The Law of Liberty

Tonight’s subject is “The Law of Liberty.” In this present series I’m asking everyone to try it, test it, and then share with us the result, that I in turn will then share with others what you have proved by this wonderful law of ours. Lord Lyndsay once said to a group of clergymen, “You ministers are making a mistake. In your pulpits you’re arguing for Christianity and no one wants to hear your arguments. You ought to be witnessing: ‘Does this thing work?’ Then share it with the rest of us.” And so, that’s what I’m asking you to do, share it. I tell you it works. We have found that which the whole vast world’s been seeking and it works. But you’ll not know it by just hearing about it. To be convinced you must test it and prove it, and you can prove it.

Now we turn to the great book, the Bible. You judge to what extent you accept it, the testimony of Jesus. For we repeat here, night after night, that it’s very important that we hear the testimony of Jesus and respond to it. So then I make the claim here, quoting Blake, that “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” And I mean that literally. This is not just a lovely poetical thought duly expressed by Blake; he meant it literally. And so the Bible makes this statement—you will read it in the 6th chapter of the Book of John. It’s really called the chapter of secession, because in this chapter a bold claim is repeated throughout the chapter, and in the very end they seceded. And the statement that caused it was this, “No one can come unto me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise you up at the last day” (verse 44). And then we are told he asked a very simple question, “And suppose you saw the Son of man ascending into heaven?” (verse 63). There was no response; no one believed him. And then he said, That’s why I told you that no one can come to me unless it be granted him by the Father, no one. And then he said of the evangelist writing the story he is now editorializing and so he said, And Jesus knew from the first who those were who did not believe and who it was that should betray him (verse 64)—knew it from the first who did not believe and who should betray.

Now we read the story carefully and he said, he repeats it again, “No one can come unto me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Then we are told that many, at this point many of the disciples turned back, never to walk with him again, never to go with him again. Well, who are the disciples who turned back? They couldn’t go all the way; they came part of the way but they couldn’t go all the way. Now no man judges you, for the drama is taking place in us. We hear the testimony, we hear it either from a platform or we read it in the book or maybe we have the experience, but to what extent can we go all the way?

We are told that there is a law, the law of the identical harvest; that “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for as a man sows, so shall he reap” (Gal. 6:7). And then we are told, “And the Lord said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants bearing seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind’” (Gen. 1:11). No variation, each according to its kind. Now, I think the whole vast world will accept that, in the vegetable world; and they’ll come into this animal world and accept it, that doves produce doves, men produce, men and women produce, well, men, really. And so, we can take that law in the natural world and see that it does work. Can we step beyond that boundary and take it now in the mental world? Can we now actually perform a mental act, an imaginal act, and observe the working of it? And then admit when we see the fruit that the imaginal act was the seed planted by us, and the thing now we see reflecting it is really the offspring or the fruit of it? Can we accept it? Well, we may. I trust that everyone here will accept that. I think that the majority of you will; that’s why you’re here. But can you go further and say no man, and this literally now, “No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I’ll raise him up at the last day”? Can you go that far?

Well, they couldn’t go that far. They could go as far as relating an external event to an internal imaginal act. But they could not believe for one moment that encountering a total stranger in the world, and that stranger comes in to play a part in my life, that he cannot come unless my Father draws him; and I and my Father are one. I am the Father and the Father in me, so that no one comes into my life and plays any part in my life but what I am drawing him, good, bad, or indifferent. He just can’t come. Well, man isn’t big enough as yet to accept that widening circle. Can’t quite stretch it out that far to encompass the whole vast world; and that everything that is happening in his individual life he is the cause of it. He can’t quite relate these events when they are touched by living beings in the world to anything that he inwardly has ever done. He can’t believe one moment. But I say, you be the judge whether you believe it or not. For he said, “I know every one from the very first.” Why did he know every one from the very first? Well, who is he to do all this? Are we not told, “What person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him?” (1 Cor. 2:11). But who’s the spirit in you? I tell you it’s Jesus Christ. “I’ve been crucified with Christ: it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Read it in the 2nd chapter, the 20th verse of Galatians. I have actually been crucified with him and it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So the spirit in me knows from the beginning whether I believed it or not.

As I sit here this night, do I believe it? To what extent would I believe this law of liberty, where not a thing that is happening that I didn’t cause, not a thing in my world? Well, who betrayed me now? I knew the one who would betray me. But no one can betray me unless he has my secret, but no one. You can’t betray a man unless you know the man’s secret. And to know the man’s secret you have to be in the spirit of that man. So who could betray a man but himself? So, “No man takes away my life, I lay it down myself…the power to lift it up and the power to lay it down again.” No man takes away my life. So he knew the one who would betray him and should betray him because he is himself. He is self-betrayed. He knows the secrets to the point where everything is happening in his world because he is the sole cause of all the things that he encounters, that he experiences. There is no other cause. He knows that. And so he’s betrayed the creative experience within himself. He knows what is the cause of it. He’s found it in himself: his own wonderful human imagining is the Christ spirit in him that really is the cause of the phenomena of his life. And so now he is self-betrayed. He will share it with the world, but who will accept it? He’ll tell it to the world and so men will themselves judge to what extent they will go with it. But when he comes to the statement that no man can come unto me except the Father who sent me draws him, we draw the line at that.

Now let me share with you what’s been given to me. The gentleman is here tonight and this is his story as given me last Tuesday night after the meeting. He said, “Last week I was having serious difficulty with a story. I was satisfied with the dialogue, the scenes were all right individually, but for some reason or other I just wasn’t satisfied with the story. So Sunday morning, realizing that the story was the problem and not my treatment of the story, I did this. I put myself into the shoes of Robert Louis Stevenson and then I imagined how he must have felt after he had written a good story. Then, I went back and put on my own shoes and tried to match that feeling which I had imagined to be Stevenson’s feeling as he felt having produced a good story.” That was the technique that he employed.

He said, “All this happened while I was taking my morning walk. When I came home, I began to list point by point to my wife of what I thought was wrong with the story. And then, point by point as though someone standing behind me and prompted me, and suddenly the solution to each point came into my mind, just as though someone was standing behind me and thought of it. And the whole thing came into my mind point by point.” Now he said, “I should add that while I was gone my wife had imagined ‘Wonderful things are happening, wonderful things are happening, wonderful things are happening!’” He said, “I’m quite sure that your wife would understand that when a man is at home day in and day out, a woman has to use generalizations, sweeping generalizations. So she would understand that because my wife and I spend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; we’re on the same place.” And so, he, the writer, uses his home as I do with my home.

So, with that confession off, he said, “About an hour later I was in the shower and I was pleasantly recalling an experience of six years ago…recalling this thing that happened six years ago…when a story was being, or seemed to be, dictated to me in a like manner, the thing that just happened, that someone standing behind me and dictating the story of the past hour. And it seemed six years ago, as I recalled the story that this happened in a like manner: some presence dictated, or seemed to dictate, the story. And then, it hit me like a sledge hammer. For the story of six years ago, that same character in the story of six years ago was Eddie. Identical, down to a T, it was Eddie.

And then, if you weren’t here when we told the story of Eddie, let me now tell you the character that he conceived six years ago. He said, “He was mildly insane. Well, you know, Eddie was committed to an insane asylum for those who were mildly insane.” He said, “The character was periodically picked up and released by the police. Well, the police picked up Eddie and when the asylum wouldn’t take him back, the police didn’t want him, and so the police released him.” He said, “For plot reasons, I gave the character a limp in the right foot, the right leg—so had Eddie a limp in the right leg.” He said, “The people of the town of the character treated him in the way that the people in my neighborhood treat Eddie. The character lived in a tent outside of town; Eddie lives today in a tent up in the hills of Hollywood. The character wore the kind of clothes, the same clothing that Eddie wears. The character had a fascination with atomic fallout. In fact, he perpetrated a hoax upon the town and almost scared the daylights out of them and they wanted to lynch him. Eddie has the most unusual fascination for atomic fallout and tells me he has a pipe that when he rubs it with some other piece of metal he can cause atmospheric disturbance on any part of the earth. And it disturbs him, because he feels his misuse of this pipe which he calls his “space needle” is the cause of the unrest in parts of the world, like Cypress for instance, so he’s had to restrain himself. He has currently buried this pipe on the desert, which, said the writer, is perhaps safer than where he usually keeps it, under my house.” And so, the same intense interest. But, he said, “This is the amazing similarity between these two—-that the feeling I have always had for the character is identical to the feeling I had for Eddie.”

Now, he said, “I didn’t tell this story to my wife immediately, I wanted to test it, and so I began to tell her and describe to her a story of a character. And I purposely omitted the limp in the right leg, because had I said it she would instantly have thought of Eddie. So I didn’t mention that characterization. Then, I omitted completely from my vocabulary the use of the words ‘unwanted’ and ‘rejected’ which, by the way, in describing this character, he felt himself unwanted and rejected. But in spite of these omissions, she said to me, ‘You’re talking about Eddie.’” And then, said he, “I was stunned that my wife from a description of a character I conceived six years ago could see in that character, and not see that character, that I’m talking only of one character she knows is Eddie. So I really signed this letter “worried” for the simple reason having written all my life I’ve created some characters that I’m in no hurry to meet in the flesh.” So everyone has done that.

Then he goes on, “So I quickly turned to your book The Law and the Promise and re-read the chapter on ‘There is no Fiction.’ And now, said he, with this off my chest as it were, I must say something good in favor of an outside God and candles; for in my present state of mind I think that really such a thing, an outside God, will be more comforting than to be the God creating all these things that are coming into my world when I reflect upon the characters, as a writer, I have conceived and projected on the screen; characters that I don’t really want to meet in a hurry, not in the flesh.” Then he said, “I hope you will keep this letter in a safe place, because if I ever want proof for insanity I would have it. You keep it in a safe place and the day I need it to prove my own sanity, well, there is the proof.”

For here, this one, this gentleman has gone all the way. And is willing now from his confession in this letter to admit that the character Eddie, that seemingly came by accident after a great rain storm; that all the cars were washed in the neighborhood and Eddie had no job for the day; and thumbing his way up the hill, possibly to where he lives in his tent, this gentleman very kindly gave him a lift, and the friendship began there. Because outside of this friendship which he said is the same intense feeling he felt for Eddie that he had for his character and he always had for the character, they have no social meeting point. They do not travel in the same social circle, intellectual circle, financial circle, yet there was a closer feeling, I’m quite sure, towards this Eddie than he has towards maybe nine-tenths of those who move in his circle. And he created Eddie. So I say, that everyone…you may not recognize the character. Maybe you’re not a writer and have written to the point where you can remember an actual character that you created out of the nowhere, and had it produced, and saw the production yourself, and moved others to see the character. But he remembered. And then he ran into the flesh and blood character that he conceived six years before.

So the 6th chapter of the Book of John, “No one can come unto me unless the Father who has sent me draws him; and the last day I will lift him up.” I’ll raise him up at the last day. So I told this gentleman exactly how he’s going to raise him up. The day will come…and the last day doesn’t mean the last day of twenty-four hours. It means the last day of the journey from the cradle to the grave when it is your last time around, and you’re not on the wheel of recurrence anymore. And when that last phase comes to an individual he will have this experience. When he least expects it, no one ever told him about it; and maybe when I tell you now you’ll forget it and scripture forgets, so when it happens it will come as a very wonderful pleasant surprise, because you have no memory that you heard it from my lips. But while you don’t know about it, you never read about it, no one told you about it, and one night—-or it comes in the day; in my case it always seemed to come at the wee hours of the morning—-and so you’ll be suddenly twisted from within yourself, like a corkscrew, and through your skull you’ll go. And you’ll be clothed in the most glorious body of fire and air. It is that luminous…you need no stars, no sun, no moon to illuminate your path. And a heavenly chorus will call your name, whatever your name is, and they will pronounce the name and say “He is risen.” Not “he” is risen but the name, say your name is John, “John is risen!” “John is risen!” they’ll repeat it; and then this chorus will sing out, the most glorious heavenly chorus will sing your praise because you have been risen.

And then you will come upon a sea of infinite imperfection, human imperfection. The limp of ___(??) will be there, the blind, the halt, the withered, everything you’ve conceived, all taking human form; and they’re waiting for you, their redeemer, to redeem them. And as you glide by, you seem to glide by, every one will be transformed into the image of perfection. You do not raise a finger to make it so. Blind people become those of perfect sight, the deaf hear, the limp, the halt, the withered all cease to be what they were as you pass by. And when you come to the very end and the last one is finished and all are perfect, then the same heavenly chorus will exult and ring out, “It is finished!” the last cry on the cross. And then you, for unfinished business, return here to complete it, to tell it, maybe to leave it in a more permanent form, in the form of a picture or a story. But you will tell it in a more permanent form than you yourself at that moment experienced, for that’s forever as far as you’re concerned. But you will tell it for the benefit of others; and scream it out as it were; return here to complete the few remaining years, for your end is at hand.

Everyone had to be raised that you would create. Everyone had to be transformed into perfection to conform to you when you were lifted up. At that very moment you were perfect, and so as you walked by you molded them in harmony with the perfection springing within you. And you do it without effort, without taking thought; you’re above the conceptual mind. You’re not concerned about these people, you simply walk by knowing in the depths of your soul it is all perfect; and everyone is reshaped and molded in harmony with that perfection springing within you. So you’re told, “If I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will lift all men up.” I will shape them and transform them.

And so no man came save I called him. So, if I call Eddie with a limp…and then memory served me well, I am taking a shower and suddenly I’m pleasantly recalling a story of six years ago and while I recall it and dwell upon it, suddenly it dawns upon me…for I’ve been walking around these past two years in the company of one that I myself created, and I didn’t recognize him. Here is a man in my own world and for two years he’s been in my life and an intimate of my world, but I didn’t recognize my own creation. For that’s what the world does all day long. It draws only its own, but doesn’t recognize its own creation. No man cometh unto me save I draw him, for “my Father and I are one.” So he can’t come unless my Father draws him. He can’t come unless I draw him, for I and my Father are one. And so, I am drawing every being into my world, good, bad or indifferent. So when I think he is wrong and he crosses my path morning, noon and night—-“he’s no good, you can’t trust him”—where in my world can I go back to that moment of mistrust in me, when I really couldn’t trust myself. I couldn’t, I was afraid of my own behavior if given an opportunity. If I thought I could get away with it, I might. I need not be an author to sit down and write the story; I could enact the story. I could walk through a store and if no one really had eyes upon me and I thought they didn’t, I might contemplate with pleasure an act that if caught would be quite embarrassing to those who love me, I might. If in the past I ever contemplated that, someone’s going to cross my path and come right into my world and will play that part right in my world. I may condemn him for it, but in condemning him I’m condemning myself, because he is my very self bearing witness to my own creation…bearing witness.

I told the story here once many years ago. It was a very intimate story and I told it certainly not to fill any ego here, but to encourage every person in this world to forgive every being in this world. Because you are the cause of the behavior of everyone you’re observing in this world. And I told it in the most intimate manner because it struck home forcefully. And I was severely criticized by the audience for it, and criticized the following month by the wife of the gentleman who brought me to this town to give a series of lectures. She said, “Neville, I thought that was very, very unbecoming, and so many have criticized you for it. They’ve written me letters and I can’t tell you of the many letters I have received that are very, very critical of what you said from the platform.” I said, “I didn’t say it for any purpose other than to show everyone that they are the cause of the misbehavior of others that they condemn. They are the cause of it.” And so, I tried to explain to her that it was not condemnation of the person. I was putting myself…I was the cause of her arrest, the cause of her actions.

And this is the story. I was married, separated for fifteen years; no divorce and no final separation; no legal separation but separated. I was married at the age of eighteen, father at nineteen, separated at twenty, and then for the next fifteen years we lived our separate lives and only saw each other when she dragged me into court for nonpayment of alimony. That’s the only time we ever saw each other. I always came out of the court with a reduction, always, one after the other. So, seven times before the judge and seven times it went down, this way. So, finally, she knew “Better not take him anymore, there’s not a thing else to get.” She’ll get nothing the next time. And so that was the picture. So I told that story and all these things are happening.

And one day, I knew I wanted to get married to a certain party, who’s now the mother of my daughter. But I had all this entangled personal life—-not separated legally. You can’t get a divorce in New York City save but on one ground—-the most archaic law in the world—therefore, nothing but collusion goes on in the divorce courts in New York City. For the whole thing is forced upon man because of this archaic law. However, I wanted my divorce. And then she was told by a very close intimate friend of mine that I wanted that divorce and to really leave town, get out of town. But my friend didn’t want me to get a divorce and marry the girl that I eventually married. So I thought, alright, I will now apply this law, and I slept as though I were happily married to the girl who now bears my name. And at the end of a week, my dancing partner who I thought was the one who had really told her to fly (and she was) came to me and told me that she looked upon me as a brother, just a brother. She could never marry me, because it was not that feeling towards me. Well, that made me very happy.

And then, the other one was gone now, never to be found again so the world would think. But I still slept in the assumption that I was happily married. One morning the phone rang, I answered the phone, it’s the court, courtroom calling, “This is the federal building.” I said yes? “Are you Neville Goddard?” Yes. “Are you the public speaker that goes by the name of Neville?” I said yes. “Well now, you better be in court next Tuesday morning at ten.” Well, I was too sleepy to ask why. And so, next Tuesday morning just a little before ten, here, the phone rings again. “Are you Neville Goddard?” I said yes. “Why aren’t you in court? Didn’t we call you last Tuesday to tell you to be in court today?” I said, “Why should I be in court? What’s wrong that I should be in court, I haven’t been subpoenaed?” Then said this party over the wire, “You’re a public character and reporters are always in court and they love to get the story into the papers, and the papers today.” But I said, “What’s wrong?” They said, “Your wife happens to be on trial, and so if you would come on down and maybe you could throw some light upon this.”

So I went on down, got into the courtroom just in time to see them bring her into the dock as it were. Three judges came in, took their positions, and then someone whispered to one judge, and then the voice said, “Is Mr. Goddard in the courtroom?” I said, “I’m here.” “Would you take the stand?” I got sworn in, I’m under oath. “Maybe you could help us, throw a little light here.” And so I took the stand. They asked me if we were the same religious faith. I said, “No, she was born a Catholic, I was born a Protestant. But that’s no problem, she is not a practicing Catholic and I’m not a practicing Protestant. So there’s no problem there at all.” And then he said, “Well then, could you throw some light?” I said, “First of all, she’s eight years my senior and you know my age, therefore, you must know her age. She’s undoubtedly passing through some emotional disturbance and so when a woman is passing through such states, well, they can do any irrational thing. What she’s now charged with, I am quite sure she has never done it before. Even if you have the evidence to support it, I still think she’s never done it before. I will swear she will never do it again. I ask you for my son’s sake, who lives with me, that if you’ve got to sentence her, therefore, the law says sentence her, but then be merciful and suspend it.”

He said, “I’ve never heard a plea in this court of mine similar to that in all my years on the bench, from a man who has nothing to gain by this merciful plea of his, when he really wants a divorce. Because we have all that evidence before us taken from your wife when she was in jail this past week waiting for this day of trial.” He said, “I’ll act upon your recommendation, Mr. Goddard. I now sentence you to six months and suspend it. Don’t you ever come before me again.” Mary met me in the lobby, she said, “That was a very decent thing for you to do, Neville. Give me the papers.” I said, “I don’t have any papers with me…come home and I’ll give them to you.” We rode up together, first time in these many, many years we were closer than seeing the judge and the bench. We rode together to my hotel and I gave her the papers I had not been able to serve for unnumbered months. Gave her the papers and got my divorce uncontested.

So I told that story to say that I caused her to do what she did. Had I not assumed that I was free to marry the girl that now bears my name she would never have done these at all. And so, she goes into a store and for the first time in her life she picks up something that she hadn’t paid for, and someone saw it. And so, it was a silly thing, but, nevertheless, she did it. And that’s what brought her into the city so I could find her. And she was moved to ask me to give her the papers because I pleaded for her. And so having done all this, who actually was the culprit? I was the culprit. She came right into my world to play a certain part, to grant me my freedom. I’m speaking of the law of liberty. And so, should she be condemned for acts when I, the unseen author, wrote for her? I didn’t write it out by sitting down and writing the part for her, but I determined the behavior of that part, that she had to do something in order to melt her to take the papers from me. And so, I told it only to show that don’t condemn anyone. You and you alone are the author of the things happening in your life.

And therefore, would you condemn a man…this gentleman writes into his script a limp in the right leg. Here comes a man with a limp in the right leg. He writes everything into an imaginary character and he isn’t imaginary at all. You can’t distinguish between what the world calls imaginary and reality, you can’t; this is all one. And so, people could not go beyond a certain limit…and so you could say, well, I will assume that I am what I want to be and things happen in my world like this. But don’t tell me now that I actually created her in that part. I did. And so, many departed never to walk with him again, never; and so, he turns now to the twelve remaining, he said, “Would you go also?” Peter answered, “To whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we believe, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68). Well, to whom is Peter speaking? He isn’t speaking to another. Whoever is the character written in this drama as Peter came to that position within himself.

It’s the most difficult thing in the world to accept. For, this is the cause of secession. They seceded at that moment because they will not accept the fact that they are actually the cause of these things that are living and moving in their world, some crippled, some limited, some maimed—-and they’re the cause of it? They will not accept it. He said alright. They left him, never to walk with him again. And then Peter said, “Well, to whom to go? You have the words of eternal life. These are true, and now to whom would I turn? For you know we have believed and we have come to know you are the Holy One of God.” Know what? Turn back now to Matthew and you see the answer. “Who do people say that I am?” “Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah come again, some say Jeremiah, and some say a prophet of old.” He doesn’t respond to that. He asks another question, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter becomes the spokesman, he answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He said, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not told you this, but my Father who is in heaven” has revealed it (Mat. 16:13). Well, who is the Father in heaven? He said, “I am the Father. When you see me, you see the Father.” Well, who but the Spirit in man has revealed what Christ really is? No prophet come again, no reincarnation but man has Christ within him. And he’s awakening more and more and more.

So the gentleman who wrote the story concerning Eddie said, “You know, up until now I really wanted to wake up and tried to wake up. But now I’m trying desperately to go to sleep again.” In other words, he doesn’t want—-but he really doesn’t mean it—-he doesn’t want what he just discovered, this enormous responsibility, to be responsible for the characters that he has created. And they’re all walking the earth, and one after the other will enter his circle and become an intimate. And one that he really is very fond of, one that he created and endowed him with all these strange things, a peculiar mental unbalance, and a limp in his right leg, and unwanted by society, and looked down on by the neighborhood, put him in a tent and ostracized him from society, and made him unwanted and unwashed, and, well, repellent in many ways. All these things he does for character and then falls in love with the character. So you can see the words, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). They’re playing all these parts because imaginative men and women are writing dramas. And the world is forever falling under the spell of imaginative men and women. No matter what the world will tell you, they’re always falling under the spell of those who are writing intensely with emotion.

So today you try it. I hope—but the judgment is yours, don’t tell me—but I hope you can go all the way. And don’t tell anyone if you go all the way, because the Spirit in you he knows whether you can really go all the way or you’ll turn back tonight and take only a portion of it. But even a little portion of it, take it. So there’s a law, the law of the identical harvest: “As a man sows so shall he reap.” Regardless of what it appears to be really, you’ll reap it. And you’ll find in the end everything is simply bearing witness to man, of what man is doing. As Blake said, “I went to heath and the wild, to the thorns and thistles of the waste, and they told me how they were beguiled and driven out and compelled to be chaste.” And you would not believe for one moment that Blake is telling us that the unwholesome suppressions of the normal natural urges of the animal body that we wear are the cause of the thorns and the thistles of the waste. The society has clamped down upon all the normal natural urges of the human animal body—for these are animal bodies that we wear—and by putting a clamp upon the natural urges, then come thorns and thistles of the waste. And what botanist will believe that? He doesn’t believe that for one second and he thinks he’s going to kill them by some insecticide or some other kind of thing, and he goes out and burns the things. They’ll all come back, as long as man walks the earth who can impose these restrictions on growing healthy bodies…and we call them moral laws. There isn’t a thing in this world but man, because God is the only reality, and God is man, and man is God. So “Man is all Imagination. And God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of Man is The Imagination, and that is God himself” (Blake, Annotations to Berkeley; Laocoon).

So I tell you, whether you be a writer as this chap writes and undoubtedly writes remarkably well to earn the kind of money he earns from his own confession. And so, he writes it, and luckily he could spot it. But he lived with it for two years before he realized it was his own creation. But now what he did to rectify this problem of the story, ___(??) being a writer, he took a great imaginative writer—anyone who could write Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—alright, you certainly have an ideal in that when you take Robert Louis Stevenson, and you can put it into the feet, the shoes of this imaginative writer—and then right behind him someone who is Stevenson. He caught it by a mood. You can tell by the mood that you wear who you’re going to meet in this world. You wear moods and they come. And he caught the mood. He wondered what would the mood be like, what would it be like? Asking who? He’s asking what would Stevenson feel, how would he feel, after he finished what he considered a good script, a good story? And having caught that mood, then he said, I got back in my own shoes; and then I tried to match my own feelings to what I had imagined Stevenson must have felt. And so, when he got them mated…and when two agree as touching anything in this earth, it shall be established for them in this world if two agree. But he called the one with whom he wanted to agree in moods, and then, as though someone stood behind him and dictated the solution of every point as he brought the point up, they all came into his mind. There’d be no problem for this man, a writer, to sit down and bat it out after they were all solved in his mind. Then taking his shower and feeling very happy about what just happened, he very pleasantly recalled an experience six years ago. And while he’s contemplating it, like a sledge hammer on his head…who would have thought he’d been walking around with his own creation two years and didn’t recognize him? And he didn’t want to spring it on his wife. He thought, “I’ll test it first before I spring it on her.” And so, he described the character, leaving out very pertinent things like the limp in the right leg and the use of the two words “unwanted, rejected,” and leaving out things that would give her the cue, she still would spot the character was Eddie.

And so, that story you can take to heart. Tonight, what would it feel like? If you want money, well, make yourself one who has oodles of it. What would it feel like to him, if he really wants money? Because many have it without any thought of money, but if someone really wants money, what would it be like after he really went over in a big way? And then you try to match your feeling to that which you’ve imagined he must have felt when he made what he considered the big killing. Match the feeling…and then just match it and see what happens. Just try it. What we’re doing here, we are experimenting, because this is the greatest problem in the world. As Fawcett said, “The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which everyone should aspire.” First of all, infinite power is in it, if you unravel it, infinite wisdom and infinite delight. So if it contains all of these and we can unravel the problem, then why not try it?

So we’re asking everyone to try it and then share with us that I, in turn, will share as I did this night with this gentleman’s letter. Again, I repeat, I hope he keeps it up and shares with me that I, in turn, may share with you these perfectly lovely facets of this great diamond. For if he could put his imaginary feet into imaginary shoes, and feel what the great Stevenson must have felt when he was satisfied with the story, then take the shoes off and put on his own shoes, all in Imagination; for he’s taking his morning’s walk when all of this is going through his mind. And people walking by will see a man walking by and possibly ignore him, not even have a second thought, or they might wonder what’s in his mind. But no one but the Spirit of that man would know. Who would know for one moment that Stevenson was walking by? But while he was wearing the shoes of Stevenson, Stevenson was there, to the point that were you sensitive, you would not see the man that was there that his wife would see, you would see Stevenson. You really would, because “all things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle.” And so, they aren’t outside in space or outside in time, they’re only as far away as you allow them to be.

And your moods can call them, any being in this world. You can call anyone who has been gone for unnumbered centuries call him by feeling that you are he. Put yourself into his shoes and call him. Then, if you have a problem, share the problem. You’ll have the same sensation someone is standing behind you and prompting you so that point by point the solution is given to you, it crowds right into the head. If you believe that Blake who died in 1827 could really solve a certain problem for you, feel the presence of Blake. Because they’re not pushed out, as the world would think, say in time back to 1827. He certainly is not in any little grave in England; no one is there. And so, they are only as far away as you let them be.So he went back and read the chapter on “There is no Fiction” and discovered he, the writer, and very humorously when said in his letter, “Having written all my life I have created such characters I assure you that I am in no hurry to meet them in the flesh.” But it doesn’t matter, the day will come you will move out by a spiral motion when you least expect it, and without effort walk by and redeem every one of them. Every one we were given for the ___(??) play here, because they are created either wittingly or unwittingly. And so, I ask you to join with me, put it to the test, and don’t delay with your letters, bring them to me just as many as you possibly can that I may encourage others to try it too.

When you go home, read this chapter, the 6th chapter of the Book of John. It really is the secession chapter: They all departed, never to walk with him again, and only the few remained. And he turned…and they said, “Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed you and we have come to know”—it didn’t come over night—“we have come to know you are the Holy One of God.” But the Holy One of God is God himself…you come to know it. But you’re not talking to a man: You’ve found a creative presence within yourself. And although the world will try to make you feel that the creative presence is a power—speak of it as “it,” don’t personalize it—oh yes you do. It’s yourself you’ve found. Aren’t you a person? So if Christ is in you as the creative power in you, you are doing it and you’re a person, therefore, Christ is a person. So he said, “Is your Christ a person?” He always talks about Christ as a creative power. He’s not only a person, he’s the only person. He is the heavenly man…you are finding in yourself that heavenly man, the man that cannot die, the immortal you. Now when you find him, don’t let him go. Let everything else go, but don’t let him go. So when Paul writes to Timothy, he said, “I know whom I have believed”—-not what—whom, and he’s speaking now of Christ. And yet he defines Christ as “the power and the wisdom of God.” Having defined it as power and wisdom, he personifies it, personalizes it. Because it’s himself…that’s what he found. He found it in himself. You’ll never find him on the outside.

And so, to what extent this night you can go with the testimony of Christ Jesus? Can you go all out and say that no man, no woman, male or female, can come unto me unless my Father who sent me draws him? And I will raise him up at the last day…leave that section alone…that’s going to happen anyway. But to what extent can you accept that testament that no one can come unto me unless my Father who sent me draws him? And I and my Father are one because I am in my Father and my Father is in me, can I go that far? And then go all out, that not one being in this world can cross my path that I did not call? Those who come more intimately into my circle, they’re really things I have been dwelling upon. You start dwelling upon the so-called tyrants of the world and forming in your mind’s eye, you’ll find he doesn’t really live in Russia, he lives right next door, comes right in. And then you wonder how to get rid of him. You’ve been creating in your mind’s eye a certain something, and it comes right into your world. You draw them as you draw them out of a panel.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Q: Who is the woman in “Revelation” who has the moon under her feet?

A: Everything in scripture, from beginning to end, is all about you. Not the garment that you’re wearing, but you, the wearer of that garment. Everything from beginning to end is your real auto-biography. Much of it you have not yet experienced, but it is still yours to re-experience, therefore, truly an auto-biography. At the moment you may read it as biography, but don’t think that it’s of another; it’s all about you. The most insane revelation will prove itself true; one day you’ll experience it. It’s all about you. When the child was brought forth and it was quickly caught up into heaven, you’ll have that experience. The child will vanish from those who will try to destroy him. And all the destructive powers of the world are still begotten by you, all in the state of dream, when man was sound asleep. So you are that being. I hope tonight you saw who Judas was. Not some being who betrayed what the whole vast Christian world believes to be their Lord. No one could have betrayed a man unless he knew that man’s secret; and no person knows a man’s secret but the Spirit of that man which is in him. So who is Judas? The word Judas means “the praise of Jehovah.” Judas is praise. But man thinks the drama took place 2,000 years ago. It’s taking place, all here. He said, “No man takes my life, I lay it down myself.” If no man takes my life, then what are you blaming him for? I laid it down in every garment that moves upon the face of the earth. “Unless I die, thou canst not live. But if I die I shall arise again and thou with me” (Blake, Jer., Plt.96). And so, he became man that man may become God, and he did it voluntarily. You can imagine, well, that’s Christ, that’s the power of God. And it is personified— though a power because you’re a person, therefore, it is a person. Every evil act in the world needs a man as an agent, therefore, it is man. Every noble act needs a man as an agent, therefore, it is man. So it’s all personified. So scripture personifies the powers. Yet that’s right; they are powers, they are personified.

Q: What is the symbolism of the two thieves on the crosses at the crucifixion, one on the left and one on the right?

A: We’re coming to that in the not distant future right from this platform. But we answer some claim that man is constantly robbed by looking back or looking forward. He’s so concerned about what he did and what he’s going to do, what he formerly encountered and what he hopes to encounter, that he omits the everlasting present which is I AM. So Christ defines himself as “I AM the way, I AM the truth, I AM the life, I AM the bread of heaven, I AM the true vine, I AM the resurrection”…all present. But man goes back and thinks of him as something past and hopes to meet him some time in the future…and it’s ever-present. He’s only in the present, so man is robbed by two thieves that he walks with all day long, because Christ is crucified here in the present. I have been crucified, “I am crucified with Christ, and it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me”—-he’s present, and his name is Jesus, and it’s I AM. The word Jesus is Jehovah, and Jehovah is Yod He Vau He, and it’s defined as I AM. So, my thief to my left, my thief to my right…I’m always looking to the past or future and omitting the only reality which resurrects, which is the present. And only what I am ever reaches heaven; only what I am am I putting out. So don’t wait to assume that I am what I would be because reason denies. Ignore reason, ignore the facts of life, and dare to assume it, because all things are possible to I AM. So the two things are with us morning, noon and night. We wonder…“I wonder if I did the right thing at that cocktail party last night? Did I say the right thing? Did I make the right impression?” And we worry all through the night, “Did we really do it?”—-that’s a thief. And now, I’m invited to one tomorrow, “I wonder if my tongue will be tied or do I have a nice dress? Will I have time to go to the hair dresser?” and all these things and concern about tomorrow when it’s only today, it’s now, this is I AM.

Well, I see my time is up. So do test it and share with us in the written form your results. Thank you.