In this lecture dated March 17, 1972, Neville Goddard explores the concept of ends—ultimate and temporary—and how understanding the intended outcome gives meaning to all preceding experiences. He draws on biblical passages from Isaiah, Psalms, and John to illustrate that divine revelation is an unpredictable, first-person event arising from within. God is equated with the “I AM” of individual consciousness, and true transformation happens when one experiences this presence singularly. Goddard contrasts seeking salvation from without with an inner awakening where one recognizes their identity as both Son and Father, reflecting the compound unity of Elohim. He teaches that temporary ends involve assuming the feeling of a desired state and remaining faithful until the external world aligns, sharing personal anecdotes to demonstrate how apparent setbacks serve the fulfillment of one’s vision. Ultimately, he emphasizes that all human trials are the furnaces preparing the soul for sudden revelation.
I think you’ll find tonight an interesting night, for we are taking ends, the ultimate end and then the temporary ends. For it is the end that gives meaning to all that goes before. The Psalmist said, “Lord, let me know my end and the number of my days.” We read, “Fear not, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom of Heaven.” That’s the ultimate end. In giving you the Kingdom of Heaven, he gives you himself, for you can equate heaven with God. God is able to give himself to all of us, to each of us.
And the gift comes suddenly and without warning, after the tribulation of human experience. He said, “I have tried you in the furnaces of affliction for my own sake; for my own sake, I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory, I will not give to another.” And when we read the story in the book of Exodus, we see that glory and God are equated: “I’ll make my glory to pass before you. And when I pass by, so the I and glory are synonymous.” He cannot give himself to another. So, the furnaces are simply to change man into himself. He became as I am, that I may be as he is. And so, I pass through the tribulation of human experience and then the end comes suddenly. The event comes in unique and unpredictable ways. Man thinks you can discover the way without having experienced it; you can’t do it. For when you experience it, listen to the words carefully now, taken from the 48th chapter of Isaiah, the third verse: “The former things I declared, although they went forth from my mouth, I made them known. Then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.”
Now here, the one proclaiming what is going to be done, his intention; but no one could fulfill it. He had to fulfill it himself. So, if he would give me himself, he has to fulfill it in me. So, when this unpredictable, unique event takes place, it takes place in the first person, single tense, in me. And it comes suddenly without warning. So, when I actually experience the gift of God to me, it isn’t someone on the outside giving me something; he rises within me, and rising within me, he gives himself to me. Then I know who I am. And he set the entire thing out for us in his word. If I have heard, undoubtedly you have heard too. You’ve heard preachers claim that they met Jesus and they’re waiting for him to return. I know I have heard them. I dare say you have; if you haven’t actually heard them as I did, then you read their words, claiming that they actually met him in spirit. And then you ask them, and they are going to tell me who is Jesus and they’ll reply, well, Jesus is the Son of God.
Then you can say to them, if you know Scripture, if you met him and you saw him and you say he is the Son of God, well, then you must be God. They’ll be startled, shocked, and think that you are blaspheming. And yet we are told that no one knows the Son except the Father, for if they know him and they met him, they must be the Father. If they met him, and they claimed they met him, well, then they must be God the Father. I can tell you, you can say right into their face, you are a liar; some grand hallucination, because you cannot meet him from without. When you know God, you know him through his Son and you want me to know him through Jesus.
Jesus is the Father and David is the Son. When you meet David, you know that he is your Son and because he is God’s Son, then you know who you are. And there’s no other way to know God, it’s the only way; it comes in unique and unpredictable ways, the entire story of Scripture. So, “The former things I declared are old, they went forth from my mouth and I made them known when suddenly I acted and they came to pass.” Read it in the 40th chapter of Isaiah and the word Isaiah simply means, Jehovah says. It’s the same meaning as the word Jesus. The same meaning as the word Jehovah. Jehovah is salvation. Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. The word Jesus and Jehovah are interchangeable terms. No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.
And who is the Holy Spirit? The remembrancer. He will bring to your remembrance all that I have said unto you. So, when it comes, then all of a sudden it awakens within you. He told you what he will do. He’s going to give himself to you. It is his purpose in life. His intention is to give himself to all of us, but to each of us, not collectively, but to each of us, he comes to us individually. And when he comes, he isn’t coming from without he is coming from within for he is buried within and he rises within. So here now we are facing a day, two weeks from today, I think it is, when they all celebrate. I shouldn’t use the word “celebrate” because it would be very sad about the day, because they do not know the day. It’s called crucifixion and they will simply remember the day. What day? 2,000 years ago? No, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. And one man fell and became fragmented into unnumbered beings, all sons, and then comes the great affliction, the great tribulation of human experience. And then he calls us back one by one. But when we return, we are the one who fell, who is God the Father. You’re raised from the level of the fragmented being called the Son into the level of God the Father, and he’s personified in Scripture as Jesus.
So, when someone tells you, I met him, I’ve gone on TV panels with ministers; they’ve brought on all kinds of pictures to show me, these ancient things concerning Jesus. Well, about thirty-five years ago, an artist friend of mine took me to the Metropolitan Museum, rather the Metropolitan Library on 42nd and 5th, the New York Library. He was a member and he took out forty-six pictures of Jesus, no two looked alike. They were simply personifications of the artists who painted them. There was the American Jesus, an open shirt, radiant blonde youth. Here came the Germanic Jesus, who would’ve enjoyed a lovely stein of beer. And here came the Italian with a sad face. Then the French, he could have winked his eyes at any passing girl. All these were Jesus personified by the artist who painted them. Yet, there were forty-six and he threw them on the screen and I looked at them for quite a long while. Forty-six, each claiming to be the Jesus as he appeared to them.
And there are those who put them on the wall and think there is a picture of Jesus. I saw in yesterday’s paper, a coming TV show in the not-distant future, where the sculptor is going to actually show you how he sculpted the face of Jesus. And there’ll be millions, if they have that vast an audience, who will believe it and possibly buy one of these things and stick it on the wall, too. That’s not Jesus. You will never know him unless he reveals himself through the Son and the Son is David. And when David comes into your world, you instantly know, it instantly comes to pass; listen to the words, “I made it known to man, suddenly I acted and it came to pass.” It’s a sudden act all within you. No preparation whatsoever. It comes without preparation, without any warning whatsoever.
And suddenly when he appears, you know who you are, that you are the Lord Jesus. But no loss of identity. If your name is John, It’s John, but you know, you are God, the Father of that Son. If he is God’s Son, then you must be God, because he is your Son and you know that you are his Father and he knows that you are his Father. And there’s no other way of discovering God in this world. You can do all the holy things in the world if you think holy.Someone came the other night for the first time; he asked me after the meeting if I knew a certain esoteric society and I told him, I’m not a joiner, I don’t join any kind of society. I’m not a member of any club. So, he told me about this esoteric society, where if you are a member and then you’ll be born from above and the seed must remain in you. I said you can sit on that seed from now to the end of time. And if you are not born literally from above you are going to have night explosions and you’ll think you are doing God a favor. No, until that is turned around, suddenly without any warning on your part, you can have all the diets in the world, take all the saltpeter in the world, take all these things and you aren’t going to stop the normal flow of that energy going down into generation. And when it’s reversed into regeneration, you do nothing about it. You lose all interest in that impulse, the impulse is gone, and you’ve lost nothing. In the world of generation, it is part of living, but in the world of regeneration, you are above the organization of sense. It means nothing to you. You love them all equally, but you have no urge whatsoever to indulge in that which you wanted so badly when you were turned down into generations.
Well, I don’t think I persuaded him one iota. He is going to actually become a holy man by restraining the impulse. Well, after all, the man’s my age, he should. I mean nature should have outlawed it by now.However, it doesn’t work that way. All these wonderful things that you read in Scripture, and these are the word of God, but they’re only shadows. These are the shadows of reality. And when reality takes place, it is so unlike what the shadow appears to be. When you read the story of the serpent being lifted up on the tree or the trunk of the tree or the staff, and you think that someone called Moses took a serpent, a fiery serpent or a brazen serpent, and lifted it up with a staff, and all who looked upon it were cured, were healed. No, that was the shadow when it actually happens to you.
Now listen to the words. We are told that on this day when he rose, when they crucified him and then he rose, that the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom, the curtain of the temple. And you think of some temple, some cathedral, some synagogue. Now listen to these words: “You are the temple of the living God, and the spirit of God dwells in you.” If you are the temple, well then, the curtain of the temple must be you or at least a part of you. So, if the curtain of the temple is going to be split in two from top to bottom, when that event becomes alive within you, it has to be you. And I’m telling from my own experience, it is you. And it comes suddenly and without warning and your body is split in two from top to bottom. And at the base of your spine is a golden liquid, pulsing living light. And as you contemplate it, you know, it’s your very self and you fuse with it. And then like a fiery serpent, you rise. The entire thing is reversed. The fire that went down into generation is now reversed into regeneration. And who did it? Well, you said, but I experienced it. So, it’s all now in the first person singular. So, listen to the statement again from 48th Isaiah: “The former things I declared arose. They went forth from my mouth. I made them known.” It’s all in the first person, I, I, I. “Then I acted and they came to pass.” Well, who is acting? Who actually did the feeling? Well, I did. Who ascended? Well, I ascended. Who fused with the light? Well, I did. Who was split in two? Well, I was split in two. It’s all in the first person. That’s how God actually gives himself to man. For God is the “I” of man. When you say, “I am” that’s God. There is no other God. But he sleeps in man and man is totally unaware of the true God.
When you hear the word, God, or you hear the word Jesus or the word Jehovah, the word Lord, and in some strange way, the mind jumps out to something other than the “I” of yourself, you have a false god. If you ever hear the word Lord and you think of something external to self, you don’t have the right Lord. If it in any way conjures some feeling, something that exists external to you, then get back to Scripture and try to find out who he is, for he is buried in you. You are the spirit of God and the spirit of God dwells in you. You are the temple of the Lord and the spirit of the Lord dwells in you. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?
Unless of course, you fail to meet the test. If he is in me, then what am I doing looking on the outside? When I hear the word, Jesus, am I going to think of someone on the outside to come today, tomorrow, or maybe a thousand years from now? I’ve got the wrong Jesus. Then who is the Christ? His Son, Christ, is the Son of God. Well, then who is he, if Jesus is not? He is David. He’s the Lord’s anointed. Did David not call him in the spirit, my Lord, my God, my Father? So, when you hear any priest or any minister or any rabbi speaking of the Lord on the outside, bear in mind, they do not know the Lord. They do not know him. If you knew him, you would only think in terms of the I am within you. That’s where he is buried. Now we promise you to take it to a practical level also.
The ultimate end is God is giving himself to you individually. And when you are awake, you are God. And there is no other God. But now we are told to imitate God as dear children until that gift is given. It comes at the end of human tribulations. But until I’m finished with the furnaces, and how long and how vast and how severe the furnaces, here I find the Father. And how long to tell, but he will try me by the furnaces for his own sake because he cannot give his glory to another. But when he gives it, it’s going to happen suddenly and without warning. And then suddenly you’ll know because the Holy Spirit returns and the Holy Spirit is simply memory returning. For he told the entire thing to us before the foundation of the world. When we came down, we were told in the beginning, but when we came down into the world of complete forgetfulness, we forgot it. But when it returns, memory returns after complete and total amnesia and then we know exactly who we are.
But we know individually because you are unique. Although we are one, still you are individualized, and not in eternity will you be other than the individualized being. Yet, we are one, have the same Son and we are the same Father, but you are individualized as John, I am individualized as Neville. And this individuality tends toward greater and greater individualization, forever and forever. That’s the story. But if I must imitate him as a dear child, and that’s how he does it, now, let me now know my end, now. I do not mean the end of which he just spoke; I mean, a temporary end. I want to be successful, a man will say, or the girl will say, well, I want to be happily, happily married. And I want him to be successful and I want to live graciously in my world. Well, that’s an end.Go to the end. View the world from that end. Don’t think of it. If you think of it, you are not in it. I must actually occupy the end. Go to the end and view the world from that end. Now act in it. How would it be if it were true? What would the feeling be like if it were true? For this is simply taking the end and drenching it in feeling. I assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and I drench myself with that feeling; then I open my eyes and the world denies it. It doesn’t really matter. Let me remain faithful to that end. And then it will come just as suddenly. But strangely enough, I’m going to pass through, it may be not severe tribulations, but I will pass through certain trials, certain heartbreaks, and certain delays that I can’t quite understand; but when I reach the end, and the end comes suddenly upon me and the whole thing is fulfilled, I will see it was all in order. Everything was in order.
My own disappointments in my world led up to whatever I am doing today. When the teacher in my school, I could ill afford the $500 that my father gave me to go to this small school in New York City, and she made me the goat. She called me out before an audience of about forty students. And she said, “Now listen to him speak. He will never earn a living using his voice.” She should not have done that, but she did it—but she didn’t know the kind of person that she was talking about. Instead of going down into the grave and burying my head in shame, I was determined that I would actually disprove her. It did something to me when she said to me, “you will never earn”—to the class, using me as the guinea pig to show them what not to do—and so, she said, I spoke with a guttural voice and I spoke with this very heavy accent, and I will never use my voice to earn a living. But I do not know what the others are doing. I haven’t heard of them. And there is not a thing wrong with selling shirts for Macy’s, you can use your voice there, too. And I dare say most of them wound up selling groceries or something. I met one of them and he was selling groceries at Macy’s. And he said, “Neville, what do you do?” So, I said, “I talk on the Bible.” “You talk on the Bible—are you a minister?” I said, “No, I’m not a minister. I simply talk on the Bible from having experienced the Bible.” Well, I do not know what they do, if they’re still in this world, but I don’t think one of them ever earned a living using his voice unless he was selling groceries as this one chap I know, he sold groceries.
We all went to this school and this teacher simply singled me out to make some little, well, exhibition of what I should not be doing in class. But I went home and I was so annoyed that I had lost my father’s $500 or $600 that he gave me for the six-months course, but I was determined that she was false, that she was wrong. So, I went to the end. I went to the end and actually felt that I was facing an audience and unembarrassed that I could talk and talk and talk forever without notes, no notes.
And so, class came to an end and I left. She was convinced, and maybe they were convinced, it doesn’t matter what they do. It’s what I do. So, others may be convinced. It doesn’t really matter. The whole vast world is yourself pushed out. Maybe I needed that joke at that moment in time. And so, I went through the different tribulations and finally, I found myself doing what I always wanted to do, to tell the story as it happened to me in my vision. I was having all these visions and they were related—and yet how to do it?
So, the first night I started, I think six people came. I paid three dollars for the hall and they all came. I sat down, I wore a tux for the occasion and I sat down and spoke for ten minutes and dried up. And I asked them to ask me questions. So, they did, very graciously, they were all friends. I sent out fifty penny postcards—in those days, you could send a card for a penny—sent out fifty and six came. And out of, well, sympathy each gave a dollar bill. So at least I paid $3 for the room and I made $3. And that was my beginning. And then it grew from three to ten to twenty. And one night when I had about fifty a man in the building saw me growing and growing and growing. And he thought he would put a stop to it. And he was going to one of these New Thought conventions in Washington, D.C. And so, he asked me to take his platform and he had a very large audience of about 500. He thought that would throw me. And so, I accepted his generous offer. I learned afterward his purpose was to simply get me out of the place. He thought I would simply make a monkey of myself before a vast audience who were trained differently. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for me, the next time I spoke, my room couldn’t take them. I had to move several times in six months. And then I moved to an old church, attracted 1,100. So, you see, he thought he was going to hurt me. As Scripture teaches, “You meant evil, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” So, I got his audience. And then about three years later, for some little infraction of the laws of New York City, they put him away for a couple of years.
And when he came out, he asked me if I would speak for him, and I said, yes, without one penny, I will willingly speak for you. Because no one else would speak for him. They cut him off completely and said no. You don’t realize how good you were to me, and so, I will speak for you. And I went up and I spoke for him without taking one penny. And then he couldn’t get going again. And then he and his secretary got into his car, turned on the ignition, closed up all things, and called it a day. But you see you go through these things and that moment they seem to be against you. And they’re all for you. If you remain faithful to the end. So, let us be imitators of God, as their children. So, then we are told I was not ungrateful. I was not, I will say, forgetful of the divine image. I remained faithful to it. If I remain faithful to it, let anything happen, and then say within yourself, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good.
And I can go back in my own family. When people tried to take from my father the little equity that he had in the business, and we thought the world came to an end on that day, for he had a large family, and how to feed them? How to support them? Ten children, your wife, yourself, your mother-in-law, and the few servants that we had. And no one would come to see him because they weren’t quite sure that the accusation might be true. And that, on reflection, was the turning point in the family’s fortunes. So, from being a minor partner, having very small equity in the business, he turned around without partners and then transcended the wildest dream of the family. And that was the turning point. He kept his vision. He knew he hadn’t done a thing that was wrong. He kept his vision concerning what he wanted in life and what he wanted for the family.
So, if you have a vision, and by vision, I mean, a daydream. What would you like to be in this world? Do you know it? Just what would you like to be? How would you like things to be in your world? Well, that’s a vision. Well, now remain faithful to it. Tomorrow you may be given a severe blow and you may interpret that as being a setback. Time will prove it was a turning point in your fortune. Everything will add up towards the fulfillment of your dream if you remain faithful to that vision. It’s all in your own wonderful human imagination. That’s God. God actually became, as I am, as you are, that you may be as he is. And he takes upon himself all the weaknesses of man. But we say, well, God doesn’t suffer, but now I ask you a question. If you are in pain, are you in pain? And you will say to me, yes, I am. But that’s his name. God’s name. He has no other name. That’s who he is. So, you say, I am in pain. I am embarrassed. I am unwanted. That’s God’s name. He’s doing all the suffering because he goes through life with you, as you, until one day, he reveals that he is you. It is God and God alone playing all the parts in the world. There’s nothing but God. If God did not become as I am, I couldn’t breathe. He’s my breath. But he doesn’t limit me to my wishes. He doesn’t limit me to my outlook on life. He plays all the parts. He waits on me just as quickly and as indifferently when the will in me is evil as when it is good. And therefore, he subjects himself to all the things in my world.
God is like pure imagining in you, in me, in every being in the world. So, you imagine, all right, that’s God. And he waits on us because we imagine this, that, and the other. Now, you know this—go to the end, a noble end, a successful end in your world. All right, having seen it clearly in your mind’s eye what would the feeling be like if it were true? Drench yourself in that feeling. Now tomorrow, you may be disappointed; don’t expect it tomorrow. It may come tomorrow. When it comes, it’s going to come suddenly and unexpectedly. But remain faithful to the end. And all the little things will happen in your world that will seem to deny it, they’re adding up to it. Everything will add up toward that.
I am telling you from my own experience. There’s nothing but God in the world. He’s playing all the parts. The most horrible part and the noblest part. He’s playing all the parts. And no one is greater than you are because no one is greater than God. Let no one pull any rank on you. No one is greater than God. You have a background that goes back to God. It’s not a physical background. You’re not a horse. If I’m breeding horses, I want to know their background, but you are not a horse. You’re not breeding pigs. You’re not breeding sheep. You are simply the unfolding of God. And there is nothing but God. Let anyone challenge it. And if he wants me to go to the Bible to support my claims, I’ll go with him to the Bible, and then I’ll find the passage just suited or the argument he is trying to present. So, when they tell me, I met Jesus and I say, you met him? What did he look like? And they begin to paint a word picture of him. Now tell me who is he? Well, he’s the Son of God. He’s the Son of God. Well, then you must be God. So, do you not know in the 11th chapter of the book of Matthew that no one knows the Son except the Father? And you say, you know the Son and you’ve seen him, but if you’ve seen the Son, well, then you must be the Father for no one knows him but the Father.
Now listen to these words: “No one has ever seen God but the only Son who is dearest to his heart, he has made him known.” That’s the first chapter, the 18th verse of John. So, if now you say you’ve seen him, well I tell you, if you have seen God, then you must have been named the Son for no one has ever seen God, except his only Son who is dearest to his heart. And he has made him known. You’re either Christ the Son or you are Jesus the Lord. One or the other. Yet they are one. One reflects the other. The Son, not only radiates but reflects the glory of God and bears the express image of his person. So, when you look into the face of the Son, he is the eternal youth and you, the Ancient of Days, and you’re one, he reflects your glory and your glory is simply, I am.
So, I tell you, the greatest book in the world is the most misunderstood book. When he said I’ve declared these things of old, but they were shadows. All these were shadows of the reality. And when he himself comes into the world and fulfills his own declaration, then his shadow world rejects him, it’s not what they were expecting. So, we are told they rejected him. “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” They could not accept it because they were looking for some man on the outside to be a savior. No one on the outside is going to save you. God and God alone is savior. Listen to the words of the 43rd and the 45th chapter of Isaiah: “I am the Lord, your God, the holy one of Israel, your savior. And beside me, there is no savior.”
I am he—not a being on the outside, talking to you. I’m speaking from within you, your own wonderful, I amness. That is the Lord, God Jehovah. That is your savior. And beside him, there is no savior. And when he reveals himself to you and completely unfolds himself within you, it’s because he has brought the only one in the world that could reveal him as you. And that is his Son and his Son is your Son. If his Son is your Son, then you and he are one. So that is the story. So, the end gives meaning to all that goes before. If I only know the end, for the end is, it is God’s purpose to give himself to me as though there were no others in the world, just God. Just self, and not two, just one. He broke down the barrier of partition between us and now we became one. So, he cleaved to me, his emanation, yet his life until the sleep of death was passed. And when the sleep of death was passed, then I awoke, and I awoke as the Father and that is God the Father, and there is no other.
Now, tonight you have your wonderful dreams, dream nobly. You want to be happily married. You want to be financially successful. You want to be known in your chosen work. All these things are but dreams. And if you know the Law you can dream them and make them come into this world. And when they come, they’re going to come suddenly. Just without any warning whatsoever, they happen suddenly. Not even a little foreshadowing, just suddenly it will appear. I know in my own case, these events one after the other, I had no inkling, but I slept that night, that this night a great event would take place and casting me in the central role.
So, we are told, and I acted, and it came to pass. I acted and it came to pass. And so, I didn’t see a being on the outside calling himself God. I awoke within my skull and found it to be a sepulcher. It was I who awoke, it was I who came out. It was I who found a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes. It was I who saw the three witnesses, bearing witness to the event that I had just experienced. It was I who heard the wind and the wind was like some storm. It was I who saw David, who revealed to me that I am his Father and he is my Son. It was I whose body was split in two from top to bottom. And it was I who actually looked upon that liquid golden living light, fused with it, and then like a fiery serpent rose into my own skull. And it was I on whom the dove descended and smothered me in kisses. It was all I, as you are told in that passage. Read it carefully, the 48th chapter, the third verse of Isaiah. The whole thing is centered in the first person, singular, not we but I. It’s unique. That’s the being that you are. And all that has happened to me is going to happen to you, that you may know in the end that you and I are one. And we are the Father. Therefore, the Father is a compound unity, one made up of others. And that’s what the word Elohim, which we translate God in Scripture, is. It is a plural word. It’s a compound unity.
And so, the very first time it appears in Scripture is the very first verse of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That word God translated, God is Elohim, plural. And God said, “Let us make man in our image”—after all like that word is plural, it’s Elohim. So, the Elohim is a compound unity, one made up of others. And we are the fragmented ones. Now we are called back into that unity. But when we are called back, we become the one, the Father. And there’s no way to reveal you as the one other than the Son, the only Son calling you Father. And you know it. So, the Holy Spirit comes, the remembrance returns. So, say what you want about the Father, say what you want about the Son, all that’s forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven.
When remembrance returns, you couldn’t possibly deny it. So don’t be concerned. You will never in eternity deny it because memory has returned. So, there’s no possibility of sinning against the Holy Spirit. And you’ve heard all kinds of arguments. It means deviation in sex, all that nonsense. It hasn’t a thing to do with it. When memory returns from the total amnesia that you suffered, you can’t deny the being that you are.So, all the arguments about God and his Son, we’re told, all that is forgiven, but the sin against the Holy Spirit and who is the Holy Spirit? I will send you the comforter, the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of truth. And he will bring to your remembrance, all that you have heard from me. So, everything you heard before the world was, then the whole thing comes back and you’ll see who you really are.
So, I’m telling every person in the world who will listen, you are God the Father. And the day will come, and it will come suddenly and without warning, in the most unique, unpredictable way, and here you can’t deny it. And then when a little thing called death takes place, you’ve taken it off for the last time. And then you and I in the eternal world will be one in the most intimate sense and yet separate because we are individualized—and yet one. It’s something that only you can experience when you are in that state. How can two bodies fuse and actually literally become one body? I have had that experience. Two fuse. You can take the most intimate embrace in this world, and yet they’re two. Now when I talk about, when you are embraced, you become one. He who is united to the Lord, becomes one spirit with him, you become one body with him, you become one with eternity—and yet you are individualized.
“So, Lord, show me my end, tell me my end and the number of my days.” And he was told, it is not for you to know the day or the hour, only the Father knows. And when that moment in time comes, it will not be delayed, but you will not know the moment. It’s going to come suddenly and unexpectedly, and then your entire world has changed. No matter what you believe prior to that moment, everything has been rearranged within your mind. And then you go about your Father’s business and you are the Father. And what is your business? Trying to awaken everyone who is sleeping because that’s the Father, he’s buried in every child born of woman.
Tonight, if you know someone who is now up on trial for the most horrible crime, he still is the Father. And if you hear of some glorious person, he’s still the Father, not any more than the one on trial for his life. So, it’s all God and God is playing all the parts. And in the end when it comes down, you and I will understand why as the poet said, be patient, our playwright will show in some fifth act what this wild drama means. So, when you meet any person in this world, regardless of the pigment of the skin, regardless of their background, you are looking right at a mask behind which God hides his face.
Goddard’s distinction between ultimate and temporary ends serves as the structural backbone of his teaching. The ultimate end, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is presented as God’s gift of Himself to each individual, a sudden and unpredictable event following tribulation. Temporary ends, by contrast, are the everyday goals and desires that one must assume in imagination, drench in feeling, and faithfully maintain until they manifest. This two-tiered framework underscores the importance of both transcendent awakening and practical application through the law of assumption.
The lecture heavily relies on first-person biblical exegesis, particularly Isaiah 48:3 and John 1:18, to argue that revelation and fulfillment occur singularly within the self. God is not an external figure but the “I” within, and true knowledge of the Son implies knowledge of the Father. This psychological interpretation of scripture shifts the locus of divinity from dogma to personal consciousness, challenging conventional religious authority and emphasizing self-realization.
Neville’s practical pedagogy hinges on the power of imagination and feeling. By “going to the end” and assuming the state of the wish fulfilled, the practitioner activates a creative impulse that shapes external circumstances. His anecdotes—reversing a teacher’s judgment, building a lecture audience, and family business reversals—serve as case studies illustrating how apparent obstacles are in fact beneficent detours toward one’s envisioned reality.
On a metaphysical level, Goddard introduces the concept of Elohim as a compound unity, where the individual self (the Son) and divine self (the Father) are reunited. He explains that human experience is a descent into amnesia, and the Holy Spirit—memory returning—awakens one to their divine identity. This reunion is both individual and eternal, preserving unique personality while merging into oneness.
Finally, the lecture affirms that every human encounter and trial is an expression of God playing all parts in the drama of imagination. By remaining faithful to a noble end, one harnesses the creative power of the universe, experiencing sudden and complete fulfillment. The path involves imitation of God as dear children, trust in inner guidance, and readiness for the unpredictable moment of revelation that transforms the believer into the Father within.
The Bible Through Neville
Neville Bible Sparks
Neville Lecture Series
