Imagination’s Power

May I tell you, each night is complete in itself. And I want to tell you it will take between forty and forty-five minutes, that is followed by a short silence and then that is followed by questions and answers. But each night is complete in itself. There’s no commitment…come when you feel like it. I hope I will see you often, but there is no commitment. Every night I try to complete the thought.

Tonight’s subject is “Imagination’s Power.” I hope you will listen carefully. I hope I will get a nice response; that you will agree when I tell you that when I use the word Imagination, I mean God, I mean the Lord Jesus. To me they are interchangeable terms. Well, I can’t stop every night to explain this is what I mean. I take it for granted that you will know when I use the word Imagination I might just as well use the word Lord, the word God. Now we are told, “Commit your work to the Lord and it will be established” (Prvb.16:3) and that anyone who believes what he says will come to pass it will be done for him. No restriction on the power of belief. It doesn’t say that if you are good or that if you’re evil…this is wide open whether you’re kind or unkind. It’s a principle. I will share the principle with you and hope you will use it wisely and lovingly, but I can’t deny you the right to simply do it as you want to do it. You may be wicked in the doing, but it’s entirely up to you. But this is the principle: “The eternal body of man is the Imagination and that is God himself” (Blake, Laocoon)…the eternal body spoken of in scripture is the Lord Jesus. That is the being of whom I speak night after night.

Now let me share with you in the beginning before we develop it what I mean by it, so you’ll be fully aware of it. When my wife and I returned from San Francisco—we were there for a few weeks—and we checked in two suitcases. When we arrived in L. A., one was missing. We asked what must we do and they said to go to the Lost Department and register your complaint, so we did. They said to describe the bag and give us the contents which I did. Well, I couldn’t remember all as my wife packed the bag, and so I told what I thought was there. Then they said to me that when it comes, if it does, we will send it over. Well, it didn’t come…four days…we called several times, they called us several times, and it did not appear. At the end of the fourth day they said to us that it’s lost and to put in a claim; itemize the contents and the value, what it would take to replace the contents of the suitcase. So my wife having packed it, she did it. Got the entire thing settled to be sent off to headquarters in San Diego.

Early on the fifth day I said now I’ve done all that Caesar has asked of me—“render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”—that’s what Caesar demands. In my Imagination I saw the bag…not more clearly than you would now see the interior of your living room if you thought about it. Think of your living room. You don’t see it as clearly as you see me or see your neighbor, but you can see it. You know exactly what it looks like. It was not clearer than that. It was a black and grey bag, a very big bag that my daughter gave me two or three years ago. When you go for a long trip it’s heavily packed, and so it was a heavy bag. In my Imagination I lifted the bag and felt the weight of it. I could see it clearly just like this…not as clearly as this room, but I saw it clearly. Then I held it in my hands until I got the emotion of relief. For, of all the pleasures of the world relief is the most keenly felt.

You know it from experience. You expect a loved one and they’re late, and then it’s an hour, then it’s two hours, and you know the relief that comes when you hear a familiar voice. I know a friend of mine when they saw a flame in the distance and all that they had put into their lovely home thought, “Well, certainly that is my home” and when they came to the point where it was not—all the other homes were burned to the ground—he broke down in tears. That was relief! So again I repeat of all the pleasures of the world relief is the most keenly felt.

Well, I felt the relief of possession. The contents, yes, I didn’t want to go out and replace them, we loved everything in it…my wife’s dresses, my ___(??) to replace them, things of that sort. But why replace them if you like what you have? And it would have taken at least $1,300 to replace the contents. Long before we could settle we would have to put out that sort of money. But I went to the one being that I trust implicitly. The world will call it by any other name. I call it my Imagination and I firmly believe that my Imagination is God. I believe he is the one character in scripture spoken of as the Lord Jesus Christ. To me there is no other. So I firmly believed in the reality of what I was doing.

The fifth day went by and no calls from the airport. On the sixth day when the mail was delivered, here came a letter. As I opened it…first of all, it was written in ink but printed so that no one could guess the script. When I opened the letter it simply said, “Your suitcase is in the locker. Sonny the bandit” and then he enclosed the key, #164. My wife called the airport and read the letter to the security officer. He said they’d get in touch right away after they investigated. Within a matter of moments he called back to say that they had no box no number 164, but they would get in touch with San Francisco because it was mailed in San Francisco. They called San Francisco and within an hour they called me back that the police had found it in #164, opened the suitcase, and it was ransacked…everything was just simply ransacked. But they were sealing it and flying it off to L.A. Would I come over with my wife a little after six and in the presence of the Police Department of L.A., not their security forces, examine the contents.

So we went over. It was simply a shambles…everything was turned inside out. Even a simple little thing like your handkerchiefs all were turned inside out. We bought two little presents for our daughter and a friend of hers. We went to Gump’s and we asked them to please wrap them as gifts, beautifully wrapped. They were torn apart but the presents were there. Everything was in tact, not one thing was missing—our checkbook, every check was there—but it was just simply a mess. They apologized for the condition of the bag and then said, “What may we do?” I said, “Nothing. When we go on a trip that exceeds a few weeks, we invariably have everything cleaned when we come back. It’s been our custom, and we’ll do it as we’ve always done, for we would have done it anyway.” Then he said, “Mr. Goddard, I’m awfully sorry, but when you and Mrs. Goddard travel the next time on our line, you are our guests, round-trip.”

And so, we brought it back. Yes it was a mess. You may say, “Why did they take your bag when you teach this?” I cannot stop you from thinking what you want to think. If I’m a victim of your wickedness, well, I have to be the victim of your wickedness. But I must not forget my principle, that in spite of your wickedness I can turn to the Lord and he will retrieve that which seemingly is lost. I went to Caesar and did all that Caesar could do and they could not find it. The Police Department couldn’t find it here, the Police Department in San Francisco couldn’t find it. No one could find it and they considered it lost. I did not accept that and I simply assumed that I had it. To the best of my ability I simply felt the reality of that which my senses denied and my reason denied. Although they completely denied it, I still persisted in this and I committed my work to the Lord…the Lord being my own wonderful human Imagination. The reasoning being now I could do no more than I did and I left it that way. On the sixth day it came back in tact.

I’m asking you to accept the true being that is Jesus. Man’s true identity is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is a man’s own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other Jesus Christ: man’s true identity is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is a man’s own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other Jesus Christ. God became man that man may become God. You can do this for everything in this world. Do not accept anything because at the moment reason denies it.

Now this concept of Imagination raises a question. I have been asked would you say then that Imagination is sufficient for all things? If he is God and with God all things are possible, is Imagination sufficient for all things, or must I add a little reason just like the chef adds a little spice to make it more palatable? I say the answer to that question is this, “According to your faith be it unto you” (Mat.9:29). I cannot really add anything, but I can say, “According to your faith be it unto you.” Do you believe it’s adequate? Do you believe it’s insufficient? If to your Imagination is insufficient, well then, to you it is insufficient. I can only tell you from my own experience you will never find another law and you will never find another God. Listen to the words, “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; I the Lord do all these things and none can deliver out of my hand” (Deut.32:39). Now choose this day whom you will serve and Joshua said, “We choose to serve the Lord.”

Then, Israel responded, “We choose the Lord.” But Israel forgot the Lord, couldn’t keep the tense…it seemed too much, for the Lord had revealed his name as I AM. The fundamental sin in the world is lack of faith in “I am he.” “Unless you believe I am (is) he, you die in your sins” (Jn.8:24). You must firmly believe that the only Lord is I AM. I can sever this hand from the body; I can sever vital organs from my body—take out a lung, a kidney, do all these things—but I still am. Remove them, but I can’t remove I am and be. I can’t remove my Imagination. Where can I go in this world and not imagine? And can any man go any place where he hasn’t first gone there in Imagination? No! I can’t remove it, for I am Imagination. I do not observe Imagination as I do objects. I am the reality that is named Imagination.

So here, I can’t get away from it. Therefore, God that is my Imagination is never so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. When the world speaks of God, it’s always man and God…they’re separated. He speaks of Jesus…Jesus is the one talking about Jesus. But you cannot separate them, not the real God, not the real Lord, not the real Jesus. Therefore, these things happen as they happened to me. Why? I go out on a limb and teach others what I am now telling you. But I am not left apart as something different. I must day after day examine myself to see whether I am holding to my faith. It’s not enough to tell him that I must hold to my faith. “Test yourself and see,” said Paul, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2Cor.13:5). So I must examine myself day after day.

So the bag is missing…and it’s certainly missing. I have the ticket. What good is the ticket? Where are my clothes, my wife’s clothes? And I need them. So to whom would I turn? I turn first to Caesar and Caesar demands things, it’s part of the law, and I render unto him that which I must. But then when they all fail, I turn to the one that I pledged myself to serve. I pledged myself to serve the Lord and the Lord is my own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other Lord. And he brought it back. Yes, disheveled…so what! This night everything has been cleaned and laundered and hanging where it formerly was. It’s in perfect order. And now, not that we wanted any little thing, but he did give us roundtrip tickets next time we travel. So that was a picture.

I say to everyone, you hear a friend’s need. It may be the most horrible thing in the world judged by human appearances. Don’t be disturbed. The very one who told you of the need, bring him before your mind’s eye and see them as clearly as you can as you now think of a friend who is not here. Think of anyone who is not here. Well, you can see them clearly enough. Do you know what their voice sounds like? Listen to their voice and have that voice tell you what you wish it could tell you…and not what it did when the voice concerned about a friend’s health or whatever you call it, no matter what the condition. You do not listen too carefully to what they complain, you simply reverse the entire thing and then you listen. Now listen to the words, “Whoever believes that what he says will come to pass, it shall be done for him.” What a promise! Read it in the 11th chapter, the 23rd verse of the Book of Mark. Whoever believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him! I can sit here or stand here and believe that I’m hearing a voice, and I can actually believe that what he told me—though reason at the moment would deny that he’s physically present—but I can persuade myself it’s true. Then I physically do nothing. Not a thing can I do beyond what I have done. I do nothing other than what I’ve done. That imaginal act of mine was God’s act. That’s how God acts. He brings things that are not seen into the world that they may be seen, and all the things that were made were made out of things that do not appear (Heb.11:3). No one saw what I imagined.

So, my Imagination and your Imagination are forever enveloping us, surrounding us, permeating us as our very being; and ever waiting for the act of faith where we cast ourselves upon Divine Imagination and then free ourselves from the bondage of the senses, from the bondage of mortality. For the mortal man did all that he could and the senses did all that they could but they’re limited. Man is shut up in the limitation of his five senses; and yet housed within him the real being that he is is God, and there is no limit now. In this little world of mortality, what limit could you put upon God?

So I ask everyone here to test it, to try it. Don’t say yes hurriedly…try it. Because we’re creatures of habit it might take a little while for you to undo what has been done in you when you were taught the story of Jesus. For if you were taught it as I was taught it…I was taught it as one other than myself, that a man 2,000 years ago came into the world in a miraculous way, and then he died, he was killed, and then he was buried and then rose from the dead. I was taught that story, lovely story, and I believed it implicitly. My mother taught it to me and I would never question mother. It’s a true story but infinitely greater than that story. Do you know who he is?—your own wonderful human Imagination. That is Jesus. This is the Christ of faith: one who comes into our world completely unknown, yet one who will in some ineffable mystery let man experience who he is. He has allowed me to experience who he is. And when he allowed me to experience who he is, I discovered I am he, for in the experience it was a first-person, singular, present-tense experience. I didn’t see him coming from without as the world teaches; no, he rose from within as my very self.

And it’s all there in the Bible. But man because he has been taught as I was taught looks at it and still can’t see it. Listen to these words from Ephesians, “He is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility…making in himself one new man in place of two, thus making peace” (Eph.2:14). Now you read it and you’re inclined to go on, because the mind has been so trained you think a man is talking outside and now he’s going to make peace with the Lord Jesus…something other than himself. Come back to it. He is our peace…he. That pronoun is emphatic. The word follows the verb. That’s an expression of a central being: he is our peace.

Now the body of peace, as we see it here, is not a doctrine, it’s not a philosophy, it’s not some abstraction, but a person. You’re a person, aren’t you? Well, don’t think your Imagination is some intangible force. It’s a person…the ideal you, unseen by you, the one who came unknown. Now he’s going to break down that wall of hostility and make of the two one new man. And when he breaks it down and they become one new man, then he rises. Not out there, he rises as you and you rise as the Lord Jesus Christ. No change of identity, no change of name. Is your name Peter? Then it’s Peter. Is your name Neville? It’s still Neville. No change whatsoever as to identity. You’re following an eternal pattern and the pattern is described in scripture as the life of Jesus Christ.

All things are possible to him so don’t turn back to anyone in this world after you hear it. After you hear it, accept every challenge in the world, I don’t care what the challenge is. So someone asks you this night the most impossible thing based upon reason, don’t turn away and rationalize it. And don’t send them away; accept the challenge in your own mind’s eye as you hear it. Don’t take any challenge concerning doubt, like turn this stone into bread. We don’t do that…get behind me, you doubter. But what do you want? You don’t want to turn this stone into bread, you want to challenge my right to say what I say and prove and disprove it. Well now, get behind me. I have no use for that. But what do you want? Is your mother ill? Are you unemployed and can’t find a job? Are you up against it? Name it! Well then, I will get it…I’ll hear that. But don’t you come with any challenge to cause me to doubt, because I will not doubt the Lord. I made my choice: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” I have chosen the Lord to serve, and the Lord is my own wonderful human Imagination.

I will admit my limitation while I’m in this world wearing a garment of flesh and blood. Yes, I am limited, very limited, subject to all the weaknesses, all the limitations of the flesh. But I know how to reach the true being that I am, my true identity, and he’s not too far away—never so far as even to be near, for that would separate us, and therefore I would confess that he hasn’t yet broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us and made of the two one new man. But he has made of the two one new man, for he rose in me as himself. And now don’t ask me any more, I will yield, completely yield to what I have heard as though I witnessed it in the flesh. I expect confirmation from you who asked it of me in the not distant future. I don’t care what others will say. I don’t care what they’re doing, I’m not interested. I only know that I’ve found the one that I can trust and he’s not in the sky, he’s not outside. He’s not anything other than where I am at every moment of time, and he’s my own wonderful human Imagination. That is God. His name to you is I AM, and you can’t get away from it. That fundamental being is I AM.

You’re told in scripture that only two things displease the Lord: the first one is the lack of faith in I am he, and the second is eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t make an evil man. The man or the woman or whoever they were who stole my suitcase, whatever the motive was I don’t care. I don’t know and I’m not searching for him. But he didn’t make an evil man. He made good and evil a tree, a tree bearing fruit of good and evil, and these are states. You can’t conceive of a state in the world that is not now in existence. So wickedness is in existence. And I could unwittingly fall into a state of wickedness, and then I animate that state, and I have to express a wicked man, for it takes a man to express the state whether it be good or evil. But he didn’t make a good man and a bad man. Man is God, because man is all Imagination and Imagination is God and dwells in us and we in him. The eternal man is all Imagination and that is God.

It’s not a good man or a bad man, but passing through states. Should I fall into a wicked state at my right hand will be something or two to express wickedness. And someone who has come to my meetings—why even speculate—who could have resented my interpretation of scripture because he believes that Jesus is something other than himself, and he could resent it to the point of feeling I’m going to get even with that man and then he acts. But the being to whom I turn knows everyone. He knows every being in the world. You know why? “Because all things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle” (Blake). And so, he knows the one who did it and can instantly change the man’s attitude toward the act, and have him put it back, and then scribble that little thing, and send it off. He need not have done it, he could have burned it or he could have destroyed the evidence, but he was compelled to do it.

Now, if I had not acted, it never would have returned. So we are the operant power; it doesn’t work itself because we know who the Lord is. I have found him to be my Imagination, but that’s not enough. I must day after day examine myself to see if I am holding to the faith. So do I really believe it to the point of acting upon it? For I am the operant power; it will not operate itself. So I must every day…no matter what happens…if I should have the most horrible dream at night concerning the most intimate love of mine, I must not say, “Why did it happen to me?” How often do you hear people who consider themselves kind and generous and sweet say, “Why would this happen to me?” as though they are completely apart from the vast world when they are all individuals. It could happen to everyone in this world…but anything. Only don’t forget the Lord. Let it happen. He has the right to be wicked…he fell into the state of wickedness, and if I could be the victim of his wickedness, well, let it be. Only I must not accept it as final. I must now turn to the Lord and the Lord is my own wonderful human Imagination; and turning to him, completely abandon myself to the act and cast myself upon Divine Imagination. Then at that moment I am freed from the bonds of mortality. I am not going to call the station any more, I’m not going to write any more letters, I just let it be, and then it must come back! It has to come back.

So I ask everyone before you judge it try it. And when you do it and it works, you will find who you really are. In the end, you will find you will spend your days from morning to night proclaiming the kingdom of God. And some who hear you will be convinced by your arguments, because you will use scripture, the laws of Moses, the prophets, and the writings. Then some having believed it will turn to the other side and they will disappear. They are fixed in their belief as to who God is and how he only likes the good people and he hates the bad people; and they have their concept of what is a bad person and what is a good person and they go through life that way. But you will discover in the end all things work for good with those who love the Lord (Rom.8:28). So everything will work for good.

First of all, you become strengthened in your faith when someone calls you and tells you that you missed something. And when they opened the plane and saw the show and they were hurt, I asked not one penny from them, didn’t need their money. Yet undoubtedly they were insured, and if I sent them a bill for sixty dollars for cleaning, they willingly would have paid it. But I wouldn’t have felt right, because I would have cleaned those things anyway whether they were disheveled or not. So I have to live with Neville, so I couldn’t take their sixty bucks. But I did take two tickets from them.

However, this is the power of which I speak tonight. It’s not in armies, no, it’s not in any implement in the world. You don’t do it while they use their implements…you do it all in your Imagination. And everyone in this world will work for you. If it takes a million people to bring what you have just done in your Imagination to pass, they’ll take a million people and they’ll do it. They’ll do it not even knowing that they are doing it. All will work toward the fulfillment of what you have done in your Imagination. So you don’t have to seek the army to do it, you don’t have to seek out individual brains to have them do it, you simply do it and completely commit yourself.

So, faith is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. What do you hope for, the recovery of a friend? That’s your hope? Well, now appropriate it subjectively. How would I go about appropriating that subjectively? Well, bring your friend before your face and have the friend tell you, “Why I’ve never felt better, never!” And you respond, “But really I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look better. I’ve never seen you look better and stronger. You look so altogether lovely, so altogether wonderful.” Well now, believe that, for whoever believes, what is said will come to pass. It will be done for you. Now, whatever has to be done…I’m not saying that she, he, they may not seek the help of some doctor. Whether he does or does not, it doesn’t make any difference so I’m not concerned. I’m not saying they will or will not. I will not recommend him. I would just say, “All right, I’ve done it” and then suddenly the change will take place in them.

I had that report only this night. A friend of mine called me in tears about a week ago, and she couldn’t even get out her request she was in such tears. So I said, “All right, ___(??) called me. I didn’t know it…I don’t go around seeking for these things, but I am here to help and I will help. Well, at that moment I simply did what I thought I had to do, which I wanted to and I reversed the entire conversation. Tonight she saw me. Yes, she’s thin. What’s wrong with being thin? “I’m thin but I feel fine.” She’s thin and she doesn’t want to put on any more weight, and she said from that very moment on she felt so much better. She knows now after a whole week of not being able to eat now she can eat and it remains down. The food is down so she is actually building strength. Before that there were six weeks where she couldn’t keep anything down.

And what did I do? I’m not a doctor and I know nothing of the human body, but nothing. But I do know the law. I do know the law is not out in space, I do know it’s not in time; I know he’s right here…I AM. I’m not saying that Neville is the Lord. I say “I am.” Neville is a mask that I am wearing…but I am he. You can say the same thing. But now test it if you really believe it. It’s easy to say I am he, but do you believe it? Can you actually believe that today you have what you want in this world? That your friends have what they want in this world? And then walk as though it were true. Because these precepts are to be taken literally:“Whatever you ask in prayer believe that you have received it, and you will” (Mark11:24). If you really believe that you’ve received it, well then, you’ll walk as though it were true and then you aren’t concerned.

And any doubt, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Well, Satan is only the personification of the doubt in man. There’s no being called Satan. Everyone in the world can play the part of Satan. The pope can play the part of Satan tonight by challenging me to say what I’m saying without being ordained. He could challenge me, and in a certain manner if I were other than what I am he could fool me into believing that he holds the authority. Like the Queen of England trying to speak with authority, isn’t that nonsense? What authority? Yet there are millions who believe she has it and yet she has no authority whatsoever, but they endow her with authority. And for those who know, it’s laughable.

So, everyone in the world will try to dethrone you and move you from the being that you’ve found. Tell them to get behind you. You have made your choice and the choice is, I will serve the Lord and the Lord is my own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other Lord. May I tell you, you will not fail. So the answer to “Is this sufficient?” well, sufficient so far as I’m concerned, but if you think it’s insufficient, well then, to you it’s insufficient. But may I tell you, it is not insufficient. It’s the power of the universe, the power that created and sustains the universe. It is your own wonderful human Imagination.

It seems madness, seems insane. Well, standing on the moon seemed insane not more than half a century ago. But someone imagined it a hundred-odd years ago, a Frenchman by the name of Jules Verne. He even wrote a book and he named it Going to the Moon. He named the people who would do it Americans…that they would have the mechanical know-how, the engineering know-how to do it. Well, they did. The Americans went first. A Frenchman saw it, but didn’t have confidence in his own country to have the know-how to do it. The Americans went, and there they put the flag out, and they actually walked on the moon. You and I saw it. I saw it in San Francisco…you saw it wherever you were. I’m quite sure many of you said nothing could interest you more than one of our boys walking on the moon. You and I saw it…and so it happened. You can’t conceive something that isn’t possible. You can’t conceive of it because why?—you are God. God became man that man may become God, and he’s slowly breaking down that wall of hostility between two and making of two one. So, when he rises, you are he.

But how can I know I’m he? I didn’t change my identity and I didn’t change my name. Well, how do I know? He gave you a pattern: this is how God is born. He’s born in this manner; he resurrects in this manner; he comes out of the tomb in this manner; he finds David who calls him Father in this manner. He gives you the entire pattern: he is the pattern man. So all of a sudden that pattern erupts within you and you experience everything said of Jesus Christ. Yet you still bear the same name, you bear the name of John or Peter or whatever it is that you bear, but the entire thing recorded in scripture concerning him you have experienced. So I say, Christ of faith comes to us as one unknown, yet one who is actually by some peculiar, wonderful mysterious way lets man experience who he is. When he experiences who he is, you’ll know the words, “Yes I am he.” For unless I believe I am he, I die in my sins (Jn.8:24). Believing prior to that experience…I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that I am he. The experience has convinced me that I am he…and there is no other Jesus.

So if any man will ever come to you saying, “Look, here he is” or “Look, there he is,” don’t believe him. Why? Because whenever he comes to you, you’re like him. So if you look out there, no matter how close he resembles you, like a twin, he still isn’t you. It can’t be another. So if any man ever comes to you telling you, “’Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there is the Christ!’ do not believe him” (Mark 13:21). And then John answers why: “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall know him”— how?—“because we shall be like him” (1Jn.3:2), the very image of him. Because, he rises in you as you and you are the Christ. There’s only God in the world. There’s not any room in the world for anyone but God and there’s only God. Regardless of race, regardless of nationality, regardless of anything in the world, there’s only God, nothing but God. Plays all the parts and in the end when the curtain comes down, here one being achieving this only, and you are he. It’s the most wonderful play in four acts! It begins with the law of Moses, it moves into the prophets, then it moves into the writings, and then it comes into the gospel, the most heavenly play in four acts! The gospel is the good news of salvation.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Are there any questions, please?

Q: Would you go through the pattern a little more slowly?

A: The pattern? Well, the New Testament begins not as it is said with the birth…although it is written that way…not in the Book of John, in the Book of Luke and Matthew. Mark does not begin it with the birth and neither does John. But I’ll tell you the pattern: the pattern begins with the resurrection. You resurrect within your own skull; that’s where you’re buried. God is buried in man and the burial ground is his skull, the skull of man. It’s called Golgotha in scripture which means “skull.” You will awaken one day to discover that you’ve been a long, long time asleep. Someone who placed you there must have thought you dead, because the minute you awaken within your skull you will know it to be a sepulcher. You know it’s a skull, but you also know it’s a tomb, it’s a grave, it’s a sepulcher, and you have a consuming desire to get out. You have an innate wisdom and you will push the base of your skull, and something will give, and you will squeeze your head out. You will come out like a child being born, but still you’re an adult, and you’ll come out inch by inch just as a child comes out of the womb. But instead of coming out of a womb from below, you come out of the grave from above. You are born now not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (Jn.1:13). God is born!

On the heels of this birth, the symbolism of scripture with the child will now engulf you. You will look back at the body out of which you emerged to find it’s there. An unearthly wind envelopes you…it is so powerful you think it’s a hurricane and you are diverted just for a moment. You think the origin of the wind is coming from a certain direction. As you turn away for not more than three or four seconds you turn back and the body out of which you have just emerged vanishes. You don’t see it removed, it’s gone. But in its place will be seated three men; one at the head and two at the feet. They’re equally disturbed about the wind. They can’t see you because you’re invisible. You are born of Spirit now and you’re not flesh and blood. So no one can see you, but yet you cannot only see them, you can discern their thoughts.

One of them is most concerned. He rises and goes over toward the direction where he thinks the storm originates. He doesn’t go more than a step or two when his attention is attracted by something on the floor. He looks down and he announces whose baby it is—it’s the baby of the one who came out of his skull. In my case he said, “It’s Neville’s baby.” The other two in the most incredulous voice ask, “How can Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point. He lifts the evidence from the floor and puts it on the bed. It’s a little babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. I took the babe up, lifted it up to my face and said, “How is my sweetheart?” It broke into the most heavenly smile. In this world of death man begins with a cry…a child is born and they spank him to get him to breathe and cry. When you’re born into heaven, it’s with a smile. All the difference in the world! It’s the most heavenly smile into which this little infant breaks.

Then comes an interval of time 139 days in my case, where you come upon a scene and the David of biblical fame stands before you and you know that he’s your son, and he calls you Father. You know you’re his father and you know he’s your son. Then, that wonderful scene as you’re feasting upon the beauty of your son, a youth of about twelve or thirteen dissolves.

123 days later your body—and it can’t be this body, because this body doesn’t bear the marks—but it’s my body and it was split from head to the base of the spine, from the top of the skull to the base, and separates about four or six inches. At the base of the spine is a pool of golden living liquid light, and as I looked at it I knew it was myself. Here I am a pool of living liquid light. I fuse with it, and then like a serpent I ascended into my skull—up the same place that was split—as told in scripture, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (Jn.3:14). He identifies the Son of man with himself and he is called Christ. So there’s only that one being having all these experiences in the world.

Then 998 says later, completing the cycle of 1,260 days, your head opens and becomes translucent…there is no circumference. In this translucent, transparent head floats a dove, a lovely dove, about twenty feet above you. It hovers just as though it’s floating, doesn’t use its wings, just hovers, with its eyes lovingly placed on you. Then it begins to descend and you extend the hand, in my case my index finger. It lit on my finger, I brought it to my face and it smothered me with love. While it was actually drenching me with love, kissing me all over my hair, my neck and my face, a woman at my left said, “The birds avoid man, because man gives off the most offensive odor. But he so loves you he penetrated the ring of offense to demonstrate his love for you.” And here is the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove (Luke 3:22).

So the entire pattern as it unfolds in scripture in the written form will unfold in every man in this world in good time. Each is called in his own time. So I was called ten years ago. This last 20th of July was quite an anniversary for me, for it was the day when we landed on the moon. That was my tenth anniversary, for ten years ago last July 20th it happened to me in San Francisco…the first one. Then in Beverly Hills the next two; and where I’m living the one with the transparent eternity.

That was a long question. We don’t have many more moments…one here.

Q: Suppose you have an objective and you know the principle but you have some doubt whether or not the objective would be good for you, how do you deal with that?

A: If you have any doubt concerning the objective, go beyond it and actually feel that you made the wisest decision in the world. Go beyond it in time and reflect upon it as though it has worked out beautifully and I could not have made a wiser decision than that which has now come to pass. Go beyond it. The same being to whom you cast yourself and upon whom you cast yourself will ___(??) for you in actual experience. And you will know after the experience and upon reflection that it was the wisest you could ever have done. Maybe the rational mind never could have made it.

Q: Even though at the moment you are applying the principle there may be even fears that you are doing the wrong thing?

A: No…maybe I’m not quite following you…if I had an indecision concerning what I would like to have in this world and I repeated this thing, well now, I’ll come back.Suppose now I really wanted someone, wanted her terribly yet they are committed; or I thought I could not in my position do for them what I really ought to do if I want them in the capacity that I want. Well now, I’m at a crossroad. I want to do the loving thing and the right thing. So I go beyond my decision and will not say I want her in spite of all the hurts in the world, that I want her in spite of all who will be hurt. No, I forget that. I go beyond it and I take, say six months on the calendar and I bring it to mind, the 15th of September…or this is Christmas, the same year, and oh what a wonderful choice I’ve made! What a heavenly decision! I could not have done it rationally. I would have messed up the whole thing if I had given my full will, but now everything has unfolded like a flower and now I see it perfectly. You either will realize as you now want to realize it, or you will find you don’t want it. I have had things in my life that I wanted with all my heart…I thought I did…and got it…to find within the day I got it I didn’t want it and gave it away. That’s a simple thing, but more complex things would be what I just said.

And now you be the judge. You can have anything in this world that you want. But if you want the one terribly, really terribly, you only think of him or her or them, and you forget self. There’s a saying, a true saying, “Loving, self-forgetting service to others is the shortest, the safest and the most joyful way to God.” Not the result, but loving, self-forgetting service, so that you don’t feel that you earned any merit for what you’ve done, there’s no feeling of his seeing how good I am, how generous I am. No, none of these things cross your mind. No sense of sacrifice, just simply it’s a loving, self-forgetting service. And you’ll find, as we are told in scripture, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added” (Luke 12:31). You’ll find that imaginative living is seeking first the kingdom of heaven.

Good night.