In this lecture Neville Goddard interprets Biblical narratives as symbolic maps of human consciousness, focusing on the promise given to Abraham and its fulfillment in spiritual birth. He explores the story of Nicodemus and Jesus’ teaching that one must be ‘born from above’ through an inner, non-physical birth. Neville shares his own vivid visionary experience of resurrection and emergence from the skull, using the imagery of wind and the sign of a laughing child. He explains that characters like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Nicodemus represent eternal states of being through which the individual passes on the path to divine realization. He emphasizes that imagination is the creative force of reality and urges listeners to live in the feeling of their fulfilled promises. Finally, he reassures that suffering and affliction serve to shape the emerging divine Self within each person, culminating in the final revelation of God as Father.
The Bible tells the story of a promise – of a dream that existed two thousand years only in the imagination of Israel, and when their dream came true, Israel did not recognize their own harvest, and rejected their own harvest – denied it, for they were looking for it in an entirely different way. That is really the essence of the Bible a promise made to man, and then man believed it. It was to Abraham, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness. So, he had the faith to sustain it and pass it on to generations, and they all believed it, and they maintained, only in their imagination, for two thousand years the dream. Then the dream erupted within an individual – within Israel, and he told the story, but they did not believe it.
Now we turn to the story. It’s an old man, a hundred years old, and a wife ninety years old; and it is said “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women.” In other words, it would be impossible for her to have a child. And the promise was made that she would have a child, and that child would be “your heir, and you will call him Isaac, which means he laughs.” Abraham had, from a slave, a son called Ishmael. It was said of him that his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand was against him.
This same story repeats itself all the way through. It begins with Abraham, and then the two – Ishmael who came first and then Isaac. Isaac was the promise. Then the grandchildren: Esau and Jacob, and God said, “Jacob I love; Esau I have hated” – the same pattern following all through Scripture coming into the New Testament. And in man it erupted – the story.
Now we find a wonderful story in the book of John, the 3rd chapter of John. It is not repeated in the Bible, it is only in John. It is not mentioned in Matthew, Mark, or Luke – where a member of the Sanhedrin – a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus – a member of the Sanhedrin is the highest body of a religious order. And Israel was a theocracy, it was ruled by the Rabbis, and here was the highest of the Rabbis. He identified something from what he knew of his own scripture, but couldn’t quite put the pieces together. So, he sought Jesus “in the night,” we are told. He came during the night, seemingly in a furtive manner – not to be identified or recognized by other members of the Sanhedrin.
He addressed him as Rabbi, whence the fact that the man knows what others seemingly are not aware of. The conversation takes place in this manner: He said, “I know that you are one that is sent, for no one who is not sent by God could do the things that you do,” and then a sudden break takes place in the conversation, and Jesus said to him:
“Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus answered, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
And Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born from above, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I have said unto you that you must be born from above, for I tell you that the wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell whence it comes nor whither it goes. So is everyone who is born of the spirit.”
Nicodemus answered, “How can this be?”
And then Jesus answered him and said, “Are you a teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? I tell you – I tell you what I know, and I bear witness to what I have seen, but you do not receive my testimony.”
That is the story in essence. Man was looking for it to take place, as Nicodemus did, as all births take place, never having heard of an entirely different kind of a birth. Here, that which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the spirit is spirit; but he never heard before that Isaac represented that which is born of the spirit.
Now, when you read the Bible, the characters of the Bible are not persons as we are, they are eternal states of consciousness through which you and I – the Immortal Being – we pass through these states. The end of it – the climax of it is simply Jesus Christ. Each is destined to awaken one day as Jesus Christ, who is nothing less than God Himself! Everyone is destined to awaken as God!
The birth cannot be of the flesh, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. It cannot enter the Kingdom of God – only Spirit, for God is Spirit. So this represents – Isaac represents the birth of the spirit.
Nicodemus saw only physical birth. He could not understand any kind of a birth outside of a physical birth. Paul, now, explains in his 9th chapter of his letter to the Romans the difference between the two births, and he speaks of the descendants of
Abraham after the flesh and that which comes out of Isaac – and “we are named out of Isaac,” he said.
Well, I will tell you now from my own experience, which duplicates that recorded in Scripture. You could not find a more beautiful recording than that which I have just repeated for you from the 3rd chapter of John. It is accurate. It is perfect. When he uses the word wind, some translators said he should have used the word spirit; but the words spirit and wind are identical, both in Hebrew and in Greek – the same word. But he used the right word, for when it happens in you, you think only in terms of wind. When you are born from above, and the child is placed in your hand – this wonderful child actually laughs. You pick it up and you look into its face and say in the most endearing manner, “How is my sweetheart?” This heavenly smile breaks upon his face; but you hear a wind. It’s an unearthly wind that I can’t describe by anything known to my physical senses, and yet I heard it through, seemingly, senses, for I heard the wind. I heard it coming from within me and seemingly coming from without.
So, when one is born from above, it is the moment when he is resurrected from the grave. This whole thing is dead – just as dead as it can be, but we animate it because we are in it. We are the Dreamer in it dreaming and keeping alive the dream – the promise that is made. May I ask you not to reject it.
A man – a little man – stands before you, with all the weaknesses, all the limitations of the flesh, but everything that you are heir to I am. I am still heir to it, in spite of what has happened to me; and yet I tell you it has happened to me, and plead with you not to reject it, but accept it, for the day is not long from now when this little thing [indicating his physical body] must be shed. That which has already happened within me, which is forever, just simply escapes. That is the Imprisoned Splendor waiting – bursting to get out permanently. It gets out night after night on a certain work to be done; but it is waiting for that moment when, for the last time, it takes off this little garment, and the silver cord is snapped and the Imprisoned Splendor set free, that which is within a man. It comes when he is born from above.
So, the conversation between is all about the Kingdom of Heaven and the only way that it can be entered. There is no other way you can enter it. So, until the birth takes place, you are still flesh and blood. You will die here – yes, but you cannot die, may I tell you? It seems silly. It seems stupid to tell you when a man dies and you cremate the body and you scatter the ashes that he is not dead. Yet, I know from my own experience of many who have gone – I have seen them. I have talked with them. I am talking to you. They don’t even know they are dead. They say to me, “Who is dead?”
I say, “You’re not dead, but you died. I was at your funeral. You are buried” – and I tell them the cemetery where they are buried. They can’t believe it, because they are not dead. They are so alive to themselves, they can’t believe for one moment. And you can bring back certain things: “You recall so-and-so?”
“Yes. Did he die?” they begin to think.
“Well, yes, he did die.”
“Well then, look at him. Is he dead? There he is – he died. You went to his funeral, didn’t you?”
– and then they begin to think.
“Yes, I did.”
“Well then, look at him. He isn’t dead, but he died.”
“Well, you died, too, Jack; but you are not dead because nothing dies in God’s world, for God is the God of the living.”
Everyone that dies here is instantly restored in a body just like this, but young – unaccountably new – unaccountably young with nothing missing. If you had parts missing, they aren’t missing then. If you were deaf, blind, dumb, you aren’t deaf – none of these things happened. You are simply completely restored, and you are perfect. But you are still in a world just like this, and you will still go through all the things you do here. You will work. You will marry; you will do all the things you do here, just as you do it here, until that moment when you are born from above.
When you are born from above, you can die no more. That is behind you, as told you in the 20th chapter of the book of Luke, when they asked the question: “Tell me, in the Resurrection whose wife will that one be?” because she had married seven brothers.
And he said to those who questioned him, because they were all great scientists – in those days they spoke of the Pharisee and the Sadducee; and the Sadducee was what we would call today the scientist – the agnostic or even the atheist. He won’t believe in survival because nothing could convince him that the body was not the reality – that something could escape from this body. So they asked him the question, “In the Resurrection, whose wife will she be?” for she married seven.
And he said to the Sadducees, “The children of this age marry, and they are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that Age and to the Resurrection from the dead, they neither marry, nor are they given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, being sons of the Resurrection.”
So, the whole drama begins with the Resurrection, which is the birth from above. They are two sides of the same coin, it happens only moments apart. You feel the most terrific vibration within your head. You feel – as I did – that “this is it!” meaning this is now a hemorrhage – a brain hemorrhage that must be massive, and therefore they will find the body tomorrow morning on the bed, and Neville is gone from this world.
Instead of that, I felt myself waking – waking from a dream. I had no idea it wasn’t a normal dream; but when I awoke, I was not in this world. I was in my skull, and I knew instantly that my skull was a sepulcher and I had been placed there. How I got there, I did not know; but I only knew that somebody who put me there knew or thought I was dead. So, I was buried as one that was dead, and you are now buried as one that is dead; and you are dreaming this dream of life in your skull. And that’s where you are. Your Immortal Being is there.
When I awoke to find myself completely sealed, I had an intuitive knowledge – as you are told, “The one who wakes is the wisdom of God, and he is the power of God,” for that’s how Christ is defined in Scripture: “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” And I knew exactly what to do. I would push the base of the skull. May I tell you, all things being relative, I stood within my skull. This [in- dicating his head] is a little tiny thing. How could Neville, 5’ 11”, stand in a skull? I stood in my skull! It is the Immortal Skull – the Immortal Head. I stood in it just like I stand here on the stage; and I went to the base of it, and I pushed from within. As I did so, something rolled away.
That stone rolled away, and then I came out, inch-by-inch, head first, just like a child being born; but I’m a man, and a whole man came out, and then when I was almost out, I pulled the remaining portion of me out of that body. And then the wind became even more intense – “the wind blowing where it wills.” I heard the sound thereof but I could not tell whence it came or whither it would go. So, I looked over to the corner, having just seen the body, I looked over and couldn’t see anything that could be the cause of it, but still it intensified like some enormous hurricane. I looked back to the body, and it was gone.
Then the three witnesses, as told us in the book of Genesis – they then stand before – you didn’t see them approaching – they stand before Abraham, to whom the promise was made. Now I am playing the part of Abraham, for here the promise is made, and these three witnesses sent from God, and one is not only the spokesman of God, it is God Himself! As he looks up, he doesn’t see them approaching. There they are! I looked and I didn’t see these three men approaching. There they sat where the body was, and they are discussing.
And in Scripture, whenever vision breaks into sound – into speech, the presence of David is assured. They began to talk, discussing the wind, and then one is completely disturbed and walks towards the same direction where I thought the wind originated. He goes two steps and he sees the infant, the sign. As told us in Scripture, the child is only a sign of the birth of God. He announces the father of the child. They question his right. They say, “How can” – calling me by name – “have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he lifts the child and presents it, and then I take the child. And then is when it smiles in my face.
Are we not asked in the 30th chapter of the book of Jeremiah, “And the Lord said unto Jeremiah” – and the word Jeremiah means Jehovah will rise. It is Jehovah who is buried in you. Jehovah will rise. And then Jehovah speaks to His prophet whose name, as I’ve just defined for you, is Jehovah will rise – “Can a man bear a child?” Obviously the answer is, No. And then the Lord speaks:
“Why, then, do I see every man with his hands drawing himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?”
That is just as it happens. The face is ghastly pale like one in death practically, only it is moving, because the head moves, like one in recovery from a great ordeal. But here, you draw your Self out of yourself, just as you are told. But the Old Testament is an adumbration; it is a forecasting in a not-altogether conclusive or immediately evident way. The whole thing is adumbrated. One reading it could not read the sketch. It’s like a sketch. But when it actually happens in one as the cubic reality, and he reinterprets Scripture, taking you from the sketch to the reality of it, they would not accept it. They could not believe it.
Now, the Bible begins with the Self-revelation of God. He said to Moses – and this is the Lord speaking: “I speak unto my servant Moses. I appeared unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name The Lord I did not make myself known unto them.”
The word translated the LORD is Yod-He-Vau-He, which means, “I AM.” It is to Moses that He reveals His intimate identity, which is I AM.
But Moses said, “When they ask me, “What is his name,” what must I say?”
“Say I AM has sent me unto you.”
He didn’t reveal this intimacy to the three states called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They saw Him purely as Power – sheer power that was a destructive power, like the lightning, like the thunder, like the earthquake. They saw It only as power.
Now He comes into the more intimate revelation of Himself in one called Moses, and there He reveals Himself as I AM. It is an intimate relationship. You say, “I am.” That’s He! But the word Moses means One to be born. So we are told in the story, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, because it was not yet born. The revelation of God came to that point of an intimate relationship of a presence being felt, which was I AM, but something more had to be born. So we are told he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land, but one called Joshua went into the Promised Land.
Well, the word Joshua is the same as the word Jesus. It is the Hebrew form of the Anglicized form Jesus, which means Jehovah Saves, which is the same thing as Jehovah. Joshua and Jehovah and Jesus are identical in meaning. So, Moses couldn’t go because he was not yet born into the further unveiling of God.
What was the other unveiling of God? The final revelation of God-in-man is that of Father. When He unveils Himself as Father, that’s the final revelation of God to man, for then he has completed His task in giving Himself to man. For it’s God’s purpose to actually give Himself to man. So, there’s no two – just you; and you and He are one. So, you can’t say, “God and I” – for you are God! You actually become God.
That is the story of the Bible. So, God as Father – only when you find Him now as Father. How would I find Him as a father? To see a man standing before me that I know to be my father? No. I see his son standing before me who knows me as his father.
So, when I find God’s only begotten son standing before me, – and he doesn’t even have to call me Father; I know he is my son, and he knows I am his father; but he does call me Father. He calls me his lord, and I know I am his father. He stands before me, and who is he? He is the one mentioned in the Old Testament, for “I’ve come only to fulfill Scripture.”
The only scripture spoken of in the New Testament is the Old Testament. So when he said, “I come only to fulfill Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me; and beginning” – not with the Gospels, not with the Letters, he begins with the Old Testament, he begins with the law of Moses, then he comes to the Prophets, he comes into the Psalms; and “he interprets to them in all the scriptures of the Old Testament the things concerning himself.”
So, when one fulfills Scripture – that is the Old scripture – then the story has come to its end, and in the fulfillment God unveils Himself, and that’s the last unveiling, and that is Father. So, he has come to make known the real name of God, and the name is Father. So, he said, “I have made known Thy name, and I will make it known that the love with which Thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” He begins the whole thing by calling upon the Father. Then he said, “I and my Father are one.”
So, here He unveils Himself in man, and finally that man in whom He unveils Himself knows he is the Father, but he knows it only through the Son calling him Father.
“For no one knows who the Father is, save the Son.”
“No one has ever seen God, The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made Him known.”
So, when the Son calls you Father, that’s the climax. The story is over, but it begins with the fulfillment of a dream that existed two thousand years only in the imagination of Israel. And when it came to pass and the dream was fulfilled, Israel denied it because that is not what they were expecting. They could not see any birth, other than a normal, natural birth of the flesh. And the one in whom it took place explained Scripture for them and reinterpreted the Scripture in the light of his own experience. So, when He explain the whole thing, then He simply took the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms and He took passages all the way through and reinterpreted all that they said, to show that all was about Himself.
When the Psalmist said, “In the volume of the book it is all about me,” he then went back and took the entire series, and then, page after page, he explained to them: The whole thing is all about you, because it is God-in-you that must rise. That’s the Jeremiah-in-you who heard the voice of God, but it was given to him in an adumbrated form – as a sketch. It was not a cubic reality. How different the cubic reality from the plane of any depiction of it! No matter how beautiful the plane depiction of a cubic reality, you cannot compare it with the actual cube.
Well, the fulfillment of Scripture is like a cubic reality. It’s more real than this room is now, but this is a cubic reality. When you see the three witnesses and when you hear the wind, and when the whole thing unfolds before you with the sign called the child – is the child not called a sign in the second chapter of Luke: “And this shall be a sign unto you, and you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes”? And they go and they find the sign.
When Simeon comes in the spirit into the temple, he picks up the child – the sign, and he said, This – again he repeats the word sign; he says, “This child is a sign for the fall and the rising of many in Israel, for out of many hearts the truth will come.”
In other words, your reaction to the story as actually re-interpreted for you will determine whether you accept it or reject it. I ask you to accept it, for in the – I hope– not-distant future, but no one knows that moment in time when it will happen in the individual. No one knows but the Father-in-you, for it’s the Father- in-you unveiling Himself. When He finally and ultimately unveils Himself in the very end, you are the Father.
In the meanwhile, while we are here in the world of Caesar, let us apply the Law that he gave us while he was with us. And the Law is simple – very, very simple.The Law is: IMAGINING CREATES REALITY.
Just as they, for two thousand years, were faithful to the vision and kept that divine vision in time of trouble – through all the turmoil, through all the horror imposed upon Israel, they kept the divine vision. It wasn’t quite what they expected when it happened, but they kept it even in its flat form – in its adumbrated form. So, you today believe me, just as that imaginal state brought itself to pass.
IMAGINING CREATES REALITY.
You can imagine anything in this world for yourself, for a friend, for any one. Do not waiver in your imaginal act. May I tell you, it will come to pass? It’s not going to take any two thousand years, but it will depend upon your degree of intensity and your complete acceptance of it – a complete acceptance of it, where you live this night and sleep this night as though it were already true, for behind you is something accomplished, and it rushes upon you, because the present – by this Law – does not recede into the past. It advances into the future. So, what I now dare to assume with feeling is advancing for me to confront it. Rather, it confronts me. I move forward only to simply encounter it. It is not receding into my past.
So, tonight in the interval while we are gone, you try it. Live by it, because no one really knows– I say, while we are gone. Do I really know for sure that I will not take it off before I return? I have no assurance that I will be back. I am only following now the story of Caesar; so I signed my contract to be back. But have I any real assurance that I will ever be here again? I have none. None whatsoever! It could be in the immediate present that He says, you have done it and it’s over, and you’ve left behind you what I said that you would do.
But I have no assurance – real assurance – that I will be back, but I took the steps of Caesar to have this place under contract should I be back to take up my role and continue teaching, for I want to do nothing but teach the Law as I was sent to teach it, and to teach the Promise as I was sent to teach it. For, back in 1929 I was sent to teach it. I didn’t get underway until 1938, but I was sent in 1929.
It seemed almost like a preparation preceded that moment of courage to take the platform and tell it. And then it grew and grew and grew until finally in ’59, then the whole drama of the Gospel unfolded within me in a first-person, singular, present-tense series of experiences. So, I ask you tonight to believe me. I have not enlarged it. I have not exaggerated it; I have told you exactly as it happened in me. It’s identical with the story as told in Scripture; and so when they use these words that are confusing to the scholars, I know from my own experience they could use no better word than the word wind. They could use no better word to draw oneself out of oneself; the word is khawlawts in Hebrew. It’s mistranslated as loins – “a man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor.” It hasn’t a thing to do with any loins.
First of all, it doesn’t come from that area of the body; it comes out of the skull. Take the Hebrew word and ignore the translation as to loins. Look it up yourself in the Hebrew dictionary, and you will see it means taking your own hands and drawing Self out of self. That is what the word means. Why couldn’t they put that? Because to the scholars it didn’t make sense; and they want everything to make sense.
This is not a rational book. In fact, quite often Truth is the very opposite of what is generally believed, especially Biblical truth. But Biblical truth cannot be logically proven, for man insists on some logical, rational statement concerning every statement of Scripture, but it can’t be done.
So, the Lord asks the question, “Can a man bear a child?”
Man would say, “No, it can’t be done. Only a woman can bear a child.”
So, Nicodemus was caught in the same web, and so he asked him, “You, a master of Israel, you do not understand this? And you dare to teach Israel the story of God’s word? And you think you must now, of all men, once more enter your mother’s womb and be born again, in order to be born from above? No, you are born from above literally. It’s from above; it’s from the skull.”
So, in Scripture truth is physical, but the words are figurative. So you say, “It is born. It is a birth.” You come out just like a child coming out of the womb of a woman, only the womb in this case is your own skull, and you push yourself out, and ease yourself out, inch by inch by inch, just as the child comes out of the womb inch by inch, but there is one difference: the child doesn’t help itself by pulling itself out. In this case you do; you do pull yourself out, as the word khawlawts means.
And so, if one would ignore the scholars’ translations and get a good Concordance, a Biblical Concordance, and take not one word for granted – look it up and see what the original meaning of the word was as against what scholars think it ought to have meant. Then they always bring their own wisdom upon the book and distort it, but when man really believes it and beyond, when he experiences it, well then the whole vast world falls into its proper shape for him. He doesn’t object to all the horrors of the world, for all these furnaces are essential to the shaping in man of that Being that is God the Father.
He said, “I tried you in the furnaces of affliction.” Why? “For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? I will not give my name to another.” And His name is Father. He cannot give His name to you and have two fathers. There can only be one Father. So, to make you one with Himself, He shapes you through the furnaces of affliction, and we cry out; but as Paul said, “I consider the sufferings of this present time not really important compared to the glory that is to be revealed in us.”
So there are sufferings? Yes, he suffered. We all suffer. Who in this world hasn’t suffered? It need not be a physical suffering, but you suffer when some one departs the world that you love. You suffer; in a thousand ways you suffer, but we all still suffer physically too, or we hide it from others and share it with another. They have enough of their own burdens; so you don’t share your own physical sufferings with them. We all at some time suffer physically,
And we certainly suffer, if we live long enough, emotionally when we say goodbye to those we love and cannot put the hand out and touch them. So, you suffer there, too, until the vision opens and you know they are not gone. They haven’t gone any place. They are in a world terrestrial just like this – about their Father’s business, and the Father-in-them is doing the work.
So, may I tell you, let no one scare you! Let no one frighten you. You can’t fail because the Father would fail, and He isn’t going to fail! “As I have planned, so shall it be. As I have purposed, so shall it stand. My will shall not turn back until I have executed and accomplished the intents of my mind. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.”
So, “He who began a good work in you. He will bring it to completion at the unveiling of Jesus Christ-in-you as you.”
So, no one is going to fail. The most horrible character in the world is not going to fail. Eventually he will be transformed into the likeness of God the Father as God the Father, and there’s only one Son that He has, and that Son is David, who will stand before you, and you will recognize David as your son.
So, let them all speculate as to all kinds of sons. There’s only one Son, and the Lord Jesus is God the Father Himself. And the Son is David.
But you learn to discriminate as you read the story. In the position of the sent He feels Himself – or rather, explains it to be something less than Himself, the Sender; but He still knows that “I and the Sender are one.” The Sender and the sent are one; but in the capacity of the sent I seem to be inferior to my Self, the Sender, but only as to the office as sent; but as to my Essential Being I am the Sender. So, “I and my Father are one.” And “He who sees me sees Him who sent me,” for He has never left me. So, the Sender-in-you is God the Father. And He didn’t send you while He remains; He came with you. But from within He directs it, and one day He will unfold and unfold and unfold, and eventually He reveals Himself in His ultimate state as Father.
You will pass through the stage known as El Shaddai. That’s behind you. You know now that which was revealed to Moses, which is I AM. That, you do know! In the last book attributed to Moses – and there is no Moses, any more than there is any other character in the Old Testament. These are all just eternal states of consciousness. But Moses, it is said, in the last book attributed to him called Deuteronomy in the very last chapter: And Moses died and he was buried, “and no one knows to this day the burial place of Moses.” No one can find where he is buried, because the Lord buried him.
But the LORD Himself enters Death’s door with those who enter, and He lays down in the grave with those who enter; and He shares with them their visions of Eternity until they awake and see the linen clothes lying which the females had woven for them. [paraphrased from Blake’s poem “Milton”]
My mother, a female – she wove this linen cloth for me, this garment of flesh and blood; and when I awoke, I saw it. That’s what the females had woven for me. But I awoke within the sepulcher where the Father had entered with me and shared my visions of Eternity with me until I awoke. And then, as I awoke, He began to unveil Himself, and revealed Himself in the final revelation as the Father, and I am He, still clothed in the little garment waiting for that moment in time when He takes it off for the last time, and I return to where I was when I came out from the Father.
“I came into the world. Again, I leave the world and I return to the Father.”
So, you came out with me. We all came out from the Father, for we are the brothers known in Scripture as the Elohim. It’s a plural word. It is a compound unity, one made up of others. We are the gods spoken of in the 82nd Psalm. “I say ye are gods, sons of The Most High, all of you, nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O ye princes.”
So, we fell as one man and became fragmented. Now we are gathered together, one by one by one, back into the One Man, for “there is only one body, one spirit, one lord, one God and Father of all.” So, in the end there’s only one. We shall all be gathered back together, but each in his own wonderful time, and when we go back, there is rejoicing of the other brothers who returned. We are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy “God has put bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” Not one child can be born of woman that is not bearing the Prince, that Son of God. “He has put bounds to the peoples.” We are concerned about the population explosion. Not one child can come in that isn’t now animated by a son of God.
We have all the power, all the wisdom, all the intelligence, all the know-how to feed and clothe the entire world multiplied many, many, many times. It is not a problem of population explosion. It’s an economic problem, and I do not have the solution. I haven’t the slightest concept about how dollars are made. I can spend them, but how to make them, I do not know. It has never been my interest. But I do know – we have the know-how to feed and clothe and to shelter the entire world out of our own land without taking this fabulous world of ours into consideration. Out of our own country we can do it. But how to share it – how to spread it – I do not know. It’s an economic problem. It’s not any problem for our scientists concerning curtailing the birth rate!
In a twinkle of an eye thirty thousand were killed in Peru – thirty thousand! And we have been in this crazy war in Southeast Asia for something now like what – seven or eight years; I think we have confessed to forty-five thousand killed. And over a matter of moments, thirty thousand wiped out!
The lemmings go down in a certain area and destroy themselves when they feel they are exhausted, and reproduce themselves. I saw in the paper that the Rhine River became stagnant with fish. Millions and millions of fish died. It is still supposed to be a mystery as to what caused the death of them. Now today, – it’s only a matter of some weeks or months ago that this happened, – they have already replenished the waters – not by man. The fish are all gone – went off into the ocean, but once more the Rhine has become livable and fishable. You can fish there now. Millions multiplied. From where?
As Blake said:
“The oak is cut down by the axe, and the lamb falls by the knife, But their Forms Eternal exist forever –” (from “Milton”)
– and return by the seed of Contemplative Thought.” (From “A Vision of the Last Judgment.”)
Their forms are forever, and you simply multiply them by “the seed of Contemplative Thought.”
So, man becomes poor. He recalls he was once rich, or he knows of some one who is rich. Well, by “the seed of Contemplative Thought,” he can bring it into his world by entering that state, but you must enter into that state.
What would the feeling be like if it were true? Suppose it were true that I were secure? I know what I mean by secure, so I name it – what I consider security to be. Well then, having named it, what would the feeling be like? And I feel myself into that state. I must enter into the state and make a companion of the state and then it happens. It “returns by the seed of Contemplative Thought.”
So, nothing is permanently lost, because everything is forever in Eternity, and “All things exist in the human imagination,” [Blake, from “Jerusalem”] – all things. (End of recording.)
Now, let’s enter the silence.
We close tonight, and reopen on the 21st of September – same place, same days, same time.
Now let us go into the silence.
Neville Goddard’s lecture reframes classical Biblical accounts as allegorical descriptions of psychological and spiritual processes. By equating Abraham’s faith and the birth of Isaac with the emergence of spirit within human consciousness, he shifts the focus from external events to the inner creative act. This hermeneutic approach invites listeners to reinterpret scripture not as historical record but as guideposts for personal transformation.
The central motif of being ‘born from above’ highlights a transition from flesh to spirit, a theme supported by close readings of John 3 and Paul’s epistles. Neville’s own out-of-body experience serves both as proof of concept and as an exemplar for listeners to imagine their own inner birth. The imagery of wind and the laughing child deepens the experiential aspect of his teaching, demonstrating how mystical vocabulary can point to psychological realities.
Goddard’s revelation that imagination creates reality aligns with New Thought principles, yet he infuses it with rich Biblical symbolism. By maintaining that no event truly recedes into the past but pours into the present as we imagine it, he offers a pragmatic method for manifestation. This emphasis on feeling the reality of one’s desires echoes classical contemplative disciplines, yet his insistence on a first-person, singular encounter with the Divine sets his work apart.
The lecture culminates in a soteriological promise: all will awaken as God the Father, and the fallen ‘sons of God’ will return to unity. His interpretation of scriptural characters as eternal states rather than historical figures underscores his metaphysical worldview. The final exhortation to use imagination as a law unites Biblical exegesis with a direct practical discipline, making his teaching both mystical and operational for listeners seeking meditative practice and spiritual empowerment.
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