Freedom

Neville Goddard 10-28-1968

When asked: "What is the greatest of all the commandments?" God answered: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Accept this commandment! Live by it and you will be free from all secondary causes. There is only one God. He is the father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. He is a universally diffused individuality whose name forever and ever is I AM. You may not be aware of who you are, what you are, or where you are; but by being aware, you are mentally saying I am. Every conscious being says I am; and if there is only one I am, then I am one individual - diffused! I am the sole cause of all that is. All things were made through imagining, and without awareness was not anything made that was made. 

In the 8th chapter of Matthew, one of the miracles of scripture is recorded as an acted parable. It is said that when he entered the boat, he fell asleep and a great storm arose; so they woke him saying: "Lord we perish, save us." And he said: "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. If there is only one cause, then he who quelled the wind and the sea is the one who caused the storm. There cannot be another. If there is confusion in your life, and you resolve it in your imagination, and the world bears witness to what you have done - you caused the change. And since there is no other cause, then did you not cause the confusion also? There is only one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. If He is in every being who says I am, and there is only one God, no one can accuse another; for God's name is not he is, but I am. No matter what appears on the outside, I am its cause. Assume full responsibility for the things you observe, and if you do not like what you see, know you have the power to change them. Then exercise that power and you will observe the change you caused. If you are truly willing to assume that responsibility, you are set free. 

If this universal diffused individuality is in all, then the incarnation must be regarded in a different light. We were taught that the incarnation took place 2000 years ago by a unique individual, who was the incarnate God. But I tell you: humanity is the incarnation. The central figure - personified as Jesus Christ - is the perfect archetypal figure everyone must express. He is called the true witness, the first-born of the dead. Now incarnate in your body of flesh and blood, you are dead in the sense that you have forgotten that you are the creator of all things, and do not see yourself creating anything you observe. The morning paper tells of what she, he, and they, are doing, and you cannot relate their actions to anything you have done; yet there is only one cause, only one God, who is resident in you as your awareness, your own wonderful human imagination. 

The parable tells us that God entered a boat and fell asleep. Humanity is that boat, the ark where God the Father creates as he slumbers. Even though you do not know the people you read about, if the reading disturbs you, you are the cause of that conflict. All imagination, I am dreaming, causing the misfortune and unhappiness of those whose lives I have touched with feeling. When you awaken and recall your dream, do you always know the people there? Do you know the children that were yours in the dream? The people who frightened you? You never saw them before, so how could they be other than that which you caused? You do not recognize them, yet you - the dreamer - caused them to do what they did. The same thing is true here. If the actions of a seeming other cause a motor response in you, even though you do not know him, your awareness is the cause of the storm. But when you awake, memory will return and there will be a wonderful calm. 

God, the universally diffused individuality, is asleep in everyone. His transcendent revelation is personified as one called Jesus Christ. Thus personification awakens the memory in you as to who God the Father really is. God did not break up the I am and give each one of us a portion of himself. He gave each one, individually, his whole being. I am cannot be divided, and I am God the Father. If you haven't yet discovered this, I am still asleep. In order to discover your fatherhood, you must find God's son, foretold to be yours. While asleep in the state of Saul, you do not recognize him; and when you ask: "Whose son are you, young man?" he answers: "I am the son of Jesse, the I am." When you awake and recognize God's son, David, are you not Jesse? Are you not God, whose name forever and ever is I am? 

It takes David to reveal you to yourself; yet you were his father before you fell asleep. Now dreaming your life into being, you fight against seeming others, calling them devils and Satan. You endow your shadow world with causation, thereby becoming a divided being, when God is not divided. There is no devil. There is no Satan. There is no being outside of your own wonderful human imagination. 

"I, even I am he. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and none can deliver out of my hand." (Deut. 52) "I am the Lord and there is no other God. I form the light and I create darkness. I make the weal and I create woe. I am the Lord and there is no other; besides me there is no God." (Isaiah 45) He who creates the evil, creates the good, the weal and the woe, the light and the darkness. He who kills is he who makes alive, and he who wounds is he who heals and there is no other God. If you really believe you are the one spoken of here - that it is you who create the evil, the good, the weal and the woe; that none can deliver out of your hand - then you are set free. You will never again believe in another, but know that your life is self-created. That you create the storms, as well as the peace and the calm. No longer will you believe he, she, or they, did it, for you will recognize them as reflections mirroring either the storm or the peace and calm within you. 

Having entered the boat (called the ark) God fell asleep and there he remains until the dove brings him word that the flood of illusion is over. Dramatized as an acted parable, it is said that Noah put forth his hand and brought the dove into the ark with him. This is beautiful imagery and true. In my vision the dove descended through what appeared to be crystal clear water. He seemed to float, using his wings like a swan. Lighting upon my extended finger he smothered me with kisses as the vision came to its end. 

Because everyone is the whole God, everyone will personify the perfect archetypal specimen called Jesus Christ. Lost in confusion, not knowing that humanity is the incarnation, men think of this archetypal specimen as the incarnate God. Yet the one grand commandment is: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." The word Israel means: the man who rules - not like a god, but as God, because he knows he is God. And the word translated “Lord” is I AM. Now let me translate it for you: Hear, O man who rules as God, the I AM, our I am is one I AM. We are not a bunch of little I am's. Our I am is the one I AM who is God the Father. If this is true, then God cannot be divided; and the whole of him is wherever you are, wherever I am. There is no he, she, or they, in I am! 

If you will completely accept this, you will set yourself free. You may not immediately see the effect of what you have done in your imagination; but it must come, because there is no other creator to stop it. All things are made through awareness, and without it is not anything made that is made. It is imagination who claims: "I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. I form the light and create darkness. I form the evil and I make the good, the weal and the woe, and there is no other." 

When the Jesuits speak of Satan, devils, and demons, it is because they do not know the greatest commandment. All of the Ten Commandments are based upon the negative thou shall not, except one, which is: "Love thy father and mother." The commandment found in the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, with ten words, contains all Ten Commandments in an entirely different presentation as: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." 

Maybe you cannot accept my words now. Perhaps you feel the need to blame another - to have a scapegoat and believe the cause to be something you ate or drank - but why did you do it? What caused you to do exactly what you did? A disturbance in you! The storm in you caused the gland to be out of kilter. The gland cannot be the cause of your distress, but your dream can. The world, not knowing the single cause, will try to find something on the outside; but there is no secondary cause! 

I received a letter this week from a lady who shared this self-revealing dream, saying: "I am in a place totally devoid of comfort. There are no curtains at the windows or rugs on the floor. My sons - in clean overalls - are sitting in straight back chairs against one wall, while my daughters - in starched, long cotton dresses - it opposite them. Looking much like the Quaker children here, my children appear to be without emotion, without feeling, or creative abilities. We are waiting for father! A young boy enters with a message stating that the work which had to be done in the children is finished, and therefore the father is not returning. "Then the scene changes and we are in a farm house. I look out the window to see fields of golden grain ripe for harvest. My eldest son, now radiantly happy, comes running into the house exclaiming that, for the first time, he has created for himself. His entrance was like magic, transforming the room, as all of my children began to use their talents - creating, laughing, animated, and alive. Before, like automatons, they had only obeyed the father by executing his will; but now that his work is finished, he has withdrawn himself, and they have become creators in themselves. 

What a beautiful experience. She saw the world in miniature form. The father's withdrawal is recorded as his death. He tells us: "Unless I die thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. A little while and you will see me no more; again a little while and you will see me as yourself." Having withdrawn to dwell within, it is from there that you move, and not from without. All that I - the father - am, you will know yourself to be. If God is the father of all life, then you are the father. If he is a creator, you are a creator. Whatever God is, you will know yourself to be. 

Now, God comes out of the desert with signs and wonders. The most outstanding sign is that of the fiery serpent, for everyone who sees it, lives. As your journey out of Egypt begins, the fiery serpent is released when the curtain is torn from top to bottom and all of the rocks are split. You are destined to fulfill scripture and, like me, know from personal experience that you are God the Father. I have shared my visions with you, telling you how true and wonderful the story of scripture really is and that there is only one way of salvation. Although unnumbered volumes have been written giving you many ways of redemption, there is only one. I am the way, and there is no other way. 

Matthew tells the story of his awakening in dramatic form. Claiming "they" awoke, saying: "Lord, we perish, save us." It is the unearthly wind which awakens you, and you are its cause. Awakening within your boat (your ark) you leave it behind as you enter an entirely different world as God the Father. Having purposely imposed the restriction of death upon yourself, knowing that you had the power and the wisdom to overcome it, you laid yourself down and fell asleep in the ark. And when the time is fulfilled, you awaken within that ark, come out, and witness the symbolism of your birth from above. A few months later you fulfill the 89th Psalm as you find David and your memory returns. 

In the Book of Samuel, Saul (the demented king) made a promise to anyone who would bring down the giant opposition to Israel that he would set his father free. (This is done by discovering the father of the son.) So Saul asks David to identify his father, and David says: "I am the son of Jesse, the I AM." So the father is set free when David brings down the giant, who - in your sleep of death - opposes you, and your memory returns as to who you really are. 

Although I answer to an earthly name and sign my checks with it, I know who I am! I can tell you who I am in the hope that you will believe me; but in truth, I am only addressing myself, for I am in you and you are in me, and we are one. Everyone will have the same experience and in the end we will all return to the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father. We will all return from the victorious march through death as the same God, but expanded beyond our wildest dreams because of this excursion of the mind into a world of death which seemed so final. I cannot promise that, if you accept this one hundred per cent you will not have a headache tomorrow, or that the boss will not fire you. But if you accept this, you will know that your boss had no choice in the matter. You will know that you caused the firing. Maybe your dreams transcended your present limited position in that business, and only by being fired could they be realized. 

One day I was fired from J. C. Penney Co. Working for a year and a half, running their elevator and being their errand boy, making $22. a week and paying $5. room rent, I could not understand it when they let me go. But my dreams, my desires, transcended my position there, so they had to do what they did in order for my desires to be realized. Believe me, you are the cause of the phenomena of your life - be it good, bad or indifferent. If, to you the news is distasteful, you are the dreamer of that distasteful storm. But the day will come when you will awake to discover that the storm is over. That there is only one cause, and that is awareness! I know it is easier to give advice and show the other person where he is wrong, than it is to acknowledge that he is only reflecting the wrong in you. It is difficult to accept the concept that the world is bearing witness to your thoughts, but it is true. If you do not like something or someone, do not look at it or them; look within to the one who is causing the image. 

There is only one God, one cause of all life. He is not only above all and through all; he is in all. The universally diffused individuality is in each one of us in his fullness. Dwelling in each individual bodily, the father sleeps until the storm is over. Then he awakens and rebukes the storm that he created during his sleep, and there is a great calm. If you will accept this as your philosophy of life, and not turn to the left or the right, but claim you are solely responsible for the phenomena of your life, you will find it much easier to live. But if, at times, life seems too hard to bear, and you find a secondary cause, you have created a devil. Devils and satans are formed from man's unwillingness to assume the responsibility of his life. To see another other than self, is to build a golden image. Asking a priest for forgiveness. Calling him father in spite of being told to call no man on earth father. Seeing him as an authority, man goes whoring after a man-made false image. 

Neville Goddard 10-28-1968

FREEDOM

When asked: "What is the greatest of all the commandments?" God answered: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Accept this commandment! Live by it and you will be free from all secondary causes. There is only one God. He is the father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. He is a universally diffused individuality whose name forever and ever is I AM. You may not be aware of who you are, what you are, or where you are; but by being aware, you are mentally saying I am. Every conscious being says I am; and if there is only one I am, then I am one individual - diffused! I am the sole cause of all that is. All things were made through imagining, and without awareness was not anything made that was made.

In the 8th chapter of Matthew, one of the miracles of scripture is recorded as an acted parable. It is said that when he entered the boat, he fell asleep and a great storm arose; so they woke him saying: "Lord we perish, save us." And he said: "Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. If there is only one cause, then he who quelled the wind and the sea is the one who caused the storm. There cannot be another. If there is confusion in your life, and you resolve it in your imagination, and the world bears witness to what you have done - you caused the change. And since there is no other cause, then did you not cause the confusion also? There is only one God and Father of us all who is above all, through all, and in all. If He is in every being who says I am, and there is only one God, no one can accuse another; for God's name is not he is, but I am. No matter what appears on the outside, I am its cause. Assume full responsibility for the things you observe, and if you do not like what you see, know you have the power to change them. Then exercise that power and you will observe the change you caused. If you are truly willing to assume that responsibility, you are set free.

If this universal diffused individuality is in all, then the incarnation must be regarded in a different light. We were taught that the incarnation took place 2000 years ago by a unique individual, who was the incarnate God. But I tell you: humanity is the incarnation. The central figure - personified as Jesus Christ - is the perfect archetypal figure everyone must express. He is called the true witness, the first-born of the dead. Now incarnate in your body of flesh and blood, you are dead in the sense that you have forgotten that you are the creator of all things, and do not see yourself creating anything you observe. The morning paper tells of what she, he, and they, are doing, and you cannot relate their actions to anything you have done; yet there is only one cause, only one God, who is resident in you as your awareness, your own wonderful human imagination.

The parable tells us that God entered a boat and fell asleep. Humanity is that boat, the ark where God the Father creates as he slumbers. Even though you do not know the people you read about, if the reading disturbs you, you are the cause of that conflict. All imagination, I am dreaming, causing the misfortune and unhappiness of those whose lives I have touched with feeling. When you awaken and recall your dream, do you always know the people there? Do you know the children that were yours in the dream? The people who frightened you? You never saw them before, so how could they be other than that which you caused? You do not recognize them, yet you - the dreamer - caused them to do what they did. The same thing is true here. If the actions of a seeming other cause a motor response in you, even though you do not know him, your awareness is the cause of the storm. But when you awake, memory will return and there will be a wonderful calm.

God, the universally diffused individuality, is asleep in everyone. His transcendent revelation is personified as one called Jesus Christ. Thus personification awakens the memory in you as to who God the Father really is. God did not break up the I am and give each one of us a portion of himself. He gave each one, individually, his whole being. I am cannot be divided, and I am God the Father. If you haven't yet discovered this, I am still asleep. In order to discover your fatherhood, you must find God's son, foretold to be yours. While asleep in the state of Saul, you do not recognize him; and when you ask: "Whose son are you, young man?" he answers: "I am the son of Jesse, the I am." When you awake and recognize God's son, David, are you not Jesse? Are you not God, whose name forever and ever is I am?

It takes David to reveal you to yourself; yet you were his father before you fell asleep. Now dreaming your life into being, you fight against seeming others, calling them devils and Satan. You endow your shadow world with causation, thereby becoming a divided being, when God is not divided. There is no devil. There is no Satan. There is no being outside of your own wonderful human imagination.

"I, even I am he. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and none can deliver out of my hand." (Deut. 52) "I am the Lord and there is no other God. I form the light and I create darkness. I make the weal and I create woe. I am the Lord and there is no other; besides me there is no God." (Isaiah 45) He who creates the evil, creates the good, the weal and the woe, the light and the darkness. He who kills is he who makes alive, and he who wounds is he who heals and there is no other God. If you really believe you are the one spoken of here - that it is you who create the evil, the good, the weal and the woe; that none can deliver out of your hand - then you are set free. You will never again believe in another, but know that your life is self-created. That you create the storms, as well as the peace and the calm. No longer will you believe he, she, or they, did it, for you will recognize them as reflections mirroring either the storm or the peace and calm within you.

Having entered the boat (called the ark) God fell asleep and there he remains until the dove brings him word that the flood of illusion is over. Dramatized as an acted parable, it is said that Noah put forth his hand and brought the dove into the ark with him. This is beautiful imagery and true. In my vision the dove descended through what appeared to be crystal clear water. He seemed to float, using his wings like a swan. Lighting upon my extended finger he smothered me with kisses as the vision came to its end.

Because everyone is the whole God, everyone will personify the perfect archetypal specimen called Jesus Christ. Lost in confusion, not knowing that humanity is the incarnation, men think of this archetypal specimen as the incarnate God. Yet the one grand commandment is: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." The word Israel means: the man who rules - not like a god, but as God, because he knows he is God. And the word translated “Lord” is I AM. Now let me translate it for you: Hear, O man who rules as God, the I AM, our I am is one I AM. We are not a bunch of little I am's. Our I am is the one I AM who is God the Father. If this is true, then God cannot be divided; and the whole of him is wherever you are, wherever I am. There is no he, she, or they, in I am!

If you will completely accept this, you will set yourself free. You may not immediately see the effect of what you have done in your imagination; but it must come, because there is no other creator to stop it. All things are made through awareness, and without it is not anything made that is made. It is imagination who claims: "I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. I form the light and create darkness. I form the evil and I make the good, the weal and the woe, and there is no other."

When the Jesuits speak of Satan, devils, and demons, it is because they do not know the greatest commandment. All of the Ten Commandments are based upon the negative thou shall not, except one, which is: "Love thy father and mother." The commandment found in the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, with ten words, contains all Ten Commandments in an entirely different presentation as: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

Maybe you cannot accept my words now. Perhaps you feel the need to blame another - to have a scapegoat and believe the cause to be something you ate or drank - but why did you do it? What caused you to do exactly what you did? A disturbance in you! The storm in you caused the gland to be out of kilter. The gland cannot be the cause of your distress, but your dream can. The world, not knowing the single cause, will try to find something on the outside; but there is no secondary cause!

I received a letter this week from a lady who shared this self-revealing dream, saying: "I am in a place totally devoid of comfort. There are no curtains at the windows or rugs on the floor. My sons - in clean overalls - are sitting in straight back chairs against one wall, while my daughters - in starched, long cotton dresses - it opposite them. Looking much like the Quaker children here, my children appear to be without emotion, without feeling, or creative abilities. We are waiting for father! A young boy enters with a message stating that the work which had to be done in the children is finished, and therefore the father is not returning. "Then the scene changes and we are in a farm house. I look out the window to see fields of golden grain ripe for harvest. My eldest son, now radiantly happy, comes running into the house exclaiming that, for the first time, he has created for himself. His entrance was like magic, transforming the room, as all of my children began to use their talents - creating, laughing, animated, and alive. Before, like automatons, they had only obeyed the father by executing his will; but now that his work is finished, he has withdrawn himself, and they have become creators in themselves.

What a beautiful experience. She saw the world in miniature form. The father's withdrawal is recorded as his death. He tells us: "Unless I die thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. A little while and you will see me no more; again a little while and you will see me as yourself." Having withdrawn to dwell within, it is from there that you move, and not from without. All that I - the father - am, you will know yourself to be. If God is the father of all life, then you are the father. If he is a creator, you are a creator. Whatever God is, you will know yourself to be.

Now, God comes out of the desert with signs and wonders. The most outstanding sign is that of the fiery serpent, for everyone who sees it, lives. As your journey out of Egypt begins, the fiery serpent is released when the curtain is torn from top to bottom and all of the rocks are split. You are destined to fulfill scripture and, like me, know from personal experience that you are God the Father. I have shared my visions with you, telling you how true and wonderful the story of scripture really is and that there is only one way of salvation. Although unnumbered volumes have been written giving you many ways of redemption, there is only one. I am the way, and there is no other way.

Matthew tells the story of his awakening in dramatic form. Claiming "they" awoke, saying: "Lord, we perish, save us." It is the unearthly wind which awakens you, and you are its cause. Awakening within your boat (your ark) you leave it behind as you enter an entirely different world as God the Father. Having purposely imposed the restriction of death upon yourself, knowing that you had the power and the wisdom to overcome it, you laid yourself down and fell asleep in the ark. And when the time is fulfilled, you awaken within that ark, come out, and witness the symbolism of your birth from above. A few months later you fulfill the 89th Psalm as you find David and your memory returns.

In the Book of Samuel, Saul (the demented king) made a promise to anyone who would bring down the giant opposition to Israel that he would set his father free. (This is done by discovering the father of the son.) So Saul asks David to identify his father, and David says: "I am the son of Jesse, the I AM." So the father is set free when David brings down the giant, who - in your sleep of death - opposes you, and your memory returns as to who you really are.

Although I answer to an earthly name and sign my checks with it, I know who I am! I can tell you who I am in the hope that you will believe me; but in truth, I am only addressing myself, for I am in you and you are in me, and we are one. Everyone will have the same experience and in the end we will all return to the one body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father. We will all return from the victorious march through death as the same God, but expanded beyond our wildest dreams because of this excursion of the mind into a world of death which seemed so final. I cannot promise that, if you accept this one hundred per cent you will not have a headache tomorrow, or that the boss will not fire you. But if you accept this, you will know that your boss had no choice in the matter. You will know that you caused the firing. Maybe your dreams transcended your present limited position in that business, and only by being fired could they be realized.

One day I was fired from J. C. Penney Co. Working for a year and a half, running their elevator and being their errand boy, making $22. a week and paying $5. room rent, I could not understand it when they let me go. But my dreams, my desires, transcended my position there, so they had to do what they did in order for my desires to be realized. Believe me, you are the cause of the phenomena of your life - be it good, bad or indifferent. If, to you the news is distasteful, you are the dreamer of that distasteful storm. But the day will come when you will awake to discover that the storm is over. That there is only one cause, and that is awareness! I know it is easier to give advice and show the other person where he is wrong, than it is to acknowledge that he is only reflecting the wrong in you. It is difficult to accept the concept that the world is bearing witness to your thoughts, but it is true. If you do not like something or someone, do not look at it or them; look within to the one who is causing the image.

There is only one God, one cause of all life. He is not only above all and through all; he is in all. The universally diffused individuality is in each one of us in his fullness. Dwelling in each individual bodily, the father sleeps until the storm is over. Then he awakens and rebukes the storm that he created during his sleep, and there is a great calm. If you will accept this as your philosophy of life, and not turn to the left or the right, but claim you are solely responsible for the phenomena of your life, you will find it much easier to live. But if, at times, life seems too hard to bear, and you find a secondary cause, you have created a devil. Devils and satans are formed from man's unwillingness to assume the responsibility of his life. To see another other than self, is to build a golden image. Asking a priest for forgiveness. Calling him father in spite of being told to call no man on earth father. Seeing him as an authority, man goes whoring after a man-made false image.

So what is freedom worth to you? If you stop short of the ultimate, you do not really want freedom. If you were enslaved, what do you have that you would not willingly give - in its entirety - to be set free? Do you really believe there is only one God, who is in you in his entirety, and his name is I am? You do, although you have forgotten who you are, where you are, or that you have a son; one day the wind will awaken you during a storm, and as you come out of the ark the storm will abate. Then memory will return, as he who has always been your son stands before you and calls you father, as scripture unfolds within; and then you will know that the eternal story was always there. It was a sealed book until it unfolded from within.

Let the world remain in the storm if they want to, but if you accept my words you will be set free from any secondary cause, and you who have been causing your storm will find peace and be truly set free.

Now let us go into the silence.ou and calls you father, as scripture unfolds within; and then you will know that the eternal story was always there. It was a sealed book until it unfolded from within. 

Let the world remain in the storm if they want to, but if you accept my words you will be set free from any secondary cause, and you who have been causing your storm will find peace and be truly set free. 

Now let us go into the silence.

A Movement Within God

Neville Goddard 10-16-1967

If you find yourself miserable or helpless here, may I tell you that you are not condemned to the state by a deity outside of yourself, for everything that takes place in your world is but a movement within God.

We are told that in the very beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and things came into being. Everything - your misery, your helplessness, your joy, your sorrow - no matter what it is, comes into being by a movement within God, and he is not a deity outside yourself. You are not a helpless being, but the operant power of God. Seated as you are now, you can move without moving physically because your eternal body is all Imagination. Called Jesus Christ in scripture, you are God’s power and wisdom. So if you find yourself in a place where you are miserable and feel helpless, it is because you either knowingly or unknowingly fell into that state, and not because of the condemnation of some deity outside of you.

Every conceivable situation that you could ever think of exists now as a fact in God but cannot be made visible to you until you occupy it, for you are God’s operant power. Everything in this world needs man as the agent to express it. Hate or love, joy or sorrow, all things require man to express it. We glorify or condemn the man, but he simply represents a state which God entered knowingly or unknowingly and remained there until the state was externalized. Everyone is free to choose the state he wishes to occupy. You imagined yourself into your present state. If you don’t like it, you must imagine yourself out of it and into another. It is all a matter of movement.

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

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

When I speak of Joshua or Jesus, I am not speaking of any historical creature, but the Christ in you who is the hope of glory! I am trying to get you to realize that Jesus Christ is in you as your own wonderful human imagination. So when I say: “God became Man that Man may become God” I mean: “Imagination became you that you may become all Imagination.” Man has difficulty associating Imagination with God. Somehow the word “God” denotes some being that created the world, yet remained apart from it, but when I use the word “Imagination” it is my hope that the separation ceases to be. May I tell you: the whole vast world is all imagination. Our realists think they are nearer to the truth, yet they do not realize they are dictating nothing more than their imagination. They laugh at those who are mystically inclined, but may I tell you: leave them alone and go your way in confidence that what you are imagining you already are, you will become.

You imagined yourself into the state you are now occupying, and you can imagine yourself into any state you desire to express. No outside deity moved you into the state of misery you are now expressing; you did it yourself because you forgot who you are. You are the being who conceived every state in the beginning and deliberately started your journey by moving into a state, for you are Jesus, the Lord.

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

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

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

May I tell you: it’s the same story over and over again. You are the only Christ, the only Lord, the Only God and Father of all! Having conceived the play, you are playing every part and each in his own wonderful time will play the part of Jesus Christ, for in the end we will all know that we are God. Then you will hate no one, for you will realize that we agreed to play all the parts while hiding behind the masks we wear. Now completely masked, we think we are many and do not recognize ourselves as the one who conceived and predicted the play of life.

You are not now in a fatalistic state. You fell into the state because it was arranged in the beginning that you could fall into and move out of every state. So keep on going and complete the play, for when the play is finished, you turn around and return to the very being you were in the beginning!

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

That is the world! You don’t know it, but when you are looking at a seeming other you are seeing an intimate being, one you knew in the beginning, one you will remember when all of the masks are removed - for we are all wearing masks in order to play this play called life. In this world Imagination plays the role of the weak man, the strong man, the poor man and the rich man, for the roles were conceived in the beginning by Imagination, and Imagination is playing all the parts.

You, imagining, are God - who is all Imagination. That’s all there is. The universe is nothing more than Imagination creating while it is fast asleep! You and I move from state to state, either deliberately (by knowing what we are doing), or unintentionally (by falling into a state as we read the headlines of the paper). Listen to the radio or watch TV tonight, and although you may know none of the facts, if you accept what is said you will fall into a state and buy things you do not need. You will fill your house with all kinds of trivia that you have no room for because Imaginations is operating! Someone conceived a plan to get you to empty your pockets and buy their products, and you will, because Imagination is sound asleep. And Imagination will continue the journey until you turn around and head for home by becoming more and more awake!

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

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

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

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

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

May I tell you: when you see infinite love you will see Man. You will see he who is the gathering togetherness of all! I will know you by the light and you will know me by the light; but when we know each other as One, it will be as Love, and that is Man. Everyone is gathered into the human form divine! Not one will be lost, for in the beginning we agreed to dream this world into being, in concert. Then we went our separate ways, to falling into different states of consciousness and blaming others for the discords in our world. That’s all right, for one day we will return and all the discords will be resolved into perfect harmony, as we expand beyond what we were prior to the play.

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

What did my brother do? He moved his imagination. He had no money when he purchased the building in 1922. Now, in 1967, I don’t think you could buy the family out for $25 million. I own ten per cent of the stock, but I do not know its value. I came here to tell you, not how to make money, but how to operate the law of identical harvest so that if everything is taken from you tonight you can rebuild it tomorrow. 

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

I have been sent to clarify scripture and take off the barnacles off the story called Jesus Christ. This is a small beginning, but what does it matter? You who hear me will tell the story and bring it back to somewhere near its original form, for the story as interpreted by the churches of the world is not anything near the truth. This morning I read Buckley’s column. I enjoy his use of words and I find him quite an interesting fellow. Today he wrote about the Bishop of Canterbury, saying: “I don’t believe the good Bishop would recognize a Christian if he met one, or scripture if he read it.” I don’t always agree with Buckley, but this time I agreed, after reading what he quoted the Bishop as having said. Now, this is not only true of the present bishop but of all the bishops I have met, whether they call themselves cardinals or popes, for their rituals, beliefs, and teachings are so far removed from the true story of Jesus.

I am here to tell you that God became you! How? By seeing the mask (one like you see in Africa or in Hawaii) and identifying himself with it. Now disguised as that which God wears, you can no longer see who you really are. But I tell you: the being behind the mask you now see as your brother, your sister, your wife, your husband and children - is a part of the elohim who created the play and is playing every part. One day that being will take off the mask and you will resurrect and leave your empty skull. So I say to my friend who saw the mask with the empty skull made of plastic: the day will come when you will ascend with one of us whose mask is already taken off, and pointing to that skull, you will say of it: “I once dwelt there.” Then you will know as I do that you were never the mask you wore. And in eternity we will all know each other and all be enhanced beyond what we were, by reason of the journey that we made.

Tonight you try this. Test it. Learn how to move. The test is simple. Just like my brother, take a simple little thing like asking yourself: “What do I want?” Now, looking at the world as you now see it, if you had what you wanted, would you continue to see the world as it is now? I doubt it. It need not be a change from where you live, but if there were a change you would see the world differently and, naturally your closest circle of friends would see a changed you. Well, begin to move in God by seeing your world from a different angle, and let your friends see you there. You are the operant power and move in your own being.

If you move from where you are to where you would like to be, you could detect that motion only by a change of position relative to another object. Motion in itself cannot be done without some frame of reference from which it moves. If your income had just been increased to say $30,000 a year from your present income of less than $10,000, how would you feel? How would your present circle of friends see you? Would they know it? Would they discuss it? Would they speak of the change in your life? Tell them, and then eavesdrop and hear your friends discuss you as one who is now making $30,000 a year. That’s a motion in God and that movement will produce results! Everything in this world is nothing more than the result of a movement in God, which is a motion in your wonderful imagination. The slightest imaginal act that is a change (I don’t mean just an act, for you can imagine things you don’t believe), but if you imagine something you believe is a change, a thrill is sent through divine being. At that moment you have actually entered another state and made it alive and real in your world!

Try it tonight. It costs you nothing, not even a nickel. But may I tell you that when you stand in the presence of the one being who is drawing all towards itself, you are sent into the world to tell them your fantastic story; and if they do not apply what you tell them, they become disillusioned and hate you who invited them to dream. I am sent to invite everyone to dream consciously, to dream deliberately, for this is a dream world. They say that where he comes, he is always rejected, for he tells man: “Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it and you will.” Anyone who makes that bold assumption and gets the confidence of those whose sphere he reaches, runs the risk of rejection, for when they try it and do not quite know how to do it, they become disillusioned and invariably hate the one who invited them to dream. That’s the risk every teacher who is sent must run.

But I tell you: it’s true anyway, and if one fails to bring their dream into being and becomes embittered, I say to myself: “How often must I tell them? Seventy times seven.” I must tell them until they really understand, and those who hear me, will carry my message forward. They will be heard and in the end we will all be gathered back into the one being, to know that we were that one being who conceived the play and took the plunge. So when we said in the beginning: “It is time for the play to begin,” not one of us failed to respond in the first person, present tense: “I AM”.

Now let us go into the silence.

The Roll of the Book

Neville Goddard November 1, 1968

David, speaking to us in the 40th Psalm, says: “Lo, I come to do thy will, O Lord, for in the roll of the book it is written of me.” And in 5th chapter of the Book of John these words are found on the lips of one called Jesus Christ: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness to me.”

Claiming the entire book is all about him, he begins with Moses, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, and interprets the scriptures as things concerning himself. You will find this method of interpretation the key which will unlock the innermost of revelations. Take any story and, regardless of whether the central figure is male or female, claim you are that being, that you are reading you own autobiography.

In the 25th chapter of the Book of Genesis, the Lord said to Rebecca: “Two nations are in your womb and two peoples born of you shall be divided. One shall be stronger than the other; the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days were fulfilled the first came out red and covered with hair, so they called him Esau. Then his brother Jacob came forth with his hand holding Esau’s heel.” Now we turn to the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi and read these words of the Lord: “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”

Put yourself in the role of Rebecca and try to find out who these two are that you have brought forth. Remember: if they came from your womb, they are housed within you. One to heaven doth aspire – that one you love, and one to earth doth cling – that one you hate.

These are not two little boys who lived thousands of years ago. The Bible is divine history, not secular. The characters described there are housed within you, within me, within every child born of woman. Speaking to man through the medium of dream, with every dream being both egocentric and protean, God plays all the parts, whether they be male, female or from the animal world.

Now let me share with you an experience which happened to me many years ago. Back in the early 1930’s I suddenly found myself confronted with two characters. Above me and to my right stood a beautiful angelic being, while below stood a monstrous hairy animal which looked like an orangutan. Speaking in a guttural voice he looked up at this heavenly being and said: “She’s my mommy.”

Repelled by the thought, I struck him and with each blow, he grew in strength. Then, from the depth of my own being I realized that these two were my creations. Speaking with a human voice and looking like an animal covered with hair, this monstrous being was the embodiment and personification of all of my misspent energies.

Every unlovely thought, every cruel, thoughtless act aided its growth. Whispering in my ear, influencing my decisions in order to feed its hunger, it fed on violence, while the angelic being was the embodiment of every kind and lovely thought I ever possessed.

Then I realized he had the right to live. By claiming to be the offspring of this heavenly being, he claimed to exist, but I knew he did not. He had no power of his own, only my power of awareness. Although he appeared to be detached and completely free of my perception, I knew I was the cause of his life. And as I pledged myself that I would redeem him, he melted and all of the energy I had given to create and sustain that monster, returned to me.

He not only dissolved, but left no trace of ever having been present. Today I can bring him back in memory, but he had no existence outside of myself. He was simply embodied energy; therefore, was he not Christ, the creative power of God? Is not Christ the bearer of all the sins in the world, allowing man to use or misuse him? It was my own creative power that I misused and Christ is the creative power of God. And only God can create and only God can redeem.

Now listen to these, the last words on the cross as recorded in the 23rd chapter of the Book of Luke: “Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit.” That is a portion of the 5th verse of the 31st Psalm, which reads: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Here we find God, the giver of the power, redeeming it, for his creative power cannot be lost, not in eternity.

When confronted by my misused power I simply redeemed it. Declaring itself to exist outside and independent of me, I knew it could not be, for there is no other, and as I redeemed all of my misspent energy it returned to me and the glorious one shone like the sun.

We are told in the 13th chapter of the Book of Revelation: “The beast was given a voice to utter blasphemies against God, against his name and his dwelling place, that is, those who dwell in heaven.” My monster uttered blasphemy, claiming divine right by declaring the heavenly being was his mother. Are we not told in the 10th [chapter] of John that he was accused of blasphemy because he dared to claim he was the Son of God?

Read the 13th chapter of John carefully and you will see that the dwelling place of God is made up of those who dwell in heaven, so that the entire redeemed society form the body of God. The angelic being I saw, personified that society, that dwelling place of God which is God, so my monster was taking God’s name in vain.

Now to some dreams. A gentleman’s letter came yesterday, in which he said: “In my dream I was standing on the sidewalk when I heard the words: ‘We will get him this time. He has been gone too long.’ Then a man resembling you, Neville, came by laughing, singing, and dancing.

As I watched, he walked up three or four flights of stairs and stood in the center of a brilliantly lit stage. Then the props began to move and I heard the sound of an iron gate closing, as a voice range out: ‘Your deception is at an end’ and I awoke.”

Looking at this dream on the surface you will think that I, a deceiver, am now behind bars and my deception is over; but let me quote scripture: “The creature was made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of him who subjected him in hope that the creature would be set free from this bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Every child born of woman is deceived, for this is a world of deception where everything deceives.

So let us look at this dream remembering that all dreams are egocentric, with the individual who is dreaming playing all the parts. Seeing the gay, happy man resembling he who is telling salvation’s story, indicates that you, the dreamer are on your way, that as you accept my words you leave the world of deception behind you. We are told: “The good news preached to us was preached to them.” It is the same news, but it did not benefit them because it was not received with faith when they heard it.

Many have heard salvation’s story, while only a few will accept it. If perchance, by your much coming you have accepted this as your way of life, and are willing to live by it regardless of what you hear to the contrary, then you find yourself free from the world of deception. Believing in the power of money, or being socially prominent, becoming famous, or the best dressed man or woman, the world plays the game of deception, forever deceiving themselves.

My friend saw a gay, happy spirit who tells a story of salvation that does not depend upon trying to be good or acquiring merit. That is all I asked you to do, to believe my words and live by them. You do not have to acquire merit in order to get into heaven; your acceptance of my story will take you right in. And when the time is fully come, heaven will unfold within you and you will leave this world of deception.

Another letter came, saying: “I found myself in what seemed to be an ancient world filled with throngs of people. Talking to three men, I looked down to find a little lamb at my feet. Picking it up, I said: ‘This is my baby’ and as I looked into the faces of the men, they smiled and I awoke.”

This is an adumbration, a foreshadowing. The lamb is the symbol of God’s great sacrifice, as told us in the very beginning of Genesis: “Father, I see the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Then Abraham answered: “God will provide himself (as) the lamb.” We are told in the 13th chapter of Revelation that everyone whose name was not written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb which was slain will worship the beast.

Everyone was written there before the foundation of the world, before becoming a dual being. There is an outer you who, being flesh and blood, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, so your outer name is not written there. But the inner you was there. Before the foundation of the world his name was recorded in the book of life of the Lamb.

This is not some emergency thinking on the part of God. The plan of salvation came before we entered. The whole thing was a plot, a plan of expansion. Her little lamb was an adumbration of the little child, the symbol of her birth from above.

Another letter came, saying: “I did my homework, as it were, by sitting in my living room and imagining something I want to experience here. After satisfying myself with the feeling that it was accomplished, I bathed in the feeling for a while, and as I did I felt myself become a ball of light.

Below me, stretching into infinity was an abyss which I also knew to be myself. As the ball of light, I moved in all directions, covering the abyss. Then I, the ball of light and I, the abyss began to contract. We became smaller and smaller until I felt myself enter my skull. Then I felt as though I was going to burst, so to stop it I opened my eyes and, returning to this world I broke the vision.”

Now this gentleman knows that no matter what appears in the outer world, it is taking place in heaven, which is in the skull. That’s where the drama unfolds, for that’s where God is buried. Having had this most marvelous experience, my friend now knows the truth of Blake’s vision, that 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: “I wonder if those who attend your meetings teach their children the art of revision. I taught it to my son when he was five. At the time he had quite a serious accident and was bleeding profusely. As I washed the wound, I told my son to go over the entire event, but to omit the scene where he was hurt. I explained that if he omitted that particular scene he would have nothing to cry about.

He did as I asked and immediately stopped crying. I continued to wash the wound and as the bleeding stopped I applied a loose bandage and my son returned to his play. Since that day, whenever my son – who is now seven – gets hurt, he revises the scene and omits the part where he gets hurt.

“While my wife was playing tennis she received a severe break to her ankle. We both revised the incident, and although she had to stop playing tennis for a while, the ankle healed rapidly with only the aid of an ace bandage, much to the amazement of the doctor.” If you have children, teach them the art of revision early so that the idea will become a habit, just like it has in this gentleman’s home.

Let us return now to the interpretation of scripture. Being all imagination, take any passage and put yourself in the central role, for in the volume of the book it is written of you. Don’t think of some man who lived 2,000 years ago. Christ in you is the hope of glory. That is the Christ of whom the scriptures speak.

Enter the state of Abraham as you read the story of Abraham and Sarah. Then become Sarah when she is the center, and Rebecca when she appears, for the Book is written of you! Do this and you will have the key which will unlock the most difficult passages of scripture.

Don’t give up. Dwell upon each story as though it were happening to you now, and your eyes will open. Visions will come and throw great light upon your understanding, like the vision I shared this night, the vision of the two nations within my womb – one an angelic female and one a monstrous male that had no right to live. May I tell you: when I pledged myself to redeem him I never felt such compassion before or since.

I knew I was the cause of that which had no right to be brought into being, and when I pledged myself that if it took eternity I would redeem it, the whole thing dissolved leaving not a trace behind to even suggest it once existed. And all of its energies returned to me, to be used wisely, not to be misspent anymore.

Everyone will one day confront their two nations, one stronger then the other, and the elder will serve the younger. Well, the first act of man recorded in scripture was a violent one. Cain killed Abel. Cain, the violent outer man comes first. Esau, a man covered with hair, came first while Jacob (the supplanter) came second. Esau, once redeemed, disappears and is replaced by Jacob, whose name is changed to “Israel” which means “one who rules as God.”

Always keep alive that which you love; your emanation is your dwelling place. The monster not only opened his mouth to utter blasphemies against the name of God, but against his dwelling place – that is, those who dwell in heaven. Heaven, made up of the redeemed, is that one dwelling place of God. Everyone, when lifted up and redeemed, will be incorporated into that one body of beauty and glory.

The monster, by claiming self-existence, takes the name in vain. He does not have any life outside of the one who, by the misuse of God’s creative power, caused him to come into being. When you see him you will know in the depth of your soul that you are the cause of his misfortune. He has no right to live, no right to exist, but you cannot kill him, he must be redeemed.

In the 13th chapter of Revelation, you are asked: “Who can prevail against the beast?” and in the 3rd chapter of Matthew it is said: “Do not resist the one who is evil.” In the world of Caesar that statement makes no sense, but the evil one you created in yourself is the cause of the one who is evil in the world of Caesar. The evil one in you whispers violence in your ear in order to be fed. So you are told not to resist him, for he thrives on your resistance.

When I pummeled my monster he so loved it, he grew in stature before my eyes, for as I beat him I fed him violence. Therefore, do not resist the evil one, but redeem him. When I pledged myself to redeem him I wasn’t saying it for the benefit of another, I was pledging myself, and as I did he melted away, as all of the power of my misused moments in time returned to me and I felt like a giant form of sheer redeemed power.

Take any story in scripture and claim you are playing the central role, for you are its center. There is no other being. There is only God and you are He. No matter what name is given to the central character, assume its role and the entire Book will unfold within you and you will know yourself to be the Lord Jesus Christ.

So do not turn back and believe in a God outside of yourself. Know like my friend that your deceiving days are over. You were made subject unto futility, not willingly but by reason of the will of Him who subjected you in the hope that you would obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God, for in freeing you He would free himself from this world of bondage to decay.

Man, made subject unto futility, piles up a billion dollars, struts and uses his power for three score and ten years only, to find that tomorrow his little soul is called. He doesn’t die, but passes through the gate called death to find himself restored to life in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in him.

To those who cannot follow him, he dies, but to himself he is about twenty, in the year 3,000 or 1,000, for it’s a closed book. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Life in a world just like this one will go on until God’s real purpose is fulfilled and that is when God’s image awakens within all of his sons. God has awakened within me, and will awaken in everyone, for all are destined to awaken in the image of the One.

Tonight, ask yourself what they were saying about you when you were called Abraham. Read your story carefully and let it unfold in you. Then one day the real drama will unfold and from that moment on, when you put your head on the pillow you will no longer enter the border land of dream, but go beyond this age to enter an entirely different world. Still tied here, however, you will return day after day until your work is finished.

Now, many of you have recently been having visions of my departure. They are all symbolical. One lady was listening to me speak on the law when suddenly I left the garment on the stage. Standing lifeless behind the podium a silence filled the room so thick that it could be cut with a knife. Then I returned and with great difficulty re-entered the garment and finished my statements on the law.

May I tell you: although there are many things here I love, I wish her vision were true on this level. But she conjured me in her vision because I am the one in the outer world who introduced her to this law of God. As far as she is concerned there is little, if anything I could tell her concerning the law, so I have departed from that aspect of teaching her. All I can share with her now are aspects of the Promise, which I have done in my book, Resurrection.

Today I noticed that my book was copyrighted in 1966. It was on the 10th day of October in 1966 that a wooden peg was nailed upon my shoulder, whereupon the responsibility of telling the story hangs. I have now told it as it has never been told before.

When I depart there will now be a record of how God unfolds in man. I have told it as clearly and as simply as I am capable of doing in that chapter called “resurrection.” My work is finished, so He came and severed the sleeve of my tunic exposing the arm of God and fulfilling the 32nd and 53rd chapters of Isaiah. “Who has believed my report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

The right arm is the symbol of the power of God. Having unfolded the entire drama of Christ within me, He gave me the power to record it so that the unborn tomorrows will read my words and wean themselves from the traditions of men. Believing that unless a tremendous effort is made to acquire merit, the Kingdom of Heaven is unattainable, men have been led astray.

The Kingdom is entered simply by hearing the story of salvation and believing it. You need never see the inside of a church, but if you hear salvation’s story and live by it, scripture will erupt within you and the role of the central character in scripture, called Jesus Christ, is yours.

In the meantime, take a passage of scripture and, putting yourself in the center, let the story unfold. Do that and you will understand its meaning. And always remember that a dream is egocentric and protean. Proteus was the legendary god of the sea who, in the service of Neptune, could assume any shape or form.

You, the dreamer, are God assuming many shapes and forms in order to fulfill your dreams. God is the author of the drama and the actor. In your day dream I play the part of your teacher of the Word of God, so I could appear in that role in your night dream. But bear in mind: dreams (day and night) are yourself made visible. You are the dreamer dreaming the dream of life.

One day you will meet your monster on the threshold of consciousness, for he is attached to you although you cannot see him. And when you dissolve him by your compassion and love, he will not evaporate into space, but will return to you. I can’t tell you the thrill when you experience that union!

At the very end of the journey you will find these symbols coming into your world and you will say: “Into thy hands I commit my Spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” Having misused His power in His slumber, when He awakes God redeems Himself. And His last cry on the cross is: “Father, into thy hands I commit my Spirit!”

Now let us go into the silence.

Is it Wrong to Manifest Your Specific Person?

When I first got into the Law of Assumption, I was a little bit worried about manifesting a specific person.

I thought that maybe it would be wrong to manifest a specific person and that it would be playing around with someone else’s free will.

I was also worried that if I “manifested” someone and “manifested” someone’s love for me that it would mean their love wasn’t really real and that I just manipulated and manifested their love instead.

I thought manifesting someone was manipulating their own feelings and it would mean that they really didn’t truly love you and they would only be loving you because you manifested them into loving you.

When I manifested my crush texting me, all I wanted to do is make sure everything came directly from him and that I wasn’t influencing him or manipulating the energy in order to make him fall in love with me. I wanted him to love me just the way I was and not because I had been working on manifesting a relationship with him.

To put these thoughts to rest, I turned to Neville Goddard, the founder of the Law of Assumption.

Here’s what Neville Goddard said that really helped me to understand that manifesting your specific person isn’t wrong or unethical:

"Everyone is yourself pushed out, so when you imagine you are influencing yourself."
– Neville Goddard

Everyone is yourself pushed out.

So when I am trying to manifest my specific person, I am not doing anything to change him.

I am only using the Law of Assumption, by imagining and assuming that we are already in a relationship together, but in reality, I am changing, transforming, and influencing myself.

And I am influencing the way he sees me.

So, if I imagine that my specific person is obsessed and in love with me, then that means I am influencing myself and I am becoming obsessed with myself and I am loving me.

Everything that I am doing to try to manifest my specific person is really about me trying to influence their perception of me, but in reality, it’s my perception of me that I am changing.

I am believing and knowing that I am the one.

I am special.

I am amazing.

I am smart.

I am hot.

I am sexy.

I am confident.

I love me.

When you are using your imagination to manifest something or someone, you are changing and transforming yourself.

You are not changing them. You are changing you so that the outer world can reflect this change.

And you are not manipulating or controlling the other person. You are only changing what is being reflected back to you by changing the way you see yourself.

Here is another great quote by Neville Goddard:

Stop trying to change the world since it is only the mirror. Man's attempt to change the world by force is as fruitless as breaking a mirror in the hope of changing his face. Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself. -Neville Goddard

In my book, How to Manifest Your Specific Person, you will be transforming your identity and your self-concept to be the person who is already in a relationship with your SP.

You are transforming your identity and your self-concept to be someone who is already in a relationship with your SP.

So, the only person you are changing is yourself and you are changing your mind about yourself so that everyone else will conform to your new self-concept. 

You have been doing this all of your life with the perceptions that you hold about yourself and others, but you were not consciously aware that you were doing it. 

So when you manifest a specific person that matches what you’ve been imagining and embodying, you have only manifested and attracted the reflection of the change that you made within yourself. 

You are changing your identity so that others reflect this change that you made within. 

Since this is a process of changing your self-concept and your identity, there is nothing wrong with manifesting your specific person.

But, before you start manifesting your specific person, it’s important that you feel safe and secure about manifesting them and that you don’t have any wonky energy surrounding manifesting them.

Grab my book, How to Manifest Your Specific Person, so you can get all of the worksheets and the exact steps you need to take in order to attract and manifest your specific person.

And remember, you are not manipulating or controlling them. You are simply changing yourself so that the outer world reflects this change.

Conception

Neville Goddard 03-11-1968

Tonight’s subject is on conception, both on this level and the highest level. The Bible is vision from beginning to end. Words such as Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and Isaac are used, but their stories are visions. Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture, so when I speak of Jesus, I am speaking of you raised to the level where you can make the same bold statement. Jesus’ declaration that he was the fulfillment of scripture required a spiritual maturity of which most who heard his claim were not capable of understanding, but the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture.

Tonight I will speak of conception which leads to scripture’s fulfillment, as well as the shadow it casts in this world, for the same technique can be used to realize your objectives here.

There is only one Spirit. The Spirit of Man and the Spirit of God are the same. God’s first great conception is recorded in the Old Testament as a foreshadowing of the event described in the first chapter of the Book of Luke, which tells the story of an angel of the Lord who speaks to Mary, saying: “Fear not, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and bear a son and call his name Jesus.” Wondering how this could be, since she had no husband, the angel explains the theory of supernatural conception, saying: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God.” Now, the phrase, “come upon” and the word “overshadow” are the same by definition, and mean “superimposition; to be superimposed upon leaving your imprint, your seal.”

In the 33rd chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Lord speaks to Moses, saying: “I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand, and when I have passed by I will remove my hand and you will see my back. You cannot see my glory, but you will see my back.” This is the identical story of the angel and Mary. “I will put you in a cleft of the rock.” In Hebrew the word “cleft” means “to bore; to penetrate; to pierce a quarry.” And the phrase “I will cover you with my hands” means “copulation.” Here is the creative act stated in the New Testament as: “The power of the Most High will overshadow you” for this act is “superimposition of oneself upon a being.”

To illustrate my point let me share an experience of a friend who is here tonight. On the 5th day of March, just a few days ago, she said: “I found myself awake within a dream, sitting on a slab in a huge room, sterile and brilliantly lit. I knew it was a morgue, for I could see many girls to my right, each lying on a slab, appearing to be dead. A door opened and you, Neville, dressed as a physician and your nurse, a lady with very black hair, entered. As our eyes met I knew that you had had union with every one there, even though they appeared to be dead, and I also knew that I was next. Then a vivacious young girl entered the room and placed herself on a slab next to mine. Questioning her as to the whereabouts of your wife, I was told that she was sleeping in the next room. Upon hearing this, the nurse smiled and I recognized her as your wife, but wearing a wig. Embarrassed because of the knowledge of what was about to take place, I turned to the girl, who said: ‘If you don’t want him, I’ll take him,’ and with that the embarrassment turned to anger, and I said: ‘Oh no! It is my turn.’ Then union took place and I said to myself: ‘He is like a stallion. How does he do it?’ and the vision came to its end.”

This vision has tremendous meaning, for God speaks to man in dream and reveals himself in vision. This was vision, for she was awake in the dream.

It is difficult for man to understand that God’s creative power is personalized; that anyone raised from the dead and incorporated into the body of love is Jesus Christ, creating! In her vision everyone appeared to be dead, yet union had been consummated. All things are possible to God! By burying his creative power in them, he turns death into sleep and sleep into wakefulness and wakefulness into resurrection.

Now, those who slept on the marble slabs were as Moses on the rock. The world “cleft” used in this statement means “to bore; to pierce; to penetrate a quarry.” God sends his creative power into this world of death to penetrate the dead. They will conceive and bear his child and call him Jesus. The words Jesus, Joshua, Jehovah all have the same root, which means “salvation.” And if the child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son of God, then God must have fathered him. He cannot be the Son of God were he not fathered by God. People think that Man is not God, but I tell you that Man is all Imagination and Imagination is God. And when your Imagination is raised from this world in which it is buried, your creative power is used to impregnate the dead and bring them out as God.

It seems insane on a certain level, but I am telling you what I know from experience, and just as God impregnates the dead on a higher level, you can impregnate a dead state on this level. Think of a state and you are its spectator. And the state will remain dead relative to you until you penetrate it, until you approach it on your fiery chariot of imaginative power. An egg, whether it be human or that of a chicken, is dead and will remain so forever until the sperm penetrates it. The sperm must penetrate and occupy the egg in order to fertilize it, and then in its own given time the shell is broken and out comes that which was the sperm that penetrated it.

A state is penetrated through the act of assumption. Assuming you are now in the state you want to externalize, you think from it and no longer of it. Thinking from, you have penetrated the state. This penetration is still the mystery of all mysteries. Man has discovered how to go to the moon, place cameras in space, yet no matter what he knows concerning the mysteries of the universe, man cannot understand how an egg can be penetrated without a hole either before or after penetration. Well, your imagination is that sperm. You do not have to open doors to get into any room; you simply enter by assuming you are in it. Look at the world from it and feel what you want to feel, and the room has been penetrated. Now remain there until you feel relief. Of all the pleasures of the world, relief is the most keenly felt. So when you enter into (penetrate) a desire, remain there until satisfaction is felt, until you have expelled the sperm right into the state.

The Lord told Moses he would cover him with his hand, which is his creative power. To cover is to copulate. Having covered you with his creative power, you are told that he removes it. In other words, you don’t have to remain in that state. You are to go in and fertilize it, then remove your hand by returning your creative awareness to the former state.

Now it is said that you only see the back of God, but not his face. The lady who wrote the letter saw God’s face, for she was awake. All of the others were apparently dead, totally unaware of what had happened to them; so when the child is born it will come suddenly, as they will have no knowledge of conception. But they have conceived, because God never fails in his penetration, and they will all bring forth the child called the Son of God, as the symbol of their individual birth.

The lady who wrote the letter was awake when union took place, so she knows when it happened. I urge her to record this experience in her Bible next to the 35th verse of the 1st chapter of Luke. Mark it down: “On this day I conceived of the Holy Spirit.” It will take thirty years! Should she drop dead now, it will not stop the conception. Rather she would find herself clothed in a body just like her present one - young, new, wonderful, with nothing missing, for she has not conceived physically, but in her soul. The soul is God’s emanation, his wife ‘til the sleep of death is past. That’s where conception takes place, and from my own experience I say: birth will come about in thirty years. We are told Jesus began his ministry when he was about thirty years of age.

Everyone is fulfilling scripture, for everyone is Jesus Christ, he who comes only to fulfill what he foretold he would do. Taking upon himself the limitations of man (the limit of contraction and opacity) God fulfills scripture. It doesn’t matter what the individual does for a living - whether he is a mason, a carpenter, a lawyer, a banker, a billionaire, or a pauper; the question is: is he fulfilling Scripture, for only as he fulfills scripture can he leave this world of death and enter the kingdom of heaven. God foretold what he was going to do, and then he became it. Scripture is the recordation of vision from beginning to end. It is not secular history. The characters recorded there did not live as you and I do. They are the personifications of states in which you and I, the immortal being called God, pass through as we fulfill scripture.

The story told in the 33rd chapter of Exodus is a foreshadowing of that which is fulfilled in the 1st chapter of the Book of Luke, as the angel explains the theory of spiritual or supernatural conception. In the Old Testament it is said: “I will cover you with my hand.” If you take a good Hebrew dictionary you will discover this means copulation.

I know in my own case, when I stood in the presence of the Risen Lord, as we embraced we fused together. In the vision of this lady, everyone (save the physician) was female, so the fusing took place in a way that is normal for woman; but the union is not physical. Being the power of God, the image of God (which is the seed within him) is buried in the soul. Everyone appeared to be dead, and by this act God awakens the dead. We are urged to “Rise! Awake, O sleeper and rise from the dead.” In this statement the dead and the sleeper are equated. In her vision the ladies were so asleep they seemed to be dead, but she knew union had taken place with all of them. This is the part the Risen Christ is sent to play. It does not take place on this level, for his energies are turned up into regeneration. The part he plays takes place in a remote area of the soul. 

Now on the 20th of October, my friend Benny experienced the birth of the child. Last night Benny called to tell me that he saw David on the 6th day of March, the very day I foretold it would happen. He has promised to write the dream in detail to me, but this is what he told me over the phone: “In my dream I was invited to a party attended by many children and their parents. Suddenly the parents disappeared, leaving me alone with the children. As I looked around I noticed a lad about fourteen years of age walking toward me. Instantly I recognized him as David, and as I looked into his eyes I knew that he recognized me as his Father. Speaking directly to me, he said: ‘I know our Father will never leave us.’ Then the dream ended.”

Here is the fulfillment of scripture. You see, God does not imitate, he does not repeat himself. In each case the same story is fulfilled, but is unique to the individual and never duplicated. Scripture says: “I go unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Here is the plural: “Our Father will never leave us.” The earthly fathers left, but the Spiritual Father will never leave us. Now I will prophesy for Benny. On the 8th day of July he will be split from top to bottom and ascend into heaven in serpentine form!

I tell you: we are only here to fulfill scripture. I don’t care what you do in this world. If you sit in the White House tonight as the president of our great country you will exercise enormous power, but it would be as nothing compared to what you will experience when you have fulfilled scripture, and of this fulfillment you cannot fail! What can it matter what you accomplish in the outer world when you leave it all to go through the little gate called death? And no one knows the furnaces still to be experienced before the birth of the child!

But may I say to my friend who wrote the letter: you may depart this world in less than thirty years, but you will not falter. Benny is only about thirty years old now, so he has no memory of the conception; but no one can choose the time, for everyone is chosen. “You did not choose me, I chose you, for no man comes unto me save my Father calls him and I and my Father are one.” No one can tell the secret of God’s elective love, but when you are full of power, you are called. You don’t volunteer, but are drafted, drawn into the state to reach its climax in thirty years!

To tell this to a vast audience would be the height of insanity, as they would not understand what I am talking about. But I tell you: your dreams, visions and experiences are symbols which you either accept and interpret or reject as an illusion, for there is nothing but God, who is your own wonderful human Imagination! There is only one Spirit in this wonderful universe. The being that maintains it all is the same being that maintains you! There is no other. “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.” (William Blake)

And all things are possible to God! Just as an egg is penetrated, conceives, and is raised from the dead into a living state by bringing forth the express image of its person, if you bring forth the Son of God, you must have been fathered by God! My friend was awake within the dream, so she is aware of her marvelous conception. If she departs this section of time before the thirty years it will make no difference, for unlike the children here, where a miscarriage is possible, she cannot lose the child!

I have read books on sex symbolism in the Bible where these great scholars consider this passage in Luke to be pornography. If you read it on that level you will see God as a creator, creating. Every child born of woman is God creating, for he is the creator of all. But when he calls you from above, your energies are reversed and spring from above, while the energies of this world spring from below, so you move from generation to regeneration.

Now let me come back to this level and show you how to go about realizing your objectives. What you want, be it health, wealth, or fame, is only a state. Think of the state as an egg containing everything necessary to externalize itself, but dead and must be penetrated and fertilized in order to break the shell and become what the world calls reality. Let me illustrate. As I stand here before you, I desire and will assume that I am in San Francisco, approximately 500 miles from here. (I think I know this city well, but I don’t have to know a city in order to assume a state.) Putting myself in a familiar hotel lobby, I sit there and think of the world relative to the lobby in which I am now seated. While I am here I feel its reality; I feel the satisfaction of being here, the very place I wanted to be. The moment I feel the relief of being here, I have released the necessary sperm, or energy, into that dead state. Then I return to Los Angeles, but in that short period of time I have gone and prepared the experience. Now I will move across a bridge of events which will compel me to go to San Francisco. I may have no desire to go, but I will; for I have prepared the place, occupied it, and although I returned to where I was and later may resist the going, I cannot stop it, for I have created it and I will fulfill what I have done.

Now you can do this with everything. An objective, a desire, is an egg, which you can penetrate and occupy. You can move right into it and view the world from it. Don’t think of it; view the world from it, which implies that you are in it. Then feel the relief, the satisfaction, of being there. Do this and no power in the world can stop you from realizing that state. You may regret what you did, but you will fulfill it anyway. Learn your lesson and try not to do that which you do not want to experience in the future.

Everything is waiting for you to penetrate, as everything is in the cleft rock. Your desire is just as dead as a rock, so you penetrate it by going right into it, occupying, and viewing the world from it. Then, feeling the relief of being in it and the satisfaction of accomplishment, turn your back on it knowing you have done it, and allow it to objectify itself in your world.

That is a creative act on this level, just as my friend saw the creative act on another level. It frightens people just to think of this, because our moralists have the strangest concept of God. When two people love each other deeply and that love is consummated, is that something apart from God when God is love? I wish everyone would read Blake and see what he thinks of the so-called moral virtues, of those who distort the vision of Jerusalem, this wonderful being of liberty.

Tonight, know what you want and go right in and occupy it. Don’t ask anyone’s permission; just put yourself into the state you desire to experience by asking yourself this question: “How would I feel if I saw the world from that state?” Do you know you can put yourself into any state? My son actually put himself into the state of war by reading a book about Guadalcanal and falling in love with the pictures of the natives there! He certainly didn’t enjoy his experiences while there, but he asked for it. You see: nothing happens by accident. Everything that happens in the world does so because you and I set them in motion, whether we do it wittingly or unwittingly.

Again, I wanted to share my thrill with all of you in Benny’s wonderful experience of seeing David, and this lady’s vision of being sired. I promise her it will take thirty years - but what is thirty years in eternity? What is thirty years when you bring forth the Christ child? May everyone have it! God doesn’t have just one stallion; he has a wonderful stable full of those who are the resurrected Christ, those whose power has been raised from the dead and turned around from generation to regeneration. He selects those who are to be saved and sends them, under command to play the part of the creative power of God.

Believe me, God is Man. “Thou art a Man, God is no more. Thine own Humanity, learn to adore.” Everything is Man. About 4:00 o’clock this morning I saw a six-story, stark white building in vision, and as I looked at it, it became a Man. It took on the human face. All the mountains, rivers, valleys -everything is Man, and when you are awake you commune with them as friends. You walk into all the areas of the world to discover that everything is God and God is Man.

Now let us go into the silence.

8/8 The Lion’s Gate Portal

The Lion's Gate Portal that takes place today, 8/8, is the most powerful day to manifest your desires.

You can manifest on any day, but August 8th is the annual alignment of the Leo Sun and the star Sirius.

This alignment means there is an increased energy flow between the spiritual and physical planes making it an amazing day to manifest your desires.

How to Use the Lion's Gate Portal to Manifest Your Desires:

Take time today to focus on your desires so that you can manifest them into your reality.

Pull out your journal and a pen and make a list of all of the things you would like to manifest.

Be very clear and concise on exactly what you want to manifest.

Imagine Already Having Your Desires Now

After you are done listing out each desire, take time to imagine already having each manifestation now.

If you want to manifest a specific car, imagine that you already own that car.

If you want to manifest your crush asking you out, imagine going on a date with your crush.

You can imagine each scene while meditating or taking a bubble bath.

Stay in the State of Wish Fulfilled

Once you have imagined everything, your job is to stay in the wish-fulfilled state and know that it's already done.

Keep embodying the state of already having your desires now.

Want to manifest a big wad of cash?

Imagine and embody the feelings of already having that big wad of cash now.

It's done!

Want to take your Lion's Gate manifestation ritual a step further?

Take a look at all of my manifestation products that will help aid you in manifesting your desires in my Lion's Gate Portal sale here: The Lion's Gate Sale​

The Lion's Gate Sale ends on Saturday, August 12th.

xo Nina

Eschatology - The Drama of the End

Neville Goddard 04-05-1968

The word "disciple" means "learner", and anyone who hears God's pattern of salvation from one who has experienced it and believes, hungering to learn more, is a disciple. Tradition tells us Peter, James, and John were disciples. No, you are a disciple if you believe my words!

Now, when I speak of Jesus, I am speaking of the pattern man, for "He has made known unto me the purpose of his will which he set forth in Christ as a plan (a pattern) for the fullness of time." That pattern has unfolded in me and I can tell you from experience: Jesus Christ is the unfoldment of the Father and the Son. If you believe me, you are my disciples.

Now, I have a few perfectly marvelous eschatological dreams to share with you. Here is an experience of one who heard and believes. This is his dream: He said: "You were on the platform, teaching. Although you smiled at me there was great intensity in your eyes. Taking a golden arrow from your side, you placed it in your bow and shot it directly at me. As it came toward me I could read the word, "resurrection" imprinted upon it as it penetrated my forehead. Then you shot a second arrow, which read "David" and it penetrated my chest. The third arrow carried the word "ascension" and it penetrated my belly, touching my spine. The fourth arrow carried no word, only a white dove, and as it hit me I felt as though every pore of my body had been struck. I have never known such ecstasy of love before. I felt like a spiritual fountain of pure, pure love." 

"The following night in a dream, a man I have never seen approached me. Radiating love he said: 'I am preparing a great feast and I will come on the seventeenth to take you with me.'"

Now this could literally mean the seventeenth, but in symbolism seventeen is a marvelous number. In Hebrew you do not write the number seventeen as "one-seven," but "seven-ten," denoting greater importance. This number first appears in the 37th chapter of Genesis as "Joseph was seventeen years old." Then in the 47th chapter of Genesis, Joseph and his father are taught by Jacob [sic] for seventeen years. So seventeen, denoting a combination of seven and ten, is broken down to read: seven - as spiritual perfection, and ten - as order perfection. In this gentleman's preceding vision the order was perfect, beginning with resurrection, then David, the ascension, and finally the dove who smothered him with love. Here is order perfection and spiritual perfection! I can say to him tonight: the arrows have penetrated you and nothing can stop them from reaching their destiny in the world beyond the world of dreams. You are a complete being now, as the pattern is buried in you; and in the not-distant future Jesus Christ, the pattern man, will unfold from within.

Now, the earliest gospel begins with these words: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ." The world "gospel" means "good news", not "good advice." So the gospel is "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ," the good news of how God actually becomes Man that Man may become God. That's the good news I share with all.

Here is another dream: This lady found herself walking with members of the group who attend these lectures. Coming towards them were groups of people moving as though being conveyed by a power not their own. The first group was dressed in black with shawls covering their heads. They seemed to be a mournful group with many of them crying. They appeared to be Catholic to her. The next group wore stern, uncompromising faces. Representing religious fundamentalists, they were self-righteous and without compassion. They were followed by a friendly group of men and women, animated, smiling, and asking questions, as seekers often do. When questioned by this group, the lady said: "You will find who you really are and who God really is, and when you do you will know it is all here." And with that remark she extended her right index finger and pointed to her forehead. Then she ran to join the group as she awoke.

In the earliest gospel you will discover that the turning point is repentance. The very first words spoken by the pattern man are: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel." Believe the good news that you have heard from me. To repent is to radically change your mind. Regardless of what you believe, when God's pattern of salvation is presented, can you accept it? Can you completely turn from the belief in a physical Christ on the outside, to the belief in a man of spirit on the inside? Or are you like the foolish Galatians, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Do you know what the word "portray" means? "To make a picture of; to describe in words; to play a part like a drama on the stage." Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified; so "Let me ask you only this, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having received the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?"

Repentance is turning around from the belief of a fleshly being called Jesus Christ, to the spirit that is Christ, the pattern man who is trying to awaken in you. Turn around by exercising your right to change your mind. Dare to believe the opposite, in spite of the facts that seem to be screaming at you. This is what I call "revision" and the Bible calls "repentance". To revise is to repeal and if you have repealed a thing you have changed it. You can modify your concept of Christ and not completely change it by holding onto a little bit of the physical nature; but eventually you will drop it and turn around to start moving upward with the spiritual Christ, as the pattern which must unfold in all, unfolds in you.

Now here is another dream. This lady writes: "In my dream I am at a neighbor's house which is filled with numerous people. Suddenly realizing it is my responsibility to feed them all, as I extend my hands everyone is fed. Feeling detached and no longer a part of the group, I depart to discover a shovel, a pitchfork, and a rake have been placed in front of my house. Entering the house I find a friend there whose husband has been dead for many years. Smiling at me, she says: 'My husband wants to see you.' Going to the window and looking out I watch my friend's husband, wearing a uniform of either a general or a colonel, bring the most beautiful white horse I have ever seen into my house." (The only one who rides a white horse in scripture is the Word of God called Jesus Christ. The white horse is hers, for she has the implements used to care for one: a shovel, a pitchfork and a rake.)

As her dream continued, someone gave her a very friendly white dog, which weighed exactly sixty pounds. Taking an oval basket about 14" long, she made a little bed and placed the dog in it on its back. Then she covered it with a blanket, and as she tucked the blanket around him, he felt just like a baby. (A dog is the symbol of faith. Called "Caleb" in scripture, he is the only one who crosses over Jordan into the Promised Land with Joshua, the Hebraic name of Jesus.) Faithful to the pattern man, she felt the child that is promised and it didn't seem strange at all. Awakening to discover it was 6:00 o'clock in the morning, she said to herself: "I must remember the dream in detail," then she fell asleep again.

Suddenly a man is standing before her. Bending forward he removed the top of his head and said: "Look into my skull." As she looked, instead of seeing brains she saw a tiny head the size of a pin. It was perfectly formed and wearing a crown, and as she looked it seemed to grow. Then the man stood up and said: "Feel my head" and when she did, it was soft like a pillow. She then began to tell him how imagining creates reality, when he spoke, saying: "If a surgeon does not come immediately, my head will split open and I will imagine myself out of this world." Here is a perfect vision which is all scripture: The white horse (that's revelation - the whole unfolding from within) and the child in the skull.

Another lady writes, saying: "I was looking at a deep cavern in the earth watching water running into it as though from a long trough. A child, about eight months old, was sitting on its bank looking at his extended hands. You, Neville were standing high above us, looking down at the child and me. Then I heard the words: 'Can a man bear a child?' and I awoke repeating that question over and over again." Those are the very words you will find in the 30th chapter of Jeremiah, and when you begin to express scripture you are at the very end of your journey.

All of the dreams I have shared with you tonight are eschatological. Here is another one. This lady finds herself in a huge corral with an awareness of being the center of unlimited expanse. The corral gate is open, and hanging on the top of the gatepost is half of the carcass of a human being. It seemed natural for it to be there and as she looked the feeling of infinite freedom possessed her.

In the 26th chapter of the Book of Exodus, the 12th verse refers to the half curtain. The significance of the curtain is given in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, the 20th verse: "He opened a new and living way through the curtain that is his flesh." The flesh she saw represented the curtain of the temple, which is torn from top to bottom in order to free yourself from the world of sin and death and enter the new and living way of life. And with this experience, freedom is yours.

Now another lady wrote saying she dozed off for just a few moments to find herself in a small boat in a turbulent sea. There was no steering gear and no sails, just the mast and a crossbar like a cross on a crown. She was in the nude, and climbing the mast she extended her arms on the crossbar to use her body as the sail, that which would give power and direction towards a haven.

This experience has tremendous significance. Let me quote the 7th chapter, the 2nd verse of Daniel: "I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the deep sea." The Hebrew word translated "stirring up" is translated "labor" in the 4th chapter, the 10th verse of Micah as "like a woman in labor." So I say to her: my dear you are in labor. You sat in your chair and nodded for seemingly only a moment, but in that short interval of time you saw the depth of your own being (who is you) now in labor bringing forth God's power and wisdom, called Christ.

I can't tell you my thrill when I receive all of these letters. Every one of them is eschatology, denoting the end of the drama. That's all that matters, for the purpose of life is to fulfill scripture.

Tonight our whole country is disturbed because of the death of a man by a man; yet I tell you: the man who was killed and the man who killed him are one, and both will be gathered together in the bosom of the Risen Lord as intimate brothers. Having played their parts in this world, they will know themselves to be brothers, with a love transcending anything known to man on earth. They did not know it, nor does the world know it, but one being played both parts and that being is God. And maybe this death (unless violence erupts and takes away its significance) will foster and further what he stood for far quicker than anything else. If on the other hand there is a denial of the sacrifice, it will again be delayed. But he of one race who was killed and he of another race who killed him are both one, for in Christ there is no bond, no free, no Greek, no Jew, no male, no female, no black, no white, no yellow, no pink, no red, just one…all are one!

So what I am trying to say is that the culmination of the teaching of Jesus Christ is found in the thought of a mystical union of the one who hears and believes, with the Father and the Son. This is brought about through the Spirit. When you receive the Spirit by hearing with faith, you will no longer see a physical savior on the outside, for you (the son) will have found your Father (your savior) to be your very self.

I pray this night as John did in his glorious 17th chapter, saying: "O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these believe that thou hast sent me. I have made known unto them thy name, I will make it known that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them." Where can I go if I am going to the Father and the Father is in you? So when I go I will never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. If I go to the Father and I and my Father are one, where can I go? And when I come to you it will be to unfold myself (which is the pattern) in you. Don't look for me to come as flesh and blood on the outside, but as the pattern unfolding from within! In the end all will awaken to be the one body, the one Lord, one hope, one faith, the one God and Father of all. Returning one by one, we are that one body, one Spirit, one Love!

Dwell upon my words for, in spite of all the turmoil in the world, we are all one. Thinking on the lowest level, men are trying to solve the problems of the world there, and it cannot be done. It's all done by repentance, by radical changes in attitudes of mind. A fact is confronted. All right, isn't it a fact that everything is possible to God? And if all things are possible to God and his name is "I am" can a fact not be changed? Can it not be resolved? At this very moment I can ignore the fact and assume things are as I want them to be, can I not? And when I assume, God is assuming, for his name and I are one. If all things are possible to God, are not all things possible to me? So if I have faith in God I must have faith in my imaginal acts. Faith in your imaginal acts turns you around and you will keep on turning around by practicing repentance, and as you do, you awake. Then you will find a group and tell them that if they will but turn around they will find God. That He's not coming from without but, pointing to your forehead, you will tell them He's all there. Then you will speak from experience, for as He unfolds himself within you, you will experience the perfect pattern my friend received with the four golden arrows. As I mentioned a few months ago, who knows what the awakened Man is doing when he shoots his arrows beyond the world of dream? You can't deviate from God's plan. If you awaken within yourself and it's the plan that awakens, you are the plan that awoke, so you shoot the plan to those you love.

Take the passages I have quoted tonight and see how they relate to the visions. Each passage dwells with eschatology, the doctrine of the last days, when Man turns from this age of sin and death to that age of Eternal life.

Now this may seem a deep spiritual night to many of you, but may I tell you it is directly practical, for while you were with me this night you left all of your worries and cares of the day on the conveyer belt which is moving automatically. Your heavenly Father knows your needs and is caring for them while you travel in the spirit world with me. You have left those who are self complacent, content with their own little circle. Those who know they are right are in hell where there is no forgiveness of sin. In hell it's all self-righteousness, all justifying oneself. One of the greatest of all human weaknesses is the necessity of always being right, and that is hell until one becomes loose enough to ask questions. Whether the truth is accepted or not is irrelevant, but when they ask, answer directly: "When you find God you are going to find yourself. And when you find the truth you will discover that you and God the Father are one."

If you haven't read the beautiful 17th chapter of John, I urge you to do so. I think it is the most glorious prayer ever written. "O Father, I have manifested thy name to those thou gavest to me. They were yours and you gave them to me that they may be one even as we are one." Here he tells you that God and his pattern are one. In the beginning was the Word (the plan, the meaning of it all) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So the pattern and he who sent it are one. The pattern is what was sent.

Always claiming that he was sent, he tells you that the sender (the Father) and the sent (the pattern) are one; therefore the Father sends himself as the pattern which unfolds. Then the man in whom it unfolds tells it, and he always has a remnant who hears and believes. He won't get the world to believe him, for they are busy moving down on the conveyer belt. Although they hear the call to repent, they will not stop to change their beliefs for one little moment.

I have an aunt, now in her nineties. She was born and raised in a group called "The Brothers", the most bigoted Christian organization there ever was. One day while visiting her, I said: "Don't you know that the Bible teaches that Jesus had brothers?" Well, she almost slapped me in the face as she denied it. She attends church seven days a week, yet when I opened the Bible to the 6th chapter of Mark and read it to her she would not change her thinking relative to Christ. Unwilling to accept a foreign thought, she chooses to remain on the conveyer belt. Her mind is made up and she is not willing to read the Bible with a different understanding.

She will eventually die, to find herself restored to life in a world just like this, with a body the same as before only young with nothing missing - and she will not even realize what took place. She will still have the same fixed beliefs and she'll go through another pattern of events to become proximate matter - matter that is made to receive a form, like taking a piece of wax and making it soft enough to receive a seal.

In the 1st chapter of Hebrews, we are told that Jesus is the express image of his Father. He is not someone that looks like his Father, but is identical, like the imprinting of a seal on wax. My friend saw proximate matter in the skull. She saw that which is being molded and shaped and made more pliable to receive the impression.

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville Goddard: The Secret of the Sperm

1951

This morning’s subject is the secret of the sperm. Last December hundreds of scientists met in Montreal and read their papers to each other and after the entire world printed what they had to say. Fortunately for me the Los Angeles Times carried it daily. I must confess every one really fired me! But one in particular interested me.

This scientist read a paper on the sperm. He said “the sperm remains as much a mystery today as it was when man first became curious about its nature”. And then he made this little statement “the sperm somehow easily passes through the surface of an egg, although the outside of the egg has no holes in it, either before or after fertilization”.

Well, that fired me. On the morning of the 19th of February I was lying in bed quite early thinking of this strange mystery of the sperm and wondering all about it. And suddenly I felt myself detached from this body. I was not in my room, but I was in a room and the room was sealed. There was no entrance, no exit, just a sealed room. But as I entered it, it became alive, it became animated.

Then I thought of my bed, my body, and in one moment I am back on my bed. I thought of another detachment, I’m in an entirely different room but it’s also sealed. How I got in I do not know other than I simply imagined myself away from my body. I did not single-out the room, the room was completely sealed – no entrance, no exit.

Then I thought there are these unnumbered states of consciousness. You can’t number them. You can liken each state to an egg. And every state remains just as the egg until fertilized. And the presence that fertilizes the egg is simply our consciousness. We must be in it to activate it, to animate it.

You could this very moment single-out any state and by the use of your imagination imagine that you’re in it. You’d be in it. Think this very moment of your living room or any room in your house. Take an object, a familiar object in your room and bring it as close as you can. If it’s really here well then you can’t be here in this room. As you become intense about it, concentrated on it, you are really where you are imagining yourself to be.

For man being all imagination he must be where he is in imagination. Well what have I done then? I’ve fertilized it. I’ve actually made it real. And in a way that I do not know I am going to go there. But now you will say naturally I’m going to go there today. It’s my home. I use that only to illustrate a point. You could take any place, no matter where it is, any part of the world.

If you did the same thing to it that you would now do to your home you will find yourself compelled to move across a bridge of incident leading up to the fulfillment of that state. You don’t devise the means, but there are so many little facets to this wonderful art of imagining.

I’ll tell you one to show you the danger. But if one wants one thing above all things in this world, and they are willing to sacrifice their moral, ethical code, in fact every code, it also works. That’s why I warned you in my last book I could only aquaint you with the law and leave you to your choice and its risk. And I mean risk!

I called this lady a friend, she is a friend. I’m not here to judge anyone in the world. And she is my friend living in New York City. When she was a young girl she was as poor as a church mouse. She had nothing. Her only claim to recognition was the fact she descended physically from the Adams, our presidents. And she was very proud of that fact. Very proud. But she had no money. The one thing she wanted above everything in this world was money. And I don’t mean a few hundred thousand dollars, I mean money in the true sense of the word.

To the disgust of her parents she used to always pretend she had fabulous fortunes. She is not, may I say, a good looking lady either in form or in feature. Nice in many other respects, but you could never accuse her of being a beautiful woman. But nevertheless she dreamed this state and she just simply wanted money. At a party one day she met a young man, just a few years her senior. He had money, multiple millions.

She had nothing, she had a physical line leading to the Adams. He had oodles of money, his line led to one of the bishops of New York State. I’ll not say this to in any way discourage you in your admiration of some bishop or some man of the cloth, but his grandfather was a bishop in New York State.

He knew all the lovely parcels of, well, real estate. Where tomorrow, if he could hold on to it, what it would be worth. And so here’s a bishop of the church, instead of taking care of his flock he was taking care of his pocket. And he left millions to this man’s father who in turn left it to him. My friend only wanted money. And so in no time flat they got married. And then lived for 21 years in intimate hostility.

Really. Sordid beyond measure. I wouldn’t dare discuss it from the platform. So at the end of these 21 years they called it a day and divided the millions. She still wanted more millions. She could open Tiffany with her diamonds and her jewelry. Still wanted more. She had a little cousin who always worked for a salary.

But he got in on the ground floor when our huge big operation of the day were being organized. Saved his money, he was a bachelor, he lived alone and very frugal. And he bought a little bit of this stock, a little bit of that, never touched it. It split and split and split and split. Year before last he had the presence of mind to die. The only member of his family that would ever see him was this lady.

She knew, in some strange way, he had money. She would bring him home for an occasional dinner, would call him on the phone, so when they found his Will she was the only member of the family named in the Will. He had other first cousins, but they were above it all. They came from the Adams. And he must be on the outside or something, but he was not what they would cultivate.

When the Will was read my friend and my friend alone got it. The last estimate, they are still finding it, he put it in this bank, in that box, in the other box, well over a million the stocks and bonds are worth. And she got it all. Now her cousins aren’t speaking to her because she got it. The price she paid for money I hope that no one here will be willing to pay.

She could have had all the millions she now has, plus happiness. She could have. If she only knew the law. You want it, but you condition it. You want it with dignity. That statement of Millikan: “I have a lavish, steady, dependable income consistent with integrity and mutual benefit”. That’s our great Millikan, he was a poor boy too. And he grew tired of his poverty.

And the story as told me by the one who interviewed him after he got the prize, the Nobel Prize, in this cosmic rays studies, and he said to her, the interviewer, “I was a poor boy, raised in a nice environment. My father was a traveling minister, he had no money but he gave us good books. We were always playing games. A strong body and a strong mind. But he had a code, a decent code.

And so I wanted money, but I wanted it in this manner. So I locked myself in a room one day. I did not have even a glass of water for 16 hours. And in that interval I repeated over and over and over to myself this thought that I wrote out: I have, in the present tense, I have a lavish, steady, dependable income consistent with integrity and mutual benefit”.

Well, he certainly earned it. He had all these things when he died. He had the respect of the world. He gave to the world as much or more than they gave to him. Yes, he had millions, but look what he gave to the world. That’s how he wanted it. My friend could have done something similar, but no she wanted money. And she was willing to pay the price, any price, and how she has paid it!

So I warn you, yes you want something and the thing that will fertilize it is your own wonderful human imagination. But to get exactly what you want, occupy it. I find one of the great fallacies of the world is perpetual construction, deferred occupancy. We know what we want but we leave it out there and hope that the passing of time will make it. It won’t do it. I have to occupy it and make there here. I make then now. And dwell in it just as though it were true.

And if I dwell in it just as though it’s true though one second later the phone rings and breaks the spell or someone calls me or I wake from it. I have fertilized it. You go into the state and you fertilize it. I may not recognize my harvest when it comes in due season, it will come, it may not come tonight, it may not come tomorrow, but it will come because I’ve fertilized it.

I went into a state, occupied it, and the whole thing becomes fertilized. For every egg has it’s own appointed hour. And it ripens and it will flower. If to me it seemed long, then I must wait, for it is sure and it will not be late. These infinite states of the world are waiting for occupancy, waiting to be fertilized by us.

That’s why we must become so extremely discriminating. Know what you want and do make it conform to your code of decency. Your wonderful ethical code. You don’t have to in any way tarnish that code, you don’t, to get what you want in this world. But men are not aware of that and they’re quite willing to tarnish it a bit to get what they really want in this world.

So here, this secret of the sperm, is God’s creative power. Now don’t be shocked if I tell you that that sperm is only the symbol of Jesus Christ. For by him all things are made. And without him there is not anything made that is made. In him is life. There is no other life. In him is life.

Well if I go into a place and suddenly it becomes animated, then I must be he. Prior to that I thought he was on the outside, in some other place. And suddenly I find myself in a room and the room is sealed. Well how did I get into it? You’re told in the Scripture he suddenly appeared among the disciples after the resurrection and the door was closed. That’s a cue given to all of us.

It’s not a man, it’s a supernatural power in man. That supernatural power is your own wonderful human imagination. If you’re willing to believe it you could today set out to transform your entire world. But above all things become extremely selective. Don’t just compromise, don’t. Extremely selective. The state is there. The tarnished state is there and the untarnished state is there. Everything possible is there.

Why do we read these words in Scripture? He has made everything for its purpose. Even the wicked for the day of trouble. If there were no wicked in the world then creation isn’t complete. I don’t have to be wicked, but the state is there. I could enter the state and be as wicked as the state allows. I am not the state, I am the fertilizing power animating and making alive that state.

That’s why Blake said in his wonderful vision of the last judgment: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil. It falls into these states unwittingly”.

You, knowing the law, don’t fall into a state unwittingly, enter the state knowingly. Go right into it if you want to animate it and make it real. And you go into a state not just for yourself alone, but for your family, your friends, your — well, anyone in this world. And just leave it. After you have fertilized it what can you do? Let it grow. Fertilize the egg, don’t tamper with it, just let it grow. For you’ll single out a state today, it’s a state of consciousness. You enter it and clothe yourself with it. And let it grow.

When I exhausted every human channel to get out of the army I turned to the only God in the world. And that God is my own wonderful human imagination. In 1942 in the month of December this direction came down from Washington, D.C.: “Any man over 38 is eligible for discharge providing his superior officer allows it”. If his superior officer, meaning his battalion commander, disallows there is no appeal beyond his battalion commander. You could not take it say to the divisional commander, it stops with the battalion commander.

This came down in 1942 in the month of December. They gave a deadline on it. This will come to an end on March the 1st of 1943. So anyone 38 years old before March the 1st, 1943 was eligible. All right, that is Cesar’s Law. I got my paper, made it out, they had my record, my date. I was born in 1905, on the 19th of February. So I was 38 years old before the 1st of March of 1943. So I was eligible.

Turn it in to my battalion commander, who was Colonel Theodore Bilbo. His father was a senator from Mississippi. I turned it in, in four hours it came back “disapproved” and signed the colonel’s name. That night I went to sleep in the assumption that I am sleeping in my apartment house in New York City. I didn’t go through the door. I didn’t go through the window. I put myself on the bed. I went right into my home that I knew so well, but I conditioned it.

I could be there on furlough, a two-week furlough. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be there honorably discharged, not dishonorably, honorably discharged and a civilian in this country. 8 So I slept in that assumption. At 4:00/4:15 in the morning here came before my inner eye a piece of paper not unlike the one that I had signed that day. On the bottom of it was “disapproved”. Then came a hand from here down holding a pen and then the voice said to me “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.”

It scratched out disapproved and wrote in a big bold script “Approved”. And then I woke. I did nothing. Nine days later that same colonel called me in. He said “Close the door, Goddard”. “Yes, sir”. He said “Do you still want to get out of the army?” I said “Yes, sir”. He said “You’re the best dressed man in this country, who wears the uniform of America”, I said “Yes, sir”. “You still want to get out of the army?”, “Yes, sir”. Yessed him to death as I sat before him. He said “All right, make out another application and you’ll be out of the army today”.

I went back to my captain, told him what the colonel had said, made out another application and he signed it and that day I was out of the army, honorably discharged. That’s all that I did. I went right into my home as a discharged soldier of our army and I’m a civilian. I slept that night in my home in New York City though physically my body was in Camp Polk, Louisiana. That’s how it works!

There is a state. I entered the state and fertilized it. No one was hurt and the colonel, when I went through the door that evening, he came forward and he said “Well, good luck Goddard. I will see you in New York City after we have won this war”. I said “Yes, sir”. And that was it. I share this with you to tell you how it works. This is not good and that is wrong. We are living in a world of infinite possibilities. You become discrete, you become selective.

You know what you want. You hurt no one, but you must turn to God. And God is your own wonderful human imagination. Choose this day whom you will serve. And they answered “We choose the Lord”. You are witnesses against yourself that you have chosen the Lord. We are witnesses against ourself for the Lord’s only name is I AM. Well, who was actually assuming that he was, in his own apartment 2,000 miles away? I AM. I am assuming I am where physically I am not.

But the reality of me is not this, the reality of this speaker is his imagination. And I must be where I am in imagination. So the body was in Camp Polk, the reality of me was in that apartment of mine in New York City. You will take this story and multiply it thousands of times. But here, while you are here I would like to make it so clear that you and you alone are responsible for your own selection.

I can teach you the law, that’s the law in the nutshell, what I’ve just told you, but I cannot get behind you and say “No, not that, take this”. I can’t guide your ship. I must leave you to your choice and warn you it carries a risk unless you take your wonderful code and surround it.

Take your choice and make it fit your lovely moral and ethical code. You will not have to compromise. So this is the secret of the sperm. You aren’t going to find it under the microscope. You aren’t going to see it go through, it is all imagination. This whole vast world that seems so real and solid and independent of our perception of it is all within our imagination.

And so you single out the state that you want to activate. You go in under that state and know it as yourself and it becomes alive. Then you return to whatever you’re doing in the world of Cesar and that egg has been fertilized and in a way that you do not know consciously it will simply develop, break the shell, and come forward as a fact in our life.

You try it today with a friend. A friend in need, someone who has no job or needs more income because of obligations, try it. And you need not tell him that you’ve done it, leave him alone and have the satisfaction of seeing your friend with a nice job and making more money. 10 Do it with everything in this world because you have the power and the right.

The power is your imagination. Paul describes Jesus Christ, as the power of God and the wisdom of God for this is not, this is creative power. Because here is a man who has all the power in the world. He can say no from now until the war is over.

So when it happened to me in nine days I wrote a friend of mine who was my age, who was just as eligible, and I wrote him and I told him what I had done. He never answered my letter. He’s a Freudian. By Freudian I mean he studied with Freud. He was steeped in the so-called facts of life all based upon sex. He knew nothing of this higher level.

So I told him what I had done. He got out when the other millions got out after the war. Because, he used to come to my meetings in New York City. And he said “You know, Neville, I like hearing, I like listening to your talks. But you know what I do? I hold the seat and put my feet right down into the carpet to keep my sense of the reality and the profundity of things. You take me out of this reality, you mustn’t do that.”

So he likes the reality. He was in the army, he wanted to get out and couldn’t. And I’m unreal and I got out. So I’m sharing with you the real reality. If Freud only knew of these intensities of creation on higher levels compared to this level here, well you can’t – these incredible intensities on the highest level when you’re creating and you create all within yourself. You don’t divide an image, they’re to create, it’s all within yourself.

And compared to this level or this level is like simply, well two out of season slugs. That’s this level. But on the higher level it’s all intense, fantastic creations. And there you see the vortices that bind man on his body. There you see unnumbered, you could never count the unnumbered vortices that ran creation. And there they are gathering intensity, or rather density, to make what 11 they are gathering apparent in this world. They are already apparent at the higher levels, but to make them apparent here they gather density.

So here in a very simple way, imagining creates reality in the most minute form. There isn’t a thing in this world that is now real to us that was not once only imagined. So today start controlling your imagination and do not entertain even the idle thought because no one sees it. Read the 8th chapter of the book of Ezekiel. They thought no one saw it too. It says “Son of Man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing? Everyone in his own chamber of imagery. And they say no one sees us. The Lord has turned from us”.

There’s no Lord on the outside of him, you know what you’re doing, that’s the Lord seeing. He knows exactly what you are doing because you and he are one. God became man that man may become God. So the house of Israel said let us go into our chamber of darkness with all of these abominations and create because the Lord doesn’t see us, he has forsaken us. They forgot the Lord.

The Lord is your own wonderful human imagination and there is only one Lord. So you sit in the silence for a moment and you think well, I can’t be seen, I can imagine unlovely things about that one, the other one, don’t for one moment think the Lord doesn’t see it because you see it and you and he are one and he is creating at that very moment and you’re bringing out of your own leap the things that you are fertilizing.

Now about a week ago I suggested a certain technique that I learned from my old friend Abdullah. Sitting physically in one place and assuming that I am physically seated in another place. And I go from place to place. After awhile it becomes so easy and then you can open your eyes at the place where physically you really are not and when you do so you open that eye with a shock. If I am seated in a big chair in my living room and imagine I’m seated in the bedroom, when I want the shock I open my eye while I’m imagining I’m seated in the bedroom.

If I open my eye when I imagine I’m seated in the living room where the body was in the beginning there’s no shock. But there’s a shock to open your eyes where the body is not because it seems so real to you. And this is how you exercise this talent. Go into any state. So in essence, this being the last day I brought you many things I have heard and experienced in the last year.

Bringing stories of my friend “Crutcha”, stories of others, my own, but really the base hasn’t changed. I can’t change the base. The base is still imagining creates reality, that God and man are one. And all that we behold, though it appears without it is within in our imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shell.

So when one takes off this little garment, where are you going to go? They are in the only reality in the world in their imagination. And they live in a world of imagination. And the day will come they’ll take it off on this level forever for they’ll rise completely into an imaginative world where everything is subject to their imaginative power. So here this is educated darkness for the purpose of learning how to create.

And you aren’t being judged if you create something unlovely, but create. But why create something unlovely when you know you could in some wonderful way still get your goal and put it into a lovely frame. You need not take away your wonderful ethical code. Within the framework of your code you can put your picture so you will never be ashamed of what you’ve accomplished.

So many today in this world they wouldn’t discuss how they got what they have, they wouldn’t, they are ashamed of it. So if you have a goal like Millikan, take Millikan’s wonderful statement and repeat it over and over until it becomes a part of you. That’s all that he did so he told my friend and things opened for him.

He was the one person who could see there was a potential in this study of cosmic rays and so he devoted himself to it. And while he gave his all to that, the world was looking at him and then money started pouring in to him. So he died a noble soul, one that was honored. And anyone he left behind, like his sons, his daughters, and those related to him are proud of the fact that they had a man called Millikan who was part of their physical descent.

Are there any questions please?

PERSON: Neville, you tell us that we play all the parts. In my present state of consciousness I would not want to play the part of the violent person. Do we escape that with our understanding? The question is, if we play all the parts can we escape playing the violent part?

Mr Goddard: My dials(?) say the violent part is being played by God. And you and God are one. You learn eventually to play it more beautifully as we would avoid certain notes on the piano. But don’t destroy the note, you need it for some other piece you’re going to play. You can take a discord and resolve it into a dissonance.

If I took the note from that piano that caused the discord in the hope I would never make another discord, I can’t play the piano. So everything must be present, including violence. Judges in the 10th chapter of Isaiah, behold the Etherian, the staff in his hand is the rod of my anger. He uses everyone to bring to pass what man is mis-creating. Yes?

PERSON: Yes, but you can avoid it if you know and don’t activate that —

MR. GODDARD: Certainly, my dear. But there was no other being to play the part. If I select to play the part of the horrible beast of the world, God and I are one, therefore God is playing the part. He submits himself to my choice because he became me that I may be as he is. He is infinite love. But while I am still asleep he plays the sacrificial part of playing the parts I select. So it is only God that plays all the parts. That’s the sacrifice as told us in the 53rd of Isaiah, put all the things up on his back.

PERSON: (Inaudible)

MR. GODDARD: The question here?

PERSON: (Inaudible)

MR. GODDARD: The question.

PERSON: Oh, I, you have taught us that in a 6,000-year span that we play all of the parts.

MR. GODDARD: Yeah.

PERSON: In my present state of consciousness I would like to avoid the violent parts.

MR. GODDARD: In the 6,000 years – the question is this. I have taught you to believe that the journey takes 6,000 years. As Blake said “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of 6,000 years dancing around thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is myself, oh my creator and redeemer.”

So if 6,000 years is the length of the journey and within that six all parts are being played can I avoid these horrible parts? Certainly. But in our ignorance we play them. We fall into them. You will give a banquet one day, the Messianic banquet everyone will give. And you will see a sea of human imperfection and you will redeem them. You’d played the blind, the halt(?), the withered, everything.

They’re all waiting for you to walk by. As you walk by all are molded into perfection for they were garments that you played and they are now invited to Messiah’s banquet because you have risen from it all. 15 You see you are something infinitely greater than any being that you see in this world. You are a supernatural being who is God playing these parts, the actor is not Hamlet. The actor goes home and leaves Hamlet in the closet. Any other questions, please?

PERSON: Could you tell us again the breathing techniques?

MR. GODDARD: Will I tell you again the breathing technique? I find if I call before my mind’s eye what I would like to activate and I make it so that it really thrills me, a conversation between two friends discussing the fulfillment of their dream, which is my dream for them. And then you breathe in and you breathe out. Your inhale and exhale is a complete personal thing. I can’t give you the numbers. You don’t do it once, twice, or 50 times.

It’s entirely up to you to breathe in and breathe out while you are listening to this conversation and bring yourself to the limit of a thrill. Then with one deep, deep inhalation your whole body explodes. Every little atom seems to open and something goes out. As you are told in Scripture, “Who has touched me for I perceive virtue has gone out of me”. You touched it on the inside. You made it real and you exploded. It comes with the last inhalation. But this is something that is very personal. You must try it.

PERSON: If two are working on the same thought from different angles, I mean from different understanding of teachings will this in any way modify or change the final outcome? Would it lengthen the time —

MR. GODDARD: If two are working from different angles —

PERSON: Yes. MR. GODDARD: — for a common goal for someone else?

PERSON: Common goal, yes.

MR. GODDARD: No, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really matter. I have friends who will call me and ask me to hear good news for them. I know from their own confession in the past they haven’t broken that little trick, but they want to be sure. So they call their Christian Science practitioner, their Unity practitioner, Science of Mind practitioner, they call all of the practitioners in the hope that one is going to hear it. (Laughter)

MR. GODDARD: A complete absence of faith on the part of the one who wants the help.

PERSON: This was not the (inaudible) and I believe (inaudible) than what you teach.

MR. GODDARD: My teaching is not based upon theory. I did not sit down to work out a workable philosophy of life. My teaching is based upon the experience of Scripture. I’ve experienced Scripture. And Scripture is not the product of human wisdom. It’s not. It’s revelation. But unnumbered isms in the world – brilliant minds, wonderful minds, they have sat down and gathered themselves together to work out what they consider the right path. And so all these isms are based upon just human wisdom.

The Bible is not human wisdom. In its search for the meaning of life and for God the human mind could never have conceived of the story of the Gospel. Never could have conceived it. It is something that was revealed to man. As Paul said “I did not hear it from a man, nor was I taught it by a man. But it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ”. He unveils himself in you as you. And you’ve been looking for him on the outside all through the centuries. And suddenly it happens.

And it’s so different in prospect from what it comes to be seen in retrospect. After it’s happened to you, well then you know. 17 So my teaching is not speculation. I am not theorizing. I am telling you what I know from experience. And it is all Scripture. Of course the world thinks they’ve outgrown Scripture. They will say what, that’s an old book, a myth. That belongs to the dead ages. They’ll get something new. And so they’ll get something new. You’ll find other isms springing up too, all over the world.

PERSON: Is your system a system that can be used to work for translation, spiritual translation?

MR. GODDARD: Did you hear the question? Is this system a system that can be used towards spiritual translation? You cannot in any way hasten your spiritual growth. Spiritual maturity is a gradual state from a god of tradition to a god of experience. You can’t possibly by not eating certain things or by eating certain things or by attending certain classes or not attending certain classes in any words hasten your spiritual growth. It is coming. What you can do with this principle, that’s why I call it both a law and a promise, the promise comes first.

The law comes 400 years later. 400 is the cross, as long as I wear it. And so he gives me a law to cushion the blows while I wait for the promise of the father. And the promise of the father is to give me himself as though there were no other, just God the Father. But all of these translations and these extrasensory perceptions and all these things, they don’t interest me really.

What would it matter? UCLA three weeks ago they gave a little weekend group. They charged $100 for three days and they had I think five speakers. It was crowded to the gunnels. Over 500 attended the class at UCLA. And not one man on that panel, not one is a man of vision. In his present state a vision would scare him to death. But he knows all about extrasensory perception and talks about it learnedly. But I have always maintained there is an awful lot of learned ignorance in this world. 18 Any other questions, please?

PERSON: Neville, my attendance here at your lecture this year was spoiled by the fact that I went into the hospital last week and stayed there for five days. Now of all the times in the world to go to the hospital, I certainly didn’t plan it this time. I don’t think. But you have told us that we do not recognize our own harvest. Now my question is this, to keep us from reaping these unwanted harvests, how do we make ourselves more conscious to ourselves?

MR. GODDARD: Well, I would not say this is actually your answer, but many a person coming to my meetings over the years, I started on the 2nd day of February, 1938. And it has been an unbroken series since, from coast to coast. They have come to my meeting and my terminology differs from theirs. I speak of Jesus Christ more intimately. I bring him down and close the gap between Christ and myself. I treat him as my own wonderful human imagination, filled with love. That shocks people. They go out at that moment never to hear me again. And if they can possibly say to someone else “Don’t go and hear him” they will.

I am not saying in the interval that you’ve been coming here I didn’t say something that annoyed you and you turned your back that night with a little pledge “Why go and hear him?”. So when you wanted most to hear me you go to the hospital. (Laughter)

MR. GODDARD: That’s how it works! It would be nice if you went to the hospital when you wanted to go. But I’m here for a short interval. I’m not saying you did it

Neville Goddard: The Secret of Causation

Neville 12-05-1969

The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which every man should aspire; for supreme power, supreme wisdom, and supreme delight, lie in the solution of this great mystery.” Imagination is the Jesus Christ of scripture, and when you solve the great mystery of imagining, you will have found the cause of the phenomena of life. Imagination is called “Jehovah” in the Old Testament and “Jesus” in the New, but they are one and the same being. Divine Imagination, containing all, reproduces itself in the human imagination; therefore, all things exist in the human imagination. When you solve the problem of imagining, you will have found Jesus Christ, the secret of causation.

Let me share with you two experiences which came to me this past week. The first lady said: "Returning from a wonderful cruise recently, I checked my baggage at La Guardia Airport, bound for Chicago, where I expected to spend a few days with friends. Arriving in Chicago, I discovered that the bag which contained most of my clothes and all of the presents I had bought for my friends and relatives - as well as a locket I had had made from the engagement and wedding band my late husband had given me - was missing. I immediately reported the loss to the airline, but when I arrived in California there was still no trace of it. "

A week later I received a letter saying that the bag could not be located, and my first reaction was to curse the airline for their negligence; but then I remembered that imagining creates reality. I tried to reconstruct the letter, but when I couldn't feel its words were true, I began to assume that the bag had arrived at the house. I lifted it up on the bed, opened it, put my clothes away, as well as the gifts which were there. I did this every night and during the day, when I would notice my thoughts going astray.

"When the grandchildren would ask about their presents, I told them that they were on their way, as I never admitted to anyone that the bag was lost. How could I, if I believe what I had imagined? Six weeks later I received a letter from the airline saying: `If you do not pick up your bag within five days, you will be charged storage.' I picked up the bag to find everything there, and put them all away, just as I had imagined doing." Then the lady added this thought: "Love's labor is never lost. Everything in that bag was loved, and I knew that if this principle was true, it would prove itself in the testing - and it did."

I can't thank her enough for sharing this experience with me, that I, in turn, may share it with you. Everything is created by the human imagination. There is no other God. You can use your imagination wisely and create a heaven here on earth, or use it foolishly and create the world's havoc; but there is only one power, called the Lord God Jehovah in the Old Testament, and Jesus Christ in the New.

This lady's first impulse was to curse the person who stupidly lost the bag. Then, remembering what she had heard, she tried to revise the letter. When that didn't seem natural, she asked herself what she would do if the bag was now in her possession. Assuming it was there, she did everything she would do if it was a physical fact - and six weeks later it was.

That is what I mean by imagining creating reality, for an assumption is faith; and without faith it is impossible to please your own wonderful human imagination. Divine Imagination, containing all, reproduces itself in human imagination; therefore, the human imagination contains all. The world is the human imagination pushed out. Not knowing this, man cheats himself, murders himself, declares war against himself, and does all sorts of evil against himself; but do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Leave it alone, for it is only the misuse of the power exercised by sleeping mankind.

Now, another lady shared this experience with me: She found herself in a neighbor's kitchen, filled with men and women dressed as Mennonites. (You all know what the Mennonite look like. Originating in Zurich, Switzerland in the year 1525, they moved into Germany, France, Belgium, and Holland, to finally arrive in this country in the 17th century. Now numbering around 150,000 to 200,000, they continue to dress and live in the same fashion they did when they arrived here 300 years ago. Here is a fixed belief which has perpetuated itself year after year.)

The neighbor's second husband had mistreated her, so the Mennonites killed him. Although she tried to tell them that it was wrong to take the life of another, as far as they were concerned it was the right thing to do. He had joined their society and knew their laws, which stated that if a man mistreated a woman, he was to be killed. No matter what argument she used, she could not persuade them that what they had done was wrong.

In the 16th chapter of the Book of Proverbs you will read: "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but God weighs the heart. God has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble." Believing in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they felt no remorse or guilt for their actions, for in their eyes it was perfect.

Suddenly a limousine appeared and men dressed in black and carrying machine guns entered the house. As she watched, the leader, pointing his gun at the lady, ordered the others to search the house. Then the lady awoke, not to find herself on her bed, but standing in the room of her dream. Suddenly realizing that she was awake in her dream and the action was taking place within her, she stopped the activity, which allowed her to see anyone as alive and independent of her perception, and they all froze.

(As Blake said, "All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your human imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.")

Turning to the leader she said: "You don't want to kill her, you love her and she loves you." Then turning to the woman she said, "You love him and he loves you." Allowing them to obey her will, she stood back and watched, as the man put his gun down and - with outstretched arms - moved to embrace the woman. Turning to go into the kitchen and release the animation there, her alarm caused her to awaken to this level of her dream.

This world is just as much a dream as that one, but man is sound asleep and does not know that he is dreaming. No one will sentence a man for dreaming he killed another; rather they will try to analyze it for him, and most of our so-called experts on dreams are past masters of misinterpretation. They do not realize the great mystery surrounding us. I tell you: the whole vast world is the individual dreamer pushed out, and the conflict is within himself, and not on the outside.

This lady's drama began as something taking place on the outside, and seemingly independent of her perception of it. Then she awoke to an activity within her, which was animating and making alive all that she perceived. Arresting it, everyone became frozen, like statues. She changed their intentions, then watched as they were reanimated once more - but now bewildered, because of the radical change in them which took place in her.

Scripture calls this repentance, or metanoia, which means "a radical change of mind." When ideas change, so do your intentions and attitude towards life. The story is told, that at his trial, the Risen Christ said to the symbol of the authority of this world: "You have no power over me, were it not given you from above." This world is a drama which has been set in motion based upon your attitude from above. Functioning from above, this lady is tasting of the power of the age to come.

In the 10th chapter of Luke, the story is told of seventy disciples, who - having been sent out into the world - returned thrilled beyond measure, and said: "Lord, even the demons were subject to us in your name." Then he said: "I saw Satan fall from heaven. Nevertheless, rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you, but that your names are written in heaven." I say to her, rejoice not that you have tasted of this power, but rejoice because your name is written in heaven. This is infinitely greater than demonstrating your power in this world.

Now, Luke does not speak of seventy individuals which were sent out, but the numerical value of the Hebrew letter ayin, whose symbolic value is the eye. This is not the outside eye, but the incurrent eye, which sees inward into the world of thought. You have the incurrent eye, nevertheless rejoice - not because the spirit was subject unto you, but because your name is written in heaven. One day when you are called into that assemblage, you will see that there is such a record, and your name is written in heaven.

This may seem stupid to the intelligent mind. That is because they are sound asleep. This Manson boy, now on trial for the murders recently committed by his group, fell into a power of which he is totally unaware. Many who became his slaves were simple people, some cultured. One had attended college for three years.

His power, exercised without love, resulted in a horrible experience; but she exercised her power in love, saying: "You don't want to kill her. You love her and she loves you." She released the man from his violent state by the power of love. This world is every bit as much a dream as that world, and you, its dreamer, are God learning to exercise your powerful imagination, in love.

You can take this message on either level. Use it as my friend did, when she would not accept the fact that her luggage was missing, or test your power from above. Scripture claims that: Whatever you desire, if you will believe you already have it, you will.

Refusing to believe her luggage was missing, my friend fulfilled her desire by placing it on the bed, removing its contents, and putting them away. This she did every night for five weeks, and then one day she received a notice saying that if she did not pick up her luggage within five days she would be charged storage!

I can't thank her enough for sharing this experience with me, that I may share it with you to encourage you to control your human imagination; for if you would steer a true course toward a certain goal in life, you must ever be aware of the end that you are shaping by your imaginal activity, and not allow doubt to enter for one moment. When you know what you want, you must think from your belief in its possession, morning, noon, and night. If you do, no power can stop its appearance, because you are the dreamer of your dream, pushing yourself out, shaping your world by your imaginal activities.

Your own wonderful human imagination is the Jehovah and Jesus of scripture. The words mean: "Jehovah is salvation, or Jehovah saves." In the 3rd chapter of Exodus, Jehovah revealed his name as I am. You are not John or Mary, but simply I am. In the 4th chapter of the Book of Genesis we are told that when Abel (the 2nd son) was killed, Eve bore Seth, a son to take Abel's place. Seth then had a son called Enosh, "And from that day on, men began to call upon the name of God." (Remember, in the lady's dream the second husband was killed.)

Now, the words "call upon" literally mean "call with." It is nonsense to say: "In the name of Jesus; in the name of God; or in the name of Jehovah." If you say: "In the name of Jesus Christ," you do not feel anything. But when you call with the name, you say: I am unpacking the suitcase. I am hanging the clothes in the closet. I am putting the presents away. I am arresting the activity within and silencing those who stand before me. I am saying: "You love her and she loves you.'" That's calling with the name of God. And from that moment on, men began to call with the name of God.

If you really believe me, you will prove my words in the testing. The two ladies have proved it and shared their experiences with me. I can't tell you my thrill when I know that you have heard me to the point of applying my words. One who is the incurrent eyewitness took it into the depth and saw into eternity. The other knows the truth, and believes it on this level of her being. From this level she brought her luggage back with all of its contents in place, while the other went into a deeper level of her being to discover that there was nothing on the outside but herself.

Mennonites are only expressions of fixations. They haven't changed their outer dress in 300 years. Satisfying their conscience, they will loan you a dollar and not accept any interest on the loan; but they can feel justified in buying land and holding it until the price goes up. You see, man has a peculiar, innate something that justifies everything he does, thereby making him pure in his own eyes.

But I say to you: your imagination manifests itself in the imaginations of men. The world is playing its part, because you are imagining every moment in time. Who knows who is treading in the winepress tonight, causing the subtle change in the minds of men. Perhaps he feels wrongfully accused, and is now sitting in jail thinking of getting even with society. That's treading in the winepress. When he can lift his thoughts to the point of vision, the act is committed, and it will manifest itself in the world of man.

Vision is simply awakening in the dream. Asleep, you seem to be the victim of your dreams; but awake, as you are here, you can become discriminating. She awoke in her dream, making it vision. Realizing that it started as a dream - therefore, it must still be a dream - she knew the people were only herself made visible, so she could change them. Placing the thought of love in the mind of the man, he became aware of his radical change of thinking, yet was totally unaware of who produced it.

Who knows who is producing the changes in the minds of men today, producing war or peace. It could be some woman treading in the winepress; or - as Yeats said - it could be in the mind of some shepherd boy, lighting up his eyes for a moment before he ran upon his way. Dreaming of heroism, of noble battles where he was the hero, that little boy can cause the blood to flow. If you know who you are and how imagination operates, you will learn to control your imaginal activities. If you do not, they will be controlled for you by another, and you will become their victim.

Any time you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another you have done the right thing. But if it is not done in love there is a question mark, for God is love. This knowledge is not the result of some philosophic reasoning, but of self-revelation. God unveiled himself within me and now I know that God is Infinite love. Yes, he is Infinite Power and Wisdom as well, but power without love can raise horror.

I say to everyone, believe me. The Jesus of scripture and the Jehovah of scripture are your own wonderful human imagination. There is no other God, and God is love. One day you will know this truth, but in the meanwhile believe me as the lady did. When her natural human impulse was to curse, she blessed by imagining her luggage on her bed. Then she performed in her imagination what she would do in the flesh if her desire was now outpictured on her screen of space. This world is a play, peopled by those in costumes. You are its author, writing your play. You can change it (as my friend did) and prove to yourself that you can take a fixed idea (symbolized as a Mennonite) and change it.

Believe me, imagining does create reality. Take me seriously. You will never know Jesus until you know the secret of imagining, for your imagination is he. If you really believe in God, believe in your own imagination, for it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The power and wisdom of the lady's imaginal act influenced the entire outer world and produced that so-called "lost" bag and returned it.

I tell you, there is only one power in the universe. We call it by the name of God or Jesus. But if you think of Jesus as someone on the outside, who lived 2,000 years ago, you will never know him. Nor will you ever know God, if you think of him as some impersonal force. God is a person because you are a person. He became you, as he became us all, that we may become as He is.

Take my message to heart and apply it from now on. You can be the man you would like to be. Don't start dreaming about it. Awake and think from it. Do not concern yourself about trying to meet the so-called "right" people. They are simply reflections of the activity you have placed within you. Change your thoughts and you will change the behavior of those who surround you for they are nothing more than yourself made visible.

The day will come when you will awake from this dream, and you will see what my friend saw in another aspect of the dream - that the world is dead, and only the reflection of an activity of the human imagination. Then you will depart, leaving the world as it is for others to play upon, while you return to the being you really are - the Lord God Himself, the creator of the dream.

Now let us go into the silence

Neville Goddard: Imagination Plus Faith

Neville Goddard, 1971

This series is really a combination of both the Law and the Promise. Tonight, naturally, will be the Law, and yet some parts of the Promise may be woven into it. The title, as you know, is “Imagination Plus Faith.” So, we will have to define the words as we use them.

I firmly believe that: “Man is all imagination, and God is man and exists in us, and we in Him;” “The Eternal Body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself” – the Divine Body that we speak of as Jesus Christ. I firmly believe that this is the Christ of Scripture that is buried in man – buried in the only Holy Sepulcher that there ever was, and that is the skull of man.

And there he dreams the Dream of Life, and one day He will awaken within your skull, and then the drama of Christ as defined for us in Scripture will unfold within you, casting you in the first-person-singular, present tense experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will know who He really is! You will actually awaken as the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the climax for every one born of woman.

But tonight let us get back to what I mean by imagination and what I mean by faith. First of all, faith is defined for us in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. It is called a hymn in praise of faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

By faith we understand a world was created by the Word of God, so that Things seen are made out of things that do not appear.” That’s what we are told in the very first few verses of the 11th chapter of Hebrews.

Now, if faith is the evidence of things not seen and all things are made out of things that do not appear, then we must come to the conclusion that every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It is a delusion of the fading memory. Man does not remember his imaginal acts, so when they come up and the harvest is ripe, he denies his own harvest. He cannot see where on earth what he is now experiencing could have been caused by him, because he has forgotten his imaginal acts.

That is when he sowed it, and all things bring forth after their kind. Let no one be deceived, for God – which is his own imagination – is not mocked. As a man sows, so shall he reap.” So, I am forever reaping what I have planted, but because of my fading memory, I can’t remember when I did it. So, then, I deny what I am seeing as my own harvest.

Well, now, who is this God spoken of in this verse? He said, “By faith we understand that the world was created by the Word of God.”  Well, we are told in Scripture in the very first few verses of the book of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then we are told, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt within us;”  therefore the Word spoken of here is equated with God. If the Word was not only with God, it was God, well, then, that’s God, and it now dwells in us.

Well, I tell you, this Word that dwells in you, spoken of in Scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ, is your own wonderful human imagination. This is the greatest secret in the world, and every one should strive after solving it. Supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lies in the solution of this mystery.

So, as far as I am concerned, the God who created it all and sustains it all is pure imagining in myself. He works in the very depths of my soul, underlying all my faculties, including perception; but He streams into my surface life least disguised in the form of productive fancy, like a daydream. A daydream is productive; a daydream is creative. I am planting when I daydream. I don’t have to be intense to drop a seed. I don’t have to go around and dig a hole and bury it. I can scatter it. So, a daydream is planting. So, I sit down and wonder, “Am I doing it lovingly?” I do not always check myself.

I may read the morning paper and then react on a story that I do not know whether it is true or false, but I react. Well, It knows exactly what I did, and It is my own imagination. It keeps the score, and so in time the harvest will come up, and I will see it. So, all objective reality is solely produced through imagining.

So, I say, imagining plus faith – I must actually believe in the imaginal act. Now, how do I go about doing it? That’s the important thing.

I am told by one scholar that if ordinary things that I observe in this corporeal world – if they are present, that is sense, if absent, that is imagination. The room around me seems to me more real than anything in the world because it is present.

Yet I stand – I am not familiar with this room save once a year that I come for ten nights. I am far more familiar with the home that I have in Los Angeles, but at the moment it is not present to my senses, so I am told that is only an imagination. That is simply a memory image of what may be still a reality, but at the moment it could be gone. Yet I do not think it’s gone, so they tell me. All right, if I think of it but it is not present, then that is imagination. But if things are present, then that is sense.

Well, how do I make what is not present real? That is where we come to imagining plus faith. I have tried it unnumbered times, and may I tell you, it works. I could stand here and take a case history.

Years ago, right after the Second World War – the year was 1945, I sailed with my little family, my wife and daughter out to the Island of Barbados. I hadn’t seen the family through the war years, because there was no transportation available. I was in the Army for a very short span of time, about four months. Because of my age plus this law, I was honorably discharged because I was over 38. My son was in the Marines in Guadalcanal, but my little girl was only a matter of months in age.

So, at the end of 1945 I sailed, on the first ship out, for there were no planes taking any one to the Indies. So, I sailed with my wife and my little girl on a one-way ticket, not thinking for one moment of the difficulty in getting back to New York, and I had a commitment to be in Milwaukee in the first week of May. So, I sailed the end of December – New Year’s Eve, to be exact. At the end of about three months, my brother Victor said to me, “You have a return ticket?” and I said, “No, but I want to get back the first week of May to go to Milwaukee.”

He said, “How dare you leave the capital of the financial world, New York City, without making arrangements? All things are done there, and you have come to a little island like Barbados, and we have two little ships – one carrying a maximum of 65 passengers, and the other carrying a maximum of 120, one sailing out of Boston, one sailing out of New York, but all these islands are to be serviced, and we alone could use more ships several times a month. They only make a round trip – one makes it every 21 days, and the other one makes it every 32 days; and how dare you come out, knowing you must be back, without making any arrangement in New York City?”

Well, it was perfectly all right. I sat in my hotel room in a nice big easy chair, and I assumed it was a little boat that would tend the ship because we didn’t have a deep harbor in those days. We have one now, but there was no deep-water harbor, so I assumed that I was on a small little boat taking me out to the ship, and that my brother Victor and sister Daphne, my wife and other members of the family and little Vicki were all aboard the boat.

Then I assumed that I was stepping off this little boat onto the gangplank. I could feel the rhythm; I could feel it give as I went up step after step after step. My mind wandered before I got to the top. So, I came back to the bottom again and started all over. It wandered again; I came back to the bottom and did it over.

When I got to the top I had no room where I could go. I simply assumed now: My hand is on the rail. I could feel the salt of the sea on the rail. I could feel the salt of the sea in the air, and then I looked towards the Island of Barbados with a mixed feeling: one of sadness because I was leaving the family, and one of joy because I was going back to America where I live. That was a peculiar feeling, but it was a natural feeling.

And while I had hold of the rail and assumed this state, I then fell asleep in the chair.

Now, I must go back. When I went down to the firm in Barbados to ask for transportation, they said, “You haven’t the chance of a snowball in hell of getting out of Barbados until October.” This was then the month of late March. Not a chance of getting out! They had a list that long and I was at the bottom of the list. Trinidad had a list that much longer, for they had so many more people. All the islands have lists. There were literally thousands of people waiting to get aboard, and they only had two ships, one carrying 65 and one carrying 120 passengers. So, they said, “Mr. Goddard, you have no chance of getting out before October.” I said, “All right.”

Then I sat and did that which would imply that I was sailing. I simply did exactly what I knew I had to do. I simply subjectively appropriated my objective hope. I hoped to be sailing on that ship, and so I subjectively appropriated the objective hope, for if I were sailing I would get into that little boat, get off onto the gangplank and walk up to the deck of the ship.

The next day – the very next day – I had not dressed; I had not a thing to do but go to the bathing beach later on in the day. The phone rang, and it was the Alcoa Steamship Company asking me to come on down, that they had news for me. I asked them what news. They said we have passage for three sailing on the next ship, which will put you back in New York City on the 1st of May.

I went down, and I was very curious and asked, “Why do you offer it to me when the list, you told me, is so long, with hundreds and hundreds waiting on it who are all ahead of me? And what caused you to have the vacancy?”

Well, a lady in the island, so she told me, who desired to get out badly and wanted to go back to America – the first choice would be this lady. Well, suddenly she changed her feeling about it. Then they went down the entire list with no reason whatsoever and gave it to us, and they justified it in this manner:

“The ship only carries two in each room, but your little girl is only about three years of age, and she can sleep in a bunk with your wife, and you can have the other one. So, because she is such a little child – only three years old, we gave it to accommodate three rather than two, and the two that we do have couldn’t share it anyway because they are different sexes and not married.”

That is how she justified giving it to me when hundreds of people were before me. I know how I did it. Every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It is a delusion. Well, I remembered what I did. It was only a matter of  24 hours between planting that seed and the springing of that seed into objective reality. By the 20th day of April I was on that boat, getting off in New York City by May the 1st to meet my appointment in Milwaukee.

I could multiply that by dozens and dozens in my own case, and unnumbered in those who attend my meetings. So, it is simply imagination plus faith. As we are told, without faith it is impossible to please Him. The one we please is not some external being; it is internal – your own wonderful imagination.

Now, I will put you to the test. We are told in the 13th chapter of II Corinthians: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – Unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

Now I just gave you the test. This is the test: If the word “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus Christ” conveys the sense of an existent something outside of man, you have failed the test, for Jesus Christ is in you. He said, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – Unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”  If the word

“Jesus Christ” conveys the existence of someone outside of you, you didn’t meet the test. And all things are done by Him. “Without Him was not anything made that is made.”  And He is your own wonderful human imagination!

So, here, when you know to Whom you pray and Who is actually doing it, you’ll find that it is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God.

“All things exist in the human imagination” . There isn’t a thing in this world that you and I call real – objectively real – that was not first only imagined. You name it!

The building in which we now are seated, everything here, the lectern, the clothes you wear, name anything here. You may go into other parts like the trees. We didn’t make those by imagination, but it was the Divine Imagination, the same as the human imagination, only we are keyed low. It is the same imagination, for there is only God. So, human imagination is one with Divine Imagination. On our level, God keyed Himself low with the weaknesses and the limitations of the body, God [literally] became as we are, that we may be as He is.”

In becoming man, He couldn’t pretend He was man. He had to actually become man, with all the weaknesses, with all the limitations and frailties of man, and assumed it completely. Then, in time, the whole thing unfolds within man, and man discovers that he is God! He discovers he is God because the drama is completely recorded for him. Everything said of Jesus Christ in Scripture, you are going to experience as something taking place within you. Not something of which you read as in the case of reading about another, no, it is all done within you. You stand dumbfounded. You are amazed beyond measure and belief. You cannot believe it, that you still capable of – well, of unlovely actions, could be that glorified. Yet you can’t deny the evidence of your senses. You cannot deny the experiences that you’ve had. And the whole thing will unfold in you. You will know from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. No one taught it to me. I never read it in a book – in the Bible, but I never saw it in the Bible until I had experienced it, and then I went back and researched the Scriptures to find it is all there, but adumbrated. It was not spelled out in a way that man could understand it. The whole thing was an adumbration from beginning to end; and when it takes place in man, and the man in whom it takes place tells it, those who hear him can’t believe it because they know him. They know his past. They know his background in every little detail, and they cannot believe their traditional concept of Jesus Christ to be what he is talking about that actually unfolded within him.

The Bible tells the same story: “He came to his own, and his own received him not,”  because really, in the end, there is only the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only God! God is buried in every being in the world, and only God will rise. And He will rise in the individual, and the individual in whom He rises, that one will know Who He is. And he will be the God of Scripture. That is the story.

But tonight, on the practical level you try it, knowing Who is doing it: that it is God doing it, and God is your own wonderful human imagination.

Now, take faith, as defined for us in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, and you will see that it is simply the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I wanted to be on that ship; that was my objective hope. Well, I first subjectively appropriated it. I did it as though it were true. I actually acted just as though the thing had happened. I walked up the gangplank, held the rail, looked back with mixed feelings, and then fell asleep. And when I found myself wandering, I went back to the very first step on the gangplank and did it over again, and went on doing it over and over until I could walk right up that gangplank and actually feel I am at the very top and turn around and put my hand on the rail.

And strangely enough, in my imagination I allowed my brother Victor to carry my daughter Victoria up the gangplank, and to justify his action when we got off the little tender onto the gangplank, he said, “Come, your father’s arms aren’t strong enough to take you. I will take you.” But my arms certainly were strong enough to carry my daughter, but he had to justify it, as we all do. He had to justify that action, and then took her up. Well, that is exactly what he did when we got to the little boat!

So, here, I ask you just to listen to it and not say, Well, I’ve heard it, and forget it, but try it. You will be the operant power. It doesn’t work itself. We are the operant power. In fact, all day long we are operating it, but I would ask everyone to operate it wisely, nobly, consciously, and not go into a fantasy wildly that tomorrow, when it comes up, we will not forget the harvest. For everything in our world, man once imagined. And all the men of action in our world that you see out building the buildings and doing all the business – they are nothing more than the unconscious instruments of imaginative men.

A man sits down at the drafting board, and he has conceived a building. He does everything in detail all in his imagination, and then he turns the blueprint over to the men of action, and they get all the credit, but the man who did it was simply the man of imagination.

That is what William Butler Yeats meant. Having seen this law in operation, he said, “I will never again be certain that it was not some woman treading in the winepress that started that sudden change in men’s minds.” And because of it, so many nations were given to the sword because of some dream in the mind of some shepherd boy that lighted up his eyes for a moment before it went upon its way.

Someone feeling herself neglected and wrongfully accused, and she is vivid in her imagination, when she, unknown by the world, is setting the world aflame. Many a man tonight is in jail, and wrongfully there; he knows he did not commit the crime for which he was charged, and he is paying a price that he feels he should not pay. That man’s mind is inflamed, and what is he doing? It is going undetected, but the events will appear in the world.

Two or three weeks ago I received a letter, and I thought it was a strange letter when I began to read it. It is from a prisoner. I do not know the man at all. He signed his name “Bob,” and enclosed a self-addressed envelope. He is at Folsom. Folsom is a place where only the hardened prisoners are sent. Well, he confessed that he heard me on TV, and he practiced it and it worked.

Well, I had twenty TV appearances on Sunday afternoons between 2:00 and 2:30. He said he applied it, and he said, “Neville, and it worked! Where I am going, I don’t know, but I am here for quite a stretch, and so it doesn’t matter whether you answer tonight, tomorrow or when you answer, because I am here. But I would like certain questions answered.”

That fellow is interested in the use of imagination. Strangely enough, they are vitally interested in the mystery of death. They would like to know if I can cast any thought whatsoever on death, based upon – naturally – my experiences; not things concerning others, but what I know concerning death.

Well, I wrote him just before I came up. By now he must have the letter. I wish I could go to Folsom and talk to the inmates and tell them of their true dignity – the Man that they are destined to be, for they are destined to be the Lord Jesus Christ! Every child born of woman is destined to be Christ, and to be conscious of the fact that he is the Lord. But how to get there and address them, I do not know. He has my letter. I wrote him in detail as much as I possibly could, and he will share it with those who are interested. They are vitally interested in death.

I told him, as I would tell anyone, I meet people who are not aware of the fact that they have made the transition. They know nothing of the fact that they have died, because they aren’t dead! They are not dead, and nobody can persuade them that they died. They are talking to a man who is just as alive as you are, and you tell him that he died and you went to his funeral and you know exactly where they put him in the ground, revealing what he would expect of you as a friend, but he laughs at you, because he knows he isn’t dead. I say, “No, you are not dead, but you died, you know.” “But aren’t you stupid,” he said to me – “I am not dead but I died!”

You see, there is all the difference in the world between restoration, which happens to everyone who dies here – instantaneous restoration in an unaccountable way in a new body – like it was before, but new – unaccountably new, and young. If you die at 90, you are 20, and it is an instantaneous restoration. Well, that is not Resurrection.

Resurrection is the story that I tell when man actually awakens from the dream of life, while the other is restored to continue the dream. He is dreaming the conditions round about him, as he is dreaming the conditions here.

What was it but a waking, controlled dream that I did when I went aboard the ship? When I got out of the Army, was that not a dream, a waking but controlled dream? When I put in my application for an honorable discharge, it was denied me and signed Colonel Theodore Bilbough, Jr. He was my Commanding Officer in the 11th Armored Division.” There was no appeal beyond my commander. I could not take it to the regimental commander or division commander; I could only take it to my battalion commander, and he was my commander.

And he signed it “Disapproved.” That night I went to sleep in my little bunk with all the other soldiers and assumed that I was in New York City in my own apartment in Times Square, where I had my apartment. I was in my own bed my wife was in her bed, and our little girl was in her crib. And then I got up – all in my imagination – and walked through my apartment and felt the familiar objects. I could see them all. I could see them in my mind’s eye. And I made it quite clear to myself that I was not there on furlough; I was honorably discharged and sleeping now as a civilian.

That same night before my vision about 4:00 in the morning came a huge white sheet, and here on the white sheet was the word “Disapproved,” signed Colonel Theodore Bilbough, Jr. Then came a hand – just a hand with a pen in it, and the pen scratched out the word “Disapproved,” and in bold script it wrote, “Approved.” Then a voice spoke, and the voice said to me, “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.”

Nine days later the commanding officer, Colonel Bilbough, called me in, and after giving me a lecture about the best-dressed man in America is the man who wears the uniform of America – I said, “Yes, Sir.” Then he goes on, and I said, “Yes, Sir,” “Yes, Sir,” “Yes, Sir.” At the very end of it he said, “I have decided I am going to let you go,” and then he signed my release. That very day I was out of the Army honorably discharged. I didn’t tell him what I did. Would he have believed it? For geared as he was to war, sending millions of us into battle, could he believe that the imagination could bring about peace?

How can you take a man trained as he was trained and persuade him that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact? How could he possibly believe that? Yet I was the living evidence of what I had done. If I had told him what I had done, he would never believe that that was the cause of the physical phenomenon leading to the train and then the journey to New York City. That is exactly what I did in the vision of that night, just as I have told you.

The sheet with his name and the word “Disapproved”; and then comes the hand striking out the word “Disapproved,” and it wrote in bold script “Approved.” And then this voice coming from the depths said, “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.” I did nothing, and then nine days later he calls me in, approves it, shakes my hand, and he said to me, “Goddard, I will meet you in New York City after we have won this war.” I said, “Yes, Sir.” And that was it. No argument.

I knew the causation behind it all, and I didn’t feel that that was the right time to share it with him. He was not in the mood to share what I had discovered. Well, I had discovered it, and I applied it. Why not apply the truth if you think you have found the truth? And so I found it, I used it, and it worked. When something proves itself in performance, what does it matter if the whole vast world rises up in opposition to it? It proves itself in the testing.

So, I am sharing with you that which I have proved. But it doesn’t work itself. You are the operant power. So, you take it home and know exactly who God is. Are we not told in the 4th Psalm, “Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be silent.”  Not with someone else’s heart – commune with your own heart. The words “heart” and “mind” are synonymous in meaning. Commune with your own mind, and trust that Mind; trust it implicitly. Believe in the reality of your imagined acts, and these imaginal acts will objectify themselves and become what the world calls objective facts. They will!

So, if you start behind the eight-ball, or behind anything that seems to be in opposition or an impassable something – well, you believe in God. I am telling you Who He is. Believe in the true God. Test yourself and see if you really believe in the true God.

I am convinced that ninety-nine percent of the world will claim to believe in God, but they believe in a false god. They stick him on the wall, made by human hands, and cross themselves. He isn’t there at all. Read the 115th Psalm. What a shocker! What a shocker when you see what man does with his own hands and worships that which he makes with his own hands and calls it God! He has no eyes that can see, no ears that can hear. He has eyes, he has ears, he has nostrils, he has arms, he has feet, but none of these things can move. The eyes can’t see, the ears can’t hear, the mouth can’t speak, the feet can’t move, and yet he looks upon it as God!

The 115th Psalm is the most marvelous thing to read. It is a shocker. And, then, come back to find the real God, the living God, the God that cannot die – the God that is in you, your Immortal Self. That God cannot die! And that is your own wonderful human imagination. And should you drop now, you would be instantly restored in a body just the same, only new, unaccountably new and young – not an infant, not born again, just new. How it happens, I cannot tell you. I only know I’ve seen them, and they do not know – the majority of them do not know that they have made the transition into a section of time best suited for the work still to be done in them.

So, it does not mean that because you drop in the year 1971 that you are going to find the year ’71 now. No. You could find yourself in the Year One Thousand or the Year Three Thousand, but that is irrelevant. The section of time into which you are placed is done by the depths of your own being. He knows best what you need for the work: that He has started within you, and He is slowly breaking down the wall of partition between two until they become one. He is rubbing out that wall between you and Himself; when it is completely rubbed out, you are one. It is essential that He leaves all and cleaves to his wife to become one, not two. You are His wife till the sleep of death is passed.

So, this is God’s emanation, and then, in time, He rubs out that little division and He becomes one with you. And when He becomes one with you, He awakes, and you aren’t two – you are one. And it is all spelled out for us in Scripture, and as we go through this series, the nine that follow tonight, we will try to explain it, using the Scripture to support my experiences. It is clearly stated, but I must confess I did not see it. I did not know it. I knew nothing of the Promise, even though it is right there in the Bible, speaking of promises, until it happened right here in this City twelve years ago tomorrow, on the 20th of July, 1959. It happened right here in this City at that hotel called Sir Francis Drake.

I had retired after a very pleasant meal with a friend of mine. I retired early. And then at 4:00 in the morning the whole drama unfolded within me. Then the whole series took twelve hundred and sixty days to complete, just as foretold in the 12th chapter of Daniel, and then reaffirmed in Revelation (Daniel 12:7; Revelation 11:3) one thousand two hundred and sixty days from the first great event to the fourth and final one.

I have recorded it all, and you have it in the book called “Resurrection.”

Now, tonight, let us make it a full and interesting evening. After the Silence we will have your questions, and I will try my best to answer every question that is asked. Now, let us go into the Silence.

Now are there any questions, please? Surely there are questions!

A lady in the audience: Neville, then surely the memory must….

Neville: If I dropped tonight after 66 years of acquiring experiences and it is not a part of me.

The Lady: But I mean, the conscious mind?

Neville: Certainly, my dear. But you live there just as you live here; and people are afraid of dying there just as they are here, because they die there, as told in the 20th chapter of the book of Luke. It is stated so clearly, but man doesn’t see it. There we have what is known as the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Well, in modern language the Sadducees would be the extreme disbelievers, scientifically trained, intelligent, but with no belief in survival, believing that the brain is the whole thing, not the instrument. They believe the brain is the reality itself; they cannot believe that the brain is not the whole, when others believe the brain is only the instrument and the “player” is unseen who plays that instrument. Well, the Sadducees thought they would trick the central character of Scripture, and they asked the questions “Master, Moses once said that if a man marries and dies with no offspring and he has brothers, the second brother should marry his widow and raise up seed for his brother.” (See Luke 20:27 and following) Well, there were seven brothers. The first died leaving no offspring, the second ditto – died leaving no offspring; the third ditto, leaving no offspring. Eventually all married her and all died, and eventually she died. “Now whose wife is she in the Resurrection?”

His answer is this: “In this age the sons of God marry and are given in marriages but those accounted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more. They are now sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”

So, if you cannot die any more – if they are not resurrected, they die as they die here. You cannot accomplish in threescore and ten years what is going to take six thousand years.

The Lady: I think you stated that before the Resurrection.

Neville: Before the Resurrection everything dies. In this world, it is a world of death. Actually, that is the question that this man from Folsom asked, and I could not answer him as I wanted to, because had I answered him, he would have thrown the letter out. If I had said to him that I have seen this world dead – that everything stood still; time stood still, – You have the power within you, and one day you will exercise it. You will arrest it in you, not in the world.

You will release something that you feel within your own skull, and you will make it stand still, and when it is arrested, the whole vast world stands still, and it will look as though every one were dead. Every being that one second before was so animated and so alive is now dead. It is just as though it is made of clay or marble, and you look at it and you are amazed. Then you release within you the activity that you froze, and everything continues on its course.

The bird that stopped in space – well, the bird should fall, shouldn’t it? Suddenly a bird is arrested. It did not fall because of gravity. If the waitress is coming through and I arrest within me her activity, she wouldn’t fall. She was in motion, and she simply stands still supported by the earth or the floor. But a bird in flight, that bird certainly should continue to fall because I arrested its motion. It didn’t fall! The bird stood still in space, and she stood still, and the diners dining – everything stood still. As I released within me the activity that I had arrested, everything continued to fulfill its purpose.

Now, I could have changed their motivation and then released it. They would have changed their attitude towards life, and they would have thought that they had originated it. That is the power that is actually destined for every one on the globe, and you will know that it is from above. And from above, the whole world is completely controlled. He said, “I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” He is explaining an entirely different age.

So, this world belongs to the world of death. Everything appears, it waxes, it wanes, and it disappears. Even the sun is going to go or slowly melt – so I am told. I am no scientist.

I was telling a friend of mine before I started the meeting; I have more friends on the other side of the veil than on this side. At my age I should. They all look alive here. I start counting those that have disappeared, and they are all over there, and they are still living just as they lived here – reanimated in a body that is young – unaccountably young, and many of them do not know of the transition. They just don’t know it.

The Lady: Do they know you?

Neville: They know me, and yet they do not know of the transition. I can give you a story right here in this State. My secretary died suddenly at the age of 50. He was like my brother. He was my secretary, my friend, my brother. Jack Butler was his name. I got a cable saying they had found the body on the floor. He died of a massive heart attack. So, I went back and took care of the funeral. His sister insisted on a Catholic funeral because he was born a Catholic. He wasn’t a practicing Catholic, but she insisted, so I paid the expenses but she was the sister and I allowed that to take ho1d.

It was at Haverstrom, New York. We got the priest, we got the plot of land in a Catholic cemetery so all things were in order. My sister-in-law, my wife’s older sister, did not believe in what I teach, although she considers herself a pillar of the Episcopal Church. And I said to her, “What is it that you do not believe?” She said, “I do not believe in immortality. I believe that immortality is simply the descendants moving on and carrying on.” I said, “How can you be a Christian, and you do not believe in immortality or life everlasting? I can’t see, Al, where you could be a Christian – not in my sense of the word.”

Well, she still did not believe it. She said, “You are kind to my sister. You are a good husband and a good father, but I do not believe in your teaching.”

Six months after Jack died, I found myself conscious in what they call “that world,” fully conscious as I am now, and here was my sister-in-law, Al, and here is Jack. She said to me – she opened the conversation – she said, “I still don’t believe what you teach.” That is how she opened up the conversation.

I said to her, “How can you say that and look at Jack?”

She said, “What has Jack to do with it?”

I said, “Don’t you know Jack died?” Well, she did. She remembered that he had died. She knew I came back from California to take care of the funeral, and so she remembered and her face changed completely, because Jack had died and she remembered that.

Then Jack said to me “Who is dead?”

I said, “Jack, you are not dead, but you died, you know.”

“Oh, how stupid! I’m not dead, but I died!”

I said, “Yes, you died. I gave you a nice, homey funeral in sacred ground with a priest and all the things he is supposed to do.” And he looked at me so disgustedly. Then I said to Jack, “Jack, come over here.” He did; he obeyed me. He came over, and I turned to my sister-in-law and said, “Watch this, Al.” I put my hand on his thigh, and I squeezed it, and it was solidly real just as flesh and blood. He looked at me and did exactly what he would have done here and said, “Take your hand off me!” just like that as I squeezed his thigh. And at that, she was flabbergasted, and everything dissolved, and I am back on my bed.

That is my experience with Jack. He doesn’t know he is dead, because he isn’t. He didn’t die. He died only to those who could not follow him. He lost contact. But the world doesn’t cease to be at the point where my senses cease to register it.

The Lady: I believe firmly in life after death, but I thought, you know – if there was a carrying on of the understanding.

Neville: They are just as busy making a dollar as we are here. And there is no transforming power in death. A man who was a thief here finds himself still desirous of taking the goods of others. The one who is kind and considerate here, he is kind and considerate there. When I quoted from the 20th chapter of the book of Luke, the word worthy – I’ve been questioned time and time on that word worthy. But all Bibles translate it worthy; it is worthy. By definition, it means to seem entirely deserving. Well, in the eyes of whom? In the eyes of the one who is raised? No. In the eyes of those who behold. Those who await Eternity contemplate death. Those who are the resurrected in the eyes of their brotherhood – that one seemed worthy, entirely deserving, of being awakened from his dream. He has dreamed horrible dreams and beautiful dreams, and he has gone through the mill; it is time now to awaken him from the dream. He is worthy. His experiences are over when he takes off the body for the last time.

Any other questions, please?

A Gentleman: You said something about your television shows. I am not familiar with them.

Neville: I had 26 in L.A. on Channel 11. There were thirteen, and then I had a break for about three months, and they brought me back for another thirteen. There were 26 half-hour shows; I did just what I am doing now. They gave me a lectern, and I simply sat at a desk really and spoke extemporaneously. There was no cue to bring me in. When they started the camera, I was seated at the desk. I didn’t have to walk off the stage; I didn’t have to come on the stage. There was no director. I was simply seated at the desk, and then the camera simply moved in on me, and then at the end of what I had to say it just faded and went to the one to follow me. I had enormous mail on it. It was a tremendous success as far as what I do, but they couldn’t use it to sell perfume. I was told that I had an audience in excess of about three hundred thousand every Sunday afternoon between 2:00 and 2:30. That is what I was told by the survey; they estimate so many who view. In those days it was not done on tape; it was all done live. In those days everything was live for TV. The tapes came in after my days so those things are just a memory now.

The Gentleman: It was a number of years ago?

Neville: Oh, yes. Now I only appear on an occasional panel, and that is fun if they let you go completely out and tell them what you know from experience, that is fun, especially when you get a very critical bunch around you who try to dethrone you or make fun. Most of my critics are those who are only speaking from theory, not from experience.

A Lady: …someone who has written about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. And contrary to what you say, he talks about evolving, but from what you say, I imply it is really like a dream.

Neville: As far as I am concerned, he could mean something entirely different than I would if I used the word evolved. I do not accept evolving. I believe that God actually became as I am, and God will awaken in me, and when He awakes, I am He. But, now, if the book you refer to is by Nicoll, I recommend Nicoll as a great thinker. Dr. Nicoll was a great thinker and a perfectly marvelous person. He is gone now from this sphere, as Gurdjieff is gone, and all the others are gone. Ouspensky is gone. But they used a different terminology. I do not teach what some of them do, which is reincarnation for one. No – to me, man is individualized and attains forever towards ever greater and greater individualization. I firmly believe that the true Temple of God is the individuality of man, made clearer by the indwelling of Jesus Christ. The only sepulcher in which He was ever buried is the skull of man.

He actually indwells man, and one day He will awaken in man. And when He awakens in that man, that man will know he is the Lord Jesus Christ. But He will awaken in every man. He took upon Himself Humanity, so that killing man is killing God. People don’t see it. Hurting man is hurting God. He is suffering all the ills that man suffers, but everything.

Well, I think the time is up. Now we are here every night Monday through Friday this week and Monday through Friday next week, from 7:30 to 8:30. The door is open for us at 7:00, but we start at 7:30 and go through to 8:30. So, I do hope I’11 see many of you again.

Good night.

Neville Goddard: The Law of Assumption

Neville Goddard - Station KECA, Los Angeles (July, 1951)

The great mystic, William Blake, wrote almost two hundred years ago, "What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be and is productive of the most dreadful consequences to those to whom it seems to be." Now, at first, this mystical gem seems a bit involved, or at best to be a play on words; but it is nothing of the kind. Listen to it carefully. "What seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be." That is certainly clear enough. It is a simple truth about the law of assumption, and a warning of the consequences of its misuse. The author of the Epistle to the Romans declared in the fourteenth chapter, "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclearn."

We see by this that it is not superior insight but purblindness that reads into the greatness of men some littleness with which it chances to be familiar, for what seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be.

Experiments recently conducted at two of our leading universities revealed this great truth about the law of assumption. They stated in their releases to the newspapers, that after two thousand experiments they came to the conclusion that, ‘What you see when you look at something depends not so much on what is there as on the assumption you make when you look. What you believe to be the real physical world is actually only an assumptive world." In other words, you would not define your husband in the same way that you mother would. Yet, you are both defining the same person. Your particular relationship to a thing influences your feelings with respect to that thing and makes you see in it an element which is not there. If your feeling in the matter is a self-element; it can be cast out. If it is a permanent distinction in the state considered, it cannot be cast out. The thing to do is to try. If you can change your opinion of another, then what you now believe of him cannot be absolutely true, but relatively true.

Men believe in the reality of the external world because they do not know how to focus and condense their powers to penetrate its thin crust. Strangely enough, it is not difficult to penetrate this view of the senses. To remove the veil of the senses, we do not employ great effort; the objective world vanishes as we turn our attention from it. We have only to concentrate on the state desired to mentally see it; but to give reality to it so that it will become an objective fact, we must focus our attention upon the desired state until it has all the sensory vividness and feeling of reality. When, through concentrated attention, our desire appears to possess the distinctness and feeling of reality; when the form of thought is as vivid as the form of nature, we have given it the right to become a visible fact in our lives. Each man must find the means best suited to his nature to control his attention and concentrate it on the desired state. I find for myself the best state to be one of meditation, a relaxed state akin to sleep, but a state in which I am still consciously in control of my imagination and capable of fixing my attention on a mental object.

If it is difficult to control the direction of your attention while in this state akin to sleep, you may find gazing fixedly into an object very helpful. Do not look at its surface, but rather into and beyond any plain object such as a wall, a carpet or any object which possesses depth. Arrange it to return as little reflection as possible. Imagine, then, that in this depth you are seeing and hearing what you want to see and hear until your attention is exclusively occupied by the imagined state.

At the end of your meditation, when you awake from your controlled waking dream you feel as though you had returned from a great distance. The visible world which you had shut out returns to consciousness and, by its very presence, informs you that you have been self-deceived into believing that the object of your contemplation was real; but if you remain faithful to your vision this sustained mental attitude will give reality to your visions and they will become visible concrete facts in your world.

Define your highest ideal and concentrate your attention upon this ideal until you identify yourself with it. Assume the feeling of being it – the feeling that would be yours were you now embodying it in your world. This assumption, though now denied by your senses, "if persisted in" – will become a fact in your world. You will know when you have succeeded in fixing the desired state in consciousness simply by looking mentally at the people you know. This is a wonderful check on yourself as your mental conversations are more revealing than your physical conversations are. If, in your mental conversations with others, you talk with them as you formerly did, then you have not changed your concept of self, for all changes of concepts of self result in a changed relationship to the world. Remember what was said earlier, "What you see when you look at something depends not so much on what is there as on the assumption you make when you look." Therefore, the assumption of the wish fulfilled should make you see the world mentally as you would physically were your assumption a physical fact. The spiritual man speaks to the natural man through the language of desire. The key to progress in life and to the fulfillment of dreams lies in the ready obedience to the voice. Unhesitating obedience to its voice is an immediate assumption of the wish fulfilled. To desire a state is to have it. As Pascal said, "You would not have sought me had you not already found me." Man, by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled and then living and acting on this conviction changes his future in harmony with his assumption. To "change his future" is the inalienable right of freedom loving individuals. There would be no progress in the world were it not for the divine discontent in man which urges him on to higher and higher levels of consciousness. I have chosen this subject so close to the hearts of us all – "Changing Your Future" -- for my message next Sunday morning. I am to have the great joy of speaking for Dr. Bailes while he is vacationing. The service will be held at 10:30 at the Fox Wilshire Theater on Wilshire Boulevard near La Cienega Boulevard.

Since the right to change our future is our birthright as sons of God, let us accept its challenge and learn just how to do it. Again today, speaking of changing your future, I wish to stress the importance of a real transformation of self – not merely a slight alteration of circumstances which, in a matter of moments, will permit us to slip back into the old dissatisfied man. In your meditation, allow others to see you as they would see you were this new concept of self a concrete fact. You always seem to others the embodiment of the ideal you inspire. Therefore, in meditation, when you contemplate others, you must be seen by them mentally as you would be seen by them physically were your conception of yourself an objective fact. That is, in meditation, you imagine that they see you expressing this nobler man you desire to be. If you assume that you are what you want to be, your desire is fulfilled and, in fulfillment, all longing "to be" is neutralized. This, also, is an excellent check on yourself as to whether or not you have actually succeeded in changing self. You cannot continue desiring what has been realized. Rather, you are in a mood to give thanks for a gift received. Your desire is not something you labor to fulfill, it is recognizing something you already possess. It is assuming the feeling of being that which you desire to be.

Believing and being are one. The conceiver and his conception are one. Therefore, that which you conceive yourself to be can never be so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen. If you assume that you are that finer, nobler one you wish to be, you will see others as they are related to your high assumption. All enlightened men wish for the good of others. If it is the good of another you seek, you must use the same controlled contemplation. In meditation, you must represent the other to yourself as already being or having the greatness you desire for him. As for yourself, your desire for another must be an intense one. It is through desire that you rise above your present sphere and the road from longing to fulfillment is shortened as you experience in imagination all that you would experience in the flesh were you or your friend the embodiment of the desire you have for yourself or him. Experience has taught me that this is the perfect way to achieve my great goals for others as well as for myself. However, my own failures would convict me were I to imply that I have completely mastered the control of my attention. I can, however, with the ancient teacher say: "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before – I press towards the mark for the prize."

Neville Goddard: The Truth That Sets You Free

Excerpt from The Power of Awareness, chapter 5

The darma of life is a psychological one, in which all the conditions, circumstances and events of your life are brought to pass by your assumptions. 

Since your life is determined by your assumptions, you are forced to recognize the fact that you are either a slave to your assumptions or their master. 

To become the master of your assumptions is the key to undreamed of freedom and happiness. 

You can attain this mastery by deliberate conscious control of your imagination. You determine your assumptions in this way: 

Form a mental image, a picture of the state desired, of the person you want to be. Concentrate your attention upon the feeling that you are already that person. First, visualize the picture in your consciousness. Then feel yourself to be in that state as though it actually formed your surrounding world. By your imagination that which was a mere mental image is changed into a seemingly solid reality. 

The great secret is a controlled imagination and a well-sustained attention firmly and repeatedly focused on the object to be accomplished. It cannot be emphasized too much that, by creating an ideal within your mental sphere, by assuming that you are already that ideal, you identify yourself with it and thereby transform yourself into its image [thinking FROM the ideal instead OF thinking of the ideal. Every state is already there as "mere possibilities" as long as we think OF them, but as overpoweringly real when we think FROM them]. 

This was called by the ancient teachers “Subjection to the will of God” or “Resting in the Lord”, and the only true test of “Resting in the

Lord” is that all who do rest are inevitably transformed into the image of that in which they rest [thinking FROM the wish fulfilled]. 

You become according to your resigned will, and your resigned will is your concept of yourself and all that you consent to and accept as true. 

You, assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled and continuing therein, take upon yourself the results of that state; not assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled, you are ever free of the results. 

When you understand the redemptive function of imagination, you hold in your hands the key to the solution of all your problems. 

Every phase of your life is made by the exercise of your imagination. Determined imagination alone is the means of your progress, of the fulfilling of your dreams. It is the beginning and end of all creating. 

The great secret is a controlled imagination and a well-sustained attention firmly and repeatedly focused on the feeling of the wish fulfilled until it fills the mind and crowds all other ideas out of consciousness. 

What greater gifts could be given you than to be told the Truth that will set you free John 8:32]? 

The Truth that sets you free is that you can experience in imagination what you desire to experience in reality, and by maintaining this experience in imagination, your desire will become an actuality. 

You are limited only by your uncontrolled imagination and lack of attention to the feeling of your wish fulfilled. 

When the imagination is not controlled and the attention not steadied on the feeling of the wish fulfilled, then no amount of prayer or piety or invocation will produce the desired effect. 

When you can call up at will whatsoever image you please, when the forms of your imagination are as vivid to you as the forms of nature, you are master of your fate. [You must stop spending your thoughts,

your time and your money. Everything in life must be an investment.*] 

Visions of beauty and splendor, 

Forms of a long-lost race, 

Sounds and faces and voices, 

From the fourth dimension of space – 

And on through the universe boundless, 

Our thoughts go lightning shod – 

Some call it imagination, 

And others call it God. 

[Dr. George W. Carey, "The New Name"] 

* Neville follows this with the date April 12, [19]53. In Awakened Imagination (1954), he would write, “On the morning of April 12, 1953, my wife was awakened by the sound of a great voice of authority speaking within her and saying, ‘You must stop spending your thoughts, time, and money. Everything in life must be an investment’. To spend is to waste, to squander, to layout without return. To invest is to lay out for a purpose from which a profit is expected. This revelation of my wife is about the importance of the moment. It is about the transformation of the moment… It is only what is done now that counts… Whenever we assume the feeling of being what we want to be, we are investing”. 

Neville Goddard: Divine Signs

Neville Goddard 05-01-1968

Those raised in the Christian or Jewish faith are taught to believe that scripture is secular history. But I know that the story of Jesus, from his conception by the Holy Spirit to his ascension into heaven, is a sign rendered by God to those who will receive it.

The visions of the Old and New Testament are unchanged, eternal realities, which are forever. One day you will encounter what appears on paper to be a person, but he will be a state of consciousness, personified. 

When Paul recognized this truth he said: "From now on I regard no one from a human point of view. Even though I once regarded Christ from a human point of view, I regard him thus no longer." After the revelation Paul realized that Jesus Christ was the creative power and wisdom of God, and not a person as he had been taught. But because God became Man that Man may become God, every attribute of God - whether it be faith, called Abraham, or the power and wisdom of God, called Jesus Christ - was personified. 

Although addressing the Corinthians, Paul was speaking of the characters in scripture when he said: "From now on I regard no one from the human point of view." No longer able to think of Abraham as a person (as you are a person) Paul tells this story: "It is written in scripture that Abraham had two sons. One born of a slave according to the flesh, and the other born according to the promise." Here Paul is telling you that by your physical birth you are that one born according to the flesh. But Abraham's second son is born of a free woman, born according to the promise. 

Then Paul explains the allegory of the two sons, telling us that Hagar - a servant of Sarah - was given over to Abraham, who sired the child Ishmael (meaning, "His hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against him"). Isn't that this world? As an offspring of the slave, Hagar, we struggle to make a living, to pay rent and taxes, always trying to keep ourselves above the flood of illusion. 

But after the vision Paul realized that there is another birth, which takes place within. Called Isaac, that second son comes from Sarah, for he is born according to the promise. This is all symbolism, for when your spiritual birth occurs a child wrapped in swaddling clothes will appear to symbolize your birth. There are two distinct births from two distinct beings. One from the womb of woman (Hagar) and the other from the skull of generic man, called Sarah. Having seen the vision and, understanding its message, Paul no longer thought of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob - or any character of scripture, including Jesus Christ - as human. Even though he formerly thought of them that way and heard their story as secular history, he regarded them thus no longer.

In his 3rd chapter to the Ephesians, Paul makes this statement: "When you read the Old Testament, you will perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations, but is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit." It was not known prior to its revelation in Paul that the mystery of Christ comes from within! 

In the same letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of himself and those with whom he shared the vision, saying: "It has been shown us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth as a plan in Christ, for the fullness of time." To Paul, Christ - God's power and wisdom - is a plan of redemption, which is crucified on humanity and will be raised from the dead. 

I tell you now: he has made known unto me the sacred secret of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. And when that time is fulfilled, he who is buried in you will erupt and God's purpose will be revealed. 

The revelation of purpose gives everything meaning. You could have a million dollars and die tomorrow. Those who inherit your estate will give you lip service, but even after one generation the caring will cease and within three generations they will forget you. That is this world, but there is a plan buried in you which reveals God's purpose and gives meaning to all life! When that plan is unveiled in you, you will know why you do what you do and dream what you dream. You will know why you have certain visions. You will realize that everything contains within itself a symbolic significance. I will show you in a very simple way. 

Tonight you may dream that you have an intimate relationship with another. Upon awakening, ask yourself what the one you encountered represents to you, and a wonderful answer will come from the depth of your soul. You will discover that, on a certain level, they represent a glorious state. 

For instance: I know a brilliant man who graduated from Yale at the age of 19 and remained there for many years to teach higher mathematics. As an American of many generations, he once said to me: "We should have only English speaking people in the world," and he meant it. He was a very positive, brilliant person. If in dream you should see this man in a relationship, upon awakening you would realize he represents something positive, strong, and intellectual. Then watch, for whether one knows of the events or not, soon thereafter the one impregnated will be inspired to do something creative; for God is a creator who goes about creating, and you saw God's creative act. 

On this level you may think this is sordid, but that is because you do not know God's symbolism. Speaking to everyone in the language of symbolism, that which the world may condemn is a glorious act of God. 

God, being protean, plays all the parts. Wearing the garment of another, you see an act which could be a horrible one, based upon your concept of that individual. But if it is a lovely act, a glorious child - such as a poem, painting, or a design for a new home - will appear out of that union. That's all the experience means; but man is so rooted in the flesh, he gives it a Caesar's concept, which blinds him to God's symbolism. 

You may or may not believe me, but the story of Jesus - from his conception by the Holy Spirit to his ascension into heaven - is simply a sign rendered by God to those who will receive it. 

I have fulfilled scripture. There are those who will accept my message, and those who will not. If you who believe my word and ever see me in vision in the creative act, it is because I am fertilizing the story of the gospel in you. I am the father of that which is being fertilized. 

I refer you, now to the 4th chapter of 1 Corinthians, where Paul speaks, saying: "You have unnumbered guides in Christ, but not many fathers. I became your father in Christ." 

This is a mystery. Unnumbered people will tell you about Christ, based upon theory and speculation but not from experience. The King James Version calls these men instructors. Paul is saying that although there are many instructors, after his experiences are accepted he sires them. 

Paul shared his vision, saying: "When it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood." To whom could one turn after having experienced the vision of God's son calling him father? How could anyone tell you anything about a vision you have had? God's son revealed himself in me, and as I tell it I draw those who will believe me. Although they may not understand, they will modify their preconceived concepts of the Christian faith to conform to what I have experienced. The union will occur and that concept will unfold within them. 

God, being protean, uses Neville (or anyone who has unfolded the pattern within himself) and wearing that mask he has union with one who has accepted the story of salvation. Then, having fertilized, it the pattern unfolds within him. 

In 1929 1 had union with the Risen Lord, and 30 years later, in 1959, I was born from above. If the part you are predestined to play in the body of God calls for a shorter interval, your birth may happen sooner; but my part has been a complete unfoldment of scripture, and it has taken 30 years. 

We are told that when Jesus began his ministry he was about thirty years of age. This does not mean thirty years after a physical birth, but thirty years after the spiritual union. When your spiritual birth will take place only the Father knows; but we are told in the Book of Habakkuk: "Every vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late." 

Paul tells us there are eight levels of the body of God: the apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, and so on. If you are destined to play other than that of the apostle, then maybe the latent time between union and birth of that particular part is not the same. 

There is no dream, no vision, without meaning, for God speaks to man through the medium of dream and unveils himself in a vision. What you experience in vision is right for that particular level of your being, but when it is reduced to this level the thought would be totally wrong. Man, having eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, decides what is right and what is wrong, thereby descending into the mire of confusion. But when he turns around he discovers that nothing is either right or wrong. On a certain level it is right and on another level it is wrong. So learn to accept every level, and as you do you will ascend the tree of life to discover that every level - when viewed from there - is right when you know how to interpret it. 

He has made known unto me the mystery of his sacred will according to his purpose, which he set forth as a plan in Christ for the fullness of time. I now know that Christ is not a person, and regard no scriptural character from the human point of view, but rather a state of consciousness personified. I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, but now I see him as the creative power of imagination and the wisdom of imagination, with a plan buried in that power. 

I now know I am the cross God's power wears as His plan of salvation has unfolded in me. He awoke and resurrected himself in me, and the entire story of Jesus Christ unfolded and revealed me as God the Father. 

I have told you my experiences. If the world will not believe me it really doesn't matter, for I will find my remnant - my ten per cent - who will believe my story in spite of what they formerly believed. In this audience there are those who, although they attend regularly, continue to bring their barriers with them and will not accept my story. Others, bringing their preconceived misconceptions of scripture with them, depart never to return. 

A friend brought a lovely lady to the last lecture, at which time she told me she would take my theories under consideration. I told her they were not theories, that I speak from experience. Then she said: "But I am an ordained minister," and I replied: "That means nothing to me. Have you had the vision of Christ? Did the one who ordained you have the vision of Christ? If not, it's the blind leading the blind." 

"You can't take my theories under consideration, only what I have experienced. If it does not fit your prefabricated misconception of scripture, all well and good, but I am sharing my visions, my experiences. They are all revelations, not theory." She was very sweet, and left saying that this was her first lecture. 

You don't come for one time, and hear something so radically different from what you have been trained to believe and expect to swallow it hook, line, and sinker. I would ask my friend to loan her my book, Resurrection, and have her read the chapter on resurrection. It's all documented. 

I have referenced the Old Testament and - like Paul - ask you to keep my interpretation of the Old Testament in mind as you read my experiences. If so, you will find light coming from what you did not formerly understand, for the pattern has awakened in me. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. It's not the other way around. The pattern, the mystery of his will, remains sealed in the Old Testament until the fullness of time, when the seal is broken and individual man resurrects, fulfilling scripture. 

If you test your creative power on this level, the statement: "Whatsoever you desire, believe you have received it and you will," will no longer be a great theory given lip service, but will be known from experience. Believe you are the man (or woman) you want to be. Catch the feeling that you have already arrived. Look at your world from that assumption, knowing its truth. 

Now, believe your assumption has its own appointed hour to flower. Persist in your belief and no power on earth can stop it from hardening into fact. This is Christianity! 

There is no limit to your creative power. The most horrible problem will be resolved if you will but conceive a solution in your mind's eye. Anyone can do it. It doesn't take an Einstein to imagine a problem is resolved. Do not limit your creative power by determining the ways and means for it to come about, for imagination has at its disposal ways that are past finding out. 

Do not be concerned as to how, when, or where - only the end. If you are in debt, what is the solution? That you win the lottery or an uncle dies and leaves you his fortune? No! The end is that you are debt-free. How would you feel if all of your bills were paid? Assume that feeling and let imagination harden that feeling into a fact! 

Every problem has a solution. Imagine the solution and assume it is true. What would you see and do were it true? How would you feel? Persist in that feeling and in a way no one knows the solution will come to pass. 

There is nothing impossible to God, and God is crucified on you as your own wonderful human imagination! There never was another and there never will be another God, and all things are possible to him. If you can imagine the end, knowing all things are possible to imagination and remain faithful to that assumption as though it were true, imagination will harden into fact. 

Remember, creative power will not operate itself. Knowing what to do is not enough. You, imagination's operant power, must be willing to assume that things are as you desire them to be before they can ever come to pass. 

Now, let us return to the divine signs. The Bible begins with the story of Abraham, which is an allegory - a story told as if true - leaving the one who reads it to discover its fictitious character and learn its lesson. If the story of Abraham, Sarah, and their offspring Isaac, as well as the story of Abraham, Hagar and their offspring, Ishmael, are allegories, and Abraham is the father of us all - where is the reality of the story? 

The New Testament begins: "This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot Judas and his brother." lf Abraham, the source of all life, is an allegory, then everything is an allegory, including Jesus Christ; for he is the culmination of the entire genealogy that begins in the first chapter of Matthew. Search and you will discover that scripture is a wonderful plan of salvation buried in Christ, God's creative power and wisdom, who is crucified on man as his own wonderful human imagination. Knowing that the plan is contained in you, belief will awaken it. 

You may be completely unaware of the moment the plan was fertilized; but it must and will be fertilized by one who has awakened from the dream of life, for the plan that is to be born is spirit. One who has not yet awakened can be used to bring about a beautiful poem, a play, or a wonderful story on this level; but God's plan of salvation can only be fertilized by one who has already been raised from the dead, and God - being protean - will assume that mask to play that part. 

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville Goddard: Every Natural Effect

Every natural effect has a spiritual cause and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It is a delusion of the perishing, vegetable memory. We do not remember these moments in time when we imagined certain states. So when that imaginal state takes form so we can see it with the outer eye, we do not recognize our own harvest and deny that we had anything to do with these natural effects that are taking place in our world. Because our memory is faulty, we do not remember. "There is a moment in every day," said Blake, "that Satan cannot find, nor can his watch fiends find it. But the industrious find this moment and it multiply and when it once is found, it renovates every moment of the day if rightly placed." Now, by the word "Satan," he simply means doubt. Doubt cannot find it. I desire a certain state in this world. Reason tells me it’s difficult; my friends tell me it’s impossible; and so if I doubt that I could ever realize it, that’s the voice of Satan speaking to me. He’s always challenging God. God is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. So the protagonists are God and Satan -- simply faith and doubt. Can I imagine that I am the one that I would like to be and remain faithful to that assumption as though it were true. If I can and remember that assumption and when I did it, then I will see when it happens in my world the relationship between the natural effect and its spiritual cause. The spiritual cause was that moment of assumption.

Now let me share with you what was given to me this past week in the form of a letter. He’s here tonight. His barber was the low man on the totem pole when he first encountered him. There were four in the shop. Well he was the fourth man. If you’re familiar with the barbershop, and maybe you ladies do not know, and so the boss always has the first chair; and so if it’s a slow day, he gets the man. By the time he’s through, he gets the second one. He doesn’t share it. If three should come in, then they go to the different chairs. Well, four chairs, the fourth one waits for his customer. Well, this friend of mine one day happened to sit in his chair. And he liked the way he cut his hair and gathered from what he said that he liked cutting hair. He was proud of his profession as a barber, proud of it --- not making excuses as so many barbers do. He was proud to be a barber and wanted to be the very best barber and win competitions. So having heard this man express this desire, my friend imagined that he was tops. Well, in a little while he bought out the boss barber and then dismissed him and rearranged his staff and then from then on began to proceed to the top. Well, three weeks ago, while sitting in his chair, which is his now -- the boss barber is his barber for he was the low man but now he’s the top man. He said to him, and in a very exciting way, that there was a contest to be held in San Francisco. And he would like to enter this contest for hair styling and cutting of hair. Well, my friend said when "I discovered that he really wanted it, and no one goes into a contest unless he wants to win, I saw on the wall the trophy that would be his. And I heard him tell me how he won." Well, there were four men in the shop. One was committed for that weekend and so, this past weekend, he took two with him. So there were three from that shop of four men. There were only nine trophies given in the State in this competition and that one little shop won four. The boss barber won first prize and a second prize, and his two men that went with him each won a second. So they came back from San Francisco bearing four out of nine. Now he said to me, you’ve often said from the platform, "I will tell you before it takes place that when it does take place you may believe." Well now, I’m going to tell you, Neville, before it takes place. There’s going to be a contest in Southern California and I have seen his trophy as the first one on that wall. And so, I will tell you before it takes place that when it does take place, you will know that I am putting this into practice. I know he lives by it. "Then there will be another contest," said, he, "in Miami and one must win in Miami to be eligible for that which will be held in Brussels which will be international. I am putting him there in Brussels as first among all contestants." Well I know that he will win. For every natural effect has a spiritual cause and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It’s a delusion of man’s perishing, vegetable memory. He doesn’t remember. Well now, he will remember what he did. And I have his record at home in his letter.

Now he said to me in this letter, "I had a dream. I repeated the dream and then I had a third dream, all in the same night." So, the first and second was simply the same dream, repeated. "I do not bring back the details," said he, "of the dream but it was all about, in detail, strangely enough, about my birthday. But I cannot recall all the things that happened. I only know, here stood a man in a white robe with a book in his hand, opened in the middle, it was gilt-edged, and he had a quill in his hand (or it could have been a scythe). He looked almost like a cartoonist’s concept of Father Time. And he was insistent that my birthday was a certain day and I was equally forceful in stating that it was not because I knew my birthday to be the 19th of September, 1927, and he was insisting, over my protests, pointing all the things out in the book. And then I woke. In spite of his insistence and my protest, for I knew my birthday, at least that was my physical birthday." I’ll call his attention to the 87th Psalm, "And the Lord records as he registers the peoples. And he said this one was born there." It’s all about birth. There are only seven verses in it. It’s a small, short psalm. But this is the birth, not of a physical birth, this is a spiritual birth, "and this one was born there." I can say to him, you did the perfect job as I knew you would in challenging the Lord’s angel, the recording one. For to sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards of us all. And no coward can be used in his stable of studs. I can say from the way you worded your letter that you have been born; but the perishing, vegetable memory has not brought it back. You have been born from above. You have had other experiences which would imply an adumbration. But from this letter, I would say you have been. But memory has not brought it back. I am convinced of that from your letter. For it’s all in the past; it’s not present and it certainly is not future the way you worded the letter. For you know your birth date which is physical, and you said the 19th of September, 1927, and he denied that was the day of your birth. To deny that was the day of your birth would imply you were born in the spirit world because he represents not the physical world but the spiritual world. So I would say of you, you have been born from above.

So, here, take these moments, every moment in time. It’s a special moment, a precious moment, a moment where you can actually use it to plant what you want planted in this world and, remembering that moment, well then, it has to come out. For every natural effect has a spiritual cause and not a natural. Well, that spiritual cause is that moment when you dare to assume that you are the man or the woman that you would like to be or that another man, in his case the barber, that he is the top as he desired to be. So, you can do it not only for yourself, do it for another or do it for many as he did. And these are these precious moments in this wonderful world of ours, but our memory fades and we do not remember. So when the whole thing rises in our world, we do not relate it to our own harvest. We can’t remember when we ever did it. But not a thing could happen in my world that comes by accident. It couldn’t. All things come because I planted it, either wittingly or unwittingly. I either did it knowing what I’m doing or I did it not knowing because I was lost in some emotional state, and I felt intensely about a state. It might have been a lovely state or an unlovely state, but the seed was planted and I will reap it. And the whole thing will come into my world whether I recognize my harvest or not. So, if I know this to be the law of life, it is entirely up to me now to select and plant only what I want to reap in my world.

So, everyone in this world is here for a purpose, and the purpose is to fulfill scripture. There is no other purpose. And the fulfillment of scripture brings me out of this world where I must remain until I awaken. Well, I can’t awaken until I fulfill scripture, for scripture is the plan. Now, another lady wrote this one. She said, "I found myself in this glorious mansion, high, high up. And they had the most beautiful gardens and perfectly kept. And a man and a woman left in a white car and someone said to me, ‘give me two names and they’re names of two relatives of mine.’ But I knew that it was you who had left and I also knew that you would return. Now, I have no memory whatsoever of what transpired between knowing that it was you who left and that you would return. But I awoke saying, ‘now I know that I have experienced what Neville said that I would.’ Then my throat was parched as though aflame and I went and got myself a nice cold drink of water, went back to bed and had this dream. I’m in a department store and there I am with all these Bibles for brides, Bibles given out for weddings. And, in a strange way, all the brides were dressed in their bridal white gowns and the department store supplied the grooms. They were all being married by proxy. And the department store supplied all the grooms that they may have a wedding picture taken with the groom supplied by the department store. Then I turned to one and, speaking to her, she said she’s going to Paris. And then I said to her, ‘I’m getting married next month.’" Well, this vision that you had, my dear, is a beautiful vision because, as you’re told in scripture – the Book of Isaiah – "Your maker is your husband, and the lord of Hosts is His name." So that what you saw is the perfect symbol of what the depth of our own being revealed to you, that you will have union with the Lord and union with the Lord means that that which is in you, like an egg, will be fertilized and then it will erupt within you. And the whole thing said of Jesus Christ will unfold within you, and you will be He. So I can say, you had the perfect vision.

Then another lady wrote. "So, I took my son into the backyard and here was the fish pond that I had. It wasn’t yet stocked with fish, but with clear water and about twelve inches deep. And in it was a little shaggy white dog lying in the water with its little black nose right above the water. I took the dog out and dried it off and took it into the house. And it romped and played all over the place and then I missed it and, searching for it, I went back into the yard and here was the dog in the pool again. But this time, when I walked by, it wagged its tail as though, ‘leave me here, I like being here.’ And it was quite satisfied to be submerged in the water minus the nose above. But the tail wagged as though it was happy to be in that water." Well, may I say to you, in the Bible, we speak of stone, the water, and the wine. The stone is the literal story, the allegory. And man must discover the fictitious nature and character of a story. And when he discovers the fictitious character of the story in scripture and then learns its meaning, he has found water. He has struck that rock like a Moses and water flowed out of it. Now, the first miracle or sign in the Book of John is the turning of water into wine. And so, you’re told, "Fill the stone jars with water and when they draw it out of the stone jars, that water that was in the stone jar, it was wine, perfect wine, lovely wine. So, first we have a story and man takes the story and accepts the story literally and so he goes through life with the literal meaning or the stone. When he discovers the fictitious character of the story and then it reveals itself to him, the true meaning, he has the psychological water. Now the little dog is the symbol of faith. Your faith is now in the psychological meaning of these great truths. If you apply what you know, you will convert it into wine. If you apply it. If you will take what you now know, that imagining creates reality, and dare to imagine that you are now what you would like to be, then you are turning this water into wine.

As told us in the Book of Genesis when Jacob brought the flock into the field, the well was covered with a stone. And he rolled the stone away and watered his flock and then he put the stone back again. He didn’t turn it into wine but he did withdraw water. But a stone covered it and hid the view of the water. So the story is told to man, because it’s a parable, the whole thing is a parable, the whole thing is an allegory, and if you take it as factual and not as what it really is, the most wonderful parable in the world, well then you’ll never use your imagination to extract from that stone, the water. Therefore, you cannot feed the flock. But if you can actually get from any story in scripture, its psychological meaning and tell it to the world as when Isaac brings his son, and Isaac is blind and can’t see, and he has two sons. One is called Esau and one is called Jacob. And Jacob covers himself in the skins of a goat to give himself the feeling of hair. For the first one was Esau and Esau was hairy all over. And so when Jacob deceived his father into believing that he was Esau, Isaac gave him his blessing. So you take the story, and as I stand here now, reason tells me that I am not where I would like to be, that I am not the man that I really desire to be. So I shut out what reason is suggesting. I deny everything that reason dictates. I close my eyes to the facts of life, the obvious things, and I clothe myself mentally in all that I would like to be. I imagine that people see me as they would see me if I were the man that I want to be. I imagine that I am actually standing where I would stand if I were that, and that I’m actually doing all the things I would do, normally and naturally, if what I am assuming were really true -- if it were a fact. Well now, when I do this, I am clothing myself in the outer garments of naturalness of the facts. Now when I open my eyes on the facts of life, it denies everything that I’ve done. But I remember what I did. I caught that precious moment. For there is that moment in each day that doubt cannot find, and his helpmates cannot find it. But the industrious find this moment, and so become the industrious. You find this moment and you clothe yourself in all the lovely things that you want to be in this world and, having done it, you can break the spell. Open your eyes upon the facts of the world and the facts will deny everything that you did. But you’re told in scripture that Isaac, having done it, having given the blessing to that moment, he couldn’t take it back. He could not retract it. And so when Esau comes into the world and tells his father, "but you’ve been deceived; first of all, he took from me my birthright. Now he’s taking from me my blessing." He’s rightly named. You named him Jacob which means "he supplants." He’s a supplanter. But the father Isaac said, "even though he came through deceit and deceived me into believing that he was Esau, I’ve given him your blessing and I cannot take it back." So that moment cannot be called back. It’s on its way and it will move towards what? The fulfillment of itself. And when it appears in this world, suddenness is only the emergence of that hidden continuity. So it was moving, unseen by the world and suddenly it erupts in the world. But having remembered what I did, I can relate now that spiritual cause, the thing I did, unseen by others, to the thing seen now, that the whole vast world will share with me.

So, in your case, my dear, having seen the little dog which is the symbol of Caleb or the hound of faith, the one that goes with him, goes with Jehoshua across the river into the promised land. No one else could go. So, you walk in faith in this. And the day will come, you will turn it all into wine. In other words, you will find yourself fulfilling scripture. The whole thing will unfold within you. Now we told you last Monday the story of Moses and that he did not cross into the promised land, but Jehoshua went over. You may not be familiar with scripture but Jehoshua’s original name was Oshea as told us in the Book of Numbers. You’ll find that in the 13th Chapter, the 16th Verse of Numbers. And Moses called Oshea, the son of Nun, Jehoshua. So when you take the prefix, "Je" and put it before Oshea, you turn Oshea which means saviour or salvation, into He by Whom Jehovah Will Save. So it becomes that creative power that actually, I would say, fertilizes what Moses represented. Moses represented the pattern man. See that you make everything according to the pattern as it’s being shown you on the mountain. So here, you’re seeing everything clearly. That is a pattern. Don’t alter one little thing. Make it just as it’s shown you on the mountain. But I can’t go in. That is the egg, the perfect egg. That’s the ovum. But an egg remains just an egg until fertilized. It must be fertilized by the sperm. So that sperm must penetrate the surface of the egg. It leaves no hole, either before or after penetration. And no one understands how it happens. Because no one knows, it’s all imagination.

I do not need to go through any door to put myself in a closed room. Seal the room, and I can imagine that I’m in it and I didn’t open a door to go through and I didn’t break down the wall to get through and when I depart, I didn’t go through an open door and I didn’t go through by breaking down the wall. I entered without leaving any hole and I departed without leaving any record of my entrance and departure. So, a little sperm penetrates the surface of an egg and it leaves no hole, either before or after penetration. But unless it penetrates, that egg remains just a perfect pattern of what ought to be or could be but could never by itself, ever unfold. It takes the sperm to penetrate it to make it unfold. And so, it is Jehoshua, which is the Hebraic name of Jesus – the word Jesus and the word Jehoshua are the same thing. So, He by Whom Jehovah Will Save. And so, man awakened from the dream of life, if he is a powerful man, a man like the one I spoke of earlier tonight, one who would defy the angel of the Lord and over his protests, he still is insisting that it’s not the right date. And here he’s pointing to the book of God and showing him that it is. But in spite of that, he didn’t sin by silence. And because he didn’t sin by silence, he can be used perfectly in the stable of the Lord. To actually impregnate those who have accepted the word of God and have it within them as a pattern. The perfect pattern that must one day, having been impregnated, erupt within that one and unfold within him.

So I congratulate him on his accomplishments. For everyone who is awakened if they are of that spirit, they are members of the stable of the Lord, used for impregnation, to inseminate the brides of God. For he’s God. Everyone in this world is God. But as the lady wrote, she said, "I wrote this letter. I don’t quite understand it but I wrote and I was repeating, the thing is we are bifurcated, divided beings." Well, who is the divided being but the Lord Himself. The Lord and his emanation, a divided being. And out of Adam comes Eve, a divided being. And that emanation of the first. Well, here we are emanations. But now these contain the pattern of God’s plan of salvation. And it has to be, I would say fructified, fertilized. And, may I tell you, it seems strange in this world to make these statements, but I know from experience that they’re true. I know how we play these parts after we have been awakened from the dream of life. When man is twice born, and he’s born from above, if he’s of that school, that spirit, that you re-enter like a serpent. If you go up in this small little way like this, that’s not it. But when you go up as though you are a bolt of spiral lightening and you vibrate the entire skull and you’re still vibrating it trying to get out, and finally you subside. That’s the power it can use. And that’s the one He uses in the fertilization of his bride.

But tonight, you test it on this level and come down to this level and try it. There is a moment in each day and not just a moment, every moment of time is such a moment if you have a desire. You could actually isolate that moment and then clothe yourself with the feeling of the wish fulfilled whatever that wish is until you actually feel all the tones of reality, all the things that you would normally feel were it true.

Now, don’t forget that moment. That moment is productive. And in its own good time, that moment will appear in this world properly clothed as an objective fact. If it takes the whole vast world to aid its birth, it will take the whole vast world. If it takes an army of men to bring it to pass, an army of men. It doesn’t really matter. You don’t have to guide it. All you have to do is simply do it. And then let it alone as you would put a seed into the ground, confident that it will grow. Well, so you simply drop this, knowing what you did so that you aren’t surprised when it happens in your world. So you want to be a man of wealth; all right assume that you’re a man of wealth. Not that it has any purpose in this world other than that you desired it. Because the man of wealth and the poor man are the same being. The poor state, the wealthy state are only states. The man who occupies the poor state is an individual that never ceases to be that individual. But if he falls into the state of poverty, well then you call him a poor man. But he doesn’t differ from the man who falls into the state of wealth. For the man in the state of wealth; he’s not any better; he has money, lots of money if he’s a fabulously wealthy person. But that doesn’tput him in a spiritual sense beyond the man that is poor. But the man that is poor doesn’t know he could get out of the state of poverty. All these are states, infinite states and man blindly falls into states. If he knows they’re only states and he dislikes the state he’s in, he’ll get out of that state by now planting one of these moments, these heavenly moments by assuming that I am now secure. Security is a relative term. It may be that someone feels, well, insecure with a hundred thousand a year income. I’ m quite sure that if you take any of the fabulously wealthy men of our world and say, "your income as of now will be only a hundred thousand a year," they would instantly have to sell their yachts, their homes, all these things, and give up membership in certain clubs because they couldn’t even pay their servants. If they had a full complement of servants in their many homes, and you said a hundred thousand a year, well, they’ll feel poor. And the average person, if you said," you have a hundred thousand," he would feel fabulously wealthy. So wealth is a relative term. It hasn’t a thing to do with the spiritual growth of a being. None. Because all these are states. So, I can put myself into any kind of state in this world. And so if I don’t enjoy poverty, well then, don’t get into the state. I, on the other hand, have no desire for fabulous wealth because I do not wish the responsibility of fabulous wealth and thinking about it. I can’t see how anyone who is fabulously wealthy has any time whatsoever for thinking about spiritual matters. He is so concerned about his wealth, his portfolio, and he watches it morning, noon, and night. And the first thing he does in the morning when he gets the morning paper, he turns to that section. And he reads it, as some ladies turn to the social section and they read it, as though it really mattered. But they do it. There are some who only read the obituaries and they make a living out of reading that and notifying all the people who are recorded as dead that he knew them.

I know that when my father-in-law died, he was a very prominent man in New York City. And when he died, why Mrs. Van Schmoose got unnumbered letters from people who claimed that they knew him and he had promised them so much and that he died before he could execute his desire. Some even went so far as to print up all kinds of things and said he ordered these before he died – and then misspelled his name. Printers will send you all kinds of personal cards, saying that Mr. Van Schmoose ordered these before he died. And when we saw them, why, the name was misspelled, and so her lawyer said, "just ignore it, just forget it. And ignore all these requests because people make a living reading the obituary column." You’d be surprised how many fall for it because in that emotional moment, they are carried away, well, if my husband did this, I wouldn’t want not to make good, and so they will send off the check for what he had ordered, which he didn’t tell me. And so they send off a nice hundred dollar or two hundred dollar check for these stupid cards. And her lawyer said, "Just simply forget them." This happens every moment of time. Well, you can hardly believe that people live that way, but they do. You can’t conceive of something in this world, that someone isn’t doing it. And all these things are done in our world, so I ask you to try it.

On this basis, imagining creates reality. That is my premise. And don’t think for one moment you can imagine idly because the record is there. And so, as a man plants, so he’s going to reap. There isn’t a thing in this world that comes into your world that comes by accident. But you don’t remember the moment in time when you actually did it. And so you can’t relate it to the natural effect. But the natural effect always has a spiritual cause and not a natural cause. The natural cause only seems. It is a delusion. So don’t let anyone tell you that you can trace it to some physical cause. The physical cause, which is the natural cause, is not a cause. It’s only an effect. All causes are spiritual and by spiritual I mean imaginal. For man is all imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in Him. The eternal body of man is the imagination and that is God Himself. And God is the only source. There is no other source. In that 87th Psalm that I quoted tonight, "when this one was born there," it ends in a very lovely note. "And the singers and the dancers alike said, you are our springs." There is no other spring, no other source, no other cause. Whether you be the dancer or the singer of the world. You are our springs. We have no other source. So the only source of all causation is found in man as man’s own wonderful human imagination. So you take it to heart and then you never can pass the buck. You can’t blame anyone in this world for anything that happens to you. There isn’t one in the world you can turn to and say, "well now, you are the cause of it." Don’t let anyone turn to you and say that. If they do, just ignore it. Because they’re bringing it into their own world by what they imagine morning, noon, and night. So, one sits down to imagine unlovely things of another, unlovely things of a group, well then they’re going to simply produce it. Not in the group, but in themselves.

So, you go home and live it. Live it as that lady, by her vision tells me she’s living it, because the little shaggy dog was in the water. Her faith is in the psychological knowledge of these stories. I only ask her not to just continue drinking water. As you’re told in the Book of Timothy, "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your many infirmities." So, it’s good to know what to do but we are the operant power. And, therefore, we must do it, not just know what to do but we must do it. So when I do it, I stop drinking the water and I drink wine. Because the minute I begin to apply it, I’m using wine. But if I know what to do but don’t do it, well, I have the water but I’m not turning it into wine. So, let everyone here, practice it and put it into a daily practice. And, may I tell you it cannot fail you. It cannot fail you.

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville: Now are there any questions?

Question: ...a physical upset? Upset when something goes wrong?

Neville: Well, as far as I am concerned, my body is an emotional filter and bears the marks of my prevalent emotions. That’s what bodies are, they’re filters. Emotional filters. And so if you persist in a certain emotion, one of despondency, one of this, one of that, eventually it will take its toll and you’ll find it leaving its mark on these filters. For they are emotional filters. To know, first of all, to know that it is so. And then to stop or try to change these prevalent emotions. You know you have friends who, whenever you meet them, they complain, always complaining. Well, that is almost a permanent state with them. Now, discriminate between the state that they occupy and the occupant. The occupant is not that. But if they remain in a state long enough, they feel at home in that state. If you pull them out, they’ll feel ill at ease. They want to actually feel that no one understands them, that they are this, they are that. And they delight in feeling that they’re misunderstood. If you try to pull them out, they don’t want it. They revel in it. And there are people who live that way. Well, don’t you follow suit. Tell them what to do, and if they do it, they’ll come out of it. There are people who will call you on the phone and who will say, "Now look here, I want so and so." Thank you, that’s enough. Oh no, but wait, "I must tell you the facts." And they’ll hold you there, if you let them, for one solid half hour, giving you all the facts why it can’t be done. So they voiced what they wanted and then they proceed to tell you why it’s impossible. And so they live that way. They go through life that way.

Neville: (answers a question) Well, I wouldn’t say they should not be in the Bible. We have 66 and it’s good enough. The 27 of the New and 39 of the Old, forming the 66 Books of the Bible, I find it quite complete. But the Gospel of Thomas is a marvelous Gospel, perfectly marvelous. But nothing is lost in scripture by not including it in the Cannon of Scripture. There are many glorious works that are not included in the Cannon. And you can buy them under one copy called the Apocrypha. Thomas is only recently discovered, but you can buy that as a single copy. But the Bible hasn’t lost anything by even the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They’re beautiful, wonderful, dealing mostly with Isaiah, but it hasn’t changed anything in the Isaiah that we have, only confirms it. At one time, the Book of Hebrews was not included in our Bible. But it’s a glorious Book, but now it’s part of the Bible.

Lesson 1: The Secret of Prayer

Hi everyone, 

Today I want to talk about the meaning of prayer as explained by Neville Goddard in his lecture, “The Secret of Prayer” (see Neville’s lecture in full at my site at Neville Goddard: The Secret of Prayer — NINA FERREYRA).

In this lecture, Neville tells us, “When you pray you do not prostrate yourself on the ground and look towards some eastern point in space, but adjust yourself mentally into your fulfilled desire.” 

Neville is telling us to pray and never lose faith. To keep persisting in the state of your wish already being fulfilled. 

Prayer is adjusting your state so that you shift into the state of the wish fulfilled. This is how you should pray. 

Know that your desire is already done. It is already accomplished. Think from the state of it already being fulfilled. Once you do that, your desires will manifest.

Neville also tells us “Prayer is motion. It is learning how to move toward a change in your bank balance, your marital status, or social world. Learn to master the art of motion; for after you move, change begins to rise up out of the deep. The technique of prayer is mastering your inner motion.”

How can you do this?

You can travel in your imagination anywhere. Practice moving in your imagination to different locations and experiment with what manifests in this way.

You can pray for another by assuming that they already have what they want so that it can soon manifest into their reality. 

Move in your inner world by shifting your state and occupy the state of already having your desire so that it can manifest in the 3D reality.

Neville goes on to say, “Everything and everyone in your world is yourself pushed out. Any request from another - heard by you - should not be ignored; for it is coming from yourself!”

A request made by another is coming from your imagination in order to help you fulfill your own manifestations. 

Instead of dwelling on your friend’s problem, all you have to do is hear a new conversation with your friend saying that the problem is now resolved.

Finally, Neville tells us, “A friend recently shared this dream with me: We were in a garden and he told me all of his desires, when I said: "Don't desire them, live them!" This is true. Desire is thinking of! Living is thinking from! Don't go through life desiring. Live your desire. Think it is already fulfilled. Believe it is true; for an assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact.”

This is the key to manifesting!

Don’t desire your manifestations. Don’t want your manifestations. Think of your manifestations as if they are already fulfilled. Act as if they are already fulfilled. Act as if you already have the money you want, the friends you want, the relationship you want, the home you want, or the kind of life you want. You already have them! So don’t want it anymore.

Do not take no for an answer to your request. It is yours. 

Keep persisting regardless of what the 3d is showing you.

If you are only thinking of your desire and you are only wishing it was true, then it will not manifest. You need to think from it and act as if you already have it.

When you say “Thank you, Father” you are giving yourself your manifestation and you will know that you already have it.

Xo Nina

For more lectures and lessons, visit my blog at Blog — NINA FERREYRA.

Neville Goddard: Fourfold Vision

Neville Goddard 01-26-1968

William Blake once wrote these words to his friend, Thomas Butts: 

"Now I a fourfold vision see, 
And a fourfold vision is given to me:
'Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah's night 
And twofold always, may God us keep
From single vision and Newton's sleep!" 

Fourfold vision is to single vision as ordinary sight is to blindness. We all experience single and threefold vision. It's twofold and fourfold vision that one must consciously work to achieve. 

A hardheaded, common-sensed, rational man sees with his single vision. To him, a man is a man, a tree is a tree, a rose is a rose, and a dog is a dog. The idea that imagination could create reality would be sheer nonsense to him, and he would think you mad if you tried to tell him so. Being rational, the single-vision man lives in a world where things are what they seem to be. In that world everything can be weighed and measured, a minute is sixty seconds, and a pound is sixteen ounces - no more or no less. Blake refers to that kind of man as Newton's sleep, saying: "May God us keep from single vision and Newton's sleep." 

Twofold vision occurs when everything is seen as an image. I have stood before a fireplace and enjoyed its warmth and light. I have watched the flames leap up and subside, fall into embers, then turn into ash and - to all appearances - vanish. And I have said to myself: "My life is like a fire." At that moment I achieved a simile. I didn't stop there, however, but said: "Life is fire. My life is fire." Having achieved a metaphor, I dropped the "is" and said to myself, "Life and fire are similar. I will never again see one and not see the other, or feel one and not imagine the other." At that moment I had achieved a symbol, a poetic image. Fire is now an image which reminds me of life. 

Verdi once said: "All things transient are but images." Is there anything here that is not transient? I have a friend who recently discovered two love birds had nested near his window, with three eggs in their nest. My friend now has fourteen days of waiting for them to hatch out. They will come forth, much to his pleasure, wax, wane, and then vanish. They, like all things transient, are but symbols; and if you will but turn the object seen into its symbol, twofold vision will be yours. 

Mr. [William] Hayley, a man who thought himself a poet (although only a few of his pieces that Blake illustrated have survived) was a man of considerable wealth. He gave Blake a home with a beautiful garden, for him, his wife, and sister to live in. One day Blake found a drunken soldier stretched out in his garden. When the man refused to leave Blake took him by the elbows and marched him out of the garden.

Now a garden does not just happen. Man must be present to transform a plot into a garden, which must be planted and cared for or it will go to seed. Blake saw the drunken soldier (one of the forces) as the symbol of his spiritual enemy, yet physical friend. You see, although Mr. Hayley had fed and sheltered Blake he wanted no part of his poetry or artistic work, so he was Blake's spiritual enemy. Of him Blake wrote: "I can tolerate my physical enemy, but not my spiritual one, for he destroys my creative power." 

Blake saw everything in his life as a symbol. To him the sun was not a round disk in the sky, but a host of angels singing: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." Always thinking in symbols, twofold vision was always his. 

Threefold vision is yours when the images begin to dream, to have love affairs, marry, and beget. Your dreams of the day and night are threefold vision, which Blake calls “soft Beulah's night”. Your moods are your dreams in daylight, forming a threefold vision. Capture a mood which would imply the fulfillment of your desire, then become so intense in that threefold vision that you enter your fulfilled desire, and you will move into fourfold vision. 

Having entered this dream of life, man has forgotten where he laid himself down to sleep. Thoreau once said: "The truest life is to be in a dream, awake." Once this world was only a dream, but man became so intense, he awoke in his dream and turned to single vision in place of reality. 

Now, this world has become the stream of reality. Knowing this, start to assemble images in your mind that, if true, would imply the fulfillment of your desire. Let the images play together, interweave, fall in love, and reach fulfillment. 

Let me illustrate by telling a story which a friend recently shared with me. For some time he had an objective problem which he did nothing about, imaginatively. Then one day while in his office, he constructed a scene which if true would imply that the problem had been solved and his desire fulfilled. He ran through the scene several times in his mind, then entered it to rehearse the voices and scenery there. Breaking his concentration, he finished work and returned to his home. That night he again entered the scene, and as it became alive he fell asleep and had this dream. 

He was a disembodied observer of a party given to congratulate a young man who had just come into a great fortune. Congratulating the young man he asked: "How did you accomplish this?" And the man replied in a most embarrassing way: "It was so easy. I simply did what I should have done a long time ago." Upon hearing this statement, my friend entered into the spirit of that young man and felt his embarrassment and unworthiness. Then once again becoming the observer, he heard the young man say: "It was not a vicarious thrill. Entering the state, I actually experienced the sensation." 

My friend seemed to be observing someone else - but there is no one else! Humanity is a single being, in spite of its millions of forms and figures. There is seeming separation, as divined in our own being when we were dramatically sundered, thereby causing a seeming other to play the part we wrote for ourselves. My friend wrote the script and played the parts by entering into a fourfold vision. In so doing, he carried it into his own intensity. 

We are all asunder, as every being is self, made visible. You have given yourself every individual in your world as an image, and you alone know what he represents. 

A friend saw his mother as an image of the material world. A wonderful mystical experience followed this realization, when my friend found himself, as a young man, standing in a suite of rooms looking out to sea. Having written a letter to his mother, he opened the front door to find a lady standing there. Then he said: "I was going to mail this letter to my mother, but now I remember that she is dead." The lady agreed saying: "Yes, she died a long, long time ago." This statement surprised him, for in our measure of time it had only been a few months. Then he asked: "Hasn't my mother been paying for these rooms?" And the lady replied: "No. The undertaker has. He felt it better that you think she was providing for you until you awoke and came to your senses." 

This gentleman is on the verge of complete wakening into an entirely different age. No one knows the day it will happen. He will not depart, however, one hour before his time, neither can he delay it one hour. Scripture tells us: "Who, by taking thought can add one hour to his span of time?" 

You need not be anxious, because you cannot postpone or hasten your departure, in spite of heart transplants and life-extending diets. You will notice, however, that all the dietitians, doctors, and health addicts do not live one hour longer than those who are not! 

I have a friend in Barbados who, during prohibition was so drunk I had to pour him on a boat for the mainland. This man would drink anything that contained alcohol. Now a man in his eighties, he is still drinking as far as I know, while all of the doctors who warned him that if he continued it would kill him are now dead. He only vegetates today, having lost his sight, but he is learning his lesson in his own way. God, the Father in him, is dreaming his dream of life. One day he will come to his senses and realize that the world is but himself pushed out. 

In each one of us God the Father awakes, for He is one, not two. It is Christ who is dreaming and it is Christ who awakens in this gentleman and this lady, in that gentleman and that lady, as the one Father. He awakens as the one who begot the dream. Therefore there is only one body, one Spirit, One Lord, one God and Father of all. So you see: this fourfold vision is within the experience of all. 

Everyone has experienced single vision, but everything in this world started as a dream. The room you are in began as a dream in the mind of someone. Its plans were executed in the mind of another. Now it has entered the stream of reality we call fact, yet it is still a dream; for its origin was a dream and its end is a dream, as all things bring forth after their kind. 

If you have a desire to supplant what you have now, you must start by assuming it is a dream. And when it objectifies itself and enters the stream of reality, may I tell you: it will still be dream. Imagination is the creative power which can cause that which was not, to be! It can also cause that which is, not to be; therefore, it not only creates, but un-creates. This power is God. 

My friend knows this law and has applied it beautifully time and time again; yet we are all careless and often think a problem will take care of itself, but it will not. The power to change anything will lie dormant unless we operate it, as Imagination does not operate itself. 

Begin now to practice the art of imagining every day. A concert pianist must constantly practice. for if he does not and he is called upon to give a concert he would not be ready. You must practice the art of imagining day after day so that when you are faced with a problem you will not put it aside, but will do something about it and move from soft Beulah's night into fourfold vision. Blake confessed that his greatest ecstasy was in fourfold vision because it is the fulfillment of scripture, of which he was a great student. 

In the 13th chapter of the Book of Proverbs, we are told: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life." If you want something, it is not going to come into being by saying: "I will have it some day." That is deferring your hope and making your heart sick. But if you believe that imagining creates reality, you will build a stage, paint the scenery, and place lovely images there. Then you will let them interweave so that when you bring that scenery back into your mind, the actors will come alive and say the words you had dictated for them to say. 

The scene's power is in its implication. In my friend's case the young man was being congratulated because something very important had happened in his life and it had been so easily accomplished. 

A few years ago a friend had a few skin cancers on his face. The doctor would give him no more radiation, so every day as my friend shaved he saw his face clear of all blemishes. Today he cannot remember when they disappeared, but they are now gone, with no trace of ever having been present. So Imagination can not only bring things into being, it can take things away! It can un-create whatever it creates. 

In this wonderful world we have created nightmares which we cannot endure forever, so they will have to be uncreated. That is why I urge everyone to live nobly. Sow your mind with ideas worthy of recall, because the day is coming when that which is built on any foundation other than Christ will be consumed or uncreated. You will survive, but only as through fire. 

We bring all kinds of unpleasant things into our world and live with them until we discover we can un-create them. Just as my friend uncreated the blemishes he had placed there and he cannot tell you the moment they disappeared. You have the power to create and un-create. Having brought something unlovely into your world, you can un-create it if you are willing to create something in its place, and persist until your desire becomes fourfold. 

This world, although three dimensional, is fourfold, for your dream has caused the world to enter the stream of reality. At this moment I am looking at you singly and in a threefold manner. If I see you as an image, representing other than what you appear to be, I am seeing you twofold. And when I meet you in soft Beulah's night I will understand what you are trying to tell me in my fourfold dream. 

A friend told me that I represent Christ to him. That when he conjures me in his dreams, he knows that the image of God's power and wisdom is speaking to him through the voice of his friend called Neville. Neville is only a symbol, as he should be. I am a symbol and everyone sees me differently, for I am in every being just as you are, for God is one. Now fragmented, the world is God made visible and God's name forever and ever is I AM! 

The next time you see a fire in the fireplace think of it as the symbol of life. Achieve a poetic image by never seeing one and not thinking of the other. As you look at the fire and feel its warmth something will begin to stir within you, and from then on twofold vision will be yours. 

Start with one image and it will become two, then four, then eight as everything will form an image in your mind. Blake saw everything as an image. To the world Scofield was a lonely soldier asleep in a garden. But, because Blake's garden was the image of his creativity, finding a sleeping, drunken soldier there was like finding him in his wife's bed, so Blake removed him. Although a very small man in stature, Blake had the courage of a giant, and removed that which was the symbol of his spiritual enemy. 

Start now to experiment with these four types of vision. Unless you are physically blind you have single vision. When you see another meaning to that which appears to be, you are beginning to have twofold vision. This world is threefold, and when you imagine something other than that which you are now tied to and occupy it, the thrill of fourfold vision will be yours. Then when you sit down to prepare your dream, its occupants and scenery will become alive, their voices will be heard, their friendly touch felt, and fourfold vision will be your supreme delight! 

Do not expect your desire to be fulfilled overnight, for all things have an interval of time between their planting and their entrance into the stream of life called reality. But I urge you to practice, practice, and continue to practice, for you are moving into a world where all is Imagination and you will create at will. You won't have to travel by any worldly means to visit Europe, Asia, or any foreign country, for everything and every means necessary to objectify your thought is within you. 

Truly, you have never left your eternal home. You are sleeping there, dreaming this world into being. Before falling asleep you were called a prince and told that you were gods, sons of the Most High. You would however die like men and fall as one man. 

Now, in order to be a prince, you father must be a king. Well, your Father is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and together we form the one Lord, for God is one. We descended in consciousness, and made our dreams so real by entering into the stream that they took on the tones of reality. 

As our eye opened upon the scene, single vision caused us to become locked in the prison of our senses and reason. Now we have become practical, down-to-earth, hardheaded men who know that life is a battle and we must take advantage of everyone before he takes advantage of us. 

We pile up our millions, and then the Father says it's time to go; so we slip off this little garment to put on another - just like this one, only young, with nothing missing. There, we continue our single vision until we come to our senses and awaken. 

The man with single vision thinks the great mother earth is paying the rent and providing for him. The undertaker will allow him to think so until he awakens and comes to his senses. 

Do not postpone your dreams and do not think that because you heard what to do, your desires will come to pass. It's so easy to hear the truth and postpone the doing. But I urge you to be like my friend: stop postponing and do what you want to have done, for if you do, it will come to pass. 

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville Goddard: Changing the Feeling of “I”

Neville Goddard 1953

For the benefit of those who were not present last Sunday, just let me give you a quick summary of the thought expressed here. We claimed that the world was a manifestation of consciousness, that the individual's environment, circumstances and conditions of life were only the out picturing of the particular state of consciousness in which that individual abides. Therefore, the individual sees whatever he is by virtue of the state of consciousness from which he views the world. Any attempt to change the outer world before he changes the inner structure of his mind, is to labor in vain. Everything happens by order. Those who help or hinder us, whether they know it or not, are the servants of that law, which constantly shapes outward circumstances in harmony with our inner nature. We asked you last Sunday to distinguish between the individual identity and the state they occupy. The individual identity is the Son of God. It is that I speak of you or to you, or speak of myself, I mean really our imagination. That is permanent. It fuses with state and believes itself to be the state with which it is fused, but at every moment of time it is free to choose the state with which it will be identified.

And that brings us to today's subject, "Changing the Feeling of I", and I hope I will not get the same reaction that is recorded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. For we are told that when this was given to the world they all left him, leaving just a handful behind. For when he told them there was no one to change but self, they said this is a hard, hard teaching. It's a hard thing. Who can hear it? For he said, "No man cometh unto me save I call him." And then it's recorded when he repeated it three times they left him, never again to walk with him. And he turned to the few who remained and asked them, "Would you also go?" And they answered and said, "To whom would we go ? You have the word of eternal life. 'I In other words, it's so much easier when I can blame another for my misfortune, but now that I am told that no man cometh unto me save I call him, that I am the sole architect of my fortunes and misfortunes, it's a difficult saying, and so it's recorded "It's a hard saying. Who can hear it? Who can grasp it? And who will believe it?" And so he said, "And now I sanctify myself that they also be sanctified through the truth, for if this is the truth, then there is no one to change, no one to make whole, no one to purify but self."

And so we start with the "I" . Most of us are totally unaware of the self that we really cherish. We have never taken one good look at the self, so we don't know this self, for the "I" has neither face, form nor figure, but it does mold itself into structure by all that it consents to, all that it believes, and few of us know really what we do believe. We have no idea of the unnumbered superstitions and prejudices that go to mold this inner, formless "I" into a form which is then projected as a man's environment, as the conditions of life.

So here, read it carefully when you go home, "No man cometh unto me save I call him. You didn't choose me; I have chosen you. No man can take away my life; I lay it down myself . There is no power to take from me anything that is part of the inner arrangement of my mind. All that you gave me I have kept and none is lost save the son of perdition or the belief in God, and because nothing can be lost but the belief in loss, I will not now assume loss of anything you have given me that is good. And so I sanctify myself that they be sanctified through the truth".

And now, how do we go about changing the "I". First of all, we must discover the "I" and we do this by an uncritical observation of self. This will reveal a self that will shock you. You will be altogether, I wouldn't say afraid, but ashamed to admit you've ever known such a lowly creature. And had it been God Himself who drew near in this despicable form, you would have denied him a thousand times before a single cock would crow. You couldn't believe that this is the self that you've carried around and protected and excused and justified. Then you start changing this self after, by an uncritical observation, you make the discovery of that self. For the acceptance of self is the essence of the moral problem of the world. It is the epitome of a true outlook on life, for it is the sole cause of everything you observe.

Your description of the world is a confession of the self that you do not know. You describe another, you describe society, you describe anything, and your description of the thing you observe reveals to one who knows this law the being you really are. So you must first accept that self. When that self is accepted, then you can start to change. It's so much easier to take the virtues of the Gospel and apply them as the word of life, to love the enemy, to bless those who curse us, and to feed the hungry. But when man discovers the being to be fed, the being to be clothed, the being to be sheltered, the greatest enemy of all is that self, then he is ashamed, completely ashamed that that is the being, for it was easier to share with another something that I possess, to take an extra coat and give it to another, but when I know the truth it's not that. I start with the self, having discovered, and start with change of that self.

Now, let me tell you a story. A few years ago in this city I was giving a series of lectures down near that lake - I can't even recall the name of the lake but it was some Parkview Manor was the place where I spoke, and in that audience was a gentleman who sought an audience before the meeting. And we went across the street into the little park there, and he said to me that he had an insoluble problem. I said, "There is no such thing as an insoluble problem. "But", he said, "you do not know my problem. It's not a state of health, I assure you; it is look at the skin that I wear" . I said, "What's wrong with it; it looks lovely to me". He said, "Look at the pigment of my skin. I, by the accident of birth, am now discriminated against. The opportunities for progress in this world are denied me just because of the accident of birth, that I was born a colored man. Opportunities for advancement in every field, neighborhoods that I would like to live in and raise a family I couldn't move in, where I would like to open up a business I couldn't move into that area."

Then I told him my own personal experience, that I came to this country. Well, I didn't have that problem but I was a foreigner in the midst of all Americans. I didn't find it difficult. "Yet", as he reminded me, "but that's not my problem, Neville. Others have come here speaking with an accent, but they haven't my skin, and I was born an American" . Then I told him an experience of mine in New York City. If I were called upon to name a man that I would consider my teacher, I would name Abdullah. I studied with that gentleman for five years. He had the same color skin, the same pigment as this gentleman. He would never allow anyone to refer to him as a colored man. He was very proud of being a negro didn't want any modification of what God had made him. He turned to me and he said, "Have you ever seen a picture of the Sphinx?" I said, "Yes". He said, "It embodies the four fixed quarters of the universe. You have the lion, the eagle the bull and man. And here is man that is the head. The crown of that creature called the Sphinx, which still defies man's knowledge to unriddle it, was crowned with a human head. And look carefully at the head, Neville, and you will see whoever modeled that head must have been a negro. Whoever modeled it had the face of a negro and if that still defies man's ability to unravel it, I am very proud that I am a negro." I have seen scientists, doctors, lawyers, bankers, from every walk of life seek an audience with old Abdullah, and everyone Who came thought themselves honored to be admitted to his home and to receive an interview. If he was ever invited out, and he was, he was always the honored guest. He said, "Neville, you must first start with self. Find self, don't be ashamed ever of the being you are. Discover it and start the changing of that self".

Well, I told this gentleman exactly what Abdullah had taught me, that there was no cause outside of the arrangement of his own mind. If he was discriminated against, it was not because of the pigment of his skin, though he showed me signs as large as all outdoors denying him access to a certain area. The sign is there only because in the minds of some men such patterns are formed and they draw unto themselves what now they would condemn; that there is no power outside the mind of man to do anything to man, and he by the arrangement of his own mind, by consenting to these restrictions in his cradle and being conditioned slowly through his youth, waking into manhood believing himself set upon would have to be set upon, but "no man cometh unto me save I call him". So then someone comes to condemn or to praise. They couldn't come unless I call them. Not a man called Neville, but that secret being that is not called Neville. The secret being that is the sum total of all of my beliefs , all of the things that I consent to, that form a pattern ofstructure, that secret being draws unto itself things in harmony with itself. Well, that man went away and wrestled with himself. He couldn't believe everything I told him, not that night, but last Sunday morning in the lobby, he came forward and we renewed the friendship. He took me next door to show me the fruit of this teaching .

He said, "Neville, it took me almost three years to really overcome that fixed idea that I, by the accident of birth, would be a secondary citizen, but I overcame .it. Now here is my office on Wilshire Boulevard. I picked this one not because it was the only one offered; four equally wonderful spots were offered me. I took this one because it had greater telephone facilities , but the others were equally good. Now here is my office. Now you couldn't judge my income from this office, lovely as it is. Everything is nice about it, but, Neville, this year I will net a quarter of a million dollars". Well in America that is still a fabulous sum of money. It would be staggering in any other part of the world, but even in fabulous America a man to net a quarter of a million is really up in the very highest of brackets. And that was the man that a few years ago told me the whole vast world was against him by reason of the accident of birth. He knows now he is what he is by virtue of the state of consciousness with which he is identified, and the choice is his to go back to the restrictions of his childhood when he believed the story or to continue in the freedom that he has found.

So you and I can be anything in this world we desire to be if we will clearly define our aim in life and constantly occupy that aim. It must be habitual. The concept we hold of self that is noble must not be put on just for a moment and taken off when we leave this church. We feel free here; we feel that we have something in common, that's why we are here, but are we going to wear the noble concept we now hold of self when we go through the door and enter that bus, or are we going to return to the restrictions that were ours prior to coming here? The choice is ours and the hardest lesson to learn is that there is no one in this world that can be drawn into your world unless you, and you alone, call him.

So do not do what they did thousands of years ago, for that is the beginning of the secession of the great truth. So we are told they turned away from it, never again to walk with it, and the few who remained didn't like it either, but where would they go if this is the word of eternal truth? Not that it's true for this day and age, but if this is the law of being, and in all the dimensions of my being it holds good, if this is eternally true, then let me learn the lesson now, though I wrestle with myself as he did for three years.

So, the changing of the feeling of "I" is a selective thing because unnumbered states are infinite states, but the "I" is not the state. The "I" believes itself to be the state when it enters and fuses with it, so he was presented with a state and without the faculty of discrimination in his youth, he fused with the state and believed these restrictions were true, and it took him three years to disentangle the "I" from these fixed ideas with which he had lived for so many years. Now you may take only a moment or you, too, may take your three years. I can't tell you how long it's going to take you but I'll tell you this much. It can be measured by the feeling of naturalness. You can wear a feeling until it's natural. The moment the feeling becomes natural, it will begin to bear fruit within your world.

So I told this story at a small gathering here in the city, and not very many asked questions about it, but three people asked, "But he must have had money before. He must have known the right people. He must in some way have had some substance to start it, because how can you go out to loan a hundred million dollars and call that a real fact of being that you have that to loan and tell me you didn't have some one who had it or you, yourself, didn't have it". I did not ask the gentleman about the individual facts of the case. I went into the office, I saw it, I didn't look at his books; he volunteered this information, and gave me the figure of a quarter of a million net for the year. I have not checked or in any way verified the statement; I believe it implicitly. But I will not go along with those who believe that unless you have certain things to start with you can't apply this law.

You can start now from scratch and choose the being you want to be. You aren't going to change the pigment of your skin but you will find your accent or the pigment of skin or your so-called racial background will not be a hindrance, for if a man is ever hindered it can only be the state of consciousness in which he abides that hinders him. Man is freed or constrained by reason of the state of mind in which he persists. If you persist in it, well, then I will say, "persist in it", but I warn you no one cares and that is an awful blow when a man discovers that no one, no one but himself really cares. So we find ourselves weeping with ourselves in the hope of getting others to weep with us. And what an awful shock when the day arrives we discover that no one really ever cared. They will give us some little listening ear for a moment just as they were passing by, but they really didn't care.

When we make that discovery we shake ourselves out of it and boldly appropriate the gift our Father gave us before that the world was. So let me show you the gift. You've read your Lord's Prayer possibly daily, but you read it as a prayer from a translation of a translation which does not reveal the sense of the evangelist. The real translation, you will find in Farrar Fenton's work where in the original it is written in the imperative passive mood, which is like a standing order, a thing to be done absolutely and continuously. So that you can look now upon your universe as one vast inter-knit machinery where all things happen.

There isn't a thing to become; all things are taking place, so it is written in this manner, "Thy will must be being done. Thy kingdom must be being restored." It is the only way you could express it if you would express the imperative passive mood. But from the Latin from which our translation was made there is no first aorist of the imperative passive mood. So we have it in the way we have it but it does not reveal the intent of the mysteries. If you will see all things are now, you don't become, you simply select the state that you would occupy. Occupying it you seem to become but it is already a fact, every aspect of that state in its most minute detail. It's worked out and taking place. You by occupying the state seem to go through the action of unfolding that state, but the state is completely finished and taking place. So now you can choose the being you want to be and by choosing a being other than what you are now expressing you start the change of the feeling of "I".

Now, how will I know that I have changed the feeling of "I"? By beginning first with an uncritical observation of my reactions to life and then noticing my reactions when I think I am identified with my choice. If I assume that I am the man that I want to be, let me observe my reactions. If they are as they were, I have not identified myself with my choice, for my reactions are automatic and so if I am changed I would automatically change my reactions to life. So the changing of the feeling of "I" results in a change of reaction, which change of reaction is a change of environment and behavior. But let me warn you now. A little alteration of mood is not a transformation; it's not a real change of consciousness. Because as I change my mood for the moment it can quickly and rapidly be I would say, replaced by another mood in the reverse direction. When I say that I was changed, as that gentleman changed his mood, his basic mood, his state of consciousness, it means that having assumed that I am what the moment denied, what my reason denied, that I remain in that state long enough to make that state stable. So that all of my energies are flowing from that state. I am no longer thinking of that state. I am thinking from that state. So that wherever a state grows so stable as to definitely expel all of its rivals, then that central, habitual state of consciousness from which I think defines my character and is really a true transformation or change of consciousness. Whenever I reach that state of stability, watch my world mold itself then in harmony with this inner change. And men will come into my world, people will come to aid and they will think they are initiating the urge to help. They are playing only their part. They must do what they do because I have done what I did. Having moved from one state into the other. I have altered my relationship relative to the world round about, and that changed relationship compels a change in behavior relative to my world. So they have to act differently toward me.

So in changing the "I", you start with desire, which we will unfold and elaborate on tomorrow night. For it starts with desire. Desire is the spring of action, for you must want to be other than what you are. We fail because we do not fall in love enough with an idea. We aren't, I would say, moved enough to want to be other than what we are. If I could get you to be completely in love with some state to the point where it haunted the mind, I could almost prophesy that you would in the not distant future externalize that state within your world. And the reason we fail we aren't hungry enough to change. For either we do not know the law or we haven't the urge or the hunger to really bring about the change.

For the changing of the feeling of "I" results in the change of reaction, which change of reaction results in a change of world. If you like your world and you are complacent about it, you haven't started on the road of the mysteries, for the very first beatitude appeals to one who is not complacent. "Blessed are the poor in spirit". You must be poor in spirit, not complacent, not satisfied. The man who thinks that by reason of birth, the religion that he inherited at birth, is good enough for me, that he is not dissatisfied, he is not, I would say moved that being is complacent and therefore he is not poor in spirit; he is very rich in spirit. Theirs is not the kingdom of God. For if I could stir you, make you dissatisfied with self, then you will recognize that self and set about to change it. For the only field of activity for man is within himself and on himself. You do not work on the other. The day you change self, that day you change your world.

Now I see my time is going to its quick end. And so in the remaining minute I have left here let me not urge you, because if you come to the meeting tomorrow night not really hungry, you wouldn't benefit, but I do hope that many of you are there. Even if you are stirred to the point of trying to, I would say, disprove what I told you, I would accept that challenge for in the attempt to disprove it, I know if you were sincere in your attempt, you would prove it. So I hope many of you will come and take this feast with us. We are here in the city at the Ebell for 15 nights, Monday thru Friday, as Mr. Smith told you, for three consecutive weeks. If you can't take all, and I do hope many of you will take all, then pick out the title s that appeal to you. Tomorrow night to me is basic; it is the importance of defining an aim in this world, having a goal, for without an aim you are aimless. And you were warned in the Book, or I would say, in the Epistle of James that "the double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not such a man believe that he shall receive anything of the Lord; for he is like a wave that is driven and tossed by the wind." That man never reaches his goal. So you must have an aim, and tomorrow night we will show you the importance of defining desire. There are certain schools who teach you to kill out desire; we teach you to intensify desire and show you the reason for such teaching, show you what the Bible teaches about desire.

And now we will come to the help that many of you have asked for today. Those who were not here on Sunday let me remind you it is a very simple technique. As I told you on Sunday, any time that you exercise your imagination, and do it lovingly on behalf of another, you are mediating God to man. So we sit quietly and we simply become imitators of our Father. And He called the world into being by being the thing he would call. And so we sit and we listen as though we heard someone congratulating us on having found what we seek. So we go to the end of the matter and we listen just as though we heard, and we look as though we saw, and we try in this manner to feel ourselves right into the situation of our answered prayer, and there we wait in the silence just for about two minutes, and so they will lower the lights to aid you. And let me remind you if you want to clear your throat, please do so. If you want to shift your position in the chair, do so. Feel as though you are alone at home, because if you don't and you try not to disturb the neighbor, you will not be able to exercise your imagination on behalf of anyone. So now I will take the chair and just simply listen attentively, just as though you heard. I'll make you this promise - the day you are very still in mind and really become attentive, you will hear as coming from without what really you are whispering from within yourself.

Neville Goddard: How Abdullah Taught Neville the Law

Now are there any questions, please? Yes, sir?

Well, I’ll tell you in details exactly how we got together.

It was 1933. If you remember, there was a frightful Depression on in our country. Millions were unemployed. In New York City, you would go through the tunnel into Gimbel’s (Department Store) from, say, the square (Herald Square), where Gimbel’s begins… it goes all the way through to the… well, the Holland Tunnel. They were sleeping with the permission of the Mayor… three and four deep, as far as the eye could go. There was no place to go. In the park, in the summer months, they were allowed to sleep in the park, sleep all over the place. And the long lines for coffee and bread were there to give them. There were millions unemployed. We then had a population of not more than, say, a hundred thirty million, as against today’s a hundred ninety two million.

I was a dancer, and if you couldn’t eat, you couldn’t pay to watch a dancer, so there were no shows playing on Broadway. I think we had five Broadway shows, and they were running on paper… just. passing out paper to go and see them, really, instead of the usual 50 to 60 shows that you usually get.

Well, what I’m getting at is, I didn’t have a job, I had no money, and I was living in a basement on 75th Street and he (Abdullah) lived on 72nd Street, in a very lovely home that was owned by Morgenthau, whose son (Henry Morganthau Jr) was then the treasurer of our country, a cabinet member (US Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt), but his father owned this house, but he didn’t live there, and he rented the first floor to my friend Abdullah.

I said to Abdullah, in the month of October, late October, “Ab, you know I’ve been gone from Barbados for almost twelve years… I came here in ’22. And it’s almost 12 years, and I’ve never had a desire to go back. But now I have a hungry desire, a haunting desire, to go to Barbados. Not a thing stops me but a lack of money. I have no money.”

He said to me, “You are in Barbados.”

I said, “I am in Barbados?”

He said, “Yes. You are now in Barbados. And so… you see Barbados, and you see America from Barbados, and you can smell the tropical land of Barbados, see only the little homes of Barbados, and that’s all you do. You just simply sleep this night in Barbados.”

Well, I thought him insane, really… I mean, at the moment, it seemed so… stupid. Because… 72nd Street, we still had 50- and 60-story buildings. And little Barbados with a little three-story building almost the tallest that you’d find. And narrow little streets and no sidewalks. And I’m walking on a sidewalk that is wider than the widest street in Barbados on 72nd Street.

Well, nevertheless, that night I slept in Barbados. I assumed that I’m in Barbados in my mother’s home, and that I saw America relative to Barbados, and it wasn’t under me that night… it was north of me, about two thousand miles.

Well, the next day, I didn’t tell him anything… about a week later when nothing happened, I thought I would approach him. This time we’ve moved into November.

I said, “You know, Ab, there’s no… not a thing has happened.”

He wouldn’t discuss it with me. He turned his back on me and went into his little library and slammed the door.

About three times I tried to open up the discussion with my friend Ab between that moment when I first talked to him and the end. He would never discuss it, on the basis: “How could he discuss with me how I am going to Barbados when I am already in Barbados?” That’s stupid to discuss how I’m going to go when I am in Barbados! And if I am faithful to my assumption, I can’t discuss the “how.” I’m already there!

Well, this went on… on the morning of the fourth day of December… there’s no job, no place to go… and the last boat that will get me there by Christmas is going to sail on the sixth.

Under my door is a little letter from my brother Victor. And he said, “As a family we were never around the table at Christmas together. That Cecil”– he’s my oldest brother… he left home before the last was born, because we have a large family; there’s eight years between my sister Daphne, who was the eighth child, and then my brother Joe. Well, in that interval, my brother Cecil went off to Demerara. So… never as a family were we ever together at Christmas. So in the letter, he justifies why he’s asked me to come. “I know you don’t have a job, and there’s no excuse for not coming. And so I’m enclosing a draft for fifty dollars… you may need a shirt, a pair of shoes, socks or something, and I’ve notified the Furness Withy Line that you’ll come for a ticket. So the ticket is waiting for you at the Furness Line.”

Well, I was so excited… I rushed on down to the Furness Line and I told– gave them my letter. They said, “Yes, we have a message here from your family in Barbados. We’ll give you a ticket, but we haven’t any First Class tickets left. You can go Third Class, and use the facilities of the First. But you have to sleep Third Class, until you hit the island of St. Thomas. When you hit St. Thomas, someone disembarks, then you may take a First Class bunk.”

I said, “I’ll take it.”

I rushed right up to Abdullah, and I said, “Ab, I got my ticket for Barbados, but I have to go Third Class.” I’m all elated and happy about it.

He said, “Who told you that you are going to Barbados? And who told you that you went to Barbados Third Class? You went to Barbados, and you went First Class.”

Would say no more.

He isn’t even happy that I’m going to Barbados now.

So I went down on the morning of the sixth day of December, with my Third Class ticket. Went up to the desk as they’re checking in the passengers, and I put my ticket forward, and they said “I’ve got good news for you, Mr. Goddard. Someone has cancelled, and you’re going First Class.”

And I went First Class all the way down to Barbados. Ten days down; ten days back, with three heavenly months in Barbados.

So all that I did… I tried to the best of my ability to with his almost insolence… he was rude. But he taught me by his rudeness that I cannot discuss how if I am doing what I’m supposed to do. He tells me right away, “You are in Barbados.” Like someone comes to you now, and you would apply this principle toward their request, and they say, “Oh, I would love to be happily married.” And you say to her, or him, “You are now happily married.” They look at you as though you’re insane.

But that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. “You are now happily married.” Well, if I am now happily married and I’m a lady, I would instantly begin to feel that ring there in my imagination. And I’d let others see that I have my ring– well, that would imply I’m happily married, a wedding ring… and so if I don’t wear it from then on, I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do.

So in my imagination, I have to go to bed wearing my ring, and actually do all that I would do in that state.

Oh, he said, “You’re in Barbados.” And I’m in New York City physically, but he put me in Barbados in my imagination. So that I slept in Barbados to the best of my ability. But you know days go into weeks, and the weeks went into a month, and I’m trying my best to open the discussion with him, to get a little hope. No, no hope! He wouldn’t give me any encouragement if I did what he told me to do. Well, we all are human enough to want another little discussion, another little push. And so he taught me the lesson that there is no such thing as “a little pregnancy.” No such thing. If you did it, then you’re pregnant. Let the child grow. And interference with it is going to be a miscarriage. “You assume that you are in Barbados.” Now you are pregnant. The idea is that you are going to give birth to a journey which will land you right in Barbados. So you’ve assumed it. That is conception. Now, don’t try to argue. You have conceived. And all you have to do is be a faithful mother, and bear that child, and don’t discuss it with me anymore.

He never discussed it, after he told me I was in Barbados.

And I learned so many things from the old fellow. I came back, because I wasn’t drinking– I brought him two lovely old bottles of brandy. The best that we have on the island… two lovely bottles, and some rum. So I gave him my father’s rum, gave him the brandy.

A week later, he said to me, “Say… how long do you expect those things to last?”

I learned my lesson. I thought he would sip those things for a year– oh, no! They were gone! And he wondered how long I supposed these things to last for him.

And of course he really disillusioned me terribly on so many things because I would go and dine with him, and Abdullah… I was then a strict vegetarian. I was trying to overcome it, after I came back… gradually. And of course he would sit down and he would have two or three big shots of rye–I mean, big shots of rye– and then he would wash down his meal with a lot of Porter, or… it wasn’t beer, it was ale… and then he would at the end, like Churchill, a huge big bowl of ice cream.

I said, “Ab, how can you do that?”

“Oh,” he said, “you couldn’t do it… it would poison you, because you have quibbles.”

“But you know that God made everything? Everything is God. You would assume that  he made something and not the rest? No, God made everything.”  And he’ll send me back to the Bible. “Go back to the Bible and read the book of Acts.”

“And Peter couldn’t eat the unclean thing. And then the Lord said, ‘Slay and eat, for that which I have cleansed, I have cleansed.'” Then a sheep came down filled with all manner of animals and food. And the voice said to Peter, “Slay and eat, for that which I have cleansed, I have cleansed.”

So he said, “You have quibbles, Neville. With any of your quibbles, it’d poison you.”

But he would sit down and polish off this enormous meal, and wash it down with ale, preceded with three shots of rye. And here was a man truly of the spirit.

But if I judge from appearances, I would say, “Well, he can’t be a holy man.” For which today I am most grateful that he wasn’t! Because he taught me real Christianity. And he was born in North Africa, of Jewish parents, and raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish home. But he knew more Christianity than anyone I’ve ever met, because he spoke the Hebrew tongue perfectly. He spoke other tongues. And Rabbis would come to study with him. And he and I would discuss, day in and day out, for over five years, teaching me all that he could teach me that I could absorb concerning the Kabbalah, the great mystery of how this thing is put together in these simple little letters of Hebrew.

I know that in the– before the Civil Rights Bill, in New York City, no negro could go to the box office and buy a seat in the orchestra. You’d get a seat in the balcony. You think Abdullah would ever let me go and buy the seats? No. Abdullah would go right straight down to the box office–and he was a negro, I tell you– and he’d go right down and say, “I want two in the center. I don’t want too far back. Not beyond the sixth row. Right in the center.”

“Yes, sir.”

Buy the two seats. For any show.

The first opera I saw, Abdullah took me to it. It was Parsifal.

Five hours, and I’d never seen one before. It seemed it would never come to an end. Of all the operas to be introduced to opera, through Parsifal. Good Friday it was, too… you go on Good Friday in New York, he said, when you go to Parsifal, and you sit there, and think “My Lord, is it ever going to come to an end?” And he is drinking it in, every little note, he understands every little point, and he’s so in love with it. And I’m sitting because I’m next to Ab, just waiting, hoping… but nothing happens… it goes on and on and on and it’s five hours later, and then… that’s it.

Any other questions, please?

Neville Goddard: Live In the End (Part 5)

07-19-1968

Listen this very moment. You may not be able to whistle a tune. Maybe you can’t carry a tune in any manner whatsoever. You can’t play an instrument, you can’t whistle, you can’t sing. Well, can you  now imagine that you are hearing The Battle Hymn of the Republic?  Listen! Can’t you hear it? Can’t you augment it a thousand voices,  ten thousand voices? Did you hear it at the funeral of Senator  Kennedy? Did you see it on TV? Wasn’t that moving when the organ  began to peal, and suddenly that lovely soft voice singing it, and the  whole thing became...well, the whole vast TV world was filled with it. I doubt there were very many dry eyes when he got through  singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. 

Well, I can’t sing; I can’t whistle a tune, but I can just right now stand here and listen and hear
the entire thing swell. If I try to duplicate it with my voice, I couldn’t  do it, but I can hear his voice as he sang it. You can hear anyone’s  voice; you can hear the speaker’s voice. Tonight, alone, you can  hear my voice, and you can put upon my voice what you want to  hear, and I, unknown to you, will find myself telling you, “Something  will happen to confirm what you’re hearing.”

So, you can do this for good or ill. I advise you: Do it for good. But the choice is yours. You can hurt and you can bless, but don’t hurt. Use your imagination always lovingly on behalf of others. But to  tell you that you could not do it to hurt is stupid, because you can  hurt. It’s entirely up to you.

So, you imagine what you want. Believe that you have it, and see  how it works in the world. Those who scoff at it...well, let them scoff. Five years from now, when you are on the top, they may be working  for you, and may even have forgotten that they sat in the same audience with you when you heard and believed, and they also  heard, but they didn’t believe, and so, you moved on, and they  remained behind. That’s life.

But there’s only one creative power in the universe. Scripture names that power as God...Jesus Christ, the Lord...the same Power. Because there aren’t two Gods, there aren’t two Lords…there’s only one. And that one Christ dwells in us. He did not appropriate a single man, as the priesthoods of the world teach. They tell you of a single man, and they single out a man that differs from all men. He isn’t dwelling in this man or that man. His desire was to save humanity, and so He dwells in us...not in that particular man. He didn’t become this one man...dwelling in one man. Let no  one tell you that the Christ in you differs from the Christ...and let then name any man they want. He cannot differ.

If there is a Christ other than that Christ who is crucified within us, and who rose and continues to rise in humanity, he’s a false Christ. And the teachers who teach of an external, objective, different Christ are false teachers. Christ is within, and He rises within. So, you go out and put it to the test. Put it to the extreme test. Christ in us...not “out there,” is the hope of glory.

So, this word of which I speak...and the word, by the way...its true definition is, “meaning.” In the beginning, there was meaning to the whole thing, and that meaning was with God, and God Himself  was the meaning. (John 1:1) There is a purpose, there’s a plan behind it all. He planned everything as it has come out, and as it will be consummated. And the purpose of it all is to awaken in us, so that we and he are one. So, He actually became us, that we may become God. It seems incredible, but it’s true. That’s the purpose of life: to  take humanity and lift it to God so it becomes God. So, He became man, that man may become God.

Now tonight, you need not confine it to yourself. Take a friend, without the friend’s consent...without the friend’s knowledge, and lift him up. Do you know a friend who is unemployed? Well, then, see him as gainfully employed, and don’t tell him, that you may brag
tomorrow. Don’t boast. Just see him gainfully employed.

Here is a friend of mine in L.A., and this man was unmercifully  bawled out by his supervisors, and told that he was no earthly good, and they are considering letting him go. They are going to fire him. Well, the man had no support outside of the job, and he had a family. He told my friend. Well, my friend lives by this law, so he said to him,  “All right, go your way.” He didn’t tell him what he was going to do. He sat quietly at his desk and heard the man tell him that they praised him beyond measure for something that he had done. 

It  wasn’t 48 hours that they had a complete reversal of their attitude  towards this man in their praise for something he did in the  advertising world. But the blow left its mark, and he said to my friend,  “Yes, they’ve reversed it, but I don’t feel easy on the job, because they could not have said the unlovely things that they said and forgotten them, so it will come back, and I’m going to quit. I have no money. I’m giving them two weeks’ notice. I am going to ask them to give me one week of the two, that I can get myself together and  maybe take off a few days and just get my thoughts in order.”

Well, at the end of two weeks he didn’t have a job. My friend when he told him what he was going to do...my friend knew he  could not afford to quit and not work, so he saw him gainfully employed and earning twenty-five percent more than the present job. He took off the second week. When he came back at the end of the first week, he came into my friend’s office and said, “Only yesterday I got the offer, and I start Monday. I do not lose one day’s salary, and I start at twenty-five per cent more than I received on the past job.

What did it? My friend’s imagination, a loving use of the imagination on behalf of a friend! Had he gone without that imaginal state, he would have walked into the place, and the man would have said, “We have nothing,” or, “We can’t use you,” “Why are you  quitting?” He didn’t ask anything; he simply wanted the man.  So, if you precede your visit by an imaginal act, they will see you as you see yourself. If you walk in knowing that you’re no good, they will see you exactly that way. But if you walk in the assumption that things are as you desire them to be, they are going to see you that way. And this is life.

Now, what greater claim can anyone make than to acclaim that he is God? And when He claimed it, they said, He is blaspheming, for here is a man, and the man claims he is God. The 10th [chapter] of John, “And he said, ‘Is it not written in your law,’ I say ye are gods, sons of the Most High?” (John 10:34)  

If he called them gods to whom the Word of God came, would you say of the one that he anointed and sent into the world that he is blaspheming? Do you know of any greater claim in the world than for a man to identify himself with God and walk as though he were, and  not be ashamed to admit it? He doesn’t go bragging about it, but he knows in his heart he is one with God, for if his imagination is God  and he imagines...well, then, that’s God! And if he imagines a state and it comes to pass, then he knows the creative pwer that is God. He doesn’t have to brag about it and be ashamed of it. He sleeps in  a noble state, because he is one with God.
 

Well, let everyone take that attitude, and the world will change  not be beaten, but you can take the whole vast world, if they feel themselves slaves, and give them the world; they will want it again tomorrow. Unless a man has self-respect, you can give him all the money in the world, and it means nothing. That goes for the individual, it goes for a family, it goes for a race of people; it goes for a nation. As our late President Hoover said, “The rise and fall of ideas will determine the rise and fall of men, the rise and fall of nations, the rise and fall of communities.”
 

So, tell me the idea that a community entertains of itself, and I’ll tell you that community. But now change that idea of itself, and you’ll change that community. Let a family feel important in itself...it doesn’t have to have a background. Who has a background? So,  you can go back far enough, and almost everyone who now claims importance would be ashamed of that background.

So, don’t go back; start just where you are. And don’t pay anyone to look up your family tree, because you are going to pay them to forget it. Just, all of a sudden, start right now and assume the dignity that is God. That’s your real background...it’s God, and so assume it! And, then, with that assumption...and if you have children, I hope you do...well, then, instill that into the child. Instill it into all within the environment, and have them feel important.

I have no background, judged by human standards...either intellectual, financial or these things...we made it. But Mother instilled in us, when we did something of which she was ashamed  she would say to us, “Have you forgotten that you are a Goddard?”

Well, we didn’t know. That must have been very important, because Mother said, “Have you forgotten that you’re a Goddard?” Well, I never heard that we had any background, but all of a sudden you begin to feel that you must be important. So, Mother  instilled it into our mind’s eye. She made the name important, so today it is important. Where we are, in the business sense, in every sense, it’s important; but Mother did that, and she married a man who had no background, and took his name, but she made it important.

All right, who has any background? As far as I am concerned, I refuse to accept the aristocracy of any being in this world, other than the aristocracy of the Spirit. What other aristocracy? Give me the aristocracy of the Spirit, but don’t come to me with any physical descent. I’m not an animal. I’m not a horse, where you develop it by one horse after the other. I’m God! We are all God! You can’t go back beyond God. So, if that is the start of all of us, well, then, that is our root, and, so, claim it now. At any point in time, claim it, and you’ll find yourself being washed clean of anything you might have thought the family tree held. You don’t have any family tree. 

The true Israelite is not a descendant after the flesh, but the Elect of God, of whatever nation. That’s the man of God. So, you simply dare to assume that you are that man of God, and then apply what  I’m telling you tonight. And, may I tell you, in the not-distant future in the immediate present...it will work. If you don’t falter and do not change the assumption...if you remain faithful to the assumption, it will harden into fact, because imagining creates reality. It does!

Now, let us go into the Silence.

Neville Goddard: Live In the End (Part 4)

07-19-1968

As told us in Scripture,
“The vision has its own appointed hour,
It ripens, it will flower; if it be long, then wait,
For it is sure, and it will not be late.”
Habakkuk 2:3 (Moffat’s translation)

Read that in the book of Habakkuk. Here is the true translation of  that passage in Habakkuk.

So, when you know what you want, remain faithful to that  assumption, and the assumption, though at the moment it is denied  by your senses, and denied by reason...if you persist in it, it will  harden into fact. 

Are we not told that God calls a thing that is not  seen as though it were seen, and then the unseen becomes seen?  (See Romans 4:17) He calls everything from the unseen into the  seen in this simple manner, for He is the resurrecting power.

So, if I assume that I AM, I don’t have to have evidence to  support it...I assume that I AM. Am what? Well, I name it, and  having given it a name...given it form, given it definition…remaining in it, I resurrect it. And if it takes a thousand men to aid the birth of that state, a thousand men will play their parts, and I don’t have to go out and look for them, any more than my brother had to  go out and look for this man. He would not have known where to  start looking for one the day of the sale. So far as he is concerned, he had done it in his mind’s eye, and he allowed everything to happen, and he comes right in like a joke. He really thought it was a  joke, and he said to this man, “Are you fooling me?He said, “No.”  He said, “Well, then, wait. Let me call my father. He’s at lunch.”

He called him on the wire. He said, “Daddy, come on up. Leave everything and come.” And then he said, “Now, you tell my father  what you told me.”  My father’s name is Joseph, and my father said, “You really  mean it?”  He said, “Yes, Joe, I mean it. I’ll have him bid today. You put your signature here and your son Victor put his signature...that’s all I  need.”

That was a lifetime friendship. So, when that man died, he didn’t  owe my brother Victor anything. He so loved the friendship and the  feeling of...well, decency, that he had with my brother Victor, he gave him $150,000 in cash, and that was tax free, and the homes…everything was tax free. And that building which he bought for $50,000 was sold three years ago to the Bank of Nova Scotia. They  tore it down and built a lovely structure, but they paid our family $840,000 for that building, and there was no capital gains tax. The whole thing was simply free.

So, I know what I’m talking about. All I need from you is the  acceptance of it. Will you believe it? Will you believe that with God all  things are possible? (Mark 10:27) Will you believe that all things are  possible to man?

Well, you can prove it in the not-distant future, but you are the operant power. It will not work itself. If you dare to assume this very night that you have a better job than you now hold or that you have a  larger income...you may be fired tomorrow. Don’t be concerned! On  reflection, you’ll see it was necessary to move you towards the fulfillment of your assumption. You could be fired! And I wouldn’t bat an eye if you told me tomorrow, “Well, I did what you told me. You know what happened? I was fired.”

I have seen that. It takes someone to fire you to get you into a better job. I have seen that time and again. I wouldn’t go out and quit the job. You may be promoted in the job, or you may be invited by  some other concern that is competitive to join them...I do not know how it happens; I only know: if you remain faithful to the assumption,  it’s going to happen, and you are going to be promoted towards the fulfillment of the state that you’ve dared to assume that is yours.
 

I could tell you unnumbered stories of this nature. So, here, I say: dwell in the end. The end is where we begin, for if I’ve seen my name on the marquee, that’s the end. I don’t wait for the incident to  take place in my world to move from one to the other to another, leading up to that; I dwell in the end.

 So, if I go to the very end, what would it be like were it true?

A health case: not how it’s going to become better, but you go to the end, and you say to someone who isn’t well...in your mind’s eye you say to them, “You know, I’ve never seen you look better,” and have them say to you, “I’ve never felt better.” Well, now, that’s confirmation for what you are seeing. You say, “I’ve never seen you  look better,” and hear them say to you, “Well, I have never felt better.” 

But you may say to me, “I can’t hear people.” Oh, yes, you can! You can hear anything you want to hear. You don’t have to hear audibly.