Shared Experiences

Tonight’s subject is “Shared Experiences.” In Paul’s letters to the Galatians he tells them that everyone who is taught the word shares all good things with him who teaches (6:6). Paul was not asking for material gifts, for he said in one of his letters, I have paid for every meal that I have taken and I have worked day and night; he who will not work, let him not eat. That was Paul’s philosophy. He was not asking for anything that was material in this world. But he did ask for their prayers, for he knew the efficacy of prayer. Paul never placed himself upon a pedestal, as if he had no need of spiritual help from his converts. He knew the depth of his soul was one with the depth of the soul of everyone, and those that he converted to this way of thinking. For he found the true Christ, not a man after the flesh; he found the creative power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24). That was the only Christ that Paul ever recognized. He identified it not in his words, but, believe me, he identified it with his own wonderful human Imagination. Your own wonderful human Imagination is Christ Jesus, the creative power and wisdom of God. So that was the being of whom he spoke. He knew that the depth was infinite, and it could reveal itself through you, one that he converted to this great thinking. He asked you to share with him your visions. It would add to that which was coming through him and would make the knowledge of Christ Jesus all the greater, so he could tell it in his lessons in his wonderful letters.

Last October when I opened here after my trip East, I asked you to share with me your experiences, whether it be on this level or a deeper level; but all your experiences that I in turn may share them from this platform with everyone who’s here, and encourage them to apply themselves all the more diligently to the application of this wonderful principle. Well, many months ago a friend of mine (who’s here tonight) shared with me an experience of his. He rose early one morning in a semi-sleep and went to his bedroom window and looked out over the entire city…he’s quite high in the hills. In this semi-sleep state the outline of the buildings became fuzzy and all the buildings seemed to mingle and to fuse. And in a strange way there was a certain intensity as he looked. As it increased, they all kept…they became fused and yet they kept their identity. But this strange thing that seemed so dead when you first saw it turned into a pulsing living life. Then from life the intensity continued. As it increased it turned into joy, and then it still increased and turned into love. And the whole vast city that a moment before was simply dead, inanimate object—buildings, fences, streets, the cobblestones in his patio below—all became alive, pulsing throbbing life; then, at a greater intensity, joy, and at a still greater intensity, love. Then, said he, “Beyond this point, Neville, there are not words to describe it…I can’t describe beyond that point.” That happened several months ago.

About a week and a half ago, this experience repeated itself in detail. So a week ago last Sunday, there were five of us in the park. We went over to the Valley for dinner, a heavenly dinner, and from there off to the Shrine Auditorium to see the Russian dancers. So the whole evening was one sheer joy, the dinner, the conversation, the party of five, and then the Russian dancers—-everything was perfect. On the way out, he said to me in a light way reminding me that this thing had repeated itself. He said, “Am I retrogressing, for here I went back and had a complete repetition of that experience?” So I reminded him of the Bible, in the 41st chapter of Genesis we are told that if a vision or a dream repeats itself, if it doubles itself, that it means the thing is fixed by God and God will shortly bring it to pass (verse 32). So I said, whatever is the significance, the true significance of this doubling of the vision, it will shortly come to pass. And so, last Friday night he gave me a letter and you listen to it carefully. I may not complete it, all the details; it’s a perfectly marvelous experience. This is his answer.

He said, “I went to bed”…this was the day he wrote the letter, so it happened the night before in the wee hours of the morning that he wrote the letter…for he said in his letter to me, “Last night as I retired, I said to myself, who am I? Then I said, I am Christ, I am awakened man, I am God.” And then, he was God in a certain way, because this is going to come out from his picture, he is “God, conscious of his unlimited power.” Conscious of his unlimited power! Then he said, “Then the dream began.” Now, this is all in a dream. Prior to telling the dream, he said, “I want you to bear this in mind that the whole thing unfolded in an order of beautiful love, sheer love. The whole thing unfolded in that order. I did not hear a voice, but I felt that the depth of my being was speaking to me through some form of mental telepathy, and this is what it was saying to me: ‘When you use your Imagination for another, use it as you use it when you write a story. Just as you write a story, use it in the same manner.’”

Now, said he to me, “When I dramatize a story, I write it, I must play all the parts. When I write a love scene between two characters, I must assume both characters and make love to myself. Yes, I slap my own face if the script calls for it. I must feel every character and its reactions to the situation. I must think not of the character, I must think from the character. So, if to help another through the use of my Imagination and I must use the same technique as I use when I write a story, well then, I must think from them. I must become that character. In every little detail I must become it. With one exception, when I write a story I must have an eye on the audience and theatrical values. But in becoming a character that I would help my only consideration must be absolute reality, no theatrical values, no audience, actual reality of that which I want to live. So when I assume that character I must possess all the qualities that I set out for them to possess.

“So with this in mind, in my dream—all this is taking place in dream—I said to myself, now I will experiment. The first one that came before my mind was with us at this dinner party and at the great dance festival. So I brought her before my mind’s eye and I took off the being that I am.” I must call him by his name (he’ll forgive me for this) but the drama calls for it as you will see in the second one that he helped. So I’ll call him by his first name, his name is Bob. You do not know the lady of whom I speak tonight, so I will call her not to change the pattern of the mood that possesses me, I’ll call her by her name, her name is Beth. He said, “I brought Beth…I took off the being that I am, I took off Bob completely, I abandoned Bob, and then I put on the form of Beth. I put on her clothes, I put on everything and I was Beth, I became Beth. Then I looked into the mirror and I said, ‘You are beautiful!’” Now he said, “We must forgive her vanity, I told myself.” For he is so much Beth it is Beth speaking; not he putting on and playing the part, he is Beth declaring that she is beautiful. Then he said, “I have never worn skirts, never worn a lady’s dress and so it seemed a little bit tight, so I had to shorten my stride as I walked about as Beth, dressed as Beth would be dressed. Then I skipped out of the house to the street where a car was waiting. For all the things I wanted for Beth, all the lovely things, the most immediate and practical would be a new car. That’s the most immediate, the most practical. So I skipped out onto the street, got into this lovely new car, put the top down, and then drove off. The only thing that seemed to me unnatural was the high heel on the accelerator. I couldn’t quite get that feel…I’ve never worn high heels, and that did seem a little bit unnatural. But, nevertheless, I drove the car with the wind blowing in my face and blowing my hair. It was Beth. Then I drew up to the corner to the curb and parked the car. Then I got out of that body, leaving the body there, got into my body, Bob, got on the sidewalk seeing Beth in the car at the wheel and she looked at me with the most glorious smile. And that was the end of that scene.

“Then I turned to Eddy.” Eddy is a handyman, washes his car, takes care of the garden, painting, and does odd jobs for him. “In this scene, Eddy says something that he has said to me before not in dream; he has said it to me in this waking world of ours here. He said to me, ‘Mr. Crutcher, I’m considering’—-then he used this strange word of his—‘a postulation.’ ‘Mr. Crutcher, I’m considering a postulation’…a very pompous manner, which he said before in this waking state. Then he said, ‘I am gimpy, I am lame, and you are my crutcher.’” Well, that was simply a repetition of what he had said in this world to this friend of mine. Then he said, “I took off this body of Bob and I put on Eddy’s body, even to his clothes.” That’s quite a concession if you heard him describe the filthy condition of the man’s clothes in the past. But he put on everything to make it natural, the clothes, the form and the limp. “But now, instead of limping, I walked back and forth over that yard without a limp. At the end of walking back and forth without limping I stomped my feet several times to get that absolute reality of the un-limp state, and then I got out of the body of Eddy and I saw Eddy walk back and forth without limping. Everything was perfect.” Then he said, “I took person after person in the same manner, but in each case I retained my own mind. The body I assumed, the personality I assumed, the mask I assumed, but I retained my own mind, thinking from my mind through their mask. Then as I did it to all the people that came into…” He only mentioned these two case histories, but he said person after person he did.

“Then, as the dream came to an end, the voice appeared for the first time, it said, ‘Tell this to Neville.’” He said, “Heretofore, whenever the voice addressed me it was always a very powerful authoritative voice. This time it was a sweet, gentle, beautiful, loving voice.” Then he concludes, “I do not say I know the meaning of this dream. I only know that in the dream it worked. I do not know if the technique is practical. I haven’t tried it on this conscious level, but in the dream it worked. It may be that the depth of my own being was trying to tell me of the oneness of God, that it is God who plays all the parts…it may be. But, undoubtedly, in a couple of days it will reveal itself.”

Now, he shared with me this great—I call it fantastic—gift. That’s the kind of a gift that Paul was asking for. So the same core of man operates in all: “God only acts and is in existing beings or men. Let us to him who only is and who walks among us give decision” (Blake). Now, said he, “Bring forth all your fires.” If this is true does it really matter…bring on all your fires? I haven’t spoken to my friend since he gave me the letter Friday night. I can only tell him I’m thrilled beyond measure. It’s something he must take seriously and you must take seriously and the speaker seriously. If we do it in dream and it works perfectly, this is the more difficult level. For here is a man in his middle fifties (I mean Eddy), well, Eddy has had a physical limitation all of his life. No doctor would dream of suggesting that any operation could give him a normal walk, no one could. It is now a fixed physical condition and that’s fixed in his mind, fixed in the medical world’s mind, fixed in all. I will say to him, it worked in that depth; let us now put all efforts forth to make it work on this level, and make a conscious effort for our own satisfaction. As he said, “For this man who is now born blind, was he born blind because he sinned or his parents sinned? He said, neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God may be made manifest” (John 9:3). So he exercised a power unknown to man on this level.

So you and I having been revealed now through our friend this technique by which God makes all things possible, so you take a man, take a woman, and without their knowledge, without their consent, if you can assume that personality, assume their mask, assume everything about them, and as you assume it then grant to yourself as that being what you want for that being. So you think yourself right into the situation of the seeming other; and then do for them what they are at the moment because of lack of knowledge or lack of ability or lack of faith, do for them what they are incapable of doing for themselves. So are we not told in Paul’s letters, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). That’s bearing one another’s burdens. He takes Beth who could use a car. She needs a car instead of depending on someone who works in the place to take her home or to bring her there or to get there sometimes late because of transportation. She needs a car. So without her knowledge he did it. I am convinced that that depth will bring it to the surface. I see it in other ways. But that technique was revealed to him from the depth of his soul.

Now bear in mind the Bible only recognizes one source of dreams, only one source of visions: all dreams and visions proceed from God (Num. 12:6). So this was a direct communication with God. God was revealing to him, the one who has had the experience in writing stories…for these are stories. A woman needs a car and she has nowhere to get one dollar to buy the car. So if he wrote such a story for a play, he would have to put himself into the character of the one that he did in the depth of his dream. He does it on this level and he is better qualified than most people because he writes stories. As he said to me in his letter, “To write a story I must assume all the characters. I can’t think of a character, I must think from the character.” It’s very definite. Putting himself into the character, he even makes love to himself, male and female, even to the slap on his own face if the script calls for it. So, no matter what he writes, he has to make all the characters. Only one little concession that he made, he cannot write for the screen, which he does, without thinking in terms of an audience reaction, that theatrical value. But in this, he isn’t writing for any audience participation or audience reaction; he’s writing only for absolute reality. For the reality of the thing, the car is the fact, she has the car, and the top goes down and she just takes off in this car. And then he who had all these years a limp and now calls himself gimpy and calls his benefactor “my crutcher,” because often he has to be the crutch to help him out of a little difficulty when money was short or this was short or something else.

So here is a gift to us tonight. Something you will not find in a book; you will not find it no matter where you go. It was a communication between God and the one who wrote me that letter, so with that, tonight take it seriously and even if it takes you a year to accomplish that technique of putting yourself into another. I only know in my one experiment with it, my nephew was dying of cancer, it was terminal, he was only seventeen. He was in Barbados, 2,000 miles away from me where I lived in New York City. One day, it was a Monday, we were expecting a friend for the cocktail hour, well, she came and I wasn’t there. I simply went to my bedroom, closed the door, got on my bed and assumed that I was in Barbados on the bed where I felt my nephew would be. I felt my sister come through the door, and that she stopped at the door, and she was startled to see not her son, my nephew Billy, but to see her brother Neville. I thought that that would encourage her to have faith, for she knew what I taught, what I believed. She didn’t believe it, but she knew what I believed. So I thought if she could see me instead of seeing her own son, it might in some way lift her faith. And so I got into that mood and put myself on that bed in my Imagination. I thought of my apartment in New York City 2,000 miles to the northwest of me, and then I saw my sister Daphney come through the door in my mind’s eye. She was a little bit startled; she came over and just simply looked at me, and I remained on the bed. She couldn’t see her own son; she could only see her brother.

Then I broke the spell and came out and joined this friend of ours who came for cocktails. So when I came out she said to me, “Neville, you seem so heavy in spirit and you usually are so gay…you light when you come into the room…and now you seem so heavy. What’s wrong?” So I told her what I had just done, that I’d received word that there is no cure. He was riddled with cancer at the age of seventeen, and doctors said you catch it when you’re young it’s goodbye; that you may catch it when you’re in your advanced years and never die of it because you’re not building tissue anymore, just simply holding on. But when you are building rapidly as children do, rapidly, then if that’s what you’re going to do you’re going to do it all over your body. So that was the verdict given by the doctors and they gave my family no hope. Well, he was seventeen and he was riddled all over. So my sister wrote me and eight days later I got the letter. As I opened the letter, I read it and then my wife read it, and this lady happened to be there also at the same time. I told her what I had done eight days before.

And this is my sister’s letter, she said, “Neville, I don’t understand this, but today”…it’s dated the very day, on Monday…”today I went into Billy’s room and as I entered instead of seeing Billy on the bed I saw you. I came over and looked at what should be Billy and I could not see Billy, I could only see you. You were on the bed and not my son Billy. And so I don’t understand it.” And she, not believing what I teach, she thought it meant that I would be the next to go. She thought, well, now this is simply a vision and Billy’s going to die, he can’t live, and therefore if Neville is the one who’s taking his place, he’ll be the one to go next. I mean that’s the interpretation she gave to my experiment. Well, it didn’t work. In my own case I only succeeded in letting her see me; Billy did not recover. I did not assume that I was Billy. I only assumed that I was on the bed in place of Billy to encourage my sister’s faith. So I cannot say in this case that it failed. I did not assume that I was Billy and did for Billy what my friend did for Eddy. He assumed he was Eddy and walked up and down in that yard of his without a limp; then he got out of Eddy’s body, allowed Eddy once more to possess it, and the Eddy walked in his vision without a limp.

Now, whether Eddy tomorrow or within the year walks without a limp or not, I say he has revealed to us what God wants everyone within shout of my voice to put to the test. This is the extreme after all; this is the limit of contraction. Things are more amenable in dream than they are here, but he, fortunately, was in control. Though it was a dream, he was in control in a very conscious way; he knew what he was doing though it was all a dream. But in all that he did, he did in love. As he said in his letter, “When I took off this form of mine and assumed the form of Beth and her clothes that was certainly an invasion of privacy. But I’m convinced that she will forgive me because the whole thing was done in love.” He asked nothing for the gift he gave her of a new car and the joy he gave her for such possession. That was a complete gift. That’s grace, unearned, unmerited.

So let everyone here try it. It costs us nothing. And if that is a revelation from God, what other voice should he listen to? For, it came to him in a vivid, vivid, what I would call, waking dream…but it was a dream. At the very end, the voice that came in for the first time in the entire dream said, “Tell this to Neville!” So I know what Paul meant when he asked those that he taught the word to to share with him all good things. Had he enclosed in a letter to me telling me of some personal success in his writing, where he made a fortune beyond what he dreamed of making and enclosed in a letter to me a large fat check, it could not be the joy that I got Friday night when I read that letter. I don’t consider any sum of money equal to such a letter. I take that with me. You could be out of money…I’m a spendthrift anyway, I’d spend it…but I can’t spend this. I can’t give this away so I’d lose possession of it. I can share it. So you’re told, “Buy the truth but sell it not,” for when you sell something you lose possession of it. Well, I can’t. If I talk about this, which I will from now ‘til the ends of time, I will share with others, but I can’t sell it. If you came to my meetings, as you must pay more in New York City because I lived in hotels there, so I charged three dollars in New York. So you paid three dollars when you came to my meetings in New York City or two here or two in San Francisco. You don’t buy what I tell you because I’m sharing it; I keep it. So you haven’t bought it no matter what I charge—I can’t sell it. So if I put any price on it, and you’re willing to pay for it, don’t say you bought the truth. I shared it with you, because if I sold it, well, then I would lose possession of it. Far from losing possession of it it increases in value and increases in understanding in me as I talk about it. So here, he shared with me knowing that I would share with you. So take this to heart and tonight experiment. If the mind isn’t that disciplined that you can actually divorce yourself from what you feel yourself to be, and put on the garment of another that you want to help, try it over and over until you can do it.

Now, there’s a story told by the late Alexis Carrel. Maybe he had this technique…not Carrel…for he said he did not know what the man did, but he was treating a cancer of the forearm. For six months he treated this cancer with radium and he could take it no more. A weird strange looking character came into his laboratory and announced that he knew how to pray. Well, Carrel was a very devout Catholic and Carrel said, “Alright, if you know how to pray here is a case and see what you can do with this case.” The man sat in the place not in close proximity—he sat in the corner and the patient was in the room where he had been treated. The man throws himself into what appeared to Carrel to be a trance, a self-imposed trance, and while he was in this trance, Carrel said in his verbal and written confession that this cancer of the forearm that he had treated medically for six months not only disappeared but it left no trace of ever having been present. “Had I not the written medical history of the case, I would doubt my own senses.” Did that man in putting himself into a state similar to sleep, but a controlled sleep, assume the body of this man and then felt the absence of a cancer? If he did, Carrel did not reveal it in his written statement, but he did reveal the statement. When the medical world heard of it, they said, well, after all Carrel was a great scientist but now he’s advanced in years and we must take into consideration his advanced years and still love him and respect him for what he has already contributed to science…but we all become in time senile. They couldn’t justify it so they had to say the poor man now is a little bit senile. He didn’t really see that which is proven to be cancer disappear while a man sits in a deep, deep trance. Well, maybe that’s what the man did, I don’t know.

But this revelation given to my friend is so fantastic I really am all lifted up by it. So I’m going to ask everyone here to try this technique. We’ve given you many techniques and they work, many of them. Well, this to me seems a far deeper, a far greater way of approaching a difficult problem; that when you become the being without loss of your own mind, your mind is actually thinking from but through the mask of the seeming other. But you put on the other, and then, as he said, then I healed them and fulfilled their desire. Now he said, “I do not know whether it is a technique that is practical on this level. I have not yet experimented, but it did work in the dream.” So I ask everyone here to believe it and try it. Don’t because it doesn’t make sense not try it. If it works, does it really matter what the whole vast world thinks, if it works? If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what I think or what you think or what the world thinks?

So this man comes in and so he’s unkempt, he’s not well put together…but he knows how to pray. Well, what is the word prayer in scripture? Look it up in this wonderful concordance of James Strong, an exhaustive concordance. It means “motion towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of.” Well, how can you get any nearer than to put on the body of one? How could you get any nearer than to put on the body but to put on the clothes that she would wear? And when you take an opposite sex, that’s really going some way! Here is a man, and he puts on the opposite sex and feels quite natural in it, even to looking into the mirror and saying “You’re beautiful.” And then saying a little aside, “I will forgive her for her vanity, I told myself,” said he. But he was speaking through this lady; she was to him beautiful. Then in time no one will be unclean in your eyes. If you prove this technique, would it really matter if you’re leprous? Would it really matter what they were? You’d put it on and then feel the health that you desire for them, and do for them what at their present level of understanding they are incapable of doing for themselves.

So I’m asking everyone here to try it. Try it and then above all things share with me. I’m not asking for money; I charge here and I charge for my books; I do not charge for interviews. I’ve never charged for interviews. I don’t care if others do, let them charge, perfectly alright. Let them do exactly what they want. I simply charge when people come to a meeting, because I’m charged for the hall. When it rains and no one comes, they don’t say, well, last night, just a few…I pay the same thing. And so, that’s what I charge, but I don’t charge for other times that I give. But I would ask everyone who comes here to share with me whatever you discover in the use of God’s creative power and his wisdom, which is called Jesus Christ. I tell you, that Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. So you will discover Christ to be sent, so that you discover the secret of imagining.

Now, here’s one more facet of imagining. And so, if I can take this one facet, and it seems to be, this night as I speak to you, one of the deepest that I’ve heard of so far. If it comes from such depths and you and I can master it from this level, there would be nothing impossible. So, it takes, like all arts, it would take practice. You can’t master the piano unless you practice daily…you couldn’t master any instrument. You couldn’t master the technique of writing unless you applied yourself. So you have to apply yourself and the first thing you must find out is a good technique and then constant practice. For, this is a technique revealed by God to the surface of his being through a friend of ours who was generous enough to share it with us.

Now let us go into the Silence. I do not expect ___(??) live by it, because I doubt that on this level you could do it really faithfully and successfully now. When you go home tonight, you try it. But in the meanwhile, we’ll try other facets, like listening and hearing the voice of a friend tell us he has what he sought in this world. Now let us go.

* * *

In this experience of my friend, he used it only for others, person after person, and in the very last chapter of the Book of Job, “And the Lord removed the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends; and gave him twice as much as he had before” (42:12). So in forgetting self in his love of another he received twice as much as he had before.

Now, before we have the questions, may I call your attention to the book table. You’ll find my books there and the books that I recommend. There are many more that I recommend, but they’re not on the table. Those on the table I have at home in my library. When you leave the hall tonight, just browse over the table.

Are there any questions, please?

Q: Neville, last Friday you talked to us on inner talking, would the atmosphere or attitude of the end result be just as effective without the inner talking?

A: I find all these facets workable. I find some people like jazz, others like classical music, but they’re all musicians. You and I are workers in God’s great field, and some are more attuned to just simply listen. This chap, because he is by profession an author and a writer of plays, a writer of stories, he was the perfect medium for this revelation to come through. For whether he is doing it mystically or not, he does it for a living. He actually has to assume the feeling and the reactions of a certain character to get words to flow from that character. So he was the perfect one to be used by God to reveal this facet of imagining. But others who are not writers, who do not write plays, listening, just simply listening for the good news would be effective. Only let us add as much as we can to what we discover about imagining, for “The secret of imagining is,” as Fawcett said, “is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which all should aspire, for supreme wisdom, supreme power and supreme delight live in this far off mystery…or the solution of this far off mystery.”

So I would say, listening or visualizing all these are facets. Maybe the artist who sees mentally what it wants to put on the canvas could use the visual sense better. But the author if he is going to actually play the part, he comes from a more solid contact with the thing. So if tonight you get something that can add to what I’ve said tonight, share it with me. Write it out for me and share it with me that I can tell others about it. And don’t think this is the only facet; there are infinite facets. But this is such a marvelous revelation.

Q: Neville, do you suppose that this is the real meaning of love thy neighbor as thyself?

A: I think it is! You’re told that in the 22nd of Matthew, and this one “word”—of course the word is simply a thought, a completed thought, a sentence—and it is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That is the fulfilling of the law. “As yourself”…so if I actually become just what I’m ___(??). God became, he’s not pretending, ___(??); God so became us that he is us, he’s not pretending. So when he assumed he was this girl, he could actually, the man that he is, look into the mirror and speak in a way only a girl would speak, seeing herself reflected in a mirror…even to the feeling of the unnaturalness of a high heel. It became so natural that the skirt was tight so he had to skip as it were to the street. But he did feel the feminine quality of the body as he wore it. He meant much good for the girl, but the one pressing need was a car. Undoubtedly he will take at other times other lovely things for her. But I hope he will now take the advice given to him by God himself and experiment on this level. Whether he does or not, he said in his letter to me, in the dream it worked. “Eddy walked without a limp, as I walked first, just as though God must play the part and then let man play it.” So he played it without the limp…and then let Eddy take over.

Q: (inaudible)A: Well, the question was about the lady whose story I told in The Law and The Promise, that she got so worked up and so tired, she needed everything! She needed clothes, she needed a job, she was fifty-six years old, and she wasn’t trained in any particular skill; she needed everything, and she owed money. So when she tried to apply this at the end of the evening, she said, “I felt so nervous and I couldn’t even sleep…I was all wrought up. So what I did was this, I condensed the whole thing into a mood and the mood was this.” She felt the way she would expect to feel under certain circumstances, that she had a lavish, wonderful income. Then said she, “I would feel the way I would expect to feel under these circumstances, and in that mood I slept.”

Well, then a friend of hers went east, met a mutual friend who inquired about this lady, and when told that she was seeing very, very bad days—he had made a fortune during the war years and therefore it meant nothing to him to send her a little gesture— and he sent her a check by this friend for $2,500. The following month he sent her a check to buy a new Plymouth car with all the attachments. And then the following month she was notified by a law office here in the city that until her exit from this world x-number of dollars would be deposited to her account here, but she must not acknowledge the check or in any way communicate. He’s fully conscious of the fact that you have received it and the depositing of this check is receipt enough. It is odd, but he doesn’t want any communication. The check was big enough to pay all expenses, and entertain, and buy clothes, and to renew her car year after year. It was a very big generous check.

As she said to me in her letter, the man has made so many millions, and he’s been married in the meanwhile, he has a family, but this is nothing to his estate. It will not in any way take from the estate that his wife and children would inherit. And so, for the rest of her earthly days this money is coming in. And all she caught was that the feeling that something wonderful is happening to me now, not tomorrow, not next month, not next year, but now. She got the feeling of the now-ness of something great happening to her. Then she said, “I would feel the way I would expect to feel under such circumstances…then sleep.” Her mind got too tired when she took and dramatized something, and she was too pressed for money and pressed for everything, and because of that anxiety she couldn’t really concentrate.

But you try anything and if it works, well then, it works…until we get deeper and deeper and deeper. I am convinced this is the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity. For when God begins to awake in man, even on this limited, contracted area, we still should be able to do it as easily as we do it in dream.

Goodnight.