Infinite States

Tonight I will show you quite clearly how this law operates.

We are told, “Let not your hearts be troubled”—this is the 14th chapter of John—“Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there you may be also” (verse 1). Now, you think someone is speaking to a group of men, undoubtedly, as I am here. But where is he going? In the ultimate sense he is going back to the source. He said, “I came out from the Father and I came into the world; again, I am leaving the world and returning to the Father” (John 16:28). So, if he is going to prepare a place, he’s going to prepare the place where he is. He’s returning to himself, the source of all phenomena, the Father, so that you may be in that source, that you may discover the source of the phenomena of life, but all phenomena. So that’s where he is going. He is the way to everything in the world, but specifically here, to the Father.

Tonight, we take it on this level here, that everyone will know how to bring into this world what he wants. I don’t care what it is in the world, for he is the source of all phenomena. He is going to that ultimate, which is the Father, and all will arrive at the Father to discover the source. Well, tonight I think I can tell you the source. Today we are spending billions in an anti-poverty program, in an anti-this, anti-that. And the one consuming thing that we need in this world that would not cost one nickel, it wouldn’t cost a nickel, is an entirely new concept, a new Christology, a new knowledge of Christ: a new way of thinking of human Imagination as the Christ. Christ is the source of everything in this world. It creates everything. But as long as the churches mislead the world in teaching some being on the outside, who lived and died 2,000 years ago, and turn to him and pray, you will never—you can give billions and billions and billions to anti-poverty programs and you’ll never overcome it. They will simply cut your throats the day you stop it. That is life. But teach man how to turn to himself, that he is the source of the phenomena of life. And so, the outstanding need in the world is for this new Christology. You can go out and teach it. You can tell everyone that you meet in this world. For without this, I don’t care what you do, you will never bring into this world what you want, what the world wants, what the whole vast world wants.

Now here, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” unnumbered mansions. “If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Well, you heard on the ultimate level that is taking you to the Father, and there’s no way to the Father save by me. That is, he’s telling you he is the Father; and when you come by this way, and only this way, you’ll find the source of phenomena.

But, I will show you now this way, the same way. I must firmly believe that Christ is truly my Imagination. Now, listen to these words of Blake. You’ll find it in his 60th Plate of Jerusalem. “Babel mocks”…you’re all familiar with the story of Babel, the tower of Babel, multiple voices, multiple mixed voices, so that no one understands the other. Today we have the same thing, even when we speak the same tongue. So that a Communist will make this statement and speak of a democratic country, meaning Rumania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and they speak of them as democracies. You and I using the same word democracy, we don’t mean that kind of democracy. To us, democracy is based upon the principle of compromise, but not the compromise of principle. And here we find not our principle at all, a complete compromise of principle, and they call it democracy. So we don’t mean the same thing when we use the same word. So here we have Babel, this is Babel, the whole vast world is Babel.

So Blake makes this statement, “Babel mocks, saying there is no God nor Son of God, that thou,”—now listen carefully—“that thou, O Human Imagination, O Divine Body, art all a delusion; but I know thee”—and now listen—“O Lord.” He calls his own wonderful human Imagination, Lord. “O Lord, when thou arisest upon my eyes.” Yes, in the morning, when Imagination returns and the eyes awaken and you see the familiar objects. It’s life itself…it is life. I tell you from experience the whole vast world is animated by your own wonderful human Imagination. If it didn’t return, it’s death. Life is only an activity of imagining. So, “When thou arisest upon my eyes”—where—“even in this dungeon, in this mill of iron.” Here, something is dead. And he tell us, even when you come back here and arise upon my eyes and make me alive, even in this dungeon…and he calls and addresses his own wonderful human Imagination as Lord.

Now, it knows all, it is all, it is all-powerful. May I tell you, if you should forget something tonight, knowing that your Imagination, your own Imagination—not his, your Imagination—that is Jesus Christ, you can say, “Thank you, Father”—it’s Father—“thou always hear me,” did you know in the not distant future, in a matter of moments, it will return? Recognize him as the Lord. ___(??) recognized him as God. There is only God. There is only the Lord Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus is your own wonderful human Imagination.

So the outstanding need this day is for this new Christology, a new knowledge of Christ. The churches have gone completely astray. A complete new ___(??) of your own wonderful human Imagination as the Christ. Until that is done, you will appropriate unnumbered billions to fight poverty, to fight this. May I tell you from experience, you can’t give any poor man enough to satisfy him; the day you stop it, he’ll cut your throat. I’ll give you a personal story. When I was a boy in Barbados in the West Indies, a little tiny island, there was a man named Sean. He was kept by his ___(??), just a pittance. He lived on the same street where we lived. Well, the next door neighbor, Mr. Jones, had a cow. When I was a boy there was no dairy. If you wanted milk, you either kept a cow or you kept a goat, and you had your milk from the animal. But there was no dairy where you could buy milk. Well, the cow had a calf and it produced more milk than the Joneses could use, and they sent the maid over to say to Mr. Sean, “We have a surplus amount of milk, it costs you nothing, could you use a quart of milk?” And he was delighted to have a quart of milk. So, every day she took a quart of milk.

Came the end of the time when the cow was now once more in-calf and had to be dried up for the oncoming delivery, and the maid was told to notify Mr. Sean that there would be no more milk for a little while, maybe another four weeks. The cow would have a calf and then after a little interval, then the milk would be ready for human consumption, and he would get his quart of milk again. You know what he said? He said to this lady, “You go back and tell Mr. Jones that if he knew he couldn’t keep it up, why did he start it? He has conditioned me to a quart of milk a day, and now I have no milk.” May I tell you, he is simply representative of the entire world to whom you give anything. You start giving anything to anyone on a monthly basis or a yearly basis, and stop it, and you are their enemy. They completely forget what you did in the past. So you appropriate billions for anti-poverty and you stop it, dare to stop it, and they’ll burn your town down, rub out everything, because you stopped something.

But, bring on a new Christology and tell them that they don’t need you to give them anything. That there is in them the source of all the phenomena of life, and that source is their own wonderful human Imagination, and that is Christ Jesus. But instead of teaching them that, they’re telling them that Christ Jesus lived and died 2,000 years ago and he’s still, in their mind’s eye, suffering for them while they’re suffering. And they do not know who Christ is. The priests who teach them, they don’t know it either. So you put this, tonight, to the test that you may in some way begin to influence the world to bring about a change of this concept, and bring about a new Christology, a new thinking about human Imagination. For human Imagination is Christ. There never was another Christ; there is no other Christ.

Now here, let me tell you what I know from experience. He begins, “Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me.”This is Imagination speaking. I say the habit of worry discloses the lack of faith in the sovereignty of God. You believe in God, believe also in me. And you worry? Well, if you worry then you don’t believe in me. So here is a confession of your lack of faith in the sovereignty of God.Now, he goes on, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; were it not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also.”

Well, right after the 2nd World War—we’ve had so many since—my wife and daughter and self went down to Barbados. We thought we’d have no return ticket…go down and spend some time and have fun. So we sailed the end of the year, when the War came to an end in ’45. So we took off on the only ship sailing down. Went to Trinidad and then flew over to Barbados. In the month of, the end of ’45, in the month of March, I thought I better go and arrange for my return passage to this country, for I had a date on the 1st of May. I had to be here by the 1st of May…that is, in the East. So I went to my brother and said I want to get back on the 1st of May. He said, “You mean you came down from New York City, the very hub of all activity in this world, without making arrangements to return? There are two little, tiny ships serving all these islands and there are dozens and dozens of islands. You mean you actually were so stupid to come here on a one-way ticket, without arranging while you were in the hub of the whole vast financial world and not make this arrangement?” I said, “Well, I didn’t.” Well, he said, “I will see what I can do.”

Well, he has tremendous power in the island. He could do nothing, but nothing. He couldn’t influence anyone. The list…hundreds and hundreds waiting on a list…I couldn’t get out of that island until the end of September, even on a waiting-list. I said, “Alright, I’ll get out.” So I sat in my hotel room in a nice easy chair and I allowed that chair to become a little ship. In Barbados, in those days, we did not have a deep water harbor. We have it since, but then we had little boats that would take us off to ships anchored in the bay. They were anchored a mile out, three-quarters of a mile out, and you took these little boats, rowed manually or some in a little launch. I sat in my chair and I assumed that I am on a boat. The boat is taking me to a boat in the harbor and I’m walking up the gangplank. As I walk up the gangplank, I’m feeling step after step after step, making everything natural and real.

Well, I did this…I sat in the boat in my chair and made a chair a boat. And then, I could feel the rhythm of the water. Then, when we came to the place where we latched on the little boat to the big ship, I allowed my brother Victor to take my little daughter Vicki into his arms on the ship and walk up that gangplank. Then I allowed my wife to step next, and the others, and I followed. I could feel step after step after step as I walked up. When I got to the top, my mind wandered. I brought it back to the base and repeated the whole action. And it wandered again. Then I brought it back. And I kept on bringing it back until, finally, when I got to the very top I could turn around and hold the side of the ship, and look back nostalgically at the island of Barbados, for we were now sailing. I did that…and then in a matter of moments the phone rings and the agent is calling me saying, “Mr. Goddard, this is the Alcoa Steamship Company, would you come and see us?” I went down to see them, and they said, “We had a cancellation from America, and we have your passage for you.” So I took my passage and that day, to get back in time for the 1st of May, we sailed. I walked up…and my brother stepped off first with my daughter in his hands, then came my wife, my sister-in-law, the family, as they walked up that gangplank.

The source was my imaginal act. We’re told in scripture that Jesus Christ is the source of all phenomena: “By him all things were made and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). Well, if he makes everything in this world, and I know what I did, then who is Jesus Christ? Is he not my wonderful human Imagination? When he’s described in Corinthians as the power of God and the wisdom of God, isn’t that my Imagination? I didn’t pray to anyone. I didn’t drop on my knees and pray to anything in this world. I sat in a chair and enacted a scene that, if true, would imply I was sailing. And when it took on the tones of reality and all the sensory vividness of naturalness, the phone rang. And here, in a matter of moments I had confirmation of my trip to New York, which I did, when the time came. This was now in March. I didn’t want to go in March; I wanted to have four months in Barbados. We went down in December…I wanted four months… and so, when it came to the end of April, we went aboard that boat, just as I had envisioned it, and walked up that gangplank, and sailed, and arrived in time to meet my contract in the East.

So where is the creative power of the universe? Where is Christ? Who is Jesus Christ? Did not Christ give himself for me? As Paul tells us, he loved me and gave himself for me. He gave himself for me, in what sense? He became me. Christ became me that I may become Christ. He became as I am that I may be as he is. Well, who is he then in me? He is my own wonderful human Imagination…that is Christ. There never was another Christ, and never will be another Christ. So put him to the test and see if that is Christ. Well, if that is Christ, do you need anyone to support you? Do you need any campaign in this world for an anti-poverty campaign? Anyone in that crowd who’s on relief if they could only believe in Christ. They all go to church, may I tell you, they all go to church, they’re all members of this ism, that ism, and the other ism. And from what is given them they’ll give to support all this emotionalism. And they do not know the source of the phenomena of life.

They think that their income is coming from Uncle Sam, and he doesn’t exist. There is no Uncle Sam. There is no such thing as a government having money. Any money that what we call the government has it takes from you, it takes from me, first. It can’t give one penny away until it first takes it from us. So it takes it from us and gives. And they think it doesn’t come from us, it comes from Uncle Sam and there is no Uncle Sam. Here we go on, this Peck’s world, taking from us what we earn to give to those who will never…they’re all Seans, they’re all Mr. Sean. And the day we stop it, they will cut the throat…criticize the so-called government for stopping the gift.

When the churches…they haven’t failed in what the world thinks. They have failed in not telling the true story of Christ. They mustn’t get out and give to the poor and make all these things. Get out and tell the poor who Christ really is! And tell every being in this world who Jesus Christ is. If I tell you who he is and you test him and you prove him, does it matter what the world thinks? If I have evidence for a thing, does it really matter what anyone thinks about it? If I prove this in performance, what does it matter what the world thinks about it? Must I go and ask any minister, any rabbi, any priest what he thinks about this, if I can test it and in the testing prove it? Well this…unnumbered states within, you pick out the state, and you go into that state and occupy it. In my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions.

So when we’re told in scripture he is the great shepherd, the good shepherd, and he knows his sheep and the sheep know him. Well, who do you think they are? We have found who Christ is and he is the good shepherd. Well then, who are the sheep? All of my desires, they are my sheep. It’s entirely up to me to take my desires into the fold where they really belong. They have gone astray because I did not know the shepherd. When the good shepherd comes, he takes all desires—my desire for you, my desire for myself, my desire for anything in this world—that is my sheep. So I gather all of my sheep who have strayed and I bring them into the fold. How do I bring them into the fold? So you say to me, “Well, I would like to be so and so,” alright, is that my desire for you? When you tell me, is it in conflict with my ethical code? You may say to me, “I want so-and-so’s throat cut.” Well, that’s not what I could imagine. I don’t want that, so it can’t be one of my flock. You say, “I want so-and-so to die.” Well, it isn’t one of my flock, that’s not part of my sheep.But you say to me, “I would like a certain income to live graciously. I would like a certain companion in this world, not naming the companion, but companionship. I would like to be happily married. I would like to be so and so.” Well, all of that would come within my flock. It would come within my ethical code.

Alright, if I am a good shepherd I would then represent you to myself as telling me that you have it. I would bring you into the fold. I would take every request of that nature and bring it right into the fold. Then I am the good shepherd and my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. But, in the story, in the 10th chapter of John, remember, he goes first, they follow him. Signs follow, they do not precede. So I will simply take your request, if it comes within my ethical code, and then I will go first into the fold where you must come. I will simply, as I did on the ship, put myself into the state where you are talking to me and you are telling me what you would tell me if it were true. Then, when I am satisfied that this thing is real—for I know imagining creates reality—then I drop it. It doesn’t really matter. I do nothing to make it so; it is so! It’s so the very moment that I do it.

But, do we expect from every pregnancy immediate birth? No. There are intervals of time between all pregnancies in this world. One seed may take twenty-one days, like an egg of a chicken, another may take five months, nine months, a year or more. I do not know the interval of time between the fertilization of a seed, when it is incubated, and it’s hatched, I do not know. I only know all the seeds differ. So I will take your request…I will take you into my fold. If your request is within my ethical code, then you are my sheep, part of my fold. Not you the person but your request, for I’m only concerned with my desires. They’ve gone astray, and I bring all my desires back into my fold when I find who the shepherd is. But if I don’t know the shepherd, I go out trying all false shepherds of the world.

So I say, the greatest need today is for a new Christology. Not a different church in the world, but a different thinking of one’s own human Imagination as Christ. There never was another Christ. There never will be another Christ, no matter what the world has taught you. And so, when I’m told I go to prepare a place for you, yes, he ultimately is preparing that place where I awaken as the Father. That I do know from experience. But in the interval there are other places to prepare. And he takes all the requests and goes and prepares a place for them. Then he proves it in performance that everyone may believe in him. “You believe in God, believe also in me.”

Now, “In my Father’s house are many mansions;”—unnumbered states of consciousness—“if it were not so, would I have told you?” So you go to prepare a place called health for one, wealth for another, fame for another, whatever they want. What does it matter if somebody wants to be famous? You don’t want to be famous, but they want to be famous. And so, let them be famous in the shifting sand, because the whole thing is all like writing in the sand. And so they’re famous today and you can’t tell the next generation their name and have them in the faintest way remember them. You and I, if you’re my age, we mention the old fellas in pictures and I talk to my daughter and unless she reads these magazines she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. You and I thought, my Lord, isn’t it marvelous just to meet them, isn’t it wonderful…and she doesn’t know who they are. Well, today, the same thing happens in politics, but they don’t know. They think that they are forever engraved on granite and that is beyond the water’s edge, but it isn’t. It’s simply sketches in the sand, all of it.

But you and I, if we know the source of the phenomena of life, it doesn’t really matter if you take from me today everything that I have if I know how I made it. So it is so important to us, and it should be, to know the truth about the making of a thing. It should be to us far more important than the thing that is made. But man is lost in the thing that is made. And so, if I take from me what is made, but don’t take from me the ability to make it, I will remake it. And then, eventually, I will find the maker. But don’t take from me the knowledge of how I made it, but take from me what I made. And eventually I will find not only how I made it but the maker. And that’s where he’s leading us, to the Father, for the Father makes everything in this world.

But in the meanwhile, alright, take whatever you want, but don’t take from me this knowledge of how I made it. ___(??) today, everyone should be completely consumed in this interest as to how to make a thing. Well, I’ll tell you how to make it. I stand here and I know what I want, and reason tells me I can’t get it, and my senses deny that I can get it, but do I believe in Christ? I say yes. Now do I believe that my own wonderful human Imagination is Christ? To that I say yes! Alright, believe that? Then trust me. Now, what part am I going to do? I will assume that I have it. I do not know what means will be employed to get it. I will assume that I have it and drop it right there, if I really believe that my own wonderful human Imagination is Jesus Christ, if I really believe that all things are possible to him, that there’s nothing impossible to Christ. I firmly believe that.

Yes, even in the recalling of something that I struggled all day to remember and I couldn’t remember it. And then you turn, as Blake said, “They mock you and say there is no God nor Son of God, that thou, O Human Imagination, O Divine Body, art all a delusion; but I know thee, O Lord, when thou arises upon my eyes, even in this dungeon.” So when I awake in the morning, that return of Imagination makes me alive. Well, “Now I trust you implicitly, I can’t remember this today, O Lord, but I would like to know it before the sun goes down.” And then thank him, “Thank you, Father. You always hear me.” And then as I walk the earth, out of the nowhere it comes…a poem that you can’t remember, a thought you can’t remember…and suddenly you turn to him and say, “Thank you.”

I tell you this from experience. I have had moments when I couldn’t recall a certain thought, couldn’t. I knew I’d heard it and then I turn and thank him. He would always hear me. Then while I’m about something, washing a dish, washing a pot, making a cocktail, suddenly it’s coming through the brain. What do you say then? “Thank you, Father.” It’s yourself. You turn to yourself, and yet you could address it as though it were another. Because it is another until this garment is taken off for the last time. You’re still clothed in this garment which is limited. Then when it’s taken off for the last time, you and he are one. But you can still turn to him. And what a miracle, night after night, when he withdraws as it were and then returns, as Blake said, upon my weary eyes and then I begin to see. If he didn’t return, I couldn’t see. I would have no knowledge of anything in this world, if he didn’t return.

So here, the Christ to whom you speak and to whom you turn is your own wonderful human Imagination. Trust him implicitly. He will not fail you. You can take any goal this night, and I don’t care what it is if you believe in Christ. If you believe that your own wonderful human Imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ, then turn to him. Imagine something, and accept it in gratitude, and just simply forget it and watch it come to pass. May I tell you, without this knowledge you have been doing it anyway, but memory is short with man, and he doesn’t recognize his own harvest. If your memory was awakened, you would go back over the years and see that everything that has happened to you has happened because you at one time imagined it, either in fear, and mostly in fear, but in fear you imagined it and then dropped it. But, you planted it and you brought it into your world from the seed, both the tares and the wheat. But man has no memory, that is, not long enough to recognize that he himself has been planting all these in his world.

So, may I tell you, you are as free as you want to be if you will believe in Christ. He is not on the outside; he is in you as your own wonderful human Imagination. Let me repeat a thought that I said earlier, that worry, the habit of worry, simply confesses one’s lack of faith in the sovereignty of God. So you’re worried? Well then, you don’t believe in Christ.He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled”—that’s, let them not be worried—“you believe in God, believe also in me.” Well now, if I really believe this, I couldn’t worry. I would actually believe that he and he alone has a way no one knows of bringing to pass that which I have completely accepted, having imagined it. I have imagined it and then, “Thank you, Father,” for he really is the Father. He is bringing all of us to the knowledge of who the Father is. And when he brings us to the knowledge of who the Father is, he brings us to ourselves, for we are the Father. But until we know that, by experience when the Son reveals us as the Father, then believe me, for I have experienced it. Believe me. I’m telling you what I know from experience.

So there is no limit to your on-going, save the limit you place upon yourself. Your financial picture, your social picture, your intellectual picture, all this is all within your ability to achieve. I don’t care what you desire. Your desires are the sheep of your pasture, and then the shepherd is your own wonderful human Imagination. If they’ve gone astray, bring them back and then take them into the fold where they really belong.

So tonight, when you go home, if you’re in the habit of reading the Bible, I took the 14th chapter, just a portion of it, of the gospel of John. It’s such a glorious chapter! In fact, the whole Bible is, really. You can’t…just to read every verse so thrills man you become alive to it. In this chapter, when they asked him to show the Father, he said, “I have been with you all these years and yet you do not know the Father? When you see me you’ve seen the Father; how then can you say, ‘Show me the Father’?” (John 14:8). Then he tells us, I am in you and you in me and we are one, that we are not two. I dwell in you and you dwell in me, and we are one…and I am the Father. Well, man can’t quite see it. You can’t blame man for that.

I still say the greatest need today is not Vietnam, not ___(??), nothing in the world compares to it…in fact, it is the outstanding need. That need is for a new thinking about human Imagination and seeing it as Christ. If man sees his own Imagination as Christ, then all the so-called problems of the world would dissolve. There would be no problem, for in him is harmony. There could be no barrier in this world to anyone who sees his own Imagination as Christ. I could say to anyone, “Name it. Do you believe your Imagination is Christ?” Yes. “Well, if you desire this night to be elsewhere, where would you be?” And he names it. I say, “Well, in your Imagination sleep there, just as though it were true.” “But I can’t afford it.” “Forget that. Christ can afford anything. All thine are mine and mine are thine.” He’s speaking now to infinity, so don’t say we can’t afford it. So you haven’t the time? With all time, I’m eternity, it’s all mine. You really believe in Christ? I say Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. Where would you sleep this night if you desired to be other than what you are, or to be in some other place than where you are? How would you sleep and where would you sleep? And he names it. Well, now sleep there as the person, and sleep in that place as though it were true. Don’t ask me how: “I have ways and means ye know not of.”

A man called me up three weeks ago, just after I opened. Saw the ad in the paper and said, “My name is so-and-so, do you remember me?” I said vaguely. “I used to come to you in New York City. Remember when you told me when I said I wanted to go to California that if I would only assume that I am in California that I would go to California?” I said, yes, vaguely. I’ve told many people that. But, he said, “Here I am, my wife and I are in California. Our children have now grown and they’ve gone elsewhere, but we are here.” Then he said to me, “Of course you know I am not sold on what you teach about feeling is the secret. Because the reason why I came here is this, our factory where I worked for years opened up a factory on the coast and I was transferred.” So, he was transferred by his factory. He didn’t find himself flying through space and sitting here in California, so he doesn’t believe that feeling is the secret. I said, did you do it, did you feel that you were in California? He said, “Oh yes, I felt that, but it didn’t come that way. The factory opened up a factory on the coast, transferred me, and here I am now. So I’m not completely sold on what you teach about feeling is the secret.” So, what are you going to say? You take your pearls and you throw it before the swine of the world. They either pick it up…and they drop it down. You throw it even though you are warned not to. How can I discriminate as to who will take it and who will not take it? You simply tell it.

Tonight, what crowd in this world would believe me when I tell you that the greatest need in the world is for this new thinking about human Imagination? Here, our late President Hoover, when he addressed the convention in San Francisco, he said, “The rise and fall of nations could be traced to the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of man.” Here is a man who rose from the very bottom up; put himself through college, he had no money; left millions not only to his family but to his charities, to all the charities that he liked; and gave to our country, whether we knew it or not. He has been down peddled quite a lot, but time will prove that Mr. Hoover was a truly great man.

He came in at a certain time…he didn’t cause any Depression…but he tells us that all the things in this world, the rise and fall of nations, could be traced to the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of man. That’s what he said. He sent me a copy of his address, and autographed it, and I have it. Asked me for a copy of my book Awakened Imagination, which I’m quite sure he had in his library to this day…when he was living in New York at the Waldorf Astoria. And so, I have that little pamphlet of his, which was his address, his last, to the GOP in San Francisco, two years before he died. Well, don’t discount him, the man who rose to the highest office in our land and was a truly great mind. He saw how things worked: you implant an idea and you accept that it’s going to work in this world.

I could take all these men that you and I would admire, if they’re honest, ___(??) where it starts. So when they go out to plant in our minds that which would belittle us and ennoble them, many of them know what they’re doing, but they don’t know Christ. For if they knew, they wouldn’t have to belittle us to ennoble self. If I wanted to rise, I don’t have to push you down, and then, all things being relative, think that I have risen…I’m still where I am before. Let me leave you where you are and rise myself. But to push you down and say as I look at you “I am better than,” I haven’t risen.

So let everyone in this world take this law tonight and apply it. May I tell you, it will not fail you, it can’t fail you. I am speaking from experience, not only on the Promise where I have completely fulfilled scripture, but I am speaking on the law of God, where I’ve proved it beyond all doubt that they can’t fail. So tonight when you go to bed and you dwell in your own wonderful human Imagination, you can say, “Thank you, Father” as though you addressed another. It’s yourself, because you know it’s your own Imagination. And, just think of what you want, assume that you have it, and say, “Thank you.” That’s your Father. “You came out from the Father, you came into the world; and now you’re leaving the world going to the Father.” Eventually you’ll reach him, and when you reach him it’s yourself.

There is no other Father; there is no other God.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: (Inaudible)

A: What causes one’s lack of faith in God? Well, sir, I would say man has been misled. Not Knowingly, for they are blind guides, blind leaders of the blind, and they, too, believe in some external creative power. Even if they wear the crown and call themselves by the highest name in the world in some political or religious picture, they still do not know who Christ is; they really do not. So you can say in the end, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

When you go before these men, they do not really know. After all, I’ve talked with them, I’ve been on TV with them, on radio with them, and they are as blind as the next. They don’t really know. They go through all of this palaver, holy days, sacred bread, sacred wine, holy water, and all of this, and you say, well, they are simply blind guides. They do not know what they do. You can’t criticize them if they don’t know. They simply assume all these little roles of one in this state, a higher state, another state, but they do not know. And it seems to be part of the pattern of the world that one has to go through it. The play is played that way. He comes into the world in the midst of the Sanhedrin and they do not know. He interprets scripture, but they cannot follow his interpretation of scripture.

He interprets scripture by fulfilling scripture. For his first words in the Book of Luke, “This scripture has been fulfilled this day.” Where?—in him. “I have come only to fulfill scripture.” He quotes the 61st chapter of Isaiah and he quotes the first verse and the half of the second verse, he tells, “This has been fulfilled today. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” But they can’t understand that. They said, “We know this man, where he comes from.” So he’s unfolding within himself scripture and he’s telling them the true interpretation of scripture, but they can’t follow him. They expect some being to come from without. Today we expect some new leader to take us out of the turmoil in which we find ourselves, and we’re always going after something on the outside. As long as we find something on the outside we never find him. He’s on the inside.

And so, I don’t care what you think tomorrow’s going to be your savior…alright, so he will save us tomorrow, we’ll vote for him. All you’re going to get would be more taxes. You’re told that in the Book of Samuel. It’s so clearly stated in the first book of Samuel. So he ___(??) is going to be my leader, and then, the first thing he does, he taxes you. Then he calls for your sons for his army, and your daughters, and your maids, and your everything. Finally, he calls for you. When he calls for you, then you scream to be delivered from one of your own choosing. Then there is no ear to hear you. Because, who is the one to whom you call? It’s yourself…and there’s no one else to answer. That’s the Book of Samuel (1 Sam. 8:10).

But man will not believe it. He thinks this thing is some kind of secular history and it isn’t. The whole thing is unfolding in man. We are warned morning, noon and night not to go after false gods. I once said to Huxley…he came home to dinner and I said, “You know”…not that he was of the aristocracy; he was of the aristocracy in an intellectual sense, because Matthew Arnold and that whole crowd all part of his blood stream. But I said to him, “You know, Aldous, I will not accept any aristocracy but the aristocracy of the Spirit.” He looked at me and he was quite surprised. I said, “I mean it, mean every word that I’ve said. I will accept no aristocracy but the aristocracy of the Spirit. I have not once met a man, since I began to awaken, that I felt my superior. I can’t meet anyone that I feel that he is my superior. He may have more money, I grant you that; I don’t want it. He is more famous, I grant that; I don’t need that. He is stronger than I am, he’s younger than I am, he’s more handsome than I am, all these qualities, certainly. But I still do not say he is my superior. I find no one, since I was awakened from the dream of life that I can call my superior…because, in the end we are all one. But the end of which I speak is simply the assemblage of the resurrected.

And so, when someone tells me he is important, and that one is important…don’t you hear them say, “You know whom I saw at lunch today?” and they mention some person. Did he know you? No. Did he come over and speak to you? Oh, no. But he saw him. He’s so proud that he even sat in the same restaurant. Did he pay your bill? No. What has that to do with him? But he saw him, can you imagine that!

In Barbados this past year—we had two heavenly months—at the benefit of one of our hotels where we lived. And knowing that we came from California and lived in the area of Hollywood, he would ask about all these actors and actresses. I don’t know them. I mean, I have no desire to know them. They’re perfectly lovely in their own sphere, but I have no desire to know them. Go to the show and enjoy their performance, wonderful. But he kept on asking me all these things. You know what I did? After a while, when he started asking…“Oh, she is lovely! and he’s wonderful! and so and so,” I told him all these things and it thrilled him beyond measure. I said, that ___(??) is simply reeking in wealth. He loved that. And this one, oh, he’s been married several times and she’s been married several times, and I made up all these wonderful stories, all for him. He loved it. And he didn’t know that I sat there just looking at this wonderful man—he’s a nice fella, he manages our hotel, one of them, and here he is so intrigued that I would even know.

I said, “You know, I would go down to the Hamburger Hamlet, and she would come.” Because, my daughter once told me that this girl comes in, I forget her name now, but you all know her, and so, she comes in. And she’s a very sweet girl, and when she comes in they all go up and ask her to sign and she would always sign these things. Oh, she played in My Fair Lady on Broadway. Nevertheless, you know her. Well, I said, “She’s so sweet. She comes in and she knows everyone and they all come over, she talks to them all.” And he thought, “Isn’t that wonderful.” Alright, so amuse him, just amuse him…a child, just a child…manager of a hotel but just a child. He thinks I should be impressed, since I even went into Hamburger Hamlet and had the privilege of seeing her. He would have loved seeing her. So he asked me for this and that…and all these things he reads in books…and so, I simply played my part to amuse him. And in his way he thinks, you see, like the church to enlighten, and all were lies. Don’t know them at all.

So that’s what the church has done to the whole vast world when they talk about Christ. They do not know Christ at all. They haven’t the slightest concept of who Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination.

Goodnight.

Image: Postcard Alcoa Steamship Co.