In this lecture, Neville Goddard uses President Hoover’s observation on the rise and fall of ideas to illustrate the creative power of human imagination. He asserts that sin is simply missing the mark of believing one already is what one wishes to become, and that the name of God, I AM, represents our imaginative faculty. Drawing on biblical stories—from the Epistle of John to Jacob’s dream—he explains that each person is both the Father and the Son in one divine consciousness. God descended into human experience so that we might rediscover our true identity and ascend back to oneness. He urges listeners to assume consciously the state they desire, persist in that assumption through sleep, and thereby transform their environment and lives.
President Hoover, a man who began his life here on earth in the state of poverty, yet rose to the highest office in our land made this statement at a convention in San Francisco: “Human history, with its forms of governments, its revolutions, its wars, and in fact the rise and fall of nations, could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of men.”
We are told in the 8th chapter of Nehemiah that Ezra read from the Book, from the law of God with interpretation, so that the people understood the reading. It is my hope that I can interpret the words of President Hoover and the meaning behind the words from the Epistle of John so that you may understand their meaning. The words are these: “I am from above; you are from below. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Now I say to you, unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
To sin means to miss the mark, so what he is saying is that unless you believe you already are what you want to be, you will never be it. Would you like to be secure? Then say to yourself and yourself alone: “Unless I believe I am secure I will die in my sins. I will continue to believe I am insecure; thereby missing my goal in life.” Unless you can believe “I am secure,” even though there is not one thing to support it, you will die in your sin and never feel secure, for the name of God is I AM and besides I AM there is no other. Imagination (I Am) is from above. Imagination is not of this world and nothing is impossible to imagine! That is the story of scripture.
In the beginning, Imagination (God) said to us: “You are my creative power and we are one. You are sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes. This, you will do because you cannot believe you are all imagination.” Then he set up a pattern that we could believe in, and the pattern is this: God the Father has one Son, whose name is David. Find David and you will know God to be yourself!
Now, I did not know that I am the Father of David, and you did not know that you were the Father of David, or that we were one; so we descended and became the son of Man to fulfill scripture, for “No one can ascend into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of Man who is in heaven.”
Descending to prove a prophecy, you are truly sons of God and you and I are one. Having no feeling that we were one or that we were the Father of David, we had to descend in consciousness into this world in order to discover and believe: I am he who is God the Father of David. So I descend and then I ascend in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. As the Son of God I descended to become the Son of Man, to ascend as God himself. And so it is in this wonderful world of ours; as ideas implant themselves in the mind of men do our nations rise and fall.
We descended in consciousness and we have gone through all of the fires of hell. But one by one we will rise to discover we really are God, the Father of his only begotten Son. How can I ever convince you of this while speaking on this level where there is such division, yet I tell you we truly are one. We fell into division for one purpose and that is to rise into unity, into the oneness that is God.
Everyone will know that consciousness; but while we are here we can prove President Hoover’s statement, that the rise and fall of ideas will determine the environment in which the individual lives. So I say to you: name what you want to be and become so conscious of being it, you believe “I am he,” for if you are not consciously saying: “I am he,” you are missing your mark. Unless you feel you are the man (or woman) that you want to be and persist in that assumption, you are not going to reach your goal. Your assumption may be for earthly things, but I urge you to persist in the assumption that you are God until your very breath proclaims: “I am he!” The world may tell you that you are crazy, but I am telling you from experience that you’ve got to feel you are God in order to know who God is!
God’s story begins in the Old Testament and comes to its fruition in the New. The story is told of Jacob, who comes into a place at night, and using a stone for a pillow he falls asleep and dreams of a stairway leading up to heaven, with the gods [sic] ascending and descending as God stands above. Then he awakens and says: “Behold, this is the place of God and I did not know it.”
Tonight when you go to bed, you lay your head upon a pillow and God (Imagination) rests upon your skull, for that is the stone, the place of God where he dreams of the staircase leading up to heaven – the same God who said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” The story continues as Jacob, now awake, takes the stone (awareness now individualised) and anointing it, he builds the temple of the Lord. That temple you are.
God, the Father of all life is in you! Being all imagination, your true name is I AM, and besides you there is no other God. So I tell you: unless you believe “I am he,” you will die in your sins in the sense that you will continue missing the mark. You must assume that you are now the man (the woman) you want to be and persist in that assumption, for there is no other way for you to be it, as there is only God in this world.
The story recorded in the Old Testament lays the foundation of which the New Testament is its fulfillment, but “Even to this day when Moses is read a veil is over their minds and they cannot understand it.” When the mind is veiled, one cannot understand that the God spoken of by the prophets is imagination; but I tell you: at night when you go to bed God is dreaming, and when you awake in the morning he is still dreaming your world into being. But one day you will awaken in your skull (the stone that God anointed). You will fall upon it and say: “Behold, this is the place of God and I did not know it.”
Tonight when you put your head on that rock may you dream that you are now contributing to the good of the world and awakening everyone you touch. That you are fulfilling the eternal story as told us in the Old Testament.
The New Testament records the fulfillment of the Old, but those who call themselves Christians do not understand it. The other day I turned on TV to the Billy Graham show. They had all these lovely boys and girls who sang beautifully and I enjoyed the music very much – then I heard all this nonsense concerning the resurrection. I tell you: in the volume of the book it is written of you. Everything said in scripture is all about you, for you are the being called God, but unless you claim it you cannot attain it. How can you when you are the only power? You must walk conscious of being imagination, or die in your sins and never attain that awareness. No physical man made the statement: “Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” The one speaking is he who said these words: “I am from above. You are from below. You are of this world, I am not of this world.”
When Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified (remember, this play did not take place on earth save as a parable), he came before Pilate, who said: “Do you not know that I have the power to set you free or the power to crucify you?” And Jesus answered: “You have no power unless it has been given you from above.”
Your I AMness is from above. Having come to do the Father’s will, I who am now aware of being you, will drink the cup of experience to the very end. But no one has any power over me save I, by my assumption, give it away. I do it by assuming I am less than another, thereby forcing him to play the part of one superior to me. Everyone reflects my assumptions and plays their part relative to that which I have assumed, for there is nothing but Imagination, and I am he. Assuming I am afraid, I live in a world of fear, for there is no other. Being protean, I am playing every part in my dream of life, be it for my good or for my ill.
When you dream tonight of numberless people and awaken in the morning to find them gone, where did they go? Are they not all in you, created by and acted by you? Then are you not protean? You, all Imagination, are God the dreamer, imagining the many parts you are playing. This very moment is a part of your dream, and those around you are there, playing their parts because you are imagining them. You are playing the part of your husband, your wife, your children, your friends, and your enemies. They are all you, for there is nothing but God.
So I tell you: human history (no matter what it is), its revolutions, its wars, and the rise and fall of nations, can be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the mind of men. President Hoover was born in poverty, but as his ideas rose, so did he. Working his way through Stanford, he rose to the level of the highest office in our land. And President Roosevelt, who followed him, used many of his ideas to restore order and prosperity to a depressed land. As a nation we were incapable of standing on our own feet, so we found a president who couldn’t stand on his. Roosevelt had inherited wealth. Hoover earned his and what a difference that is! Everyone wants to have a lot of money to come out of the nowhere, but when you earn it you feel pride in the accomplishment. Perhaps you write a book or a play, use your artistic skills, or your income comes from manual labour. When you earn wealth by your own efforts there is pride. But there is no sense of accomplishment when you receive your wealth through inheritance, hitting the jackpot, or holding the winning lottery ticket. President Hoover earned his position. He realised and shared with us what he had learned from experience: that the ideas you implant in your mind determine the world in which you live.
I ask you to believe me, for “Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” You will miss the mark and never reach your goal unless you believe that you are right now the man you want to be. Is happiness your goal? Then assume it, for unless you assume “I am happy,” you will remain unhappy. You want to be secure? Then assume “I am secure.” That is the only way you will attain it. I am Imagination, the only power in the world, for Imagination is God. Unless I imagine I am the man I want to be, I will continue to imagine I am the man I do not want to be. No power on the outside can make me other than what I think I am. I must assume my own divinity, and as I do it will unfold within me.
Have you ever thought that when Jacob placed his head upon the rock he made contact with eternity? Or that the ladder he saw was Christ? Just think of it: when you put your head on a pillow tonight and close your eyes to this world, you are really on your skull, making contact with God’s power and wisdom, the mediator between human nature and divinity! That is the true ladder of Jacob. Dwell on it, for I tell you it is true. God’s power, as ideas, descends from and ascends into heaven via that spiral ladder.
It is said that he who descended is the son of Man. Well, if God’s Son becomes the son of Man through his descent, is he not destined to become the Son of God in his ascent? And if God and his Son are one, is there anyone else? Can you see it? You and I are truly one in the most intimate manner and I mean that seriously. But if you do not believe me you will continue to descend that spiral staircase into diversity, delaying your ascent into the oneness of the Father.
Descending as God’s sons, you will ascend as the Father of God’s only Son, David. Then you will know from experience what you formerly could not believe. And only after you have descended into these bodies of decay can you discover that there is only one Imagination, only one God, only one Father.
While in this world of Caesar, go to bed this night and putting your head on the true pillow (called the skull), dare to assume you are the man (the woman) that you would like to be. Just assume it. Tomorrow, if the world denies it, turn your back on its denial and persist in your assumption and you will become that which you have assumed you are. But when your world reflects your persistent assumption, don’t forget how you brought it into being. You brought it to pass by assuming: “I am he,” and there is no other God.
You may not be listed in the social register or as one of the millionaires of the world, but no one is more important than you. I have yet to meet one person that I have felt was greater than I. Having awakened from the dream of life, I know there is no other to be greater or lesser than. Weak and limited as I am, there is only one being in the world and that being is God.
In the beginning we could not believe that we were God. We had to be detached to bring us to that consciousness. Being sons of the Most High we were told that we would die like men and fall as one man. The one who said this is waiting for us all to return to the consciousness of being that one man. He has set up a pattern by which we will return and there is only one way. That is by way of the pattern man called Jesus Christ, and by this way we return as God.
Now let us go into the silence.
In the first paragraph, Goddard reframes President Hoover’s historical insight as a metaphysical truth: ideas are the building blocks of reality. By equating imagination with the divine name I AM, he elevates human thought to the status of God’s creative act. This challenges the listener to reconsider the source of power in shaping personal and collective experience.
The second paragraph delves into scriptural allegory, tracing a pattern from the Fall through to the figure of David and back to the ascent of the Son of Man. Goddard emphasizes that descent into human limitation was necessary for experiential knowledge, and that true spiritual awakening occurs when we recognize that our deepest consciousness is both Father and Son—imagination and its manifestation.
Next, he offers practical application: persistently assume the desired state—security, happiness, divinity—despite external evidence to the contrary. This methodological use of sleep and pillow symbolism underscores the importance of the subconscious. In resting on the skull, the individual makes contact with divine power, turning the nightly dream state into a laboratory for spiritual transformation.
Finally, Goddard ties personal assumption back to historical events, contrasting Hoover and Roosevelt to show how earned ideas yield pride and empowerment versus inherited wealth. He reiterates that all relationships and world events are reflections of one imagination playing multiple roles. This radical monism dissolves the separation between the individual and God, beckoning the listener to awaken to their singular divine identity.
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