Lectures

The New Testament tells what happened in the soul of man, in the inner man, the imaginative man, in Christ in you. These experiences were seen and heard by none except the one in whom they occurred. Through these experiences, that one gained the certainty that he is the one of whom Moses and the Lord and the prophets wrote. They wrote of God, and he became completely convinced that it was of himself that they wrote. For he took the writings of the Old Testament, the sketches, for all adumbration, and when he explained them, they became alive. What was formerly only a sketch became in him a cubic reality. He gave life to the sketch. For the letter kills but the spirit gives life, and so he was convinced that it was all about him. This is true of every being in the world. Everyone is going to have the identical experience and will be equally convinced that it was of him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote. In the end, he will see the unity.1165 ¶1

Now let us turn to a passage in the 68th Psalm. You’ll find it in the 20th verse: “Our God is a God of salvation, and to God the Lord belongs escape from death.” Now when you heard the word God, did your mind jump outside to something other than yourself? Then you do not have the same concept of God that I speak of here. If the word God or the word Jesus Christ or the word Lord conveys the sense of some existing something outside of yourself, you have a false God and a false Lord and a false Jesus Christ. For God dwells in you, and his name forever and forever is I am. “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s what you are told in the 46th Psalm. Just be still and try to persuade yourself that your own wonderful human imagination is the creative power of the universe. That is God. So when we speak of “our God is a God of salvation, and our God, the Lord, and from him and through him we find escape from death,” can’t we see we ourselves are bringing about our own salvation? It is in the depth of our own being that we will find that which will release us from this adventure into death. For here we are.1165 ¶2

Let us turn now to show you how altogether wonderful Scripture is. That man must himself experience Scripture before he can begin to understand how altogether wonderful it is.1165 ¶3

Now let us turn to the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy. “You have forgotten the rock that begets you, and you are unmindful of the God who gave you birth.” He equates the rock with God. Now take the word rock as used in this passage, and also use in other passages of the Old Testament, also in the New Testament, when we speak of the rock: “And the rock was Christ.” They drank from the spiritual water, and the rock was Christ. It flowed from that rock. Now the word rock is defined as the limit of contraction: to cram, to confine. Here is God in the limit of contraction called man, where he completely forgets that he is God. He has to completely forget. He cannot pretend that he is man, knowing all along that he is the creator of the universe. So he comes down and assumes the limit of contraction, of cramping, of confinement. But the word is also defined as the adversary. It’s defined as to assault, to beset, to besiege, and also to fashion. So your own adversary is your own being. So when you read in Scripture, “a man’s enemies are those of his own household,” it does not mean that my wife and my children and my servants and my friends who visit my home are my enemies. The household is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s my household. That’s where I live. I live in my imagination. And my enemies are all within me.1165 ¶4

So that rock that begot me, I am unmindful of it. And yet that is the God that gave me birth.1165 ¶5

This emanation now called Neville, a man of dust. For he turns to dust. Yet within it is the God of God, called in Scripture the second man, the Lord from heaven.1165 ¶6

The outer man is called the man of earth, a man of dust. It does turn to dust. Give it a little time or you can hasten the process by putting it in an oven and you cremate it and in just a little, in a matter of moments, it turns into dust. Or put it into earth and let time do it for you. It will still turn into dust.1165 ¶7

So the outer man is the man of earth, is the man of God. But there is the immortal man housed within this contraction, within this complete confinement. And that man is the man of whom I speak now. That’s your immortal self. So that is the God. And we are told, “our God is a God of salvation, and our God, the Lord.” It is from him that man escapes death. This is the world of death.1165 ¶8

So when I use the word God, bear in mind I’m speaking of your own wonderful human imagination. That’s the one that I speak of. This is the rock.1165 ¶9

Now, to show you how altogether wonderful the imagery is, in 1936, I was seated, not thinking of anything in particular, I was seated in my living room. And there, with my eyes shut, I didn’t sleep, but I was not asleep. Suddenly, before my eyes, there appeared a quartz about that big. Just a solid rock. No shape to it. As I looked at it, it became fragmented. It broke into many, many pieces and scattered. Then, as though some invisible hand, but certainly no hand that I saw, but some force drew all the pieces together and reformed them, but not into a rock. It reformed them into a man. And the man was seated in the lotus posture. I looked at him, I was curious. And as I looked at this seated figure, seated in the lotus posture, I observed that he had my face. I am looking at myself. I became so completely entranced with what I’m seeing, because it had my face. But my face raised to the nth degree of perfection. I could not, honestly, looking into the mirror when I shaved in the morning, ever think that eternity would be long enough to transform this face of mine into that face. And yet it was my face. There was the nth degree of perfection. There was a strength of character, a strength of majesty. You name it, that is altogether wonderful, and that face had it. And yet I knew I was looking at myself. Then it began to glow. And it began to glow like the sun. And when it reached the limit of, I would say, not translucency, but intensity, it exploded. And then I simply broke into tears because I wasn’t asleep. I opened my eyes and pondered this strange, peculiar thing.1165 ¶10

So the rock that begot me, I am unmindful of it. Here I am actually getting something by coming down into this world and assuming the limit of contraction, penetrating these bodies and annexing these brains and wearing these garments that are so weak and all decay. They appear, they wax, they wane, and they vanish. Everyone, no matter how long he seems to live, he goes through the same process. So he hits a hundred, so what? In the end, he turns to dust. But that something that animated that body is immortal. It is in that body for a purpose. In that body to reach a certain understanding of the unity of being and the oneness of being.1165 ¶11

Now we are told he fell. And the whole world talks about the fall of man. As though man had done something wrong.1165 ¶12

So let me quote from Blake in his first night. It’s called Vala. And Valor is simply the experience that Blake had over the period of nine nights. These are nine nights. He calls them Vala or the Four Zoas. He speaks of the fall into fragmentation and the resurrection into unity. The fall into generation of decay and death and the regeneration by the resurrection from the dead. Now we speak of the great tungsten. Then those in great eternity met in the Council of God, and they met as one man. For by contracting their exalted senses, they behold multitude, or expanding they behold as one. As one man, all the universal family. And that one man they call Jesus. And they in him and he in them live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life.1165 ¶13

That’s vision, true vision.1165 ¶14

When you behold man, the real man, it contains the whole vast world of humanity. And yet it’s only man. How to describe it? I can only tell you what I saw. To the famous Blake. Now, Blake and I appeared in time, separated by, well, 150 years. He appeared in time in 57, that is, 1757, and I appeared in time in 1905. So here we are, separated in time, but we are closely woven together in the tapestry of thought. We are just as close as one. And this night, Blake said to me, I’ll show you. Fall backwards. And here we are in space. I am not on Earth. We are in space. Like some carabiner. And he said, simply throw yourself backwards. Have no care whatsoever. And I threw myself backwards like a huge, big guy, but only backwards. And when I began to come to a point where the blow or the fall was quieting down, then I looked into space. And there is a man. This glorified being. His heart was like a ruby, a flaming ruby. The man contained all the races and all the nations and all of humanity. When I contracted my senses, all these things were. And when I expanded my sense, there was only one man. One man containing the whole of humanity.1165 ¶15

I know how true the symbolism is of Scripture. Who would have thought for one moment a rock? This man did not sit down to write. Whoever wrote the book of Deuteronomy is attributed to Moses. But who is Moses? No one knows Moses. No one knows actually what the man called Moses is. It’s simply a name. The word actually means to be born. There is something to be born. That’s what Moses means. There’s a play on words to draw out. Moses, to draw out as he was drawn out of the bulrushes. But the word in its root, it means to be born. There is something yet to come out. Here, this one being before my eyes. And who would have thought someone couldn’t come to write and use the word rock, which is capitalized, and you read it and you think it’s a rock? Well, literally and figuratively it is a rock, but it’s telling you something. That rock was fragmented before my eyes. The whole thing is fragmented into many, many pieces. And then before my eyes, reassembled, but now into the form of man.1165 ¶16

So here’s God. Your own wonderful human imagination is now fragmented in this world. And the purpose of the whole thing is that the whole is buried in the part. And the part will actually experience being the whole. You are not just a little member of God. You are God. And God contains the whole.1165 ¶17

So the purpose of the fragmentation. And the experience of this horror. Where the rock is our adversary. And I am my own adversary. I have put myself through the furnaces. Not another did it. In the very end I will discover who I am. And discover that he was the one who so loved me. His emanation. That he put himself through the faces. That he may awaken to discover the unity of being, the oneness of being. That all things are contained within him.1165 ¶18

All things exist in the human imagination. Not a few things. As some will teach you that only the lovely things, only the good things. No. They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And all contain within them that entire fruit of the tree of good and evil. They also contain the fruit of the tree of life. And the purpose is having eaten it all. And experienced it all. That’s what it means to eat. To experience the whole.1165 ¶19

Then we come to the point where we awaken from the dream of life. To discover that we ourselves are the father. That some being on the outside who calls me son. No one calls me son. I am the father. The sum total of all the experiences of man, all put together and brought into one single whole and personified is the son, the reward of the journey to death. And that is a son, and his name forever and forever is David. And not just a David, the David, the David of biblical faith. And when he stands before you, you know him. Intimately you know him. And you know who you are? And then you are the Father.1165 ¶20

So what does he call the Father? The Father makes the claim in the 89th Psalm. I have found David. With my holy oil I have anointed him. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.1165 ¶21

So he equates the Father with God and with the rock. And who is it? It is David, who could speak to one who sees him as his son, and he knows that the one who is looking at him is his father, and knows that is the rock out of which I came. But he himself went through hell to produce me. He was the father who all along was my adversary. He was God. He was the rock that assaulted me, that beset me, that besiege me, and still fashion me.1165 ¶22

And how did he fashion me? He fashioned me into the very likeness of himself. For the Son is the image of the Father. For we are told in the first chapter of Hebrews that he is the express image of the invisible God. He radiates and reflects the glory of God and bears the express image of his person.1165 ¶23

So I am passionate and I have completed him. He is beautiful. Beautiful beyond measure when you look into his face. But he comes only at the end. At the end of time.1165 ¶24

Not what the world thinks today. The world is coming to an end. No world is coming to an end. If tomorrow you have a nuclear war, it will be hell on earth. It will be hell on earth anyway. Without a nuclear war. A man who can’t afford to pay his rent. A man who cannot afford to feed his children, well, he’d rather have a nuclear war. He’d rather have the whole thing come to an end. For that’s a painful, painful existence when he has to go home and face his wife, who originally admired him because he could bring home the bacon, as it were. And now there’s no work, and he comes home empty-handed, and the children are hungry, and they don’t know why. Well, multiply, not in our fabulous land, but multiply that the world over, really is on earth. This is the adversary.1165 ¶25

And yet it is done in love. The being who is doing it is love, all love. But he puts you through the furnaces for his own sake he does it. For my own sake, for how should my name be proclaimed, my glory I will not give to another. And the glory of God is God himself. So he cannot give himself to another, he must make the other himself. And it takes all the pain of the world to produce it.1165 ¶26

So here, our God is a God of salvation. And to God the Lord belongs escape from death. But he will not let me escape. Because he and I are one. And you see me, you see my father. So he will not let himself escape from the task that he gave himself to do. Until he completes it. Not until the very end.1165 ¶27

Then he can say, I have finished the race. I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. Faith with whom? Faith with himself. He pledged himself. He would not break the dream until he completed the dream. For this is the dream. This whole vast world is a dream. And he is dreaming the dream. And in the end, he will awake from the dream. And when he awakes, he is God the Father.1165 ¶28

So here, when you hear God or Christ or Lord, try your best to arrest your mind from jumping on the outside to a being external to yourself. For God dwells in you, and his name forever and forever is I am. So bear in mind that the Christ of Scripture and the Christ that people mention morning, noon and night is their own wonderful human imagination.1165 ¶29

And he who loves you beyond measure is still your own adversary. He assaults you for a purpose. He defects you. He deceives you. But in the end, he will embrace you. In the end, he will embrace you and you will fuse. You were his emanation, yet his wife, till the sleep of death is passed. In the end, the two cease to be two and they become one.1165 ¶30

For two is division, two is conflict. But in the end, they will not be two. He will leave all and cleave to his wife, and they become one. That’s a beautifully stated statement in that second chapter of Genesis, right in the beginning. It comes out of man, and God is man, and man is God. Their own wonderful human imagination, that’s God. And God dwells in us, and we in him. And the eternal body of man is the imagination. And that is God himself.1165 ¶31

So you’re told in Adam, something came out. Out of man. And now man has to leave everything and cleave to that which came out of him. Until they become one. For this is the emanation of my father. Yet his wife till the sleep of death is past.1165 ¶32

So he is dreaming the dream of life in this world. And we call it a living state. And yet it is in the world of death. You name one thing in this world that isn’t going to vanish. Name it. Even the so-called inanimate objects slowly decay. We are told that all the heavens are simply radiated. And in time, although they’re perfect now, or seem to be perfect, they will become dead bodies because they will give out all their energy. And they are radiating at enormous degrees. And yet eventually, they all die.1165 ¶33

This is the world of death where God, the living God, enters. To overcome it, there was a danger. And in doing so, he expands himself. By reaching the limit of contraction and breaking the shell, he then begins to expand. And there is no limit to expansion. No limit to translucency. But he set a limit to contraction. And that is called in the Bible, the rock. And it was the rock of which we were mindful. That very God that gave us this.1165 ¶34

So here, you are the immortal being. You’re all together wonderful. And in the end, the speaker and all around you and the whole vast world will be within you and you will know it. But you also will be within me and I’ll know it. And we will be one. And in the end, all will have the same son because all have gone through similar experiences from the beginning to the end.1165 ¶35

And so the fall was into fragmentation, and then resurrection to unity. For resurrection begins the unifying process. And then the fall also entails fall into generation and the decay and death of this world, but regeneration by resurrection from the dead. So one is raised within himself.1165 ¶36

So I told you in the beginning, the New Testament simply tells what happens in the soul. That soul is your own wonderful human imagination. The activities of your imagination is the activity of the soul. And that is God. That’s called in Scripture, the Lord. It’s called the Lord God Jehovah. It is called Jesus Christ. And in the end, all will be one. For we will dwell in him, and he dwells in us.1165 ¶37

And so because he dwells in us, and all dwell in him, think as he unfolds in me. And in you, the whole unfolds. And you’ll know every being in this world is but a pushed out aspect of yourself. And they all play their part beautifully. And they were at one moment your adversaries. They were deceiving you. They were besetting you. They were assaulting you. And every one of them came out of you. You all yourself objectified the whole basketball.1165 ¶38

I received a letter this week from a friend of mine who was here tonight. He said this happened to him 12 years ago. That he found himself in a dream, strapped on the back of a bull. But unlike what you see in pictures, when they bring the man in, either injured or maybe shot, and they put him across the back of the bull, he was trapped lengthwise from the head to the tail, with his feet resting on the head of the bull and the body stretched out down to the tail and looking up at the sky. And he wondered through these years if it had any significance. It has tremendous significance if you are familiar with symbolism.1165 ¶39

The bull, long before the Christian era, was the symbol of the creator. All right, he is trapped to the back of the creator.1165 ¶40

But in reverse order, I know from my own experience that that which goes down into generation through the loins of man, by man I mean generic man, male, female, created within, and called their name, man. So, generation is from below. When man is awakened from the dream of life, within a matter of months, nine months, he has the experience of the ascent, where the whole thing is reversed. The energy that went down into generation is turned up into regeneration.1165 ¶41

Now, in Bailey’s book called The Lost Language of Symbolism, you will find many things said about the world. But there are two pages of pictures of the ancient world back before our era, way back in B.C. And they’re not nicely drawn, but they did not draw as well in those days. They’re all flat. They had no depth to the picture. But here is the face of a bull, and coming out of its head is the cross. And one around the cross is the serpent. And here below the chin of the bull are the initials of Christ Jesus. It is something preceding the Christian era, and yet there they are, the initials. And here, many of them.1165 ¶42

So, he is simply so beautifully strapped to the back of the Creator by that energy that he, in this world of decay and death, used in generations, will one day, in the twinkle of a second, be reversed and turned up. Then he will not be strapped that way. He will be the bull, the symbol. For the bull is only the symbol. He will be the Creator.1165 ¶43

But now, he simply expresses it in the creative or physically in the world should be always until that moment in time which comes just about nine months after the birth from above. For the birth from above and the resurrection coincide. They happen the same night. The resurrection comes first, and a matter of seconds comes the birth from about. So you break the shell, and out of your own skull you come.1165 ¶44

And then the imagery of crypto-corruptors, infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and the three witnesses to the event, but they do not see you, because you are spirits. You see them, you read their thoughts, you know what, everything is going on, but they do not see you. Yet they know whose birth took place, because they call your name, and say the child is yours. And you seem to fear that it is, when you speak to it endearingly.1165 ¶45

Well then comes another 139 days when the fatherhood is discovered. The father-son relationship. Then 123 days later comes the ascent. Now the serpent, the fiery serpent into the star. So he saw perfectly. For he saw the symbol of the creator.1165 ¶46

Now he certainly did not go to sleep thinking of a bull. He didn’t go to sleep thinking of anything of that nature. But these symbols are universal. Whether you’ll be in China, or in Africa, or in Europe, or America, the same symbol. There he is, an American, and in this country, he had it. The same night, the same moment, someone not knowing anything of America could have had the identical thing because in the depths of the soul, the symbolism, the imagery is universal and understood in the universal language. But today, man has forgotten that language. And he doesn’t know that he has the dream. So he may find it difficult to interpret the dream.1165 ¶47

But it was a marvelous foreshadowing of that creative power which one day, and I know in the not distant future, he will find the birth, or the dream he told me a few months ago, when suddenly he found himself on the deck of the ship and heading towards the mainland. Well now that was indicative to me, going towards the mainland. For all the things happened in the interior of the ship, even with his falling in love with the Negus. and really felt inclined, sexy, so was his nature. And yet, in this world, he’s happily married to one of his own Caucasian race. But here, in the depth of his soul, he finds himself falling in love. Well, that’s simply the beautiful imagery. Here, he’s moving out of that world. He only symbolized the darkness. And now he comes up to the deck, and he moves forward, and he looks, and here is the mainland. He didn’t even realize that he was not on the mainland until now the ship has lifted its anchor and set sail for the mainland, going home now.1165 ¶48

So the going home was prefigured in the story of the bull, because you don’t go home until the creative energies are reversed and turned from generation into regeneration, and regeneration by the resurrection from the dead.1165 ¶49

So when you read scripture, bear in mind that the God spoken of is not something the churches talk about; that the Jesus Christ spoken of is not something that they talk about. It is all within you. The whole drama takes place within the individual. And in the end, the whole vast world you will discover to be contained within yourself; that all things exist in the human imagination. And that is God.1165 ¶50

And those who will now deny it, all right. I wouldn’t raise a finger to persuade them, because I know give them time, and they will have the identical experience. And having the experience, you can’t deny the experience. For even though you fought against it in the beginning, after you’ve experienced it, for then, all arguments cease. You can’t deny the experience. So I say, and repeat, that until man himself experiences Scripture, he cannot begin to understand. How altogether wonderful it really is.1165 ¶51

All the imagery circles. Who would have thought in writing that story of the rock, they thought a man sat down to form some workable philosophy of life. And why did he use the symbol of a rock? And equate it with God. How could God be a rock? God became the rock. And you are the rock.1165 ¶52

So when you’re told he took a rock, a stone, and used it as a pillow, and put his head upon the rock, and then he had a dream, and it was a ladder stretching up into heaven, and above the ladder, standing above it all, was the Lord, and how he wrestled with the Lord that night and prevailed, and the Lord changed his name from Jacob to Israel. And here is this ladder, a winding ladder in Blake’s beautiful picture of it. It’s a circular stairway. That was the letter that he saw, and you see this: The angels descending and ascending. Descending with a child in the arm and ascending with it. The whole vast wonderful panorama. Which is your own wonderful human spine. That’s the ladder of Jacob. And his rock was at the base.1165 ¶53

And now he has to turn around. And when he turns around and goes up, he is Israel now. And Israel means the man who rules as God. For you will actually find yourself God. You will have the deep assurances you are from the experiences that you’re going to have. It is still the experiences that the individual who has had the experience is convinced that he is the one of whom the prophets wrote and whom knows his love. He knows because these are the experiences of God, and if he has had the experiences of God, then he has to be God, for it was of God that the prophets wrote.1165 ¶54

Then they said, “I have found David, and with my holy oil I have anointed him, and he shall cry unto me, Thou art my father.” It is God speaking in the words of the prophet, the 89th Psalm. And when you read the second Psalm, and these are the words of David, and David said, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, Thou art my father. He said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.”1165 ¶55

So here are the words. And when you have these experiences, and they’re all related to God, well, then you must be God. You cannot avoid the conclusion. If everything is said of God, the individual experiences in the first person, singular, and a present tense experience, he has to be the one spoken of in Scripture.1165 ¶56

But he still wears the rock. He still wears the garment. He still has it as an adversary, as he grows older and older. And so the faculty stays. Another thing you can do about it, there they are, they’ll stay. And he’ll go to the mortal grave, as the outer garment has to go, and he’ll return to dust as all garments turn to dust. But he knows the one who had the experience, and it wasn’t the one who was laying on the bed when he had the experience. He returned to that garment, but the experience was not in that garment. The experience was in the inner man.1165 ¶57

The Lord from heaven, who still had to come back and complete the unfinished business. In his case, the unfinished business was to tell the experience and relate his own experience. So he goes into his world and faces an audience that formerly heard only the working of the law. And now he can’t think of anything but the promise and its fulfillment. And he starts to tell about the promise.1165 ¶58

And then as he tells about the promise, he’s rising up into the mountain, the rarefied air, and the clouds remain at the base. They cannot follow to the top. And so he tells it and tells it, and they get fewer and fewer. As he rises up and tells of the fabulous promise that God made to himself when he became man and how he fulfilled it in man. And as he tells it, it is not what they expected. They wanted more of the fish and the loaves. And he is tired of the fish and the loaves, for he’s on his way home.1165 ¶59

I would like to tell everyone to encourage them, because no matter how stupid a person is in this world, if he stops for one second, he would have to know that eventually he’s got to die. And yet with both feet in the grave, he is still struggling for an extra dollar or to be payment. It is only mentioned in some He got the column. Oh, he would love that. Even though he knows he’s got to go.1165 ¶60

I saw that with a friend of mine in New York City. Winchell would mention him, seen in the Stork Club. And he would cut it out and show me. I would say, Gene, how stupid can you be? And then, of course, with his nightly visits to the store club, he became an alcoholic. He was making lots of money. He worked at the music hall. And finally they took him to the hospital, the road club. And he hid. They can hide the strangest things. And he hid two or three bottles of alcohol in his clothes. The nurses didn’t find it. And so he had it with him in the house. He could only leave the house a week after that. But he was so thrilled with the mention of his name in the column.1165 ¶61

Now the salt couch is gone. For debt. Can’t pay debt. Leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt. And he is gone. And all those who patronize the salt couch. Many of them have gone through the little gate called death. And others have gone down in the social world, financial world. And what does it matter? And people do not see it at the moment. There’s still one death.1165 ¶62

And I ask you to dwell upon what I’ve told you tonight. And dwell upon the word and try to identify it with your own wonderful human imagination. Dwell upon Christ and then identify it with your own wonderful human imagination. For you are told, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? For the average person does not realize it at all. He is still looking for him to come from without. And he will look in vain.1165 ¶63

He cannot come from without because he is within. That’s where he is confined. That’s where he is in the rock. Is not your skull a rock? If your skull is not a rock, well then tell me what it is. A solid rock. And that’s where Christ is, is buried, and that’s where he is going to rise, and that’s where he will simply awaken. And out of that rock, which is a tomb, you will come out. And when he comes out, you—for everything is going to happen to you after that—is recorded in scripture as having been experienced by the lord. So if they are your experiences and they are the lord’s experiences, well then you are the lord. Now let us go into the silence.1165 ¶64

I think he was flying tonight, a very interesting one. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians, “There is no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” There is no other foundation, and you read that and you wonder, what is he talking about? May I tell you, it’s just like saying there is no other foundation other than God and his son, for Jesus is the Lord and Christ is the son of the Lord, as it tells us in Revelation: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” So “Jesus Christ” is, you see, the Father-Son relationship. So no other foundation, because any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.1164 ¶1

Now he tells us, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is within you? Now, in the scripture you will find a strange reversal of order. The normal order would be that birth precedes death — you were born and you’re moving towards the inevitable, which is death. But the Bible reverses it, and death precedes birth. And he tells us in his next letter to the Corinthians, we’re always carrying with us the death of Jesus in our body, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.1164 ¶2

Now wait, this thing is going off, hasn’t it? You can’t hear me? But that all of a sudden that resistance is gone. Oh well, if you can hear me all right, I do not know how to do these things. I don’t know what the whole thing something to me right now, suddenly a window, however, better now. No, probably all right. All right, pretty all right.1164 ¶3

So let me go back and tell — at that point we’re always carrying with us the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Now we are told a story in scripture: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. It must die in order to be made alive. Blake, in his wonderful poem of Jerusalem, said — unless I die, speaking now, and these are the words of the Lord speaking — unless I die, thou canst not live, but if I die I shall arise again, and thou with me. So God dies. He is within us, and we are carrying his death within our body, and he remains in the grave until he awakes within us, and when he awakes within us we awake as the Lord. So the foundation stone is Jesus Christ, and you cannot add any other foundation stone; there is no other foundation stone. Jesus being the Lord and Christ being his son. His son is David, and Jesus is your own wonderful I-AM-ness. When you say “I am,” that’s the Lord Jesus, and Christ is his son, who bears witness to the Father.1164 ¶4

The Father died, but the son also died, and then he sends his son into the world. You are acting in the world as John, as Jen, as Bill, as Philip, or anything — you do not know that that is the son in action. In the end the son will return a victor to his father, for whom he has undergone the entire adventure. How? When he stands before you, the severed head of the enemy of Israel is placed before his father. That was the father’s command to the son, and David returned with the severed head of the giant, and here the father looks at it and knows that David has fulfilled his will. So we are told, “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.” And Jesse means “Jehovah exists” — Jehovah means the self-existent, the eternal. The eternal is I AM. There is the son of I AM, and he stands before you, and here is the enormous head severed from the body that David brings and presents to his father, and that father knows his son has fulfilled his will. And that together is Jesus Christ. That relationship is in every child born of woman, and until it’s completely fulfilled the journey isn’t over. It is something that is completely imposed upon man, and when the individual fulfills the conditions imposed upon him, that individual is, in biblical terms, called righteous.1164 ¶5

And righteous is the crown, and Paul says, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,” for he said prior to this, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” So, “Righteous Father, let them at last know that all is true that I have told them, that thou didst send me, that they may know that thou sent me, and that the name that I gave for thee is not mere poetry but fact.” And I gave you the name: his name is Father. It is Father, but you do not know — you are the Father — not until the son reveals you. And when you look at the son and know he is your son, then you will know you are the Father, and that son is David, and Jesus is the Father. “He who sees me has seen the Father.” How then, when you ask me to show you the Father — “I and the Father are one.” But now, in the office of the Son, I seem to be inferior to myself descended. So I will say, “I and my Father are one,” but “my Father is greater than I,” because in the office of the Son I am the Son, where I am both the Son and the center — I am returning to myself descended. And so I leave the world and go back to my Father. “But I and my Father are one,” having completed the work that my Father gave me to do. Now I return as the Father. This is a mystery, but a mystery is not a matter to be kept secret; it is a truth that is mysterious in character.1164 ¶6

Well, let me share with you an experience of a friend of mine who was here tonight, and the one of whom she speaks is here tonight — I will take the one of whom she speaks next Monday, that is her story. But the one who actually had this experience said, “When I gave this huge party and this lady was the honored guest, as I went up to her she was dressed in this lovely gown, in sort of a purple and she wore on her head a golden crown, and I said to her, ‘Why, that is exactly like mine,’ and she took off her crown and gave it to me. I could come and see, and I took her into a dressing room, and there on the dressing table was the little figurine, not more than four or six inches tall, with the same holes — that carved onyx, there was a white onyx — and there was the little prong that she took off her hair, that a big crown suddenly turned into something not bigger than a ring, and on the head of this little figurine was that identical golden crown, and it was my figurine and it was my crown. I took off my crown and placed hers on it, and I said to her, ‘You see, it is exactly the same crown.’” Now, she says, “I cannot tell whether I’ve replaced her crown or my crown on it — I only know it was the identical crown.”1164 ¶7

So Paul, in making the statement he does, does not say “a crown” — he uses the definite article: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” There’s only one crown, and all will wear it when the son returns from that condition imposed upon him, to destroy all gods other than the God. So any belief in a god outside of your own wonderful human imagination, your own wonderful I AM — that’s the false god. So David brings down all the false gods. So when he goes to face the great Goliath, and Saul will put upon him all the armaments of man, he said, “I cannot wear these, I’m not accustomed to these,” and he goes only with the Spirit of the Lord. He said, “I come in the name of the God of Israel” — no other gods would he wear. And then he brings down the giant, and takes the giant’s sword, and severs his head, and brings the head back. Then he stands before Saul, and here is that enormous head.1164 ¶8

And may I tell you, that is literally true in spirit, for when I saw him — and he stood before me, here before me — was it the enormous head of the giant, completely severed from its body, and here is my son David leaning against the door, an open door. They let out — it is the most beautiful pastoral scene, and here was David leaning against it, and the head before him, and I am looking at my son, just drinking in his beauty and looking at the accomplished fact that my son had completed — that man — to do my will. And my will was to destroy all the enemies of Israel, and he brought back their head, which symbolized all the false gods of the world.1164 ¶9

The day will come, you’re going to have this experience. Browning — whether he actually had the experience or was inspired by the sixteenth chapter and the seventeenth chapter of the first book of Samuel — but he wrote a poem called “Saul.” It is the story of David telling Saul about the coming of Messiah, and David’s change before Saul. And he said also, of faith: “A face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me thou shalt love and be loved by forever. A hand like this hand shall throw open the doors of new life to thee — see the Christ stand!” And David is looking into the face of Saul and telling Saul, who was demented, “Look at me and see the Christ stand.” But Saul had not yet been transformed. You and I are so, before we meet David and know he is the Christ — he is our son, and it takes the son to reveal us as God the Father. So the whole vast world is King Saul, in a state — well, is demented — because he’s forgotten who he is; he is suffering from amnesia, as all of us are, until that moment in time when the journey is over and David stands before us and reveals us as God the Father.1164 ¶10

So Paul is right: no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, and who is the Christ? The Son of the Living God, the son of the Lord. So if he is Father, then there is a son. I thought, “there’s a son — where is that son?” I will tell — of the decree of the Lord, he said unto me, “Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee.” To whom did he speak? He spoke to David, and David stands before you. In the end of the journey, when you were born, the burden — the allotted span — at the very end these exposures will take place within your own wonderful skull, for the drama began in the great skull, the human skull, and it will come to its climax and its fulfillment in the great sepulchre.1164 ¶11

The whole thing is within the skull of man, and this is the dream of life, and you and I are dreaming it. It is God in man dreaming the dream of life, and the son is executing the dream. So the son goes through hell in this world, he’s put through all the furnaces of affliction, but he always obeyed the Father’s will: “I have found in David a man after my own heart, who will do all my will,” and he is the son of the self-existent, the Living God, called in scripture Jesse, which means “Jehovah exists.”1164 ¶12

And one day you’re going to have it, and when it happens to you — I mean, I tell you, so many within the sphere are happening now, it’s all coming up, like my friend’s story of the crown — it’s happened to her, the one of whom she speaks, it has happened to her, many are happening, and suddenly it will happen in many, like a hatching-out phase. The hen lays eggs over a period of time, but when the time of hatching comes, they all hatch out within a matter of the same day, yet it took her days to gather her nest together. And so she puts down a dozen, or maybe two dozen eggs if she’s big enough for it, and then but don’t wait for any twenty-one days where it took her to gather them together — no, in one twenty-four hours they all break and come out, yet they were all laid at different times.1164 ¶13

So here, in this glorious story, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” And so God died — God literally dies in becoming man, and man is his sepulchre, and he so becomes man that he actually unites with man, and man thinks that he is alone and that no one cares, and yet the one who was suffering all the time is the God in him, and his son who is doing all the work.1164 ¶14

So in the fourteenth Psalm and the fifty-third Psalm, “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.” Blake answers that — “nor Son of God, but a shadow of human imagination... But I know thee, O Lord, when thou arisest upon my weary eyes, even in this dungeon and this iron mill, thou also sufferest with me, although I be bound.” And then the divine voice answers, “Fear not, I am with thee always, only believe in me, that I have power to raise from death thy brother who sleepeth in Albion.” O trembling shade! So here man is — so he never leaves; he can’t leave you, because your very breath is the Spirit of God. Your awareness is God. Your wonderful, glorious human imagination, that is God, that is the divine body of the Lord Jesus.1164 ¶15

Now you are allowed to misuse it, if you will, as you do. He forgives you for all the misuse, but his son executes — the misuse. So you misuse it, and the son fulfills the order, and in the end, even though he goes to hell in this world, all the fires, in the end he will destroy the enemies of Israel. The false gods are the only enemies that man has in this world. You believe that he can take from you, she can take from you, they can take from you, the dictator can enslave you, and all he has to say is, “Because I will it.” “Why should I do these things?” you say to the dictator. “Because I determined that.” Now you’ll chop off that head, you’ll have no external dictator, no external god — only the God who dwells within you, and that God is your own wonderful human imagination. When you say “I am,” that’s God, that’s Jesus, that’s the Lord, and when you imagine something, it has to be executed — that is then the Christ, the Son of God, who executes it, and they suffer together. And you say, “But I am suffering” — but that is his name, “I AM,” suffering. So Blake said, “Thou also sufferest with me.” Sure, because “I AM” suffering, that’s his name, but I misused the power, which is the power of God. And what is the power of God? Scripture tells us it is Christ — Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.1164 ¶16

So he brings into this world only one foundation, and that foundation is already placed in man. You may build upon it, as Paul said, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble, but it’s all going to be tried in the fire, and if it’s consumed you will suffer loss, but you yourself will be saved, but only as through fire. So you build on it — this is all metaphorical, you don’t build a building of gold or silver or precious stones, these are all metaphorical expressions. You can build something that could withstand the fire, like gold — there you can put it in and it melts, but it still remains gold. You put wood into it, it’ll burn and turn to ash, it will not remain — wood will not, but gold will remain gold even in this molten state, then you can cast it into any form after you bring it into the molten state. Same is true of silver, and gold will not in any way tarnish; if it turned green in material it still remains gold. So build upon this foundation — gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble — but remember, the fire is going to try it, and if it is consumed by the fires of experience you will suffer loss, but you yourself will be saved, because you are an immortal being; you cannot be destroyed. No one can destroy you, you are immortal. If you drop this very moment, you are restored to life in a world terrestrial just like this.1164 ¶17

But those who are here, and those I’ve spoken to, north and in the east and other places — they are actually being gathered now, and the journey is coming to an end. And so, though they came at different moments, in my time, just like the eggs of the hen, they came at different moments in her time, but when the time of hatching came, they all hatched together, and yet they came into the world seemingly at different moments in time. So I’ve met one at one moment, one year, another year, another year, scattered over years, but now the time is coming to a head for the hatching, and so it doesn’t really matter — the hatching is on, and they’ll all come out together, just a little while in between one and the others, but they’re all coming to fruition now.1164 ¶18

So Browning was right — whether he actually had the vision or he was inspired by the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the first book of Samuel, I do not know; he only said in his volume that they inspired him, he didn’t say he actually had the experience, but he is so close to it — if he did not have it prior to having written that, as he did there: “Here a face like my face shall receive thee, and a man just like to me shall love thee, and thou shalt love forevermore, and a hand like this hand shall throw open the door of new life to thee” — and then he stands before him and he makes the statement, “See the Christ,” and he is telling you he is the anointed, as told us in the sixteenth chapter of First Samuel and the eighty-ninth Psalm: “With my holy oil have I anointed him,” for when he asked that all the sons be brought before him, the sons of Jesse, and they marched the tall, handsome one first, and surely he is the Lord’s chosen one, and the Lord said, “No, I have rejected him. Do not judge from appearances, do not judge from the height of his stature, for man judges from the outward appearance, but I judge from the heart.” So he was rejected, in spite of his majestic figure, and he was, undoubtedly, from all descriptions of him, a tall, handsome, wonderful man that you would have thought would be the selected one to be his anointed king. Then came the second, and came the third, and then he moved the sons before Samuel, and Samuel said he did not choose him either. Then Samuel asked the father, “Are these all your sons?” And he said, “No, the youngest is keeping the sheep.” He said, “Go and fetch him, he shall not sit down until he comes.” And they brought him from the fields, they brought him, little David. When David entered, the Lord said to Samuel, “This is he — arise and anoint him.” And then he took the horn of oil and anointed him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that moment forward, never departed. He is the anointed of the Lord — the Anointed One is the Messiah. He is the Messiah, and Messiah and Christ are the same word — one is Hebraic and one is Greek. So the Greek “Christ” and the Hebrew “Messiah” are the same, the chosen, the elect of God.1164 ¶19

And to David he said, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” And so I’m telling you what I know, not from studying scripture and trying to extract something through some scholarly effort, no, but all by revelation — it happened to me.1164 ¶20

I never would have known it in all the years of studying and reading scripture, it just happened. And what a shock to me when I discovered that I am the Father — a father — the David is my son. I have a son, and my son — although I trust my wife to tell me that I did sire him, and I believe it a hundred percent, I’ve never doubted it — yet I know more surely that David is my son than I know that my son, Joseph Neville Goddard, is my son. And yet I do not doubt that he — my son — but I have no uncertainty as to the relationship between David and myself.1164 ¶21

And so, if the son makes you free, you are free indeed, for no one is free until the son sets him free, for he is the father enslaved until he finds his son. And when the son returns, having accomplished all that the father willed him to do, he comes back as a victor, for he has actually done everything that the father willed him to do, and it was quite a journey he traveled, and quite a furnace he went through. But he comes out as the Son of God. He went into this wonderful three-dimensional world, and he was the son — as told you in the story of Daniel, and they threw three into the furnace, and when they looked they saw four, and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God. It’s the presence of the Son of God that makes it live and keeps alive the three-dimensional world — were he not in it, if all be of that surface, everything would turn into simply a shadow world. But it is, anyway, his presence in it gives it a cubic reality, and so wherever he is, they take on solid cubic reality. So he was thrown into the furnace, our three-dimensional world, and made it alive and kept it alive.1164 ¶22

And then the king said, “We will worship only the God of Israel, from here on all other gods must now take the back seat, and from now on we worship only the God of Israel.”1164 ¶23

Well, who is the God of Israel? “I AM” — there is my name forever. Go and tell them “I AM” hath sent thee. This is my name throughout all generations, and by this name I must be known. But man finds it difficult to keep the “I AM” — he addresses God as “thou art,” and speaks of him as “he is,” when his name forever and forever is “I AM.” “Call all my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth, all those who are called by my name.” Now, his name is not Jehovah, his name is not Jesus, his name is not “the Lord,” his name is not “God” — his name is “I AM,” that’s his name. But you do not know, until the son stands before you, that you are the one spoken of in scripture as Jehovah, as the Lord, as God, as Jesus. Only when he stands before you, and the relationship is completed, do you know who you really are. Then the crown of righteousness is yours, so you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, and you have kept the faith — henceforth there is laid up for you the crown of righteousness. That same crown that my friend saw on the head of the little figurine, and said it is the same crown that I have. And proving it, she brings her into the dressing room, and here is the little figurine, and all the robes, the pose of the rover, identical with that which she was wearing, and the crown became the size of a ring. So she took off the crown from the figurine and placed the crown given her by Mary on the figurine, and it fitted — it was perfect, identical crown, so she couldn’t tell whether she’d replaced her own crown or Mary’s crown was left on it, because it’s only one crown — not a crown, the crown of righteousness.1164 ¶24

So in the very end, when man actually fulfills the conditions imposed upon him by this relationship of Father-Son, Jesus Christ, he is called righteous.1164 ¶25

Not everyone in this world is going to experience it, but everyone — so I say to you, I know you’re going to, and those who are not here present in the flesh, they’re going to too, for he sent me for a purpose. Only a certain number — any individual who is called and sent is called upon to bring back — not the world. “I pray not for the world,” he said, “but for those whom thou gavest me, for they were thine, and thou gavest them me.”1164 ¶26

So, on the tenth day of October in 1966, when I was commissioned to bear the burden only for a time, when I stood in a room — just about, not quite this size but square, like this — and I sat on the ground facing twelve men, and I was teaching them the word of God, and suddenly one rose and hurriedly left the room. There’s only one entrance into the room, and he left it to my left. As he did this I knew exactly what he was about to do — I knew he was able to tell the authorities what I was teaching. I was speaking of a king that was not of this world, and a kingdom that was not of this world, and he left and went to the door. He had no sooner gone through the door than a very tall, handsome man, beautifully attired, entered, and all of us rose — those who were seated, and I was seated, we all rose to attention because of his authority and stood at attention. And he walked down like a soldier, straight down, then he turned at right angles and walked across the other side, and he turned at right angles and walked down to the middle, and then he turned and walked and faced me. And as he faced me, he turned to his attendant, who gave him a mallet and a wooden stake, and he hammered it into my shoulder, blow after blow — I felt every blow that went in, but it didn’t hurt, I could feel the impact and hear the blow. And then he returned the mallet to the attendant. Then the attendant gave him a knife, a sharp knife, and he made one circular motion across my shoulder and severed the entire sleeve from my shoulder. Then he took the end of it this way and pulled it, and detached it, and discarded it, leaving my arm, from here to my fingertips, bare — the whole thing was where my right arm then he stretched himself up this way and he embraced me and kissed me on my right cheek, on the side here, and I in turn kissed him on his right cheek. And then, as I did this, the scene began to dissolve, and I was looking at that discarded sleeve — there was a little tiny baby blue, I mean the shade of baby blue, made of the finest material. Then the whole scene dissolved.1164 ¶27

And then we read in Isaiah, “Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” — the arm being the power and the might of God. Then, as we’re told, it was laid upon his shoulder, in Isaiah, and on it was placed all the burdens of Israel, for a time. So for a certain length of time the burden has been placed together, those that are — the seeds that fell into the ground, that they may be made alive. And so, unless it falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. And so the whole thing is now ripe for those that he sent me to gather together, and now my departure can’t be too long delayed. I’m sixty-seven, and the normal time is threescore and ten, and I do not think I’ll reach threescore and ten.1164 ¶28

I have no choice in the matter, because I’ll go on time — I came in on time and I’ll go on time. But it is certainly not my desire to reach threescore and ten, but to do the job — yes, I have got to do the job, and I fear I’ve done it. And so the hatching out will take place, and, oh, even though they came at different intervals of time, when the hatching begins, they all hatch out together — that’s what happens in the little nest. Now let us go into the silence. Good.1164 ¶29

Now, before we take the questions, I must tell you that this past Wednesday my wife saw her doctor, and he tells us she is not planned to leave the area before July — he would try his best to make it June, but he said, “I work cautiously and slowly.” So she starts the series of operations — she’s having plastic surgery after a very severe operation on her throat, where she lost her voice, to removal of a tumor, so they had to remove the larynx, and now that is over, but now the closing of the hole is on, and most of it is closed. There’s just two things — the stitching closed, plus plastic surgery, and it means seven more operations.1164 ¶30

And so on the twenty-sixth will be the first one of the seven, the first six is simply gathering the skin that they will need and rotating it — as they take it from one section they rotate it and bring it up. So the seventh will be the completed one, and he is hopeful that he will be able to do it in June, but she cannot leave before July. So I’ve asked, myself, to explain one month, the month of May, and so they were very happy that I would remain one more month.1164 ¶31

So I am telling you now, I will be here for the month of May. If — if she cannot move, I still don’t think I will speak in June, I’ll take it off myself, but the month of May, I know she can’t make it, and she can’t go — well, maybe for the first three, maybe the whole month of June, from what he told my wife. But they start the series of the gathering of the skin on the twenty-sixth of this month, and then there are intervals between — she comes home for ten days and she goes back for another period, then she comes home for another — and so that is the story. So I’ve asked the club, and they willingly and gladly extended the month of May, so I will be here on Mondays and Fridays through the month of May. Beyond that I have no plans — if she can go early June, which seems most unlikely, I think I’ll still take off the month of June and be ready to go just as fast as I can after — gives us the green light.1164 ¶32

Are there any questions? I’m coming back sometime in the winter — how long I’ve involved at it, I do not know, really, I have no plans. I’m buying a one-way ticket, but I will come back because I’m keeping my home here.1164 ¶33

Tonight’s subject, as you know from the title, is taken from Job: “I had heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” And that is a promise to every being in the world. There is one divine event to which the whole vast creation moves and that event is to be incorporated into the body of God. God and God alone plays all the parts. And he’s calling each and every one in his own good time and incorporates each, individually, not in any group, into his body. And you wear his body; it is your body, and you and he are one. This is the great plan of the world. If man believes it or not, it really doesn’t matter, because eventually he will experience it. So, in the scriptures, to see is to know, the same word in Greek. So when I know it, I know it only because I saw him.943 ¶1

Now we turn to one who is Paul. Paul had the grand event at the moment in time when no one was a greater enemy of the faith than Paul. Then he had a complete transformation of self and then he became the foremost apostle. An apostle is one who is called and sent. To be called is to be sent. Every one will one day be called. At that very moment he will be sent, sent to tell the story, regardless of what others will believe, because over the ages all kinds of things creep into the story and distort it. Now, here is the story of Paul being called. There’s this discrepancy in the Book of Acts, which tells us first in the 9th chapter, then we have it in the 22nd chapter and the 26th chapter. In the 9th chapter, we’re told that his companions who were with him that they heard the voice but they saw no one. Paul saw; they didn’t see. In the 22nd chapter of the same Book of Acts, we’re told that they didn’t hear anything, they only saw the light. Then in the 26th chapter, we’re told a light beyond the brightness of the sun descended upon Paul and his companions; not a word is said of anything being heard. I tell you tonight, from my own personal experiences, the only one who heard and saw was Paul. It’s unique…this whole thing is so completely individualized, no one but the one who is having the experience actually sees and hears anything.943 ¶2

But our fathers through the centuries, they had to embellish it and put an intermediary between Paul and God. When we read his epistles he first states it in the Book of Galatians: If there is one thing that he was completely against was some intermediary between himself and God. He said, “Paul, an apostle—-not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ. When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood” . There was no intermediary between Paul and God, none whatsoever. And so, he said, speaking now of Jesus the Christ, “Even though I once considered him from the human point of view, I regard him so no longer” . He was speaking only of the risen Christ. And said he, in Corinthians, the 9th chapter of 1st Corinthians: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”943 ¶3

To him, the only qualification for being an apostle was to have seen the risen Christ, no flesh and blood being. You can walk with one who is that being, but that doesn’t qualify you. It must be a complete unique spiritual experience in you when you see the risen Christ. “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” No man sent me, no organization sent me; I saw him, and to see him is to be sent. So it is Paul’s description of the conversion as we read it first in Galatians; then in the 9th and 15th chapters of 1st Corinthians; and then in the 4th chapter of 2nd Corinthians. Then he speaks of seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ. That’s how you see him. God is Spirit; he can only be seen in his Son; but the Son and the Father are one. So you look into the face and there you see him. At that moment he embraces you and you become one with him, you fuse with him, and fusing with him then he sends you into the world.943 ¶4

And let me tell you my own personal experience of being sent. When you are embraced, he sends you. Now these words are not recorded in scripture, but they should be recorded in scripture because the drama is identical for every one of us. Everyone will have the identical experience. There’s only one play, one plot, one plan that God has devised to redeem himself, having fragmented himself—he is the eternal rock—-and he brings us out individualized as himself. And when I was embraced into the body of God, and made one with God, and wore his body as my own body, and then sent, the words ringing in my ear were these, “Down with the blue bloods.” I came back unschooled, uneducated, wondering what is it all about? But the words you could never in eternity forget. I have forgotten so many things between that day back in the twenties and today in the sixties. So much that I have experienced in this world I have completely forgotten. But these words are indelibly impressed upon my mind and I can’t forget them. I didn’t know the meaning of them until one day I came across the meaning of the words “blue bloods”—-“Down with the blue bloods.” It has always meant “church protocol; all external forms of worship,” but all. No intermediary between yourself and God—no external sacrament, no external anything in this world—-just you and God. There’s only God. And so, I heard the words in my head ringing out. I was embraced by God; I am one with the body of God; and while I’m embraced and wearing his body that is infinite love, the words “Down with the blue bloods!” And then the words to me, right into my eye, “Time to act!” “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men.” “Time to act!” was my command when I was whisked out of that divine society into this world.943 ¶5

So I know that someone tampered with that story as told in the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts was written by the one who wrote the Book of Luke, whoever he was. But between the writing of the original manuscript and our reception of it, there are those who tried to make it conform to their concept of what God ought to have done; and, surely, there must be some intermediary between man who is a villain and the saving of that man. So they called this one Ananias, and they speak of Ananias; and Paul never uses the name Ananias in any of his epistles. He speaks four times of his conversion, the same conversion, and never once mentions that individual, an intermediary between himself and the radical change in his being. But Luke mentions it twice.943 ¶6

Here, Ananias comes in sent by God to one who is blinded by the experience to open his eyes that he may see. So, “My eye sees thee.” Everyone one day will see God, actually see God, and seeing God will become God. We always become what we behold. And God will call us in his own good way, and no one knows his secret of the call. When they’re called, you stand in his presence and you ask no questions. You see infinite love. So when Blake said, “And love is the human form divine,” I know from experience he’s right, it is. It’s the human form divine. You stand in his presence of infinite love. He embraces you as you are asked the question and you answer as you ought to answer it, and you will answer it that love is the greatest thing in the world. As he embraces you, you fuse with him and you are one with God. And there’s nothing but love…nothing but God.943 ¶7

And then will come the most marvelous unfolding pictures of the world, that God’s story, as told in the Old Testament, is true. Nothing thrills you more than when someone comes here who filled to overflowing with the eagerness to understand God’s message will call me on the phone or write me, and then tell me these wonderful visions of theirs. One called this past week and said, “Neville, I met Jacob…but he’s such a little one, he is so small, he’s so tiny, he is so little.” I will tell her, read the 7th chapter of Amos, the 2nd and 5th verses of Amos: “How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” Can you conceive of a child that can’t stand? He must be very small if he can’t stand. Today, they’re precocious at the age of nine, pulling themselves up…nine months, I mean. At a year, if he isn’t standing, “What’s wrong with him?” But here, “How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” And all have been taught to believe that Jacob is a man, who gave birth to twelve sons, and they are the fathers of the whole vast world. Yet, in the Book of Amos, “How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” So she calls me up and she tells me, “But, Neville, he was so small. I met Jacob. No one told me he was Jacob, I knew he was Jacob. But, Neville, he is so small.” Exactly what the Book of Amos tells you that he really is. The whole vast drama unfolds within the mind of man. There’s nothing but God and his play is contained in man.943 ¶8

Another lady, who is here this night, wrote me the sweetest letter this past week and told the story of her four-year-old granddaughter. The granddaughter was then only four years old. She said to her, “Grandma, I dreamed last night. I dreamed I went away up into the sky, up to the sun, and I talked with the sun. And you know what? He has a face and he has hands and he has feet. And you know what, Grandma? His hands and his feet have magic. And then the big, big ocean began to talk and the ocean talked to the sun. Then the sun came down to the earth. And you know what, Grandma? He had legs, and he could walk, and he walked right over to me, and he kissed me on the cheek, and it was hot. Now isn’t that a silly, silly dream, Grandma?”943 ¶9

And how true that is! There is nothing but God in this world. Everything in this world is human, but people don’t know. Everything is human. The sun is God and so is the moon and so is the earth and so is everything in this world. The day will come and you will awaken as God to discover there’s not a thing in this world but God. There is nothing but God simply individualizing himself and expanding beyond the wildest dream from whatever he was prior to the decision to expand. Only God…nothing but God…so an ever-increasing illumination is the presence that is God. So here was this child’s dream. Luckily the grandmother recorded it and I have it at home in her own written word. Once she goes to school, they’ll tell her the sun is this huge hot body that’s gradually burning itself out, because millions of so-called bombs, atomic bombs, are being exploded within it by its own power; and eventually it has no more left and therefore it will grow cold, and we, floating around it, will die because it will cease to be. [...] And they don’t know that it has a face and hands and feet, and can come down to the earth and talk with the ocean, and then walk over to a child and kiss the child on its cheek, and the kiss was hot. And so, at her little tiny [...], knowing that the sun is away up there and it isn’t a man, so, “Isn’t that a silly dream, Grandma?” I tell you the whole thing is true.943 ¶10

This past week, a lady, who may be here this night, gave me a magazine based on faith. On the front cover and the back cover two lovely thoughts are printed. On the front cover, “Only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space”; on the back cover, “Man’s Imagination manifests itself in the Imaginations of men.” Now, this is a magazine brought out, I think, quarterly, or maybe half-yearly, but, here, this perfectly marvelous thought that “only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space.” You think in terms of the sun—they say it takes eight minutes for light to reach us. And the fastest traveling thing in the world, so scientists say, is light—-one hundred eighty-odd thousand miles a second. And you sit right here, whether you know it (never heard these words before), and you think of the sun, and there you are, didn’t take eight minutes at all. Then they tell you that there are things away beyond the wildest dream of man that would take light-years, running into the unnumbered hundreds and thousands, oh, x-number of thousands of light years to reach it. So they tell you where it is, and you think of it, and there you are. So again, “Only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space”; so 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” .943 ¶11

And the day will come you too will have all these experiences. You’ll meet Jacob and he is so small. “Jacob is so small! How can he stand?” And you think in terms of this giant of a man with his twelve sons and all these; no, these are states, all states of awareness. You and I must pass through the state called Jacob. I recall passing through the state where literally Jacob was a deceiver. Jacob deceived his father-in-law. He took cattle and put them at the watering time when it’s time for fertilization, and then put poplar trees before their faces so that when they came to be sired they saw before them these stripes. And so, when they were sired, they brought forth striped offspring. He made a little bet with his father-in-law, Laban, that all the striped would be his and the spotted ones would be his; the plain ones would be Laban’s and only the plain cattle. And so he deceived his father-in-law. He deceived his father, Isaac. He deceived his brother, Esau. He was a deceiving being.943 ¶12

But to see God, his name had to be changed, so he wrestled all through the night. Not a night of twelve hours. We are wrestling through the night now. We’ve been wrestling for thousands of years, playing the part of Jacob, until that moment in time when he completes the wrestling and God changes the name to Israel, the pure in heart. For only the pure in heart can see God. And so, we look into the eyes of God and we become what we behold, where we’re transformed from Jacob. And Jacob was always the little one, so small he couldn’t even stand.943 ¶13

I recall when I was a boy six years old, five or six, my mother gave me a candy—-she had a lovely box of candy—-and she said, “Nev, you take this and then give this to Carl”—-my brother Carly. So I took my candy and I took Carly’s, and she said, “Go and give it to Carl.” Well, I ate mine before I left the room and it tasted so good I didn’t have the strength to give Carly his, so I ate his. So you see I deceived my brother, just like Jacob deceived Esau. And I never told Carl that I had a candy to give him. Had I told him he might have cried and told Mother, or he might have forgiven me, he might have. At that age I doubt if you have the strength for forgiveness. And I didn’t tell anyone, so Mother never knew I didn’t give it to Carl. You see, I played the part of the little one called Jacob. “Jacob is so small! How can he stand?”943 ¶14

And she was so surprised when Jacob came into her world, this little child. So small she said to me on the phone: “But, Neville, he’s so small.” The very words she used, “He is so little.” Well, the word in scripture is small. He is so little he can’t stand. Well, he would have to be under a year and not be able to stand. And so, she is passing through these states where she actually is encountering God’s eternal drama. The play is perfect and everyone encounters all these characters in eternity.943 ¶15

And so when Job, at the very end—-there are forty-two chapters to Job—-and no one went through more hell than Job, the victim of the most cruel play when he seemingly was not really entitled to it at all; he did nothing to warrant this horror. And in the very end, when he complained and he complained and he complained, he finally, at the very end, he said, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees thee.” I’ve heard of him, but now I see him. And when you see him, may I tell you, you will never, not in eternity, ever be able to describe him. Daniel tries to describe him in the 7th chapter, but you can’t quite describe Jesus Christ, you can’t. You look into this heavenly face of the Ancient of Days and he’s Jehovah. That’s Jesus Christ, as told you in the 4th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, and I behold “the glory of God in the face of Christ” . You don’t see God, God is Spirit, but you see him reflected only in the face of Christ. And you look right into this glorious face, and he asks you “What is the greatest thing in the world?” Automatically you answer, “Love” [...] “Faith, hope and love,” the words of Paul.943 ¶16

That is a great thrill, because Paul wrote that 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians and you’re quoting Paul, the greatest and the foremost apostle of all. And he claims, “I am an apostle because have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” That is the one qualification for apostleship: “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” . And then you quote Paul, and he, Jesus the Christ, embraces you; and you become one with him, and you wear his body and it’s infinite love, there’s nothing but love. And then you are sent and you are told, “Down with the blue bloods!” and “Time to act!” You go out knowing you must sever all contact with all organizations, but all organizations who think that they are going to acquire merit to get into heaven by attending service, by doing this, by doing the other, and all the outside rituals. “Down with the blue bloods!” that was my command. Then, the one who sent me was infinite power, and Paul describes Jesus Christ as “the power and the wisdom of God.” So I was brought before power, infinite power, and he said to me, “Time to act!” But what a command! Without using lips, without using any vocal chords, but I heard words immediately as he thought them. And that was the power of God.943 ¶17

There was magic in the eye. Come back to Pammie, “And Grandma, there was magic in his hands and magic in his feet.” I tell you, there was magic all over. Magic in his eye…he looked into your eye and not a word was uttered as far as a voice here goes; and you hear words in your own mother’s tongue, the tongue in which you were born, that’s what you hear; and hear it is “Time to act!” You go out, and no organization, join none; make no outer effort to appease God, no outside effort whatsoever; no intermediary between yourself and God. And the day will come, you’ll simply play your part and when God knows the time is right he will call.943 ¶18

There will be no resistance. He will call you into his presence and you will look right into the face of Christ Jesus, which reflects the glory of God. There’s no other way of knowing God other than in the face of Christ Jesus. You stand right in his presence, and you see him, and he embraces you, and you fuse with his body; and from then on you are one with Christ Jesus. So the words you understand, then, “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” So the Sender and the Sent are one, though you’re veiled. And the body veils the being that you are. No one sees the being you are, for you are wearing a body that is a veil. The body is a veil, so no one knows the body you’re really wearing. You know, but others do not know, and you can’t display it to anyone’s mortal eye. But you can display this. But you know “He who sees me sees him who sent me,” for the Sender and the Sent are one. Then comes that moment in time when the veil is taken off for the last time. At that moment, you return to your eternal, immortal form—which was given you by the embrace of Christ Jesus—to become a part of the body of God. And everyone is destined to be a part of the body of God. So, “My eye sees thee.”943 ¶19

But on this level, may I tell you, his every word is true. And while you wait patiently for “seeing,” don’t neglect the other levels of his being. For he tells us that whatever we ask in prayer believing, we will receive. Well, to ask, believing I must surrender myself to that state. There’s a vast difference between speaking of a thing and surrendering myself to that thing. When I surrender to a thing, I think from it, I don’t think of it. I view the world from the state if I surrender to it. So, whatever I ask in prayer, believe that I have received and I will receive. So I surrender, completely abandon myself, to the state. As I do so, I see the world differently. I see it as I would see it were it true that I am the man that I’ve just assumed that I am. And in that assumption I simply view the world and look at the world. So I must not neglect the lower level of God’s truth, for he’s given us these levels to aid us and to cushion us while we rise to that moment when he calls us and embraces us and makes us one with himself.943 ¶20

You take it this night, not only for yourself but for everyone that you know. And treat it lightly. Don’t burst a blood vessel to make it so, treat it lightly. Someone asks anything of you, assume that they’ve told you this very moment that they have what they want. Don’t labor on it. Believe in God, God is your own wonderful human Imagination, so don’t sit down and labor. Someone asks you something—-they want a fortune, they want a job, they want more money, they want this, that or the other—-if it’s something that does not injure another if they want it, grant it! Whatever you are asked, if it is in love that you could grant it, grant it. Whenever you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you’re actually expressing God, for God is love. So if someone says, “I want more money,” why shouldn’t he have more money? Certainly, more money, no matter what he has. If he has all the money in the world, if he wants more of it, you can grant that. He isn’t going to hurt anyone if he gets it, not if you assume that he has it. Someone wants to be known, alright, if that’s what they want. Who really cares?943 ¶21

I read this morning’s paper…and three that I knew, one quite well; met him back in 1934 in New York City; in fact, it was he who introduced me to my dancing partner who was my dancing partner for thirteen years. And here, no one in this world that I knew of was more afraid of death than he. So he went to sleep and didn’t wake. So at the age of sixty-nine they found the body in the bed. A very able playwright, he wrote many a Broadway hit, one lasted almost two years; many a TV program and many a moving picture he wrote. His name was Eugene Conrad. I knew him as Gene Conrad and Gene introduced me to my dancing partner, Amarina. But he didn’t wake. He was out the night before with his wife and his friends; went to sleep, and Gene is gone.943 ¶22

Gene never came here, never came to any of my meetings, because Gene knew the physical Neville. He wanted nothing of the experiences of the one who wears this garment. He knew the physical Neville and he knew the limitations of that physical body, all of its weaknesses, and so he wanted no part of it. This is the eternal story as told in scripture: Oh, we know him, we know his parents, we know his brothers, we know his sisters; and yet when Messiah comes no one will know where he comes from. Well, Gene wanted no part of that, because he wanted to believe in some miraculous being on the outside of himself. Not something on the inside which made him alive, first of all, that would slowly awaken within him and go through the entire story as told in scripture; every little detail would unfold into Gene, and it will. But tonight, Gene is on the wheel and he’s gone from this wheel into another wheel, the same wheel. And so, he will tomorrow read of one who had the experiences, but memory being very short he will not know he ever knew Neville. But he will know and read of the story of a man who actually had that experience that paralleled that which was told in scripture, and he will listen vividly. One day he’ll be called, and because I’m already part of the body of God when he comes I’ll look right into his face, and he and I will be one, all in the body of God. He doesn’t know it now, but he will know it. Everyone will. This morning’s paper, Alan Ladd, he went to sleep and he didn’t wake, age fifty, and so here, only fifty years old. He’s made a hundred pictures, and was he interested in this? I don’t think he was interested in this.943 ¶23

Another friend of mine who came here twice last year—-I knew him back in the days of Abdullah—-and he came here, Robert Cummings, a very, very healthy person, a nice chap. But Bob doesn’t come because this is not his cup of tea. It’s something a little bit outside of what he would expect. But Bob and I knew each other well in New York City years ago. He is my junior but not by many years I assure you, in spite of his press agent. I’ll be fifty-nine in a matter of days and Bob cannot be less than fifty-eight, in spite of what others will tell you. But at that age you would think that reason would tell you you’re moving towards the inevitable and why not listen to the story as it has been revealed through one. Though you know this garment, listen to that which is actually speaking through the garment. For what I tell you is true. I’m not making it up, I’m not composing; the whole thing happened to me.943 ¶24

Everything said of Jesus Christ as told us in scripture I have experienced. That’s why when I read the inconsistencies I told you this night, I can tell you of these inconsistencies. There’s no intermediary between yourself and God. So when the Book of Acts brings in three, I know that someone tampered with the script, because in the letters of Paul himself, his epistles, he does not mention one intermediary between himself and God. His first letter, which is Galatians, he goes right out and says: “The gospel which I preach is not man’s gospel. It was not taught me, nor did I receive it from man, but I got it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” And a revelation to Paul was God in an act of self-revealing. He unveils himself, and that’s how you see him. As he unveils himself, you become the thing that unveils itself before you. And so I know that Ananias is an insertion. There’s no reason for him whatsoever in scripture.943 ¶25

So when I read these stories and I go back and I parallel it with what I’ve experienced, I know where, whoever the scholar was or the translator was. Because, after all, in those days they didn’t wear glasses as we do to aid sight, and you could take one little letter and change the meaning of a word. For these scribes were simply working without electric light, without this aid, without glasses, and they were simply scribes transcribing, putting from one part into another what they thought they saw. They could have done it unwittingly. On the other hand, some did it knowingly, trying to make it conform to what they believed God ought to have said, rather than what he did say.943 ¶26

But when you’ve had the experience and you know from actual experience, then you see, because to see is to know. And so, when you see it because you’ve experienced it, no one can thwart you. If the whole vast world rose this night in opposition to what I’ve just told you, it would make no difference to me whatsoever. I wouldn’t hate them for it, because I would know each and every one who now opposes it will tomorrow meet me in the body of God, and I’ll be there to greet them. I’ll look right into their face and they’ll become what they behold. The very being that now opposes will become…for I’ll be one as I am now with the body of God. There is nothing but God in this world.943 ¶27

So may I tell you, you dwell upon what you heard this night…yes, that vision of little Pammie. As Blake said in the end of his wonderful vision, The Vision of the Last Judgment, and someone will say to you, “When you see the sun, do you see a big round guinea?” He said, “Oh, no, no, no, I hear a host of heaven crying out and singing ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!’” That’s how he saw the sun. Not as a huge luminous body radiating heat and energy, but he saw it as alive with angels crying to the glory of God. And so, little Pammie went a way into the sky and she talked with the sun. “And you know, Grandma, he has a face and he has hands and he has feet. And you know what, Grandma? The big ocean talked to the sun and then the sun, whose hands and feet had magic, came down to earth and talked. And you know what, Grandma? He also had legs and he walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek, and it was hot. Now isn’t that a silly, silly dream?” And may I tell you, you dwell upon it. Maybe in the not distant future you, too, will go a way up into the sky and talk with the sun. And may I tell you, she’s right, he does have a face, he has hands, and he has feet and he [...]. So everything in this world is God; there is nothing but God. Now let us go into the Silence.943 ¶28

Tonight’s subject is Advent. And I’m not referring to that tremendous tragedy and great advent that all of us have experienced in this past weekend, for that really was an advent, but I’m speaking of God’s Advent. Advent is the term used to designate the coming or the second coming of the Christ at the end of the age. The purpose of his coming is to redeem man from the wheel of fate, the wheel of recurrence. There’s a definite pattern by which it is done. Advent will begin next Sunday in the churches. Now this does not mean it actually begins next Sunday, but that’s part of the ritual. It always starts on the Sunday nearest to the day of Andrew. Andrew’s day is always the thirtieth day of November, and the nearest Sunday to that day begins the season of Advent. And it runs four Sundays and culminates on the day of Christmas, the birth of Christ—because Andrew was the first, in the most mystical of the gospels, to behold Jesus. Andrew first found him and told his brother Peter. And so, on the day marked as Andrew’s day, here comes the great watch: It is the longing for the coming of the Savior of the world.164 ¶1

Now, man has been taught to believe that he comes from without; and the way he comes the world finds it difficult to believe that he did come. So Andrew, who found him, could not have found him on the outside. He never comes from without. The only way that you will know that he came is to compare what is happening in you to what was foretold in the ancient scriptures. You go back and you read the ancient scriptures, meaning the Old Testament, and there it was all foretold… but not through any one prophet. And suddenly it happens in the individual, and he finds in the ancient scriptures confirmation of what is taking place in him. And he tells of the coming of this great event. So Advent is the coming of the great event. It’s really a series of events where the structure is unveiled. It’s the unveiling of Christ in man, and this unveiling takes a certain series of events. It’s told symbolically.164 ¶2

And they looked at him, and then they tore his garments into four parts and each took a part. But they said, “Let us not tear the tunic, for it’s woven without seams from top to bottom; let us cast lots to see who will get it”. And there were four who cast lots to see who would get it. There are always four, because the fourth one falls heir to the next unveiling of the temple. For, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”. That day is not at the end of history; it is within history. It happens tonight—I hope it does to many of you—but it comes at the moment that you least expect it, when the scaffolding comes down, and the scaffolding is torn apart, in four parts, and then the building is revealed.164 ¶3

It’s the immortal body you will wear. The same identity, now no change in identity. But with all the changes of identity there’s a radical discontinuity of form. You don’t wear this form. This is the scaffolding and it is this that is torn.164 ¶4

May I tell you, I speak from experience. I have no scars to bear witness to the tearing, but I felt and experienced and observed the tearing of this scaffold. It starts in the head, and here the very first blow is in the head, an enormous blow. You think this is it, meaning, well, oblivion. But it’s not oblivion. Suddenly you awake and you had no idea that you were asleep. Suddenly you begin to awake for the first time in eternity. Although that is measured in time, you feel you’ve never before been awake.164 ¶5

Blake calls it a period of 6,000 years: “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years dazzling around my skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold. I know it is myself, O my divine creator and redeemer”. He beholds himself after six thousand years of the most horrible dream in the world. So said he, “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. It is all ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Follow this path and you will receive from your own soul an even deeper perception of the eternal beauties of life. You will also receive from your own soul an ever increasing release from what now seems to you so sad and terrible”.164 ¶6

So you see the drama taking place here is all the scaffolding. Someone is blown apart, gone from the world, and someone played the part of blowing him apart… and then he is blown apart. All this confusion in the world, that’s all the outer picture. For, “He who began a good work in you”—not on the outside, in you—“is bringing it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” And he unveils in you Jesus Christ.164 ¶7

There’s only one being in this world that is ever resurrected, and that being is Jesus Christ. As told us in the 1st epistle of Peter, the 1st chapter, the 3rd verse: rebirth is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There is no other rebirth in the world and yet everyone must be reborn. You must be born from above: “For unless you are born from above, you cannot in any wise enter the kingdom of God”. And rebirth comes in only one respect, only in one way, and that way is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.164 ¶8

Well then, who is Jesus Christ from the dead? It never occurred to me, raised as I was in the Christian faith, that when it happened to me it was the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for the simple fact I was resurrected. I was awakened in a tomb and the tomb was my skull. Well, if I find myself in a tomb I must have been dead or someone thought me dead and placed me there. And was I placed there six thousand years ago? Is this some strange peculiar recurrence? Is this a mystery where a man at the end of a few score years here, and the body decays, and yet he doesn’t? Is he placed in a peculiar wheel where he experiences death and restoration, and death and restoration, and finally redemption from the wheel of fate, completely removing that individual from the wheel of recurrence? And that’s what it is.164 ¶9

So we are all on the wheel of recurrence, actually imitating the great mystery of death and restoration. Then comes that moment in time when God, as we are told, he resurrects us by his glory. And he looks upon us, and looking upon us we receive his glory. As told us in the Book of John: “Glorify thou me with thine own self”. If God would only glorify me I would awaken. For he will not give himself to anyone but himself, as told us in the Book of Isaiah: “I have put you through the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? I will not give my glory unto another”. So when the cry is “Glorify thou me with thine own self,” I’m asking God to give me himself. He shines upon me and by his shining upon me he awakens me.164 ¶10

Well then, why was I ever placed in that tomb? Listen to the words carefully from the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans: “And the creature was subjected unto futility… not of his own will but by the will of him who subjected him in hope; for the creature will be set free from his bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God”. It’s the grand mystery of life through death, and I, not willingly but by the will of him who subjected me, I was placed in a tomb and the tomb was my skull. Then in that tomb I appeared dead; but it was a profound sleep, and then I dreamt the dream of this world, the most horrible dream in the world.164 ¶11

So I dreamt all the horrors of the world I was subjected to as I dreamed it. I dreamt that I was shot while I was a president. I dreamt I had the most wonderful fantastic funeral, where the whole world mourned because of my exit from this world. And then I dreamt I was a poor man and couldn’t buy a loaf of bread. And I dreamt I was mutilated. I dreamt I was honored, I was dishonored. And all these were my dreams in this world. At the ending, God stepped beyond and by his wonderful mercy he looked upon me. And I always become what beholds me, as I become what I behold. So God beheld me and he, beholding me, resurrected me.164 ¶12

And the first act in the great Advent is to awaken. I awoke one night four years ago; I awoke in a sepulcher to discover the sepulcher was my own wonderful skull. It never occurred to me that I was really dead prior to that moment, that I had slept prior to that moment, save the nocturnal event night after night. But to find that I had been asleep for 6,000 years and then I awoke, and here I am completely awake in a tomb and the tomb is my skull! That’s the beginning of Advent.164 ¶13

Now there are four Sundays to it. They take my robe and they tear it into four parts. They dare not touch my tunic for it is woven from head to foot, and it is woven so beautifully it’s without seam. They must cast lots for it, for scripture must be fulfilled. The 22nd Psalm tells me, you cannot fail. Tear my robe apart. For a new way is now opened to man; it’s through the curtain of the flesh… and it is the flesh. I bear no scars to prove what I tell you, but I felt everything in my flesh. As told us in the 10th chapter, the 20th verse of the Book of Hebrews, this is the new way that is opened. Now, no ritual in this world do I need. I need no individual to lead me to God. From then on, having torn the scaffolding away, I have direct access to my Father because he and I are one.164 ¶14

He built that garment that he wanted me to wear and this is the garment that he built. How can I describe it? You have to experience it. He took a garment into which I was encased, an animal garment and transformed it into “the human form divine.” My face remains, what you see now, only raised to the nth degree of majesty. Hands remain but raised to the nth degree of beauty and expression. Feet remain, the body not. He transformed me into the human form divine.164 ¶15

Now listen to the words of one who not only saw it, as I have seen it, but he had the ability to tell it as I have not arrived so far to tell it. He was the grand poet, Blake. Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our father dear. And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is Man, his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart, Pity the human face. And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.164 ¶16

Well, how could I describe to anyone “the human form divine”? And yet I stood in the presence of “the human form divine” and it was infinite love. Infinite love embraced me and incorporated me into the form of infinite love. But I can’t describe what the body is, not to the satisfaction of anyone in the world before he experiences it. But the face, yes, the sameness of identity but a radical change as to form.164 ¶17

And so, Advent is the unveiling of Christ in man. That’s what it really is. You take the curtain apart and you unveil Christ in man. And you do it in four great tears in the flesh. The first is in the skull. And you can take it in this way: when you awake in your skull and then you come out of your skull, which is called the birth from above, it’s really one. It takes place in one night. The second one is an explosion, a fantastic explosion, and then it comes where you know who you are. That second event reveals who you really are. And it takes the Son to reveal the Father, and the Son appears and calls you Father. Then and only then do you realize who you are. That God fulfilled his promise to give you himself as though there were no others in the world, just God and you; and now, because he gave you himself, just you because you are he.164 ¶18

Prior to that moment you did not know what you would be like, but you knew that when he appeared you would be like him. And so, when his Son appeared you were the Father. You didn’t know what you would be like, as told us in the 1st epistle of John, the 3rd chapter: “It does not yet appear what we shall be like, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him”. And no one can reveal him save the Son. So the Son appears in your world and he calls you Father, and you know that then you are like him. You are the Father because the Son calls you lord, he calls you Father. You have no uncertainty in your heart as to the reality of what is taking place in your world. That was the second tear of the garment.164 ¶19

Then comes the third tear. He tells you, I will come in this manner “The earth will shake and every stone will be split right through”. That’s when I come; that’s the third tear. And every stone is really split, every segment of your spinal column is completely severed in two, and you see them separated by inches, fulfilling the 27th of Matthew. He will come and every stone will be split, and there is an earthquake. You have never felt anything comparable to it. That’s the third tearing.164 ¶20

The fourth one is when you take off the garment for the last time. Because then when it actually comes off, the tunic that is made without seam, woven from the top to the bottom, is your immortal garment. It’s the garment of love, for then you wear the “human form divine” and the “human form divine” is all love. There’s nothing but love.164 ¶21

So, when you experienced as we all [...] day, experienced this past weekend, this horror, may I tell you, the one who played both parts was God. God played both parts. He also played the third part of horror, for there’s nothing but God in this world. And in the very end when the curtain comes down, “God who only acts and is in all existing beings or men” will call us all together—for we’re incorporated into the body of love—and reveal the meaning of the play. And the four acts will be over. The four tears will be over. Then in some wonderful fifth act he will display the purpose of these four acts. For then you and I will be although identified as to face, no loss of identity, but with this radical change of this immortal form, we will play the fifth act. And, oh, what an act! But then we are qualified to play it. We have the garment with which we can play it. We couldn’t play it with these. It takes these, the outer structure, to play this so-called horror of the world.164 ¶22

Now, I am not speculating. I am giving you and sharing with you my vision. I’ve experienced it. But I cannot in any way describe it save in words. I cannot, on this level, do any more than I am doing now—using words to tell you what I have experienced. For if this seems to be a horrible play, then I ask you to believe God played all the parts. The so-called insane part that blew one that we all admired so much into seeming eternity. It’s not eternity. It could be that very moment in time that impact was the tearing of one section of the garment, who knows? For he’s on the wheel of recurrence.164 ¶23

Haven’t you seen where—we go back to 1840—and he elected every twenty years made his exit while in office? Now, we’ve gone beyond the hundred years. Can’t you see the wheel of recurrence? This is now beyond a hundred years. We started back in 1840 with a change in pattern. Not really a change, but to those who had memories it seemed to be a change because memory is so short. If you could go back as Blake went back and he said: “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years.” Six thousand years. Well, what man can go back 6,000 years? If you could, you would see everything, as it is about to appear.164 ¶24

And what is more horrible in this world than to sit in a play in the presence of one who saw it, and who is talking, who tells exactly what’s going to happen? You go to a picture, and all of a sudden someone who wants you to know they saw it before, “The one going through that door, he’s going to shoot that one.” And you don’t know that, you don’t anticipate it, but it comes to pass, and you get annoyed with him. But he keeps on talking about it and he tells the entire play as it unfolds. Wouldn’t you want to hit him over the head? Well, that’s the play, this fantastic play.164 ¶25

But don’t feel yourself a slave; within the framework of God’s play as actors you and I can modify the part, we can change the part, but we are playing a part. And an actor to play a part well must to some extent feel the part that he’s playing, and to the best of his ability he must imagine himself as the character that he is depicting.164 ¶26

And so, I am playing a part. I was cast in this role. I stood in the drama in the depths of my soul and cast lots for his robe, and got the fourth part. So I came into the world playing the part of the fourth and had to play what I am playing. This all goes back and anchors on the one called David.164 ¶27

The earliest manuscripts, but the very earliest manuscripts, know only one ancestor of David and that is his father Jesse. He had no mother. And for this you may go back and search the Encyclopedia Biblica, the most scholarly work on the Bible to date. They say, as far back as we can go we can find no ancestor of David, other than his father whose name was Jesse. Furthermore, they say, in the earliest manuscripts there are only four brothers and he was the youngest of four. Others are mentioned as brothers but not named. And in scripture unless a thing is named it doesn’t exist. And so, there could be seven brothers, as they’re told, and eight brothers, as they’re told, but they must be named. Only four are named and the youngest of the four named is David.164 ¶28

“So tell me, whose son are you, young man?” And he answered, “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite”. And Christ is made to say, I came not to serve, or to be served, “I came to serve, I came as a servant”. “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” And the word Jesse is I AM. The word Jesse means Jehovah. Jehovah comes not to be served but to serve. Well, who serves but the actor who is playing the part, playing all the parts.164 ¶29

And, the one who discovered this father… as we are told, and David brought down the giant. Having brought down the giant, the promise now must be fulfilled. And the promise is: “That he who brings down the giant, the enemy of Israel, I will set his father free in Israel”. Well, who is the father? The father is Jesse. The father is Jesus Christ—that’s Jesse. And so, suddenly he looks and he calls you Father. There is only Jesus Christ.164 ¶30

So we go back, your rebirth, the unveiling of the works of God in you, is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The only one who is resurrected is Jesus Christ. So when you are resurrected, you are he. There is only Jesus Christ.164 ¶31

You too will say in the end, as you will say this night when you read all the papers, as you saw the TV, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He knew no more what he did driving in the open car than he who fired the fatal bullet, and the other one who fired that bullet; and you and I, on this level, will speculate and do all kinds of things, and it was all a play.164 ¶32

You go tonight and you see Macbeth. And sitting in the audience stirred by the emotion of the play when she wants that spot rubbed out, and you in the play crying because of what she has done and what she prompted her husband to do, you hope it will never in eternity be wiped out. You hope that spot remains on that hand as a reminder of her violence, the horrible ambition that resulted in this innocent murder. But the curtain comes down, and you really don’t want that spot to remain if you know she’s a grand actress. You only want it to remain on the part she played, but not on the actress who played it. But while you’re carried with emotion you want it to remain.164 ¶33

Well, in this wonderful play of ours you want this one snuffed off and that one snuffed off, and all these things, just because we don’t know it’s a play. But I’m telling you from my own experience this is a play, the most glorious play that God could conceive. And the purpose of it was to create in us an immortal structure, the human form divine. And the human form divine is all love, there’s nothing but love.164 ¶34

One day, I prophesy, everyone in this world—the insane today, the imbeciles today—all will play all these parts. But one day, not be playing these parts, and be brought into the presence of infinite love. He will embrace them, incorporate them into his body. And in the end, when the curtain comes down and the play is over, everyone is wearing the human form divine. And everyone will have the heart of mercy, everyone will have the face of pity, and everyone will be wearing the dress of peace. But the form itself will be the human form divine, and that form is infinite love.164 ¶35

So I ask you not to despair. I know tonight the whole country is disturbed—maybe not tonight but certainly last night—and wondering. And so to repeat Blake: “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horror of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Follow this path and you will receive from your own wonderful soul an even deeper perception of the eternal beauties of life. You’ll also receive an ever increasing relief from that which now seems to be so sad and so terrible.”164 ¶36

You will. You’ll suddenly awake from it all and you will see the reason behind the play, and you will allow it. Although the face will be yours forever and forever, the form by this horrible play is transformed into the human form divine. And that form is infinite love.164 ¶37

But in the meanwhile, use God’s law. Use it to create and modify all the things in this world. Create things you want and cushion the blows of the play. Because, like actors you can play it differently—the same play, same part, but you would play it differently—without the blow that would be the inevitable blow if you did not use God’s law wisely. The play, the part I’m playing using this law and play it wisely, everyone can do it. And you play the part wisely when you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of yourself and others. That when you hear the most horrible story, you revise it. When you hear anything, you revise it. All that is allowed within the play; it does not change the outcome of the play.164 ¶38

God planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated. As we are told in the 14th of Isaiah, “I have planned… that which I have planned shall stand, and my purpose is forever”. I have planned it just as it is and my purpose is forever. No one will change it. You read it carefully and you will understand [...].164 ¶39

But in the end, when the scaffold comes down and the building is revealed, I just can’t tell you the glory of that building, for it’s the glory of God. I can’t tell you what it is to wear the garment of love, and yet, this remains until the final tearing. There are four tears and no one gets the fourth tear until he makes his exit from this world, then comes the fourth one.164 ¶40

All these other things appear, like the dove, and all these things that are part of the eternal story, they all appear to show you how true the story is. But the fourth tear, when the garment is torn into four parts, and then others will cast lots for the untorn garment to play that part. For the fourth one is the one who comes through the door. And maybe tonight you may be that fourth one. I cannot in any way determine who will win the garment, but God knows exactly how he is unfolding this fantastic drama [...].164 ¶41

So you read it carefully. Only one relative and the relative was father, born without a mother, begotten of God, begotten of the spirit and not of flesh and blood. And the being begotten is beloved, David. David is the one, the second tearing of the garment. And when the garment is torn a second time, it exposes David as the Son. David looks and he calls you Father, and then you know. That’s the second tear.164 ¶42

And then comes the third tear and your departure from Egypt, where in the most fantastic way you can take the imprint of God. Because only if you are in the state of molten gold can you take the impress of God. And so, we are taking the seal of God. But you can’t take the seal that comes sealed upon wax or upon clay. But then wax or clay must be in a molten state to take the impress; and so you see the gold, and you are it. Then, suddenly the gold becomes serpentine, and up it moves, up the shaft of what was formerly split. You move up the shaft of your own spinal cord and here you take the impress upon the face of God.164 ¶43

But God dwells in Zion and Zion is your skull, and it’s in there that you go. You make the most tremendous effort to get out. But you don’t get out. You just press into that skull and take the impress of the face of God… yet no loss of identity. But you’ll wear forever the form of God, without loss of identity. As you are told, “From John the Baptist till now, the kingdom of God has been preached and everyone who enters the kingdom does so with violence”. And may I tell you, you’ve never known such violence in your life as at that moment in time when you move up with a power that you’ve never felt before.164 ¶44

But that power pushes into that seal and you take the face of God. But it will not be unveiled to you until the last tear, which is the taking off of the garment. So what you have inherited, your heavenly state cannot become actual or is, at least, not fully realized by you so long as you still wear this, waiting for the last tear.164 ¶45

And then the garment is torn, as you are told, into four parts, and you’re clothed in that seamless robe, wearing, without loss of identity, the human form divine. Now, let us go into the Silence.164 ¶46

Tonight’s subject, you may find it a little bit — I do not apologize for it — always believe that whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical. When you open the Bible, you are in the midst of history. It’s not secular history, it’s sacred history. [Uncertain: garbled clause] has fulfilled the duty of individuals who live and walk the face of this earth. It has followed the view of you, who in all the same way, great indeed he confesses, is the mystery of our religion. By mystery, we do not mean a matter to be chastised, but a truth that is mysterious in character.1161 ¶1

If you do not know this and you haven’t had the vision of never experiencing spiritual pain beyond this mistake, as many church priests do, there is a book today that’s very powerful, written by a bishop of the Church of England. It’s called Honest to God, and it swept England, Canada, and this country. It’s a best-seller. And the vision is a glorious one. He said Christianity is rooted in a myth and image that have no application to modern scientific man. And he calls upon the Christian church to strip itself of much of its traditional doctrines, such as the incarnation of Jesus. But is it a vision? One who is in control of so many who are needless in the church, but he’s never had his grace, he knows his love of the Christian mission. And seeing him through his secular eyes, he does not see it.1161 ¶2

Tonight the subject is My Husband. This is taken from the 54th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. The New Testament interprets the Old, not the other way around. So here we speak of My Husband. And this is the quote: “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name. The Lord calls you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit. For a brief moment the Lord will forsake you, but he will gather you with great compassion. For a moment you will be faced with everlasting love, saith the Lord, and then you will be the bride of the Lord.”1161 ¶3

For if he is my husband, then I must be a bride. And if he is the husband of my wife, well then, she is his bride. This is addressed to every child born of woman: your Maker is your husband. For this is a great mystery. To understand it, we must search the Scriptures, and we go back to the very first use of the word. The word translated husband is the Hebrew ish, defined in the second chapter of Genesis. And there it is translated “man” [uncertain: “with a huge big chapel”], and man must leave his father and mother, leave all, and cleave to his wife, until they become one flesh. So this is the man who is spoken of, who is the Lord.1161 ¶4

When you see it, when you understand the story of Jesus Christ — this is the new testimony of the son of David, of this man, without his animation, his life, till the seat of death is passed, and he goes on with evils until he fuses with us, and we are one. It is God’s purpose to give himself to men, as though there were no others in the world, just God and men, and he’s any, only man. For the human that he will meet will only be you, and you will be God. That’s the soul — that God himself enters this door. All of us, if those who enter, but may some get very good in visions of eternity, to bear a wing and see Jesus. I’m going to encourage you all that the females are your reward. It’s my mother, Lord — this God of pleasure and love, this is the linen cloth she wore for me, darning herself in her guest door, this God, when I ate. Lay down a grave between me in visions of eternity.1161 ¶5

How do I know it? How do I know the action in it? I must read the story of one. For the story of Jesus is a fact of God, the most audacious promise of what one day he’d experience of the believer. So you and I have told the story. Does it fall on the ground or is it absorbed? The sower goes forth, and he sows the word, the message of salvation. And some hear it, and clearly are receptive, believing all things are possible to God. Others hear it, and, I forbid, reject it — that is a myth, it is a strange energy that has no basis whatsoever in this modern scientific age. Others hear it and doth believe it, but the cares of the day are greater than their faith [uncertain: “in extraneity”]. But there are a few of us who hear it, and we are quite willing to go through fear for the fulfillment of that prophecy — that God gives himself through you, and so completely [uncertain: “result me, to be wronged in me, I am angry”].1161 ¶6

How will I know it? For his glory tells me how I will know it. It happens sometimes, as I walk the earth, it comes like a thief in the night, because at one moment in time, the Word was planted, and raised, and came into my life, and I believed it, and then it grew in secret. For he who began a good work in me, he promised he would bring it to completion.1161 ¶7

Well, what is that day called? Jesus Christ. Well, I will tell you: because he wants me to simply scratch from the page the incarnation of Jesus, because he doesn’t know the mystery. Of one billion Christians in the world, what percentage really do know the mystery — that a little child was born two thousand years ago in some strange and lonely manner? That’s not the mystery. [Uncertain, heavily garbled passage] himself, which is God, the Word of Jesus, is Jehovah — if I had heard that he knew, it would have been somewhat Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, and there’s a completion for Jehovah after Jehovah, of the core of the Word, who to be Jehovah — and the Word of Jesus, Jehovah, says, as we are told: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” And you — it’s the same thing, calling us, ending death’s draw of a human skull and becoming the dreamer of that man. And all things are possible to man if he knows who he’s dreaming, but all things are possible to God if I know who he really is — my own wonderful human imagination, and that is Jesus Christ.1161 ¶8

Are you ashamed, embarrassed, afraid of anything? When I speak from experience, I am not theorizing. [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “Greatest one begins to show the meaning to all his wisdom. To where reason, unique, may we find any concordance, the biblical concordance, it needs to awaken, to rouse our spirit. Come the great, it has exactly the experience that you have.”] When that moment in time comes for you to begin to awake, and you do awake, you have the feeling that you are dead, you are asleep, and the only thing that can rouse you to it is where you are when you awake. You are in a cell. You are in a grave [uncertain: “of the Great Racial Star”], and you know even the tomb. That’s the only thing that conveys to you a feeling that you must forget, for if you were not a baby, someone thought you a baby, for you find yourself in the grave, and the grave is your skull, and then you come out of your skull, just in the manner that a child is born, to find a symbol of your birth [text trails off, unresolved]. And he will take from the Christian faith that secret sign of the incarnation. And may I tell you, it is evident that child has ever longed, if you will, to symbolize your birth, your resurrection.1161 ¶9

Let us turn to the first act, which is the act of the resurrection. In the second chapter of the Book of John, there is a conversation between a woman called Martha and the one called Jesus Christ. But let me remind you, this is not secular history — this is sacred history. For our evangelists were not, as the fighting saints and kings of the past, historians. They desired to pass on the message of salvation as teachers who themselves experienced salvation. You are not historians, you are men who are describing this strange supernatural [uncertain: “machine”] that began to awaken in you.1161 ¶10

So on this occasion, Martha makes the statement [uncertain: “that you are not deceptives”]. Jesus said to her: “I am the resurrection, and the life. He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Do you believe this?” And she answered, “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God.”1161 ¶11

Listen to me now: “He who is coming into the world” — the translation from the Greek. The King James Version gives this for that passage: “He who shall come into the world.” For what I say, “he who should come into the world,” or “he who is coming into the world,” implies he is not in this world. “I am the resurrection, and the life” [uncertain: “the derivative”]. “Yes, Lord, I believe him,” the text tells me what she believes. And then came from the [uncertain: “note”], “he who is coming into the world.” Yes, it comes in, in you, not something of the other side. It is surely told to men.1161 ¶12

And then the one who tells the story, the storyteller, disappears. As you know, and so the great storyteller, Jehovah, tells the story of salvation and becomes invisible to man. He who dwelt among men now dwells in man. He dwells in man so man can see him, and he’s looking for him to come from the outside. And the story now becomes invisible, because he takes up presence in it, for his name is I Am. That’s the name of Jesus, which is not in God’s name. No telling — if they ask anything, just say, “I AM, that’s my name forever, and by this name I must be known throughout all generations, for I am that I am.” But you really were something other than his presence.1161 ¶13

May I tell you, the fundamental sin is lack of faith in I AM He. And a man cannot accept the fact that he himself is the presence of his teaching. But the day will come when he will know beyond all doubt, because everything said of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, he gave himself to experience, and when he experiences all these things, he enables who he is. And he helped him learn to come from above, for he came from within. That’s what he did. God himself gave to [uncertain, likely misheard proper name: “Jethro”] the human [uncertain: “star”]. A man doth in the name of man prepare the visions of eternal life, and let your visions — your dreams, whether they be nightdreams or daydreams — these are the visions of eternity.1161 ¶14

Until you awake, and that long stretch will last six thousand years. When it comes to its end, you will say [uncertain: “with grace”], “Why, behold, the visions of my daydream of six thousand years gather and unwind to us like a serpent of precious stones and gold,” and in this is what’s going on here. With his words, but he did not use his words, you will know and you will see the blood of God — this golden victory mark. And this is what you will say: “I know it is my son.” And then you will cry out, “O my Creator, I am [uncertain: “a leader”].” Your Maker is yourself. And as a humble [uncertain: “leader”], you will be all. You will be you until you become one — not you, but one. And you will say, “I know it is my very self, or my divine nature, and which I am.” And then you use the blood of God for the sin in the heaven.1161 ¶15

And you will always hear this great character, this supernatural being, this [uncertain: “sheep-actor”] in the ground, of the divine descent — and I said, what’s wrong? [Uncertain, heavily garbled] descends to the level of heaven, and in descending, as to God, as God, a present and great mystery of life, through him, he died by the coming day, and breathed death’s door, and breathed for six thousand years all the horrors of the world. And when the world is finished, when the world is complete, in man, the fusion is taking place — they are doing war, he’s putting them in the war position, and they are [uncertain: “few”] one new man, and you are the one new man. And then you see the very blood that was shed for you, and you feel good, and as ever, up you go, right in through the ascended state, light-headed, submissive. It comes by revelation, [uncertain: “but it should be me, one who has had revelation”].1161 ¶16

I ask you to believe it. I can’t force you to believe it, but I know what’s in store for you. I ask you to believe me, I can’t force you to believe me, but I know what’s in store for the believer. I know that I’m sure of everything, because you reach the very end of the journey here. Those who have not done this, I would say, will realize it, will have experienced it. [Uncertain: “It means an ancient prayer, only to be restored to life as like this, only to die again, over and over and over, until this experience takes place.”]1161 ¶17

God has told us, in the twentieth chapter of the Book of Luke, so we are seeing a [uncertain: “digression/supergression”], who asked — the scientists of the day, they were called Sadducees — they did not believe in the resurrection any more than the scientists of the day. [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “They can’t find anything in the supply of their brains. They only have the sperm. They analyze it with a microscope, and they can’t find the soul by any instrument.”] So, knowing there is no resurrection in their mind, they ask a question: “Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies, and he left no offspring, that man’s brother shall marry her, who will raise up seed for him. For there were seven brothers. The first one was married, and he died leaving no issue. And the second took her, and he died leaving no issue. And the third took her, and likewise all seven. Then, last of all, leaving no child, the woman died also. Whose wife is she, in the resurrection?” [Uncertain: a shrewd question, meant to trap him on the spot.]1161 ¶18

But this is the answer that comes from the Superlative — we, who devise the entire drama, for the divine purpose of giving himself to us. And his answer is this: “You do not know the Scripture.” For “the sons of this age” should better be translated as those who marry and are born. But our Bible uses the words “marry, and are given in marriage,” which implies procreation and birth. But it’s far better, if you understand it better, if you would say: the sons of this age, they are procreated and they are born. But those who are counted worthy to attain to that age, to the resurrection from the dead, they are neither procreated nor are they born, for they cannot die anymore. They are now sons of God, sons of the resurrection — for that entails that all other than the resurrected must die again. [Uncertain, heavily garbled personal aside: “So when someone dies for God and has not been resurrected in that manner that I tried my best since that moment in my first life to take over, they are restored to life. And they are in a world just as we do this. Yes, they marry, they [likely garbled: “Jew”], they [garbled], and they [garbled]. Just like Israel, with all the problems that we have here in Israel.”]1161 ¶19

So the redemption is to be redeemed from this age. We are, to speak now of the Scripture, the sons of this age, and those who are coming to the world to attain to that age — that is the age of the resurrected, when I know the story, when all of a sudden all of this energy begins to unfold in me. If it unfolds in me, then I know I am he. That’s the only [uncertain: “love of hell”] that was succeeded in his birth, whose birth was to give himself to him. That is the age of the resurrected, when I know the story, when all of a sudden all of this energy begins to unfold in me. I know I am He, as the only one I ever knew that was succeeded in his birth, whose birth was to give himself to me, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you. [Note: the preceding paragraph closely duplicates this one — likely a repetition artifact in the original recording or the ASR pass; both are kept verbatim.]1161 ¶20

And eventually, he created the gifts, and so he created humans with you, and [uncertain: “humanism”] is complete, and you bear his name, and his name is I Am. For it’s happening to you, for I am the blood of God, and I am the blood of your Son, and I say to him, my Son, I know it is my Son, the — my divine Creator and Redeemer, for my — [text cuts off] [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “And my neighbor is my neighbor, and my neighbor is my husband, and my husband and their neighbor are engaged to me, and to refuse became one. No, he became one. Vain. [unintelligible: “Extressed.”] Catered to him.”]1161 ¶21

The whole vast sea from which he was torn to pieces. And he started the resurrection — who, from there to the world, symbolize a gallery of them. And then he brings this into being, and he seems to startle me entirely. You will come to realize how this is the most powerful of all the unveiling of images, the [uncertain: “disheveling”] of vision. God may be with ministers, parents, the [uncertain: “reacting”] of the family. Nothing disturbs him more — the pride of the Savior, that it takes a failure to be deemed to be individual, that he is God the Father.1161 ¶22

Yes, how do you say that? Do you not know the philosophy of Christianity as it is? “I know it. I know it by revelation. Whereas you have taught it in your stories — you have taught it differently, but I have corrected you” [uncertain] within you, if all, it takes David to reveal you to yourself as God the Father.1161 ¶23

For the last revelation of the part of God is followed. For we find in the second Psalm, the statement made to David: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” The Creator himself — I have found David. “He has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.’” And you have found David, and he is the most amazing thing you’ll ever see. But he will find in the office his calling — Father. And his relationship is forever, and strange enough, you know, as he told you, Paul, that it was all of this — because God gladly gives himself to you, and that moment when he gives you David, he gave you Paul, and he is the father of David.1161 ¶24

David has no mother. No mother has made it — not in the ancient scriptures. Modern translations apply to David a secular interpretation, and so there will remain a mother of David — but not in the ancient scriptures. He has no mother, for it is written, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” And David stands as youth, and David symbolizes, you know what, the whole of humanity, personified as a single youth.1161 ¶25

So, when we are told he put eternity into the mind of man, but he puts it away, where man could not find out what God had done from the beginning to the end — that word, eternity, is a Hebrew word, olam, which translated “world” [uncertain: “to the world, to the mind of man”]. But a new translation in the Revised Version calls it eternity. [Uncertain: “from an evil thought”], history is composed of all the generations of him and their experiences, all viewed into a single thought. And this land, or home, in which all generations reside, and from which they stream — they call it eternity. They call it olam.1161 ¶26

So, David — this single youth — is the consolidation of the whole of humanity, and it stands before you, and you are the father of humanity. God is. And if he seems to bring himself to you, he can hold back one little bit, so that he’s the father of humanity. And all the others, personified as a boy — but the boy comes and follows your father. There he is, in freedom of his past, to give you himself, and that he is to give you Father.1161 ¶27

And then he takes you up, as you are told in the biblical Scriptures: he splits the curtain of the temple, which is your flesh, and then your own blood — not the blood of bulls, and the blood of goats, and the blood of calves, but your own precious blood, the divine blood. And you take it right up into the temple through the curtain of the flesh, and then comes the — that is when the whole world is sealed, and that’s the descent of the dove. And the dove descends and smothers you with affection. And as he smothers you with affection, the world is finished. For that is the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.1161 ¶28

And the [uncertain: “ring”] that is present is the [uncertain: “ring”] spoken of at the very end of the Book of John. There are four different endings in the four Gospels, and John rings the deepest, when he breathed upon them, and he said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” as he breathed upon them. But the Holy Spirit cannot be symbolized as death.1161 ¶29

So I tell you that we all want to [uncertain: “switch on”] the truth of this great story. It’s all told in the Old Testament as the foundation to do this new interpretation. You can’t separate it. It would be so New without the Old. And to divorce the Old from the New, it would have no use, it would have no foundation. So the Old Testament is the foundation, and the New Testament [uncertain, unresolved: “in Egypt”].1161 ¶30

And you know the prophets who prophesied the coming of this strange supernatural being. They inquired what personal time is being given by this strange God, as they were inspired by the Scripture. But they were told that time is not yet. So until the time came, you never want to foresee how it will end. And you know, this wonderful mystery and prospect is so different from what it comes to be seen by those who experience it in retrospect. I myself, I could never have envisioned what would happen before it did happen. So here I am sharing with you — this is how it happens. And you never want to know, because you’re never close to the world.1161 ¶31

[Uncertain: “who has had youth-breeders”] — tonight I can answer [uncertain: “indifferently”]. A friend of mine in L.A. has been coming to my meetings for the last few years. He doesn’t wish for one — I may not [uncertain: “like”] my age, I’ll be sixty-one my next birthday, but he is fifty-four. But hereabouts, five months ago, came the birth of the child. [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “For like all the new in the world, what the child has is a small animal. It need not be adjudicated of your next-door neighbor’s birth.”] I have a niece who has had three caesarean operations [uncertain, possibly reversed by ASR: “which is normal... a caesarean is not a normal or natural birth”]. She may have [uncertain: “failed out”] in Italy, for a caesarean is not a normal or natural birth, but you can bring forth a child if he has three [uncertain: “chaperones”] that are aligned in order — to others that will come in another manner. So I cannot say it must now, in this and this moment, no.1161 ¶32

For his need is somewhat, not too much. He thought to find himself, he thought, “I’m going to save him.” The meaning is in the person being — you can’t describe it. It’s meaning, because the word “being” and “spirit” are the same, in both Hebrew and Greek. So you can use the word “spirit” or you can use the word “being.” And so he used the word, and he sometimes used the word “spirit,” but in my own case, it was “wind.” But he felt the wind permeating his whole being.1161 ¶33

And he thought, “What’s happening? I do not know what a stroke would be like if I had one. But I do have a stroke.” Oh, these little human beings are like that. And this kept on for hours. He got up, went outside, got in his car, drove down to where the sun set, and [uncertain: “for the longest walk through the wind is still”], couldn’t leave his car, and he can’t shake it, but he didn’t move on. So he came on back, and [uncertain: “over it, broke into the alley”], and he started up the stairs and left his home in the hills above. He started up the steps to his home, when he saw that there was something blocked out. [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “He said, I wouldn’t turn around, for the weapon I knew that would see what I was holding, it was so unfortunately huge and I couldn’t see out any more, could not have seen what I had. So I walked into the room, still holding it in the wrap, and began to dance with the button. And to me, he knows and remembers now what happened the first time, not knowing the monstrous technology.”]1161 ¶34

And suddenly, as it begins to subside, there in his throat stands this David of the different age, who calls him by his own [name — text trails off]. [Uncertain: “The same Paul of original, the same Paul of all, has happened to me as I’ve told Michael.”] But I say, yes, tonight I am the one who can come forward as a witness to the [uncertain: “fool that I’ve treated”] and who is the one in this world who has heard the story and accepted it, who will give birth to that child, who will discover babies, who will sing as the blood of God, and refine the doubt descending upon it.1161 ¶35

So don’t try to pull me on this level, because it makes sense. I have nothing to do with this world. This is the world of death. And many will not believe me. He thinks this is the world I live in. And this is the world I live in — everything here is pretty dead. But in moments when I came into a room, I knew, if I would arrest something within me, I felt that everything would stand still. If I did, I listened still. Not one [uncertain: “canoe”], not even a burning light, would continue to slack and again fall. [Uncertain, likely a repetition glitch in the source: “They should have broken it. I can see that God died for me when I arrested his motion for me, and I can see that he died for me, and I can see that he died for me, and I can see that he died for me, and I can—“]1161 ¶36

When I released it, everything continued, and completely disengaged — the earth, the moon, the [uncertain: “richest part of the food”], and the dying light, and all the things became [uncertain: “musterable”]. [Note: the following sentence closely duplicates the preceding one — kept verbatim as in the source: “Everything he did and completed his intention — the bird food, the rich bought the food, and the dine the dine — all the things became much more aggregate.”] And the power was not there. It wasn’t in me. So that I tasted, in many cases, the power of the ancient power. That’s the energy, the power of the new life of exercise.1161 ¶37

So here, believe the story as suggested in the Book of Isaiah, and fulfill in the story that you just watched. Your Maker is the groom, and we the bride. The groom, in fact the second chapter of Genesis, must leave everything and cleave to his wife, until they become one — and be the bride, the groom, and back to the second chapter of Genesis: must leave everything, and cleave to his wife, until they become one. Because God has asked us the greatest call that there ever is. He didn’t mention anything that would be [uncertain: “correct”], just on the faith of Israel, which is known as the great Shema: “Hear, O Israel — no room for two, only one.” You are told, in Zechariah, in that day the Lord shall be one, and his name one. And that means I, I alone [text confused/garbled beyond this point].1161 ¶38

So I tell you, in the end, you and I, we belong. For you be the father of myself, you be your son, and I will be your father. And yet, without loss of identity — to me we live, you pray. But don’t try to kill it, to make them fall, till your sunset on this earth — it is not written for this earth, it’s written as a [uncertain: “photo”]. But men will [uncertain: “take a stretcher to the floor”], and believe the most incredible story in the world: that God — I mean God himself — made us so alive, we will wake one day and God becomes man, then man will become God. That’s the most incredible story in the world, and yet I tell you it is true. God taught it. He accepted it. And good — soul shall flow upon this grace that is coming to you after the [uncertain: “reparation”] of Jesus Christ.1161 ¶39

Don’t be afraid of these children — that is how Paul answers this question, because, what is the cause of this situation? We say that life is [uncertain, likely an ASR mishearing rather than the intended phrase: “Ocarina of time”]. We have been united with him who did just like this, gave the best form of human form. And therefore we now know that if we are united in this death, we shall be united in this resurrection. And the resurrection is in us, one by one. It is only Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, who is the Resurrection, the Union. Don’t be ashamed, you [uncertain: “portion”]. And to offer our love, there is no room for two.1161 ¶40

It is simply the unfolding of the interpretation, the recognition, as described and given to us in the Old Testament, that is going into silence. If a person knew, he would bring it at the beginning. It is a gift. It is not permanent. It is completely unmerited. [Uncertain, heavily garbled: “Because unmerited, no one can ever be. They are worthy being jailed, and doubly if you took the Greek word translated word, give you a different definition of it. I find I have at least forty vials of gold, but no total use in the translation of the book. So I use many vials to satisfy my eating towards the passage. After all, we are a little disarranged, for we don’t speak the tongue, but we are to be [guided?] by concordance, and to the concordance are not the fallen definitions.”]1161 ¶41

And take the translations and see what this one said and the other one said, and then come here only to read. So what there was in birth, in what I call your life, would be another book, another life, and I do not know. You take that single little message, which is for including so many people, who by taking thought, the producer of all things, have lost their life. That’s what he says. But then, in certain translations, they say, “who by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” But that was going to be all things and not possible, you know? You know, the modern translation is going to be [uncertain: “bystander will”]. It’s here you use space, there you use time. But you say, who am I to be anxious to end what I call to this point of life? But that’s an intuitive interpretation of every passage.1161 ¶42

Now, what about my reading? I do not know what was the intention of the author when he wrote that. I know that time, what it means in the Old Testament, it’s the reason that Ecclesiastes is. It’s the time to be born, the time to die, but the very point is the time to make your needs and your aims come to play. You might be given certain [uncertain: “dreams of interpretation”] when you’re on the stage, and do certain things with the thought, but you’ve got a cue to enter an acute decision. And so, [uncertain, possibly a mistranscribed term: “the PCS”] did not allow us, for one moment, to believe that any science could prolong your life, in spite of the claim to the contrary. The claim that today we have a new diet, a better understanding of diet, and even if a man doesn’t live long, that belongs to this age. This section of time called the 20th century — when you see it, a 16th century has not ceased to be, because to us in the 20th it is history. It is still taking place, and this will always be taking place.1161 ¶43

So the way it is closed, that’s what Isaiah tells us, and that’s what Ecclesiastes tells us: the world — these are the things that we deserve to see. This is new? This has been already! The age is past. But there is no remembrance of former things, nor shall there be any remembrance of things that are now, among those who come after. When was that written? Three, four thousand years ago. But we don’t believe it’s done. We believe you can, by watching your diet and doing this and doing the other —1161 ¶44

And sometimes we look at a person like a church, and we say, what’s the matter with this? And the person says, well, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. [Note: this “I don’t know” repetition — eleven times in the source — is kept verbatim; it reads as an ASR repetition artifact rather than intended speech.]1161 ¶45

Diet — I do this and do the other, and suddenly look at a person like a church, who by a hint will bring you into thought concerning diet and health. [Uncertain, heavily garbled passage of personal/anecdotal material, kept close to verbatim: “Smoked 20 oz of acid a day, drank 2 oz of vinegar a day, ate like a pig, and finally ate 9 days a night. And the dietitians will know all about it. He’d read the Eucharist in the morning when he was fifty-two, have a Catholic camp, or he’d have something else. And they don’t care to see about it, but they make a race in one night. What church should they be saved upon by, too? I’m afraid of mine and all their such as you are. But it was to the twenty-five years ago. He was an alcoholic in the street, trying to become a man whose father had means and I’m drinking this great, great mouthful, it’s what it’s made. By no longer is it, well, you could put anything in it, it wouldn’t be a month, but it’s still there. 587.”]1161 ¶46

How is he so bad? I went through all the medications again. You can’t see him today. [Note: contradictory duplicate lines kept verbatim from the source: “He drinks anything on his own. He doesn’t drink anything on his own.”] He drinks anything that is strong, eats anything, and he can’t seem to die. The conclusion has to be, he’s going to die. No, no — [uncertain: “that uses 6,000 months to get said name, but it’s 6 of 6”]. I behold a vision in my day [uncertain: “used to be for”] 6,000 years. So I see the present, past and future for 6,000 years, [uncertain: “that could play as far as a man goes”], where he has to dream the dream of life while the work is being done with it. [uncertain: “For the flame of which remains a bright light, let us make it happen. In our age, that’s the decision.”]1161 ¶47

And so, that’s the wish of God, to let man be his image. But he can’t give himself to a man who is not his image. He has a completed and perfect — so be perfect, as your God in heaven is perfect. When that in you is given by a God that’s perfect, he gives it himself. [uncertain: “Is that a sin?”] Can we have a question, please?1161 ¶48

In evolution, in the appearance of man, yes, but in the creation of God, no. In the appearance of man — the time when I used to hoe a field with a little hoe, today we use a tractor to do it. The time when a man would [uncertain: “bring a raft and go horse to river”], and then he’d [uncertain: “hoe”] some other means of doing it. And so we take man, and in the [uncertain: “ears”] of man we can see the evolution. But there is no evidence [uncertain: “it’s a thought that can”] that a bird is anything other than a bird. [uncertain: “But don’t all these new brains miss? And birds are meant to do as they may, as they need, as far back as man can go.”] They can’t find where a bird goes, other than a bird. [uncertain: “He’s quite what’ll change without her.”] There is no evidence to support it. We have many; go to all the museums, and you might find some of the stages, but [uncertain: “we won’t trade”]. I’m proving to you, to show you what our scientists mean. The others told me that I became this, and I became that, and I became that. [uncertain: “What do you have to do to spoil it? What?”] Well, that’s enough about it. Take it that way. [uncertain: “You are at the moment.”] There’s not a little theory that a man suddenly will be able to make the other one.1161 ¶49

Look, don’t bring the Bible down to this level. Adam and God [uncertain: “took this way. They’re a living one.”] If you take the word [uncertain: “of the word lovey-dovey, it’s a-but-wey”], the ancient Hebrew gave meaning to the word: it was “to fall”, or positively, “the one who causes to fall”; or it was “to blow”, or positively, “the one who caused the wind to blow”; so that the fall was a hindrance in the path of the people [uncertain: “of hell”]. The fall is not what the church talks about. [uncertain: “You and I must return to Israel.”] God made all men disobedient. We have in the chapter of the book of Romans, he made us disobedient that he may have mercy upon us.1161 ¶50

So what was the disobedience? So man had to leave the world of innocence, and he had to [uncertain: “leave the world of experience. But he had moved on to the world of admonition. And so he had the world of innocence by which he had stood.”] So I teach of the knowledge of the [uncertain: “Uniform”]. So conscience is [uncertain: “both”]. Who [uncertain: “thinks the devil person”] has no conscience? He could shoot you and not think [uncertain: “you are any normal”]. Well, he can shoot you [uncertain: “in the eye”], but he doesn’t know why. But when he tastes of the knowledge that we need, and enters the world of experience, well then, from then on, in the world of experience, he will suffer with his conscience, and then — and then you will look into the world of imagination, only as you walk out of the world of innocence, into the world of experience.1161 ¶51

So it’s a promise of prayer. You claim everything that has come forth, and that it’s going to be consummated. You’re told, but then you know it’s not. “As I have thought, so shall it come to pass. As I have purposed, so shall it stand.” And my anger will not turn back until I have executed and accomplished the intents of my heart [uncertain: “in the maladies you understand it well”]. But not to the very end will man understand the necessity of suffering — if I didn’t suffer, like I put my hand on fire, but as long as a hand is necessary enough to put my hand near it, I detect danger. But suppose I couldn’t? [uncertain: “He told me. I wasn’t sensitive enough. I know who is my channel, so be it. So be it, have the reason for accepting the end of all.”] But in the end, the glory transcends the suffering, for the glory is [uncertain: “lost into itself”], to you.1161 ¶52

What man can imagine, man becomes. Yes, man’s imagination is manifested in the imaginations of others. Here in this room right now, there is a thing in this room that wasn’t first only imagined. Look at it, [uncertain: “for though in the vast, vast world you can find one thing that wasn’t first only imagined”]; but the interval between imagined space and its fulfillment — it has to be first imagined. So I think we can ask the question: can man walk at all where his imagination has never walked before? [uncertain: “Indeed, Antony’s known.”] We are now sending men in space, and they’re getting out of their vehicles and going in space. They had first to be imagined before it would be done.1161 ¶53

[uncertain: “I said,”] if we are finding all kinds of things here, below the earth, below the sea, tomorrow we will find things [uncertain: “that love us”], perhaps floating in space. [uncertain: “Only a very long time ago, didn’t we? It’s very hard. It’s about to find the love that we want. And some day we’re going to find it floating in space one day. Continue that. See it floating in space. We’ll find it one day.”] All things that man can imagine, man can realize. So I ask you to imagine only the love. Only the loveliest things in this world are going to help you in life. Until tomorrow. Thank you.1161 ¶54

I’ve been dwelling on this subject all week, and I do hope I In the opening scene of Henry VIII, these words are put into the mouth of the Duke of Norfolk: “Order gave each thing view.” Now we will take a good concordance, say James Strong’s Concordance of the Bible. Every word as we have it in the King James translation is in that concordance, from the original manuscripts — the Old Testament from Hebrew and the New from the Greek. Every word is there, and its meaning. Not every word has the same Hebrew word or Greek word, so take nothing for granted — it was simply the choice of the translator. But you will find a little number, and look up the number in the back of the book, whether it be Hebrew or Greek, and see why they made that choice. So everything is there; it gives order to the book.1157 ¶1

Now here we have the Bible. The Old Testament, 39 books. And that is the root of the entire Bible. Without an Old Testament, there would be no New. The New is only the fulfillment, the expression of that Old. What is that Old — Christ? Just who is he? That question is asked in the book of John. “Who are you?” And he answers, “Even what I have told you from the beginning.” Is this a man speaking to one who is asking a question? He is the mystery. He is the secret of Scripture. “From the beginning” means it was given to you in your Scripture from the very beginning. “And I am he” — the very beginning, and I am he, the very one who was from the beginning, even from the beginning.1157 ¶2

Well now, who is he? If you receive a letter — all right, a letter conveys a certain message; a dream conveys a certain message. There is a single jet of truth in a vision, in a dream. There is a single jet of truth in those 39 books. And that jet of truth is God’s promise to man. That promise is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what is contained but hidden in the Old Testament. That is what must be resurrected.1157 ¶3

It’s very rare. You do not resurrect it by being very, very wise and studying the words — it doesn’t come that way. There is a pattern in that book, where although the words of the 39 are gathered over the centuries — for it took centuries to accumulate the 39 books — they still form one book. It’s all one book. And although hundreds of years passed before we had the one book, it contains that central jet of truth. Now what is it? It is called in Scripture, Jesus Christ. It’s a pattern. When you know the pattern and you can’t find it through reason, for this is revealed truth. And revealed truth cannot be logically proven. It is simply revealed. And suddenly all these little pieces scattered in time are brought into a definite pattern in the one in whom it’s going to be revealed. And in that one, all these scattered over the centuries, brought into one definite pattern, unfold in him in the first person singular. Then he knows who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is the pattern man that is buried in Scripture. And he, and he alone, resurrects that pattern. And he resurrects the pattern in himself. And only then does he know who Jesus Christ is. He knows now it’s not another coming from the outside and holding his hand and taking him towards the Father — for that pattern leads man towards the Father: “No one comes unto the Father except by me” — but this is the pattern speaking.1157 ¶4

When the pattern unfolds in a man, then that man knows himself to be God the Father. The whole thing unfolds within him. But it’s a pattern. So Jesus Christ is not a person on the outside of man. Jesus Christ is that secret hidden in Scripture. You can say it’s hidden in God, for God’s word is Scripture. And being buried in Scripture, then man suddenly, in the fullness of time, the pattern collects itself. And what seemed to be so scattered in time over the centuries forms itself into a composite that takes 1,260 days to unfold within the one in whom it erupts, as told in Scripture. It is sealed, and Daniel said, “I do not understand it.” And he said, “Seal the book, Daniel, until the time of the end. It will take a time, times, and half a time” — a year plus two years and a half a year, three and a half years, or 1,260 days. That’s what it will take, for the Hebraic year is 360 days. As told us then in Revelation, in the 12th chapter, the great mystery of the birth of the heavenly woman took 1,260 days.1157 ¶5

So the entire pattern gathers itself together, and you, in whom it unfolds, realizes the secret of Scripture — and you are the secret. It’s buried in Scripture, but you are there. So, in the volume of the book it is written about me — but who is speaking? It is said that the prophet spoke, and then in the New Testament it is quoted as though it is said of the Lord Jesus. Well, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is the secret of Scripture. He is buried in Scripture, and so we are told in Hebrews, of whom was it said, “In the volume of the book it is all about me.” Well, it didn’t occur to me for one moment, born in the 20th century, that anything written prior to my own little birth here was related to me — say, what they said of my earthly father or my earthly mother or grandparents, but certainly not anything said away back in time. Could I ever for one moment believe that what was written in the 39 books of the Old Testament, where they take 4,000 years of the history of Israel, and then they take 300-odd years of the prophets writing of that Scripture, writing of the history — then they come into the prophecy for Israel — and tell me, in the 20th century, that in any way it was related to me? How could it be?1157 ¶6

And yet it happened in me. The entire pattern gathered itself together in me, and in 1,260 days it unfolded in me. And here I am now, fully conscious of the fact that I am the father of David, that David mentioned in those 39 books. I am fully conscious of the fact that it was of me that Moses wrote when he spoke of the fiery serpent rising up upon the great staff. It was of me that they wrote when that dove returned to the ark, and then Noah stretched out his hand — pardon me — and took him into the ark. That I am that ark, containing all things. All things are contained within me, and I am all imagination, and all things are contained within my imagination — so the ark contains all. I had no idea it was all about me.1157 ¶7

So, having resurrected that pattern, I long to transmit it and to tell it to everyone in the world. For it must be for this reason that I was sent, to experience the resurrection of that pattern. So I tell you who Jesus Christ really is. He is hidden in the Old Testament as the true pattern, the meaning of that — he is the direct and deliberate self-revelation of God the Father in the context of human life. He is the meaning of life. Without that, life has no meaning.1157 ¶8

So here is the context, here is the actual meaning of why we are here. So we go through hell in this world, and let no one tell you that we do not — no matter how you are born in this world, with all the silver spoons and the golden plates, you will go through hell. You will suffer pain. You will know want. You will know concupiscence. You will know all the things that the body is there to know. For you took upon yourself this body, and you experience all the things related to this world. But one day, the essence — it’s all called in Scripture Jesus Christ, the promise of God — you are going to experience. And you will experience it in the fullness. It will take you 1,260 days — for that pattern that took hundreds of years to be gathered together — suddenly all the related parts related to the promise will be actually gathered together, and then the promise will unfold within you.1157 ¶9

And the promise is the Lord Jesus Christ, that, as we are told in Galatians, was the promise made to Abraham. “And to your offspring” — he does not say offspring, referring to many, but referring to one, “and to your offspring, who is Christ.” So the Christ of Scripture — and you are told in Scripture, in the same book of Galatians, that the story is an allegory. That the story of Abraham and his son is an allegory. For an allegory is a story told as if it were true. Leave it to the one who hears the story to discover its fictitious character and discern its meaning, and either accept it or reject it. I ask you to accept it, for I have experienced it. This is no longer to me the myth the world talks about. This is reality, the only reason for being.1157 ¶10

I came into the world for one purpose, to fulfill Scripture. You came into the world for one purpose, to fulfill Scripture. You may think you came to have a lot of fun and make money and have a fortune. Well, they drop off one after the other. This past week, only about a half dozen who will leave behind them millions made their quick little exit from the world. One played 18 holes of golf in the morning, went to his hotel room and slept and didn’t wake. He was three-time governor in New York City. Ran twice for the highest office in our country. He didn’t make it, but he ran. Very impromptu, up to the very last moment. So he slept after his 18 holes of golf. Another one left $300 million. At the age of 54, he entertained our late — or rather not late, but our ex-President Johnson and his wife — the previous weekend in his Malaysia home in Florida. He only had 12 homes carried over the world; didn’t smoke — that the Lord blessed him with millions, which he did. He left a little personal estate of 30 million, but a business that has over 3 billion a year. His name was J.C. Penney — you know, J.C. Penney, my first employer in this country — but he left it behind him. So I tell you, the purpose is not to leave behind you your business of 300 million, or personal fortune of 300 million, or a record of being three-time governor of the state of New York, or any of these things. It is to fulfill Scripture.1157 ¶11

“I have come to fulfill Scripture,” said that pattern when it is awakened in a man. Scripture must be fulfilled indeed. But what is the Scripture? So you look at it and you wonder what is its meaning. There are 39 books, and so much of it seems so contradictory. And you read, and suddenly it erupts within you, and that which was written hundreds of years prior to this moment that this is written is all gathered together. It took all the centuries to write it, and then in one little moment of three and a half years the pieces fall into a pattern, and the pattern unfolds in you. And then you know who the Lord Jesus Christ is — that he’s not a man born of a woman in some miraculous way two thousand years ago. He is the secret of God, buried in God’s Word, in Scripture. And that Word must unfold itself in you. “My word that has gone forth from my mouth shall not return unto me void. It must return unto me, bringing with it that which I purpose.” It must. So it actually unfolds, and that is the word of all the centuries put into three and a half years.1157 ¶12

So I hope I can convey to you tonight the true meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is that secret, that mystery, hidden in Scripture. It’s a pattern man, and that pattern man is man’s earthly escape from this world. “To the Lord our God belongs escape from death. I am the Lord your God; besides me there is no savior.” So God — and God himself is savior — he set up a pattern, and the pattern is called in Scripture Jesus Christ. And man has made a little icon of that pattern and stuck it on the wall. And then he bows before it and crosses himself for luck, and thinks that is going to save him. It’s not a thing on the outside. It’s a pattern. I am asking you to accept the pattern.1157 ¶13

So let me tell you the pattern in detail, as I have experienced it. For I took this pattern as I experienced it, and I told it in a book which I named Resurrection. There is one chapter that bears the title of the book, and that is my personal confession of faith, based upon my own personal experience of the resurrection of this pattern within me.1157 ¶14

It begins with your own awakening within your scarab — that’s how it begins. You’re completely sealed within that scarab when you awaken. But you have the innate wisdom to get out without the help of any being in this world. You know exactly what to do, where to push. And you know exactly what you know you should do. And you do. You come out. And then the wind, spoken of in Scripture, surrounds you — the unearthly wind that you read of, Pentecost, the storm wind that came to them all, that unearthly wind. And then the scene as described in Matthew and Luke concerning the birth of God surrounds you. All the imagery is there.1157 ¶15

And then comes another scene, and that other scene is when the Father now declares himself. And you don’t look upon anyone and call him Father, but the Father’s son stands before you and calls you Father. And you know he is your son, and he knows you are his father. So the Father reveals himself in you, in the only way that he could ever — through his son calling you Father — and you know he is your son.1157 ¶16

And anyone who saw the fiery serpent, he was cured. Cured of what? He was cured of slavery — he’s leaving Egypt and moving into the Promised Land. And anyone who could look upon that fiery serpent as it was lifted up, he was cured. And then that happens to you, and you realize what it means now to have that entire thing take place within you. You are that fiery serpent that rises within yourself into the heavenly spheres, and when you get there it reverberates.1157 ¶17

And now you know what it is to have the dove descend and remain upon you and smother you with love. For here he floats above you — actually floats, as you’re told in the story of the flood. Here is a flood, and the dove returns, and when you look up and you see him, he is simply floating, because he doesn’t move a wing. He makes no effort to remain above you; he simply floats. But the water is crystal clear, so you see him floating. And then you extend your hand, as if he said, know what is, and then he descends upon your hand, and you bring him to yourself. You are the ark; you contain all things, for all things exist within the human imagination. And he comes down, and he simply remains upon you, and he smothers you with love.1157 ¶18

In those three and a half years, these four majestic, fantastic, supernatural events take place. And that’s the essence of the Bible. It took centuries to bring it into this being, into this world, and record it. Here they’re recording a most violent history of the Israel, of the people of Israel. And then comes the prophets of the people of Israel. And then comes the prophet, bringing the promise. And here comes the promise. But no one understood it. And Daniel confessed, “I do not understand it. I heard, but I did not understand.” And he who stood close, in the linen clothes, he said to me, “Seal the book until the end.” You can’t break the seal now, but one will come — he is the Lamb of God — and when he comes, he’ll break the seal. In the fullness of time, the whole thing will break. And then that which is buried in you — for you are Scripture — unfolds within you.1157 ¶19

So when you hear the word Jesus, don’t think for one second some being on the outside. Jesus Christ is a pattern of salvation buried in you, and in the fullness of time you are going to experience that pattern, and the whole thing will awake within you.1157 ¶20

Let those who insist on having a personal Jesus on the outside have him — it’s perfectly all right. If they insist on it, let them have him. And so many still insist on having some little personal God on the outside. And they go on morning, noon, and night praying to a God that does not exist. But I tell you who he really is: he is a pattern, a pattern man buried. And no matter how erudite you are, you can study Scripture from now to the end of time and you can’t find him there. Yet he tells you, “You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have life.” And he tells you, “I am life eternal. I am the way, the truth, and the life.” But you can’t find me there. But you search, keep on searching the Scriptures. And they search morning, noon, and night, as they think they’re serving God.1157 ¶21

Now let me tell you a vision of my wife that happened years ago. She found herself in the clearing of a lovely grove of trees. At the end of the clearing was a man behind a table, and there were men around this one man, like an assembly. And then two women entered. Each carried a book. And one had a book, and the title of the book was, “The Credence of Belief and the Forgiveness of Sins, According to Judaism.” The other entered from the other side, and the title was, “The Credence of Belief and the Forgiveness of Sin, According to Christianity.” And both went up towards the man at that table, and each read from the book.1157 ¶22

And she said, “As I heard the reading, I was struck — I stood there dumbfounded, because until that moment I always thought it was so infinitely more difficult to be a Jew than to be a Christian. And suddenly, as they read from the — I realized how much more difficult it was to be a Christian than to be a Jew. One was keeping the external observations of law — that if I abided by the dietary rules, if I abided by all the external worships, that was perfect, no matter what I did personally. And the other, if I abided from within.”1157 ¶23

Well, I do not know very many Christians who really live the Christian life. They think going to church on Sunday morning, or saying Mass, or doing all these outer things, that that is all right. Yet that is not Christianity. Yet, “I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets, I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He reinterprets the law in the light of his own experience of law and makes the whole thing imaginable. “You’ve heard it said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks lustfully on a woman has already committed the act in his heart.” But what man has not violated that act, that law? Well, if that is Christianity, it’s infinitely more difficult to be a Christian than to be a Jew, if a Jew means restraining the impulse.1157 ¶24

So I didn’t do it. But I had the desire to do it. But I had the desire to do it. But the desire to do it, in the Christian concept, was as good as doing it — therefore the desire demands payment — but I refrained the impulse. Best if I didn’t do it, in the Jewish faith. But in the Christian faith, if I desire — I coveted what he had — I did it. Well, how much more difficult it is to be a Christian. I have to live by that golden rule and do unto others as I would have them do unto me, but do it inwardly — not by restraining the impulse, not even having the impulse, not even in reem.1157 ¶25

So she heard these two women read from the book, and the book had the same title, only with this difference — “According to Judaism,” “According to Christianity.” And so, according to Judaism, if I restrained the impulse, that was all right — I didn’t do it. According to Christianity, restraining the impulse wasn’t good enough. The impulse was the act — or rather, living in a world of imagination. And the imaginal act is fact. And it’s not receding into the past, it’s advancing into the future, and it’s going to confront me. And so I accept the Christian faith. Now, what a challenge.1157 ¶26

Now I tell you what you’re going to actually experience one day. You’re going to experience what I have told you tonight — who Jesus Christ really is. He’s not on the outside. He’s talking from that book, the Old Testament. He is trying to be born. He is trying to be resurrected. He is in the Old Testament. They’re looking for a Messiah to come from the outside and save a nation — he doesn’t come from the outside. He is buried in those 39 books, and that whole book is buried in us, and therefore he rises in us. And when we experience his resurrection, it is always in the first person singular — he rises in me, and I am he. So we are told, “You will die in your sins unless you believe I am he.” And so I must read it, try to find out who is he. Well, I am telling you, you can read it from now to the ends of time, and your great learning will not convince you that that is it. But I am telling you, from my own experience, who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is the pattern man buried in you.1157 ¶27

You will find him confirmed in Scripture after he awakes in you, when he rises in you — as you — you go back into the Old Testament, for that’s where it is, and you will see confirmation. It was all there, but you couldn’t see it before. Therefore, you have now the external written witness, and you have the internal living witness — here you have the outside witness, and then the inside witness, having experienced it. Now, if two witnesses agree in testimony, it’s conclusive. You have the external witness of Scripture and the internal witness of the spirit, and having experienced it, you know who you are — you are the Lord Jesus Christ.1157 ¶28

So having experienced it, having raised that pattern within me, I long to transmit it and to tell it to everyone in the world, and ask everyone who will listen to me to hold fast to that faith, for it is true. Do not deviate, do not turn to the left or the right. Hold fast, and set your hope fully upon this, which is the coming of this pattern unfolding itself within you. May it unfold tonight. No one knows when. Let no one tell you they can tell you when — they do not know. It comes like a thief in the night. It comes suddenly. But it must first be preceded by believing. You must first hear the story, and you either accept or reject. Well then, set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you as the unveiling of Christ in you, not outside of you.1157 ¶29

So I hope tonight you have a clearer concept of who Jesus is than you ever had before. Because, trained as you and I have been trained in the belief in a personal external Jesus, when we hear the name we think of something on the outside, and we think of one who lived 2,000 years ago. We can’t feel that he is contemporary. We can’t feel that he is going to erupt in me, and then I will know who he is — because if he is God the Father, as he claims he is, “When you see me, you see the Father.” And if I’m a father, there must be a son. And what one called him father in Scripture? David did. He asked the question, “What think you of the Christ? Whose son is he?” And when they said, “The son of David,” he said, “Why then did David in the spirit call me my Lord?” Well, “my Lord” is an expression that every son used of his father — always referred to his father as “my Lord.” In the fulfillment of the 89th Psalm, “I have found David.” And he said unto me, “Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.”1157 ¶30

So he comes only to fulfill Scripture, and the only Scripture he could fulfill was the Old Testament, because the New was not written. He actually — by the fulfillment of the Old, they write the New. So who fulfilled it? The unknown men of the day. For we do not know to this day who — Matthew’s an anonymous name. The name Paul is not mentioned in any non-scriptural book of the first century. And yet he’s supposed to have been in jail in Rome, in all these different places, as he wrote his letters from prison — well, there would be a record, for we have records going back centuries before that. So he writes from prison, and where are the records? We have no record. And he isn’t mentioned in one book that is not non-Scripture — no historical, not a thing written about him. And yet, here we have Paul, the beginning of the Christian faith, in whom God unfolded himself. “When it pleased God to reveal himself in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” For what flesh and blood could ever extract from Scripture what happened in me?1157 ¶31

So Paul begins to explain to the Jew, for he said, “I am a Jew. I am of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Jew of Jews.” He knew his 39 books backward. And then he saw the pattern unfold within him. “And when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, I conferred not with flesh and blood.” And then he began to tell it. Well, who is Paul? Is that too unannounced, saying — certainly he’s not mentioned, and we have the records of everyone in prison here, and he was in prison, one after the other, many prisons, as described in the book of Acts and described in his own letters. But we do know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are anonymous names — no one knows who they are.1157 ¶32

So who are the men in whom the pattern erupted, who then told the story — which is really not the birth of Christ, it’s the birth of Christianity, it’s the birth of the promise of God. If you think of it in that light you’ll see it differently — the birth of Christianity, rather than the birth of Christ, and you think of a man. No, it’s the birth of the new age. For it is the new age that was born when this pattern assembled itself and then erupted within man. And it’s erupting day after day after day.1157 ¶33

So I can say that God not only came — God himself — into human history in the person, that pattern called Jesus Christ, but he comes — he came, and he comes — into human history in the pattern, and unfolds himself within the one who is going to experience his coming. So do not look for him to come from without. Today, the very popular speakers all over this country, when they go on TV, they get an audience of millions of people, and they want to be still here when he comes, and go and shake his hand and tell him what good work they did for him. For they’ll wait in vain. They’ll wait to the ends of time and they won’t find him coming from without, for he comes from within.1157 ¶34

He said, “I am from above, and you are from below.” Above and within are the same in Scripture, and without and below are the same in Scripture. If he’s looking for him to come from without, he’s looking for something to come from below, and that is not where the pattern comes from. It comes from above, and it comes from within. It unfolds within. It comes so suddenly, no warning, but when it first appears you can mark it: 1,260 days. And then you linger, and you tell your story to those who will hear it. And if only one hears it with deep conviction, you planted it. But it doesn’t really matter — you’re gone. When you take off the garment, after you have experienced the resurrection of the pattern within you, you are in the new age, which is eternity, and there you are, one with the body of the living God. For there’s only one body, only one spirit, only one Lord, only one God and Father of all. And you are incorporating into that body of love forever and forever.1157 ¶35

But before you depart, you must share your experience with your brothers who are still searching the Scripture. And you will tell them exactly how it happens, and it comes in this manner. It doesn’t come as you’ve been taught that it’s going to come — you can look forever, it’s not going to come that way. So I am telling you what I know from experience. I am not theorizing, I am not speculating, I am not erudite. I never went to college. I never graduated from high school. So you cannot accuse me of being scholarly. As you are told in Scripture, “How does this man have such learning, seeing that he has no studies?” He has not studied, as told in the second chapter of the book of John, for the man in whom it erupted, whoever he was who first spoke, was a simple man. As told us in the fourth chapter of Daniel, “He will give it to whom he pleases, even to the lowliest of men.”1157 ¶36

So don’t look for him to come among those who are highly exalted and highly promoted by themselves, because all these enormously promoted beings are self-promoted. A man doesn’t go out and find others promoting him — he gathers the funds together and he promotes himself. Well, you can call it a political campaign or religious campaign or any other campaign. And then, even in that little world of theirs — in this morning’s paper, you might have read this — when the queen was accused of maintaining a certain castle, Sandringham, and someone said it has 360 rooms, she said, “Oh no, it’s just a little hideaway.” That’s not a castle, about it — it’s a little hideaway. “I’m quite sure it doesn’t have more than 150 rooms.” You see, you get to the point where you live in such a strange place, mentally, that you have no contact with the world of reality. None whatsoever. It’s like, “Let them eat cake.” You need to have no bread; well, let them have cake. And then a few hours later, her head came off. “Let them eat cake.” Well, here she said, “What? Oh no, certainly it doesn’t have more than a rooms,” when the average person doesn’t have one.1157 ¶37

What I tell you is far greater, infinitely greater, that you experience the pattern unfolding within you, than if you own the earth — if you own the whole vast world, and everyone was subject to you, and everyone was subject to you to obey your command — you are still mortal and will depart, leaving your world. For this, you don’t depart — you enter eternity, the new age, incorporated into the body of the living God. And you only enter that by the unfolding of this pattern within you.1157 ¶38

I hope tonight I have brought to you a clearer picture of Jesus Christ than I have ever done before. It’s that pattern that is buried in those 39 books, which no one by searching could find, until it erupted in a man. And he, being familiar with the 39 books, he told them — that although it is scattered over the centuries, there is simply a meaning to it all. And the meaning is put into 1,260 days, as told us in the 12th chapter of Daniel and the 12th chapter of Revelation. And there the whole meaning is condensed. But it takes the scattered fragments from these centuries and puts them into a pattern. And together they give meaning, and this meaning now unfolds within you, and you are the promise that God made — he promised you a son, and the son he promised you was his own son. To give you not as a companion, but to give you as your son. And if he gave you his son as your son, then he gave you himself. That’s how God gives himself to you.1157 ¶39

Now let us go into the silence. Thank you. Good, good. Are there any questions, please? Any questions? Any questions? Well, may I remind you that we are approaching the day we call Easter, which is resurrection. I’m not trying to sell you a book, but I do not know of any record of the true resurrection that is in print comparable to my chapter on resurrection, where the book is titled Resurrection — for I have told you the story as I personally have experienced it. Others only talk about it as a being on the outside. And I’ve told you exactly how it happens.1157 ¶40

Today we shall think on “It Is Within.” We are told the kingdom of God is not coming as to be observed, nor do they say, “Lo, here it is,” or “There.” For the kingdom of God, it is within. Can we take this literally? I am a man of sheer faces. I see the room; everything I see seems completely independent of my perception of it. Is it really within me? When Blake said, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your own imagination, of which that world of mortality is but a shadow” — is that true? Basically, in this vast, enormous world, is the human imagination the only thing big enough to contain the immensity of space? Then is the human imagination one with the presence we call God? I identify God with human imagination. I mean, doing so, I close the gap between God and man. Now, if all things are possible to God, I should be able to test this theory. If God truly is my imagination, and all things are possible to him, I should be able to test it. And we are called to want to test it, to test yourself and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test. But how to meet the test? How should I go about making the test?1154 ¶1

Well, first of all, I’m going to ask of you what I’d ask any group I address. Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “Let him who is taught share all good things with him who teaches.” Now Paul was not asking for any earthly goods that will keep one of them here. He was asking them to share with him the results of their experiments, but he, in turn, could take their stories and tell it to others to encourage their faith. So I’m going to ask you to test it, and then share with me the results of your testimony — not only that, your dreams, your visions. I would like to hear them, for that’s how God reveals himself to himself in man. We are told, “If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream.”1154 ¶2

Now this is what a friend of mine did here recently. This man, I must tell you, is a very successful — I would say — businessman. He’s a writer, but he’s always busy writing for pictures, writing for TV, and his income is enormous. He never misses a meeting in L.A. And here recently he sent me this letter. He said, you’ve asked me to share with you any experience of mine, such as a vision, a dream, or my practical down-to-earth experiences in the application of this principle. More like a dream. Yet first of all, I must preface the dream — I could be better appreciated if I was familiar with Berkeley Square. This will be better if I was familiar with Berkeley Square, where the central character tries to convince the girl that he can move from one century to another, say the 20th century to the 18th century. And then he flattens it to some one river, and his destination is around the bend. His present is where he is, on the boat. His future is around the bend. But someone elevated above the earth, having a view of both sides of the river, would see the man’s future and his present as present. Where that man is going, and where he is, would be present to the one elevated.1154 ¶3

For he said: “My dream began in this manner. I was the observer from above. I looked down, and I saw infinite possibilities of man. You couldn’t conceive of a plot, whether you thought of a tragedy, or some glorious plot, some horrible thing, or some marvelous thing — but every conceivable plot that man could ever conceive, everyone was present, worked in the most minute detail. And strangely enough, they were all contained in a prone man. Here is the form of a prone man. Now, you should not ask me how infinite states of consciousness, infinite possibilities, could be limited by the form of a man, but there it was. I’m only telling you what I experienced. And I contemplated this. It was the deadest thing I had ever seen. And yet I shouldn’t use the word dead, because something that is dead suggests it must have lived a previous life, though it is now dead. So recently I even happened to think — I looked at it, and then I began to weep. On Sunset Boulevard, out at Ralph’s Supermarket, people were on the sidewalks, there were cars on the street, but everything was frozen. But everything was frozen, three-dimensional, but frozen. And I knew that I alone could animate them. As I knew that, I myself was frozen. I looked at myself, I looked at the others, all frozen. And I knew only as I became alive would they become alive. And so I took a step, and I seemed to pass through an invisible curtain. At that very moment of taking the step, everyone became alive, and began to move — the sound, the noise, the action, everything. And I knew there was something I was trying to remember. What is it I am trying to remember? I kept on walking. I must have gone a block. It seemed like a normal walk, the kind of walk I take every day. And everything is alive and independent of me. And then I remembered. As I remembered, I turned around and looked, and changed the focus of my attention, and placed it back above. And everything once more became frozen and lifeless.”1154 ¶4

From this exalted state, I remembered — I didn’t talk to them. And for some strange reason, I wanted to speak with people. And at that moment, I found myself in the very room where a party was in progress. But they were frozen. And as I entered, I was frozen. And I wondered, am I the host, am I the guest? They all seemed to know me, and I don’t know one of them. And for a moment I panicked, for I knew the body would come to an end and I didn’t know where to go. So I remembered — I completely forgot, one second before, as I became involved in the body. Then I’m trying to remember something. I remembered the Sunset Boulevard experience. Remembering that, and how I escaped from it, I walked over to a seat, a chair. I sat down and closed my eyes, and then I changed the focus of my attention once more, placed it not here, at the party, but above. I opened my eyes, and they’re all frozen. Every one is frozen. And then I felt myself once more above. At this exalted state, I looked away down, and here is myself, on a bed. And I heard what I considered a wonderful idea. Now I know I can change, move myself from its present state into the most desirable state that I would like to experience. And then I realized how impossible that would be. From this level I can’t change any state. These states are permanent. I would have to go down and identify myself with that being, and from that level, once more, play the game.1154 ¶5

And so, at that moment, I began to awake. I’m on my bed, and I have no knowledge of the dream. To me it’s 6:30 in the morning, and I can’t conceive that I’m a dream. I went to my library and started the tape recording of your last lecture, and something you said triggered the dream, and it all came back in detail, as I’ve just told you. Then I asked, had I seen it last night, or had I seen it long, long, long ago? I don’t know. But however long it thrilled me, and so I thought I’d share it.1154 ¶6

And at the very end, to make it a light matter, he said, I went to my doctor, and he congratulated me on my rapid physical recovery, and he asked me if I’d done something, or if so, to tell him all about it. So I said, I did it all in my imagination. I imagined I was in your office, and you were saying to me exactly what you said. And then I began to explain to him how imagination works, that imagination creates reality. He said to me, in an elderly, philosophical manner, “You know, my wife thinks things like that.” Wasn’t very flattering. But he said, this is a strange experience. We were out driving recently on Sunday afternoon, and the radio was tuned in to a ball game, and this man is coming to bat, and I dislike him. And I said to my wife, “He shouldn’t be in the big league. He can’t hit, he can’t catch, and he can’t run. What right has he playing in the big league?” And she said to me, “You shouldn’t think things like that. You should think nice things about him and see him doing wonderful things.” He said, “All right, I will. I will see him hit a home run.” He steps to the plate, and the first ball pitched, he belts it into the bleachers. And then said he to his wife, “I’ll never do that again — it’s too fast.”1154 ¶7

I must tell you the lecture that triggered the memory of his dream. For here we all are, seated in this room, and we think we are here and completely this. And what his dream signifies, we will not take to heart. And yet you’re the animating power of the universe. The whole vast world is moving around you because you identify with the present state. Well, the thing he began to recall was this.1154 ¶8

I found myself in a dream, but not knowing that it was a dream. I found myself on a crowded subway train in New York City. I was talking to my friend David, but the train was literally crowded to the gunnels. I heard the voice of the conductor saying, “Please, do not press against the doors — they may spring.” But the people couldn’t help it. But in spite of the crowd, I could see distinctly, and the ladies were more beautiful than the Japanese. They were all beautiful and beautifully garbed. And I turned to my friend David. I said, “David, how can I believe — how can you believe — that all we behold, though it appears without, it is within, in our imagination, and this whole vast world is simply a shadow?” How could these lovely ladies be in need — and the train? And the train was as long as the station allowed. He agreed he couldn’t possibly, on this level, accept it. Then the train stopped and we got off. Walked up the stairs to the plaza. Then he said to me, “You’re going by the post office, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do me a favor and post these letters for me.” I took the letters and said, “Are they properly stamped and addressed?” — casually, not because I was curious with his writing, just to see that they were properly stamped. I waved goodbye to him and turned in the direction of the post office, and he went the opposite direction, and I found myself waking.1154 ¶9

Were they not only me? So what conclusion can I reach? Objectivity and subjectivity are wholly determined for the individual by the level on which his consciousness is focused. On reflection, it’s subjective. When I was actually having the experience, it wasn’t subjective — it was objective. Only when I woke and reflected upon the experience did I refer to it as a subjective experience. This is now objective. Right now, you think of this room and the meeting — to you it will be a subjective experience, a memory image. So I say everything is truly within. Now you can test it. Says everything is truly within. Now you can test it. You take a dream, a daydream, or something you want for yourself, or something you want for another, and you represent to yourself a scene which truly implies the fulfillment of that dream. You like to do this, that, and the other, and so you construct a scene, any kind of a scene, that implies the fulfillment of your desire, and then, to the degree that you are self-persuaded of the reality of that imaginary act, it will become fact in your world. I could tell you a number of stories to support that claim. It’s not theory to me anymore — this is fact based upon experience.1154 ¶10

So when we are told in the Book of Luke, “the kingdom of God is within you,” you can take it literally. These garments that you and I wear are parts of the eternal structure of the universe. You are wearing the garment as an actor wears a costume. You are not the garment you wear. You are doing this for a purpose, a heavenly purpose, but you are not these garments. You are that being that my friend discovered who sees it from above, and to see this universe from above is so completely unlike what appears to be seen from this angle — it’s not this — is it at all? But you come down into this world of death for a purpose.1154 ¶11

Now, Blake made this observation, and he claims he did not write it from his conscious, reasoning mind, that the words were dictated by the spirit of love. Well, God is love. Therefore, if the spirit of love dict— for God is love, therefore, if the spirit of love dictated the words of “Jerusalem,” then is God dictated. And in this he said: those in great eternity who contemplate on love, or rather contemplate on death, say this — what seems to be, is, to those to whom it seems to be, even of torments, despair, and eternal death; but divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus. Now that’s something that man can grasp on this level, but I tell you it is true. To stand in the presence of the risen Christ and commune with him face to face and voice to voice, then to have love, his infinite love, embrace you — and as He embraces you, you fuse with Him, without loss of identity, no change in your identity, and yet you are one with the body of Christ. And then He sends you. And He can’t send you without himself, because you’re one with him. There’s no divorcement, no separation in that moment at all. So when he makes the statement, divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Christ — so in my last little pamphlet, I made the statement that I made it from experience: that you and I are resurrected one by one to unite into a single man who is God.1154 ¶12

So here is a reflection that he saw in his dream. A man, prone, containing infinity, and the deadliest thing he’d ever seen. God places a limitation, and then takes upon himself that limitation, and reaches in this act the very limit of contraction, that he may then expand beyond what he was. He takes upon himself the limit of opacity, and then begins to expand, and there’s no limit to translucence, to transparency. This is the world called the world of death.1154 ¶13

But while we’re in it, and we ourselves are animating it, we can take any state we desire. There are an infinite number of states. You can be in a poor state or a wealthy state — you’re no better off as far as the height goes, because one is poor and one is wealthy, not with respect to your point of view. But while you’re in the world of Caesar, why not be comfortable? Why not take a state that cushions and comforts? And so you can take a state of affluence if you know what it would be like to be affluent. Assume that you are, and see the world as you would see it were it true. And then, once accepted, you leave the reality of that unseen imaginal act, and if you do, it will come to pass.1154 ¶14

Because the whole vast world really is within you. I don’t care what others will tell you — it’s all within you. And anyone moving in your world knows because of you.1154 ¶15

William James made the statement that the greatest revolution in his time was the discovery that man, by changing the inner attitudes of his mind, could change the outer aspects of his life. Now James belongs to our generation, yet he’s gone from the world, but he was the great educator of the 20th century, and he said the greatest revolution in his time was this discovery. Well, the great book of books, the Bible, makes that statement — not as James made it, but how would you interpret this: “Whatsoever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will.” Isn’t that the one condition imposed upon me, or you, is to persuade self that we have it? How can I persuade myself when at the moment reason denies it and my senses deny it?1154 ¶16

But James said he could change the attitude of his mind. And there is nothing stopping you from changing your attitude towards the speaker — you may like him or dislike him. And if your dislike of him causes him to act to confirm your dislike, and you like that reaction, then keep it up. If you don’t like that reaction, you could change your attitude towards him, and he automatically and unknowingly would act in the way that you would like. And you can make any person in this world. So if I am that free, that I don’t have to get your permission to hold an opinion on you, then I can hold it regardless of you. And if I hold it and persuade myself of the reality of that opinion of you, and you conform to it, am I not free? I am free to entertain any thought, and if I am, and it produces results, well then I’m a free person, even in the world of Caesar.1154 ¶17

So here, I do hope that I have persuaded you that the whole vast world — for you seem so small and insignificant to yourself — the whole vast universe is breathing within you. And so you can take it this day and test it. You’re invited to test it. And when you get the results, share it with me. Tell me about it. Write me a letter. Explain what you did and how it worked. And if you’re blessed this night with a vision, I would love to hear it, for God makes himself known to man in a vision, and he speaks with a man through a dream. Don’t try to interpret the dream — tell me just what happened. I’m afraid you’re not to attempt to interpret it.1154 ¶18

He told me exactly what happened, and my reaction that he was about to record triggered the memory of the dream. But of all his experiences, what lesson he was learning was this: I have forgotten, I must remember. If anyone could now persuade themselves, you’re trying to remember something — you lost the memory of it when you came this low in the scale, and you’re trying to remember. What he was trying to remember was that exalted position where he saw the whole thing as dead, when he came down into the body of death and completely forgot who he really was — that people are shocked when you tell them that we are Christ.1154 ¶19

All things run to their origins. If my origin is God, my aim must be God, as the poet said: “You see on the fields the sesamum was sesamum, the corn was corn, the silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man faithful.” If I believe what scientists tell me, that my origin is a worm, my end is a worm. If I believe in the Bible, and my origin is God, my end is God. And I don’t have to choose anymore. I know that from experience. I don’t have to speculate about the risen Christ. I don’t have to speculate about God being love. I stood in the presence of God, and he’s infinite love.1154 ¶20

I’m not bending my head when I say God is man. As Blake said, “Thou art a man, God is no more, thy own humanity learn to adore. God appears, and God is light, to those poor souls who dwell in night. But does a human form display to those who dwell in realms of day.” So here, you’re wearing the form of God. You are God. He gave you this name. And the name that he reveals to the whole past world, if you take it, is I Am. So that’s my name forever; it be known, I have been known by it throughout all generations.1154 ¶21

But we don’t stop there. We say, “I am John,” a poor John, an unknown John, an unwanted John. And these are the limitations and the restrictions we put upon the name of God. But if I would remember the name, I would know about the name, and only put upon it that which is noble, that which is free. And if I did it, I would walk in that type.1154 ¶22

So, do me a favor and try it. Try it, and I promise you from my own experience that you’ll get the results. You won’t have to hum to anyone in this world, but no one.1154 ¶23

Here’s a simple little story. Two weeks ago, just before I closed, I was about to close, and my wife said to me, “You know, here’s a little unfinished business. A friend of ours owes you some money. You’ve never asked him for it. You’ve never written. You’ve never mentioned it to anyone, but he owes you the money. You’re closing up for the entire summer, you’ll not be here until late fall. I don’t think it’s fair to him, fair to you, fair to me, that he continues indefinitely without ever mentioning the fact that he owes you the money.” I said, “All right, do you want the money?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “All right, I will do it my own way. I will not ask him for it. I will not write him for it. I will not phone him for it, but I will do it in my own way, of imagination.”1154 ¶24

So I imagined, first of all, he had the money — you can’t get it from someone who doesn’t have the money. So I first of all assumed he had it. Then I went beyond that — you can have the money and be unwilling to pay, you know; you may have millions and owe the grocery store and not pay. So I first of all saw him with money, lots of money. And then I saw him really eager to pay me. And then I received from him what he owed me. This I did on Wednesday.1154 ¶25

On Friday, the phone rang about 4:30. It was my friend. He said, “Are you busy tonight?” I said, “Yes, I’m actually — ” He said, “That’s right, it’s Friday night. Well, my wife and I will come to the meeting tonight.” I said, “It’s perfectly all right.” So we came to the meeting. After the meeting, he said, “You ride home with me, and Bill” — who’s my wife — “she’ll go home with the one who brought you.” So my wife went with him and his wife. So we went on to the parking lot, and he always drove an old jalopy, something falling apart, but I saw nothing like that in the lot. And he took me over towards this wonderful place, the new one, with everything in it that money could buy. Well, he drove me home. Our new car was under a thousand miles. Not a word was said on the way home about money. Not a word was said at home. The one who drove my wife and his wife home left about four to be — and then five minutes later, she opened her purse and said, “This is long, long overdue, but I think you’ll find it in order,” and handed me a check for $1,200. I never asked for it, never once in the five years he’s owed it to me have I breathed it, and she gave me $1,200.1154 ¶26

This is how it works. If you believe in the reality of your own wonderful imaginal acts — they came out of nowhere, and now he has money, things don’t rain for him. He’s completely out of debt and free of that feeling of owing friends money over so many, many years. So try it, and then share with me the results of your experiment.1154 ¶27

And now, I think I’m going to ask my friends, the ushers, to pass among you.1154 ¶28

Did you hear the question?1154 ¶29

Any other questions, please?1154 ¶32

Well, then let’s get off the dreams now.1154 ¶38

Any other questions?1154 ¶40

I’m just a little bit different tonight. But I feel the time has come for me to tell it. To be speaking of the Bible as though it was written, say, this year. And people will go to war over the interpretation of a word or the interpretation of a sentence. And here we have a book — speaking now of the New Testament — but the oldest known text of the New Testament has only recently been discovered. Well, 1929. And they are the letters of Paul. And they are not original. They are copies made in the 3rd century. No original autograph of any New Testament text is known by man today. We have copies, and we have copies of copies. But not since the third century have we found anything that resembles, or rather that could be claimed to be near the original. And when you think that prior to the invention of the printing press, which was in the 15th century, all these were copies, and so you had scribal errors. And you had editorial emendations. And editors are very quick with their pen to change, to alter a text. Although they were not present, they were not eyewitnesses, but they’ll make it conform to what they want. And so we have these editorial emendations, and we have the normal, natural, scribal errors.1152 ¶1

I know in my own case, my wife is a very well-educated girl, went to Smith College, and she wrote me when I was in the army, once a day anyway, and sometimes two or three times. I would always put them in my pocket and read them when I was alone, so I could decipher them. I have taken a letter of hers — it’s been written, say, five, six years — and it’s old, and I say to her, darling, read this for me. She can’t even read her own handwriting. Now that happened in this century. Those scribes are making copies. Well, scribes wrote copies, and we have — there are no two copies that really are identical, and we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of copies, and we have translations mostly of the Latin Vulgate. And these were written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Translations into the Greek, but that’s one removed. And then from the Greek into Latin. And most of these copies are translations from the Latin, which could not properly express the thought of those who spoke and thought in the Hebraic tongue.1152 ¶2

Now, to get beyond what we have, to find what really was written — for tonight you’ll find this a little bit different. Here we are looking for the truth, trying to find out what is God’s intention for us. We are told in scripture, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.” But no one — this one is made to say, “I came into the world to bear witness to the truth.” “And you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” We are told that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. We are told that “in him was life, and the life was the light of men.” So he makes the statement and puts them all together — that he is the true and living way: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” I’ll tell you from my own personal experience — and it’s not in scripture that you can see it, you can’t read it that way. As I’ve just told you, we do not have any original. I am quite sure if the original is ever found, you would have found the story that I have told in Revelation — if it is ever found — but we have none. As I said, the oldest manuscript is a copy made in the third century, and that’s only of the letters of Paul, not of the gospel.1152 ¶3

Now here, I’ll tell you from experience that truth is a fiery spiral stairway. What looks true on one level may not be true on the next higher level — entirely different on another level. Vision, a complete vision, must extend to include the vertical as well as the horizontal. We only think of the horizontal, and think of the relationship of parts to others. It must include all the different levels of true vision.1152 ¶4

Now let me take a statement which you’ll find most disturbing. It’s taken from the book of Revelation, the third chapter, the first verse: “I know your works, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” The very thought that a man can be dead without knowing that he is — that’s disturbing enough. But the possibility of man being dead while he was alive, that’s really startling. Without the experience that I have had, it just doesn’t make sense. But after you’ve experienced it, there’s not a thing in this world that looks as it looked prior to that experience. I meet friends of mine whose funerals I attended. They do not know that they did, because they’re not really — they are independent of my perception of them. They argue with me, and I can’t persuade them that I went to their funeral. I can tell on this level, my friends who know me: Do you know Jack? Oh yes, I knew him. Do you know that I attended his funeral? Oh yes, he died. So tell me the day, the month, the year. Well — he tells me that he didn’t. So on this level I know those who died, and I can’t persuade those who are not aware that they did depart, because they have not died — not to themselves. They’re very much alive and young and healthy and about their business, trying to make a dollar, trying to do all the things they tried here — the same person, no transforming power in death.1152 ¶5

And so, on one level, here you’re told: “you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” So he did not believe that he had died. But just imagine the possibility of being dead while you were alive. That I have experienced. To come upon a scene just like this, and everything is so real and so alive. All the people are enjoying the moment. They’re dining, looking through this enormous window, a huge, big, glorious bay window. And here everything is animated — the leaves are falling, the grass is moving, the bird is flying, the diners are dining, the waitress is walking, and everyone is animated, and they’re all dining and having fun. But now I’m on a different level. They don’t see me. I’m seeing it from an entirely different level. “In him is life, and the life was the light of men” — that is the consciousness of man. And I stopped that activity within me, which was life, which made them appear to be alive. And they all froze. They were all dead. So they were dead while they were alive. They were not animated by anything — they thought the beating of their heart was because they ate proper food, or they were doing this and doing that and doing the other — and I knew at that moment that one of them lived outside of me. I knew that I was the light that animated those bodies, all of them. As I released the activity within me which I had arrested, they all continued to fulfill their intentions. I knew I could have changed the intention while I had them frozen, and when I released it — which is only an activity — they would have thought that they had initiated a change of heart, and they would have gone on to do what I had commanded, and it was not anything that they had originated. I didn’t change it. I simply allowed it to go on.1152 ¶6

So I know — this fiery spiral way, that is truth. For he said, I am the truth. He identifies himself with the Son of Man, and as the Son of Man is lifted up — but how is he lifted up? In the same manner that Moses lifted up that fiery serpent in the wilderness. It’s a spiral, fiery motion. It’s a stairway leading from the depths of generation into regeneration. And when you travel it, there is nothing in this world that really is what it appears to be. But here we are, as we think we are alive — and here I say, you have the name of being alive and you are dead. Those who go beyond into the world called the world of the dead — I would say ninety-nine percent of them do not know that they experienced the event that you and I called death, because they did not. Nothing dies. The little flower that I put in my lapel — all of a sudden it withers, at the end of the day it’s withered, and I take it out and I discard it. The flower that blooms once, blooms forever. Can’t die. Nothing can die.1152 ¶7

So how could it be told, if it had the intelligence to understand, that it died? It’s blooming. How can you say to something that is blooming that he died? How could I convince Jack that I came back from San Francisco — from Los Angeles, rather — and attended his funeral in Haverstraw, New York, and paid for his funeral and gave him a good Catholic funeral, because his sister demanded it? She didn’t pay for it, but she demanded that kind of a funeral. I would have cremated him and taken his ashes and thrown them away, but now she wanted a good Catholic funeral in holy ground. All right, I paid for it — he’s in holy ground. And the priest and all came by, and the sister got down and kissed that dead body — got down on her knees, never saw the man for years. They never spoke to each other. In fact, they disliked each other. On her knees, and she embraced her brother, she kissed that dead body. And I walked by, not stopping, because that’s not Jack. He discarded that little garment, as I will discard this suit one day. But he doesn’t know that he died. He shirked all obligations in this life. He refused to assume any responsibility, and he died just as he lived here — just a child. He died at the age of 50. I would say to Jack, here’s the money, take Vicky out to the park and show the monkeys and show the animals in the little zoo in Central Park. We lived on 50th Street and the park began at 59th. Take her in and show the things. I would walk down the street, he came on back. Many a time I saw this — took her into a little drug store, and he ordered up, say, a milkshake, chocolate milkshake, asked the man for straw. There was always two straws in one little container. He would break the thing out, give her one, he would take the other and play a game — see who can finish it first. Well, he drank the whole thing, give her one little straw. And little Vicky, about three years old, she with one straw, and this big man in his forties, and he is putting his mouth there and he’s drinking the whole thing. That’s Jack. He’s the same Jack. No transforming power in death whatsoever.1152 ¶8

So that statement in the third chapter is true. We haven’t found the original. If you ever find the original of this marvelous book, then a complete radical change must take place in this world concerning what man worships as Jesus and as the Christ. I have told my best, or the best that I can tell it, my own personal experience. That must be found in one of those original documents — the true Son of God: that resultant state that reveals God as your own wonderful being. And that is the Lord Jesus. No change of identity — you’re still the being that you are, but you are I AM. That’s the being that you really are. And that Son that comes to reveal you as God the Father is the eternal David — the resultant state of all your experiences as man. Just imagine this fabulous world. We wake in the morning, we see this man died or that one died, and so many were killed, so many were shot — and here they were dead anyway.1152 ¶9

Now it frightens people to entertain the thought, but you are an immortal being. You are on all the levels, but you are sung to sleep on this level, the level of generation. And when you awake on this level, you will have that fiery spiral stairway, and you’ll do it in the twinkle of an eye when you go up. And then you’ll have these experiences that nothing in your world, as you are saying, remains imperfect, because you are perfect. No matter where you go, everything is transformed instantly. You don’t work upon it. You do not think. You don’t raise one finger to make it perfect. You are perfect. And everything in your world is made perfect for everything. You can conceive the beauty that’s in store for you because of your beauty, because you’re glorified, and wherever you go everything is very perfect without its consent. That’s heaven. Heaven is simply the radiation of yourself. If you walk into hell, it turns into heaven, because you are perfect, and you’re wearing the immortal garment which is forever and forever.1152 ¶10

And so you have the name of being alive, and you’re dead. And I’ve read a number of comments on it, all these commentaries — not one understands what it’s all about, because they’re made without vision. And our Bible today is nothing more — you can’t find two copies preceding the invention of the printing press that are duplicates. They could be done in the same day, the same month, but by different scribes, and here — scribal errors, plus that habit of editors, and that editorial emendation which is always changing. You can’t get it alone; he has to take your script, and you are the eyewitness — no, he’s not going to take you as the eyewitness, he is going to become the eyewitness and tell you what you ought to have seen, what you ought to have heard, because he brings to that script his own prefabricated misconception of the theme, and you’re telling him exactly what happened to you. I’m quite sure that my present revelation, in my book called Resurrection, if put into the hands of any editor today, he would go right through the whole thing with his great pencil, because he knows David is not the Son of God — he’d turn the whole thing out. And he knows that the Father is not Jehovah, because the Father’s name to him is Jesse, and to him the word Jesse is simply a name, like his own name, which could be any other name. And all these names have peculiar, marvelous significance — it’s not a name like a little tag that you answer to because someone called the name; the name conveys the character of the wearer of that name. And so Jesse is simply Jehovah exists — it is the eternal I AM, and that’s the Father of David. And David is not just a little person — he is the eternal personification of the sum total of all the parts that the Father played. For God played all the parts. He’s playing all the parts.1152 ¶11

So the story I told the other night about this lady in the swimming pool — I’ve been waiting for confirmation of that experience, so it came this past week. When floating on her back, and suddenly she felt my presence — she didn’t see me, I could have made myself manifest to her, I could have appeared to her, but that would have spoiled the entire picture, she then would have seen two — she would have seen Neville and herself. But no, she felt that she was Neville. And yet she didn’t lose her own identity. So she felt, I am Neville, and yet I am Laura. I am the same being. And now, from now on, said she, I will no longer use the plural — not we were present, but I, for I am you. And then she floated, filled with wine, to overflowing with wine, which is the Spirit, as told in Scripture. He turned the water on which she was floating into wine, and she was filled with the wine of the Spirit, as she felt now my presence, and I am the very one who is floating, and yet she didn’t lose her identity. That’s what I tell you — when I depart, where would I go? I have no place to go but within — heaven, and heaven is within you. I can make myself visible if it is necessary, but there is no need for it. My presence will be there, for in the end only one being is returning from the entire story, and that is God. God plays all the parts, and in the end there is only God — nothing but God, and his Son, called in scripture Jesus Christ.1152 ¶12

Now, when these early ones were lost, I do not know. No one knows. We only know, if we are honest about it, that we cannot find them. And only as late as the year 1929 did we find the letters of Paul in one body, and there are copies — copies made in the 3rd century in Egypt — and that’s our oldest manuscript in the New Testament. And between that date and the beginning — when you think of Paul, scholars are agreed that he wrote his letters between the year 50 and 61 A.D., and that at his age he must have departed this world before the turn of the first century. Not a word is said concerning anything in the second century. And here are copies and copies of copies — it is all that we have to go by. And any two have such variations, and you can see why: normal, natural, scribal errors. I know I would make it — you get tired, in those days they didn’t have nice lights, and so you’re working under all kinds of handicaps while you make your copy. But fantastic variations. So we have hundreds of them. How to go through these numberless variations and find the truth. The truth can only be discovered if you find these originals, or if someone comes into this world sent to take the barnacles off and tell, by his own personal experience, what the story is all about. Well, I have told it to the best of my ability, and that the story told in scripture is all about you.1152 ¶13

The God of scripture, both Old and New Testament, is your own wonderful I AM. That God there is no other. God — his name forever and forever — that is the eternal being placed into the mind of man, and he brings with him the resultant state, and that resultant state is David. And when you’ve played all the parts and there are no other parts to play, you’ve reached the end, and then the brain explodes, if they were — and here he stands before you. And without any word — although he does call you Father — without the use of a word: I don’t need my daughter to come home and say, hello Father, to remind me that that’s the then girl that I said goodbye to the day before. As she comes through the door, whether she speaks to me or not, I know she is my daughter. So if David speaks or not, when you see him, you know he is your son. There is no doubt he is your son. And in his mind, you are his Father. And there is no uncertainty as to this relationship.1152 ¶14

So here I tell you, it’s in store for you. Everyone is going to experience it, and I can’t wait to hear confirmation after confirmation. And I am so thrilled with this experience of Laura’s, where she actually could feel the union, that unity of the two without loss of identity, for all the identity of person. Now, there is a radical discontinuity of form — that’s why that one form could house both, as we are told in his letter, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: there is only one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all. So that one body allowed Laura to feel the unity, for I wear that body, and she at that moment she was wearing that body, or she could not have felt it. So it’s the one body in the end, without any loss of identity.1152 ¶15

That’s the mystery. How can we — billions of us in this world, and billions to come — and yet they’re all numbered? It’s not just a matter of numbers coming in. Everyone is numbered, as told us in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy. Read it in the 8th verse: He has set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. Some translate the word sons of Israel, but the word Israel quite often in scripture is used of God. Or the word, if you break it down, Ish-ra-El, the man who rules as God — that is Israel. So man all of a sudden awakens, and he is God. And the only way he will ever know he is, is that resultant state who stands before him, and he knows who he is — he’s David. And he is his Father. And that is his son.1152 ¶16

So a form or anything on one level may not be true — true as it is on this level, it may not be true on the next higher level. For Jack, on one level, was my secretary, and the one who, in spite of his age, played with my little girl and would throw across the carpet — I thought he’d break her neck one day, because he treated her just as though they were the same age. He would sit down with me, and I would have martinis. He always didn’t like licking his head. But if it was free, he wanted it, so he took his martini. I would have two or three martinis before dinner. He wanted just as many as I did. He couldn’t hold them. But with it all, he wanted a huge big box of candy next to him, so I supplied him with candy — martinis and candy — and Vicky would come by and take one of his candies, and he pushed it right straight across the carpet. That was Jack. He couldn’t help it. That was his mind.1152 ¶17

So naturally, when I met him in the world — the world called the dead — there’s no dead, it’s a terrestrial world just like this — it didn’t take him any time to awaken in a young body in his twenties, but he is the same Jack, he hasn’t changed one iota. And then to tell Jack why he was here — it’s maddening — to tell him that he died and that I actually gave him a good funeral. But to tell him why he was here — do you know that you died? Can you imagine his reaction? Well, even the intelligent person of the world today, the brilliant minds of the red scholars — to tell them, you have the name of being alive and you’re dead, they’d laugh at you. Yet that’s the first verse of the third chapter of the book of Revelation. But until you have the vision and the actual experience, it doesn’t make sense.1152 ¶18

And yet I have seen room just like this on many occasions — I’ve done it. It’s fun to see it all animated and all alive and all carrying on this marvelous conversation, each trying to outdo the other one in bragging. And suddenly you know exactly what they’re doing, and you arrest — not them, leave them just alone — you arrest an activity in you, for in him is life, and the life was the light of men, the consciousness of men. So you arrest the life in you, the activity, and all of a sudden the light goes out in men. There’s no consciousness — they’re dead. You go over, you examine them, and everyone is as dead as though they’re made of clay or marble. Look at them — all — they can’t see you, because they’re dead, and even before you did it they couldn’t see you anyway, because you are on a higher level. You do it from a higher level, and on that level they can’t see you. Your spirit is more alive than anything in the world below you. And all of a sudden they all stand still. And then, to your own amusement, while they’re perfectly still and dead, you release the activity in you. As you release it, they all continue animated once more, continuing their lives, and they’re bragging. And that’s life.1152 ¶19

For in him is life, and the life was the light of men. So he came bringing truth. So they asked him the question concerning the truth. He said, for this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. And then Pilate said, what is truth? And he was silent. How could you tell Pilate that he was dead? How could you tell the judge who was the extended arm of Caesar that he is dead? You couldn’t tell him that. Yet these words, as dictated in Revelation, are attributed to the risen Lord through his voice called John. And so he sends John to the churches, and the first church is Sardis. And these are the words given to Sardis, to the angel of Sardis: You have the reputation, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.1152 ¶20

Now who is going to explain it? I have many, many commentaries at home. I have the grandfather of them all, called the Interpreter’s Bible — they are 12 volumes, 6 of the Old and 6 of the New, and 4 of dictionaries, and you can read that backwards, and they cannot throw any light on it, because it doesn’t make sense. How can you say to someone that there’s a possibility that a man is dead while he was alive? And that those who are dead are dead, and they do not know that they are dead — because I tell you, they’re not dead, but they died. And when I said to Jack, you know, Jack — no, you’re not dead, but you died — he said, oh, stupid Neville, I mean, I am not dead, but I died. How is that possible? I said, Jack, I went to your funeral and buried you, gave you a marvelous Catholic funeral.1152 ¶21

But I did persuade my sister-in-law, who, as a pillar of the Episcopal Church, could not understand my teaching. She still can’t. But since then, she has changed her attitude — it comes slowly, from the depth of her own being. Now she is willing to believe in immortality outside of the extension of herself to her children and grandchildren. Up until then she felt you could only have immortality through the bearing of children, and the children bearing children — but that you yourself know, you will live in your offspring. And when I said to her, you, a Christian, don’t you know the foundation of Christianity? The fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and life everlasting. And you’re going to take one of these and throw it away, called life everlasting? You don’t know Christianity, Al. Well, she just wouldn’t argue with me.1152 ¶22

But since then she is now — either because of advancing age, or she is now 70, or a change in some strange way — but it was that change that took place in the depth of her soul. So it’s coming up slowly, it takes time, and then suddenly it will all dawn within her, and one day she will be able to understand me. She came to two of my lectures, and I might as well have been speaking in Greek. She doesn’t understand me, but she’ll go to church every Sunday morning because it’s a thing to do. And so she’ll go and hear the man — couldn’t tell you what he said, which is not really important, because the Chancellor — he didn’t say anything anyway. Talked about getting involved, possibly, and doing this and doing that and doing the other — has nothing to do with religion.1152 ¶23

Involved is telling God’s purpose. Does he have a purpose? Well, he has a purpose, and he has made it known in Christ Jesus. That’s the pattern. It’s a pattern, man buried in man, and it has been unfolded in me. Well, I’m just telling exactly what happened to me. If one understands it all, well and good. If they don’t understand it, take it anyway and dwell upon it, because I tell you it is true. And the day will come — when I have written in my book, which I call Resurrection, when they find those old scripts, if they ever do, they’re going to find that story. But we have no script in the New Testament that is beyond the one just found in 1929, a copy made in the third century.1152 ¶24

Now, when you consider all these copies, and such discrepancies in the copies, and man makes it fit what he thinks it ought to be — I read here recently, in fact it is in the Interpreter’s Bible, our great college of Jesuits here, Loyola, and the founder of that college said that to be a good Jesuit — and therefore, he means, that’s the foundation of this Roman Catholic world — to be a good one, if the church tells you that a thing is black, when you know that it is white, to you it must be black. That’s the foundation. Don’t question the authority of the church. No matter how stupid the statement is, no matter how far afield it is of truth, if they say that is it, that is it, and you do not question.1152 ¶25

And here — this is a searching mind in this world, and you’re asking questions. When the vision first happened to me as a boy, I wondered, what on earth is it? Why am I — I am not qualified, I don’t have the attributes, I have nothing. And here I stood in the presence of these exalted beings, in the very presence of the risen Lord, and he embraced me because I answered correctly. But my answer was automatic — it came just as though I were prompted. I heard no voice, but I might just as well have been prompted, it came automatically. When he said, what is the greatest thing in the world, and I answered in the words of Paul: faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. And then the Ancient of Days embraced me, and we fused and became one body — just one body — yet I didn’t lose my identity, and I’m quite sure he didn’t lose his. But I was baptized at that moment. Death baptism — to enter into the body, to actually submerge oneself in the body. Now we have it here where you push them into the water, they’ve got to go right down into the water, they think that’s doing it. Many of them get dunked that way. I wasn’t dunked. I was simply embraced by infinite love — that was my baptism.1152 ¶26

And then I was sent into the world, wondering, what on earth am I going to talk about? I am not qualified, I do not have the educational background, I have no background to do what undoubtedly I am under compulsion to do. But in time the whole thing began to awake within me, and I was moved by compulsion to tell it. And my first night, I think six people came, and from then on it grew and grew and grew, as I grew in understanding of what it meant. But that was indelibly impressed upon my mind. I could — I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, I can see the recording angel before the book, looking at me, and then checking off my name — undoubtedly. But she didn’t speak, she simply looked, and then took that quill and checked it, as told in the 12th chapter of the book of Daniel. And then I came back into the presence of this Ancient of Days, and I could think of nothing but love, infinite love. And then he embraced me. Then I stood before infinite might, and it was he who said to me, time to act. And I was whirled out of that wonderful assembly back at one night, little babe, and the room filled with light, and for the longest while it didn’t subside. But what must I do? Time to act — what? I had no money, no name, no reputation, no education, and do what? But as time went on, it unfolded within, and then it began to erupt, and erupt, and erupt. So he selected me to do it.1152 ¶27

And when the time comes — I am quite sure, if it is ever discovered, if they ever find those scripts, they’re going to find my story in that book. For that’s the true story of the birth from above. You’re not born by a change of consciousness, as the world teaches, that you’re going to feel something different, and that’s your birth. No, it’s an actual birth from above. And the child is only a symbol of your birth. And you are born from above, which means from God. The word is anothen — it is from above, but it means from God. Those who are born of God are not born from below, which is of blood, or of the flesh, or of the will of man. But no, this is of God. And who is born? It’s an expansion of God, that’s all — his sons are expanding the One, for God — the One — is made up of all of his sons, and together they form God, and he’s granting to each God, each himself, the Father.1152 ¶28

So here, what is true on this level, or any level for that matter, may not be true on a still higher level. Everything here is completely independent, seemingly, of your perception of it, and they go their way without asking your permission, and they do all the things that they want to do, and they do not consult you at all. And the day will come, after you ascend that fiery stairway, that you are in control and you live in the same world, and you don’t ask them permission — you simply arrest them, arrest an activity in yourself, which is life, for as the Father has life in himself, he is granted a son also to have life in himself — and that’s the life, and the life is the light of men, the consciousness of men. And you simply arrest it, and it goes out — the light goes out, and there is no light in their eyes, no light in their body. They’re dead, just as dead as that table. You go and you look at them, and they’re made of clay, just like clay. And then you release the activity in you, and suddenly they all become alive, and they don’t even know there was an interval of time between that moment that you arrested them and the moment when you released them. And if you had arrested them for one million years, when you released it, they would start off at that moment and not know that a million years had passed — you would have no knowledge of it.1152 ¶29

But the startling one — to be alive and be dead, to die, and you’ll meet them one day, because this is going to happen to you, and you can’t persuade them that they’re dead. But that’s all right, because they’re not — they’re very much alive. So the thought that a man can be dead, not knowing that he is, that is a startling thought, but not compared to the possibility that a man is dead while he was alive. You develop on it. This may not seem practical to you tonight, but may I tell you, whatever is most profoundly spiritual is in reality most directly practical.1152 ¶30

If I told you that you are heirs to the universe, but you are completely unaware of it, would you believe it? Well, that is what Scripture teaches, that we are heirs to the universe. But we do not know it. That’s why we are here. So Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, the child is no better than a slave. Yet he owns the entire estate. He is under guardians and by the Father. So it is with us. When we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirit of the universe. What does he mean by it?1150 ¶1

Well, he tells us quite clearly, if we read it together in a serious way, anyone who believes in anything outside of himself is enslaved by these elemental spirits. He calls it believing in what Christianity will tell us. As he said, I’m afraid I have labored over you in vain, for I notice, as I pass by, that you observe days, and weeks, and months, and seasons, and years. I’m afraid I have labored over you in vain. Any outside ritual, whether it be a mass, the observation of a day, a month, a holy this, holy that, all this to him is simply being a slave of the elemental spirit.1150 ¶2

This story is told us in the parable of the prodigal son. When the second one returned, having spent all, the first son complained that “I’ve been with you always and you never gave me a kid,” and he said, “Son, you’re with me always and all that is mine is yours.” Then he tells him that it’s right that we should make merry and rejoice and be glad, because this thy brother was dead and he’s alive, he was lost and he is found.1150 ¶3

Do you know that story is our story? We were heirs to the whole vast universe, but like the first son we were unaware of it. The first son never left his father’s home. You and I were chosen in the beginning to leave, to become aware of our possession, and we go through hell to become aware of it. So you and I go through all the horrors of the world to awaken us to who we really are. And when we awaken, we are the Father.1150 ¶4

It’s the Father’s purpose to give himself to us, and while we were with the Father we did not know his purpose, we did not know our possession, so he could conceal it. He said, “I chose them in me before the foundation of the world,” and then we came down into this world and took upon ourselves these garments of flesh. The one who took it is the Son of God. He is crucified on these garments. And when he passes through the furnaces of affliction, he will awaken and know himself to be the Father. For it’s the Father’s purpose to give himself to his Son. And you and I are the sons of God. All of us, regardless of your sex, we are the sons.1150 ¶5

So when we pass through the furnaces, then in the fullness of time, he sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Father. Now who is this Son that he sends into our hearts crying, Father?1150 ¶6

Let me take you now into Scripture with me, for the purpose here for all of us is simply to fulfill His Word, which is Scripture. That’s the only purpose. I’ve come to fulfill Scripture. When He awakes within us, then He understands the Scripture, the Word. Now listen to this carefully. “Go to my servant David and say to David that when your days are fulfilled and you lay down with your father, I will raise up your son after you who will come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.”1150 ¶7

David is a symbol of humanity, the whole vast world of man. That’s David. So say to humanity, I will raise up from your body a son that will come forth from your body. If he comes forth from the body of man, then he must be the Son of Man. So Christ calls himself the Son of Man. Yet he is the Son of God.1150 ¶8

For the prophecy is, “I will raise up your son who shall come forth from your body, I the Lord will be his father, and he shall be my son.” The dreamer in you, and by that dreamer in you I mean your own wonderful human imagination, that is the Son of God. That is the Son of Man.1150 ¶9

One day he will awaken in you, and he will rise in you, and he will come forth from that body that is dead. We think it’s alive. I will tell you, when it happens to you, and you see that other which you come from, you look at it and to you it is dead. You are buried in it, and you are dreaming and animating this world. Through your dreams you dream this whole vast world in which you now live. And the day will come you will awaken within, and that will come up. If it comes out of man, then it’s the Son of Man. Yet the Lord said, I will be his father and he shall be my son. This one that comes up is one with the Father. And he makes the statement, I and my Father are one.1150 ¶10

In the end, he goes and says, “I am the root and the offspring of David.” David is humanity. Yet I am the root, the father of humanity. And I am also that which comes out of humanity. I will raise it myself out of humanity.1150 ¶11

Because the sons that came down formed God. The word God is a plural word, Elohim, made up of his sons. We are all the sons. But we were not aware of who we are and what we possess. So we came down a certain number, just a certain number, not an indefinite number, may I tell you, just a certain number. Every child born of woman is a son of God. The sons came down into the world, and he set a limit to the number, as we are told in the thirty-second chapter of the book of Deuteronomy: “And he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.”1150 ¶12

So in spite of all that we seem to do today to limit the offering of the world, it is all a play. It’s all done. Not one child could breathe but what that breath is but the Son of God. Everyone in the world is the Son of God. But he doesn’t know it. And he goes through all the fires of this world to awaken to the knowledge of who he really is. He is God. He didn’t know it, so he comes down into the world, and he goes through all these horrible things in the world and plays his part.1150 ¶13

But in the fullness of time, God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Father. He calls. Who is it? It is the Son told of humanity, who is calling us Father, for we are the father of David, and yet we are the offspring, for we buried ourselves in humanity. We came out of humanity, therefore the Son of Man. And yet we are the father of humanity. And humanity, being symbolized by David, David stands before us and calls us Father.1150 ¶14

So here, when one complains, as the first one complains, he said, “Son, you are with me always and all that is mine is yours.” But he doesn’t know it. You own the universe, and if you don’t know it, you could die of want. For the want of one dollar. Because you can’t appropriate anything, because you think it isn’t yours. You think only what your senses dictate belongs to you. You think that only what reason allows, you could claim. You can’t for one moment bring yourself to believe that the whole thing is yours, and all you have to do is to appropriate it. It is yours.1150 ¶15

Now you’re told in Scripture, whatever you believe, if you really persuade yourself of the reality of what you are believing, you shall have it. “When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will.” All things are possible to God. Well, the average person would say yes to God, but not to me, because he’s not awake. He doesn’t know that he is God. And if the word God causes him to feel for one moment the existence of something external to himself, he has a false god.1150 ¶16

Why? Because God’s name forever and forever is I AM. “When I go to the people of Israel and I say to them, the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, sent me, and they ask me, what is his name, what should I say? Say unto them, I AM. That is who I AM. Say to them, I AM hath sent me unto you. For this is my name forever, and by this name I shall be known throughout all generations.”1150 ¶17

Well, now if you hear the word God and you don’t think of I AM, you’ve got the wrong God. If you hear the word Jehovah and it doesn’t conjure within you the feeling of, well, I’m aware, then you’ve got the wrong God. All things are possible to God, yes, but if you think he’s on the outside, you’ve gone astray. If you know God, and the word God infinitely reminds you of who you are, and all things are possible to God, and all things are God, for then you appropriate it, you simply take it, you don’t owe anyone, it’s all yours.1150 ¶18

So you want a better job, you want a better position in this world, a better home, this, that, or the other, you simply assume that you have it. You dare to assume that you are in possession now of what you really want in this world. And if you dare to persist in that assumption, it will harden into fact. This is what Christianity is.1150 ¶19

What others teach is a never matter. But as Paul tells us, when we were children we were slaves to the elemental spirit, that simply means all external rituals in the world. When I stood in the presence of infinite love, and infinite love embraced and then sent me, and as he sent me, the words rang out, “Down with the blue bloods,” and I didn’t understand what it meant. But I came out with this ringing in my ear, “Down with the blue bloods,” to discover years later it meant church protocol. That’s all that it meant.1150 ¶20

Any external ritual that would enslave me, where I am threatened with a curse if I do not observe days, months, seasons, and years, if I do not observe the mass, if I do not observe all the things on the outside, including circumcision, including anything, if I believe in astrology as something that is actually dictating my life, an influence in my world, then I’ve got a false god. I must have but one God, only one God, and that one God is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s your God. Only one God, and that one God is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s your God. And there is no other God.1150 ¶21

Now put it to the test. He said, “Test me in this, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great you have not room on earth to receive it.” Test me. But how do I test it? Well, what do I want? Then I assume that I have it and feel as I would feel if it were true. And then as I feel it, I live in that feeling, sleep in that feeling, and then I must have it in my world if this thing is true. But that’s what I have taught in Scripture. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? For the average person, if you say that to him, he does not realize Jesus Christ is in him. When he says, I AM, he does not believe for one moment that is Jesus Christ. He thinks I am a little tiny being called this, that, or the other. He doesn’t really believe he is the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you that your true identity is Jesus Christ. Until you believe it and put it to the test, then you don’t really believe it. Walk as though you were the Lord Jesus Christ, and may I tell you, you will act as the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will actually believe, for what? Well, at any moment that you are capable of doing anything in this world without raising a finger, you simply assume that things are as they are asked of you. Whatever is asked of you, you assume that it’s done. You feel the thrill as though they told you that it’s done. Just let it go that way. You’ll find all these lovely things unfolding within you.1150 ¶22

So, if you did not come out, and you did come out, you will be the first son complaining, because he now kills the fatted calf and brings the robe and the ring and puts shoes upon your feet because you returned from the journey. And he said, it’s good that we should rejoice and be merry, for this thy brother was dead and he’s alive. He’s alive to who he is. He was lost, but now he’s found. But the firstborn never left home, and therefore he has no awareness of his possessions. He doesn’t know what he’s found. But the first one never left home, and therefore he has no awareness of his possessions. He doesn’t know what he possesses.1150 ¶23

And if you had the whole vast universe that you did, but you don’t know it, well then what good would it be to you? You couldn’t appropriate any part of it. Yet you’re told in Scripture, “If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and all that is. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine.” I would not stray and eat. But man is not aware that the whole thing is his, and he will not go beyond it. Yet he’s invited by Scripture to step out and test this law.1150 ¶24

For I tell you, you are the sons of God that came down into this world to become aware of who you are. You did not know it in the beginning. You had to come up and become slaves. Paul calls us slaves. We’re all slaves. We are slaves of the elemental spirit. Where I’m a slave when I think I’ve got to get up in the morning and go to mass. I’ve got to go to church. I’ve got to keep certain days of the year holy. I’ve got to do this, that, and the other. I’m a slave of it. I must say grace before dinner. As I sit down and say grace, it may be a lovely custom, but that can become a habit, and that can be an elemental spirit that actually enslaves. Anything on the outside, all rituals, and I was told the whole thing rang in my ear, “Done with the blue blood.” All church protocols. Anything that is man-made, done with it, and just simply live the most normal, wonderful life in the world.1150 ¶25

Now let me bring to your attention tonight a little thought. A friend of mine wrote me. I got the letter yesterday. He said, this thing has been haunting me for the last two weeks. God speaks to man through the medium of dreams, but we are past masters at misinterpreting dreams. And for two weeks I wrestled with myself because this thing is so, to me on this level, so unlovely. Here in dreams I had an affair with my stepdaughter, something I couldn’t dream of on this level, and she seemed to invite me into this act. I love her dearly as a stepdaughter, but certainly I never entertained that thought on this level, and yet it seemed there. Right now, he said, I admire her, I love her dearly, I love her great spiritual qualities, things I would like to have myself.1150 ¶26

Well, may I tell him, on these levels, which seem immoral from this level, they are not immoral at all. I ask you to go home and read the sixth chapter of 1 Corinthians. And read these words. “He who is joined to a harlot becomes one body with her, as it is written, the two shall become one flesh.” Then he goes on the very next verse. “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”1150 ¶27

He takes the most graphic picture in the world, which is at the beginning of it all, to show you the greatest story ever told. Man, who is united to the Spirit through the Lord, becomes one spirit with Him. And He shows you this other story. He is in love with what He represents, what He stands for. He has incandescent eyes. He would love to have these eyes, love to be able to see into the world of eternity, into the world of thought, and see reality as against what this shadow world shows. And he actually touched her, he actually knew her, and it was completed. For one is actually receiving the gift of that which he believes the other to possess.1150 ¶28

When God embraced me, he was a father, he was love, he was power, he was wisdom. And as he embraced me and I fused with him, for then he transferred to me all that he is, that was his gift to me, that was his grace upon me. He gave me fatherhood. So in time his son stood before me and called me Father, he being the father of humanity, humanity being personified as a single being called David. David transformed and called himself. He, being loved by all beings, transformed itself into that, growing more and more into that form of love.1150 ¶29

So in his case he actually was drawn to one he admired for her spiritual qualities. And here a union took place. So she transferred to him what he sees in her as a spiritual quality. On this level, no, he would be completely annoyed with himself, even to entertain the thought. But you see, in the depths of one’s soul there’s nothing that is wrong, and all these things unfold within the being. So I can say to him, you’re blessed. Blessed because he is one that is blessed.1150 ¶30

And if she seems to be the one who drew you into the story, and you actually, you said, I actually felt right about there, yet on reflection I felt faint about it, I’ve got to get it off my chest, I’ve been wrestling for the last two weeks, now it must come to the surface and get it off, in the air. And so he tells me the film. I tell you that you are blessed.1150 ¶31

As I am used in my capacity today, in the same strange manner, as a man called Neville on this level, I’m totally unaware of these contacts, but in the depths of my soul, I know. On Wednesday morning, I tried to show a few of you, about four or five of you, something, and you would not even look. I saw the most glorious sky, the most heavenly blue, and these lovely streaks across the sky making them fantastic patterns. And you would not, or you could not, look at it. And here I’m trying to show you the garment that I wear, and you saw a book about the size of this little lectern, just about the size of this. You could only see it reflected on the flat surface of a book. And I’m trying to show you the difference between this cubic reality and that surface that depicts it, and how different this living, cubic reality is from that surface that only depicts it. But you would not look up. You either would not or could not look up. And this living garment occupied the entire sky, this heavenly blue, and then against the heavenly blue, streaks of transparent white clouds. But what a pattern. But it was not just a cloud. It was a living garment, a living garment. And I tried so hard to get you to look, but you would not look.1150 ¶32

So here, in this state, I tell him that he is blessed. Don’t be afraid or be ashamed to tell me any story of that nature, because it doesn’t mean what it seems to mean on this level. In the depth of your own being, all these things that seem here to be immoral are not immoral at all.1150 ¶33

When I embraced the Heavenly Father, or the other embraced me, that was union, that was baptism by the Holy Spirit, and it was an actual creative act. And then I was sent into the world to do what I am doing. A little water on your head, that’s not baptism, that’s only a shadow. That’s what you saw when you looked at the little book, to see reflected on the little figure the size of this what the whole vast sky will do. How could you do it?1150 ¶34

So I tell you, you and I came out, came down into this world, and assumed these garments of flesh and blood. These are the crosses that Christ bears. Christ is buried in us. And Christ must rise in us. And the only cross he ever wore is the cross of humanity, and this is his cross, and we are the grave. And he will rise in us. When he rises in us, not as another, he rises in us as ourselves. He actually rises as your own wonderful human being. And then you are completely transformed.1150 ¶35

Now they asked Paul, and Paul said, some will say to me, “How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?” Paul only answers in this manner. He wears the body that is given to him by God. God gives him a body that he has chosen, but he doesn’t define the body and describe the body. May I tell you from my own experience, it’s a body of light. It seems a body of fire, fiery light in air. You don’t even touch the ground.1150 ¶36

But the thing that you really inherit, Paul is talking about, you inherit a body. He said we are heirs. If I’m an heir, I’m an heir to something. I’m going to inherit something. And he calls it the estate. But the estate is a body. That body in which you are clothed, when you are raised from the dead, makes everything perfect wherever you are. You inherit a body, and wherever you go, everything is perfect. Nothing can remain imperfect in your presence. So heaven is not a realm. Heaven is a body. You actually inherit the kingdom of heaven. You inherit a body.1150 ¶37

And if I came into hell, instantly hell is transformed into heaven. If I walked through the desert, they would all blossom. Instantly blossom. All the grains would turn into flowers, that so-called sand. If I walked through the petrified forest, these dead trees would burst into flowers, burst into blooms. Wherever you go, nothing remains imperfect. You could go into, as I did, among all the blind, the halt, the withered, the shrunken, and as I walked by everyone became perfect. The blind who had no eyes, eyes came out of nowhere and filled these empty sockets. Arms that were missing came back and filled the so-called missing area. And those who could not walk jumped, and those who could not speak spoke. And everything was made perfect as I simply walked by. And yet I did not raise one finger to do anything. It wasn’t even compassion on my part. I simply walked by, clothed in that garment. And that garment is perfect. And because it is perfect, nothing can remain imperfect in its presence. That’s what you’re going to inherit.1150 ¶38

But with what body do they come? The body that God has chosen for them. I tell you that body is perfect. I can only describe it as something that is altogether different, yet no loss of identity. I will know you in eternity. Yet you are transformed, and the body isn’t flesh and blood. It’s simply a living, pulsing, radiant body, a body of light. But it’s perfect. And as you walk by, among anyone, the minute you walk by, they’re transformed. They have to be perfect because you’re perfect. And if you made your bed in hell, hell ceases to be. As far as you’re concerned, it’s heaven. Everything is transformed wherever you go, and you do not raise a finger to make it so. It’s all done.1150 ¶39

So I tell you what is in store for you, and I’m speaking from experience. I know. I am not speculating. I am not theorizing. He rose in me, not as another, but he rose in me. He didn’t stand there, he rose in me. But how do I know he rose in me? For the same thing that is recorded in Scripture concerning him is now my experience. The same thing happened in me.1150 ¶40

Indeed, was it not said of him, when they went, that this event had taken place, you’ll find a little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes? Or they came, they didn’t see me, as you’re told in Scripture, the tomb was empty, the body was removed, but him they did not see. Why? Because you are spirit. But you are aware of all that is transpiring, all that is taking place.1150 ¶41

Did David not call him my Lord? For David called me my Lord. Did he not say the Son of Man must rise like a fiery serpent, in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness? For the same thing happened in me. And not a serpent rose, I was a serpent, a fiery serpent, that rose.1150 ¶42

Was it not said of him that the Holy Spirit would be seen in the form of a dove and remain upon him? What had happened in me, and when he came among the people, did they recognize him? No. Did they believe the story? They said no, it sounded like an idle tale, and they did not believe it. And then he says to them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written concerning the Son of Man. And then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. They still did not recognize him. And then, as he walked, he wanted to go beyond, and they said, “Remain with us,” and he remained with them, and then suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished out of their sight. And then he says to them, all that is written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.1150 ¶43

So you’re here for one purpose, to fulfill God’s word, that you may become awake as to who you are. And when you come awake to who you are, you realize you are God himself, for it was his purpose in the beginning to give you himself. He couldn’t give you himself if you could not inherit him, unless he died. For God, God dies. “Unless I die, thou canst not live. But if I die, I shall arise again, and thou with me.” So he dies, and then you become God. So God lives, because you actually inherit God. So the whole vast world is simply God unfolding, with nothing but God in the world. Nothing but God.1150 ¶44

He is buried in you now, and he is dreaming the life that you are experiencing. And the day is going to come, and I hope soon, when he will awake within you. And may I tell you, when he awakes, oh, what an earthquake, what a quake, your whole head. You’ve experienced the last quake. Death is a little tiny shake compared to what’s going to happen in you. Your head will shake as you’ve never known an earthquake. And every bone you see in you is coming apart. But instead of coming apart, you find yourself waking. And you wake within the tomb of your own skull, and you’re all alone, and you come out. And it’s exactly what you do to get out, and you do it. You roll away the stone. All done by you. No one else rolls the stone away. You push, and the stone rolls away. And you come out of that garment.1150 ¶45

And then everything that is said in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ is taking place around you, and you are the invisible one observing the entire thing. Even the witnesses who come to witness what the angel says. “Go, and you’ll find the little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.” And there’s the infant. And they call you by name, and they ask whose infant it is. So you know who was born, because you actually came out of that tomb.1150 ¶46

And then you tell it, tell it to those who are here to listen, because they are going to follow you in your footsteps. And you will not be better than they, because you preceded them, not for one moment are you better, because you can’t be better than God. So no one is better than another, because he precedes it in the order he called in his own order, and there’s no desire on your part to be better than anyone in the world, because we are all one. It’s only God, and God is one.1150 ¶47

So God became as we are, that we may be as God is. And to become as we are, we have to die, completely forget who we are, in becoming man. So I tell you, the stories, all the stories of Scripture are all about you. You were chosen in the beginning. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, as we are told in Ephesians. That was our cause.1150 ¶48

But he came down for a purpose. He didn’t know that we actually inherited the world. We were like the first son who remained and didn’t come out, and complained when something was given to another. And when the Father said, “Son, you’re with me always, and all that is mine is yours,” he still was not pacified, because he didn’t understand that it was all his.1150 ¶49

But you and I came out, and we go through hell. We are slaves in this world. Slaves to the body that we wear. I must feed it, clothe it, shelter it, and even if I’m out of a job, I still have to shelter it, clothe it, and feed it. I must not only assimilate the food, I must expel what I can’t assimilate, and I’m a slave of the body that I wear. If you analyze what man has to do to keep this thing going, this cross that he wears, well, it is really repulsive. If you actually take it into consideration and think what you have to do morning, noon, and night with this body, it is a very repulsive thing. And here I am a slave of it.1150 ¶50

And I remain a slave until I awaken within it and come out. And then a body has been prepared for me, and that body is perfect. And clothed in that body, I am no longer naked. Here we think we are very well clothed, with all the fashions of the world. We are called naked in Scripture until that body becomes our body, as you are told in the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, the fifth chapter, the very first three verses. If you are not clothed in this, you are naked. No matter what fashion you wear, you’re naked in this. And one must have that heavenly garment, not made with hands, in order to be properly clothed.1150 ¶51

For one day you’ll get it. Everyone is going to get it. No one can fail, because God is doing it. And God will clothe himself as you in the garment that he chose for you.1150 ¶52

Now I am not saying that everyone is going to have the identical. No, I’m not saying that at all. I know I will know you. Because, when on the morning I called attention for five or six seconds to look up, you knew me. You heard me, and you could only look down and see the reflection of what I’m looking at, reflected on a page. I was trying to tell you how different the cubic reality that I’m observing is from the plain depiction of it, that you were observing on something the size of this. But you wouldn’t look up, or maybe you couldn’t look up, but I could only see that garment. It took in the entire sky, a heavenly blue as a background, and beautiful patterns made out of transparent white clouds. But you saw the reflection on a flat page. But the day will come, all will be clothed in these garments. And these are called the garments of glory. But Paul said, “I do not consider the sufferings of the present time worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the whole creation groans, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God.”1150 ¶53

Thank you very much. Tonight’s subject is the secret of imagining, that is really the secret of God, for God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The Eternal Body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. So when we speak of the secret of imagining, we are speaking of the secret of God. So I will use the terms tonight in the order in which they are described in scripture. the secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which everyone should aspire. Now these are the terms that Paul uses in his description of Christ in his first letter to Corinthians: supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight. They lie in the solution of this mystery, for Paul describes Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God, and the Book of Proverbs describes Christ (called the Messiah there) as the Delight of God. So here, the supreme power is the discoverer of the great mystery of imagining. So tonight I hope I can add some light to this wonderful mystery, because if you find it, you’ve found the secret of God’s creative activity.1149 ¶1

We are told of so many writers having experienced it. Take our late president, Herbert Hoover. He said, “Human history, its many forms of government, its revolutions, its wars, and in fact the rise and fall of nations, could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the minds of men.” Now here’s a man speaking who sat in our highest office in this world. If you could only control the imaginations of men—but who can control it when that is God himself? You are free to imagine anything in this world, and no power in the world can stop it if you persist in that imaginal activity. But we are not disciplined; we are diverted. Propaganda controls the motion of our imaginal activity. You read the morning paper, you turn on the radio, you turn on TV, and you’re diverted. If you could only imagine the state desired, go to the very end and dwell in the end as though it were true, and remain faithful to the end in a way that no one knows, it would objectify itself in your world, for objective reality is solely produced through imagining. That is God himself. So when I speak of imagining, I’m speaking of the creative power of God.1149 ¶2

I’m speaking of Christ, that is the creative power of God, that is the wisdom of God, that is the Delight of God. Man, not knowing that he thinks in terms of a person, not knowing that he himself is the first in whom God dwells, has to discover God within himself. When he discovers God within himself, he’s still a person, but he discovers God as his own wonderful human imagination. That is God. And he discovers, if he observes what he’s doing, that all of his imaginal activities do eventually become objective facts. But man’s memory is so faulty, he can’t quite relate his own imaginal activities to the harvest that he sees in his world that he’s compelled to reap.1149 ¶3

Here is a very so-called wise man, wise in the use of the English tongue. His books are almost in all the universities of the world. I know that in almost all the English libraries of the world. He’s gone from this world now. I knew him quite well; he was a sheer delight as a dinner companion. He changed his opinion in later years, yes. But back in the ’30s when he wrote Ends and Means, this is what he said, and this is all the substance. He said, “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning. Consequently, I assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.”1149 ¶4

He assumed it had none. But one night I came out of the Ebell Theatre, having given my lecture there, and I looked into the hills of Hollywood, and here the whole hill is aflame. Houses—how many? I think there were 40 burned that night. One of the 40 was Aldous Huxley, his home. In it he had these priceless manuscripts. He had manuscripts not published by D. H. Lawrence that were given to him by Lawrence. He had his own manuscripts, and a priceless library, plus lovely pieces of art that members of his family had done. He had so many intellectual giants in his family tree, both on the male side and the female side, and he fell heir to so many lovely things: pieces of sculpture, paintings, and these wonderful manuscripts. Everything went right down to ash. Not one thing was saved but the suit on his back.1149 ¶5

So he had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning, and he consequently assumed that it had none, and then had no difficulty in finding satisfying reasons for this assumption. That was plenty, and seemingly forgotten, but it was recorded in his book, written in the ’30s, called Ends and Means. He went about his business, changing his opinion from time to time, but that had to come to fruition. So, “Be not deceived,” said Paul, “for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” Will you sow with your imaginal activity? Whatever man is imagining, that is what he is sowing. And when the time is right for its fulfillment, it comes to pass. And all that he held so dear in the latter days of his life turned into ash. It had no meaning. The world had no meaning to him. They were priceless then, and he intended to give them to one of our universities here on the West Coast, either USC or UCLA, for that’s what he told me. And then the whole thing collapsed, all turned to ash.1149 ¶6

Our whole vast world is what we are imaginatively pushed out, and there’s nothing but God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. We are told in the Book of John, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, and who believed in his name, he gave power to become sons of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Not a physical birth, not from the fashion of blood and flesh, but of God. God is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s where the birth takes place, from above, out of your own skull, out of your own wonderful human imagination.1149 ¶7

Now Jeremiah, whose name means ‘Jehovah will rise’. In this passage taken from the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, you will see that the Lord God Jehovah is your own wonderful human imagination. “And the Lord said to me”—this is just Jeremiah speaking in vision—“And the Lord said unto me, ‘Arise, go down to The Potter’s House, and there I will let you hear my word.’ So I went down to The Potter’s House, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel made of clay was spoiled in his hand. So he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the Potter to do.”1149 ¶8

Now, the word translated ‘Potter’ in the Biblical concordance is Imagination—“to form into a mold, to make a resolution, to determine.” Now in the book of Isaiah, the 64th chapter: “O Lord, Thou art our Potter; we are the work of thy hand.” The Lord is the Potter. So I go down to the Potter, and the Potter means imagination. Where do I go to see the Potter and what he’s doing? Do I not go into my imagination to see what I am doing, my resolutions, my determinations, what I have decided to make of myself? Being the Lord, and all things are possible to the Lord, do I have to take account of what is around me, where I was born, my background—my social, intellectual, financial, or any other background? No, not if all things are possible to God, and God is my imagination.1149 ¶9

So I will ask myself, “What am I imagining concerning myself, and concerning the things round about me?” If I believe for one moment you are responsible for my well-being, I transfer the power that belongs to God, which is myself, to you. If I believe for one moment that you could stop me in my progress towards the fulfillment of my desire, then I transfer it to that which is not God, for God is my own wonderful human imagination. So I will go down to The Potter’s House and see what he is doing.1149 ¶10

So I go down to The Potter’s House, and there he is working at his wheel, and the vessel in his hand was spoiled. The concept that I hold of myself is not that which I would like to be; it is spoiled. So I don’t throw it away. I don’t commit suicide. I don’t discard myself. I rework The Vessel. The very vessel that I held in my hand, I rework it into the entire different form that I resolve to be, the man that I want to be. That man now I assume that I am. And so, having assumed that I am it, I remain faithful to my assumption, and my assumption, in a way that no one knows, eventually objectifies itself and becomes an external fact in my life. And the world will say, “How lucky he is,” “How lucky,” not knowing that imagination (who is God) and faith are the stuff out of which the whole vast world is made.1149 ¶11

So in my imagination I simply assume that I am the man that I want to be. Having assumed it, I remain faithful to my assumption, knowing that the assumption, though false at the moment that I made the assumption, for it was denied by my senses, denied by reason, but if I persist in the assumption, it will harden into fact in a way that no one knows. I do not have to work out the means; it simply happens because the whole vast world is myself pushed out. And anyone who can aid the birth of that assumption will be compelled to aid the birth of that assumption. I don’t need to pull them one by one and say, “You play this part, and you play that part.” They all have to play the part that they must play to bring to birth that which I have assumed that I am, or for that matter, assume that another one is. If I so love another to be concerned and wish for that other something noble in this world, I do for the other what I’m doing for myself, because it is myself only pushed out, that’s all. For the whole vast world is within me, only the imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space.1149 ¶12

Now we are told in Scripture, “Wherever the sole of your foot will tread, the same I have given to you.” Listen to the tense: you haven’t entered the state as yet, but before you enter the state, it was already given. You have to go and appropriate it. It’s already given, for eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation, which was an act of mercy. So the whole vast world of good, evil, exist. So I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in supreme state, but to be every one of them states into which the soul may fall in its dream of Good and Evil.1149 ¶13

So it doesn’t really know what it’s doing. It falls into this by reading the paper, it falls into that by turning on the radio, it falls into this by listening to something else or a rumor or a friend bringing some news, and so it is moved from one state into another state. It may be a good state or an evil state. But imagination, may I tell you, waits upon us as indifferently and as swiftly when the will in us is evil as when it is good. “I create the good and the evil.” Listen to these words taken from Deuteronomy: “I, even I, am he. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal, and there is no God beside me; I know not any, and none can deliver out of my hand.” Read it in the 32nd of Deuteronomy; I think you’ll find at the 39th verse.1149 ¶14

Here, there’s nothing but God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. Now you’re told, “Test me and say, ‘Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless of course you fail to meet the test?’” Read it in the 13th of 2 Corinthians, the 5th verse. Jesus Christ is in you, and who is Jesus Christ? He is defined as the power of God and the wisdom of God—that in First Corinthians, 1st chapter, the 24th verse. There you will find the power of God is imagining. Imagination is God. God In Action is Christ, and Christ is your own being imagining. So what are you imagining? It’s going to come to pass. Let no one tell you that it will not. It will come to pass if you persist in the imaginal acts.1149 ¶15

Everything in this world is God made visible, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. So God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The Eternal Body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. So in you dwells the creative power of God, which is imagining, and you can’t stop it. Whether you wake in this world or sleep tonight, you are imagining. The whole thing is simply all taking place within you. And the day will come that you will awake to the fact that you are God the Father, you who seem so little in this world, so insignificant. One day you will awake to know who you really are, and you are God the Father. And as God the Father, you must have a son, and his son is your son, and his son stands before you and calls you Father. I will tell you now who that son is.1149 ¶16

The son is David. David is the Messiah. David is the Christed one. Jesus is Jehovah, that is the Lord God Jehovah, and his name forever and forever is I AM. “That is my name forever and forever, and all generations must know me by this name.” He will first display himself not by that name. He will display himself as power, El Shaddai, God Almighty. But you’re not knowing him as he really is until you really see him as infinite love. Infinite love with all the horrors in the world, and he and he alone creates everything, and yet he’s infinite love. Yes, you’ll meet him one day. You’ll meet love, and love wears a human form, for God is Man and Man is God. So you will stand in the presence of God and his infinite love, and yet by him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made, because he waits on us as indifferently and as swiftly when the will in us is evil as when it is good. He created a tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, so you eat on it, and whatever you eat, you become quickly.1149 ¶17

And as far as the Lord is concerned, your imagination, it’s indifferent to him whether you eat the good or the evil, for these are infinite states that you eat, and you fall into these states, and you pay the price of the state that you ate. So be careful what you are imagining. I don’t care what the world will tell you that you should imagine. You can use your own discretion as to what you should imagine.1149 ¶18

When you go into a restaurant, you don’t say, “Bring me some food.” You say, “Bring me a menu,” and you select from the menu what you want. You don’t go into a store: “Bring me a suit.” “Bring me a dress.” You select from some wonderful display what you want. No matter what you buy, just a razor blade. They may have a sale on a certain blade and try to sell you oodles of them. You say, “No, I just want a certain blade. If you have it, I will buy it from you. If you don’t have it, I will go elsewhere.” You don’t buy the most insignificant thing in this world without being selective. You select everything in this world. I hope you do. When you picked your bride, you selected her among all the millions of the world. And when she selected her husband, she picked you among all the millions of the world. So you picked what you wanted. I hope you did.1149 ¶19

I know that’s what I did. The second time. I made a horrible mistake the first time, so did she in picking me. But the second time I picked her just as I wanted her, and it was perfect, and it’s worked out beautifully.1149 ¶20

So I say to everyone, be selective in everything you do in this world and imagine it. What would you want of life? Don’t say “how.” “What is it possible for me to have?” All things are possible to God. He puts no restraint; there is no limitation on the power of imagining. “Whoever believes that what he says will come to pass, it shall be done for him.” That’s what we are told. “Therefore, when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will.” There is no limitation on that power, and that power is only your own wonderful human imagination.1149 ¶21

So don’t burn your house down years from now because you want the world to have no meaning. Stop that nonsense. Because when he wanted it more than anything in the world—for I knew his first wife, and I also knew the second wife—and the second wife got him the way those who have been coming to my meetings got many of their mates. She came to my meetings and she set her heart on Aldous. She told me herself and told him in my presence, “This is exactly how I met you, because I went to bed knowing, after your wife died and you were now a widower, that I am going to be your wife.” So she became his wife, and he simply gave up all the dark places where he lived, because he was practically blind, and his first wife, to protect his eyes, had all the curtains drawn. Everything was dark. He lived on King’s Road. When I first went there, I wondered, “Where am I? The whole thing is so dark.” All the lights were dim, little tiny lights. When he married the second time, she moved to the top of the hills of Hollywood, and everything was glass and light, nothing but, and he loved it. When he had everything moved in and was enjoying it, the whole thing collapsed to dust.1149 ¶22

This is how the Law acts. It’s not retribution. It’s simply showing you what you’ve done. Everything that happens to me is happening because I did it unto myself. I don’t care what it is, I cannot draw unto myself anything other than what I’m imagining in my own wonderful human imagination. So, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked.” What God? My imagination. It was planted there, and he’s going to bring it to fulfillment because he is life. He’s going to give life to that which I simply planted. But all in its own good time. “Be patient. The vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens. It will flow. If it be long, you wait for it, for it is sure and it will not be late.” That’s in Habakkuk. You find that in our wonderful book of Habakkuk here. It will not be late.1149 ¶23

But every little planted seed has a different interval of time between the planting and its fulfillment. So today you assume a certain state of grandeur, of love, of kindness, whatever you want to be in this world. It has its own appointed hour, and then in time it will come to fruition, and you will reap it because you planted it. It’s all yours. And even if you should just go this very moment from this world, you haven’t left the world. You’ve left this as a section of time, but not the world. For you are restored to life in a body just like this, but young, unaccountably new, about 20, to continue the journey. And all the things you planted, you will be reaping. They all will come up because you planted them, and they cannot be reaped by another. You planted them, and they will come.1149 ¶24

For the world is not confined to three dimensions. This world of ours is complete, and it’s vast and it’s big in sections of time. You leave one section and you find yourself in another. And these events will come into your world, not a progression like, dropped today in 1970 to find yourself in 1970. You could drop in 1970 and find yourself in the year 3000, or the year 1000. Makes no difference whether you jump forward or jump back. All these things will come into your world, and you will find yourself quite at home, leaving here and finding yourself in the year 3000, or leaving here and finding yourself in the year 1000. And the world continues. You continue until He awakes within you.1149 ¶25

When He awakes within you, you are God the Father, and you know it only through one means: when His son calls you Father. For “no one knows who the son is except the father, and no one knows who the father is except the son.”1149 ¶26

So when you hear people telling you, “Oh, I know who Jesus Christ is,” you say, “You do? But who are they?” Well, they’re one. They would say, “Well, then, who is Jesus Christ?” “Do you know who he is?” A good Christian will tell you, “Well, yes, I know that he is the Son of God.” Then you can say to the good Christian who knows that Christ is the Son of God, “Then you must be God.” Because only the Father knows the Son, and if you know the Son, then you must know that you are the Father. You’ll startle him because of his ignorance. He doesn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know the Son unless he were the Father and fully conscious of being the Father.1149 ¶27

So when you know who you are, you will know who the Son is. But they come… it comes spontaneously and automatically at the same moment in time. You do not know you are God the Father until the Son stands before you, and then memory returns. And as memory returns, there is no uncertainty as to this relationship: “Here is my son. I simply had amnesia. I didn’t know. To all these senses, I had been dreaming, and I didn’t know.” Now here comes my son, and God awakes within you, and you are God the Father. While you are here in the world of Caesar, not knowing who you are, a Law is given to you, and that Law is what I’m talking about tonight.1149 ¶28

So how would I apply it? I must first have an objective. To reach my objective, I must know what I’m imagining, at least in the end. In the words of Robert Frost, just before he made his exit from this world, this is what he said: “Our founding fathers did not believe in the future. They believed it in.” The most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in.1149 ¶29

For you go to the end, remain in the end as though it were true, and if you remain faithful to the end, means will unfold to externalize their ends. So they did not believe in the future as we are taught in our schools, to believe that our founding fathers had an idea and then believed in the future. No, they believed it in. They dwelt in the end and wrought their wonder, and dwelt in the end. A complete break with the entire past. They were not lifting anything from other parts of the world. A complete different concept of democracy. The most difficult form of government in the world, but to this day, the best. Nothing comparable to it, but the most difficult. When everything is easy in a dictatorship: shooting. “Don’t believe in him? Shoot him.” Appropriate the power and then destroy all opposition. But not in democracy.1149 ¶30

When you and I can do what I’m doing now, I have the freedom to tell you what I’m telling you, and no one is going to arrest me for what I’m saying, in complete contradiction to what is being taught this day in the churches of our world. I am telling you that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and the man spoken of is you. You are the Christ who exercises his power wisely or unwisely. So you are crucifying him morning, noon, and night by your misuse of this power. These are the blows that you give to Christ. Every time that you exercise your imagination unlovingly on behalf of anyone in this world, you are abusing Christ, for you’re abusing the creative power of God. And then you are free to do it.1149 ¶31

I tell you, try it. You just take the most glorious concepts of yourself in this world, and having assumed that what I want to be, I don’t ask anyone for permission. You assume that you are it. Sleep in it just as though it were true, wake in it just as though it is true, and then go to work just as though it’s true, and you will find the whole vast world remolding itself in harmony with your assumption. When you reflect upon it, you are amazed at the bridge of incident that came into being, across which you moved to fulfill that state. You have no idea how this whole thing came into being. But that wonderful unfolding picture, as you reflect upon it, seems so natural. It seems so natural. You will say to yourself, “It would have happened anyway.” That’s how natural it happens. But it would not have happened in eternity had you not assumed the end and lived in the end just as though it were true.1149 ¶32

So the secret of imagining is to conjure in your wonderful Mind’s Eye a scene which would imply that you are the one that you want to be. Enact it in your imagination just as though it’s true. Give it all the tones of reality. Give it sense vividness, as taught us in the scriptures. “Come near, my son, that I may feel you. Your voice sounds like Jacob, but come close.” And Jacob comes close, and he felt the hair, which belonged to Esau, Esau being the external world. “You sound like Jacob, but you feel and you have the odor of my son Esau.” Then he pronounced a blessing upon him. And just as he gave him the blessing to be real in this world, then comes Esau and discovers the deception, that his subjective state had taken the place of the objective state. And the father said, “I blessed him. I cannot retake my blessing.” Even though he came through deception and deceived you, “I can’t take it. Can’t take it back.”1149 ¶33

So here is my Esau. My outer world is Esau, but I don’t like what I’m experiencing in the outer world. But I would like to continue in the outer world with a different experience. So I close my eyes to the obvious. I construct a scene which would imply that this is taking this position. It has supplanted this world. I’m no longer the man that I was. I am now the man that I always wanted to be. So I bring that into my mind’s eye, and I reenact it in my mind’s eye, and give it the tone of reality and give it sense vividness by putting my hand upon it and touching it. And then, when I’m thinking from this state now, having given it all that I can of reality, I open my eyes. It vanishes, and this returns. But I say to myself, “I gave it the right of birth.” Apologizing to you, but you must vanish now. My present state that I dislike must now vanish from my world, and the state that seemingly at the moment is unseen will come into being and take the place of the present outward world. For this is the story of Esau and Jacob. Jacob is the supplanter, the subjective inner State. And this is the outer state of Esau.1149 ¶34

Now here I am, thinking from this room. Here is an important point in the secret of imagining: I’m always thinking from a state. If I don’t like the state that I am seeing and that I’m experiencing, for then what state would I like to be in? Assume, conceive it in your mind’s eye, and assume it. Now view the world from that state. It’s all the difference in the world between thinking from a state and thinking of a state. I’m always thinking from. And most of the time we’re thinking of. Of is, at the moment, subjective. From is objective. I take the state I am thinking of and bring it into my consciousness now and think from it. As I think from it, I am clothing it in reality. I’m giving it the tones of reality.1149 ¶35

And when I open my eyes, it vanishes, just as you are told in Genesis that he vanished. “A minute ’til everyone returns.” And so the father says, “He deceived me, but I gave him the right of birth, and I cannot take it back.” So I give that state from which I view the world the right of birth, and it has to come to pass.1149 ¶36

These are the secrets of imagining, or the secrets of God. And the secret of God is Christ, and Christ is imagination. It’s the power of God, it’s the wisdom of God, but it takes a man to express the power of God, because God and man are one. He exists in me and I exist in God. The Eternal Body of God is your imagination. That actually is God himself.1149 ¶37

Now you take it and try it and put it to the extreme test. Don’t let anyone interfere with you. If you feel you are not at the moment strong enough to do it without discussion, be quiet. Don’t talk to anyone. Just do it. I could tell you a number of stories of those who never discussed it with others—not that discussion would have spoiled it, but they did not feel that others would understand and think them mentally a little bit off, and not wanting to feel that they were simply not within the norm of the stream of normal life. They simply held it to themselves, and everything that they imagined has come to pass.1149 ¶38

But strangely enough, people, not knowing the deeper secrets of scripture, when they bring into the world all the things that they have, they forget how they brought it in and try to protect it with outer things. They have all the things in the outer world to protect it now, when they brought the whole thing in by their own wonderful human imagination. So they will say, “I brought in all these millions into my world, and here I have them,” and then they start insuring it beyond measure, to protect it against fire, to protect it against robbery, to protect against that, when the whole thing came in without any help from anyone in the world. It just came because night after night and day after day they lived their life in imagination. And having lived it and brought it all to birth, now they’re going to protect it with the things of Caesar. And Caesar and his whole crowd are all as mad as hatters.1149 ¶39

Any man who, having brought it into birth, who then turns to the world of Caesar to protect it, is simply confessing he doesn’t really believe in Christ. Yet these of whom I speak, they will be told, “Yes, I’m a Christian.” “You’re a Christian, are you? Do you believe your imaginal acts are facts?” “Oh, no.” “Then you do not believe in Christ.” For he is the power of God, and God is your imagination. If you do not believe in God’s power, you do not believe in your own imagining, and his… your imagining is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So you do not know Christ. You only know a false Christ, something that the Ancients painted and perpetuated through the years. So they have some icons and they call that Christ.1149 ¶40

When you meet him, he’s just like you, for you are he. You are the being spoken of in scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ, but he sleeps. One day he must awake. When he awakes in you, you are the God the Father, for the secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which everyone should aspire. Why? Because supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lie in the solution of this mystery. So when you actually solve this mystery, you have solved the secret of God’s creative power. You have found Christ. And you don’t find him unless you solve this mystery. And then when you find him and find the power of Christ, he unveils himself as you because his Son calls you Father, and then you know it beyond all doubt. You know who stands before you, and you know this infinite relationship between Father and Son.1149 ¶41

But I haven’t met anyone who wears the cloth who will accept it. They have not been taught it. They’re giving me the tradition. They tell me what they had heard in school. So they speak from theory, and I’m speaking from experience. I am not theorizing; I am not here to theorize. I am telling you what I know. My certainty is assured. I know because I have experienced it.1149 ¶42

When you go out tonight, believe it is God going through the door as you go through the door, not the little garment that you wear. That’s dust; it’ll return to dust. But I said earlier, if you follow me closely, “God is Man,” and I capitalize the word Man, “and exists in us.” That Man is the inner man that exists in this outer man. This is the Esau. There is an inner man, and that inner man is called in scripture Jacob. That’s his first name, and his name was changed to Israel. The word Israel means the man who rules as God. Not like a God, as God. As Israel, then he goes through and finally comes to complete fulfillment in the one known as Christ. That is the story. The outer man will return to the dust. The inner man is Immortal, and that inner man is your own wonderful human imagination, and that is God himself.1149 ¶43

Now when you go, trust in God. Trust in your own imagining. Imagine noble things, lovely things. I don’t care what the world will tell you what it looks like. You continue in your lovely concept of what it ought to be, but begin with self. Live in an all-wonderful, noble life. What’s wrong with being, you name it? I don’t care what you want in this world, how precious it may be in the eyes of others. They start being beyond your right or beyond your ability to achieve it. If you can simply assume that you have it, well then, let it be. It will be done for you, for ways and means will unfold that you will not consciously determine. You only determine the end. I dwell in the end, and living in the end, I create the means to the fulfillment of that end.1149 ¶44

Now let us go into the silence for a moment, and then we’ll have some questions.1149 ¶45

Good. Now, any questions, please? The subject next time will be: He is Dreaming Now. Now, do we have any questions?1149 ¶46