Year: 1960
CIRCUMCISION
CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION
NO OTHER GOD
THY WILL BE DONE
BE EARS THAT HEAR
Chapter 1
“My Father is he whom men call God, but I know my Father and men know not their God.” My Father and Your Father are One. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord.” “I and my Father are One.”
One Father made us all to live, move and have our being in Him the One. Who then is this ONE that we have in common? The one and only thing all men have in common is this, all men know that they are. This claim that we are, this awareness, is our Father.
There is no place that man can go and not know that he is. “If I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth thou art there”, I know that I Am.
“If I make my bed in Hell”- I know that I AM. If I should suffer from amnesia and completely forget my human identity I will still know that I AM. It is impossible for man to know that he is not. You can say I AM not that, but you cannot say I AM not, for your very knowing is a declaration that you are.
So whether you claim yourself to be or not to be, you are actually claiming that you are. Thus man is ever saying I AM. This knowing that we are, this awareness, is God the Father. The moment this unconditioned awareness becomes conditioned by claiming itself to be this that or the other, a differentiation takes place within this formless awareness, and our impersonal Father (Our real self) becomes personified as that which we have conceived ourselves to be.
This impersonal presence that we are may be likened to space, for space though formless gives form to all. If the formless space was extracted from the book you are reading, the body you wear, the earth you stand on, all would vanish.
Consciousness though formless, gives form to that which it is conscious of being, but the moment you withdraw your formless reality or consciousness from your conception of yourself (the form you wear) this conception passes away. A conception remains a formed reality only as long as the invisible reality wears it.
“My Father is Spirit (Formless) and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth.” “I and my Father are one. “My awareness of being is the formless Father who gives form to that which I am aware of being, and in so doing loses its formless, nameless presence, in the form and nature of its conception of itself.
As water loses its identity when mixed with things and yet remains untarnished when it is extracted through distillation, so the awareness the no-thing-loses itself in things-conceptions of itself and remains its immaculate self through spiritual distillation. You are spiritually distilled or extracted from your conception of yourself when you cease to be identified with it.
Now that you have found this one to be your Father, the Eternal Now, I AM, do not return to the prodigal state to beg for the crumbs of life. Remember your Father, the NOW, the only reality.
Claim yourself now, this moment, to be that which you desire to be and regardless of what your claim may be your Father, the awareness that is Now, will give it to you by becoming the thing claimed but you must ask him in this manner.
Be aware of being that for which you ask. No longer look for your Father in time and space, For your Father is the awareness that is now. “I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I. “My awareness and that which I AM Aware of being are one, but I AM greater than that which I AM aware of being. The conceiver will ever be greater than his conception. The Father (Consciousness) is greater than his SON (conception of himself).
Now your eyes are opened. Your Father, God Almighty, has been revealed to you as your awareness of being.
Chapter 2
Before you can enter into that peace which passeth all understanding, you must first be slain of all the illusions that now enslave you, the illusions of divisions.
If you are identified with race, creed or color and hear that with which you are identified, criticised and condemned, you will be automatically hurt by such criticism. Every attachment is a bar in your self-created prison. Your only escape lies in non-attachment. You must leave all and follow me. In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew bond nor free.
Your present attachments are rooted in you because of your present conception of yourself. Your conception of yourself is the measuring rod by which you measure the world.
All things are judged in relationship to your present conception of yourself. Every man’s conception of himself is a vibrant note in the Cosmic Symphony, which note automatically determines the value of all notes in relationship to itself.
Change your conception of yourself. Revalue yourself and you will automatically change your world. Man has always played the losing game by attempting to change his world, while he himself remained with his present values or conceptions of himself.
Jesus discovered this law. So instead of changing men he changed himself. He said, “And now I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. “He found himself to be the truth of all that he saw his world to be.
Truth is the sword that slays all but itself, and I AM (your awareness) is the truth. Therefore to be identified with anything other than being is to be enslaved, or limited by that with which you are identified.
You eternally objectify that which you are conscious of being, so you forever move in a world that is the perfect personification of that which you know yourself to be.
“To the pure all things are pure.” This is a great hurdle to those who are constantly condemning the world. “There is therefore no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.”
It is recorded that the crowds left Jesus when he revealed the working of the law in these words, “No man cometh unto me save the Father in me draw him.” And- “I and my Father are one.”
They could not believe that they were the cause of all they saw their world to be. After thousands of years it is still the great stumbling block to all who see the world as something to be changed on the outside.
You and your conception of yourself are one. Your conception of yourself is the image you have made of your Father. This image fashions your world in your likeness, be it good bad or indifferent. Your Father is your awareness who limits you to that which you are aware of being. If you would change your world do so in truth, by knowing yourself to be all you see the world to be. You are not what you are because of anything in the world, on the contrary, The world is what it is because of what you are; the WHAT being the measure or value you have placed upon yourself. In short, your conception of yourself is the mould the conceiver (your true Self) uses to people your world. Begin to transform the world by claiming yourself to be that which you desire to see expressed in the world. Follow the example of Jesus who made Himself one with God, and found it not strange or robbery to do the work of God.
Freedom is not won by the sweat of the brow. Stop wrestling with the world, it is only a reflector. Jacob was freed only as he loosed that with which he wrestled. Likewise, you will be free only as you follow his example and loose your problem by not identifying yourself with it. For that which is bound in heaven (Consciousness) is bound on earth and that which is loosed in Heaven is loosed on earth. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” “I AM the truth. “So in reality to know yourself the conditioned, is to be free from that which in your blindness you believed yourself to be. Leave all and just be ME.
Chapter 3
” Seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven and all things will be added unto you.” Find the cause of things and you have found the secret of creation. You have heard it said, that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, that “all things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” No one questions the truth of this statement, but what one does want to know is- “who is God and where is God located?” In answer to the who you are told, “I AM God, I AM the lord, I AM hath sent me (the man Moses) unto you.” As to the location of God you are told, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” These two answers identify God as your awareness of being and locates him where you are aware of being. To be conscious of being is to silently declare, “I AM.” As you read this page you are aware of being. This awareness, this consciousness of being, is God the creator. Awareness is that formless deep in which all things live, move and have their being, and apart from which things have no reality. This is the secret of the statement, “Before Abraham was, I AM, before the world was, I AM and when all things shall cease to be, I AM.”
Awareness of being precedes all conceptions of itself and remains its formless self when all of its conceptions cease to be. The creator must precede creation, as the conceiver precedes his conceptions. Creation begins and ends in the Creator. Consciousness is the secret of all manifestion. Every creation passes through three stages in its unfoldment, conception, crucifixion and resurrection. Ideas, desires, ambitions are all conceptions moving within the motionless being, I AM. Consciousness is Father and all conceptions of itself are children bearing witness of their Father. Therefore, “I and my Father are one, but my Father is greater than I” the conceiver and the conception are one, but the conceiver is greater than its conception.
Awareness is unconditioned. To be aware of being something or someone is conditioning the unconditioned. That which is defined is less than the definer. Awareness of being is the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, upon whose shoulders is the government of the world. Awareness sustains and directs all things that it is aware of being. Consciousness of being is the eternal womb impregnating itself through the medium of desire. To be conscious of an urge or desire is to have conceived. To believe, by feeling yourself (The Formless) to be the thing desired, is to be crucified upon the form of the thing felt. To continue in the belief, feeling that you are now the thing desired until all doubts cease and a deep conviction is born that it is so is to be resurrected or visibly lifted into expressing the nature of the thing felt.
At this very moment you are resurrecting or expressing that which you are conscious of being. “I AM the resurrection and the life. “I AM now out-picturing in the world round about me, as a living reality, that which I am now aware that I AM- and I shall continue to do so until I change my conception of myself. So your answer in consciousness to the eternal question, WHO AM I, Will determine your world and its every expression. Begin now to realize that I AM is the Lord God Almighty and beside ME (your awareness) There is no other God. Not I, John Doe is God but I AM, the awareness of being, is God. John Doe is only its present limitation or conception of itself. I am the limitless expressing through the limited conception of myself. To change the expression change the conception of yourself but do so in truth, not in words. That is turn your attention completely away from your present limitation and place it upon the new conception, until the awareness, your true being, is lost in the belief or conviction that I AM that I AM.
This is the reclothing or rebirth of your formless, nameless self. Your true self is a self, who no man sees, and who sees not itself, but sees only its conception of itself. In the beginning, now this moment, the idea or desire is swimming around in your consciousness seeking embodiment. Before the desire can be realized or resurrected, it must first become a cross or fixed point upon which consciousness is nailed. Awareness is the only living reality, the only resurrecting power. So to give life to my desire, I must in consciousness become aware of being the thing desired. “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. “In the midst of the waters or formless awareness, let there be a firmness or conviction that I AM the thing desired. Continue to stand upon this conviction or cross, and in ways unknown to you as man, you will realize or resurrect your desire. Life or awareness has ways that man (the conception) Knows not of its ways are past finding out. Life’s present conception of itself as man is a mask that it wears. Within this being that you think you are, is your nameless self I AM.
The foundation of all expression is consciousness and other foundations no man can lay. Try as man will he cannot find another cause of manifestation other than God his consciousness of being. Man thinks he has found the cause of disease in germs; the cause of war in conflicting political ideologies and greed. All such discoveries of man, catalogued as they are as the essence of wisdom, are foolishness in the eyes of God. There is only one power and this power is God (Consciousness). It kills, it makes alive, it wounds, it heals, it does all things good, bad or indifferent.
A prisoner must have a jailer, a slave a master. A nation that feels itself to be imprisoned will automatically create a dictator. You could no more rub out a tyrant by destroying him, than you can your reflection by destroying the mirror. The consciousness of a nation produces its leaders. That which is true of a nation is true of an individual, for nations are made up of individuals. Man moves in a world that is nothing more nor less than his consciousness objectified. Not knowing this, he wars against his reflections while he keeps alive the light and the images which throw the reflections. “I AM the the light of the world.” I AM (consciousness is the light.) That which I am conscious of being (my conception of myself) such as, I am rich, I am healthy, I am free-are the images.
The world is the mirror magnifying all that I AM conscious of being. Stop trying to change the world, it is only a mirror telling you who you are.
The man who is conscious of being free or imprisoned is expressing that which he is conscious of being. I do not care what men have diagnosed your problem to be. A problem might have a history ages long, yet I know it will vanish in the twinkle of an eye, if you will faithfully follow this instruction.
Ask yourself this simple question. How would I feel if I were free? The very moment you sincerely ask this question the answer comes.
No man can tell another how that other would feel if his desire were suddenly realized. But everyone would know how he himself would feel, for such feeling would be automatic.
The feeling or thrill that comes to one in response to his self-questioning is the Father state of consciousness or Foundation Stone, from which will come the thing felt. Just how this feeling will embody itself no one knows but it will for the Father (consciousness) has ways that no man knows of.
Make the new feeling natural by wearing it. All things express their nature, so you must wear this feeling until it becomes your nature. It might take a moment or a year it is entirely up to you. The moment all doubts vanish and you feel I AM this, you begin to bear the fruit of the nature of the thing you are feeling yourself to be. When a person buys a new hat or pair of shoes he thinks everyone knows that they are new. He feels unnatural with them on until he wears them long enough to make them natural. The same applies to the wearing of the new state of consciousness.
When you ask yourself the question, “How would I feel if my desire were this moment realized? “-the automatic reply is so new that you Feel that it is not yours, that it is not true. Therefore, you instantly put this new state of consciousness off and immediately return to your problem because it is more natural. Not knowing that consciousness is ever out-picturing itself in conditions round about you- You, like Lot’s wife, look back upon your problem and once again become hypnotized by its naturalness. Do you not hear the words of Jesus (salvation)? “Leave all and follow me- let the dead bury their dead.” Your problem might have you so hypnotized by its seeming reality and naturalness, that you find it difficult to wear the new feeling, or consciousness of your saviour but wear it you must if you would have results. The stone (Consciousness) which the builders rejected (would not wear) is the chief corner Stone and other foundations no man can lay.
Chapter 4
Every impression must become the affirmation of that which is to be. To say that I shall be great or that I shall be free is a confession that I am not great and I Am not free. To see yourself as becoming anything is to know that I am not that thing. To be Impressed- is to be I’m-pressed-first person, present tense. All expressions are the result of I’m-pressions. Only as I can claim myself to be that which I desire to be will I express such claims. Let all your desires be impressions of that which is, not that which is to be. For I’m (your awareness) is God, and God is the fullness of all, the Eternal NOW-I AM-I’m.
Signs follow, they do not precede. You will never see the signs of that which is. Take no thought of tomorrow, for your tomorrows are the expressions of your todays impressions. “Now is the accepted time. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Jesus (salvation) said, “I am with you always.” Your awareness is the savior that is with you always. But, if you deny him, he will deny you also. You deny him by claiming that he will appear, as millons today are doing when they claim that salvation is to come, which claim is the equivalent of saying, “We are not saved. ” You must stop looking for your savior to appear and claim yourself to be saved now, and the signs of your claims shall follow.
When the widow was asked, “What had she in her house, “There was recognition of substance, Now, in her claim of three drops of oil, not empty measures. Three drops become a gusher if claimed. For your awareness magnifies all that it is conscious of being. To claim that I shall have oil (Joy) is to confess that I have empty measures, which consciousness of lack, will produce lack. God, your awareness, is no respecter of persons and can only express that with which it is impressed. Your every desire is determined by your need. Desires are automatic. Knowing that you are aware of the desire and that your awareness is God, You should look upon each desire as the spoken words of God, telling you of that which is. “Turn from the seeing of man whose breath is in his nostrils, “For he sees his desire as that which is not. We shall ever be that which we are (aware)- so never again claim, I shall be that. Let all claims from now on be-“I AM that I AM.”
“Before they ask I have answered. “Before you have time to think, the solution of your problem was given you in the form of your desire. The blind, the lame, the halt, all automatically desire freedom from limitation. Man is so schooled in the belief that his desires are things to struggle over, that he in his ignorance, denies his savior who is constantly knocking at the door of consciousness (I AM the Door) to be let in. Would not your desire, if realized, save you from your problem? To let your savior in is the easiest thing in the world. Things must be, to be let in. You are conscious of a desire, therefore, the desire is something that you are aware of now. Your desire, though invisible, must be affirmed by you to be something that is real. “God calleth those things which be not (are not seen) as though they were.” The claim I AM He (the thing desired) is letting your savior in.
Every desire is the savior’s knock at the door. This knock, every man hears. Man opens the door for him to enter when he claims- I AM He. See to it that you let your savior in, by letting the thing
desired press itself upon you, until you are I’mpressed with the Nowness of your savior, and utter the cry of Victory, “It is finished.”
Chapter 5
“For he that hath, To him shall be given and To he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” Though many look upon this statement to be the most cruel and unjust of the sayings attributed to Jesus- creating as it has the world over the many popular remarks, such as, the rich get richer and the poor get children; he who has gets, etc.,-it still remains a most just and merciful law based upon a changeless principle.
God is no respecter of persons. God, as we have discovered, is that unconditioned awareness who gives to each and all, that which they are aware of being. To be aware of being or having anything is to be or have that which you are aware of being. Upon this changeless principle all things rest. It is impossible for anything to be other than that which it is aware of being. “To him that hath (That which he is aware of Being) It shall be given”- good, bad or indifferent. It does not matter what it is that you are aware of being, you will receive pressed down, shaken together and running over, all that you are conscious of being. In keeping with this same changeless law, “To Him that hath not, It shall be taken from and added to the one that hath.” So the rich do get richer and the poor get poorer. Yes, He who has Gets.
You cannot express that which you are not conscious of being. You cannot serve two masters. Your master is ever that state of consciousness with which you are identified. Therefore that which is not in consciousness is taken from it- (because it was never part of it) and added to that consciousness which it is aware of it. All things gravitate to that consciousness with which they are in tune, and likewise, all things disentangle themselves from that consciousness with which they are not in tune. So instead of joining the chorus of the have nots who insist on destroying those who have, recognize this changeless law of expression and consciously claim yourself to be that which you have decided to be. After your decision is made and your conscious claim established, continue in your confidence until you receive your reward. For as the day follows the night, you will receive that which you have consciously claimed for yourself.
Thus, that which to the sleeping orthodox world is a cruel and unjust law, becomes to the enlightened, the most merciful and just statement of truth. “I am come not to destroy but to fulfill.”
Knowing that God does not destroy anything, see to it that you are that, claim yourself to be that which you want him to fill-full. Nothing is destroyed. All are fulfilled.
Chapter 6
Circumcision is the operation which removes the veil that hides the head of creation. The physical act has nothing to do with the spiritual act.
The whole world could be physically circumcised and yet remain unclean and blind leaders of the blind. The spiritually circumcised have had the veil of darkness removed and know themselves to be Christ, the light of the World.
Let me now perform the spiritual operation on you, the reader. This act is performed on the eighth day after birth. Eight, because eight is the figure that has neither beginning nor ending. Furthermore, the ancients symbolized the eighth numeral as an enclosure or veil, within and behind which lay buried the mystery of creation. Thus, the secret of the operation on the eighth day is in keeping with the nature of the act, which act, is to reveal the eternal head of creation; that changeless something in which all things begin and end, and remains its eternal self when all things cease to be. This mysterious something is your awareness of being. At this moment you are aware of being, but you are aware of being someone. This someone is the veil that hides the being that you really are. You are first conscious of being, Then you are conscious of being man. After the veil of man is placed upon your faceless self you become conscious of being a member of a certain race, nation, family, creed, etc. The veil to be lifted in spiritual circumcision is the veil of man, but before this can be done, You must cut away the adhesions of race, nation, family and so on.
“In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, bond nor free, male nor female. “You must leave father, mother, brother and follow me. To accomplish this you must stop identifying yourself with these divisions, By becoming indifferent to such claims. Indifference is the knife that severs. Feeling is the tie that binds. When you can look upon man as one grand brotherhood without distinction of race, creed or color, Then you will know that you have severed these adhesions. With these ties cut all that now separates you from your true being is your belief that you are man.
To remove this last veil, You must drop your conception of yourself as man, by knowing yourself just to be. Instead of the consciousness of -I AM Man, let there be just-I AM-Faceless, Formless Awareness. Then, unveiled and awake you will declare and know that-I AM is God and beside me, this awareness, there is no God. This mystery is told in the bible story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. It is recorded that Jesus laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. Then after washing his disciples’ feet he wiped them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Peter protested and was told that unless his feet where washed, he would have no part of Jesus. Peter replied, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head. “Jesus answered and said, “He that is washed needeth not save to wash feet, but is clean every whit.”
Common sense would tell the reader that a man is not clean all over just because his feet are washed. So he should either discard this story or look for its hidden meaning. Every story of the Bible is a psychological drama taking place in the consciousness of man and this is no exception.
This washing of the disciples’ feet is the mystical story of spiritual circumcision or the revealing of the secrets of the lord.
Jesus is called the lord. You are told that the Lord’s name is I AM-Je Suis. I am the lord that is my name. “Isaiah42.8: Jesus is girded with a towel, therefore his secrets are hidden. Jesus or Lord symbolizes your awareness of being, whose secrets are hidden by the towel- (consiousness of man). The foot symbolizes the understanding (Walk ye in his footsteps-understanding) Which must be washed by the lord-awareness-of all human beliefs or conceptions of itself. As the towel is removed to dry the feet the secrets of the Lord are revealed.
In short, the removing of the belief that you are man reveals your awareness as the head of creation. Man is the foreskin hiding the head of creation. I AM the lord hidden by the veil of man.
Chapter 7
The events of crucifixion and resurrection are so interwoven they must be explained together for one determines the other. This mystery is symbolized on earth in the rituals of Good Friday and Easter. You have observed that these days are not fixed but change from year to year. They fall anywhere from the last week of March to the last week of April. The day is determined in this manner. The first Sunday after the full moon in Aries is celebrated as Easter. Aries begins on the 21st day of March and marks the beginning of Spring. This movable date should tell the observant one to look for some interpretation, other than the one given him.
Seen from the earth, the Sun in its northern passage appears at the Spring season of the year to cross the imaginary lineman calls the equator. So it is said, by the mystic, to be crossified or crucified that man might live. They noticed that soon after this event took place, all nature began to rise or resurrect itself from its long winter’s sleep, therefore they concluded that this disturbance of nature at this season of the year was due directly to this crossing. Thus they believed that the Son must have shed his blood at the passover. If these dates marked the death and resurrection of Jesus they would be fixed like all other historical events, but this is not the case. However these dates do symbolize the death and resurrection of the lord, but this lord is your awareness of being. It is recorded that he gave His life that you may live- “I AM come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.”
As Spring is the time of the year when the millons of seeds, which all winter lay buried in the ground, suddenly spring into visibility that man might live and because the mystical drama of the crucifixion and resurrection is in the nature of this yearly change, it is celebrated at this Spring season of the year but actually it is taking place every moment of time. The being that is crucified is our awareness of being. The cross is your conception of yourself. The resurrection is the lifting into visibility of this conception of yourself. Far from being a day of mourning Good Friday should be a day of rejoicing, for there can be no resurrection without a crucifixion. The thing to be resurrected in your case is that which you desire to be. To do this, you must feel yourself to be the thing desired. You must feel I AM that, for I AM the resurrection and the life. Yes, I AM (Your awareness of being) is the power resurrecting and making alive that which you are aware of being.
Two shall agree on touching anything and I shall establish it on earth. The two agreeing are You (your awareness) and the thing desired (that which you have decided on to be, through becoming aware of it). When this agreement is attained, the crucifixion is completed. Two have crossed or crossified each other. I AM and that (the thing desired) have joined. I AM now nailed upon the form of that.
The nail that binds you upon the cross is the nail of feeling. The mystical marriage is now consummated and the result will be the birth of a child or the resurrection of a son bearing witness of his Father.
Consciousness is wedded to that which it is conscious of being. The world of expression is the child confirming this union. The day you cease to be conscious of being that which you are now conscious of being, that day your child or expression shall die and return to the bosom of his father, the faceless, formless awareness. All expressions are the results of such mystical marriages. So the priests are correct when they say, all true marriages are made in Heaven and can only be dissolved in Heaven. But let me clarify this statement by telling you that Heaven is not a locality, it is a state of consciousness. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. In Heaven (consciousness) God is touched by that which he is aware of being. “Who has touched Me? For I perceive virtue has gone out of me. ” The moment this touching (feeling) takes place, there is an off-springing or going-out-of-me into visibility, taking place.
The day man feels I AM free, I AM wealthy, I AM strong, God (I AM) is touched by these qualities or virtues, and the results of such touching will be seen in the birth or resurrection of the qualities felt. For man must have visible confirmation of all that he is conscious of being. Now you will know why man or manifestation is always made in the image of God.
Your awareness images and out-pictures all that you are aware of being. “I AM the Lord and beside Me there is no other God.” I AM the resurrection and the Life!
Chapter 8
“Thou shalt have no other God beside me.” As long as man entertains the belief in powers apart from himself, so long will he rob himself of the being that he is. Every belief in powers apart from yourself, whether for good or evil, will become the moulds of the graven images you will worship.
The belief in the potency of drugs to heal, diets to strengthen, monies to secure, are the values or money changers that must be thrown out of the Temple. “Ye are the Temple of the living God”- a Temple made without hands.
It is written, “My house shall be called of all nations a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
Your beliefs in the potency of things are the thieves that rob you. There is only one power, one Savior-I AM He. It is your belief in the thing and not the thing itself that aids you. Therefore, stop transferring the power that you are to things round about you. Claim yourself to be the power which you have in your ignorance given to another.
It is easier for a camel, burdened as he is with the so-called treasures of life, to go through the needle’s eye (a small gate in the walls of Jerusalem, so named because of its narrowness) than a rich man (the opinionated man filled with his human values) to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Man is so filled with human values (riches) as to the reason of things, that he cannot, through so dark a veil as the wisdom of man, see that the only reason or value to anything, is that all things are expressing perfectly that which they are conscious of being. When man realizes that the consciousness of a quality expresses that quality without the aid of anything else, he will become the poor man, the foolish man, who has no reason for anything happening other than that which is happening, is perfectly expressing that which it is conscious of being. Such a one has thrown out the money changers or many values and has now established one value-consciousness.
The Lord is in his holy temple. Consciousness dwells within that which it is conscious of being. I AM man-is the Lord and his Temple. Knowing that the consciousness of wealth produces wealth, as the consciousness of poverty produces poverty, He forgives all men for being what they are. For all are expressing (without the aid of another) that which they are conscious of being. He knows that a change of consciousness will produce a change of expression, so instead of sympathizing with the beggars of life at the temple gate, he declares, “Silver and gold have I none (for thee) but such as I have (the consciousness of freedom ) give I unto thee.” Stir up the gift within you. Stop begging, and claim yourself to be that which you were begging for. Do this and you too will jump from your crippled world into the world of freedom, singing praises to the lord, I AM. “Far greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. “This cry of everyone who finds His awareness of being to be God.
Your recognition of this fact will automatically cleanse the temple of the thieves and robbers and restore to you that dominion over things which you lost the moment you forgot the command, “Thou shalt have no other God beside me!”
Chapter 9
“Not my will, but thine be done.” This resignation is not one of blind fatalism but it is the illumined realization that, “I can of myself do nothing, the Father within me he doeth the work.” When man wills he attempts to make something appear in time and space which he knows does not now exist. He is not aware of what it is he is really doing. But, what he actually does is this. He consciously states, I do not possess the capacities to express it now, but I will acquire these capacities in time. In short-I AM not, but I will be.
Man does not realize that consciousness is the Father who does the work, so he attempts to express that which he is not conscious of being. Such struggles are doomed to disappointment, for only the present expresses itself. Unless I am conscious of being that which I seek, I will not find it. God (Your awareness) is the substance and fullness of all. God’s will is the recognition of that which is, not of that which shall be. Instead of seeing this saying as, “Thy, will be done”- see it as, “Thy will, be done” (is done). The works are finished. The principle by which all things are made visible is eternal. Even though, “Eyes have not seen nor ears heard, neither hath it entered into the hearts of man, The things which God hath prepared for those who love the law.”
When a sculptor looks at a formless piece of marble he sees buried within its formless self, his finished piece of art. So the sculptor instead of making his masterpiece, merely reveals it, by removing that part of the marble which hides his conception.
The same applies to you. In your formless awareness- I AM-lies buried all that you will ever conceive yourself to be. The recognition of this truth will transform you from that of an unskilled laborer, who tries to make it so, to that of a great artist, who recognizes it to be so.
Your claim that you are are now that which you want to be, will remove the veil of human darkness with its-I will be-and reveal your perfect claim-I AM that.
God’s will was expressed in the words of the widow, “It is well.” Man’s will would have been, “It shall be well. ” To state I shall be well is to say, “I AM ill.” God, the Eternal now, is not mocked by words or vain repetition. God continually personifies that which is.
Thus, the resignation of Jesus (who made himself Equal with God) was turning from the recognition of lack (which the future indicates with I shall be) to the recognition of supply by claiming- I AM that.
Now you will see the wisdom in the words of the prophet when he stated, “Let the weak say, I AM Strong.” Joel 3.10: Man in his blindness will not heed the prophet’s advice, so, he continues to claim himself to be weak, poor wretched and all the other undesirable expressions from which he is trying to free himself, by ignorantly claiming that he will be free from them.
There is only one door through which that which you seek can enter your world. “When you say, I AM, you are declaring yourself to be first person, present tense. Again, to know that I AM, is to be conscious of being consciousness is the only door. Therefore, unless you are conscious of being That which you seek, you seek in vain. If you judge after appearances you will continue to be enslaved by the evidence of your senses. To break from this hypnotic spell of the senses you are told, “go within and shut the door. “The door of the senses must be tightly shut before your new claim can be honored. This closing the door of the senses is not as difficult as it at first appears to be. It is done without effort. It is impossible to serve two masters at the same time.The Masterman serves in that which he is conscious of being. I am Lord and Master of that which I am conscious of being.
It is no effort for me to conjure poverty if I Am conscious of being poor. My servant poverty is compelled to follow me (Consciousness of Poverty) as long as I AM ( The Lord) conscious of being poor. Instead of fighting against the evidence of the senses, you simply claim yourself to be that which you desire to be. As your attention is placed on this claim, the door of the senses, automatically close against your former master- that which you were conscious of being. As you become lost in the feeling of being this which you are now claiming yourself to be true of yourself, the doors once more open (but as you have discovered, they permit only the present that which I AM now conscious of being-to enter) and you behold your world expressing that which you are conscious of being. Therefore let us follow the example of Jesus, who, realizing that he could as man do nothing to change his present picture of lack closed the door of his senses and went to his Father, to whom all things are possible. Having denied the evidence of his senses, he claimed himself to be that which but a moment before his senses told him that he was not. Knowing that consciousness expresses its likeness on earth, he remained in the claimed consciousness until the doors (his senses) opened and confirmed the Rulership of the Lord. Remember, I AM is Lord of all. Never again use the will of man which claims I will be. Be as resigned as Jesus, and claim- I AM that.
Chapter 10
“Let these sayings sink down in your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of man.” Be not as those who have eyes and see not, and ears and hear not. Let these revelations sink deep into your ears. For after the son (idea) is made manifest, man with his false values (reason) will attempt to explain the why and wherefore of the son’s expression, and in so doing will rend him to pieces. After men have agreed that a certain thing is impossible to do, let someone accomplish the impossible thing–and all, including the wise ones who said it could not be done– will begin to tell you why it happened. After they are all through tearing the seamless robe (cause of manifestation) apart, they will be as far from the truth as they were when they proclaimed it impossible.
As long as man looks for the cause of expression in places other than the expressor, he looks in vain. For thousands of years man has been told, “I AM the life and light of the world.” ” No manifestation cometh unto me save I draw it.”
But man will not believe it, he prefers to believe in causes outside of himself. The moment that which was not seen becomes seen, man is ready to explain the cause and purpose of its appearance. Thus the Son of Man (ideas of manifestation) is constantly being destroyed by the hands (reasonable explanation or wisdom) of man. Now that your awareness is revealed to you as cause of all expression, do not return to the darkness of Egypt with its many Gods. There is but one God. The one God is your awareness. “And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, what doest thou?” If the whole world should agree that a thing could not be done, and you became aware of being that which they had agreed upon could not be expressed–you would express it. Your awareness never asks permission to express that which you are aware of being. It does so naturally and without effort in spite of the wisdom of man and the opposition of the armies of both heaven and earth.
“Salute no man by the way”, is not a command to be insolent or unfriendly, but a reminder not to recognize a superior, nor to see in anyone a barrier to your expression. For none can stay your hand or question your ability to express that which you are conscious of being. Do not judge after the appearances of a thing, for all are as nothing in the eyes of God. When the disciples, through their judgment of appearances, saw the insane child, they thought it a more difficult problem to solve than others they had seen–and so failed to achieve a cure. In judging after appearances they forgot that all things were possible to God. Hypnotized as they were to the reality of appearances they could not feel the naturalness of sanity. The only way for you to avoid such failures is to constantly bear in mind that your awareness is the Almighty, all-wise presence, who without help, effortlessly out-pictures that which you are aware of being. Be perfectly indifferent to the evidence of the senses, so that you may feel the naturalness of your desire–and your desire will be realized. Turn from appearances and feel the naturalness of perfect sanity and sanity will embody itself. Your desire is the solution of your problem. As the desire is realized, the problem is dissolved. Your desires are the invisible realities which respond only to the commands of God. God commands the invisible to appear by claiming himself to be the thing commanded. “He made himself equal with God and found it not robbery to do the works of God.” Now, “let this saying sink deep in your ear” –BE CONSCIOUS OF BEING THAT WHICH YOU WANT TO APPEAR.
Chapter 11
“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words. So, I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.” — Jeremiah 18:2-4
The word translated ‘Potter’ means imagination. Out of material others would have thrown away as useless, an awakened imagination refashions it as it ought to be. “O Lord, Thou art our father, we are the clay, and Thou art our potter; we are all the work of Thy hand.” Isaiah 64:8
This conception of creation as a work of imagination, and the Lord our Father as our imagination, will take us further into the mystery of creation than any other guide.
The only reason people do not believe in this identity of God and human imagination is that they are unwilling to assume the responsibility for their frightful misuse of imagination. Divine Imagination has descended to the level of human imagination, that human imagination may ascend to Divine Imagination.
The 8th Psalm says that man was made a little lower than God — not a little lower than the angels — as the King James Version mistakenly translates it. Angels are the emotional dispositions of man and are therefore his servant — and not his superior — as the author of Hebrews tells us. (Heb. 1:14.)
Imagination is the Real Man and is one with God.
Imagination creates, conserves and transforms. Imagination is radically creative when all imaginative activity based on memory disappears.
Imagination is conservative when its imaginal activity is fed with images supplied mainly by memory. Imagination is transformative when it varies a theme already in being; when it mentally alters a fact of life; when it leaves the fact out of the remembered experience or puts something in its place if it upsets the harmony it desires.
Through the use of her imagination, this talented young artist has made her dream a reality.
“Ever since I entered into the art field, I have enjoyed doing sketches and paintings for children’s rooms. However, I have been discouraged by advisers and friends who were far more experienced in the ‘field’ than I. They liked my work, admired my talent, but said I would not get recognition nor pay for this type of work.
“Somehow, I always felt I would — but how? Then, last fall I heard your lectures and read your books and I decided to let my imagination create the reality I desired. This is what I did daily: I imagined I was in a gallery — there was a great deal of excitement about me — on the walls hung my ‘art’ — only mine (a one-woman show) — and I saw red stars on many of the pictures. This would indicate that they had been sold.
“This is what happened: Just before Christmas, I did a mobile for a friend who showed it in turn to a friend of hers who owns an art-import shop in Pasadena. He expressed a desire to meet me — so I took a few samples of my work along. When he looked at the very first painting he said he would like to give me ‘a one-woman show’ in the spring.
“The night of the opening, April 17, an interior decorator came and liked and commissioned me to do a collage for a little boy’s room, which will appear in the September issue of Good Housekeeping for the 1961 House of the Year.
“Later, during the showing another decorator came and admired my work so much, he asked if he might arrange for me to meet the ‘right’ interior decorators and the ‘right’ owners of galleries who would buy and display my work properly. Incidentally, the show was a financial success for the owner of the gallery, as well as for me.
“The interesting thing about this is that seemingly these three men came to me ‘out of the blue’. Certainly, I made no effort during the time of my ‘imagining’ to contact anyone; but, now, I am getting recognition and have a market for my work. And, now, I know without a shadow of doubt that there is no ‘no’ when you seriously apply this principle that ‘imagining creates reality.'” …G.L.
She tested the Potter and proved His creativity in performance.
Only the indolent mind would fail to rise to this challenge.
Paul states, “the spirit of God dwells in you” [1Cor. 3:16, Romans 8:9, 8:11, James 4:5], now, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed.” 2Cor. 13:5,6
If “all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” [John 1:3], it should not be difficult for man to test himself to find out who this creator in himself is. The test will prove to man that his imagination is the One, “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” Rom. 4:17
The Potter’s presence in us is inferred from what He does there. We cannot see Him there as One, not ourselves. The nature of the Potter — Jesus Christ — is to create and there is no creation without Him.
Every recorded story in this book is just such a test as Paul asked the Corinthians to make.
God really and truly exists in man — in every human being. God wholly becomes us.
He is not our virtue but our Real Selves — Our Imagination.
The following illustrations from the mineral world may help us to see how Supreme Imagining and Human Imagining could be one and the same power and yet be vastly different in their creativity. Diamond is the world’s hardest mineral. Graphite, used in ‘lead’ pencils, is one of the softest. Yet both minerals are pure carbon. The vast difference in the properties of the two forms of carbon is believed to be caused by a different arrangement of the carbon atoms. But whether the difference is produced by a different arrangement of the carbon atoms or not — all agree that Diamond and Graphite are one substance, pure carbon.
The purpose of life is the creative realization of desire.
Man, lacking desire, could not exist efficiently in a world of continuous problems requiring continuing solutions.
A desire is an awareness of something we lack or need to make life more enjoyable. Desires always have some personal gain in view. The greater the anticipated gain, the more intense the desire. There is no really unselfish desire. Even when our desire is for another, we are still seeking to gratify desire. To attain our desire we should imagine scenes implying their fulfillment, and enact the scene in our imagination, if only momentarily, with a joy sufficiently felt within its limits to make it natural. It is like a child dressing up and playing “Queen”.
We must imagine we are what we would like to be. We must play it in imagination first — not as a spectator — as an actor.
This lady imaginatively played “Queen” by being where she wanted to be in her imagination. She was the true actor in this theatre.
“My desire was to attend a matinee performance of a famous pantomimist currently playing in one of the largest theatres of our city. Because of the intimate nature of this art, I wanted to sit in the orchestra; but I didn’t have even the price of a balcony ticket. The night I determined to have this pleasure for myself, in my imagination, I fell asleep watching the wondrous performer. In my imaginal act I sat in an orchestra-center seat, heard the applause as the curtain rose and the artist came on stage, and I actually felt the intense excitement of this experience.
“The next day — the day of the matinee performance — my financial condition had not changed. I had exactly one dollar and thirty-seven cents in my purse. I knew I must use the dollar to buy gas for my car which would leave me with thirty-seven cents, but I also knew I had faithfully slept in the feeling of being at that performance, so I dressed myself for the theatre. While changing articles from one purse to another, I found a dollar bill and forty-five cents in change hidden in the pocket of my seldom-used opera purse. I grinned to myself, realizing that gasoline money had been given to me; so would the balance of my theatre ticket be given to me. Gaily I finished dressing and left for the theatre.
“Standing before the ticket window, my confidence dwindled as I gazed at the prices and saw three-seventy-five for orchestra seats.
With a feeling of dismay I turned away quickly and walked across the street to a cafe for a cup of tea. I had spent sixteen cents on my tea before I remembered seeing the price of balcony seats on the ticket window list. Hurriedly, I counted my change and found I had one dollar and sixty-six cents left. Running back to the theatre, I bought the cheapest seat available which cost a dollar and fifty-five cents. With one dime left in my purse, I went through the entrance and the usher tore my ticket in half saying, “Upstairs, left, please”. The performance was about to begin, but ignoring the usher’s instructions, I walked into the main floor lady’s restroom. Still determined to sit in the orchestra section, I sat down, closed my eyes and kept my inward ‘sight’ riveted on the stage from the direction of the orchestra. At that moment, a group of women walked into the restroom, all talking at once, but I heard only one conversation as a woman speaking to her companion, said, ‘But I waited and waited until the last moment. Then she called and said she couldn’t make it. I would have given her ticket away but it’s too late now. Not realizing it, I handed the usher both tickets and he tore them in half before I could stop him’.
I almost laughed aloud. Getting up, I walked over to this lady and asked if I might use the extra ticket she had, instead of the balcony seat I had bought. She was charming and kindly invited me to join her party. The ticket she handed me was for the orchestra section, center seat, six rows from the stage. I sat in that seat only moments before the curtain rose on a performance I had witnessed the night before from that seat — in my Imagination.” …J.R.
We must actually BE, in Imagination. It is one thing to think of the end, and another thing to think from the end. To think from the end; to enact the end, is to create reality. The inner actions must correspond to the actions we would physically perform “after these things should be” [Edward Thomas, “The New House”].
To live wisely, we must be aware of our imaginal activity, and see to it that it is faithfully shaping the end we desire. The world is clay; our Imagination is the Potter.
We should always imagine ends that are of value or promise well. “He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence.” [— William Blake]
What’s done flows from what’s imagined. Outward forms reveal the imaginings of Man.
“Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest and passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.” [— Henry Vaughan]
“I run a small business, solely owned, and a few years ago it seemed that my venture would end in failure. For some months, sales had fallen steadily and I found myself in a financial ‘jam’ — along with thousands of other small businessmen, as this period spanned one of our country’s minor recessions. I was badly in debt and needed at least three thousand dollars almost immediately. My auditors advised me to close my doors and try to salvage what I could. Instead, I turned to my Imagination.
I knew your teaching but had never actually attempted to solve any problem in this manner. I was frankly skeptical of the entire idea that imagination can create reality but I was also desperate; and desperation forced me to test your teaching.
“I imagined my office receiving four thousand dollars unexpectedly in remittances due. This money would have to come from new orders as my accounts receivable were practically nonexistent, but this seemed far-fetched as I hadn’t received this much in sales during the last four months or more. Nevertheless, I kept my imaginal picture of receiving this amount of money steadily before me for three days. Early the fourth morning a customer I had not heard from in months called me on the telephone asking me to come and see him personally. I was to bring a quotation previously given him for machinery needed by his factory. The quotation was months old, but I dug it out of my files and lost no time in arriving at his office that day. I wrote out the order which he signed, but I saw no immediate help for me in the transaction as the equipment he wanted would take from four to six months for factory delivery, and of course, my customer did not have to pay for it until delivered.
“I thanked him for the order and rose to leave. He stopped me at the door and handed me a check for a little over four thousand dollars, saying, ‘I want to pay for the merchandise now, in advance — for tax purposes, you know. You don’t mind?’ No, I didn’t mind. I realized what had happened the moment I took that check into my hands. Within three days, my imaginal act had done for me what I hadn’t been able to do in months of desperate financial shuffling.
I know, now, that imagination could have brought forty thousand dollars into my business just as easily as four thousands.” …L.N.C
“O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou art our Potter; we are all the work of Thy hand.”
[— Isaiah 64:8]
Chapter 12
“Mental Things are alone Real; what is call’d Corporeal, Nobody Knows of its Dwelling Place: it is in Fallacy, and its Existence an Imposture. Where is the Existence Out of Mind or Thought? Where is it but in the Mind of a Fool?” — Blake
Memory, though faulty, is adequate to the call for sameness. If we remember another as we have known him, we recreate him in that image, and the past will be recognized in the present. Imagining creates reality. If there is room for improvement, we should re-construct him with new content; visualize him as we would like him to be, rather than have him bear the burden of our memory of him.
“Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.” [— Blake]
The following story is by one who believes that imagining creates reality and acting on this belief changed his attitude toward a stranger and bore witness to this change in reality.
“More than twenty years ago, when I was a ‘green’ farm boy newly arrived in Boston to attend school, a ‘panhandler’ asked me for money for a meal. Although the money I had was pitifully insufficient for my own needs, I gave him what was in my pocket. A few hours later the same man, by this time staggering drunk, stopped me again and asked for money. I was so outraged to think the money I could so ill afford had been put to such use, I made myself a solemn pledge that I would never again listen to the plea of a street beggar. Through the years I kept my pledge, but every time I refused anyone, my conscience needled me. I felt guilty even to the point of developing a sharp pain in my stomach, but I couldn’t bring myself to unbend.
“The early part of this year, a man stopped me as I was walking my dog and asked for money so he could eat. True to the old pledge, I refused him. His manner was gracious as he accepted my refusal. He even admired my dog and spoke of a family in New York State he knew that raised cocker spaniels. This time my conscience was really pricking me! As he went on his way, I determined to remake that scene as I wished it had been, so I stopped right there on the street, closed my eyes for only a few moments and enacted the scene differently. In my imagination I had the same man approach me, only this time he opened the conversation by admiring my dog. After we had talked a moment, I had him say, ‘I don’t like to ask you this, but I really need something to eat. I have a job that begins tomorrow morning, but I’ve been out of work and tonight I’m hungry.’ I then reached into my imaginary pocket, pulled out an imaginary five-dollar bill and gladly gave it to him. This imaginal act immediately dissolved the guilty feeling and the pain.
“I know from your teaching that an imaginal act is fact, so I knew I could grant anyone what he asked and by faith in the imaginal act, consent to the reality of his having it.
“Four months later as I was again walking my dog, the same man approached me and opened the conversation by admiring my dog. ‘Here’s a beautiful dog’, he said. ‘Young man, I don’t suppose you remember me, but awhile back I asked you for some money and you very kindly said “no”. I say “kindly”, because if you had given it to me I would still be asking for money. Instead, I got a job that very next morning, and now I’m on my feet and have some self-respect again’.
“I knew his job was a fact when I imagined it that night some four months before, but I won’t deny there was immense satisfaction in having him appear in the flesh to confirm it!” …F.B.
“I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have.” Acts 3:6
None is to be discarded, all must be saved, and our Imagination reshaping memory is the process whereby this salvation is brought to pass. To condemn the man for having lost his way is to punish the already punished. “O whom should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray?” [William Blake, “Jerusalem”].
Not what the man was, but what he may become should be our imaginal activity.
“Don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt —
Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown,
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembled with fear at your frown?” [— George du Maurier]
If we imagine no worse of him than he of himself, he would pass as excellent. It’s not the man at his best, but the imaginist exercising the spirit of forgiveness that performs the miracle.
Imagining with new content transformed both the man who asked and the man who gave.
Imagining has not yet had its due in the systems either of moralists or educators.
When it does, there will be “the opening of the prison to those who are bound”. [Isa. 61:1]
Nothing has existence for us save through the memory we have of it, therefore we should remember it not as it was — unless of course, it was altogether desirable — but as we desire it to be.
Inasmuch as imagining is creative, our memory of another either furthers or hinders him, and makes his upward or downward way easier and swifter.
“There is no coal of character so dead that it will not glow and flame if but slightly turned.
” The following story shows that imagining can make rings, and husbands, and move people “to China”!
“My husband, child of a broken home and raised by beloved grandparents, was never ‘close’ to his mother — nor she to him. A woman of sixty-three and a divorcee for thirty-two of those years, she was lonely and embittered; and my relationship with her was strained as I attempted to ‘stay in the middle’. By her own admission, her great desire was to remarry for companionship, but she believed this to be impossible at her age. My husband would often state to me that he hoped she would remarry and, as he fervently put it, ‘perhaps live way out of town’!
“I had the same wish and, as I put it, ‘perhaps move to China?’ Being wary of my personal motive for this wish, I knew I must change my feeling toward her in my imaginal drama and at the same time ‘give’ her what she wanted. I began by seeing her in my imagination as a completely changed personality — a happy, joyous woman, secure and contented in a new relationship. Every time I thought of her, I would see her mentally as a ‘new’ woman.
“About three weeks later, she came to our house for a visit bringing a friend she had met many months previously. The man had recently become a widower; he was her age, secure financially and had grown children and grandchildren. We liked him and I was excited because it was obvious they liked each other. But my husband still thought ‘it’ was impossible. I didn’t.
“From that day on, every time her image rose in my mind, I ‘saw’ her extending her left hand toward me; and I admired the ‘ring’ on her finger. One month later, she and her friend came to visit us and as I walked forward to greet them, she proudly extended her left hand. The ring was on her finger.
“Two weeks later, she was married — and we haven’t seen her since. She lives in a brand-new home… ‘way out of town’ and as her new husband dislikes the long drive to our house, she might as well have ‘moved to China’!” …J.B.
There is a wide difference between the will to resist an activity and the decision to change it. He who changes an activity acts; whereas he who resists an activity, re-acts. One creates; the other perpetuates.
Nothing is real beyond the imaginative patterns we make of it. Memory, no less than desire, resembles a day-dream. Why make it a day-mare?
Man can forgive only if he treats memory as a day-dream, and shapes it to his heart’s desire.
R.K. learned that we may rob others of their abilities by our attitudes toward them. He changed his attitude and thereby changed a fact.
“I am not a money lender nor am I in the investment business as such, but a friend and business acquaintance came to me for a substantial loan in order to expand his plant. Because of personal friendship, I granted the loan with reasonable interest rates and gave my friend the right of renewal at the end of one year. When the first year term expired, he was behind in his interest payments and requested a thirty-day extension on the note. I granted this request, but at the end of thirty days he was still unable to meet the note and asked for an additional extension.
“As I previously stated, I am not in the business of lending money. Within twenty days, I needed full payment of the loan to meet debts of my own. But I consented again to extend the note although my own credit was now in serious jeopardy. The natural thing to do was to apply legal pressure to collect and a few years ago I would have done just that. Instead, I remembered your warning ‘not to rob others of their ability’, and I realized that I had been robbing my friend of his ability to pay what he owed.
“For three nights I constructed a scene in my imagination in which I heard my friend tell me that unexpected orders had flooded his desk so rapidly, he was now able to pay the loan in full.
The fourth day I received a telephone call from him. He told me that by what he called ‘a miracle’, he had received so many orders, and big ones, too, he was now able to pay back my loan including all interest due and, in fact, had just mailed a check to me for the entire amount.” …R.K.
There is nothing more fundamental to the secret of imagining than the distinction between imagining and the state imagined.
“Mental Things are alone Real…” “Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.”
[— William Blake]
Chapter 13
“General knowledge is remote knowledge; It is in particulars that wisdom consists. And happiness too.” — Blake
We must use our imagination to achieve particular ends, even if the ends are all trivia. Because men do not clearly define and imagine particular ends the results are uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain. To imagine particular ends is to discriminate clearly. “How do we distinguish the oak from the beech, the horse from the ox, but by the bounding outline?” [William Blake, Human Form Divine]
Definition asserts the reality of the particular thing against the formless generalizations which flood the mind.
Life on earth is a kindergarten for image making. The bigness or littleness of the object to be created is not in itself important.
“The great and golden rule of art, as well as of life”, said Blake, “is this: That the more distinct, sharp and wirey the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art, and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak imitation. What is it that builds a house and plants a garden but the definite and determinate? …leave out this line, and you leave out life itself.”
The following stories are concerned with the acquiring of seemingly little things, or ‘toys’ as I call them, but they are important because of the clear imaginal images that created the toys. The author of the first story is one of whom it is said, ‘she has everything’. This is true. She has financial, social and intellectual security.
She writes:
“As you know, through your teaching and through my practice of that teaching, I have completely changed myself and my life. Two weeks ago when you spoke of ‘toys’, I realized I had never used my imagination for the getting of ‘things’ and I decided it would be fun to try it. You told of a young woman who was given a hat by merely wearing that hat in her imagination. The last thing on earth I needed was a hat, but I wanted to test my imagination for this ‘getting of things’, so I selected a hat pictured in a fashion magazine. I cut the picture out and stuck it on the mirror of my dressing table. I studied the picture carefully. Then, I shut my eyes, and in my imagination, I put that hat on my head and ‘wore’ it as I walked out of the house. I did this just once.
“The following week I met some friends for luncheon and one of them was wearing ‘the’ hat. We all admired it. The very next day, I received a parcel by special delivery messenger. ‘The’ hat was in the parcel. The friend who had worn it the day before had sent the hat to me with a note saying she did not particularly care for the hat and didn’t know why she had bought it in the first place, but for some reason she thought it would look well on me — and would I please accept it!” …G.L.
Movement from ‘dreams to things’ is the power driving humanity.
We must live wholly on the level of Imagination. And it must be consciously and deliberately undertaken.
“All my life I have loved birds. I enjoy watching them — hearing their chatter — feeding them; and I am particularly fond of the small sparrow. For many months I have fed them crumbs of morning bread, wild bird seed and anything I believed they would eat.
“And for all those months, I have been frustrated as I watched the larger birds —particularly the pigeons — command the area, gobbling up most of the good seed and leaving the husks for my sparrows.
“To use my imagination on this problem seemed facetious to me at first, but the more I thought of it, the more interesting the idea became. So, one night I set about ‘seeing’ the little birds come in for their full share of daily offerings, and I would ‘tell’ my wife that the pigeons no longer interfered with my sparrows but took their share like gentlemen and then left the area. I continued this imaginary action for almost one month. Then one morning I noticed that the pigeons had disappeared. The sparrows had breakfast all to themselves for a few days; for those few days no larger bird entered the area. They did return eventually, but to this day they have never again infringed on the area occupied by my sparrows. They stay together, eating what I put out for them, leaving a full share of the area to my tiny friends.
And do you know… I actually believe the sparrows understand; they no longer seem to be afraid when I walk among them.” …R.K.
This lady proves that unless our heart is in the task, unless we imagine ourselves right into the feeling of our wish fulfilled, we are not there — for we are all imagination, and must be where, and what we are in imagination.
“In early February, my husband and I had been in our new house one month — a home lovely beyond telling, perched on a rugged cliff with the ocean for our front yard, wind and sky for neighbors and seagulls for guests — we were ecstatic. If you have experienced the joy and woe of building your own home, you know how completely filled with happiness you are and how completely empty your purse is: A hundred lovely things clamored to be bought for that house, but the one thing we wanted most of all was the most useless — a picture. Not just any picture, but a wild wonderful scene of the sea dominated by a great white clipper ship. This picture had been in our thoughts all the months of building and we left one living room wall free of paneling to hold it. My husband mounted decorative red and green ship lanterns on the wall to frame our picture, but the picture — itself — would have to wait. Draperies, carpeting — all the practical items must come first. Perhaps so, but that didn’t stop either one of us from ‘seeing’ that picture, in our imagination, on that wall.
“One day, while shopping, I strolled into a small art gallery and as I walked through the door I stopped so suddenly a gentleman walking behind me crashed into an easel.
I apologized and pointed to a painting hanging at head-height across the room.
“‘That’s what did it! I’ve never seen anything so wonderful!’ He introduced himself as the owner of the gallery and said, ‘Yes, an original by the greatest English painter of clipper ships the world has known’. He went on to tell me about the artist, but I wasn’t listening. I could not take my eyes from that wonderful ship; and suddenly I experienced a very strange thing. It was only a moment in time, but the art gallery faded and I ‘saw’ that picture on my wall. I’m afraid the owner thought me a little giddy, and I was, but I finally managed to return my attention to his voice when he mentioned an astronomical price. I smiled and said, ‘Perhaps some day…’ He continued to tell me about the painter and also about an American artist who was the only living lithographer capable of copying the great English master. He said, ‘If you’re very lucky, you may pick up one of his prints. I’ve seen his work. It’s perfect down to the last detail. Many people prefer prints to paintings.’
“‘Prints’ or ‘paintings’, I knew nothing about the values of either, and anyway, all I wanted was that scene. When my husband returned home that evening, I talked of nothing but that painting and pleaded with him to visit the gallery and see it. ‘Maybe we could find a print of it somewhere. The man said…’ ‘Yes’, he interrupted, ‘but you know we can’t afford any picture now…’ Our conversation ended there, but that night after dinner, I stood in our living room and ‘saw’ that picture on our wall.
“The next day, my husband had an appointment with a client which he did not want to keep. But the appointment was kept, and my husband did not return home until after dark. When he walked through the front door, I was busy in another part of the house and called a greeting to him. A few minutes later I heard hammering and walked into the living room to see what he was doing. On our wall hung my picture. In my first moment of intense joy I remembered the man in the art gallery, saying… ‘If you’re very lucky, you may pick up one of his prints…’ Lucky? Well, here is my husband’s part of this story:
“Making the call already mentioned, he entered one of the poorest, meanest little houses he had ever been in. The client introduced himself and led my husband into a tiny dark dining area where the two of them sat down at a bare table. As my husband put his brief case on the table top, he looked up and saw the picture on a wall. He confessed to me he had conducted a very sloppy interview because he couldn’t take his eyes from that picture. The client signed the contract and gave a check as down payment which, as my husband believed at the time, was ten dollars short. Mentioning this fact to the client, he said the check given was every cent he could afford but added… “I’ve noticed your interest in that picture. It was here when I took this place. I don’t know to whom it belonged, but I don’t want it. If you’ll put the ten dollars in for me, I’ll give you the picture.’
“When my husband returned to his company’s main office, he learned he had been in error about the amount. He was not charged ten dollars. Our picture is on our wall. “And it costs us nothing.” …A.A.
Of R.L., who writes the following letter, it must be said:
“In faith, Lady, you have a merry heart.” [— William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing”]
“One day, during a bus strike, I needed to go into the downtown area and had to walk ten blocks from my home to the nearest bus in operation. Before starting home, I recalled there was no food market on this new route and I wouldn’t be able to shop for dinner. I had enough to manage a ‘pot luck’ meal but I would need bread. After shopping all day, the ten blocks back from the bus line was all I could manage and to go still farther to shop for bread was out of the question.
“I stood very still for a moment and allowed a vision of bread to ‘dance in my head’. Then I started for home. When I boarded the bus, I was so tired I grabbed the first available seat and almost sat on a paper bag. Now, on a crowded bus tired passengers rarely look directly at one another, so being naturally curious, I peeked into the bag. Of course it was a loaf of bread — not just any bread but the very same brand of bread I always buy!”…R.L.
Trifles: all trifles — but they produced their trivia without price. Imagining accomplished these things without the means generally reputed necessary to do so.
Man rates wealth in a way that bears no relation to real values.
“Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” — Isaiah 55:1
Chapter 14
“The natural man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” — 1Cor. 2:14.
“There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find, Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find This Moment & it multiply, & when it once is found It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.” — Blake
Whenever we imagine things as they ought to be, rather than as they seem to be, is “The Moment”. For in that moment, the spiritual man’s work is done and all the great events of time start forth to mould a world in harmony with that moment’s altered pattern.
Satan, Blake writes, is a “Reactor”. He never acts; he only reacts. And if our attitude to the happenings of the day is “reactionary”, are we not playing Satan’s part?
Man is only reacting in his natural or Satan state; he never acts or creates, he only re-acts or re-creates. One real creative moment, one real feeling of the wish fulfilled, is worth more than the whole natural life of re-action. In such a moment, God’s work is done.
Once more, we may say with Blake,
“God only Acts and Is, in existing beings or Men.” [“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, 1793]
There is an imaginal past and an imaginal future. If, by reacting, the past is re-created into the present — so — by acting out our dreams of fancy can the future be brought into the present.
“I feel now the future in the instant.” [— William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”]
The spiritual man Acts: for him, anything that he wants to do, he can do and do at once — in his imagination — and his motto is always, “The Moment is Now”.
“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” — 2Cor. 6:2
Nothing stands between man and the fulfillment of his dream but facts.
And facts are the creations of imagining. If man changes his imagining, he will change the facts.
This story tells of a young woman who found the Moment and, by acting out her dream of fancy, brought the future into the instant, not realizing what she had done until the final scene.
“The incident related below must appear to be coincidence to those never exposed to your teaching — but I know I observed an imaginative act take solid form in, perhaps, four minutes. I believe you will be interested in reading this account, written down, exactly as it happened, a few minutes after the actual occurrence, yesterday morning.
“I was driving my car east on Sunset Boulevard, in the center lane of traffic, braking slowly to stop for a red signal at a three-way intersection, when my attention was caught by the sight of an elderly lady, dressed all in grey, running across the street in front of my car. Her arm was raised, signaling to the driver of a bus which was beginning to pull away from the curb. She was obviously attempting to cross in front of the bus to delay it. The driver slowed his vehicle and I thought would allow her to enter. Instead, as she jumped on to the curb, the bus pulled away leaving her standing just in the act of lowering her arm. She turned and walked swiftly toward a nearby phone booth.
“As my signal changed to green and I put my car in motion, I wished I had been behind the bus and had been able to offer her a ride. Her extreme agitation was obvious even from the distance I was away from her. My wish instantly fulfilled itself in a mental drama, and as I drove away, the fancy played itself out in the following scene… “
…I opened the car door and a lady dressed in grey stepped in, smilingly relieved and thanking me profusely. She was out of breath from running and said, ‘I only have a few blocks to go. I’m meeting friends and I was so afraid they would leave without me when I missed my bus.’ I left my imaginary lady out a few blocks farther on and she was delighted to observe her friends still waiting for her. She thanked me again and walked away…”
“The entire mental scene was spanned in the time it takes to drive one block at a normal rate of speed.
The fancy satisfied my feelings regarding the ‘real’ incident, and I immediately forgot it. Four blocks farther, I was still in the center lane and again had to stop for a red signal. My attention at this time was turned inward on something I have now forgotten, when suddenly someone tapped on the closed window of my car and I looked up to see a lovely-appearing elderly lady with grey hair, dressed all in grey. Smiling, she asked if she might ride a few blocks with me as she had missed her bus. She was out of breath, as though from running, and I was so stunned by her sudden appearance in the middle of a busy street at my window that for a moment I could only react physically, and without answering, leaned over and opened my car door. She got in and said, ‘It’s so annoying to rush so and then miss a bus. I wouldn’t have imposed on you like this, but I’m supposed to meet some friends a few blocks down the street and if I had to walk now, I would miss them.’ Six blocks farther on, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, good! They’re still waiting for me.’ I let her out and she thanked me again and walked away. “I’m afraid I drove to my own destination by automatic reflex, for I had fully recognized that I had just observed a waking dream take form in physical action. I recognized what was happening while it was happening. As soon as I could, I wrote down each part of the incident and found a startling consistency between the ‘waking dream’ and the subsequent ‘reality’. Both women were elderly, gracious in manner, dressed all in grey, and out of breath from hurrying to catch a bus and missing it. Both wished to meet friends (who for some reason could not wait for them much longer) and both left my car within the space of a few blocks after successfully completing their contact with their friends.
“I am amazed, confounded and elated! If there is no such thing as coincidence or accident — then I witnessed imagination become ‘reality’ almost instantaneously.” …J.R.B.
“There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find. Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find This Moment & it multiply, & when it once is found It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.”
“From the first time I read your ‘Search’, I have longed to experience a vision. Since you have told us of the ‘Promise’, this desire has been intensified. I want to tell you of my vision which was a glorious answer to my prayer; but I am sure I would not have had this experience were it not for something that occurred two weeks ago.
“It was necessary for me to park my car some distance from the University Building where I was scheduled to conduct my class. As I left my car, I was conscious of the stillness about me. The street was completely deserted; no one was in sight.
“Suddenly, I heard a most frightful cursing voice. I looked toward the sound and saw a man brandishing a cane, yelling, between vile words, ‘I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you’. I continued on as he approached me, for at that moment I thought ‘Now I can test what I have professed to believe; if I do believe we are one, The Father, this derelict and I, no harm can come to me. At that moment I had no fear. Instead of seeing a man coming toward me, I felt a light. He stopped yelling, dropped his cane and walked quietly as we passed with less than a foot between us.
“Having tested my faith at that moment, everything about me had seemed more alive than before — flowers brighter and trees greener. I have had a sense of peace and the ‘oneness’ of life I had not known before.
“Last Friday, I drove to our country home — nothing was unusual about the day or evening. I worked on a manuscript and, not being tired, did not try to fall off to sleep until around two the following morning. Then I turned off the light and drifted into that floating sensation, not asleep but drowsy, as I call it, half awake and half asleep.
“Often, while in this state — lovely, unknown faces float before me — but this morning the experience was different. A perfect face of a child came before me in profile — then it turned and smiled at me. It was glowing with light and seemed to fill my own head with light.
“I was aglow and excited and thought ‘this must be the Christos’; but something within me, without sound, said, ‘No, this is you’. I feel I will never be the same again and some day I may experience the ‘Promise’.” …G.B.
Our dreams will all be realized from the time that we know that Imagining Creates Reality — and Act.
But Imagination seeks from us something much deeper and more fundamental than creating things: nothing less indeed than the recognition of its own oneness, with God; that what it does is, in reality, God Himself doing it in and through Man, who is All Imagination.
Chapter 15
Four Mystical Experiences
In all I have related thus far — with the exception of G.B.’s Vision of the Child —imagination was consciously exercised. Men and women created stage plays in their imagination, plays implying the fulfillment of their desires. Then, by imagining themselves participating in these dramas, they created that which their imaginal acts implied.
This is the wise use of God’s Law. But “No man is justified before God by the Law”, Gal. 3:11.
Many people are interested in Imaginism as a way of life, but are not at all interested in its framework of faith, a faith leading to the fulfillment of God’s promise.
“I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body… I will be his father, and he shall be My son.” 2Sam. 7:12-14
The Promise that God will bring forth from our body a son who will be “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” [John 1:13] does not concern them. They want to know God’s Law, not His Promise. However, this miraculous birth has been stated clearly as a must for all mankind from the earliest days of the Christian fellowship.
“You must be born from above”, John. 3:7. My purpose here is to state it again and to state it in such language and with such reference to my own personal mystical experiences that the reader will see that this birth “from above” is far more than a part of a dispensable superstructure, that it is the sole purpose for God’s creation.
Specifically, my purpose in recording these four mystical experiences is to show what “Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead” (Rev. 1:5) was trying to say about this birth from above. “How can men preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:15).
Many years ago, I was taken in spirit into a Divine Society, a Society of men in whom God is awake. Though it may seem strange, the gods do truly meet. As I entered this society, the first to greet me was the embodiment of infinite Might. His was a power unknown to mortals. I was then taken to meet infinite Love. He asked me, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I answered him in the words of Paul, “faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” [1Cor. 13:13]. At that moment, he embraced me and our bodies fused and became one body. I was knit to him and loved him as my own soul. The words, “love of God” so often a mere phrase, were now a reality with a tremendous meaning. Nothing ever imagined by man could be compared with this love which man feels through his union with Love. The most intimate relationship on earth is like living in separate cells compared with this union.
While I was in this state of supreme delight, a voice from outer space shouted, “Down with the blue bloods!” At this blast, I found myself standing before the one who had first greeted me, he who embodied infinite Might. He looked into my eyes and without the use of words or mouth, I heard what he told me: “Time to act”. I was suddenly whisked out of that Divine Society and returned to earth. I was tormented by my limitations of understanding but I knew that on that day the Divine Society had chosen me as a companion and sent me to preach Christ — God’s promise to man.
My mystical experiences have brought me to accept literally, the saying that all the world’s a stage. And to believe that God plays all the parts. The purpose of the play? To transform man, the created, into God, the creator. God loved man, his created, and became man in faith that this act of self-commission would transform man — the created, into God — the creator.
The play begins with the crucifixion of God on man — as man — and ends with the resurrection of man — as God. God becomes as we are, that we may be as He is. God becomes man that man may become, first — a living being, and secondly — a life-giving spirit.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” — Gal. 2:20.
God took upon Himself the form of man and became obedient unto death — even death on the cross of man — and is crucified on Golgotha, the skull of man. God Himself enters death’s door — the human skull — and lies down in the grave of man to make man a living being. God’s mercy turned death into sleep. Then began the prodigious and unthinkable metamorphosis of man, the transformation of man into God.
No man, unaided by the crucifixion of God, could cross the threshold that admits to conscious life, but now we have union with God in His crucified Self. He lives in us as our wonderful human imagination. “Man is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us and we in Him.
The eternal body of man is the imagination — that is, God, himself” [Blake].
When He rises in us, we will be like Him and He will be like us. Then all impossibilities will dissolve in us at that touch of exaltation which His rising in us will impart to our nature.
Here is the secret of the world: God died to give man life and to set man free, for however clearly God is aware of His creation, it does not follow that man, imaginatively created, is aware of God.
To work this miracle, God had to die, then rise again as man, and none has ever expressed it so clearly as William Blake. Blake says — or rather has Jesus say — “Unless I die, thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with Me.
Wouldest thou love one who never died for thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not Himself eternally for man, man could not exist.
” So God dies — that is to say — God has freely given Himself for man. Deliberately, He has become man and has forgotten that He is God, in the hope that man, thus created, will eventually rise as God.
God has so completely offered His own Self for man, that He cries out on the cross of man, “My God, My God; why hast Thou forsaken Me?” [Mat. 27:46; Psalm 21:1].
He has completely forgotten that He is God. But after God rises in one man, that man will say to his brothers, “Why stand we here, trembling around, calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?” [Blake]
This first man that has been raised from the dead is known as Jesus Christ — the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, the first-born of the dead. For man God died; now, by a man, has come also the resurrection of the dead. Jesus Christ resurrects his dead Father by becoming his father.
In Adam — the universal man — God sleeps. In Jesus Christ — the individualized God — God wakes. In waking, man, the created, has become God, the creator, and can truly say, “Before the world was, I am” [Adon Olam, Jewish dogmatics].
Just as God in His love for man so completely identified Himself with man that He forgot that He was God, so man in his love for God must so completely identify himself with God that he lives the life of God, that is, Imaginatively.
God’s play which transforms man into God is revealed to us in the Bible.
It is completely consistent in imagery and symbolism. The New Testament is hid in the Old Testament, and the old is manifested in the new. The Bible is a vision of God’s Law and His Promise.
It was never intended to teach history but rather to lead man in faith through the furnaces of affliction to the fulfillment of God’s promise, to rouse man from this profound sleep and awaken him as God.
Its characters live not in the past but in an imaginative eternity.
They are personifications of the eternal spiritual states of the soul. They mark man’s journey through eternal death and his awakening to eternal life.
The Old Testament tells us of God’s promise. The New Testament tells us not how this promise was fulfilled, but how it is fulfilled.
The central theme of the Bible is the direct, individual, mystical experience of the birth of the child, that child of whom the prophet spoke “…to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder; and his name will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end…” Isaiah 9:6-7
When the child is revealed to us we see it, we experience it, and the response to this revelation can be stated in the words of Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee” [42:5].
The story of the incarnation is not fable, allegory or some carefully contrived fiction to enslave the minds of men, but mystical fact.
It is a personal mystical experience of the birth of oneself out of one’s own skull, symbolized in the birth of a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.
There is a distinction between hearing of this birth of a child from one’s own skull — a birth which no scientist or historian could ever possibly explain — and actually experiencing the birth — holding in your own hands and seeing with your own eyes this miraculous child — a child born from above out of your own skull, a birth contrary to all the laws of nature.
The question as it is posed in the Old Testament, “Ask now, and see, can a male bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands delivering himself like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?” Jer: 30:6.
The Hebrew word “chalats”, mistranslated “loins”, means: to draw out, to deliver, to withdraw self. The drawing of oneself out of one’s own skull was exactly what the prophet foresaw as the necessary birth from above, a birth giving man entrance into the kingdom of God and reflective perception on the highest levels of Being. Throughout the ages, “Deep calls to deep” [Ps. 42:7]; “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake!” [Ps. 44:23]
The event, as it is recorded in the Gospels, actually takes place in man. But of that day or that hour when the time will come for the individual to be delivered, no one knows but the Father. “Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:7-8
This revelation in the Gospel of John is true. Here is my experience of this birth from above. Like Paul, I did not receive it from man — nor was I taught it. It came through the actual mystical experience of being born from above. None can speak truly of this mystical birth from above but one who has experienced it. I had no idea that this birth from above was literally true.
Who, before the experience, could believe that the child, the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace was inwoven in his own skull? Who, before the experience, would understand that his Maker is his Husband and the Lord of Hosts is His Name [Isaiah 54:5]? Who would believe that the creator went in unto His own creation, man, and knew it to be Himself and that this entrance into the skull of man — this union of God and man — resulted in the birth of a Son out of the skull of man; which birth gave to that man eternal life and union with his creator forever?
If I now tell what I experienced that night, I do so not to impose my ideas on others, but that I may give hope to those who, like Nicodemus, wonder “how can a man be born when he is old [John 3:4]?” How can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? How can this be? This is how it happened to me. Therefore, I will now “write the vision”; and “make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end — it will not lie. If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” Hab. 2:2-4.
In the early hours of the morning on July 20, 1959, in the city of San Francisco, a heavenly dream in which the arts flourished was suddenly interrupted by the most intense vibration centered at the base of my skull. Then a drama, as real as those I experience when I am fully awake, began to unfold. I awoke from a dream to find myself completely entombed within my skull. I tried to force my way out through its base. Something gave way and I felt myself move head downward, through the base of my skull. I squeezed myself out, inch by inch. When I was almost out, I held what I took to be the foot of the bed and pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull. There, on the floor, I lay for a few seconds.
Then I rose and looked at my body on the bed. It was pale of face lying on its back and tossing from side to side like one in recovery from a great ordeal. As I contemplated it, hoping that it would not fall off the bed, I became aware that the vibration which started the whole drama was not only in my head but now was also coming from the corner of the room. As I looked over to that corner, I wondered if that vibration could be caused by a very high wind, a wind strong enough to vibrate the window. I did not realize that the vibration which I still felt within my head was related to that which seemed to be coming from the corner of the room.
Looking back to the bed, I discovered that my body was gone but in its place sat my three older brothers. My oldest brother sat where the head was. My second and third brothers sat where the feet were. None seemed to be aware of me, although I was aware of them and could discern their thoughts. I suddenly became aware of the reality of my own invisibility. I noticed that they, too, were disturbed by the vibration coming from the corner of the room. My third brother was the most disturbed and went over to investigate the cause of the disturbance. His attention was attracted by something on the floor and looking down he announced, “It’s Neville’s baby”. My other two brothers, in most incredulous voices, asked “How can Neville have a baby?”
My brother lifted the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid him on the bed. I, then, with my invisible hands lifted the babe and asked him “How is my sweetheart?” He looked into my eyes and smiled and I awoke in this world — to ponder this greatest of my many mystical experiences.
Tennyson has a description of Death as a warrior — a skeleton “high on a night-black horse”, issuing forth at midnight. But when Gareth’s sword cut through the skull, there was in it… “… the bright face of a blooming boy Fresh as a flower new-born.” (Idylls of the King)
Two other visions I will tell because they bear out the truth of my assertion that the Bible is mystical fact, that everything written about the promised child in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be mystically experienced in the imagination of the individual.
The child’s birth is a sign and a portent, signaling the resurrection of David, the Lord’s anointed, of whom He said, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”, Psalms 2:7.
Five months after the birth of the child, on the morning of December 6, 1959, in the city of Los Angeles, a vibration similar to the one which preceded his birth started in my head. This time its intensity was centered at the top of my head. Then came a sudden explosion and I found myself in a modestly furnished room. There, leaning against the side of an open door was my son David of Biblical fame. He was a lad in his early teens. What struck me forcibly about him was the unusual beauty of his face and figure. He was — as he is described in the first book of Samuel — ruddy, with beautiful eyes and very handsome [16:12, 17:42].
Not for one moment did I feel myself to be anyone other than who I am now. Yet, I knew that this lad, David, was my son, and he knew that I was his father; for “the wisdom from above is without uncertainty” [But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy, James 3:17]. As I sat there contemplating the beauty of my son, the vision faded and I awoke.
“I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion”, Is. 8:18. God gave me David as my very own son. “I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body… I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, 2Sam. 7:12-14. God is known in no other way than through the Son.
“No one knows who the Son is, except the Father, or who the Father is, except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him”, Luke. 10:22.
The experience of being David’s Father is the end of man’s pilgrimage on earth. The purpose of life is to find the Father of David, the Lord’s anointed, the Christ.
‘Abner, whose son is this youth?’ And Abner said, ‘As your soul lives, O king, I cannot tell.’ And the king said, ‘Inquire whose son the stripling is.’ And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, ‘Whose son are you, young man?’ And David answered, ‘I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite’, 1Sam. 17:55-58.
Jesse is any form of the verb ‘to be’.
In other words, I Am the Son of who I Am, I am self begotten, I Am the Son of God, the Father. I and My Father are one [John 10:30]. I am the image of the invisible God. He who has seen Me has seen the Father [John 14:9].
‘Whose son…?’ is not about David, but about David’s Father, whom the king had promised (1Sam. 17:25) to make free in Israel. Note: in all these passages (1Sam. 17:55,56,58) the king’s inquiry is not about David but about David’s Father.
‘I have found David, my servant… He shall cry to Me, “Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. And I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth”, Psalm 89[:20;26-27].
The individual who is born from above will find David and know him to be his very own son. Then he will ask the Pharisees — who are always with us — “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is He?” And when they say to him, “The son of David”, he will say to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord… If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?” Matt: 22:41-45. Man’s misconception of the role of the Son — which is only a sign and a portent — has made the Son an idol. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1John 5:21.
God awakes; and that man in whom he awakes becomes his own father’s father. He who was David’s Son, “Jesus Christ, the son of David” Matt. 1:1 has become David’s Father.
No longer will I cry to “our father David, thy child”, Acts. 4:25. “I have found David” [Psalm 89:20, Acts 13:22]. He has cried to me, “Thou art my Father”, Ps. 89[:26]. Now I know myself to be one of the Elohim, the God who became man, that man may become God. “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion”, 1Tim. 3:16.
If the Bible were history, it would not be a mystery.
“Wait for the promise of the Father”, Acts. 1:4, that is, for David — God’s Son — who will reveal you as the Father. This promise, says Jesus, you heard from Me (Luke 24:44) and to its fulfillment at that moment in time when it pleases God to give you His Son — as “your offspring, which is Christ”, Gal. 3:16.
A figure of speech is used for the purpose of calling attention to, emphasizing and intensifying the reality of the literal sense. The truth is literal; the words used are figurative.
“The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split”, Matt. 27:51.
On the morning of April 8, 1960 — four months after it was revealed to me that I am David’s father — a bolt of lightning out of my skull split me in two from the top of my skull to the base of my spine. I was cleft as though I were a tree that had been struck by lightning. Then I felt and saw myself as a golden liquid light moving up my spine in a serpentine motion; as I entered my skull, it vibrated like an earthquake. “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar” [Proverbs 30:5,6]. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up”, John 3:14.
These mystical experiences will help to rescue the Bible from the externals of history, persons and events, and to restore it to its real significance in the life of man.
Scripture must be fulfilled “in” us. God’s promise will be fulfilled. You will have these experiences: “And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sa-ma-ri-a and to the end of the earth”, Acts 1:8.
The widening circle — Jerusalem… Judea… Samaria, the end of the earth — is God’s plan.
The Promise is still maturing to its time, its appointed time, but how long, vast and severe the trials e’re you find David, your son, who will reveal you as God, The Father, were long to tell; but it hastens to the end; it will not fail. So wait, for there will be no postponement.
“Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son”, Gen. 18:14.
The End
Optimized by Seraphinite Accelerator