least expect it, as it came to me so suddenly . . it will come to you just as suddenly. As we are told in Scripture, “He comes like a thief in the night.” You don’t expect Him when He comes. He calls you from the dream of life, and you awake within the tomb where you were buried.66 ¶28

So, all of us were buried in Golgotha, and Golgotha is your skull. But there is a Universal Skull. It’s called “Zion” in Scripture. In the 87th Psalm, it says, “This one was born here and that one was born there, and these were born here and he points out within Zion, and Zion is the home of the Lord Jesus Christ. All are born at this one point within the Universal Skull, but your skull, individually, is but a replica of the Universal Skull. If I could pinpoint for you with my finger where, when I ascended, I actually reverberated, it would be a little bit left of the straight line, if I drew a straight line down my forehead. It was just a little bit left of my skull, right here. So, then, we are called in Scripture, “the living stone of the New Temple.” And here . . rooted here . . I entered. And with all of my force I tried to penetrate the skull and get out, but you don’t, because this is the New Jerusalem. This is the New Temple. And everyone is called back as a living stone to put into that New Jerusalem. You are individualized from then on forever and forever, and you are part of “the one body, the one spirit… the one lord… the one God and Father of us all.”66 ¶29

So, the greatest gift in the world could not be the thing created, but the Creator. God literally gave Himself, the Creator, to us, so that we become as He is. And He is the Father, and the sum total of Humanity, personified, comes out as David. David is the one symbol that personifies the Will of God. Humanity has played His Will. “I have found David, the son of Jesse” . . “Jesse” means “I AM” . . “a man after my heart who will do all my will.” He’s after my heart, and he will do all my will. That’s Humanity! You have done the Father’s Will. In the end, you will forgive every being in the world and excuse all, for you’ve done the Father’s Will. “How long, how vast, and how great the anguish ’ere we find the Father were long to tell.” But you will find the Father, and when you find the Father, you find your Self.66 ¶30

So, we came out and fell as one man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who descended, and then we are fragmented. Then we ascend as that One Man, in the same pattern that He sets for the world, back into the One Body. So we came out in search of God the Father, and return, having discovered our Self as God the Father. For, no one returns into that Body that is harmonious and perfect until he first finds the Father. And when you find the Father, it is not another; it is your Self! But it takes His son to reveal you as the Father, for, “No one knows who the Son is, except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is, except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal it.” So, “No one has ever seen God, but the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”66 ¶31

So, I can tell you now, David one day will stand before you, and you will know he is your son. He will not deny it in time. You may deny it now, but when confronted with the evidence, you can’t deny it. And there is David. And Jesus Christ is God the Father. There is no other God. There is no other Father. He is the Lord of Lords, but no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.66 ¶32

Exact quotation: “How long, vast and severe the anguish e’er they knew their Father, were long to tell.” The Holy Spirit is what? In the 14th chapter of John he says, “I will send you the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of truth, and he will bring to your remembrance all the things that I have told you.” So, the Holy Spirit is the remembrance now. Memory returns, and you are God the Father! For when you meet Him, it is not something new. When you look at David, it is as though Eternity returns. You’ve always known it, but you must have suffered from amnesia . . total amnesia, like a man looking into his mother’s face and not recognizing his mother, and she is worried about her son who cannot recognize her. We know amnesia in this world, either partial or total. We have all experienced it in some way with our friends.66 ¶33

I have a friend of mine now . . a block of time is missing. He painted a picture recalling a pier in Trinidad, and then he went in there on the docks and painted another picture. It has been rumored that a friend of his who always despised him struck him. It has not been proved, but he is now away for the rest of his earthly days, one block completely missing. He knows that he came up on the surf in Trinidad, and now he thinks he was actually shot in the Island of Trinidad. And that block of time is completely rubbed out in his mind’s eye, and he picked it up from there, but they can’t let him out. He has completely dropped out. If the man did it or not, it really doesn’t matter. In the end, all will be forgiven. His motive . . if jealousy could have prompted the act, I don’t know. Nevertheless, my friend Walter is in this home for the rest of his earthly days with a large section of time completely missing.66 ¶34

So, this whole thing was “sown up” before the world was. We saw the play. I’ve been trying to remember it ever since, for we are the gods who formed the “God.” We are the gods spoken of in Scripture. We are the Elohim who came down deliberately in a state of amnesia . . total amnesia, or we could not do what we are doing. If we are pretending that we are men, knowing all along that we are God, we could not do what we are doing. We had to completely forget who we are to do what we are doing. And that power, which is Christ-In-Us . . the creative power of God, at the moment in time when we have done the work that we came to do, awakens. We awaken, for we are that power.66 ¶35

And, then, the drama . . the only drama in Eternity that could ever take us back to the Source of all Being, which is Jesus Christ, is the Gospel! There is no other play. If you are tempted to follow some other road, remember these words: Don’t do it. If someone tells you tonight that they know someone who has the most marvelous diet to keep you perfect, or someone who has all the yoga-ism to sit in meditation and do something for you, forget it. I am telling you what I know from experience: the one and only true way to God the Father is through the Pattern Man that is Jesus Christ. There is no other way. There is no other Lord. There is no other God.66 ¶36

And Jesus Christ is but the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The whole thing was an adumbration, a foreshadowing in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way; so they couldn’t understand it. So, when it happened in one and he interpreted it, based upon his own experience of Scripture, they rejected it. It was not what they were expecting. They were expecting Redemption to come in an entirely different way, as the whole vast world today is expecting it. They think that Jesus Christ is going to come from the outside, and many who are now teaching millions of people on TV . . they hope to be still here in the body to go forward and greet Him and tell Him what marvelous work they are doing. He will never, in Eternity, come that way.66 ¶37

He comes to you as one unknown, yet lets you experience who He is, and then when you experience who He is, you will discover Him in yourself, for He became you. God literally became, as you are, that you may become as God is. There is no other God but the Lord Jesus Christ. And do not look for Him to come from without. He deliberately died for you. “Unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” “Wouldst thou love one who never died for thee, or ever die for one who has not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not Himself eternally for man, man could not exist. So God died literally and when He died, He entered Death’s Door with you, and he laid down in a grave with you and shares with you the visions of Eternity until you awaken and see the linen clothes that the female wove for you.”66 ¶38

Then you come out of that grave as the Lord Jesus Christ, for the way he is born surrounds you; the babe to bear witness to the great event that has taken place, and the witnesses that see the babe . . not you. They can’t see you, for you are the Lord, and Jesus Christ is invisible. They can’t see you because God is Spirit. They can talk about you, but they cannot see you, because the day will come that other witnesses will talk about them and not see them, for they will be born, too, from above, and “born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” So, they are all born of God as God.66 ¶39

So, “I AM the root of David and the offspring of David.” For that which comes out of man, having buried Himself in man is one with that which entered man. “I AM the root” . . who is speaking? Jesus Christ. What did he say? “I AM the root of David, and the offspring of David, the bright morning star.” And, “to him that overcometh… I will give the Morning Star.” So, He gives you Himself!66 ¶40

Now, do not think that you have to labor to become it! This is Grace . . Grace . . Grace, and still, more Grace! Let no one frighten you. It’s an unmerited, unearned gift. You could not earn it in Eternity! Because you cannot earn it, it is given. And God gives you Himself. You cannot earn it. Your fitness for the Kingdom is the consequence, and not in any way the result, of things that you did. It’s the consequence of Grace. So, let no one frighten you and tell you that you’ve got to do this and do that and do the other. Believe the story. That’s all you have to do. You’ve heard the Christian story. Believe it. And one day, unexpectedly, suddenly the story will reenact itself in you, casting you in the central role.66 ¶41

So, the greatest gift in the world . . the most precious gift . . was God’s gift of Himself to man. And He was not giving a portion of Himself; He gave Himself. When He gave you Himself, He had to give you His Son. So, “God so loved the world” . . that is, Humanity . . “He gave His only son,” because if He gave me Himself and He is a father, He has to give me His son. And His son stands before me and calls me, “Father,” and I know I am his father, and he knows he is my son. So, God gave me, because of His love for me . . He gave me His son, and only the Son can reveal the father. “No one knows who the Father is, except the Son.” So, when the son comes, then . . and only then . . do you know the Father! Let us now go into the Silence.66 ¶42

As you know, we feel that life should be a perpetual increase of the things you love! That, to me, is the art of living. In man’s ability to live in the end, to live in the feeling of the wish fulfilled, lies man’s capacity to live the more abundant life. I do not care what your objective is; feeling that you have it is living a more abundant life.65 ¶1

First, tonight, let us turn to three who were awake, and by three I mean three men. The whole purpose of life is to awaken and join the chorus of awakened humanity, which is God. We will turn to a great poet, one who passed from this sphere only within the last two or three years, Walter de La Mare. “So flows experience, the vast without. It is the microcosm of the soul within, The day-distracted eye may doubt, But no longer as the dreams begin.” Think of it! This vast “without” is the microcosm of the soul within. The day-distracted eye cannot believe it, but you take this and expand it to the nth degree and see that the “vast without” is only the microcosm of the soul within. How can man believe it?65 ¶2

Now we will turn to the great bard - Shakespeare: “Everything in the world is the projection of something that activated within myself. I meet a friend and I say that I love him and I see in him something that I would like to change. Everything in this world is the microcosm of this vastness in my own being. Everything in the world, no matter what it is, all the so-called evil could be changed, would man, observing, distill it out.” If I knew this, I could look at anything, any condition, as a scientist could look at bubbling mash, and know I could extract something from it that is good. Blake tells us: “He who does not imagine in stronger and broader lineaments, and in stronger and brighter light than his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.”65 ¶3

This is in a way a parable. A parable is a story told to illustrate a truth. In , in the letter which Paul writes to the Corinthians - these are not the people of Corinth. You are Corinthians, for these are stories of the mysteries, and so this is Corinth, so the letters are addressed to those who are interested in rising to another level of consciousness: “We are the ministers of a new covenant, not written in the code but in the spirit.” Now remember the teaching: “The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.” So we are ministers of a new covenant.65 ¶4

You be the judge, for I am not here to judge you. But if I came and whispered in your ear that you were harboring a robber, would you react violently? You be the judge, but I will tell you a story, in the code written in the form of a letter. This is the story of Jesus and Barabbas.65 ¶5

Now it was the season of the year when it was customary to release a man who was imprisoned. “Whom will you have me release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus? And they cried, Release Barabbas! Crucify Jesus!” “And when the wife of Pilate said to him, will you do this thing? He washed his hands,” etc. Now you take that, and that is the code - but what does it really mean? That it took place, actually?65 ¶6

We are warned of those who “depart from the truth,” and those who think that the resurrection has already taken place, they have wandered from the truth, for if it has already taken place then I cannot know the power that resurrects every dream in the world. The resurrection must be taking every moment in time in all men. The Passover does not take place at a certain time of year, like Easter. The Passover takes place every moment of the day, if we are willing to pass over into another state. There must always be a passing over from one state to a higher state.65 ¶7

So, which will you have me release, the robber or Jesus? Which will you let go of, and to which will you hold fast? I must release the robber, for I am housing him. Who is he? If this moment you want something and reason tells you that you cannot have it, than you are entertaining the thief that robs you of being what you want to be in this world. This is the “son of Satan,” something in me that robs me of that other Son who will save me. The thing that will save me from what I am is Christ Jesus. And what is keeping you from what you want? That is Barabbas. So, they crucify Jesus; they fix the state desired.65 ¶8

The whole drama takes place in you. You must release Barabbas and crucify the Lord. You must learn the art of doing it. I can tell it best now by telling a case history I have just received.65 ¶9

This is what she told me: She had a neighbor, a woman who had been divorced for nineteen years, and who was up to her ears in debt. She worked hard but she could not get beyond a day-to-day existence. She could not afford a vacation, though she had one due. And in four weeks college was starting and her son wanted to go to college, and there was no means with which to send him. She had prayed over her problem, but she had got nowhere, and then she asked this lady who wrote the letter to pray for her. This lady explained to her this teaching that I am giving you here, and then she did what follows for her neighbor.65 ¶10

She asked her first, “What do you really want?” Well, this woman had been divorced for nineteen years and she had lost her faith in men, but still she said that above all else she would like to be happily married and out of debt. Every night for a month this lady from the class here went to her neighbor’s house and talked with her and made her think of the qualities she most wanted in a husband: gentleness, kindness, tolerance, attentiveness, honesty, etc. All the qualities she felt a man should have she had to name over and over. And then the lady asked her: “Can you feel the embrace of such a man?” and the other lady said: “Yes, I think I can.”65 ¶11

And then she did something else. She went through the marriage ceremony with her neighbor, the part of putting on the ring and hearing the words pronouncing the couple man and wife. And then she left her neighbor with the suggestion that she sleep in that state and promised her that she would do the same thing - that is, sleep in the state herself of having just seen her neighbor married. They did this for four weeks.65 ¶12

And then a man came into her office (the office of the neighbor) and in talking, he asked her where she was going for her vacation. She was ashamed to confess that she was not going anywhere, so she said she thought maybe she might go up to the High Sierras, and the man said: “Then you must be my guest, for I own a hotel up there.” He booked rooms for three of them: the woman and her son, and the lady who had helped her. The man was very kind and helpful to them. He told the woman that he had lost his wife a few months before. But he also told her that he would never marry again.65 ¶13

The woman had grown fond of him and was distressed by this and told the lady who had helped her. “What will I do now? He is never going to remarry. He said so.” The lady said, “You are happily married, so we are not going to discuss this. You slept every night in the feeling of having a wonderful husband, a man who has the qualities you desire. So how can we discuss the matter? You are married.”65 ¶14

That was over two years ago. She has been married to this man for two years. Yes, he changed his mind about marrying again. He is sending this woman’s son through college. She said recently to the lady who had helped her with this teaching: “You have no idea how kind and good he is, how wonderful.” The woman said: “Haven’t I?” She said: “I set up these qualities with you and helped you. Do you think I don’t know what he is like?”65 ¶15

Now back to the crucifixion. You must release the consciousness, Barabbas, the robber. This woman robbed herself for nineteen years. She robbed herself of the lovely things of life. Finally she faced a choice: either Barabbas released or Jesus released, or Jesus crucified. If I want to be anything in this world and say I cannot be that, then I am robbing myself of the ability to be it.65 ¶16

Man can be anything in this world that he wants to be, for man awake is the son of God. There is only one son and that is Christ Jesus and that son is human imagination, the only Christ Jesus in the world. There will never be another. So I look out on the world and I think it towers over me and I do not know that actually it is the microcosm of the soul within me. If I do not know it, start the dream to prove it. Can you feel embracing arms around you? This woman began the dream and then realized it. The whole vast world without only mirrors the soul within.65 ¶17

The Passover means the passing over into another. When we were children we were told that Jesus sacrificed himself for us 2,000 years ago. That is belief in a lie. You depart from the truth if you believe the crucifixion is already past. It is not over; it is constant fact every moment of time. It is not past and it must be continually taking place. The whole vast drama unfolds within us.65 ¶18

We can distill out of any situation the good that is in it. You can take it as you take a mash and distill the essence from it. You are told the Old Testament is one covenant and the New Testament is another covenant. Do not believe it. There is only one Book. When you find the spirit of it that sets you free, that is the new covenant. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life. Take the same “code” and re-read it, and strike as it were the rock and then draw forth the water and make it into wine. Rock, as we are told you, means literal fact. Water means psychological understanding; wine means the application of that truth.65 ¶19

If you know this, every dream in the world can be realized. In the capacity to live in the wish fulfilled lies your capacity for living the more abundant life. These stories which I tell you are “stone” if you take them literally, but “water” if you understand them, and then they become “wine” if you apply what you have learned. You can get all the results as this lady got them.65 ¶20

But the lady who is now married, though she is happy, she may slip into a way of life and forget how this was brought about. People quickly “recover” from this teaching. I could tell you many stories of friends of mine who wanted help and who told me the dream they wanted to come true. And with them I listened as though I heard and looked as if I saw what they wanted to see, and the thing became true in their world.65 ¶21

There is the story of my brother-in-law, told in one of my books. He knows that story is there, and though all my other books are in evidence in his library, that particular one he has put up so high that no one can reach it. He is such a factual, realistic person that though the dream he wanted most in the world was brought about, now he is embarrassed when he thinks about the way it was brought about. He is too down-to-earth to want to remember it.65 ¶22

So I tell you we must remember the story of the crucifixion. As Paul said: “I die daily.” I should be dissatisfied: I should have always a “divine dissatisfaction” and transcend and transcend, to become one of the awakened brothers. I cannot live on what I learned today. Extend the borders of your tent. Not only must I grow, but also I must also outgrow or I am not growing. Let no one tell you that this world is your end. You are a fabulous being.65 ¶23

You do not change worlds by spatial travel; you change by a change in consciousness. Subjective or objective is determined by the level on which my consciousness is focused. I ask you to construct a little drama that implies you have realized your dream. This lady went through the ceremony of marriage and with a man who had all the qualities she wanted. And in five weeks the drama began to unfold. The whole thing took three months and now this lady is happily married. Everything you want is within, for the vast without is only the microcosm of the soul within. But though you doubt, you will no longer doubt when the dream begins.65 ¶24

“He who does not imagine in stronger and brighter lineaments than this perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.” Smell a rose. See it. You can see and smell it the degree your attention is centered on it. If you let it posses your mind you will see it and smell it. That is being creative. You see what you want to see, and enter into and live it as if it were true. Others may call it fantasy and when it becomes real they will believe you did it this way. But let anyone else believe what they want to believe.65 ¶25

I told a friend of mine who was critical without taking the trouble to know what he was being critical of: “Your taste and your opinion do not qualify you to criticize. You must first know what I am trying to do, and then you may venture your opinion. But if you do not know what I am doing or what I am trying to do, then how can presume to criticize?”65 ¶26

Everything in this world is done through imagination, but many people do not see it. But do you know of anything that was made that not first imagined? But you make your dream and walk in it as if it is true, and others will come along like workmen following you to execute it.65 ¶27

Edison told Tesla that it would not be possible to have alternating current. Edison said it could not be, but Tesla told him: “I can see it. I can see the machine. And I am starting it and stopping it, and I am taking out the kinks in it before I make it in the laboratory.” Read that story in the book called Prodigal Genius, the story of Tesla. They called him mad before he died. You know why? He said he was communicating with Edison, who was dead. Because others could not understand this, they called Tesla mad.65 ¶28

“I am the beginning and the end” and “there is nothing to come that has not been and is.” Creation is finished. We are only becoming aware of increasing portions of that which is. If everything is, am I still creative? I am in this sense: I become a selector of that aspect of reality to which I want to respond and then I bring that into my world.65 ¶29

It is like taking the alphabet. Shakespeare and Blake used only twenty-six letters. A moron would use exactly twenty-six letters. But think of the difference. Think of an infinite alphabet and we select what we will from that alphabet. But you just put yourself in relation to it and then it becomes real in your world.65 ¶30

The two factors which are most important in my world, I would say, are my personality and then my relation to reality. Any real change in my personality should make a change in my outer world. I can interfere with the purely mechanical action of my brain by accepting what my brain does not register. If I can imagine, then produce in myself a shift of personality and then it works. The One condition is imposed on man: that he believe that he already has that which he wishes.65 ¶31

And one that confirms this: “When you stand praying, if you have aught against your brother, forgive him,” etc. You think this means to have something against someone? No. Forgiveness in the mystical sense tests man’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. I think I cannot do something. That belief is what I must forgive. If I can do this, then I am forgiving myself.65 ¶32

If I can take a friend who is ill and accept the fact that he is ill, then I have that against him. I must forgive him by seeing him looking well, and to the degree that I am self-persuaded, I am forgiving what I held against him. Can you forgive a man by mumbling some words and saying you have forgiven him? You can only forgive to the degree that “complete” change of consciousness takes place. When I think of you, I should see a different you, a new you. If I do not see a different you then I have not forgiven you.65 ¶33

This lady I told you of tonight “forgave” her friend, for she saw her happily married. And that marriage was consummated. I tell you that no matter what your dream is, it can be realized; you will enact the crucifixion. If you think the “resurrection is past already,” you have departed from the truth. It must be going on eternally. It is up to you what you do now. Everyone can do it. That is the purpose of this platform - so that you may not only realize your dreams here, but that you awaken and slip into other worlds. There are worlds within this world, and worlds within worlds.65 ¶34

I know - I have seen them and I have been in them. It does not matter what people say to me about whether I can do it or not. I know I can do it, and I do it. I know that I live in a home in West L.A. and come here on Monday and Thursday nights. You might as well tell me that I do not come here, as to say that I cannot enter some other sphere. I cannot take you with me, for the world only calls “reality” what can be shared. But it was not a subjective illusion; it was real.65 ¶35

There are many things that cannot be shared at the time, for the background of the other is not such that they are ready to receive it. But that does not make it less real. In time all will come to it. Now let us go into the silence.65 ¶36

Tonight’s subject is “The Game of Life.” The first thing we do in the playing of a game, we must learn the rules, and then we play the game within the frame of rules. Any violation of the rules carries a penalty. Now, this is the game of life and you and I play it from the cradle to the grave and beyond because the grave does not end our game of life. So while you’re in this age, you can really learn how to play it.53 ¶1

Now first of all, we are told “Even in your thought, do not curse the king, nor in your bedchamber curse the rich; for a bird will carry your voice, or some winged creature will tell the matter.” That you will find in Ecclesiastes in the 10th chapter . Now we turn to the positive side, “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will” . Here we are taught to start at the end; the end is where we begin. When I know my goal that’s where I start, for in my end is my beginning. I feel myself into that end, and I’m promised if I do and if I’m persistent, it will come to pass.53 ¶2

Now we are told, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days” . Don’t be concerned, just cast your bread upon the waters. I know that many people have interpreted that as “to do good”…to go out trying to do good to build up a certain merit in the world, a certain credit in the book of God. Hasn’t a thing to do with it.53 ¶3

My friend the other night, when he asked me concerning the word carpenter, and I told you in the last meeting but he wasn’t here, and for his benefit we’ll tell him what the concordance, the biblical concordance tells us about it. The word means “to produce from seed, as a mother, a tree, the earth, to bring forth, to be born, to be delivered.” So the seed of the Old Testament, which is the Promise, has to be born. So the carpenter called Christ Jesus brought it to birth, for in him all the promises found their fulfillment. He didn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them . He was the carpenter who produced from seed, the seed being the promises, as made through the prophets, and he simply fulfilled them.53 ¶4

Well now, this cast your bread upon the waters…and people go out to do good and give to charity. All these are lovely things and I wouldn’t stop anyone from giving anything in this world that they really wanted to give, but that is not casting your bread upon the waters. The word bread means in the biblical concordance “to devour, to consume” and waters is a euphemism for “semen,” that living water that carries the seed, the sperm of man. It’s a psychological creative act; it’s not a physical act. But it’s the same intensity raised to an nth degree. You speak of a man who is consumed with hate or he could be on fire with love, but this is the passion of which it speaks; and that is casting your bread upon the waters. An intense imaginal act will draw to itself its own kin, its own affinity.53 ¶5

Now here we have one who has departed this world at the very peak of success. You all know him…this age could not forget him. He had so many failures and then he made a discovery which he put into print, and his words are these, “The mood decides the fortunes of people rather than the fortunes decide the mood” . It is to those who continually compare what is within with what is without who have this certainty. Those who do not change in mood, who are consumed all day in anger, see not change and recognize no law. If there are changes of mood, there will be changes of circumstances. And then because of a change in circumstances related to the change of mood you recognize a law behind it, behind all these changes.53 ¶6

But if all day long you are depressed…and there are people who from the cradle to the grave are depressed. I know of many. I go back to New York City where I was closer to people because the thing is smaller…this is a vast area in Los Angeles and I don’t drive…but in New York City I would walk miles every day and encounter many friends. Well, I could spot a couple of dozen who when you met them you wanted to cross the street (if they hadn’t seen you) because you’re going to get the most depressing story. They’ll tell you all about their wife or their husband or their children and it was always depressing. Over years the same thing…you never heard any change in mood. So they saw no change in their world; and therefore recognizing no change they saw no change in their world. And therefore, recognizing no change they recognized no law between the inner world that they maintained and the outer world that came in response to it.53 ¶7

But if I know this law I could predict that by the uprising of new moods within me that I would soon meet people of a certain character…and I met them. Even inanimate objects are under the sway of these affinities. I have gone with a mood to my library and taken from the library a book that I have not touched in years, and opened it casually to find the answer confirming that mood, something beautifully stated, a book of poetry that I haven’t touched. But something…you see a table differently for the first time based upon the mood, yet the table was there all along. And you see everything in the world reflecting the mood.53 ¶8

For here we are told, the mood decides the fortunes and it’s not the fortunes decide the mood. You can think, “If only I had a million dollars, oh, would I feel great!” Not knowing if they feel as though they had it, they would actually attract that state in their world, because we contain within ourselves “the lamp of the world.” We are told in the Book of Proverbs “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord” . The lamp of the Lord would be the light of the world. We are told we contain it, we actually contain it within ourselves. And nature, the genii, is slave of that lamp and must fashion life about us as we fashion it within ourselves. It has no choice. And when I say “nature,” I’m not speaking only of the plants; I speak of humanity, I speak of the animal world, I speak of the plant world, I speak of the mineral world. I speak of everything that is seemingly on the outside that is slave of the lamp that is on the inside. But I must first fashion it on the inside and then this slave of the lamp will fashion it in harmony with that which I have done within. And no power in the world can stop it.53 ¶9

If I am aware, I will recognize a law between my mood and circumstances which surround me. I don’t have to go in search of it. I don’t have to seek it. I could predict without search that I will meet certain characters, certain things in harmony with the mood…and I invariably do…whether that character is a living being or a book or something else. It’s something that must bear witness.53 ¶10

So here, the game of life is to find out the rules. And the rule in the positive way to play it beautifully is to have a goal: you must know what you want. You can’t just complain because you don’t like what you have; you must know what you want in place of what you have. When you know what you want, you must assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and although at the moment reason would deny it and your senses deny it, you must persist in that assumption, and if you persist in that assumption, that assumption will harden into fact. It will objectify itself upon the screen of space.53 ¶11

Now, I ask you to play it along that way. If you say, “Well, it doesn’t work,” you haven’t tried it. You may say it’s stupid. All right, maybe it’s stupid. But the man who made his departure from this world a few years ago at the very top—no one achieved such greatness—and here he tells it in his own wonderful English that the mood decides the fortunes of people, and it’s not the reverse, that the fortunes decide the mood. Well, you either believe him or you don’t believe him, but he certainly proved it in his own life. Although he was born to greatness he failed in Parliament. He was a washed up man in the Second World War. When Chamberlain was put aside after the conflict started, they called upon Churchill, and then Churchill was the one who galvanized the Western world by his words. He was putting into practice exactly what he told us, that the mood does it. And in spite of all the bombing of London and all the horrors, he sustained the mood, the mood of victory. Not for one moment did he waver even in the darkest days. He sustained it when his opponent didn’t know the law and put his trust in armaments and numbers, all these things, and Churchill put his trust in the mood. He knew that the mood would fashion life around him, and it would externalize itself upon the world.53 ¶12

He went to his grave leaving behind this wonderful statement. How many saw it, I don’t know. I read it in the New York Times when he spoke to the Guild Hall in London and the New York Times printed his entire speech. That thing simply jumped off the page when I came to it. So I made a record of it and recorded it as I do all these things that hit me…for I am in search of principle. If I find the law, if I find the principle and abide by it, it should prove itself in performance. Well, it has proved itself in my case in performance by simply catching the mood and then I teach others how to catch it: what would the feeling be like if it were true? Well, you toy with that idea, you play with it for awhile and then all of a sudden the mood comes upon you. Well, keep that mood…just stay in that mood.53 ¶13

I can tell you of many who by playing on the mood are being secure…starting with nothing, not one penny in the world. And, here is a lady in her middle sixties, she confessed to that (I’m inclined to believe she is even older than that) but she had nothing and all of a sudden she began to put this into practice. “Something wonderful is happening to me now! Something wonderful!” and she kept playing upon it and playing upon it. Within that very week she received her first great return. A friend who had known her, and they were intimate for twenty-odd or maybe thirty-odd years, he often said to her that he’d never give her a nickel, not one nickel; that they had fun together and they saw every show that came to Broadway, all the operas, all the concerts, and they dined high, wide and handsome every night in some fabulous restaurant. He felt that was enough for her company of thirty years. But he had a change of heart within that first few days after playing this part. She actually felt in the morning before she went to her job that paid her seventy-five dollars a week gross, that is before taxes, and she a single girl, living in a hotel room, and you know what you could take home…practically nothing. Luckily he did pick up all the checks when it came to food, but that is not what any woman wants in this world. Well, he settled on her a $100,000 trust fund. The trust is hers and she can will it away to anything in the world. She can give it to a dog kennel; he didn’t so set it up that at her death it returned to his estate. It was detached from his estate and she receives the investment. He didn’t give her the $100,000 because he thought she might go out and spend it, so he set it up in a trust to pay her the interest from that trust for the rest of her days.53 ¶14

Again she began to apply it beyond that. He set up another $100,000…and the same lady. Now she has $200,000 and she can’t spend the income. I know where she lives; I know what she pays in rent. It’s a lovely place, a modern apartment, and I know her rent is $165 a month and utilities…what would they be…I mean all the utilities in the place? It would be practically nil. I know how she lives…well, she can’t spend the income. Then, of course, at her age she has a certain check from the government. All of that together, she must have, maybe, $1,500 a month, and she was making seventy-five dollars a week before taxes. She still isn’t satisfied.53 ¶15

Now, she knows the law. I tell her, I don’t give a darn what you want, I’m telling you only a principle and I leave you to your choice and its risk. So you simply apply the law and apply it wisely. Now the old gentleman has a little hardening of the brain…and they’ve parted company. Because he refuses to see her—with advice of his nephews and nieces and all the others—she now curses him as we are warned not to do. “Even in your thought, do not curse the king, and even in your bedchamber, do not curse the rich; for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tells the matter.” So she calls me every week from New York City to tell me she is overcoming the cursing of him, but has she? It will not take from her the trust fund—that is something established—but other things can come into her world that will hurt her beyond anything such as money. But unnumbered things if she continues to curse him, the rich man, because he didn’t now put another million on her back as it were.53 ¶16

So, I’m just warning you of the law, the positive side of it and the negative side of it, and leave you to practice. It takes practice, for if you are in the habit of thinking negatively morning, noon and night you are not going to start tonight to go through the door and think that you are all that you want to be and sustain it. You can hold it for maybe a few seconds and then because it hasn’t proved itself in performance in a matter of a minute, you may forget it and completely turn away to some other state. But the game of life is to first know the rules and when I know the rules I must then apply the rules. But I must see both sides of it, for in every game there are rules that are laid down and violation of the rules will cause a penalty.53 ¶17

Now, “Be not deceived,” we are told, “God is not mocked, for as a man soweth, so shall he also reap” . So in the world I can play a certain game and I may get away with a violation that the referee didn’t see and I may do it several times, but this referee sees everything; for he is the lamp within us, for the “Spirit of the man is the lamp of the Lord.” I cannot get away from that observer within me, for he and I are one. Do I know it? Then he knows it because I and my Father are one . So do not be deceived…I can’t mock him. So whatever I do that’s a violation of this, like feeling sad for myself and feeling very sorry for myself, it is going to be recorded and as it’s recorded there is no excuse that I can make, it’s going to mold itself in harmony with my world.53 ¶18

Now here, a letter came today (and this gentleman is here tonight). He said, “A friend of mine last Monday night after your lecture asked me for help…the help being an imaginal help…that I would imagine the good for him that he wants to hear. So when I went home I spent a half an hour on him. I imagined exactly what I think I would hear if his desire had been realized. I heard it distinctly and then I retired. Just before I woke in the morning I saw in my dream his wife and the wife is thanking me profusely over and over for the help, the great help that I gave to her husband. It was such a vivid, vivid dream. When I awoke I knew she had no knowledge of what I had done and the help could only be my response to his request; so I began to think in some strange way she knows of the request because she certainly doesn’t know of the help. Then during the day I thought maybe it has already been realized, could be, and in the deeper level of my being in dream she has thanked me for it. Well, that night, which is Tuesday night of this week, while listening to music in my living room, suddenly he appears in my reverie and he uses the identical words that I used the previous night to hear him confirm the fulfillment of his desire. He spoke with such authority, such power, with such joy. But he used the identical words that I had formulated purposely to hear him tell me. I do hope that in the immediate present he will get confirmation from this man of the fulfillment of that imaginal act which he put in play for that man. But he heard it from both man and wife on two separate occasions, one in the dream and one in reverie. She came in the dream in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, and while he was listening to music on Tuesday evening then he came and spoke using the same words that he had used to hear.53 ¶19

Now, I can tell him from another part of his letter that this other one is a perfectly marvelous one. I won’t go into all the details. In a dream he had to go to a certain city and when he registered he said to the man, “I want to be called at seven in the morning.” The man said, “Yes sir,” and made out a card and put seven. He looked at it and saw a big bold seven over his name. Then the man showed him what he did. He takes these cards and puts them in certain slots so when the operator comes on he will take [...] different times and those at this time he calls the different rooms to notify them that the time is up. So he was assured that he would be called at seven. And then he woke. It’s a marvelous vision. Seven is the numerical value of spiritual perfection. It also has much to do with gestation, incubation in all the worlds; in the insect world, in the animal world. Well, we are part animal, so in the animal world of man I am told that 280 days is the time between actual conception and birth. Well, that is a multiple of seven. We know the hen egg takes, if properly incubated, twenty-one days, a multiple of seven. So we find all these are multiples of seven and it has much to do with incubation. But in this case it is incubation of spiritual perfection. So I can say to him from this experience he’s right on the verge. He sleeps one night and then the morning comes and he’s called, for it is the Spirit within him. It is the Father calling him, and that cannot be far away for an actual conscious knowledge of the experience. So I say the conscious knowledge of the experience cannot be far away.53 ¶20

Another lady (she is here tonight) said, “I saw myself lying in state, ghastly pale like one that is dead, and then suddenly out of my body rises a giant of a man. I can see his feet now standing out of me. And that was it, this man.”53 ¶21

Well, let me tell a story of a mystic, a very able wonderful artist who was a great mystic. You know him best as A.E, the initials A. E. His name was George Russell and George Russell said, “I will tell this vision, but where it happened I will not say. It was a hall, vaster than any cathedral and its columns were made of living opal, as though you took the colors of dawn and eve and blended them into something alive…the columns were like that. In between the columns were thrones on which sat fire-crested kings. One wore the crest of the dragon, the others like plumes of fire. And in the middle of this place was a body, a dark, dark body stretched out on the floor as though in a trance, a deep trance. At the far end, on a throne higher than the others a being undoubtedly raised above the others, and behind him like the sun glowing. Then two of these crested kings came and passed their hands over this dark body on the floor. Where their hands passed over the body out came sparkles of light; and then rising out of this dark body was a figure as tall, as majestic as these fire-crested kings on the thrones. He looked around and recognized his kin and raised his hand in salutation. Then they all jumped from their thrones in the same wonderful greeting, and like brothers they altogether walked toward the end and disappeared into the sun” .53 ¶22

Both were visions of what will take place; for he perceived it as coming from another; she saw it as coming from her own being as it was placed in space. It was an adumbration, a wonderful forecast, a foreshadowing of what’s going to take place, for housed in man is that crested king, the Son of God. Whether you be woman as she is or whether it be man, the dark man as he saw the dark man, no matter what pigment of the skin, no matter what sex, within each is the Son of God. And that is the great lamp of the Lord, for these radiate his glory and they bear the express image of his person. So in each will rise one day these majestic beings that will come out of every being in the world.53 ¶23

But while we are here, encased in these garments, let us learn the game of life. Learn the rules and play it. Now here is a simple, simple statement of causation: it is the assemblage of mental states which occurring creates that which the assemblage implies. Simple…you simply assemble in your mind’s eye a scene, as my friend did for the gentleman who asked him for help. Then he mentally heard only what he would hear if the man had received the desire fulfilled. So it’s the assemblage of mental states which occurring creates that which the assemblage implies.53 ¶24

So after you have done it, you don’t have to repeat it. That intense moment, having done it, is casting your bread upon the waters. May I tell you, when you do these things, although you do not have a physical expression in a sexual manner, there is a relief that is comparable, and of all the pleasures of the world relief is the most keenly felt. You are intense…someone is late…it could be someone you love dearly. You expect them at six and here it is seven and they aren’t here and no telephone call to tell you what has happened. You are waiting anxiously. Then when the doorbell rings and it’s their voice, the relief that comes when the one you so love suddenly appears. Well now, that of all the pleasures of the world, that is the most keenly felt.53 ¶25

When you’ve done something of this nature, you feel a sense of relief and you don’t have to do it a second time. This business of treating and treating and treating every day, you aren’t casting your bread upon the waters. You may do it, but you only are going to impregnate once. Do what you want, but an impregnation is an impregnation. And if you reach the point of relief, well then, you’ve done it and you’ve cast your bread upon the waters and it shall return after many days . Well, many days need not be days as we measure it, it could be in the matter of an hour. I have had the phone ring…having done it and the phone rang I would say within minutes to thank me for something that just happened when it was only a matter of moments before that I actually did it. That’s when they got confirmation of it. I’ve done it when it took a day, took a week, took a month and sometimes it takes months. But I will not go over a thing…I did it! Having done it, what more can I do?53 ¶26

So this game of life is something that is serious, because you’re playing it anyway. But you may never practice enough to really learn to master it, and you’ll be complaining to the very ends of time. I’m quite sure tonight the million who are on relief in New York City—for over one million, just imagine, are on relief—and they’re complaining as though the government owes them. There is no government; we are the government. So we aren’t paying enough in taxes for them to get more, that’s what they’re saying. Because the government has no money, the government’s money that they are putting out must first be taken from our pockets. And the million on relief are complaining they aren’t getting enough out of our pockets. They think it’s really due them, that it’s theirs. The mood persists all through their day and they never change it. Changing nothing, they see no change and recognize no law between the mood that they are sustaining and their outer world that they dislike so heartily. They dislike everything about it. If I told them that they are the cause of the phenomena of life, they would resent it and dislike me. No one wants to feel that he is solely responsible for the conditions of his life. And yet there is no other cause outside of God, and God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So here, when I say human Imagination, I’m speaking of God. That’s the God in man.53 ¶27

And there are two sides to Imagination, imagining and contents. Contents are about what imagining is about. So there are only two sides…an imagining and imagining something. Well, the thing that I’m imagining I’m creating. God imagining creates. Well, don’t think of something outside of yourself. When I say God imagining creates, man imagining is creating what he is imagining. Same God! Keyed low, yes, I haven’t the same intensity when I’m clothed in a garment of flesh and blood, but it’s the same God.53 ¶28

So tonight I do hope that this is clear, that there are rules, the positive side of it and the negative side of it. Don’t curse anyone. They use the word king and they use the word rich, because there are more poor people in the world than there are rich, and you’ll find the poor man is inclined to curse the rich. He is envious of the rich. You need not be a millionaire to have someone envy you; you could be simply a little bit better off than he is. You could live, possibly, in a better neighborhood. You pay more rent because you can afford it. And maybe you can go into a better restaurant because you can afford it; and maybe you can buy a better suit because you can afford it. Even though you’re not rich in the eyes of the world, there are those who are not as well off as you are and they will envy you the things that you can do. So you are warned even in your thoughts do not curse the king nor in your bedchamber curse the rich.53 ¶29

Don’t think for one second you are going to conceal it, for all things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle. We are completely one. Though you seem to be completely scattered on the outside, but I don’t have to ask you to aid the change of my world if I change it on the inside. If you are necessary to bring about the change, you will be used whether you consent to it or not. You’ll be doing it unwittingly, but you’ll be doing it if you can be used. I don’t have to single out the individual as to who will play the part in bringing about the change in my world. You will play the part if you can be used, because we’re all intermingled. All I have to do is know that I start at the end: “That place to which I would travel, I myself must there become.” I know it from experience.53 ¶30

If I would travel on a boat and they say you can’t get on that boat, not for at least seven months, and I want the next trip—I don’t want it today, I want the next trip—I’ll get on that boat. Well, if I would go on that boat, then I on that boat must become. [...] on that boat. I may view the place where I’m departing from the boat. When that boat comes, in a way I do not know and I couldn’t devise it, I’ll be on that boat…that I speak from experience. If I would go any place in this world and they wouldn’t give me permission to go and I sleep there, I’ll go there. They may even try to get me to go there, those who now deny it. That I know from my own experience of getting out of the Army honorably discharged. I didn’t have to run away and then have to face a court martial as one who ran away, and be dishonorably discharged possibly with a few years in jail at hard labor. I got out in a very short space of time honorably discharged by simply putting myself where I would be if I were there.53 ¶31

Well, anyone can do it. This is not something that takes a really fantastically disciplined mind. You can take in your mind’s eye this much. Do you know some object where you would be that you desire to be? Could be a piano, it could be a lamp, it could be, well, anything. Do you know one object in that room? Well then mentally hold it, just hold it, and feel it until it takes on sensory vividness; but not any lamp that lamp; not any table that table, just hold it. That chair, just sit in it and feel it all around you and feel that chair, not just a chair. Now view the world from that chair. Well, if you see it as you would see it were you there, you’re there; for man is all Imagination and he must be wherever he is in Imagination. So you’re there. You do nothing…you cast your bread upon the water. And then this genii, which is nature, that is the slave of this lamp which is your own wonderful human Imagination will now without the consent of anyone build a bridge of incidence, and take you wherever you are and lead you across that bridge to sit in that chair, or to hold that lamp, or do whatever you did to anchor yourself there.53 ¶32

As you are told in Genesis: “Come close, my son, that I may feel you. Your voice sounds like my son Esau…but come close that I may feel you” . Well, he came close and he felt him and he felt the hair which Jacob didn’t have, so that must be Esau. And it had all the qualities of objective reality, for Esau simply means “the objective world.” So he gave to this imaginary state, which is purely subjective, the objective tones, the objective reality.53 ¶33

Now, you can prove it right now. Sit here and see the difference between a simple little object like a ball. Take for instance a tennis ball, take a billiard ball, take a baseball, take a football, and you can discriminate between all these different balls. Well, you can’t discriminate between nothing. If they’re all nothing because they’re not objective to your senses now, you couldn’t discriminate. But if you can discriminate in texture and you can feel the difference between a tennis ball and a billiard ball, and between these two and another ball, a baseball or a football, if you can discriminate between these different so-called un-realities, well then, they are not unreal. They are real, but not yet made objective to your senses. But now you make it real in your own mind’s eye and then it becomes real.53 ¶34

You can try it just for fun…but don’t do it to hurt another. Never hurt the other! You can take it with a flower. It gets to the point where you don’t do it any more, because although the one who sent you the flowers took pleasure in sending it, you are almost embarrassed because it cost money. You figure, oh well, why do I do it? So you stop doing it because the flowers come…the impulse is there to send you lovely flowers and it was just a thing that you had envisioned and saw and gave thanks for. You didn’t thank the individual; you thank the being within you for presenting you with the flowers. Then the one on the outside even without an occasion sends flowers. And you have flowers, because you simply could get the odor or the looks or the feel and you simply did it. After a while you just don’t do it…at least not as often.53 ¶35

So here, in this game of life…it’s a game. Paul calls it a race, he said, “I’ve finished the race, I’ve fought the good fight, and I’ve kept the faith” . But you can call it a race or you can call it a game. Both are competitive, but the competition is with self, not with another. There is no other. You’re not trying to get beyond the other fellow; grant him the right to use the same law to achieve his goal. His goal may be something similar to mine. But I have a goal. Then I simply apply this law toward my goal, giving him complete freedom to get his goal even though it’s similar and may even be a duplicate.53 ¶36

Well, let him have it. So you can tell the law to anyone and it’s not going to rob you. You can tell it to everyone in the world, anyone who asks for your secret, tell the law, that my end is where I begin, my beginning is my end. That’s where I start…I go right to the end, the thing desired, and I feel myself right into it. As I feel myself into the wish fulfilled, I drop it, and that is casting my bread upon the water when I feel satisfied. Then these two words balloon: “bread” which is “a complete, consuming, devouring thing, like a battle,” and then comes the word waters which is simply “semen.” Look it up in your concordance. But the word offends people if they saw the original word in scripture, so to avoid offense then they use a euphemism.53 ¶37

Now let us go into the Silence. * * * Now are there any questions?53 ¶38

J udas is called the betrayer, but what was it that he betrayed? Judas betrayed the great secret of the messiah and where Jesus might be found. His is the most important role in the great mystery of God. “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, as he promised.”51 ¶1

Then in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, the Lord reveals the Saviour saying: “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.” If God brought a savior to humanity, he had to bring himself – as Jesus, which simply means “I am.” This he revealed in the great “I am” statements: I am the vine; I am the door; I am the shepherd; I am the bread. In those statements Jesus is declaring that unless you believe that your “I am” is Lord, you die in your sins; for your “I am” is Jesus – your Saviour – the man who will rule as God, as he promised.51 ¶2

When you hear the word “Jesus,” you may think of someone outside of yourself; but I tell you: your I AMness is Jesus – sound asleep. He is buried in you and will one day awaken in you. Asleep, you are a son of God; but when he awakes, you are God the Father. Sending his sons into the world to conquer death, the sons return as the Father of all life. “Beloved, we are now the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, and see him as he is.” As a son of God, it does not appear what you will be; but when God appears, you will know him, because you will be just like him! That is the great messianic secret!51 ¶3

And when that secret is unveiled in you, you will see the importance of separating the words “Jesus” and “Christ”- as stated in the Book of Revelation: “Come Lord Jesus and his Christ,” for Christ is the messiah – God’s great son David, who reveals you as his Father, Jesus. Man has completely forgotten the mystery and speaks of Jesus as a little man who was born of a woman two thousand years ago – when Jesus is God himself. Your awareness of being is Jesus, who is God the Father. The great secret of the Christian faith is the revelation of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The fatherhood of God is Jesus in you. Do you not realise that Jesus and his Christ are in you? Did not David (the Christ) come in the spirit and call Jesus “Lord”? If David were not in you, you would never know that you are God the Father.51 ¶4

One day David came out of me. He stood before me and I knew exactly who he was and our relationship with one another, even before he called me father. Now I know that everyone will one day have the identical experience, for there is only one God, only one Father. We are all members of that one body which share in this wonderful promised end, as everything resolves itself into the one who is God the Father.51 ¶5

So Judas reveals the messianic secret by telling you that you will find the Lord Jesus in heaven, and that heaven is within you. If anyone should say: “Come – look: here he is, or: there he is,” don’t believe him; for the kingdom of heaven is within you. When you find Jesus, your journey is over. Then your heart will go out to everyone, for you will know they are your brothers. You are not going to become sons of God; you are already gods, sons of the Most High, becoming God Himself. God is able to give himself to you as though there were no other – just God and you. Believe that, and the most incredible story ever told – which is the pattern of salvation – will unfold in you to reveal you as God the Father. That is the story of the Bible.51 ¶6

The Old Testament is an adumbration, a foreshadowing, while the New is its fulfillment, written as a rough draft. Paul wrote his thirteen letters at least twenty years – chronologically speaking – before the first gospel, which is Mark; yet no book spells it out completely. I have tried my best to make it clear just how it unfolded within me, and how I came to the full realisation of myself as God the Father. I tell you, there is no other God, no other being.51 ¶7

God actually sent his sons into this world. He chose you in himself before the foundation of the world. You are here to perform a certain job; and when you do, you will say: “Father, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. Now return unto me the glory that was mine, the glory that I had with thee before that the world was.” As a son, you radiate the glory of God; but when you return, you are that glory, you are that God. God the Father transforms his sons into himself by giving us his own son, who reveals our true identity. This is the mystery of life through death.51 ¶8

There is a pattern in those 39 books of the Old Testament that fulfills itself in the New. Paul urges everyone to “Follow the pattern of the true word which you heard from me.” Here, he is telling you that his words are true, but he doesn’t spell them out. He makes the statement: “When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood,” but he doesn’t tell the experience. Paul was the first to use the word “Christ,” which is the word “messiah” and means “God has touched; made contact.” Descending upon a son in bodily form as a dove, God has contacted that son through the sense of touch. That contact is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in that act God seals his gift. In the Old Testament, God decreed David to be his son. And in the New Testament, David comes in the Spirit and reveals you as his father. This is the great secret that Judas betrayed.51 ¶9

Having had the experiences, Judas betrayed the messianic secret and tells where Jesus might be found, and who he is. Jesus is in you as your breath of life. One day he will awaken, and as he rises in you, you rise. At that moment you are saved from this world of death and transformed into the God of all life. That is the story of Christianity.51 ¶10

Don’t look for Christ to come on the outside. Hundreds of millions are waiting for him to come and change the world, but it is not going to change. It’s a world of educated darkness, a school; and you do not change a school into a home, and heaven is your home. One day you will graduate from this school and receive the gift of God himself. As this gift is given, you awaken to discover you are in the grave where you first laid yourself down to sleep. Then the pattern of the true words that you have heard from me will unfold in you. Paul tried to tie his experiences into the Old Testament, as he quoted the 39 books one after the other; but he didn’t expound on them. But, as Blake said: “That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.” Maybe Paul felt the same way. Why spell it out, when desire to understand will force you to search the scriptures and ask yourself why, what, where, and when. If you will ask yourself these questions, you will find their answers within you.51 ¶11

I tell you: God literally became you that you may become God. And in becoming God the Father, you do not lose your individuality. You are not only a member of this wonderful body – sharing in the purpose end of all things – but you are the body, for you are its animating spirit. You are a member, yet the whole, for in God there is no division. And no one will be lost. Although the evangelists tell us how we are sinning and will be lost, it is not God’s will that one be lost, because God would be lost. You cannot say “I am” unless God is in you. You may be a moron, yet you still know that you are. You may not know who you are, where you are, or what you are; but you cannot stop knowing that you are. That awareness is God, and there is no other.51 ¶12

Judas reveals the good news that God has wrought it. What courage one should take from this message. The evangelists are giving good advice tonight, telling everyone how to live, what to say and how to act. But the gospels give us the good news of salvation, telling us that God actually became his sons in order to transform them into himself, that they may rise as God the Father!51 ¶13

Not all of the sons came out. In the story of the prodigal son, we are told that the one who remained complained. He thought he didn’t have anything – yet he had it all. You may own the world, but if you do not know it, you can die of starvation for the want of food. A bank can be holding a billion dollars of yours, but if you do not know it you will not write a check. But when you become aware of who you really are, you will know that the whole is yours. Then you will say: “I and my Father are one, and all mine are thine and thine are mine.”51 ¶14

After the great resurrection, you will play the part of Judas, and tell everyone who comes into your world who the messiah is and where Jesus might be found. I can’t tell you my thrill when I receive letters from you containing scriptural experiences you have had.51 ¶15

I received a letter from a young lady who is still in school. She is majoring in music as she wants to be a composer. In her letter she said: “I have a dear friend who was having a birthday and I wanted to give him something special. It didn’t have to be material, it could be something I said or did that he would be proud of. I fell asleep dwelling on this, when I awoke at 2:00 a.m. with a vivid memory of this dream. I was sitting on my bed with my mother and father standing near. My father handed me three records, saying: ‘Keep two and give him the third. He will love it and never tire of listening to it.’ Then I held a sheet of music containing the notes from which the record was made. I saw that the composition’s title was ‘Christ,’ and the composer’s name was ‘Olam.’”51 ¶16

She saw correctly. The word “Olam” means “something hidden; kept out of sight; a lad; a youth; a stripling,” and is translated “eternity” in the statement, “God has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done until the end.” When your journey comes to its end you will find that eternal youth who is God’s son, David. He is Olam, the eternal youth, the composer of the music – which is all about himself; for he is the Christ of scripture.51 ¶17

Jesus – the Lord, and Christ – his son, are in you. Separate the two. Christ is not a title given Jesus, but his power and wisdom, which came out into the world to do his will. Jesus is the Savior, of which there is only one. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” Here is a young girl, still in school, who has found Christ, the composer, and the composition.51 ¶18

You can’t exhaust the subject of Christ, but man is forever misunderstanding it. The crowds believe some little man was crucified on a cross by Jews, but John tells us: “You know not whom you worship, but we know who we worship, for salvation is from the Jews.” If you think of a physical Jew you are in error. A Jew is an Israelite who is not a descendant of Abraham after the flesh, but the elect of God of any race or nation.51 ¶19

The Old Testament is the Book of the Jews, of which you – as the son of God – came into this world to fulfill. Every mystical experience, if foreshadowed by a word in the Old Testament, is predestined, written by God’s servants – the prophets. The chronological order of both the Old and the New Testament is not accurate. Matthew is the first book in our New Testament, yet Mark came before Matthew; and the letters of Paul came before the four gospels. Our forefathers of the church arranged the books as they now appear, but they do not give the true order of the unfolding picture any more than the books in the Old Testament do. Paul found the pattern unfolding in him and shared his experiences. In his second letter to Timothy, he urged him not to deviate from “my gospel,” but he did not spell it out.51 ¶20

I have told you the chronological order just as it happened to me. The crucifixion begins the journey into time. Coming out from the Father, you came into the world by being crucified on humanity. As Paul said: “I know only Christ and him crucified.” But the drama of redemption begins with your resurrection from humanity and your spiritual birth. Then you will discover the Fatherhood of God through your son, David (who is Christ) calling you father. This is the gift God gave himself through his sons – the gift of fatherhood. One day you will know this truth by the betrayal of the great secret of the messiah.51 ¶21

Judas not only reveals the great secret, but tells you where to find Jesus. He is in the garden as the tree of life. Blake knew. That is why he said, “The gods of the earth and sea sought through nature to find that tree. But their search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain.” One day that tree – whose roots are in your brain – will reverse itself, and the story of Jesus and his Christ will unfold in you.51 ¶22

You and I were sons of God before we entered these garments of death. When we return, we will have added to God the Father, yet remained individualised. I can’t tell you the joy, the ecstasy that is in store for you on your return, for you came out from the Father and came into the world. Now you will leave the world and return to the Father, as the Father.51 ¶23

So, God’s gift to you is Christ, who is his son, David. And Christ’s gift is the spirit of truth which unfolds to reveal your true identity. As the son, you have come into the world to do the will of him who sent you. And in the end you will discover you sent yourself, for you will have found David, the son of Jesse (I AM) – one after your own heart who does all your will. Asleep, the messiah does the will of the Father; but when he awakes, the messiah and the Father are one.51 ¶24

We came out from the world of life to enter the world of death in a grand experiment, not knowing if we would succeed. He chose us – in him – for the experiment, then made us victorious over death by giving us himself, that we may know we are God the Father.51 ¶25

I am speaking from experience. I am not theorising or speculating. Jesus is in you as your own wonderful human imagination. When you say, “I am,” that is Jesus. One day your awareness will awaken and rise. Then everything said of the Lord in the Old Testament will be fulfilled in you. And from that moment on your adventure will be over, and you will walk conscious of being God the Father.51 ¶26

What a glorious concept. God actually gave himself to everyone for a grand experiment which cannot fail in any one, not even a Hitler or Stalin. No monster can fail, because the resurrection is now a fact. It has been proven so. Everyone will return – not as the son of God (which is glorious enough) but of God himself. That is my message to you. And it is true.51 ¶27

I want to thank this sweet young lady for sharing her experience with me, that I may share it with you. Desiring to express herself in a loving way towards one she respects, she sees her parents – the symbol of her creative power – enter her room. Her father tells her of three records – were there not three who stood before Abraham when the birth of the child was announced? They were called men, not records, but it is the same symbolism. She was told to keep two and give him the other, as he would love it so and never tire of listening to it. The music was composed by Olam, the eternal youth and its title was Christ.51 ¶28

Here is the composer writing about himself, just as man does here. Every book you read is a man’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, in the written form. He had to acquire the ability to write, and anyone can do that. Go to school, apply yourself, and master the technique of writing. Then, as you start to write, you will discover you can only write the thoughts that permeate your own mind. You may think you are detached from your thoughts; but you and your thoughts are one, so you are writing all about yourself.51 ¶29

So, Olam – the eternal youth – composed the composition “Christ,” which is all about himself; and you, O Christ, will never tire of listening to your incredible story. Now let us go into the silence.51 ¶30

Tonight’s subject is Imagination. You read in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts, a story of Paul coming through to the Athenians, and he calls upon these men, for he saw the inscription over and over. He said: “As I passed by…I saw an altar with this inscription, “To an unknown god.” This therefore that you worship as unknown, this I proclaim unto you.” “He is not far from each of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.” The great Blake said it differently. This is what Blake said: “All that you behold; though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” Then he said: “Babel mocks…” We are all familiar with what Babel represents: the confusion of tongues, no two believing in the same god. Not yet speaking different languages but speaking one tongue, they have different concepts of the creative power of the universe. And so he said: Babel mocks saying, there is no God, nor Son of God That thou O Human Imagination, O Divine Body art all A delusion, but I know thee O Lord... He equates God and his son with the human Imagination. To him and to the speaker, Divine Imagination is identical with the word “Jesus.” So, when I think of Jesus I do not see a being outside of my own wonderful human Imagination.49 ¶1

Are we not told in Scripture: “With God all things are possible”? We are also told in Scripture: “All things are possible to him who believes.” That is Scripture, now. The power of believing is God himself. So, God in man is man’s own wonderful human Imagination. It’s difficult for man to make the adjustment, having been trained to turn on the outside to some god that he worships. We go to church and the mind turns outward to some god, and he paints a word picture of someone before whom we must bend our knee and cross ourselves. But that’s not what Scripture really teaches. Scripture teaches that the power that creates the entire universe is not without man, but within man, as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. That is the creative power of the world. All things exist in the human Imagination, so if the word “God” would turn you out, try to make the adjustment within yourself and begin to believe that the God of Christendom, the Lord Jesus of Christendom, is your own Imagination. If all things are possible to God, and God is your Imagination, then it should be possible for you.49 ¶2

Now, I ask the question. I think I have told it simply enough how you can test it, how you can enter into a state. I think I have told it to the satisfaction of most people that we are the operant power. To hear it, to recite it, commit it to memory, is not enough. We have to apply it, for we are the operant power.49 ¶3

A few days before I closed in Los Angeles, I retired quite early, maybe 9:30 or 10:00 o’clock and I communed with myself. To whom would I turn? “So,” I said to myself, “I have said everything that I have heard from within myself, everything that I have experienced concerning the Law, I have told. I have told what I have experienced concerning the Promise. Could I tell them something more about the Law that would make it a little bit more simple? What can I say that I haven’t said?” So, I asked the depth of my own being to show me, to show me exactly what I could say that I haven’t said.49 ¶4

Well, in the wee hours of the morning, a little after 4:00 o’clock, as I was coming through from the depths of my own being, here is the experience: I am on a spacecraft headed for the moon. Now, it is all in one’s Imagination, for the dreamer is one’s Imagination. That is the cause of all. Now, first of all, let me say that everything in this world contains within itself the capacity for symbolic significance. So, the moon has within itself the capacity for some symbolic significance. I am headed for the moon. Now, you have heard the expression time and time again: “Oh, he is reaching for the moon.” It could be an ambition based upon your social desire. You want to transcend the limitation of your world where you were born. Or it could be some financial ambition, and friends who know your limitations will say of you: “He is reaching for the moon.” Or it could be some tyrant trying to conquer the earth. We have had a Hitler, a Stalin, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon. All these were reaching to conquer the earth, reaching for the moon. Now we are actually on the verge of stepping on the moon, and so we will hit this object in space. But forget that part of it.49 ¶5

I am asking for light so that I can throw some light upon the Law, how to realize my objective in this world in a more simple way than I have so far succeeded in telling it, and this is the vision: I am on this craft and I am headed for the moon. There are others on the craft with me. Instead of landing on the moon, I went into the moon through a very, very large tunnel — a tunnel wider than the depth of this room. The object is dead, dead as dead can be. I say to someone on the craft: “May I get off?” and he said: “Certainly.” I stepped off onto this dead body in space, the moon. There were little objects for sale, objects made on earth and placed on the moon to sell to tourists. They were cheap, cheap beyond measure, made of clay: little cups, little saucers, little plates, little ornaments but the cheapest of cheap! You can’t conceive anything cheaper in appearance and in quality. There they were, made on earth to sell on the moon, just like some sideshow at a carnival.49 ¶6

I picked them up, examined them, and thought: “Here, a quarter of a million miles away, man made these things, put them on the moon to sell to tourists.” What was the significance of the vision? All of man’s ambitions are like clay. They will all turn to dust. A man died here the other day in Texas. He started out as a poor boy and left an estate of five hundred million dollars, but he left the estate. He had reached the nice, ripe age of seventy-five, but he left every penny behind him. And those who now have billions, they will leave every penny behind them, just as though it is made of dust. Nevertheless, I asked the question of myself and the depth of my own being answered: so what is the significance of the dream? Tell man, not that he shouldn’t have what he wants, certainly he should have it; it is going to be dropped anyway, but he can get it.49 ¶7

So, what other point was driven home to me? This is the point: instead of landing on the moon, I went into the moon. Blake makes the statement, “If the spectator could enter into the images in his Imagination, approach them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if he could make a friend and companion of any one of these images in his Imagination” well, he emphasized “enter into the image,” not to contemplate it as something on the outside.49 ¶8

I contemplate now New York City. I am seeing it from San Francisco. If my desire this night is to be in New York City, I say I can’t afford the time, or maybe I can’t afford it because of lack of funds, or maybe my commitments will tie me here—I don’t know—yet my desire is to be in New York City. I must, if I would realize it in spite of the limitations that now surround me (money, lack of time, obligations, call it what you will), I still want to be in New York City. I must enter into the image that is now something on the surface of the mind ‘out there,’ 3,000 miles away. Standing here, I must shut out the belief that I am in San Francisco. Knowing New York City quite well, I would assume I am standing in a most familiar part of New York City and let it surround me. I must be in it, and then think of San Francisco. I must now see it 3,000 miles to the west of me, as I now see New York City 3,000 miles to the east of me. If I go into that state and dwell in it and make it natural, though I remain in it only for a little while, a minute or so, then I open my eyes, ‘I am shocked’ to find that I am still here. I came back here. I have done it. I have entered into the state of my desire and I will move across a bridge of incidents, a series of events that will lead me and compel me to take a journey to New York City.49 ¶9

Now, this I have used only as a spatial example. You can take it in a financial sense, take it in the social world; take it in any way whatsoever. That is what came to me a few days before I closed. For if I could find something more simple to tell them than I think I have told them, this would be it: To enter into the state and not simply think of the state. Thinking from it differs from thinking of it. I must learn to think from it. A man who this night came into a million dollars, from that moment that man is made aware that he has a million, when prior to that he had nothing. He is thinking from the consciousness of having a million dollars. He is not thinking of it; he is walking in the consciousness of having a million dollars. He’s not hoping for it, wishing for it; he is actually in it. That is what the vision revealed to me.49 ¶10

Even though at the end of my journey I will leave my things behind me and they will all be as though they were made of clay — all cheaply made, at that, every man, not knowing this—in fact, how many know it or care to know it? They still want to realize their earthly dreams, and I am all for it; I teach it. But I cannot change the Promise. The Promise is fixed. That is something that will come to every being in this world, for it has been predetermined. But when we are here in this world of Caesar, I can cushion the blows, the inevitable blows, by learning the technique of Law and how to apply it, how to use it.49 ¶11

Now, the thing I quoted earlier, Blake said in this quote from “Jerusalem”: “Although I behold Thee not…” Well, here it’s perfectly true; I do not observe imagining as I do objects. Imagining is the reality that we name this power called God. So I don’t observe imagining; I observe objects, but I don’t observe the power in them. That’s the greatest secret in the world. The secret of imagining is the secret of God. Anyone who finds it finds supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight. Every one should aspire after this secret and try to unravel it, for whatever you find about your own wonderful human Imagination, you are finding about God for your Imagination and God are one and the same. There is no other God. You imagined yourself into this world, and you’ll imagine yourself out of it. You came into the world for a purpose, and when the purpose is fulfilled you will detach yourself from it and return to the being that you were prior to your descent into this world. “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.”49 ¶12

Now, I am not saying it is the easiest thing in the world for you to accept this. It will come to those who have never heard it before as blasphemy. It will come as a shock, an awful shock, when man who is trained to believe in an external God to whom he bows, to whom he prays then to discover that He is not on the outside at all. As we are told in Scripture: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you,” and God is spirit. Well, if God is spirit, and his spirit dwells in you, you can’t divide it into different kinds of spirit. God is spirit and his spirit dwells in me. Now, if his spirit dwells in me, I try to find out what that spirit is in me that I can call by another name that is more intimate.49 ¶13

Well, I have found it and the spirit of God, which is God himself in me, is my Imagination. And if all things are possible to God and if I can but believe that they are possible to me, well then it’s entirely up to me to find out how to believe it. I imagine, as do you. We cannot imagine differently. All difference lies in content. So, my response to the eternal question: “Who am I?” will determine the circumstances of my life. Who am I? Am I the little one that was born on a tiny little unknown island with no social, intellectual, financial background? Must I accept the limitations of birth? Well most people do. But have I read Scripture? Did I read the words that I am the temple of the living God, and the spirit of that God dwells in me and all things are possible to that God? Well, I should not allow anything to interfere with my discovery of that spirit in me that is called the “Spirit of God,” for if all things are possible to him and he dwells in me, I must make every effort to locate him.49 ¶14

Well, I have located him, and he is my Imagination and I do not differ from any person born of woman. The Imagination in every one is God. But if they have been trained to believe in their little beings and my own tiny little Imagination, people will say: “Oh, that’s just his imagination.”49 ¶15

We are going to the moon. A man imagined it a hundred years ago, Jules Verne. He even imagined the nation that would do it. He said the Yankee know-how, their engineers will contrive the means to get there first. He wrote that 100 years ago, and no matter how others try, we will get there first. We are on the verge of it, but he had to imagine it first. What is now true was once only imagined. We are in a room. It seems so real. Well, this was once only imagined. You are wearing dresses, you are wearing all kinds of things, but they had to be imagined first. You go to a tailor or your dressmaker and you pick out the material that you like. It’s just a plain piece of cloth. Then you tell your dressmaker or I tell my tailor what kind of a suit I want. So I allow him with his know-how, to take my vision of the kind of a suit that I want. Having picked out the material, he executes it. Now what is then proven when I put it on was first only imagined? A man imagines a desire, say for wealth. When he becomes wealthy he may forget the means by which it came about and think all the external forces that were used to bring it to pass are the causes. They had to play the part that they played because he imagined what he imagined.49 ¶16

So, I don’t differ in the act of imagining from you or any being in the world. The only difference will have to lie in the content of my imagining. What am I imaging? If I imagine something little and feel sorry for myself—all right, life will prove that I had every reason in the world to feel sorry for myself, because the blows will come to me. And I will turn to the one who gave the blows and blame him or blame them, when the blame (if any) is in myself; for had I not imagined what I have imagined, I could not encounter the conditions that I encountered. This is the Law of Scripture. We are told: Don’t fool yourselves. “Be not deceived. God is not mocked.” God is your imagination; he’s not mocked. “As a man sows, so shall he reap.” Well, what am I sowing? I am sowing everything that I am imagining. That is what I am sowing, for the only thing I can ‘sow’ is what I imagine. So, will I now change from an external god to the internal God and find him in myself as my own wonderful human Imagination?49 ¶17

Let Babel rant and say there is no God. Let Babel say there is no Son of God. Then comes that wonderful statement of the prophet, who sees that: “You, O Human Imagination, Divine Body called my Human Imagination, the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, buried in me.” And were he not buried in me I couldn’t even breathe, I couldn’t think. But one day he will rise in me and as he rises in me, I am. I am he now, but do not know it. When he rises in me I know it then because I rise, not “he” rises. He has become me to the point that we aren’t two; we are one. So, he suffers us. I say: “I am in pain.” Well, his name is “I Am.” That is my Imagination. I don’t say: “My body is weeping,” I say: “I am weeping.” I don’t say: “My body is tired,” I say: “I am tired.” So, is not Blake right when he says: “Thou sufferest with me”? Though I do not behold—I can’t quite see you as something external. I could not in eternity see myself as something external. I must see it only by reflection and the world undevoutly reflects what I am doing within myself.49 ¶18

The day will come I will actually see myself, but not as something external to myself. I will know myself only by reason of the son who stands before me and calls me, “Father.” Then I am looking right into the face of the Son of God, and he will call me “Father.” Then, and only then, will I know who I Am. Everyone will have that experience. One day you will actually see the Son of God, and this relationship is something so deep and so profound there is no uncertainty whatsoever in you when you are confronted. He stands before you, and you see him and you know he is your son and he knows you are his father and there is no uncertainty whatsoever. Only then do you know who you are, that you are God the Father. Everyone, one day, will have that experience, everyone.49 ¶19

I am speaking from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating, but until that day comes let us discover God within ourselves as our own wonderful human Imagination and then test it. “For all things are possible to God; and all things are possible to him that believes.” Well, I can believe but have I made all things come to pass? It can only be my lack of belief if that statement is true. So how then to believe when reason denies it, when my senses deny it? So reason cannot be the God of whom I speak, for reason will deny it. Doubt cannot be the God of whom I speak for doubt is called in Scripture the devil, ‘the demon’ and he finds rest only in the human Imagination, the Imagination that will entertain him that’s where he went. If I will have no room in my Imagination for doubt then I am on the road to learning the art of believing. How to believe when reason denies it, when my senses deny it? Well, entering into the image is the most delightful thing in the world. You can try it tonight when we go into the silence. Try it in the simplest little way: putting yourself elsewhere by making ‘elsewhere’ here, making “there” here and “then” now. And you can do it. It’s not difficult if you’ll try it.49 ¶20

Let me repeat: we are the operant power. Knowing it is one thing and doing it is another and the minute you try it, you can do it. Well then, wait. The minute you do it and open your eyes, in the twinkle of an eye you’re back here and you will say to yourself, “I didn’t do anything; I just did a simple little thing in my Imagination. How on earth could that produce the result when I’ve just assumed that I’ve done it?” Well, wait and see if a little bridge of incidents does not quickly appear, compelling you to walk across that bridge of incidents towards the fulfillment of what you have done. It works that way and after you have proven it, the whole world can rise in opposition and it makes no difference to you, you’ve done it. After you’ve done it, you keep on doing it and become all the more rooted in who God really is and you’ll walk with your head up, walk as you ought to walk as one in whom God dwells. There’s no place in the world more holy than where you are. For wherever you are God is there. There’s no church built with human hands comparable to the temple of God and “ye are the Temple of the Living God and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” What temple in this world made with human hands could compare to this temple when no hand could make it? It comes into the world and it’s a temple of the Living God.49 ¶21

But again, if this is the first time you’ve heard a thought of this nature, if it’s the first time you’ve been exposed to it, I am not telling you it is not a shock and it’s not difficult to accept. It isn’t difficult to grasp, but difficult to accept after the training most of us here have had. I know I had it. I was raised in a very wonderful Christian orthodox home, where Sunday school was in order not once a week, but twice a week, grace at the table, Mother reading Scripture to us and interpreting Scripture based upon her concept, which was a secular concept. To her the Bible was secular history, things that actually happened in her world. She didn’t realize that she, as the whole vast world was mistaking personification for persons and the vehicle that conveys the instruction for the instruction itself and the gross perspective for the ultimate sense intended. But Mother was raised that way and she made her exit from this world in that belief. So, when I was exposed to this at the age of twenty or twenty-two, I must confess I couldn’t sleep. It was so completely different that it turned me inside out. I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing to visit this friend. I wondered what on earth have I done? I felt I was a sinful being even to entertain the thought. I had to wrestle with myself and finally, when I put it to the test and it proved itself in performance then I knew that I’d found him. But you can’t find him and not share it with others, as told in Scripture: So Philip found him and he goes and he shares it with Nathaniel. Andrew found him and he goes and shares it with his brother, Peter. Peter didn’t find him; his brother found him and then shared it. So here, we find and we share it. I have found him. All I can do is share him, in the hope that you will accept him.49 ¶22

I know this much: if you believe to the point of acceptance, life will be marvelous for you, perfectly wonderful for this is the one secret in the world that everyone should aspire to solve, for God is that pure imaging in ourselves. He underlies all of our faculties including our perception, but he streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fantasy. I sit here and have a daydream. Well, that’s God in action, but then someone breaks it and I forget it. I didn’t occupy it; I simply had a daydream but without occupancy. That’s one of the greatest fallacies of the world, ‘perpetual construction’. It’s a daydream, deferred occupancy. I don’t occupy it, I don’t go in and possess it and make it mine. If I, in my Imagination, could go right in and possess it and make it mine...If I, in my Imagination, could go right in and possess it and clothe myself with the feeling of the wish fulfilled, actually clothe myself with it by assuming that it’s done now, until I feel natural in that assumption and that assumption though at the moment denied by my senses, if persisted in will harden into fact. So, this is our great secret concerning imagining.49 ¶23

If you doubt it tonight, I would only ask you not to deny it to the point of not trying it, but hold it in abeyance and try it now. Just try it, even if you want to disprove it. I tell you, you will not disprove it. You will in the attempt to disprove it, prove it. And then slowly you will come to completely accept it and then you will walk in the company of God. You won’t have to wait for Sunday morning to meet him in a church or any time of day. No matter where you are, you could be standing in a bar enjoying a drink, having fun at a dance and you are in the company of God. It makes no difference where you are once you know God and God is your own wonderful human Imagination and you’ll become extremely discriminating because you’ll know you can’t entertain these ideas with complete acceptance of them and not reap them in your world. And who wants to reap the tears forever? So, you become ever more discriminating. Don’t think for one second that you’ll live a loose life. No. You’ll become a far more wonderful person in the world. You hear a piece of gossip, it doesn’t interest you. Today in the morning paper, many people turned right away to the gossip columnist and wondered who is living with whom and they love it. They don’t know the people and they will go right out and repeat what this person is paid to print, because it is like almost peeking through the keyhole of someone else’s door. He can’t maintain that job. He’s paid to be a gossip hound and people read it. Others read only the obituaries to see who’s dead. You will not read those pages. You will simply suddenly dwell upon the noble things.49 ¶24

Not only for yourself will you do it, your circle will widen. You will. You will think of a friend and if he is distressed, you represent him to yourself as you would like him to be. If he’s unemployed, you represent him to yourself as gainfully employed. If he is earning less than what it really takes to live well in this world with his obligations, you represent him to yourself as living well and earning a decent living and assuming full responsibility of his job and you push him in your mind’s eye. So you widen your circle. It’s sort of self perpetuating; you take in all because, eventually, “all that you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within, In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” So, you can’t exclude anyone. If you exclude one, it’s your own failure. But you don’t sit down and work with that one to make it so. You simply assume that it is so. You plant it as lightly as you would if you sowed a field. You don’t go out and trample it, you sow the field and it comes up. Well, this is what I mean by ‘Imagination.’49 ¶25

I identify my own wonderful human Imagination, when I say ‘ I,’ I am speaking of all for everyone imagines, so I identify our Imagination with God. That to me is the Lord Jesus. He is buried in us and one day he will rise in us, not as something external to ourselves but he will rise in us as us, after we’ve gone through the furnaces of experience in this world of Caesar. Now there’s no room for a final death with Christ in man, for Christ resurrects. You say good-bye to a friend who has gone through the gate we call ‘death,’ but he cannot die. Nothing dies in this world for God is the God of the living. But nothing dies, because the immortal you cannot die and the immortal you is far more real than the garment of flesh and blood that it wears in the world of Caesar. This is the limit of contraction for a purpose, but when this is burned in the furnace (cremated) you, the occupant, are not burned in the furnace. You are restored, clothed as you are now only the body is young, not a baby, a young body about twenty. I encounter them all the time and they are young, though when I said good-bye through the gate of ‘death,’ they were seventy or eighty, my father, eighty-five when he said good-bye, my mother, sixty-one. I met them in their twenties. I am much, much older. I am. I meet them, and they grow. They grow there too; they don’t remain twenty. You grow there and you are just as afraid as you are here; and you marry there too and strive there too and die there too, to find yourself restored once more. And the journey continues until you resurrect. Resurrection is a departure from this age into that age called “the Kingdom of Heaven,” but only when he in you resurrects as you, will you leave this world of Caesar. But while you are in it, why not learn his law because the blows are inevitable. Learn the law, that you may cushion the blows.49 ¶26

So, when I know what I want to cushion the problems of the moment, then I will apply it and apply this principle towards anything in my world. And the principle is this: First, you start with desire. Who is desiring? Well, I Am. Well, who is “I Am”? That’s God. “That is my name forever and forever,” as we are told in the book of Exodus. “Go tell them I Am has sent you. This is my name for all generations, forever and forever.” Therefore, who is feeling? I Am. Well, that’s God! Who is desiring? I Am. Well, that’s God and “all things are possible to him.” All right, start right there. Could I continue desiring if I had it? No I couldn’t. If I wanted this room to lecture in when I came here and then I got confirmation from the management that I am allowed to speak in the Marines’ Memorial for ten days and the dates are set, could I write him a second letter pleading with him? Could I in any way hope after I had realized it? No, I simply walk in the assumption that I have it. So, when I requested that I have this room for 10 talks, it was granted and from then on I had no more desire for it. The desire was realized. I had to wait the normal time, the interval of a month, well it was a month ago that I accepted it. Then I came a month later to fulfill it. Well, the same thing is true in all that you do in this world. You simply dare to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled until it seems natural, until it takes on the tones of reality and when it does, it’s done. And now, trust God. Well, who is God? Your own wonderful human Imagination! Did you imagine it? Well, that’s God! Now trust him. Don’t turn to any outside power.49 ¶27

The church has just demoted something like a hundred saints, after making fortunes selling little pictures of them. I wonder how many still wear St. Nicholas? They treated him as a saint. It’s like treating Santa Claus as a saint. And all these saints — the saint of the road, to protect you against an accident, now they say he never lived. If he never lived why did they ever start it and yet, hundreds of years ago they started this nonsense, so unnumbered millions of these little icons, little medals. Down south our Cardinal admitted that tens of thousands of these little medals, he had put his seal of approval, the Seal of the Cardinal, on the reverse side of that little medal. When they asked him: “Well, now do you regret it?” he said: “No, it was acceptable then and I did it in good faith.” But whoever started that nonsense started it for a commercial reason and they made unnumbered millions, hundreds of millions in selling them to the many. And what number of millions of people wore them and are still wearing them — and he never existed! They mount them on the front of their car, on their little trucks, on their bikes and now to discover at this late date” I’ve gone out with these friends of mine to greet three fellows who came back from the war. One was a marine; he lost one foot and the arm was completely smashed, one arm. His brother was going into the priesthood and he came back deaf; he was in the army. Another was in the army; he came back with TB. And their mother told me in all innocence and they went along with the mother. “Were it not for St. Christopher they would not have returned.” She really believed it, and they believe it and one was three years going for the priesthood when the war broke and he thought it better to serve his country than to become a priest. Then when he came out he gave up completely and got married and has a nice little family. But he believed it and they believed it and the father and the mother believed it.49 ¶28

They entertained me very well, but they knew that I was not safe because I was a Protestant. “Christian” meant nothing to them because you either are a Roman Catholic or you are not a Christian. So, I said to my wife, “What will they think when they find out that I am not a Roman Catholic?” She said, “It doesn’t really matter. They love me dearly and I am not one. They know you can’t be saved anyway, so what?” So, we all go and have fun.49 ¶29

My wife was very, very honest about it for the simple reason her father was that family’s closest friend. And these came back, one with a foot missing, a crushed shoulder. Well, I was in the army too, not as long as these fellows were, but I didn’t come back fragmented. I used this principle to get out of the army and I got out honorably discharged. I didn’t run away. The very one who said “No” to my request was the very Colonel who called me nine days after I began to apply this principle. I did it quite simply. I made up my mind that I wanted to get out of the army and then I thought, if I were out, where would I be? Well, I wouldn’t be here picking up pots and doing all these things in the army and being trained. I would be a civilian in New York City in my own apartment with my little girl and my wife. My son was a Marine and he was already in Guadalcanal. He volunteered with my consent, for he wasn’t more than seventeen when I gave my permission for him to join the Marines. But having tasted the army life, I wanted no part of it. I was thirty-eight. So, I simply assumed I was a civilian living in New York City with my wife and my little girl, who was only a few months old, and the same Colonel who had disapproved my application called me in and said: “Goddard, you still want to get out of the army?” I said: “Yes, sir.” And he asked a thousand questions, and to each I said: “Yes, sir.” Then he said, “All right, bring me in a new application,” and that day I was honorably discharged and on a train headed for the fulfillment of my dream.49 ¶30

I simply knew what I wanted; I didn’t ask any one’s permission. I went to sleep in the barracks with all the boys all around. I didn’t tell them what I was doing. As far as they were concerned I was sleeping on that cot. As far as I was concerned I was sleeping in New York City. I went to bed physically on a cot, but in my Imagination in my own bed in New York City. When I thought of Camp Polk, Louisiana, it was way down south and I am up here in New York City. And then the same man who disapproved was the one who actually granted me honorable discharge.49 ¶31

I am speaking from experience; I am not theorizing. I didn’t hurt any one. No one was hurt by my application of God’s Law. Are we not told: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will.” You will read that in the 11th chapter of the book of Mark: “Whatever you desire.” He didn’t say, if it’s good for you. He leaves us entirely to make our decision. He actually acquaints us with the law and leaves us to our decision. So, I was left to my decision. I wanted to get out. The Colonel could tell me nothing to persuade me to change my opinion. If he had said, “No,” that was final; I couldn’t appeal to some higher echelon. I could take it only to my commanding officer. Well, he was my commanding officer, and he disapproved it. Well, I came back, I had the paper in my hand, “Disapproved.” I went to bed, without his permission, and slept in New York City. I went to bed without anyone in the barracks knowing what I was doing. They saw a man called Neville Goddard sleeping in that bunk, but they didn’t know I wasn’t there, for where could I be save in Imagination? If I am not sleeping here in Imagination, I am not here. You see the garment that I am wearing, but you would have to find out where I am in Imagination to actually know where I am. You can see the garment, but is the garment the man? I was sleeping in Imagination, which is God, and “all things are possible to him.” Well then, “He” changed the Colonel’s decision. He changed his mind. Who is “He”? My Imagination.49 ¶32

God is one. There aren’t a million little gods running around. There is only one God. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Don’t look for a second god; there aren’t any second gods. And that one God became humanity and in man that one God is man’s own wonderful human Imagination: that one God. So it’s the ‘one’ made up of ‘others’ and that is exactly what the word Elohim means. The word translated ‘God’ in Scripture is Elohim and Elohim is a compound unity. It’s a plural word, one made up of others. We are the ‘others’ and all collectively make the one Lord, which is called ‘I Am.’ Well, don’t you know that you are, and don’t you say: “I am”? That’s God. And can’t you imagine? Well, imaging is God in action. So, what are you imaging? You determine that.49 ¶33

For, as I said earlier, I imagine, as do you. We cannot imagine differently. All differences lie in content. What is my response to the eternal question, “Who am I?” That response determines the conditions of my life. Am I a little unknown being, struggling for a dollar to pay rent, to buy food? Well, all right, that’s what will happen to me. And there’s no being on the outside to change it! I’ve got to bring about the change within myself. I can borrow money and beg for money and if I remain in that little concept of myself, I will be unable to pay back and will always have to keep looking for someone else to borrow from while I remain in the consciousness of being a little unwanted non-entity. Let me remain at that moment just what I am and change it now, begin to change my response to the question, “Who am I?”49 ¶34

And if God dwells in me, I ought to be important, not against some one else in the world. That doesn’t make any difference to me what they are. Grant them exactly what they want. If they want riches, let them. What does it matter? If they want to be in the social world at the very top, let them be. No envy whatsoever! If they want to be important in the eyes of the world, let them be important. You have different values. You are in union with God, and God is within you, and what better companion could you have in this world than to walk in the company of God, walk with him not only on Sunday morning, but every day of the week, knowing who he is?49 ¶35

So, we have to make the decision. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Will I serve a false god or will I serve the one and only living God? And that one and only living God is your Imagination — my Imagination — and that is the immortal man that cannot die. Now let us go into the silence.49 ¶36

Good! When you completely accept this, you will discover you need no intermediary between yourself and God — none! He became you, that you may become God! Now, are there any questions, please?49 ¶37