Imagining and the Transformation of Man: 1964 Lectures

By Neville

If one is looking for answers to the meaning of life and how to make a happier, richer existence (e.g., relationships, finances, health), then Nevilles teaching from personal experience, testimonies from students, and his amazing visions paralleling and explaining the mysteries of the Old and New Testament will answer those questions.
Learn his techniques, unleash your power to create, believe in your imaginary acts, and no power in this world can stop the desired results from appearing in your world. Its the only creative power, one that everyone is operating moment to moment. Learning how to direct it deliberately is essential to producing loving, positive changes in ones life.
These 1963 lectures also begin a nine-year odyssey of discovering the deepest meanings of six visions of the end that had unfolded in Neville (19591963). The visions are the signs that this long journey as limited man; the terrible opacity and contraction is over, that the purpose of human life has been completed; man has endured and overcome six thousand years of amnesia plus the fires of experience and has emerged victorious. Hes been transformed by his inner being (I Am or God) back into the divinity he truly is and always was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490731131

Neville

Neville Goddard (1905-1972) was a profoundly influential teacher, and author, writing more than ten books under the pen name Neville. He was a popular speaker on metaphysical themes and is associated with the New Thought philosophy.

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The Shaping of the Unbegotten

1/7/64

Tonight’s subject is The Shaping of the Unbegotten. Naturally, we turn to the greatest book in the world to guide us in telling you what I feel about the shaping of the unbegotten, and that book is the Bible. The entire Bible is the word of God. No matter how far it may exceed the limits of our logic—there is much in it that doesn’t make sense—-but don’t tamper with it. Leave it just as it is and time will prove that it is true.

Here, the first decision, the first creative act, we find in the very first chapter of Genesis: And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’…so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him (Gen.1:26,27). Now, when you read it carefully what are the words let us? Let us, well, they could stand simply for the plural of majesty or God first consults with divine beings other than himself. You can take it as you want. But if I search the scriptures I must come to certain conclusions. He asked, What’s the greatest commandment in the world? and the answer to that question was this, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord (Deut.6:4). The word translated the Lord by definition means I AM. It is Yod He Vau He. The word translated our God is the word Elohim; it’s a plural word, gods. Then it ends on the note I AM, again. But there’s a little word in there one Achad, one Lord. This is a compound unity, one made up of others. So we can put it into this statement, Hear, O Israel, the I AM, our I AMs, is one I AM. So here is by this decision that man is to be made into the image of God. Well, who made it and who started the entire process? We say God.

Now let me share with you a vision of mine of just a week ago, a week ago today. I came out of it about 5 A.M. Here, I was taken in Spirit to read one passage, or one of God’s eternal pages, in his divine history. For history is simply the unfolding of God’s purpose, a movement of events from his Promise towards its fulfillment. So I was taken in Spirit and here I came upon a scene, a man about 6’5, a tall, majestic creature. He personified courage, and this courage was based upon his faith in God, his absolute trust in God’s ability to execute his Promise. Here was this giant of a man, I would say, 6’5 looking off into space at an enormous distance. It was not only space, as I looked at his eyes, he as looking into time. Looking far, far away in time to that moment in time when the Promise would be fulfilled, as could be said when it was fulfilled, Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad (Jn.8:56). He was standing under an oak tree. The oak tree wasn’t very tall, maybe the height of this room, and it almost was bare of leaves, just a few leaves, so you could actually see the entire structure of the tree, all of the branches. They were twisted and curled, like the human brain. If I could have drawn a line around this tree, it would have been the perfect expression of the human brain with all of its convolutions. And in the tree a serpent with a human face; and I knew that that serpent was articulate, but it didn’t speak. But there it was, alive, the personification of wisdom and power. It seemed infinitely wise, and it seemed omnipotent in its power, as I stood there looking at the man who simply looked off into time, and this tree, knotted and twisted like the human brain, and then coiled in the tree, a serpent with a human face…then the vision began to fade. As it faded, a book came before my eyes. It’s the Bible, opened at the 17th chapter of the Book of Genesis, and I began to read it, all in my vision. I read the first verse and then it faded.

So I got out of my bed, went into my living room, and got the Bible and completed the chapter. The chapter begins this way, When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared unto Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless’ (Gen.17:1). In this chapter he makes a covenant with Abram. He first changes his name, and the change of name must be consummated and sealed by the act of circumcision. Every male on that day, including his son Ishmael, at the age of thirteen must be circumcised. And Abraham, at ninety-nine, he had to be circumcised. Then he makes you a promise that this son Ishmael will not inherit your kingdom; but I will give you a son and you will call his name Isaac, and he shall be your heir. We are told he fell on the ground and laughed because it seemed to him ridiculous…or maybe he rejoiced at the good news. You can interpret as you will. I would say, he rejoiced at the good news. But it is said in the book, he prostrated himself and laughed, and said, I, a hundred years old? For the Promise was made, It would not be given you today; but next year I’ll return in the spring, and your son will be born. It seemed summer to me when I saw the scene…it seemed summer. And so, it would be spring if you took it in the way that you and I measure time and pregnancy.

So I began to dwell upon this. I wondered, Why the serpent? So you search the scriptures again, and here, man begins his journey after being beguiled by a serpent. The serpent beguiled me, said she, and I ate of it. Then comes the banishment into a world that is a strange world. Well, who is the serpent? If I told you the serpent in the ancient world was called Jesus Christ, would you be shocked? The serpent is Jesus Christ. And yet, you are told, He’s our savior. Well, he who banished me also redeems me?—yes. Now listen to these words in the Book of Romans, the 11th chapter, the 32nd verse, For God has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all. It was God and only God who consigned men to disobedience. So the first fundamental sin recorded in scripture is the disobedience of man. And so, the disobedience was ordered by God that God could have mercy on all. If I were pure, never could I taste of the sweets of the forgiveness of sin. How could I? There would be no need for the forgiveness of sin. I would never know the sweetness of it, to forgive sin. If I were holy, could I ever behold the tears of him who loved me and still loves me, in the midst of his anger, as he puts me through the fire? For that is my destiny: to go through the fires of affliction that I may come out as his image, come out as God. So God actually becomes man that man may become God. That’s not poetry, that’s fact. And when Spirit possesses a man, he clothes himself with that man, puts him on as you would put on an outer garment. So God is wearing every garment in this room; every child born of woman is a garment, an outward garment that God is wearing. The day will come when he completes his work in man, and he unveils, takes it off and that man is God. That’s the purpose. So God becomes as I am with all my limitations that I may become as he is without limitations.

Now, in the scriptures I read it there is not a slightest reference in the works of Paul speaking of the prenatal existence of Christ as a man. These are his words: Jesus Christ, who, though in the form of God…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form became obedient unto death, even death upon a cross (Philip.2:6). His form was that of God, and he exchanged it for that of a slave; and so he is the slave, playing all these parts. When he completes it and we awake, we are he: "Christ in man is the hope of glory" (Col.1:27). Were he not in man he could not emerge from man. So Christ in man is putting us through all the paces, and he’s doing all the suffering. For when he comes out, I am he. Therefore, If any man should ever say to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it (Mark 13:21). Do not believe it for the very simple reason, although it may not now appear to you what you shall be, know this much when he appears you will be like him (l John3:2). Therefore, if he does not look like you now, don’t look at any man and think of that man There is Christ. For when you see Christ, he’s going to be just like you. He became you, and transformed you into his likeness by taking upon himself your likeness.

He puts himself through the paces, and when he has completed the work, and he unveils it, you are he. "For he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philip.1:6). That day is called the day of the Lord. It was shown me so clearly, when man comes into what is known as the eighth, the day of the Lord, he has entered into the kingdom of God. It’s called by a strange name, which I’ve never used before, but I came across it recently the ogdoad. I wondered, what is the ogdoad? Looking it up, it’s simply the eighth number. That’s all that it is called, the 8th number. He comes into the 8th, which is a new first day. At the end of the 7th day, then he rose on the first day after the Sabbath, which is a new first day or the 8th day. That’s not explained but it’s implied. When one comes into the 8th number, in Hebrew it is a Cheth, and its symbolical value is an enclosure, a protection, a completely protected area, called the kingdom of God." An entirely new generation, an entirely new creation, and therefore a new body to function in a new world; and that’s the body that he’s working on and weaving in us, an immortal body.

Now, why the serpent? Why of all of the things of the world that should be the symbol of God, I do not know. I only tell you my vision; I saw it. Christ is defined in the scripture as the wisdom and the power of God; in the very first chapter of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, Christ, the wisdom and the power of God (1Cor.1:24). And looking at that face, all that you could think of was infinite wisdom and infinite power. At the moment you wonder, Why a serpent, a human face? And yet, not a thought crossed your mind but wisdom and power woven into that face. The eyes of the man, no. I did not catch his eye. I simply stood and looked…but his eye was away into the distance, both in time and in space. I knew then he was looking at the fulfillment of the Promise, and the words came back from the 8th chapter of the Book of John, Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad (verse 56). You, not yet fifty and you know Abraham? Abraham saw you? Yes, said he. Before Abraham was, I AM. But how could he tell anyone in this world? That creature that symbolized him, who was the very cause of the so-called fall of man, it wasn’t man’s fall, God deliberately fell. You go back and you search it all over again, and the word translated God, Yod He Vau He, the verb is He Vau He, its original meaning was to fall or to cause to fall; to blow or to cause the wind to blow. And the word wind and spirit are one in both Hebrew and in Greek. He caused it all; therefore in the very last he can forgive all.

So he actually clothes himself with every being born of woman. So don’t look for him elsewhere, you aren’t going to find him. He is closer than your breathing, closer than your hands and feet; he is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God. Just as he clothed himself with you, you are called upon now to exercise that same power and clothe yourself with your noble concepts in this world. Everything that is lovely, everything that is of good report, clothe yourself with it and actually put it on like an outward garment. You can stand here now or sit here now and imagine that you are elsewhere; and clothe yourself with the reality of that elsewhere-ness. You can clothe yourself with the reality of success, of health, of anything in this world. You do the same thing that God did for you: He clothed himself with you. Put the human being upon himself like an outward garment and walks saying I am. For that’s his name. He has no other name: This is my name forever…the name by which all generations must know me. So as you are seated here you’re saying I am. But you don’t stop there, you say I am John, I am Mary and so you come down and condition it when you know what John means to you in the world, and you let it remain there. You limit yourself by the evidence of your senses and what reason dictates, and there you remain.

But, the limitless is in you, and he asks you to exercise it. Exercise it by assuming that you are now the man that you want to be, remain faithful to that assumption, and live in it. It will come to pass; for the whole movement of events brings this promise, which is now God’s promise to you, to fulfillment. You have a desire? That’s God speaking to man. Clothe yourself with it, just as though it were true. And this is the shaping of the unbegotten. When the curtain goes up and you’re exposed as he, you who began in time have no beginning, for God so completely became you. He has no parents, he has no origin; he’s the origin of all. He has no ending of days; he’s the beginning and end of all. And so, you will know how can this thing happen—I who began in time at the completion of God’s work upon me, when he gives himself to me, that I did not begin in time. I am before and I am after. I am not something that began when he completes his work. And it’s God’s purpose to give himself to me as though there were no others in the world, just God and I, and the same to each person in the world.

So when he completes that purpose, we have no beginning…and that’s called Melchizedek in scripture: without father, without mother, without beginning, without end of days. All enter into that same order of being: no beginning, no end. What a strange mystery! That here we are created in our image, and yet when the image is completed, image of the invisible God, that seal that was created and therefore began in time, doesn’t. It is God—one with the gods who made the decision to transform man into their image…and so becomes more and more, like the sands of the sea, said he, like the stars of the heaven. You cannot number that which is being created, and yet, though created, it is one with the creator, therefore, not created. It’s God begetting himself, his actual self, individualizing himself as you, individualizing himself as every being in the world. When you see him one day, you see yourself. But you will see yourself with such beauty of features and such majesty of features and such strength of character that you would never dream in eternity that you could ever be that. And yet, that is exactly what you are moving toward. When one day he awakes, this whole thing will be as a dream to him, the God awake. But it took this entire dream to produce his purpose which was to give himself to you.

So when we see Isaac in the 17th chapter (verse 18), hereafter, do not see Isaac or think of him as the result of generation. See Isaac as the begetting of the unbegotten, the shaping of the unbegotten…that’s Isaac. He’s just as you are told, they said, he laughs or he will laugh, and he does when you see him one day and he’ll be the symbol of your awakening. He will laugh, just as you are told: He beheld my day; he saw it and he was glad. He rejoiced that he would see it, and he saw it, and he was glad. The laughter is confirmed; he does laugh. So every little sign in that story is true, and day after day, men and women all over the universe are coming as witnesses to the truth of God’s word. So the call has gone out since the first born took place and the call is Call the next witness. Go and call him. He will come, when prepared, with his witness, because he must come to witness to the truth of God’s word. And he’s called, and God’s word is true. So we have two witnesses, one is the external witness of scripture, and the second is the internal witness of the Spirit. So, bring me the witnesses, for if two different witnesses agree in principle it’s conclusive. So bring the witnesses…and everyone will one day be a witness to the truth of God’s word. For these things are eternal. They did not die and leave the world forever. They did not die; they live forever in an internal imaginative world. For that creature that I saw, that majestic man, is part of the story of the 17th chapter of the Book of Genesis. It was that that was starting a journey. When you read it carefully, he goes on a long, long journey into a land where he’ll be mistreated and abused, but when he comes out his possessions are great. And so that’s you. But that’s the symbol of the journey. And you start with that courage, a courage based upon your faith in God, for there’s no courage comparable to that which comes as a result of one’s faith in God. So, if I heard this very moment the voice of God, and it said to me the most impossible thing in the world, I would not allow reason to tamper with the word of God. I would know that he who promised is capable of executing that which he promised. And so, that courage comes only from faith in God.

When you hear it one day, you never question it. You never question the voice, and though reason denies it, your senses deny it you are supported by what you heard. Memory hasn’t faltered, you know what you heard, and having heard it you do nothing, just as in my case I was told, Do nothing. I heard the voice speak in the very depths of my soul, That which I have done I have done. Do nothing…and then a wonderful picture before my eyes, where he had revised a decision of a superior of mine. God revised it and then told me to do nothing. So I did nothing, and nine days later that revision was an objective fact. My superior called me in, unasked by me, and then once more corrected his decision by completely revising it…just as I was told in the depth of my soul, Do nothing. So that superior had no choice in the matter. He thought he had a change of heart, a change of attitude. He did have a change of attitude, but it was induced by God. God is playing all the parts in the world.

So when you know what you want this night, just assume that you have it, and put it on just as God put this garment on. Assume that you have it. Because all things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle, all of us. Therefore, if I put it on I will influence every being in the world who can be of assistance in bringing to pass that which I have assumed. If you can be used, you’ll be used, without your knowledge, without your consent. If it takes 10,000 to aid the birth of what I’m assuming, 10,000 will be used, for we are all one. And God has plotted it and planned it so that you will know, in the end, we are one. So, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and that one Lord is simply a compound unity, the gods. Therefore, all will play their part in concert to produce what was the decision in the beginning: Let us make man in our image.

And while man is being made in the image of God, man has been given the freedom to make mistakes; for he was invited in the beginning to disobey and yet forgiven for his disobedience. For he was actually invited to disobey, and made to disobey by God, who assumed the picture of a human face and that which could only be the human spine. So you look up the word tree in the biblical concordance and what do you see, the spine, the back-bone, the carpenter, the gallows. Therefore, who is on the gallows? You’re told in the 3rd chapter of Galatians it is Christ Jesus. He is cursed for man’s sake. We are told the serpent was cursed. Well, read the 3rd chapter of Galatians, Cursed be every one who hangs upon a tree. And Christ became the cursed for man, hanging upon the tree. What tree?—this tree. So all of the wise men of the world, All of the gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain, there grows one in the human brain. That’s where the tree is. That’s the tree of life.

And so, the very trunk of that tree, which would be the serpent that you saw, would be the human spine, that spinal cord. One day you’ll know it. And yet human…when you see the face it’s human. But what is the nature of that body? You can only hint at it. I’ll tell you that it is love. Love is the human form divine. Human face…but how would you describe a body made only of love, complete love? The fullness of love is the body, the human body divine, but you can’t describe it. How would I describe the beauty of it? How would I describe the color? You can’t describe it. But I’ll tell you, love is the human form divine. And that’s what is being formed in man, so he’ll be clothed in it and that will be his immortal body, his eternal body in an eternal world. That’s when the work is completed and that which has no beginning shapes itself, and you are that which he shapes, and you are immortal. And you and I are one.

Doesn’t seem to make sense, for I respond to one name and you respond to another, and without loss of identity we are still one. The gods are individualized and yet one God. There’s only one Jehovah, one Savior, and yet unnumbered gods, and altogether form one Jehovah. The proof that they are one: they all have the same son. Not many little sons running around, one son, and that son is God’s only begotten Son. Everyone will look right into the eyes of God’s only begotten Son and know without any uncertainty he’s my son. Therefore, then and only then do you really know who you are. It takes the Son to reveal the Father: No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Mat.11:27). So when that choice is made and the day of the Lord is upon you, the Son appears and calls you Father. Then you know who you are. You never knew it until then.

But you also know, at that very moment, everyone will be called Father by this same Son, this eternal youth. Then you know beyond all doubt there were never two of us, just a fragmented being, individualizing himself as unnumbered children, each like himself. For the Father and the Son are one. And so, if I emptied myself, the being who emptied himself to become me was in the form of God, then he’ll reclaim it. He became me by emptying himself of the form of God and took upon himself the slave form, and was born in the likeness of man. Being born in the likeness of man, then he became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross of man (Phil.2:7). This is that tree spoken of in scripture…the only tree. This is the tree on which he’s nailed.

When the drama is over there will be a rejoicing beyond the wildest dream of all of us here who go through the bath of pain. For, we are taken through these furnaces of affliction and you wonder Why? What have I done? There’s no one to tell you what you did. People speculate and they try to bring in all kinds of extraneous things and tell you that you must have been horrible in a last incarnation or something, that you did this, that, you did the other. Then they read your stars for you, then they read the teacup leaves for you, then they do numbers, all of these, trying to convince you that you did something of which you are totally unaware…can’t remember a thing that I have done. And yet, you haven’t done a thing, God did it. Read the 9th chapter of John: Master, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? Neither this man, nor his parents, but that the works of God be made manifest (verse 2). No past incarnation is the result that resulted now in this act.

God is an infinite, merciful being. God is not a God of retribution; he forgives everything in the world. He’s a God of love. Even though we form a garment that he wore and it was blind. Because the being wearing it will one day appear, and that being that seemingly now is going through hell with his blind state will be just like the wearer of that garment, and he won’t be blind. I saw it. I saw it so clearly. For those who had no arms, no eyes, all members missing, and then as I walked by, out of some invisible storehouse every missing member came and fitted itself perfectly into what was empty sockets, or empty arm sockets, and they were made perfect. You could not improve upon them, everyone was perfect. So that in the end all are made perfect; for you are told, As your Father is perfect, be ye perfect. For he’s actually begetting himself and he’s perfect and he’s holy. So everyone will be holy, everyone perfect.

But while it’s taking place, it seems so difficult to believe in a God of love. I promise you that you will stand in his presence one day, and you can’t think of anything but love. No other attribute in the world…you don’t entertain the thought of might, of wisdom, of any other attribute, just love. You look right into his eyes and here is infinite love. You’ll be embraced and be incorporated into his body, forever part of the one body that is God. And so, even though you are in the world and seemingly fragmented, you are still there in the body of God. For there’s no place where one can go that he is not. After you are incorporated into the body of God, I can say truly, I am here in this room talking to you but I am still there. I have never left him since the incorporation. There’s been no divorce, no separation, and so, you can be sent and still be one with the being who sent you.

That is a peculiar, strange statement to make but it’s true. You are sent, and yet you haven’t left the being who incorporated you into his body. So you are one with the one who sent you, so you can truly say, He who sees me sees him who sent me. If you want to see the one who sent me, alright, look at me, he’s the one who sent me. So when I saw him, he looked just like me. And so you’ll say the same thing. I’ll look at you, and if I’m curious who sent you, you can say, if you see me, you see the one who sent me. Only, when I see the one who really sent you, I will see you raised to the nth degree of perfection, the nth degree of all that is majestic in this world; that you could not improve upon it when I see the being who really sent you, but just like you. So there will be no loss of identity, and yet there will be a tremendous, how would you put it, increase. Because I inherit not only the kingdom, I inherit God. That is his purpose, that I inherit him. So without loss of identity I become something greater, one with the being who incorporated me, and I am he.

Now, if you are here for the first time tonight, I’m not apologizing, but this is more mystical than most people like to hear. Thursday night it’s on a different level. It is on what we’ll call the practical level. I’ll show you a being who is far, far great than John. John, the greatest born of woman, of all those born of woman, no one was greater than John; yet I say unto you, the least in the kingdom is greater than John (Mat.11:11). And I’ll show you that least in the kingdom. He’s right where you are, but you don’t know it…or maybe you do. But if you do know it and don’t feed him, then I would say you don’t know it. And so you must feed him by exercising him, and then you know it.

A friend of mine in San Francisco this past fall took the series of lectures; then he got married, and thought he would go off to Mexico City. He wrote me this past week. I got the letter I think it was on Saturday morning. He said, I took your tapes with me, but then I didn’t have a machine to play them. All over the City of Mexico I looked and couldn’t find a machine. One who had one wanted an outrageous price for it, but was reluctant even then to sell it. Then he told me what he did, how he came into a border state to find one and looked all over for three or four days and couldn’t find one. So he despaired and thought, Well now, why did I make this 1,600 mile trip? Then he said to himself, Here, I’m not even applying the law. I haven’t done a thing about finding a machine in my Imagination. I’ve gone looking through the eyes of man; I’ve done nothing about really getting it. He said, "I sat down and took that machine in my mental hand, at the border going into Mexico, where no one would question my right to have it. Everything in Mexico is actually taxed a hundred per cent. You paid a hundred dollars for it they’ll tax you a hundred dollars for it, no matter what you bring in. If you receive a gift from this country, when you go to receive it at the post office, they value it at a hundred per cent tax on it. And so, here I had my machine in my Imagination, going through the Customs without any difficulty and no tax on it.

I was just about to depart, and I went downstairs. I went into a little jewelry store, and I said, I don’t suppose you would know of anyone in this city who would have—and he mentioned the machine he wanted—to play my tapes? He said, Isn’t it strange, I have one here. I don’t sell them, but a customer of mine left one here in the event I knew of someone who would be of interest. Let me see it. It was exactly what he wanted to play the same speed. So with that, he asked the man what he wanted. He said, I’ll bring him over. The man wanted $200 for it. Well, he said, it’s worth the $200, but I only have fifty on me, and my money is in Mexico, and there’s not one person in this city of Nogales who knows of me. They don’t know me, so I can’t prove that I am the person that I tell you that I am. Will you take my fifty dollars and give me the machine and I’ll send you the money? The man shook on it and said yes. He said, I went through Customs as though I didn’t have it. I didn’t hide it from the man; the Customs official did not question my right to have it. I told him the truth, I have tapes to be played, and I must have this machine. Not one penny tax on it. So I went back with my machine.

Now, he said, "having done that, this is what happened to me. I’ve proved the law, now that I’ve proved the law I’ll try it again. I had a little boat and I went to this little island. My wife and I went ashore, and we left the boat I thought safely anchored. There was no wind when I went ashore and suddenly we looked up and the boat is a quarter mile out to sea, and an enormous wind. So I started after the boat. I didn’t think I could make it and I was getting more and more tired and the boat was going faster away with the wind. The tide is against me. So suddenly, where the wave came from I don’t know, the wave lifted me up, an enormous wave. At the crest of the wave I could see a boat with three men in it. It was a little motor boat. I screamed and waved my hands on top of this wave, and they looked because the wind was going in their direction and they could hear me. They came towards me, took me aboard, went and got my boat for me, and brought me back to the shore.

"But, he said, before I jumped into that ocean, Neville, in my Imagination I took the little boat and anchored it on that beach again. I did the whole thing in my Imagination before I plunged into that water. I could never have made it physically, because I was getting more and more tired, and the boat was going faster away. On the heels of these two experiences, this is what I had, a dream, I dreamt this. I dreamt that I was in San Francisco in the sheriff’s office and he tells me that I am named sheriff of the City of San Francisco. I told him I didn’t want to be a sheriff, but he said, ‘You are the sheriff.’ So, he said, I didn’t want to be the sheriff, so I woke and wrote down the dream. I went back to bed and I re-dreamed it; but this time a little change, I am the sheriff. I am wearing the uniform, I have my badge, and I am the sheriff, and there’s a gun. I don’t use a gun—wouldn’t have one in my house—but there is the gun, part of my equipment. I have on my uniform; it’s the sheriff of San Francisco. So I woke and wrote that down. Well, you told us the story of Joseph, and Joseph said to Pharaoh, the doubling of a dream means that God has fixed the thing and it will shortly come to pass. A double dream means a thing is…that no one can alter it."

So he had the double dream. Well, it’s a symbolical dream. He has already proven the law. For the first time in his life he had to prove this law before he could be an operator of the law, a protector of the law. So he dreams that he now represents the law. His confidence is built now on faith in God. Before, it was faith in his position as a businessman, faith in the pigment of his skin (he’s an Irishman), all these things. That was his faith. Now, these are not his faith any more. His faith is in God. He has proven God’s law. So he has a dream where God speaks to him through the medium of dream, and in the dream he is wearing the uniform of law. So now you live by law, from now on.

So I ask every one to try it. What is the nature of the dream to prove to you that you accepted God’s law, I don’t know. He doesn’t have to repeat himself. He can give you a dream this night if you really live by law that would convince you beyond all doubt when you wake tomorrow morning that you’ve accepted God’s law. What better dream than this to prove to this man he really now has accepted God’s law? He’s not going to try to get things the hard way; he’s going to get things by God’s way which is by God’s law. So, all these things happen to us as we really pitch in and make his law our law.

Now we’ll go into the Silence, and try to clothe ourselves in a noble concept of self, whatever it is. Don’t limit it to what reason allows, just simply sit quietly and clothe yourself with it like an outward garment, and feel the reality of the thing that you are imagining. Now let us go.

The One Greater Than John

1/9/64

Tonight’s subject is One Greater Than John. I think you will find this a most practical approach to this teaching. When we open the Bible we think it is just a normal book. May I tell you, it is not; it is divine history and all the characters in scripture represent states of consciousness, from Adam to Jesus, every one. They’re not individuals as you and I are; they’re simply representatives of these states of awareness. And the very last before the page turns into an entirely new age is called John. And so we are told in the earliest of the gospels, which is Mark: After John was arrested, Jesus came preaching the gospel of God (John 1:14). After John was arrested then he appears preaching the gospel of God. What is this story trying to tell us?

So here, let me share with you my experience. I didn’t know it either, but I’ll tell you how this thing works. John, we are told, is the very last of the great of the prophets. As we’re told, Of those born of women, none is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he (Mat.11:11). None greater than John in this world, yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he. And John came not eating or drinking. If you take that on this level, that’s nonsense, because the body could not survive. Another gospel states it, He came neither eating bread nor drinking wine. That tries in some way to, well, explain what he did not eat or drink. Well, there’s no statement in the law of Moses against eating bread or drinking wine—unless you are one of the Nazarenes and it’s true as to wine, but certainly not eating bread. The last supper was the eating of bread and the drinking of wine. But he came, neither eating bread (if you want to take it that way) nor drinking wine. But the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But we think, this night, of one greater than John, who was the greatest in this world, yet not equal to the least in the world called the kingdom of heaven. Now these are only states of consciousness through which every man passes. If you are not now in the state of John, may I tell you, you’re going to be some time in the state of John; if not now in this present little environment, when the wheel turns and it returns, you will be in that state. Everyone passes through the state of John before he comes into the state of Jesus Christ.

Now, what is the state of John? We come into this world …now let me share with you my own personal experience. I was born in a very limited environment, small little island in the West Indies called Barbados. My father ran a little grocery store, but it was a general store, not only groceries but meat, fish, fowl, liquor, wine. I mean, it supplied everything for the table. I was raised in that environment where it seemed the most normal, natural thing in this world to eat anything that was placed on the table, and so I did. I left Barbados at the age of seventeen and came to America, believing as I did everything placed before me that was edible was right. And then, I fell into a state, the state called John. John came not eating or drinking. And then I fell into the state where I gave up all the things that I did normally as a boy, right through until I was seventeen years old. I fell into the state at the age of twenty, a little after twenty, say, twenty-one, where I would not eat any meat, any fish, fowl, not even eggs. Naturally, in those days I didn’t drink so that was not giving up wine, but that couldn’t cross my lips. I did violence to my own appetites, because as a child, as a boy, I indulged in everything that my father placed before me. And suddenly I gave it all up and for seven years I was a strict vegetarian, teetotaler, celibate. John represents that state in man’s ongoing when he does violence to his appetite. And yet life is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. God gives to every man in this world a hunger that he can, if he knows God’s law, satisfy. He can clothe himself with the fulfillment of his dream and satisfy it. But there’s a state where man passes through, and it is called John the Baptist, where he does violence to his appetite.

I met a friend of mine in New York City, his name was Abdullah. He said to me in 1933 (I met him in ’29)…and he did everything, he ate everything, he drank everything. He didn’t smoke only because he just didn’t enjoy it, but he did everything. An old, old man, he was then in his late eighties when I met him. And he said to me, So you’re going to Barbados? You want to go to Barbados? I said yes. Now, this is where the good news of the kingdom comes in. Then, when I met him, I did not eat flesh in any form, I did not drink alcohol in any form, and no smoking and a celibate. He said, "Well then, you are now in Barbados. I said, I’m in Barbados?" This is on 72nd Street in New York City, where the buildings can go thirty and forty stories high. Barbados, if you find a three-story building, you’re lucky…the little one and two-story buildings, and no sidewalk, but no sidewalk. One little tiny street we call Broad Street, to this day we call it Broad Street, and that’s the only place that has a sidewalk. All the other areas no sidewalks, you walk in the street or you walk in the gutter, but there is no such thing as a sidewalk.

And he said to me, "Now clothe yourself with Barbados. Put it on as you would another garment, just as you would another garment, so that you would smell the tropics and you would see what you would see were you in Barbados. Well, I did to the best of my ability, and I clothed myself with Barbados. And when I thought then that night—the first night that I clothed myself with Barbados–I thought of New York City, and I saw it 2,000 miles to the north of me. Then I had succeeded in clothing myself with Barbados. I fell asleep in the assumption I am in Barbados. Well, the days went on from this I would say, late October through November, and yet I am not physically in Barbados. So I tried to open up my discussion with Abdullah, and I said, Ab, I did all that you told me. I clothed myself with Barbados, I am sleeping in Barbados, and yet here I am in New York City." He would not talk to me. He turned his back upon me the very first time I brought it up; he walked towards his studio and slammed the door in my face. And if you knew Abdullah as I knew him that was no invitation to come in.

So, if I am clothing myself in Barbados and with Barbados, then I must be faithful to this clothing. That’s the good news spoken of after John is arrested, not before. John is doing violence, trying to gain the kingdom of heaven by being good. And he said to me, You’re so good you’re good for nothing. And you’re trying to get into the kingdom by being good. You don’t eat meat, no kind of meat, you don’t drink any alcoholic liquor, so you’re so good. And you’re celibate at the age that you are today, and so all the fires you’ve bottled up in you, trying to be good. So I kept on wearing my garment: I am in Barbados. On the morning of the 4th of December a letter came to my door, stuck under the door, from my brother giving reasons why he wanted me to come to Barbados, and enclosing in that letter a ticket for Barbados. I had not gone home to Barbados in eleven years. I made no request. I didn’t write the family. My brother Victor writes me saying that you must come and no response other than yes would he accept, and enclosing a little draft to buy shirts, if I need them, or a pair of shoes, and stating in the letter that use the check to the fullest advantage. Charge everything and when I arrived in Barbados, well, he would board the ship and pay all expenses that I had signed. If I use the bar, use the bar. He didn’t know I wasn’t drinking. But, all expenses…the tipping of the steward, the tipping of everyone in that ship. He would board the ship, take care of all my expenses, but I must come! Then he gave me his reasons for it, he justified why. I went down to that ship on the morning of the 6th and got my passage and off I went.

Before I went, Abdullah said to me, "So you’re going to Barbados. May I tell you, you’re going to die but you will not surely die…but you will die. He didn’t explain. Like Blake he never would tell me the interpretation of his statement you will die." Well, I went off thinking, well, I’ll die, die in Barbados. I didn’t die in Barbados but I died: I died to everything that I was doing. I lived in Barbados for three months, which is the Christmas season and everyone is entertaining. I’m returning from America after eleven years, and party after party is given for my honor. It’s Christmas, it’s New Years, they’re all drinking, all having fun, and I simply drank water. Mother prepared all kinds of meals, and I would have just a vegetable meal. She never heard of it. We were raised supplying the entire island with meat, with fish, with fowl, with everything…with all the wine…everything was home… and I just said, no, I would take vegetables. I was there for one solid three months.

I came back to that ship going north. And the night I entered that ship, we sat maybe six or eight people at table, and we all introduced ourselves. My name is Neville Goddard, and so I would shake hands, and this one is so and so-—you all introduce yourself aboard ship. Then the man to my right said to the waiter, Let us see what you have for wine. The waiter brought the wine list, he said, We’ll have that. I didn’t say wine, so he ordered that wine. Then came the first course, soup. So I didn’t ask if there’s meat stock in this as I’d done for seven years; I drank the soup. Then he brought the second course, it was fish; I ate the fish. He brought the third course, it was meat; I ate the meat; all the time pouring down the wine. Every thing that I had not done in seven years I did that night, and then from then on for the ten or twelve days at sea ’til I got off the ship in New York City. Then I understood what he meant you will die.

That state called John the Baptist, which does violence to itself, you must pass through it. If you are not now in it, you will be in it. It’s part of the eternal drama of God. God has prepared a way to redeem himself. It’s God and only God playing all these parts. So God has prepared the way to bring himself back individualized as you. There’s no other way. So from Adam to Jesus Christ they are only states of awareness through which God and only God passes. And the last state of the old dispensation is John the Baptist. That is the last stage. And so, man must pass through that state. Don’t try to invite it. It happens, and you don’t understand why it happens. In my own case, raised normally, with all the food before me, because my father made a living feeding us by selling this, fish, fowl, meat, eggs, butter, everything that was normal, all the rum in the world. We make rum in Barbados. He drank heavily; my father was a very heavy drinker. All these things were exposed to us, so we took it and suffered it.

My Father, the depths of my own being, moving me through all these furnaces, put me into a state where I was married at the age of eighteen, father at nineteen, separated at twenty. And then I became so disillusioned with marriage, I vowed I would have not a thing to do with sex—my own disillusionment, my own, not hers, my own. That was part of the play where he put me through these furnaces and brought me out seven years later. I know friends of mine who have been in that state of John the Baptist for fifty years, and they have died in it. But the wheel turns; they will come out, the wheel turns. Although they cease to be here as a flesh and blood being, they were in it when they died. Others came out after forty years. Here was George Bernard Shaw…he died in it after seventy years. He was ninety years when he died. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was in it, but he died in it; he had not come out. He died not believing in Christ. He died an atheist. He didn’t know the good news. My friend Abdullah who taught me this story, he was in it for forty years. He hadn’t touched anything that was meat, especially pork. He was born and raised in the Jewish faith, and for forty years he touched nothing that was meat. But certainly he, not only forty years, but from the time of birth up until he was almost eighty years old, he hadn’t touched pork. And then came the same thing to him that happened to me.

So man passes through this state called John the Baptist, and he comes into the state called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the freedom of the world. So, it’s said of John he came not eating or drinking. It is said of Christ, called the Son of man, he came eating and drinking; and they say of him, Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. So you pass through it and then you know what he is talking about. He doesn’t come to destroy the law. He said not one little dot will be rubbed out of the law, all will be fulfilled, but he interprets the law as John could not interpret it. John thought that by doing violence to his appetite he would get into the kingdom. He thought that he could scare a man into salvation. And the next state beyond John tells you you can’t do it that way. He interprets the law and shows the law as something that is mental, not physical. And then he puts it this way: You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you anyone who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed the act of adultery with her in his heart (Mat.5:27). He takes it from a physical state to a mental state. If I look upon a woman lustfully and I think I can get away with it, and it seems pleasant, I may be inclined to do it. If I contemplate that act along with its consequences for myself and my family, I may restrain the impulse. But, he tells me that’s not good enough—in the contemplation of the act I did it. So, causation is mental, it’s not physical. John didn’t know that. The state called John didn’t know that. If I restricted myself and resisted the impulse, I thought, Well, am I not wonderful! I have just abided by the law ’ye shall not do.’

Then comes the next state called Jesus Christ, and that state tells me that wasn’t good enough; the wheel is turning and you are going to do it tomorrow. The wheel will turn now and tomorrow when it turns all over again, you will be performing the act. And you’ll wonder why has this happened to me to the disgrace of my family and myself? Because you thought by the restraint of the act you didn’t do it. And now he interprets the law for us, and tells us the very contemplation of the act was the act. And so, when one gets to that point where they don’t even contemplate it, well, then off the wheel of recurrence we are lifted, one by one. And that is the story of the one that is greater than John.

So everyone is moving through a series of states, and it starts from Adam through, well, we can stop the Adam and start it from Abraham, for that’s where real civilization begins. So you start from Abraham and you come all the way through into Jesus Christ. And they’re only states of consciousness where God passes through individualizing himself as you. And everyone goes through the state called John the Baptist. So of all those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John. So how great we are in this world, that doesn’t really matter; because the least in the kingdom of God has a greatness beyond the wildest dream of this world. The least has a greatness…you can’t conceive the greatness of the least in the kingdom. And he’s brought there not by anything he’s done. For, may I tell you, I did nothing to do it; I fell into it. But who made me fall into it?—God. And so, we can’t take any credit for having fallen into the state called John.

It seemed to me, if I reflect upon it, prior to when I fell into it, that I was disillusioned in marriage. A young man of eighteen getting married, and then being a father at nineteen, and then at twenty separated, and becoming disillusioned. And then pledging myself not to have anything to do in the sexual world and then to give up completely all the food that I loved. I love food, love all the things that the world would offer. And then to go through it and a man would tell me on a certain day, You’re going to die, but not really die. And then you’re bewildered—I’m going to die, but I’m not going to die—what is he talking about? Well, he was talking about the state. I will die to that state. And when after the things happened and I said to him, What did you mean and who told you that I would die and yet not really die? He said to me, The Brothers. That’s all that he would tell me: The Brothers told me that you would die and not really die. The Brothers told me you were coming to me. And what did he mean by the Brothers?—the Elohim, the gods who made us all in their own image.

So tonight, may I tell you, let me share with you the good news. You are told, the very first words given into the world in the mouth of Jesus Christ in the earliest gospel is in Mark, the 14th and 15th verses. The words are: After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.’ The first words put into his mouth. Someone asked the other night concerning changing the picture of this world—the word is repent in the first statement made in that gospel. Repent is a radical change of attitude towards anything that happens to you in this world. I