In a Vision of the Night

Tonight’s subject “In a Vision of the Night,” this title is taken from the 33rd chapter of the Book of Job: “In a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon man, while he slumbers on the bed, then he opens the ear of man and seals his instruction” (verse 15). Throughout the Bible, beginning in Genesis and going right through to Revelation, there are stories of the dream. It’s man’s contact with God. We’re told in Numbers: “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and I will speak with him in a dream” (12:6). In the beginning, the great dreamer who was sold into Egypt, one who was called Joseph—and they spoke of him as the dreamer: “Behold, this dreamer cometh” (Gen.37:19). It was his dream that saved the world from starvation, for he interpreted the dream. Most of us are past masters at misinterpreting the dream, but he understood the symbolism of the dream; and because he interpreted wisely, and Pharaoh acted upon it, then they could put aside in their fat years enough to save them from their lean years, when everything simply turned to dust. And so, we mustn’t discount the dream.

But may I tell you, the night dream where you have no control over it is a parable. The earthly story of that parable is secondary to its meaning no matter how simple the dream is…if it is a dream. Not the waking dream; we’ll touch that afterwards. The waking dream is the most wonderful thing for the control and the change of the circumstances of life…that’s the waking dream. But the night dream where you’re not in control and you simply are recording an unfolding drama, God is simply speaking to you through the medium of the night dream. Here we find that when Jesus was on trial just as Pilate took his seat to judge him a message arrived from Pilate’s wife which read: “Have you nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have been much troubled today in a dream because of him” (Mat.27:19). Now, the dream is not related, in other words, it’s not told, I wish it were. But it’s not recorded what she dreamt, only “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have been much troubled about him today in a dream.”

Then we find in the Book of Daniel when the king wondered what was the nature of the dream and he said to him, There is a God in heaven who makes known mysteries, and he has spoken unto you, O king (2:28). And then he tells him how God spoke to him. He said, he’s told you of the latter things. And the latter things are these, in a dream, in a vision of the night, that’s how God speaks to man. When you put your head on that bed and you slumber and lose consciousness here, if you can recall it, God has told you something that really is important, if you can recall it. And the most simple thing in the world has meaning, deep meaning.

So, when I opened here last November, on my way back from New York I decided to give you a subject that—I knew I’d get the majority on opening night whether you ever came again or not, at least I could tell you what I found—and the subject was “We Have Found Him,” the very one for whom the whole vast world is seeking. I found him, and he’s true and he is risen; and he’s rising in all of us. And so I tried that night to explain the great mystery of Christ. On the way out, I greeted many at the door, and one gentleman in particular—I knew exactly what he meant when he said it—he said, “I’ll be seeing you sometime.” But I knew in the depth of my soul what he really meant to convey: “If you ever see me again, you’re lucky.” That’s what he meant. Well, I haven’t seen him so far. I knew exactly what he meant: he was not going to allow me to interfere with his preconceived misconception of Christ. No, I could not disturb that misconception. He’d come for the law. For from this platform he heard the law, and through the hearing of the law and applying it he came from behind the eight ball where he owed a thousand dollars into eighty-odd thousand dollars with no investment, but no investment. Before he did it, his mother and his brother told him, “You mustn’t go to that man; that isn’t Christian.” Because they go to their church, some denomination of the Christian faith twice or three times a week, and they sing all the lovely old hymns, and so, they’re trying to persuade him not to go, not to go here, come with them. But he was desperate, needed money, so he came here, which in the eyes of the mother and the brother was simply coming to the devil. When he won the eighty-odd thousand dollars, then they forgave him, and all joined in rejoicing that because of their constant visits to their church, God was merciful and therefore sent it through him, even though it came from the voice of the devil.

However, since then I have been trying, as much as I can, to reveal to you the mystery of Christ. So let me share with you one of last night. It was a very quiet evening. I broke the pattern and looked at TV, a thing I rarely do, but I looked at that wonderful story of Abraham Lincoln and thoroughly enjoyed it. It ran ninety minutes, and then my wife and I discussed for another three-quarters of an hour; and then I turned in. So I must have been sound asleep before ten…it was a very quiet evening. And during the night, this is what God said to me. I found myself in an enormous ocean liner, huge ocean liner, and looking out to sea I saw an enormous fish the size of a dolphin. It didn’t jump out of the water as dolphins do—if you’ve ever seen them, they simply play, they jump and go back into the water like the porpoise—but it did what the flying fish does. It jumped out of the water and sailed as it were for about a hundred yards, and then dove in again. Up it would come and then fly off for about a hundred yards, and dive in again. I noticed this behavior of this fish, it was a marvelous fish. So I turned to the passengers, I tried to show them the fish, but no one could see it. I pointed out the fish, I said, “Can’t you see it?” No they couldn’t see it. Then I turned to my wife, I said to her, “Don’t you see it, dear?” She said, “No I can’t see it.” I said, “Watch my finger, I’ll point it” and so I said, “Watch where I point it, at the very angle, and see if you can’t see it.” Then she said, “Oh, yes, now I can see it” and the minute she said, “I can now see it, yes” then I woke.

Well, Jesus Christ has always been symbolized as a fish, the big fish. In fact, the letters in Greek for fish gives us the initials of the sentence: “Jesus Christ, Son of man, Savior.” That’s exactly how it’s spelled. The initials of the word in Greek give us the sentence: “Jesus Christ, Son of man, Savior.” I knew that I have found him…tried to tell…God confirmed it in the depths. No one could see it. I was showing the fish and no one could see it. I wanted my wife so much to see it, so I turned to her, “Don’t you see it, dear?” “No, I don’t see it.” And so, until she saw it I did not stop watching that fish as it came out, started, and then go down; he came out and started, playing all over on the horizon as it were; and finally, she said, “Oh yes, now I see it,” and then I woke. So he revealed to me the truth of what I tell you concerning the mystery of Christ, for in all the books it is the great fish. The very last act, when he comes onto the shore and they are cooking fish, it is a symbol: he offers himself as the big fish to feed the whole vast world. He is the fish.

And so, I tell you what I’ve told you about the mystery of Christ is true. I certainly wouldn’t fool you on so deep and tender a thing in the hearts of all of us. But I have found the true Christ, not the false Christ where hundreds of millions worship him. I found that Christ that made you alive, that Christ dreams with you, and will be with you until the very last moment when he awakens you as himself. That’s the Christ of whom I speak. So I tell you, in the depths of your soul when it comes up in the form of a dream, you may not be able to interpret it but don’t discount it. It’s a story from God in the depths of your soul to you. And the day will come, it will get more and more clear to you, and you’ll be able to interpret the symbolism of the dream.

But throughout…there’s a little couplet, a little English couplet: “The fish fried was Christ that died.” It’s always meant much to me, “The fish fried was Christ that died.” You find this all through the great poems and the great works of the masters, the story of the fish. They say that of all the symbols in the Catacombs the most numerous is that of a fish. On the Pope’s crown you find the symbol of the Pisces, you find two tied together, so they understand the symbol. But whether they understand the significance of Christ or not that I don’t know. But now, we’ll take tonight in a more practical form where you can control it. It’s the same Christ…if you control it on the surface of your being. Still you may go to bed, but don’t go to sleep if you control it.

Let me share with you now the story told by a man that is respected the world over. He’s gone now a few years, his name is Carl Jung. Well, Jung is among the great giants of the mind. If you name three, you could not omit the name of Jung in any list of three names when it comes to the understanding of the workings of the human mind, as a great analyst, a great psychiatrist. Well, he said, “One night I lay awake thinking of the sudden death of a friend whose funeral took place yesterday.” He said, “I was deeply concerned, and suddenly I felt that he was in the room. It seemed to me he was standing at the foot of the bed, not as an apparition rather it seemed like an inner vision of him. And then, as I felt his presence there and saw him inwardly as it were, because of my work I had to do something about it, and so I explained it to myself as a fantasy. But then I said to myself, suppose it’s not fantasy? You have no proof that it is or is not fantasy, why not give him the benefit of the doubt and credit him with reality?” He said, “No sooner had I made the decision to credit him with reality than he turned and walked towards the door. I am watching him walk towards the door; then he beckoned me to follow him. So I in my Imagination followed him, and he led me through the garden onto the road, and then he led me to his home, several hundred yards away.

“When we got to his house he led me in, into his study. Then he went forward, stood on a stool and reached up and pointed out a volume, a second book of a set of five. They were all bound in red. But he pointed to the second one on the second shelf from the top. He’s standing on a stool. As he pointed to the second book, all bound in red, then the vision came to an end, and I remained pondering on this strange experience. It was so strange and exciting to me that the next morning I thought I must investigate, so I walked up to my neighbor’s home and asked the widow whether she would allow me to go into the library and look up something, which she willingly granted. I got into the library and there under the book shelf is the stool, the very stool that I saw in my vision. I stood on the stool to reach the second shelf, and there were the five books bound in red, translations of the novels by Emile Zola. I picked the second one out to read its title, and its title was on death, The Legacy of Death was the title.” Now, he said, the contents didn’t mean much to me, but the title was most significant in connection with my experience, The Legacy of Death.

But in the entire story, as he tells it, the important thing for us, trying to control this power of the mind, our wonderful human Imagination which is Christ, was that sentence in it: “The minute I decided to credit him with reality then, and no longer fantasy, he turned and walked to the door, and he beckoned me to follow him.” But he could not move while he entertained the thought of fantasy. But the minute that he credited that with reality then reality took shape, walked to the door, and beckoned him to come. He, in Imagination—the body is still on the bed—he, in Imagination, follows and he leads him through the garden, onto the road, and several hundred yards away up to his friend’s home, his own home which he had just vacated through death. And then pulled out…by his finger pointed out the second volume. It was the second volume, it was on the second shelf from the top, and it was bound in red. And the stool was there. Well, that cannot be coincidence. A stool, the second shelf from the top, the second book in, in a series of five, and the title of the second to be The Legacy of Death. How can you brush it off as mere coincidence? You can’t do it. So he assured himself of survival.

But in reading that, what impressed me…because I’ve always known survival, nothing dies as far as I’m concerned. So I know that nothing dies, so I’m not looking for assurance of survival. I’m not looking for someone to encourage me that those I love do not cease to be because they’ve gone through the experience that men call death. I am so confident of all surviving. God is a God of the living, not the dead. “I am the God of the living” said he, “not of the dead” (Lk.20:38). So everything lives in its form where it was at the moment of the transition. No transforming power in death. But, what impressed me was, it did not move. He entertained the thought “It’s not an apparition, but in my work I must treat it and explain it to myself as a fantasy; and here I’m seeing it on the inner side of my being. It’s not on the outside, but its objective to me from within; it’s an inner vision of him. And then I said, No, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and so I will credit him with reality.” He had no sooner said, I will credit him on the inside, I’ll credit him with reality, than his friend turned, walked to the door and beckoned him to follow him. And he said, Alright, I’ll explore, so in his Imagination he followed him. You can do it. You can go with it, and actually move from where you are right upon this floor, through the garden path, onto the road, and up the street. You can do it. Anyone can do it if you are willing to credit the thing with reality.

Now, it brings me to this. You sit down to change your world, you want something better than you have, and so you begin to conjure a certain scene that would imply the fulfillment of your dream. You begin to conjure it. The average person cannot control their mind long enough to go from A to B. If, for instance I assume that I am what reason denies and my senses deny, and at that very moment of assumption I think of all the debts and what people know me to be…I take it off. That doesn’t fit, it’s like a tight shoe, it just doesn’t fit me; so I take off the assumption. If I could only put on the assumption! Now what’s the next step? I assume that I am the one that I want to be. If it were true, my friends would know it. I wouldn’t hide it from them. In fact, it should be so obvious if it were true that they should see it. Well, the next step, the B step, would be to bring them into my mind’s eye and let them see me as they would see me were it true.

Now, what’s the next step? Well, C…could they keep that secret? No, they would have to discuss it with friends. I would eavesdrop and listen to their discussion of the good fortune that befell me. And so I would listen…“Have you heard the good news?” one would say to the other. “You know what has happened to him? Who would have thought that he could ever get that?” Well, listen to it…then they tell a story. I’m conjuring the whole thing, I know I am, but can I endow it with reality and not say it’s a fantasy? It’s not an apparition, because not a person is before me, not a thing is before me, it’s not an apparition. So, I would say it is fantasy, sheer fantasy, all conjured in my Imagination. But if I could say what Jung said, I will give it now the benefit of the doubt and credit it with reality; and the minute I credit it with reality, I’m believing. “Whatever you ask in faith, believe that you receive it, and you will” (Mat.21:22). That’s the story.

So man, if he can only control his Imagination between A and B, doesn’t have to go to C, just from A to B. Take the first step: You assume the end. The end is where we begin: “In my end is my beginning.” So I assume the end, I am the man that I want to be. And were it true, I would be known by my friends first, so I bring them into my mind’s eye and they see me. I let them see me. If I want to talk with them, accept their congratulations and not duck but really hold my head high and proud of what has happened to me; alright, accept the congratulations. And then I turn from that to the third step, and let them talk between themselves, and I’m listening. All of that is making it real to me. And then I go on in my wonderful state that it is true. I begin to make plans of the things I would do and am going to do now. And then, in this simple little drama I now credit it, I give it reality. And then see and test God: “Come test me and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great you haven’t room on earth to receive it” (Mal. 3:10). Come test me, test the Lord and see. As we’re told, “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless, of course, you fail to meet the test” (2 Cor. 13:5). I hope you realize that we have not failed. And so, we must test it, and test it by giving it reality. I try to give it all the tones of reality, all the sensory vividness that I can muster. And when I do it, it works.

If I never hear from one who has asked help from me, it would make no difference to me. They may never come back. Because I’m told—I try to believe implicitly in my scripture—“Were there not ten of you? And where are the other nine? Only one has returned. Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17). So if the nine do not come back, that’s part of scripture. They will accept it; it’s going to happen so naturally in the lives of the ones who received it that they’re going to say, “Well, it would have happened anyway.” And so they do not come back to say thank you. And so I know that scripture is true and, therefore, one in ten will say thank you and the nine will not. Therefore, why look for them to ask…I never ask if it has happened, because to me it happened at the moment I did it. As far as I am concerned that’s when it happened and I’m not looking to see confirmation. That’s how it works.

So this is a controlled dream when you haven’t lost it into the depths of the soul. So I teach the law in the controlling of one’s Imagination, by simply conceiving a scene which if true would imply the fulfillment of the dream…if true. Now, you conceive it, enact it in your Imagination, then credit it with reality, and then let it go. Don’t raise a finger to make it so, just let it go. I see faces here this night in the audience, many of you have proved it 100%, many of you. If you have failed in one little thing, you are not doubtful of the law because you have already proved it. You know that in some strange way you haven’t in this peculiar incident done the thing that you should do; you haven’t given it the reality that you should. Act upon it, see it vividly, enact it naturally, give it the tones of reality, and let it go. You can do it in the most detailed manner…and I do like detail. Don’t say, “Well, he knows best, therefore, if he knows I should get it then let him be the judge.” That’s passing the buck.

Someone said to me, “Can I ask for a certain sum of money?” I said, “Certainly…for a definite sum of money.” Well, she said, “My take-home pay would be so much and I want a hundred dollars net.” Now this goes back many years ago, today, undoubtedly, she’s making two hundred or more…I hope so. This goes back many years ago. She was in my Bible class in New York City, and she said, “Alright, what I will do, I’ll conceive a scene” and this is what she did. She was a seamstress and a part-time designer, but mostly a seamstress—but she was sometimes called upon to do a little design work. And she averaged in the sixties, sixty-five, sixty-six dollars a week. But she wants to take home a hundred dollars a week, not sixty-six; and then have them deduct her taxes, she wanted to take home a hundred net. So she took up the envelope, and she could feel the envelope, she could hear it tear, she tore it, she shook the contents out, she could smell money, and she counted off the money, just counted it off. And to her that was real. This is on a Friday. On a Saturday, the phone rang—she lived at a hotel—and the phone rang and a lady called from the lobby asking her to come down and see her. She asked her, “What is it all about?” Well, she said, “I would like to see you. Your name has been recommended” so she came downstairs and it was sealed that day to start working for her the following Monday. And she said, “I want a hundred dollars to take home net.” She said, “Alright, you’ll take home a hundred dollars net” and she started at the figure that she had predetermined. It should have taught her a lesson now that she knows it, that she cannot anchor herself there. She can go up and up as far as she wants to if she knows it’s a law. Because, “By him all things are made, and without him there is nothing made that is made” (John 1:3). Not a thing in this world is made save God made it; and therefore if God did it in this way, she knows who God is now. She tested him and found out who he is. He’s not something in the sky. She knows the whole vast world is contained within man; it’s not in the sky.

As we told you this past week, quoting this lovely magazine, The ___(??) on Space, that only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space. So the whole vast world that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow (Blake). So the whole vast world is contained within you. So give reality to anything that you imagine, for that’s Christ in action. Your own wonderful human Imagination is Christ in action. Therefore, don’t debase him, don’t hurt him. You hurt him every time you use your Imagination unlovingly on behalf of anyone in this world or told of another what is unlovely. But every time you use it lovingly you’re feeding him, actually feeding him.

So I say to you, you have a dream this night and you can’t quite interpret it, alright. Still know that God so loved you that he talked to you. He talked with the medium of a dream. Sometimes it’s so simple it needs no interpretation, but other times it comes in the form of a symbol. But if it comes in the form of a symbol, always bear in mind that the earthly story is secondary to the meaning of that dream. The dream is always a parable, always a parable, and a parable has one central jet of truth, only one. So, like last night, here comes the fish, this enormous beautiful dolphin. And I’ve eaten so many of them in my life, but you can’t eat a whole dolphin. But if I took all of the dolphins that I’ve eaten in my life, it would be a school of dolphins. And so, I would eat…really, he said, “Eat my flesh”…so I did, I ate dolphin. But it’s only the symbol of Christ. But it’s a perfect symbol of him: He comes from the depth. What is a greater symbol of the depth than the ocean?

My first mystical experiences were with the ocean. When I was a child, a boy of maybe five or six, I would find myself at night…I knew exactly when it was going to happen, and it scared me to death. I would sit up in bed and hope not to go to sleep, but sleep would come regardless of my efforts. And so, my brothers luckily were with me in the same big bed. So I would get near one of them as I fell into the pillow. But then I would become the ocean, an infinite ocean; and then, not only was I the ocean but I was the wave on the ocean’s back. The ocean would toss me, the wave. I was the ocean tossing myself, the wave, and catching myself on my own back, the ocean. It scared me to death. But I could tell the day it was going to happen. I could feel the feeling building within me, a mood taking possession of me, and that night I knew it was going to happen tonight. Well, this lasted all through the years until puberty, and then it vanished. But from my childhood, six or so, right through to puberty, and then the whole thing vanished.

My next mood when ___(??) was not an ocean, it was an ocean of light. That was when I turned twenty. I found myself this night…I was reading a book on the life of Buddha, and suddenly I woke and it was sunup, about eight in the morning. The light was still on and the book was on my chest. So I did a thing I never do, really—that was the first time I can recall ever having done it—read in bed. I go to bed to sleep. But this night, something was going on at the club. I was not allowed to participate because I was a guest of the manager, so I couldn’t join the guests of the club because we discriminate in club life as we do in army life. You can’t entertain the private with an officer…that’s breaking protocol. And so, I was not allowed to dance among those who were members. So having not a thing to do, I took the book, went to bed quite early, and started to read. Next thing I knew it was eight, nine in the morning, and I hadn’t turned in the course of the night because the book was still open flat on my chest. So I could not have turned and the light was burning.

So, then I threw myself into a deep trance—I didn’t purposely do it—but in that deep, deep trance I became an infinite ocean of liquid light. There was nothing but myself. There was no buoyancy in the sense of a wave, just living light. The whole thing was alive and I am it. It had no circumference and yet I am it. And then when I came to, I remembered vividly the experience of the night. How long it lasted, I don’t know. When I actually fell into the deep, I don’t know. But I only know what happened in that interval. So what greater symbol of that depth of man than the liquid state, the water? Let it come down to the liquid state of golden, liquid, living light. But then in water what lives?—the fish. What could go deeper than the fish? So right in the very depth he symbolizes the Great God, and he’s called the Great Fish, Jesus Christ. And when you think of the word fish in Greek and how the letters that spell the word yield for us the initials that when you take the initials it spells out “Jesus Christ, Son of man, Savior,” that’s no accident.

And so last night, from the depths of my soul came this revelation. Not that I had any doubt in my mind as to the truth of what I told you, for I have experienced it, but for those who may still have a question mark, who cannot quite see it. And what could drive it home to me? For my wife discusses these things with me all of the time; and in my vision of last night, I turned to her as a very last resort because no one could see the fish. In other words, no one could see the mystery that is the fish. And so I said, “Don’t you see it, dear?” She said, “No, I don’t.” Then I said, “Follow my finger.” I took the index finger and “Wherever I’m pointing it, that’s the fish. You watch it now.” Then I saw the fish come up, “There he goes,” I pointed and she said, “Oh yes, now I see. Now I see.” So she sees the mystery as explained. But you can explain it and explain it and hope that one sees it, and then you’re not quite sure. Not quite sure if they say yes, but did they really see it?

Like the story we told you last Tuesday, the story that “he took eternity and put it into the mind of man” (Eccles. 3:11). How do you take eternity and put it into the mind of man? And then we took…so here’s exactly how he does it. First of all, in the Hebraic world, history to them consists of the entire experiences of man, and all the generations of man, but fused into a single being. And that being, being eternity, has to be youth, for youth is eternity, not an old man; and that single being is David. The same word called eternity is called youth, called the lad, called the young man. And so, you turn to the Bible and you find these questions being asked: Who are you, young man? Inquire who is the lad? Whose son is that lad? (1 Sam. 17:56). The whole question is asked about the father by asking “Whose son is the lad?” Therefore, if I’m asking about whose son it is, I’m really trying to find out who is the father, because I have promised the father freedom. So I must find the father.

And so, I hoped when I left here that those who attended understood what I meant by David. David is the sum total of humanity. God’s love is humanity. God loves man. And take all the generations of men, and all of their accomplishments, all of their experiences, and fuse them into a single man, you have David. So when you’ve overcome to the point where David appears and you are set free, you have actually played the parts; and so you now fall in love with humanity. For humanity fused together into a single being is David. And you are the father of David; therefore, you are the father of humanity; and humanity gave you birth. Through all of these troubles you came out of man, for he’s born of man…and the very first verse, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David” (Mat. 1:1). So Jesus Christ is born of man, as told you in the 3rd chapter, the 16th verse of Galatians: “And your offspring, which is Christ.” He’s speaking to man: Your offspring is Christ. Yet, when I bring him forward, because he actually begot me, and then comes a reversal of order, and he who seemingly was my father now calls me Father and he’s my son. So humanity now calls me Father. That’s the story.

But, it’s a mystery, something that is not an easy thing to grasp. As I’ve said earlier that it’s one of the most difficult things in this world to change the meaning of the event once certain interpretations of that event become fixed in the human mind. So, hundreds of millions who call themselves Christians have fixed in their minds the event called Christmas, the event called Easter…and that’s the event. Well, now when you have the real meaning of it because it’s unfolded within you and you experienced it, it’s so difficult to change the meaning of that event after an interpretation, a certain interpretation, has been fixed upon that event. And so, they come clouded, like this man that I spoke of earlier. He’s not to be disturbed. That is a fixed thing in his mind’s eye. He wants no disturbance, because he might wake up tomorrow to find himself on the other side of the veil, and then I misled him. So he doesn’t want to take any chances now because a man my age knows that he’s nearer that side than he is this side, and so, he’s taking no chances. But I’ll tell you, what I’ve told you so far is true because I am speaking not from theory, I’m speaking from experience. And so, if you know anything in this world from experience because you’ve experienced it, doesn’t really matter what the world will say, you know. Why?—because you’ve experienced it. So I know Christ is real, he’s true. I know he’s risen. I also know he’s rising in the whole vast body of humanity; but he rises individually.

And so, when he speaks to you this night, should he speak this night, record it simply. A friend of mine gave me a letter last Tuesday night. I have it with my other precious mail at home. When I went home before I retired I read it, and I was thrilled beyond measure. He said, “I quit the job yesterday”—that was the day before he wrote this letter—“so having no way to go for a job today…I had no desire for a job. I quit first, I wasn’t fired; I just left the job. But I always rise early from habit, so at 5:30 I awoke, but I didn’t get out of bed. There was no reason for getting out of bed, so I remained in bed in that sort of drowsy, dreamy state, not awake, not asleep, and then I heard a voice. It wasn’t a deep sonorous voice but a lovely voice speaking to me, and the voice said to me, ‘God knows the depth of your soul, and you will receive the promise within, that is, from 100 days to a year.’ Then I wrote it down in a half dream state, and when I did wake I remembered writing something down. I picked it up and I read it: ‘God knows what is in the depth of your soul and from 100 days to a year you will receive the promise.’” Well, he said, I haven’t been able to think of anything but since!

I don’t blame him. I don’t blame him! What could you ask for in this world comparable to that? And he has no desire to take the platform and teach. He said to me tonight, “But I have no desire to teach.” I said, well, you’ll teach. So you want to be a musician? Tell the boys in the band…as they’re dancing around you can whisper in their ear the message. Well, he’d tell it differently, we’re all different, and so you can tell it in a thousand different ways. Blake had no audience; Blake told it in poetry. And so, he told the glorious story in his paintings, in his etchings, he told it in poetry. And he has grown bigger and bigger through the years. After 200 years since his birth to today, he is so big today he dwarfs all the people who lived in his age, and yet he was completely unknown when he made his exit from this world. And so, he told his story through the medium of the pen. I am trying to tell it through the medium of words from the platform and trying to leave a slight record in a written form. But you can tell it in your own wonderful way.

Another lovely vision was given to me, a different kind of a vision, last Tuesday night. This lady writes a letter, she said, “You know how doting grandparents are over their grand-children.” She said, “My little boy”—whom I know quite well, I saw him this past summer, the previous summer, and he’s just a tot, three years old— “you know they have playmates and they’re very real to them. Well, he has two elephants and he tells me they’re gray, and he talks to them, Mumbo and Jumbo, I think are their names.” Well, she said, “one day, it’s raining, a very hard rain, so the mother said, ‘C’mon, let’s run to the car.’ As he got into the car she slammed the door; he began to cry in a forceful manner, almost hysterics. She said, ‘What have I done?’ He said, ‘You’ve closed the door on Mumbo and Jumbo; they can’t get in.’ So, she said, “I had to open the door and let the two elephants in, and then he placed them in the back of the car, and got them all nice and comfortable.” So she said, “I don’t want this again, so I better explain to him, in the future if the car is locked and it’s raining they can get through the car, we don’t have to open the door, so that the next time it happens this way at least they will understand and he will understand that they can make it.” But they’re so real to him until the little mind is closed around with the flesh. Hasn’t yet closed, and so the minute it closes he will laugh at his own stupidity and others will laugh with him. Yet we are living in a fabulous world…and this little boy, only three.

Then she said, “I took him into the place that they rented for him.” This lady, the grandmother, went to Hawaii and brought back some lovely Hawaiian music, and he wanted to hear the record. So she brought the records out and among the records she had among them my record, and she said, “It’s Neville’s record.” He said, “I want to hear Neville’s record. I know Neville.” Well, he does know me, met me last summer. So she said, “But it’s all talking and I have some lovely music here from Hawaii. Let us play the music.” He said, “No, I want to hear Neville’s record.” So she puts on the record, and it came to a certain passage, he said, “Neville had a baby,” just the most natural thing in the world for him that Neville, a man, should have a baby. And then, a few bars further on, where I held the child in my arms and called it by some endearing term, “How is my sweetheart?” he said to his grandmother, “Neville loves his baby.” At the end of the record, he said, “Play it again.” She said, “But no, you’ve heard the record.” “I want to hear that record again.” So he sits on the floor in a lotus posture like some little Buddha listening to the record, not really grasping it. And so, she had heard the record many times and she knows the record backwards. She got busy about the house when he said, “Shhh,” with his hand on his mouth, “Neville’s talking.” So she had to stop what she had intended to do and come back and listen for the umpteenth time to the record. So these little children living in an entirely different world, but as they grow and the flesh closes around them they’re completely shut out. And he has the Imagination to invite these two elephants right in. Maybe tomorrow’s Republican, who knows?

But may I tell you, the story of Christ is true, the truest thing in the world. In fact, it is the only thing that is real. There is nothing but Christ, and Christ so loved humanity he actually became humanity, and he’s crucified on the cross of man. He rose to fulfill the promise and he’s rising in every one in the world. When he rises out of you, because he came out of you to fulfill the promise—“I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son” (2 Sam. 7:12). But you’re told, you will be his father because he’s coming out of you. And then God speaks, “But I will be his father and he shall be my son.” So he draws his son, himself, out of man, therefore, man gave birth to him. But when he comes out, man calls him “my Lord,” “my God, my Father, the rock of my salvation” (Ps. 89:26). He comes right out of man and then the whole reversal of order takes place, and he calls what came out of him his own creator, which it is.

And so, you take the whole vast world, all the generations of men, all their experiences, and fuse it into a single man and you get David. Take all the gods that said “Let us make man in our image”—the Elohim, for that’s a plural word meaning “gods”—take them all, the unnumbered gods, and fuse them into a single God, and you get Jehovah who is Jesus Christ. People don’t believe it, Jehovah is Jesus Christ. They’re one, and all of the gods are contained in the one God. These are all humanity, and fused into one man, it’s David. All the gods fused into one God, you get Jehovah who is Jesus Christ. You dwell upon it. Last night it was shown to me so vividly, so clearly, all those who traveled with me in that boat, they couldn’t see him, couldn’t see the fish. But I was determined that at least one should see him, so I turned to my wife, “Can’t you see him, dear?” “No.” “Now you watch my finger and you watch it. I’m pointing at him. There he is.” And finally she said, “Oh, yes, now I see him.” When she saw him then I could awake.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Now first let me call your attention to the book table. The only books that stayed tonight are mine. I was waiting for my friend’s book I Do, that’s Freedom Barry’s book, but it hasn’t yet arrived. But on the way out, look them over and see if you would like a book.

Above all tonight, don’t forget the importance of giving vision reality. For when he gave it reality and credited the thing with reality, things began to move. That is a man who is honored the world over. His books are translated into unnumbered different languages. You can buy them in any town. His works are in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, all tongues, that’s how honored he is all over the world. And he’s giving you his own personal experience.

Now are there any questions, please?

Q: Neville, in that vision of the fish, do you think Bill would be an aspect of yourself or Bill the person?

A: I took it to be one of the persons. I was trying with those who were moving with me. And it was such a vivid thing. First of all, it was a big ship. And Vishnu, the Hindu god of the ___(??) of the world, he, in the guise of a fish, led the ark of man to safety. And so, here was a fish. It’s a savior in the guise of a fish, leading the ark, the ship. There were many chairs, and I was on the upper deck with a crowd of people, trying my best to make them see the fish…couldn’t see it. I was determined to find someone and here was Bill; she couldn’t see it, couldn’t see it. “Don’t you see it, dear?” “No” and then finally, “You follow me, just as I point, watch exactly as I point”…which is also indicative. I took my index finger of this right hand and I said, “Watch.” I’m pointing correctly, “You watch it.” She said, “Oh yes, now I see it.” You’ve got to point it so directly and point it so clearly that the mind can see it. For every time Moses is read a veil hangs over their faces. Any other questions, please?

Q: ___(??) asking a little question on symbology. When Moses was working with the people and they made a mistake, or sinned, God brought serpents which bit or killed many people. Then immediately after that, Moses took the serpent as a sign of healing. What was trying to be conveyed there?

A: There’s a false Christ and the true Christ, a false spirit and the true Spirit. Here, an obvious false spirit is alcohol, but it is spirit; and the true Spirit is Christ Jesus. The false Christ, in the form of the serpent…and yet Christ is called the Great Serpent. So, a serpent that moves up when Moses placed it on a rod—and there is a rod and that rod is your own spinal cord—and you, yourself, will move up that spinal cord of yours into your skull in the same way that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. But there are unnumbered false prophets in the world, and they are the false serpents that bite and sting and betray the world. That is spoken so clearly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These false prophets have gone into the world saying they had visions and they had not; where they talk of a vision that they did not have, and they concoct the vision, and then tell the world that they had a vision. They don’t believe in immortality. They haven’t the slightest concept of any Christ or God, but while they are here they’re going to make hay on the superstitions of men. So they dress themselves up in all kinds of fancy robes, do all kinds of palaver before them, and they’ll think, “There’s a holy man”; and behind their backs get blind drunk, and do everything, always on the hidden side. If you drink, go into the bar and let the whole world see you. If you smoke, smoke as you walk the street. Whatever you do, don’t hide it.

But these fellas would hide everything under the veil of secrecy and betray the world only for a dollar. There isn’t a day you don’t read in the paper across the country one of them picked up for playing a certain part where he should not be playing…the three fellas always being picked up. In fact, it’s gotten to the point of amusing me now. They’re all dressed as priests, begging money for their order, and they aren’t priests at all. But they know they can get it wearing these robes. And they come before the judge, the judge gives them a nice tongue lashing and then discharges them. They go right out the same day dressed again. But that’s only one little order of them. There’s one chap here in the city who’s always being sued for tens of thousands of dollars. And when he had his wedding, which really should be a funeral, when he had it, all these white doves released…oodles of white doves…a holy man. Six months later, some woman is suing him for $50,000 he took from her illegally. Another one comes up for a hundred thousand illegally…and this wonderful bunch of white doves. He’s no better than Khrushchev with his white dove. When he wants to rub you out he has a white dove, holding it up. And so, that mentality, they are the false prophets who have gone into the world. And the Bible speaks of them.

If you know it, and you’ve actually heard the voice of God, and the whole drama has unfolded within you, then do not fear any man in this world. Tell it just as it happened to you. Eventually, after they go through the furnaces of experience, they will come out, because God will not condemn anyone. They’ll come out from that phoniness. But what length of time, who knows? How vast, how severe the trials before they come out only God knows; which is merciful, because if he could see what he has to go through for the phony part he’s playing, he would want oblivion, real oblivion. He wouldn’t want immortality after the trials; he’d want oblivion now. But he isn’t going to get oblivion. He has to go through the furnaces, because all will be saved. So there are false serpents and the true serpent. Who are the false serpents?—the magicians. As you are told, I quote tonight from the 2nd chapter of Daniel, he said, these are the words of the prophet Daniel, “No magician, no authority, no soothsayer can interpret your dream, O king. But this is your dream: There’s a God in heaven who makes known unto you”…and he tells him that all of these fellas who were drawing little signs and all kinds of things trying to interpret the dream could not interpret the dream. They were the false serpents.

Goodnight.