Incubate the Dream

I promise you if you apply it in the immediate present, you’ll see the results. It’s based upon dreams. The Bible recognizes only one source of dreams and that source is God. But today, in l963, our doctors, our psychiatrists ___(??), they know that the source of a dream is Imagination and so they will say, no, it’s not God, it’s one’s Imagination. But they do not know that the word God and Imagination in the scriptures are the same. The word potter is Imagination. The word potter is God. And so we all agree there’s only one source of dream and that source is God. But if it helps to change the name, I’m all for it, and to say it is human imagining, well, I’m all for that. By identifying God with human Imagination, we close the gap between God and man, and then we start from there. The Bible is simply filled with the secret of dreaming, and tells us that God speaks to man through the medium of a dream and reveals himself to man in vision.

Now, there are intentional dreams, and there are unintentional dreams. Most of us have the unintentional dreams. We go to sleep and we dream. Many of us do not remember the dream. The Bible tells us every dream has its own significance, that God instructs man through the medium of dream. Now the dream could be in a simple manner, told in very plain language that needs no interpretation. But quite often the dream comes in the form of symbolism, symbolic, and then it needs the real interpreter of the dream. The first grand interpreter of the dream in the Bible was Joseph. He rose from a slave to the second in command of the whole land of Egypt through the ability to interpret dream. So he took the dreams of Pharaoh, and because he gave them the true interpretation, he rose right under power of Pharaoh. It was through his dream that he was sold into slavery because of the jealousy of his brothers, for he saw the sun and moon and eleven stars bow before him. The father rebuked him and said to him, “You mean that I and your mother and your brothers will bow before you?” He saw his sheaf rise to its full height, and all the other sheaves bow before this sheaf. And so you know the story, I think you are all familiar with the story of Joseph, how he was sold into slavery because he was the dreamer. “Behold this dreamer cometh.” He not only had the dreams but he could interpret the dream.

But here we find in the Bible not only these unintentional dreams, for we didn’t plan to have them. And God prophesied through the medium of dream the seven years of abundance and the seven years of starvation, of famine, and it came just as he said it would happen. But there is one dream that was intentionally ___(??) and that we read in the 1st Book of Kings, the 3rd chapter, and then the same kind of a dream in the first chapter of the 2nd Book of Chronicles. And this is the dream that was induced by Solomon. So Solomon went up to the high hill, called Gideon. It was a holy place. For kings would speak in synagogue and the temple or some holy spot as they considered it, in the hope that they would in some strange way induce some communication between God and themselves. So Solomon went up for the purpose of inducing a dream where God would reveal himself to him. And so God appeared and God said to him, “Ask of me what you want.” He asked for an understanding mind that he may rule his people, more numerous than the dust of the earth. And then, said he, and this is his prayer, “O Lord God, thy promise to David my father fulfill this day” (2 Chronicles 1:9). That was what he wanted above all things in this world: Thy promise to David my father, let it now, this very moment, let it be fulfilled now. And then God said to him, “Because you did not ask for a long life and riches and the life of your enemies, I will grant you all these plus.”

Now the promise that God made to David was to bring forth from David a son who will be God’s son, and that God will be his father. The son to be brought forth from David would come after David dies. “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up after you your son, who will come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (2 Samuel 7:12). So Solomon is asking for the fulfillment of this promise. When you read it on the surface, Solomon seems to be his son. No, Solomon is a state of consciousness. All of these characters are states of consciousness, and you reach a certain state when you believe God’s revelation. Is it true that when David dies that out of David’s body, a dead body, will come a son that will be God’s son and God his father? If that is true, Lord, this is my prayer, “O Lord, thy promise to David my father…” David is my father? Yes. I’m a man; you’re a man; David is humanity. So here we are, the whole vast world of mankind, that’s David.

And you and I don’t realize that we are dead. We have no concept that this is death. To us, when we say good-bye to a friend in the event we call death, and that’s death, but this is life. Yet, this is the world of death as spoken of in the Bible. So here is David, he’s dead—everyone walking the earth, the sleep is so profound, it is likened unto death. And now if the promise made to this state called death is true, fulfill it now, O Lord; bring forth from this state of death—for I am one—bring forth from me that which will be your son. Bring it out, just as you promised, from David. Bring it out and be the father of that son and let that which comes forth from me be the son of you. And so that was his promise.

Now, how did he do it? He does it just as you would do it to bring about a business success, just as you would do to bring about a marriage, anything in this world but anything. It’s the same thing. For this is God’s promise, the intentional dream can be done just as the unintentional dream he uses to reveal to us his secret.

Now, in this book, he makes this statement; the dream was doubled. Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh, and he said to Pharaoh, “The doubling of your dream, Pharaoh, means this, that the thing is fixed by God, and God will soon bring it to pass” (Genesis 41:32). If the dream is doubled, then it’s fixed and no one’s going to change it if the dream is doubled. So he had a dream, he stood on the side of the Nile and out of the Nile came seven fat cows, fat and sleek. And then out of the same stream, the great Nile, came seven emaciated, thin, awful-looking creatures, never seen in the land of Egypt. They ate up the seven fat cows, and yet, you could not see after they devoured the seven fat cows that they in any way increased in weight. They were still emaciated, all. Then came one stalk and on that stalk came these seven ears; then came another seven, and they were horrible. The first seven were fat and lovely and the thin ones ate up the fat ones. And eating up all the fat ones, they had no increase in weight. And so he interpreted that. Then in this interpretation, which is the 41st chapter of Genesis, he makes the statement, When the dream is doubled—for he had a second dream using the same symbolism—whenever the dream is doubled then God has fixed that thing—there’ll be no altering, you can’t change it—and soon it will come to pass, if the dream is doubled.

Well now, let me share with you my doubled dream. I’ve told it before, and maybe everyone present heard it. Well, this is the technique by which you can induce a dream and make it something that is intentional. It was a year ago last Christmas, when I found myself in a mansion. There were three generations present but one invisible. The invisible one dominated the visible state. He was called grandfather. They were telling the story of grandfather: The grandfather would stand on a vacant lot and grandfather would say, “I remember when this was a vacant lot,” and then he would paint a word picture of this area so vividly that people saw it as something objective before their mind’s eye. He painted a word picture of his desire for that lot, and they all saw it.

I woke; the thing was so vivid, it was so startling. It was a little after three in the morning when I awoke; I went to my living room, and I wrote it out on a nice long yellow page in detail, just as it was shown to me in the vision. I went back to bed, I thought it quite early in the morning, and I re-dreamed the dream. This is now the double dream. It’s fixed; you can’t change it. I re-dreamed it with a slight alteration. Instead of hearing them tell the story of grandfather, I was grandfather. I had so completely absorbed the message of grandfather that then I told them, “While standing on a vacant lot, I remember when this was a vacant lot.” Then I would paint a word picture of my desire for that lot, and paint it so vividly they all saw it. And that was God’s secret to me. “Go tell it to the world.”

In the end, the end is where we begin. You always begin in the end. So he goes to the end, God’s final promise: I will now bring forth from your body, after you’re dead, for “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up after you a son that will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son.” Now, “O Lord God, thy promise made to David my father be now fulfilled”; that was his request. Well, if that is his request, what would he do?

For God revealed to me what I should do if I wanted a home. I have no means for buying the home. He doesn’t ask me about means. I don’t have the qualifications for entering that neighborhood. He doesn’t ask for that. I don’t have this. He doesn’t ask me that. He only tells me what to do. Well, what do I do? You stand on the vacant lot, and you see it as you would see it were it true, that it fulfilled your dream of your future. But it must be now. And so I go into the end, and dwelling in the end, I see it as I would see it were it true. And living in that state—this is now the intentional dream—and I call it incubation dream; I incubate it. You stand on the empty lot, empty of anything, without any qualification in the world, and standing in it, you paint your word picture mentally; and you see it come into being to your own satisfaction. You did it. That’s all that God told me to do, and then he repeated it.

So in this 32nd verse of the 41st chapter of Genesis, he tells you: Whenever the dream is doubled, if it is ever doubled, the thing God has fixed and will shortly bring it to pass, if it’s doubled. Well, that night it was doubled. I woke a little after three, wrote it out in detail, went back to bed, and re-dreamed the dream—here’s the double dream. But I so completely absorbed the message that I am telling it now. Everyone who will listen to me, I’m telling them. You know what you want? You really know what you want in this world, and you don’t have it; therefore, it is empty, isn’t it? It doesn’t exist. Well, this is what I’d do were I you. So the lot is empty, the space is vacant. Stand right now. You aren’t married, are you? You know you’re not happily married? All right, if you were, would the world see you in that light? Yes. Well now, this is spaceless because you are not in that way. Well now, be in that way. Wear the ring. See the faces of your friends; that is, an expression on your friends’ faces, see them all seeing you as they would see you were it true, and lose yourself in that state. That’s the end. The end is where we start from. Now, then you are incubating the dream. You actually, I would say, make it alive, and make it real, for this cannot fail.

I’m telling you from an experience. My dream that night was the double-dream. ___(??) and if the dream is ever doubled, God has fixed it; it’s part of the eternal law, and you can’t change it. So I’m sharing with you his eternal law: it’s the end. So I go to the end of anything in this world, I don’t care what it is, and then see the fulfillment of the dream because that’s the end. The end is all fulfillment. I open my eyes and I come back to a seeming empty lot, but to me it isn’t empty; I saw the end. Having seen the end, I am sustained by the end, and I walk through all the things of the world sustained by the end. I saw it, I am still seeing it, I continue to see it until that which I am seeing and living in is perfectly realized in the world. So that’s the story of the dream.

But we ask for the most fantastic dream. As many of you have said to me, “Neville, I would give anything in this world”—and you should, you should give everything in the world, not anything, but everything—“for the fulfillment of God’s promise to man.” When you die—and this is death—and you go into it, I will raise up from you, your dead body, my son. He’ll come forward from your body, but he’s my son; I’ll be his father. Can you conceive of anything that the wisest man that ever lived would want more than that? Well, Solomon was called the wisest of all men. That was his outstanding request. And when he came before God and God said, “Ask of me what you will, anything” and that was his request, “O Lord God, O Jehovah Elohim, thy promise to David my father be now fulfilled”; that’s what I want. It’s not a man called Solomon, it’s the state of consciousness that man reaches when he can really want that more than anything in the world. When he wants that more than anything in the world, he’s Solomon. He’s at that point, that state of awareness, where he is concerned in the depths of his soul asking, instead of asking for an extension of life in this world of death. He didn’t ask for long life. He didn’t ask for riches. He didn’t ask for the life of his enemies. All these things were given him, but he didn’t ask for them. He asked for the one consuming desire of his heart, and that was the fulfillment of God’s promise to David his father.

And humanity is David; this is the Son of God. And out of this son he brings a real Son, the Spirit that is one with the Father. For God is Spirit and those who worship him worship in Spirit and in truth. So he brings out of this decaying, dying body that which cannot die, the immortal you. He brings it out and it’s you and you’re one with God. Then you see the symbol of the child, proving that he gave you himself, because he takes the whole vast world of humanity and puts it into one single Son and symbolizes the whole humanity in a single Son.

But to make this practical, if you haven’t that longing of the heart—I know in this audience there are a few of you who said to me, “In your prayers remember me in this hope: I want that more than anything in this world”—and so there are in this audience tonight a few who have asked that of me, but the majority would like more of the comforts of this world. And it’s perfectly all right. No matter what it is, it is the same technique. “Neville, go and tell them to go to the end.” Go to the very end. What would be the end if you were now the man that you want to be, now the woman that you want to be? How would you see the world? That’s the end. Well now, see it just as you would see it were it true.

And that is intentional dreaming. I call it, in one of my books, “thinking from the end instead of thinking of the end.” When I think from the end, I’m in it, and the whole vast world mirrors that end. If I’m thinking of it, where am I when I think of it? For where I am is what I’m going to resurrect, what I’m realizing. So the state called Solomon puts himself in the end, where God did grant to him the promise that he made to his father David. So everyone gets into the state called Solomon, and there he brings out God’s promise.

Somewhere along the line, everyone has to enter that state. You might just as well enter that state tonight because somewhere, “You see yonder hills, the sesamum was sesamum, the corn was corn, the silence and the darkness knew; so is a man’s fate born.” You mean my fate is born in that manner? Yes. And the silence and the darkness knew it? Yes. Well now, I’ll take the silence and the darkness and manipulate them—no one knows it. And I will go like Solomon and stand in the silence and the darkness, and I will ask in the depths of my soul to have granted to me the promise he made to my father David. For maturity comes to the individual when that individual becomes his own father’s father. Here is David, the whole vast world of man, and then suddenly out of him comes something that is God’s son. And God’s son turns because he’s one with his father, and “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They not knowing said, “Why, David, son of David.” “Why then does David in spirit call him Lord?” Why did he call him “my Father”? “If he calls him my father, how can he be David’s son? And no one asked him any other questions” (Matthew 22:42). He who is David’s son becomes David’s father. That’s when maturity comes to man.

So tonight, if I could aid you in building that picture, just imagine you could tell me tomorrow that it happened to you, just imagine. Well, that’s the end. You could tell me after the event, couldn’t you? You can’t tell me before the event; that’s only a hope. So he’s asking, Grant to me this night, now, the promise you made to my father David. Do it now. Well now, if it happened to you tonight, when we meet next Tuesday, or in the interval, or beyond ___(??), wouldn’t the first thing you would tell me would be it happened to you? Wouldn’t you tell me you saw him and he called you “Adonay”; he called you “my Father, my Lord, the Rock of my salvation”? You couldn’t wait to tell me! You wouldn’t wait ’til Tuesday, you’d call me tomorrow on the phone ___(??). You’d seek an audience right away. Whether I had a thousand people to see or not, you couldn’t restrain yourself. Well now, what would the feeling be like were it true? Well then, do that.

That’s exactly what Solomon, the state called Solomon, did. In other words, it was intentional dreaming, not unintentional. In the unintentional dream he speaks to me every night. We’re all past masters at misinterpreting the dream if it is symbolical. If it is a simple direct statement, like when I was in the army and I sought my honorable discharge, that was a direct statement, no confusion. The voice spoke to me in plain, plain language that no one had to interpret for me: “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing.” And then he added to that by showing me my discharge papers, where the hand wrote “approved” when formerly, only a matter of hours before, he had written “disapproved.” So here, on my application for a discharge, the colonel wrote “disapproved.” That night, in a simple direct message—no need of any interpretation—the same application came before my eyes, at four in the morning, and a hand, from here down, scratched out the word disapproved, and it wrote in approved. Well then, to make it very simple and very clear, the voice spoke to me and the voice said to me, “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing.” I woke; it’s four; I did nothing. And the very person who had disapproved the application was the one who approved it nine days later. That’s direct communication. That’s simple.

But, when it comes now, say, to the little pig, when suddenly, I find myself in a huge big area where all the plants are being displayed and it’s closing time and I see a little pig. Being merciful at the moment, I took the little pig and tried to give it some food and some protection. So I did the best I could from all the leaves and the bushes and the things around, all the flowers. I thought at least if it didn’t want it as food, if it got hungry enough it would eat it. And so, I took flowers and took leaves and put the little pig on a table maybe four, five feet tall. Then the scene changed, and I am in a huge big supermarket. Here in the supermarket with everything displayed, I look down and here’s the pig. He’s not a little runt where I found him a moment before; he is now a tall rangy pig, very rangy and very tall. In other words, he had grown in the interval, but he had not been well fed. I knew he should have been better fed, and so I started getting a meal—I started fixing meal. My brother Victor said to me, “What are you doing?” I told him, “I’m going to feed my pig.” And so he took some lovely thick white gravy-like and added it to my meal and I began to mix it because I thought that would give him substance, far better than plain meal and water.

Then I sent my daughter over there to get me some crackers. She said, “What would I use for money, Daddy?” I said, “This all belongs to us. You don’t need money here, everything is ours, just go and take it.” So there’s a huge big pyramid, and she took from the base of the pyramid a package of crackers and dislodged the balance and the whole thing fell, revealing a single little candle about four or five inches tall, and the candle was lit. I said to her, “That’s my candle. It must never again in eternity be covered. Never must that ever be covered again; it’s now lit and it’ll be lit forever.” The words of Job and the words of Proverbs came rushing through my brain: “When his candle shines upon my head, by his light I walk through darkness” (Job 29:3; Proverbs 20:27). So here, it was lit. But I didn’t know the symbolism. Here’s the pig.

So God spoke to me that night, not directly as he did when I was in the army—that was no symbol in the army. It completely comforted me. I didn’t ask anyone to do anything in the interval of nine days. I knew I was out. But this is all symbolism. And what is this little pig, for he dominated the entire picture? Here’s a little pig, at the end of the closing of the day. I found him, cushioned him, and put flowers, leaves, all kinds of things around him. And then it changed from the interior and the display of plant life to a huge supermarket, and here is the pig, but now he’s a tall rangy fella. Without the aid of the language of symbolism, I would have been lost, because until that moment—unless I had completely forgotten it—I never associated Christ with a pig. A lamb, yes. I’ve always thought of a little lamb. She is the sacrificial lamb, the Passover lamb. I had heard of other things, but never… the fish, yes. You can take an acrostic and spell the word Christ out and it comes to fish. And so, yes that, but never a pig. And so here in the language of symbolism, all over the world, it’s a universal language, in every land in the world the little pig has always been the symbol of the Savior and the Redeemer of the world.

Well, I found him. I found him this little tiny pig, when I first discovered the creativity of my Imagination. So I imagined a certain state, lost myself in it, and in time it became a fact. It took all the things of the world and molded them to produce what I was imagining. So I found him. But in the interval between discovering that Christ was my own wonderful human Imagination and that moment in time, I had neglected to properly feed him. I had seen so many opportunities in the world to do a loving thing mentally, not physically. There’s no need to go to the bank and write a check to take care of someone who is distressed. He isn’t asking for that. He asked me to simply use my Imagination. And I had seen the need and didn’t do it, so I wasn’t feeding the pig properly.

He told me exactly what to do: Now that you have me, feed my sheep. These are all my sheep. You have found me? “Yes we know. I have found you, Lord.” Well, feed my lambs. “You know I feed your lambs.” “Lovest thou me, Peter? Yes, Lord. Well then, feed my sheep. You know I lovest thou, Lord.” And three times, he comes back because he thinks he loves him. Because we still, conditioned as we are, we are thinking of some other external Christ. Raised as I was raised in the Christian faith, it was the most difficult thing in the world to stop thinking of an external Christ, something that came on the outside that belonged to the pages of history. I found him in myself as my own wonderful human Imagination, but because I was conditioned as I was conditioned, raised in the environment in which I was raised, automatically the mind jumps back to an historical Christ, not the living Christ that walks with us as our own wonderful human Imagination.

So in the interval of discovery of Christ and the interval thereafter, so many opportunities I missed. So he was tall and rangy. He lived all right, for Christ is the living Christ, but he wasn’t fat enough; he wasn’t well fed enough. I should have in that interval exercised my Imagination lovingly unnumbered times. Every time I did it, I was feeding him; and when I didn’t do it, I neglected him. He was hungry, and I gave him nothing. He needed shelter, and I gave him nothing. He needed something, some comfort; I gave him nothing. And yet, every moment of time was an opportunity to feed him and make him a lovely, big wonderful fatted pig.

Now I know the very word offends people, to say that Christ is symbolized as a pig. But that is universal—all over the world the pig has always symbolized the Savior of the world. Here, we have hundreds of millions of people in this world today who will not eat the pig. That’s all a symbol: they will have no part of Christ, so they will not touch the pig, they will not touch the pork. There are 400 million Mohammedans who will not touch the pig—it’s the unclean animal. They will have nothing to do with the concept of Christ. And here is the Savior of the world; they will not touch it.

And yet it’s not the pig. My old friend, Abdullah, he was born in Ethiopia. He was born of the black race, of the Hebrew faith. He was a strict vegetarian for other reasons because that is not part of the Hebraic faith. But he never in his life touched pork, never, not in any form. One night, God spoke to him, as he spoke to me, and he said to him, “If you will not eat the food that they place before you, why do you expect them to eat the food you place before them?” He was teaching. He would go to a place, and they would prepare special physical food, knowing he did not take pork. So they would go out of their way to prepare things that they thought he, a strict orthodox Jew plus a vegetarian, would eat. He had been a strict vegetarian for forty-odd years. Then, after the vision, he was invited to a banquet where he was the honored guest. And what do you think they served that night? They did it not to hurt him, not as a jest; they simply did it and thought it the most marvelous thing in the world. And he grew up a strict vegetarian and had never in his life eaten pork.

When they brought on this fabulous table and the honored guest was led into this dining room, here was a lovely little suckling pig, with a sweet potato in its mouth, beautifully roasted. He broke his diet on pork. He had not in forty-odd years eaten any kind of meat, but never pork. And after the vision of God begins, “If you will not eat their food, why do you expect them to eat yours?” So he was teaching this principle, as he understood it through revelation, yet he was restraining himself. You see now why a savior comes into the world and he’s called a glutton; he’s called a winebibber, a drunkard; he has no taboo. He eats whatever man puts before him because if he eats what man will give him and serve, they will then take his food. And so in the Book of Acts, Peter said, “I cannot eat meat from unclean things.” Then comes the vision and a sheet descends from heaven; on it was all manner of food, and the voice out of the depths of his soul speaks, “That which I have cleansed I have cleansed… slay and eat.” Nothing is unclean in all my holy mountain, eat it. If you eat everything—it’s all mine, I made it all—well, then, you will be able to tell my story; and they will eat the food you will give them if you in turn eat the food they are capable of giving you. And so that was the story (Acts 10:14).

And so, when I met Ab, I was a strict vegetarian and had been for seven years. When I saw the dinner he first prepared and invited me to sit with him, I wouldn’t sit. I wouldn’t touch it. I had a little of this, a little that on the side. He started off with three or four huge big shots of Rye, and then this enormous amount of food, which he washed down with many, many bottles of Porter, a good strong—if you don’t know Porter, it’s strong as beer. But many bottles would wash it down. And after all this Rye and all this Porter, he then had a huge big, enormous helping of ice cream. I said, “Ab, what are you doing to your stomach?” He said, “Oh, you couldn’t eat it.” I said why? “Because you have ___(??). It would poison you. Can’t poison, Ab.” And so, it didn’t poison Ab. Last time I saw Ab, he was well over a hundred years old. I’m told he went back to his Ethiopia to lay the garment down that he picked up in Ethiopia a hundred years before. So here was his story.

So I tell you, he speaks to us through the medium of a dream, the medium of a vision. He has shown me so vividly by repeating the vision in one night that if I go to the end, and tell you to go to the end of anything and paint the end as it would be seen by the world were it true. You want to be, you name it, a successful businessman? You really want to be? A great artist? You really want to be? Would the world see you were you such a great artist? Would the world know of you if you were a great success in your chosen field? Go to the end and let the whole vast world see it, or that section of the world that would see it were it true. Don’t quiver; go to the end. Dwell in the end and see the end. Then, as you see it, feel the thrill that is yours because it’s true. Paint it as Grandfather did. When you open your eyes, you’re back here seemingly, and the lot is still vacant. You forget it. You prepared the end, and the end is where we start from, “In my end is my beginning.” And so I go to the end and start in the end. Then in a way that I do not know and need not consciously devise, I move across a bridge of incidents, a series of events that leads from where I am now at this moment to the fulfillment of that end that I had imagined and made real in my world. So this is the story of the dream.

So the whole thing begins with a dream. He tells us in the very second chapter of the Book of Genesis, and “he caused a profound sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept” (verse 21). There is no statement in the entire Bible, save the very end of the Bible, “He is the first fruits of those who slept” (Revelation 1:5). All through the Bible the call is, “Awake, O Lord, and rise from the dead. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake” (Psalm 44:23). God is sound asleep in man dreaming all these things in the world, but the sleep is so deep it is likened unto death. And then comes the use of this same technique by which I dreamed all the unlovely things to dream the lovely things. But the wisest of all, he remembered, or he heard of, a promise that God made to David. And when he came into the presence of God, and God said, “Ask what you want of me,” he didn’t ask for the things that man could ask—long life, riches, the life of my enemies—“O Lord God, thy promise to David my father be now fulfilled.” Can you imagine having that clarity of thought in the presence of God to ask for that? Well, that’s the Spirit.

So how would the world look to you? Well, forget it, because the world to me is the same world, but I am not the same to myself. So you could not keep it to yourself, any more than I can. I’ve shared it with every person that I met, so you would share it too. So with whom would you share it tomorrow if it happened tonight? Well, then, tonight, in your mind’s eye let that be your request. If it doesn’t happen tonight, at least you have incubated the dream. You’ve accepted it. You heard it and heard it to the point where you’re willing to ask for it more than anything else in the world. And so you incubate the dream. And because all visions have their own appointed hour, and they’re all ripening and they’ll all flower; this, the dream, it will ripen and it will flower. And when you least expect it—it always comes like a thief in the night, suddenly—and then you are born from above and David stands before you; the temple is split in two, and you’re never the same. You enter into heaven.

And the greatest in this world was called John the Baptist. “No one born of woman is greater than John, but I tell you, the least in the kingdom is greater than John” (Matthew 11:11). So the first one in, and everyone in thereafter, is greater than the greatest who walks the face of the earth. There are those today—and you don’t condemn them if that’s their request, leave it just as it is—they will have unnumbered fortunes, but they want more. That’s their security. But your security is in God and his truth. You’ll know the truth and only the truth can set you free, nothing else. You aren’t free because of anything you own in this world, it’s only what you know of God and his truth. And so he speaks to me, speaks to you. Every dream is God’s communication within the dreamer, and the dreamer is God. For the dreaming one is imagining and imagining is God in action. That’s the only source; but the only source of all dreams, all visions, happens to be God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination.

So this whole wonderful play has been laid out, and no one’s going to change it, but no one. Now, don’t be disturbed no matter what headlines you see tomorrow or in the future. God is still in control of the entire play. Everything is going to come out as he planned it. His only purpose is to bring out of David, after he dies, a son who is God’s son; and the one he’s going to bring out is you. He brings you out of the pit, part of the great structure of humanity. And then he summarizes the whole vast world of humanity in a single youth, and his name is David. He doesn’t have to tell you, you know it; he knows it; and you both know it, and he calls you Father. Just imagine the thrill when every person that is now fighting in this world, all these racial conflicts, just imagine that every person in the world is destined to be the Father of David, but everyone. Because he has one Father, one Son, we’re all one.

What a play! The most glorious play in the world! Everything is a play, and God is playing all the parts. The day will come every being that is now walking the face of this earth, I will know that I am not just like him, I am he. And you know the same thing. We look together—there are billions of us—and all will only see one Son, and all will know it is “my Son.” The most intimate relationship in the world, my Son, and he’s God’s Son; therefore, I know who I am. If my Son is God’s Son, I need not ask anyone in this world, “Who am I?” He asks the question, “Who do people say that I am?” They answered, “Some say you are John the Baptist come again, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, others say one of the prophets of old.” “But who do you say that I am?” “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” “Flesh and blood could not have told you this, but my Father who is in heaven he has revealed it unto you” (Matthew 16:13).

No man in the world can tell it. It takes the Son to tell you, for the Son calls you Father. So, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son is he?” “The son of David.” “Then why did David call him, Father?” And so, what think ye of the Christ? Well, you ask the question, and they bring all kinds of answers. But he does not respond to these answers. “But whom say ye that I am?” “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And then he knows, and that Christ is the Father of David. That Christ says to all, “When you see me you see the Father. Don’t ask to see the Father, for when you see me you see the Father.” Father of what? Well, the only Father; there’s only one Son, David. And so, that is the story of the Dreamer.

Tonight you can dream, intentionally, as I did to get out of an imprisoned state. Took me nine days. I did nothing after my intentional dream the first time. That’s exactly what I did. While wearing some sweaty old army fatigues, I simply imagined that I was living in my own lovely bedroom, and it had an odor so unlike the barracks of the army. So I reveled in the change of odor, the change of fragrance, and then I saw what I would see, and could only see, were I there. I saw nothing that I would see were I still in the barracks; I saw everything I would see were I at home. The actual distance was over 2,000 miles apart, 1500 miles from it. And there I reveled in all these things. And then, I got into my imaginary bed in my New York apartment and slept. And then it happened. That was an intentional dream, a controlled waking dream. Then, nine days later, I was on the way to fulfill that state. And because in those days we were all shunted off the place to give right of way to more important traffic, it took me three days to make the trip. ___(??) three weeks, I was on my way. That’s all that matters. There I was, honorably discharged, a civilian once more, by the simple technique that God taught me and I’m teaching to you.

And now, don’t do what I did, for he reminded me of my neglect when he once more showed me the pig. That was a double dream, all in one. For in Pharaoh’s dream: seven cows, seven lean cows, the lean cows ate up the seven fat cows; seven ears of corn, seven lean horrible ears, and the seven horrible ears ate up the seven fat ears. One dream repeated, in my case, a little pig. And then in the same dream, the same pig grown now, but skinny, and he should not have been. That’s how God showed me what I did in the interval between the revelation of Christ and my neglect of Christ. So don’t you neglect him! Every moment of time is an opportunity to feed him, and you’re always feeding Christ every time you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another.

Now let us go and feed him.

Q: (inaudible)

A: My dear, I could not do justice to that…

Q: ___(??) an experience I had recently which approximates your army experience and I ask this question searchingly. Your presence in the army, was that a function of somebody else’s imaginal act, whereby you became the reactor? Or was it an imaginal act that slipped into your sleep in an unguarded moment? Certainly it was not a voluntary imaginal act that you be in the army, was it?

A: No, it was not a voluntary act, I assure you. But I was of the country. I am part of America, and as an American, I’m subject to the laws of our land. And so when they sent me a notice stating, I was then not a citizen, but they gave you a little notice where as a foreigner, would you object to serving in the armed forces of the United States Army? Well, I wrote right back and immediately said no. Then, right after that, I was called within a week and right away, they said, “You are A1 classified.” All right, ___(??) I was A1. I didn’t want to be a 4F to get out of the army. So I was A1, and then in the immediate present with all the other foreigners, I was drafted.

Q: ___(??) was that somebody else’s imaginal act that…

A: I was part of the system. As they said, “Tell me, do you pay taxes?” and he said, “Give me a coin. Whose superscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” He said, “All right, then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” I’m in the world of Caesar, and Caesar said we are at war and we need manpower. I was an American; therefore, as an American I must be subject to the laws of the country, whatever this administration dictates, the policy dictates. But within the framework of the dictate of policy of the country—I wouldn’t violate it—I still exercised God’s freedom. And so, they did not think it strange when they had a change of heart.

First of all, my request was within the laws of the land. I was over thirty-eight, so I requested my discharge based upon what the law allowed. It was disallowed, even though I was within the rights based upon law, because I was over thirty-eight when I made my application. Then, anyone over thirty-eight could apply. It rested with his commanding officer whether he would be allowed that application or not. Mine disallowed it. But that was his privilege and his right. But I also had a right; and within my heart, I did what God told me to do, “Go to the end.” I slept in my home in New York City, 2,000 miles away, and then in nine days, he had a change of heart. And he thought he initiated that feeling toward a man called Neville Goddard. Well, I wouldn’t disillusion him.

I know what I did, and I know what happened, how it worked. And it works that way. ___(??) run away from the army. This is a country; it’s organized, and so if the law is all able-bodied men must serve, well then, let them serve, but within the framework of that law. But it’s a natural thing if a man exercises his freedom. And then your commanding officer will say to you, “I don’t think I want you here. You disturb me.” And so you disturb him to the point where he wants to get you out, so he gets you out. He’s only fulfilling what you want. Happens all the time.

My mother used to “let” my father do these lovely things for her. My wife does the same thing. I learned a wonderful lesson from her. When she wants—of course, I do all the dishes anyway, but even before I started doing them, she would say to me, “You know, I’m going to let you wash the dishes tonight.” How can you say no if she’s going to let you do it? “I’m going to let you make the bed.” “I’m going to let you sweep the floor.” Well, she’s going to let you do it. Well, you can’t say no. But if she said to you, “You will sweep the floor tonight.” Well, you aren’t going to sweep it. So she knew exactly how to let me do things that she didn’t want to do herself. So she let me do all the things, and today it’s become a habit.

Good night.