There is nothing perceived which cannot be duplicated in fancy; consequently, the world perceived always resembles our private fancy, and is, therefore, so far as the evidence goes imaginal in character. Here is a graphic example. I suppose everyone here, unless our sense of smell is impaired, knows what it is to detect the fragrance of a rose. Now, smell is a chemical sense and depends upon contact for perception…but do you need the contact? Can’t you reproduce that fragrance in fancy? I do not need a rose to detect the fragrance of the rose. If this very moment I wanted to smell, all in my Imagination, that of a sweet pea, that of an Easter lily, I can discriminate between all of these odors. And everyone should be able to do the same thing. So if I can discriminate between these objects, then I say they do not exist independent of Imagination on some level or levels. They exist imaginatively. I’ve had the experience of such fragrance and they are now in existence, imagined, and I can call upon it from my memory of that experience and bring it back and duplicate it in fancy. So if I can duplicate it in fancy, then is this world different from my imaginal world? It isn’t.
Well, William Blake in 1820 printed a very small short little work of his. He called it The Presence of the Divine Angel and in this he said, “Man is all Imagination. God is Man & exists in us & we in him. The Divine Body of Man is all Imagination. The Divine Body is Jesus: we are his members.” He doesn’t separate the members from the body, for the body is one. As we are told, “There is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of us all” (Eph. 4:4). Only one body, we are his members.
Now as we read of this imaginal body containing all beings, and we are all Imagination, can we really prove it? I can prove, as I’ve just done to my own satisfaction, that I can reproduce and duplicate any perception in this world that I have ever encountered. I can duplicate it. I see you and if I’m interested, I don’t have to have you physically before me to think of you and to reproduce you in my Imagination, as you and I can now reproduce our living rooms. I don’t have to be physically there to see the contents of that room, and how I left them when I was there. I left them arranged in a certain order and in my mind’s eye… the entire room, and every room within my apartment, it’s all vivid. Yes, the cutlery, I can see it, the plates, everything. Well, I can reproduce without being there to actually see them and perceive them.
So here, we are on solid ground when we start from the premise that this world is a world of Imagination and that Imagination does create reality. Therefore, there can be no fiction in the true sense of the word in this world of ours. For, if I can imagine a state, I create it. I create to the extent that I can drench it with feeling. To me “prayer” is simply imagining drenched with feeling. So, I want something and I imagine it, and then I drench the thing with feeling. Then it seems to objectify itself and becomes real in my world. Well, if I have evidence for a thing, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks. If I can reproduce my image in my mind and make it take on form in the outer world, does it matter what the world of rational minds thinks? So they tell me, “Oh, that’s all hallucination.” Well then, go kick it. If it’s all hallucination, go kick the thing that was only yesterday an image in my mind and is now a fact. So you go and simply throw it away…it’s all just a little nothing. Everything in the world…you say to them, “But everything in the world was once only imagined. There isn’t a thing in this world we now call true that wasn’t first “only” imagined…the dress you wear, the suits we wear, the building in which we are now housed, the chair in which we are seated, everything was once only imagined. And so he says, “only Imagination” and yet the whole thing starts from there. It all starts from God and God is all Imagination; the source of all phenomena is divine imagining.
Now, let us turn to the great work the Bible, the 82nd Psalm, which is considered by scholars the most difficult Psalm in the entire 150. Thomas Cheney, who is the editor of the most scholarly of all biblical criticisms The Encyclopedia Biblica, and in this work he said that the ideas might have been and maybe are today perennial, but the outward forms have long since ceased to be understood, and that it’s the greatest challenge to the historical Imagination of any interpreter. Well, in my voluminous work (at home) the Interpreter’s Bible—there are sixteen volumes, twelve for the Bible and four for the dictionaries. So in this, the one who wrote the exegesis is professor of the Semitic Department of the University of Toronto, and in it he said, “In truth, we do not know very much about this Psalm, and I can only trust that my guesses are not wide of the mark.” He only hoped that his guesses are not wide of the mark. Well now, here is the essence of the Psalm: And “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment (verse 1); 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 princes’” (verse 6). That last passage is a footnote in the Revised Standard Version, which is the literal translation of the Hebrew. It is not as we read it and are familiar with it in the King James Version and even in the Revised, for they do not change it save in a footnote stating it is the literal translation. So one man falls carrying all men, and the men who are about to be carried are gods.
Now the word that puzzles them is a single word Elohim, which means “God.” It’s also a plural word, translated in the first and sixth verses both as God and gods. “And God has taken his place in the divine council,” that word is Elohim. “I say ye are gods,” that word is Elohim, same word. It’s a plural word—it’s a compound unity, one made up of others. So it takes all the gods—therefore all humanity through all the generations—to form the one. The one is not something distinct and separate from the many. That one is the presence of which Blake spoke; the unity has a presence. And so, we are all fallen into disunity, into division. We will now return, one by one, into unity, into complete regeneration…having fallen into generation where things die. But we return not collectively; we return singly, one by one, into the divine society. That body is being formed. So the presence is being formed by the return of the fallen man, who carried with him all gods. So it’s not that we are…and then another one called the Lord. It takes all to form the Lord. So we are told in that great Shema, the great confession of faith of the Hebrew, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). And never forget it, keep that in mind all the time; for everyone is simply the Lord.
So we can say that God risked…he has risked and has to rescue himself. He’s not rescuing a man; he’s rescuing himself. He deliberately took upon himself the nature of man…not a person…the nature of man, the beast. Then, he became by that act of assumption the pattern man on which the nature of man is molded…and that pattern man spoken of in scripture is Jesus Christ. So God became man that man may become God. So he didn’t take upon himself my person called Neville, he took my nature. Having taken my nature then be became the very type on which I am really molded, and he raises this energy, this animal energy called man to divinity. So it takes the gods to do it.
Now, he prepared a way for his return; for the only one being redeemed is God. He has to rescue himself, because he has risked and now he has to rescue himself. But he prepared the way before he fell, for no one took his life, “No one takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to life it up again.” So no man killed God or group of men killed God, for he can’t die. But he experiences death by entering the arena of death, which is the animal, and takes upon himself not the person but the nature of man. Then he takes that energy and transforms it into his own likeness.
Now God is the great artist and lover. There is no artistry with such love as that which will actually perfect its work over the centuries, over the ages into that which is his own image…for that is his purpose. He’s the artist to transform that into his own image, that’s his work. “For he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). That day is the unveiling of his work in you. He raises you to his own level, and you and he are one. So, that God in you, called in scripture “the Father,” one day you will find him. But you won’t find him as something external to yourself…you will find him as yourself. So he sets up in the beginning the only one way of return; there aren’t two ways. So if anyone ever tells you there must be another way, there is only one way: “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life” (John 14:6). There is no other way, no matter what people will tell you. You follow the pattern. As you are told in scripture, “Follow the pattern of the true words which you heard from me” (2Tim.1:13), and then he describes the pattern.
Well, I’ll tell you from my own personal experience the pattern…and there is no other pattern. When he begins to unveil it in you he first begins with resurrection, which is followed instantly that same moment by birth from above. Then a passage of months, five months, and then comes the discovery of his Son, who calls you Father. That Son is not Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ is God the Father. That Son who calls him Father is David of biblical fame. Then will come that moment in time when the temple of his body, which is your body now, for he has woven himself into you and now he unwinds himself as you. You’re told the curtain of the temple was flesh and it split in two from top to bottom; then you see the blood of the Savior—golden, liquid, pulsing light—and then you fuse with it, and like a serpent up you go into heaven. Heaven being within you (Luke 17:21) and not there in the sky, it’s all within you. Then, you wait another interval of time, this time two years and nine months, and then a seal of approval is placed upon his work. That comes upon you in the form of a dove. The dove descends upon you and smothers you with love, kissing you all over your head. Then you know that that Holy Spirit has descended, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the work is done.
You linger for a little while to tell it to your brothers…for all are brothers in eternity…and you tell it to encourage them that “the way” as foretold in scripture has been completely opened. The first came through risen from the dead, followed by a second, a third, a fourth, and then unnumbered come through…all…because not one will be lost, for something would be lacking from the body, the presence of God. And it’s all taking place within your wonderful human Imagination. It doesn’t take place in any outside…, all taking place within you. That’s why I ask you for your dreams, for your visions. Share them with me so that I may help you to show you where you are on the path. Some of the things that you would not discuss publicly…it doesn’t matter…we will discuss them with the individual privately if they are of a nature that would be shocking. But I take it that none of us should be shocked, not in a room like this. But nevertheless, some may consider it too shocking a thing for discussion from a platform.
But I’ll take one now. I have two tonight, one from a gentleman, one from a lady, and both are here. We’ll take his first. In this dream, he said, he got a job which took him to Paris, and the manger said to him, “Go and shave and clean up. Get yourself ready to start.” We went into this bathroom and there he proceeded to change. As he shaved, he finished the job, looked into the mirror to see if he had done a good job, and while looking he noticed long wires coming out of his right ear. He pulled one out and it became many, many feet as he pulled it…they were all wires. But he noticed that they were not coming from his ear, they were coming from his neck below the collar, all these long, many, many feet coming out of his neck from below the collar. Then he woke, wondering if it had significance.
This dream was followed a little while later by this dream. “I found myself in a white robe looking for a name. There was a long, long list of names, very long, and I was going through the entire list of names to find the name, or maybe a second name, or a third name. But as far as I’m concerned it was a name, one name…but there might have been two or three that I was looking for. When I found one, I put an asterisk next to it, because this one was singled out to receive a truly great honor. And then I woke.”
Well, I can say to him concerning the first, you go back and you read the 28th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, the 12th, 13th and 14th verses. Also read the 52nd chapter, 2nd verse of Isaiah. Then go again to Jeremiah and read the 6th through the 8th verses. And you will see that the yoke placed upon the neck of man was made of iron bars. They were called stiff-necked people, who would not listen to the Word of God as spoken by the prophets. So they had to remain servants and slaves, because they would not heed the Word of God. But came that moment in time that yoke was broken on their necks and they were set free.
Now, in that 30th chapter of Jeremiah, the question was asked and answered, “Can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands drawing himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why does every face turn pale? There was never a day like this” (verse 6). There has never been a day like it, for he has broken the iron bars from off his neck. Now they were given to the plural—and their necks—but they give you a footnote, it means your neck. It’s an individual drama, where in pulling these wires out he is loosing himself. What better
So it always starts with self. I want them to be some way different, well then, I must start it first. I want them to be loving toward me and mine, well then, I must start to act and I must initiate it. As I do it, I am practicing repentance—for “Now the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). And this gentleman has certainly seriously been practicing repentance in his business life, his family life, his social life, from all the letters that I have received from him. It is no wonder he could now take the yoke that kept that stiff-necked being along the road where he would not listen to the Word of God. When it comes to the white robe that he wears, and going through the long list to find the name, for that name had been singled out to receive a great honor, I can say to him you are looking for your name on that list, and you found it. You are about to receive the honor, and the great honor is for God to unveil himself in you. That’s where you are now. As far as I interpret scripture, you’ve reached the point where you do not know you are carrying the child, but you are. At any moment it could unveil itself within you, and then you’ll bring forth the Christ child. And then you’ll know the true mystery of the Christian mystery, the true meaning of it.
Nothing is so well concealed as the goodness of God. Look into the world, all this fabulous world of ours, murder, rape, crime every moment of time, and how can God be good? How can he be loving? How can he be gracious? Because there is nothing so well concealed as the goodness and the grace of God. It isn’t revealed until the very end of the road. We are told in Jeremiah, the 23rd chapter, the word is translated anger, but it doesn’t mean anger, because the word means “to breathe with great force.” It’s forceful breathing, and the word “breath” is Spirit, both in Hebrew and Greek. So you could say, “The Spirit of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly” (verse 20). The latter days are these days when you come to “the end.” Others will go on, stiff-necked, no time to hear one thing concerning the mystery of God. They have enough to live on, enough to pay rent, enough for raiment, and so what? Time enough for that; well then, don’t try to change them, leave them just as they are. As you’re told in the end of Revelation “Let the filthy be filthy still” (Rev. 22:11). If they are complacent and feel that they know it all, and so they have the only true religion, leave them just as they are. Death, as we all must die, will be a blessing, because it will force them to modify, in some cases radically, the ideas that they championed while they were here. They will find no angels there to meet them if they are Christians. There was no Jesus Christ standing on the outside to meet them. But they will find themselves restored to life in a body same as before but new, unbelievably new, unaccountably new, in a world just like this. A world that is real just like this, terrestrial, and in an environment that is best suited for the work still to be done in them. And so, they have to modify all their beliefs that they held and championed while they were here. It will force it out of them.
And so, leave them just as they are, because all will pass through and all men will go through it. By men I mean generic man will pass through the experience called death, and find themselves restored instantly, not waiting, in a world just like this. And they will grow old there too. They find themselves not a baby but a person twenty years old. If you died at 100, you’re twenty. It’s something you can’t quite reason, you can’t rationalize it; but experience convinces one who sees it all the time. And here is something, you’ll always recognize the other one, and may I tell you, you recognize him if he wears a black skin and left here wearing a white one. You’ll recognize him if before your eyes he puts on four or five different masks. You’ll still know the identity behind the mask. You’ll know your mother, your father, your brothers, your sisters, your friends, regardless of what they wear. You know the identity, and the mask will be nothing. But they will wear a mask as you’re wearing masks here now, best suited for the work that is being done; for he started it and he will not stop it until he’s executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. And that was his original pledge to himself: “Let us make man in our image.” He will not stop it until the image is formed. When it’s completed, he unveils it and you are he.
For, the gods descend and the gods will ascend, but “no one has ever ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven.” So the gods descended, falling as one man, and then came division and this broken unity into these numberless parts. All will be gathered together, one by one, and up we will go in that spiral manner: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14)…just like this. So when people will tell you, oh, that’s myth, I’m not denying on this level you must see it through the eyes that they look; but I tell you, when you experience it, it’s literally true. On this level no. When you experience it in the depth of your soul, it’s literally true. You and I cannot even climb a pole, the average person who comes here couldn’t climb a pole, and yet you will go up that spine of yours like lightning and nothing on earth could duplicate it. You do it, just like lightning you go up, that fiery serpent that you are. Yet I know that possibly many of us here can’t even support our weight. Put a bar beyond our reach and lift me up and let me hold it, how do I know I’ll even be able to support the weight? I doubt that I could even support it, or if I could, not very long. And yet, you’ve got infinite might as it unfolds within you, for you were that before you came down deliberately.
When you return, God the presence has expanded beyond what it was prior to the descent. It reached a limit of contraction in taking the nature of man, but there is no limit to expansion. So when we expand and ascend God expands, and the whole expands by our return. For, we bring back with us all that we experienced and that is tremendous power added to the already existing power of God and his wisdom. So, God is ever expanding, forever and forever; and intervals designed on a certain plan for further expansion use the fall into a state like this, then the recovery period. So here, it’s all in your own wonderful human Imagination and I say to him as a brother, because we are brothers, you are right on the verge of it from what you have just experienced.
Now, we have the lady’s story. The second part is an interesting part, which seemed to confuse her after so wonderful a first part. We will not go into the first part publicly, but I will say to her, you have conceived with the Holy Spirit. Nothing could be plainer than your vision, nothing. But, as in the case of Mary, she told no one and pondered these things in her heart. For whom could she turn to? In her case, unwed, that’s what the story will tell you. In your case no husband, and therefore how could you conceive unless you went outside? But the conception is with the Holy Spirit, and it’s a beautiful story as you described it in your letter.
She wondered, “The same night, why should it be followed by a thing like this?” She’s standing awake in her own living room and what appeared at first to be a wharf rat came bouncing through the door into her place. And she said, “In my nice clean place, a rat? No!” She got down on her knees and started looking for it, and she spotted this little thing in the corner, and it wasn’t the brown thing that it was when it came through…it’s a white little animal, just a white little animal. At first she called it Kitty…. didn’t respond to that, for it’s not what she saw in the beginning but the same animal, only it’s a little one now and white. Then it came bouncing out at her, and she caught it with her right hand, and it stuck its teeth into her thumb. She took it to the door. She said, “I can’t keep it here so I’ll get rid of it, and so I will throw it into the field.” She used the word field, and threw it out. Looking at her thumb where he had punctured it…and yet it wasn’t hurting and it wasn’t bleeding now. But she had the impression while it was there that it was sucking her blood. But now there was no hole and there’s no blood. She said to herself, “I must show this to Dr. Neville.” And then she woke.
Now, the universal language of symbolism is not understood. If you have, for instance, if you have Bayley’s The Lost Language of Symbolism, may I suggest that you read all about the mouse, the white mouse. You’ll see in that that Cinderella made a mantle for herself from the skins of field mice—you threw it into the field—to hide her glory, to conceal it. Well, having conceived of the Holy Spirit, then you saw the limit of creation, the smallest, the mouse. In symbology, you’ll find the youngest who has put on the mouse…the biggest that God has created and the smallest; he encompasses the all. So here, having now conceived the most glorious thing in the world then you find the mouse. Apollo always kept in the temple the white mouse. So he took upon himself the limit, became humiliated, and the mouse would be the symbol of that. Not that you are going to be humiliated, but you carry with you this wonderful secret, and you walk the earth with those who are not interested, and you know you’ve conceived of the Holy Spirit. In the eyes of the world you will be just a mouse and you’re quite willing to carry that with you, knowing what you really carry within you. In time you bring forth the whole, because Cinderella had to take off the mantle made of mouse skins to reveal her glory. And all these stories are true, but they’re told…they’re universal stories…no one knows who the author of Cinderella is, no one. The same story is told in every language. So I’ll tell you, my dear, I’ll tell you congratulations, for we are brothers in eternity.
Now, to come back to our original thought tonight, you dwell on what we told you earlier, dwell upon it, that nothing appears to us in perception, but nothing you want it to be, which cannot be duplicated in fancy. You take anything and try. You cannot say that there’s one thing that you cannot duplicate in fancy if you ever perceived it. And that thing exists as something imagined. You can’t discuss an object that does not exist on some level or levels of Imagination, can’t do it. You dwell upon this and identify your own wonderful human Imagination with God. And because all things are possible to God, and God calls a thing that is not now seen as though it were seen, well then, you can imagine a state that is desirable and you can call it, too, call it into being by assuming that it’s done.
If you dare to believe scripture that whatever you desire, believe you have received it, and you will, you are going along the right path. You are taking the Word of God literally as you are invited to do, for his every precept must be accepted as true. Well, if I’m told if you dare to believe a thing it will come to pass, can you believe it? Well, if reason will deny it, and I go with reason rather than with my Imagination, well then, I’m going with devil rather than God. For devil is simply doubt, that’s all that it is, the doubter. “You’re the Son of God, well then, turn it into bread. You’re the Son of God, well, cast yourself down and the angels will lift you up. You’re the Son of God” (Mat. 4:1-6). All of these things are a challenge, a doubt, or the doubter speaking to the Son of God.
So here, you try it tonight, and try practicing this wonderful art of Imagination. I promise you that you will prove it in the testing, even if you started out to disprove it. You must be sincere about it to disprove it, and far from disproving it you will prove it.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Q: (inaudible)
A: A dream, my dear, only has but one single jet of truth. Don’t try to give every word in the sentence meaning. I may use fifty words to convey a single thought. I write you a note…so don’t take it apart and say, now what does he mean by this preposition, and that article, and that so and so, get the essence of what I’m trying to convey. I’m trying to tell one story. Well, God tells a single story in the use of his symbols, and in this the lowliest of the state, and having conceived the most glorious thing in the world, as we are told, “He emptied himself, and took upon himself the form of a servant…and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross” (Phil. 2:7). He who had everything, for he’s God, gave it all up, and took upon himself the form of a slave, of a servant. So here, she has everything by carrying God; and yet, she, the handmaiden of the Lord, is now shown the lowliness of the estate in which she finds herself in this world, compared to what she really is carrying within her hidden from view. So don’t give everything meaning, it doesn’t have it. Single out the single jet of truth…that’s all that it really has to tell you.
Q: If a white horse is a symbol of Christ, is a white mule the same symbol?
A: No, a mule would simply be something outside of God’s creation; that is man’s miscreation. Man can use his Imagination on this level to do all kinds of things, like war, revolutions, burning homes, all these things. He breeds animals that are not created. The mule is not created by God. Man miscreated…he takes a donkey and blends it with the horse, and the offspring is a mule. Well, God has put a limit to man’s miscreation, because the mule cannot reproduce itself. You have to breed a mule every year by mismatching. There are mules in the bird world, mules in the animal world, and mules in trees. Man has brought together things that are not natural in God’s eye. And so, I’ve seen the tiglon, a beautiful beast, the result of mating a tiger with a lion, but it cannot reproduce itself, it’s a mule. So we have millions of mules bred only for working in the world. Well, that’s man’s miscreation. So limits are placed upon man’s miscreations. Well, from this level if he had the power to create as he enjoys when he is resurrected, why he’d just simply blow the whole thing apart. He tries to do it anyway.
But the white horse…the horse is a symbol of the mind. It’s simply the direction that man the rider gives it that is important. Not the horse…that’s the mind. But the one who is riding the horse, he can ride it in any direction. The white horse is a symbol of the Christ horse. He who rides it rides in the right direction.
Any other questions, please? Well, if there aren’t any…thank you.
