I Am Is the Way: 1966 Lectures

By Neville

Neville was born in Barbados, West Indies in 1905 into a poor English familynine boys and one girlwhere he was raised and educated in a traditional Christian manner. His father who knew about the power of imagining, along with the help of his industrious sons, made the Goddards into the largest business presence in the island, and at his death left all ten children independently wealthy.
At age seventeen Neville left Barbados for New York City where he worked in retail for several years until he became a dancer in Broadway shows. This led to a stint in London where he was introduced to metaphysical thought, and upon returning to New York he began to teach the law of imagining in 1938 to ever-growing audiences in the East, Los Angeles and San Francisco. When he moved his family to Los Angeles in the early 1950s he was attracting crowds of 2,000 for his Sunday talks. Everyone wanted somethinghomes, new jobs, mates, moneyand he successfully taught them how to fulfill those desires through the use of their all-powerful human imaginations. The techniques, testimonies from his audiences, the creative formula, visions, dreams and Bible interpretations are discussed simply and in detail in these lectures. They encourage any seeker to apply his or her imagination for success, and ultimately lead to the appreciation that there is no intermediary between God (mans I AM) and man.

Starting in 1959 he had a series of six visions over a three and a half year periodresurrection/birth from above; David; splitting of the temple/ascension; and the doves descent. Then he understood his mission: To first experience these visions, understand their meanings, and then teach the meaning of these signs that are given to man after multiple lifetimes and all states of consciousness have been played by each individual. These signs confirm the awakening of mans soul. Mans origin and destiny are divinefrom unity into diversity back to unity, with no loss of individuality. All is forgiven and the exile, the prodigal returns to Lordship, greatly expanded by the journey through limitation, illusion and a sleep likened unto death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781490773346

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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YOUR FUTURE

1/04/66

Tonight my subject is Your Future. This is open season for prophesying—astrologists, numerologists, teacup leaves, monkey bones—using all these to tell the future. Well, we will confine ourselves to the Bible, and tonight you will find it the most practical right down here in the world of Caesar. The Bible does not tell any man that he has a predetermined future in the world of Caesar. Everything here is conditioned. The Bible teaches that you have an ultimate future which is to awaken as God; that’s your real future that’s unconditional, unearned. You don’t earn it, it’s a gift. It’s called in the Bible grace. So everyone is destined to succeed because God is playing the part, playing all the parts; and in the end he awakens and you are he. On this level everything is conditioned.

Now we turn to the Book of Matthew, the 21st chapter, the 22nd verse: Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith. It doesn’t say that you ask for things that are good for you…whatever is all inclusive. Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive if you have faith.

Now prophets, as Blake told the Bishop Rexford, in the modern sense of the word have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a prophet. We value his opinion both private and public in this way: if you go so, the result is so. He shall never say so-and-so shall happen let you do what you will. He will never say that, for he is a seer, not an arbitrary dictator. You go to a medium and they will tell you so-and-so is going to happen to you, allowing you to be anything you want to be in the meanwhile. It’s not true, it’s a lie. The only way it would come true or could come true is if on departure you believe what you heard. If you believed it and completely convinced yourself of the truth of what he or she said, whether they use tea leaves or coffee grounds or stars or anything else, your future is in your hands. You cannot be in one state of consciousness and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state of consciousness. You cannot change the course of your future life so long as your present state remains the same. A change of state is a change of your world. This whole vast world is infinite response. It’s response to you; you are the operant power.

Listen to the words of scripture, "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). We love because he first loved us. What he? He’s speaking of God. Something out there? No, God is in man as man’s own wonderful human Imagination. So I will now have the world respond? Well, then I must be the operant power and ___(??) it. What would I do? Well, I’d make a selection, single out what I want to be this year 1966; assume that I am it; persuade myself that I am it now, though not a thing in this world suggests that I am it or could even become it; and to the degree that I am self-persuaded the world will respond. It has to! The little word because implies causation: Because he first loved us. You dwell upon it.

Let me tell you a story…you may go out on a limb and tell it. You need not wait until it happens and hope that they will believe you. You can tell it before it takes place if you have faith. A few weeks ago I told you the stories of a lady who came here with her husband. He is her minister. She took eleven case histories…nine had come to pass. She wrote of eleven—two were prophetic in the sense they had not yet been realized. You who were here that night will recall the stories. This is one not yet realized. The day was July 27th of last year. She said to her husband Daniel, the minister, I want you to play this record back for me in your mind…not audibly. Sit quietly and listen to my voice and this is what you’re going to hear, ‘Danny, I am so happy that you have sold your song and have your 100,000-a-year-plus income.’ You play it over and over until my voice becomes as natural to you in this imaginary state as it is when I’m talking to you now. One month later, on the 29th of August…now I do not know these people in the theatrical world. I’ve been out of it for years and years. I do not know the terminology of the musical world. But she said this lady and she called her by name (she did not confine me to secrecy), the name is Gloria Wood, whoever she is, never heard of her. She said that she has nine gold star records (whatever that means). She is a commercial artist and receives as high as $50,000 for one commercial jingle that only goes a half-minute. She likes Danny’s voice, likes his songs, and said to him after the service that she would like to help him. Then, said she, at the very end of her note to me, This is prophetic. I am sure this will be as real as the nine that I have told you that are already behind us.

On Christmas week, Danny calls up and he tell us—my wife answered the phone—‘I know that my wife told you of my hope to put my songs over in an album, well, (calling this same lady by name), she has the reputation’—her name associated with his is an instantaneous sale—‘we’ve made the album. It’s distributed by the company who has promoted her to the tune of nine gold records!’ Now, $100,000…it just started. But her name was identified with his name on the records in his album, using only his songs, and he plays piano. In fact, he’s a one-man-show: plays the organ, he’s his own chorus, he’s the minister, and he does everything but take up the collection. You’ve seen him here…big strapping fellow. Well that’s one.

Now, to come back to our theme tonight, your future is in your hands, as based upon that verse in the 21st chapter, the 22nd verse of Matthew: Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have… First of all, when you read it you will think…you’ve been taught by your ministers to pray audibly, get down on your knees and say the words. You go to these churches…over the weekend if you like the ballgames as I do, each started with a huge big prayer. One hundred thousand on the outside and one man is leading them in prayer. He couldn’t possibly begin to believe what I want. You if you were present, how could he possibly lead you in prayer? Prayer is a very individual thing. No two tonight in this room desire the same thing and he’s leading 100,000 in prayer, in this audible prayer. You don’t do it that way. The word prayer as used in the Bible means motion towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of. That’s the meaning of the word prayer. So I have a desire. How am I going to move towards the fulfillment of it? How will I get near? Suppose my desire this night would take me to the East, how would I get near 3,000 miles away? Because I am all Imagination, it’s easy. Man is all Imagination and God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God himself (Blake, Annotations to Berkeley). All things are possible to God. Is there something you can’t imagine? You may not believe it, but don’t tell me you can’t imagine it!

So now here is the story. In one of my books—I can’t recall the title of the book.—if you are familiar with my books, you’ll know it. But I’m quite sure that the majority here have never read it or heard this story. The lady to whom it happened did not confine me or in any way swear me to secrecy. She’s a gracious, wonderful lady, and so I’m going to use her name. Not to drop names but to let you know who she is, and that with all of her background, tremendous background, she didn’t know how to pray. She’s a pillar of the Episcopal Church in New York City, a pillar of the church. Her name is Mrs. Archibald Roosevelt, the daughter-in-law of our late Teddy Roosevelt. She came to me, in fact she came once a month, at least once a month, for a period of years. She said, "Neville, every year I have rented my town home, and with that rental paid in advance I’ve been able to open my country home in Long Island. This year for the first time in over twenty years no one has shown any interest. We have the same real estate agent in the same social world that he caters to, but this year the season’s slipping by and rentals will be at an end, for it’s only for the summer. Not one person has shown any interest in taking my apartment, and unless I rent it, I cannot open my home in Long Island.

We have a social position and a political position, but we’re not people of means. My husband works for a salary. We are not wealthy Roosevelts. We are Roosevelts and the name is powerful in the political world and in the social world. The demands on me and my husband are so great because of our name at the end of the year we don’t know where the next is coming from to give to charity as is expected of us. We have many children and like all mothers the world over, all parents, there’s always need and so they come first. So there is always need from one or the other of the five that we have. So, what must I do? I said, you’ve been coming here over the years now. You know about me ___(??) from the past. I’ll tell it all over again. If you rented your place today, where would you sleep tonight? She said, Where I slept last night. I said, Where was that? In my New York apartment. I said, No you rented it. You aren’t taking in boarders, you rented the place. Oh, but she said, in the past I always had grace…three, four, five days to get ready and then they would come in after I moved. I said, no, this is an emergency. They rented it, made your payment in advance, and they want to occupy today. She said, Well, under such circumstances I wouldn’t waste the money by going to a hotel, I would go straight to my home in Long Island, even though it’s not ready to receive the family. I said, that’s where you sleep tonight! Oh, she said, that isn’t practical.

I said, I am not telling you you are going to sleep there physically; you are going to sleep there in your Imagination. Your Imagination is the real you, Mrs. Roosevelt. I’m looking at a mask. If I could tear it away, I would see God unmasked. But here, I’m looking at a woman who in the world of Caesar is prominent. I’m speaking now to the God in this woman, to your own wonderful human Imagination. And in your Imagination you sleep this night in your home in Long Island. To prove that you are there, you must think of this apartment, and you cannot see it under you, around you and over you. You must see it across the East River in Manhattan, and you must feel the naturalness of your home in Long Island. She said to me, "If this works, I’ll call you. I said, the only if" about it is if you do it. If you do it, you’ll call me. But you know, you’re one of nine in the Bible. He said, were there not ten or you and only one returned to give thanks, and the one that returned was a stranger, a Samaritan. The other nine got the same results, but they didn’t return. You’ve been coming here over the years and often I’ve read of the answer to your request in this group in the newspapers…I never got it from you. But let it not work, you’re on the phone to tell me, like all the others. Let it work…he should know anyway…and so I’ve grown indifferent to the working or not working. I know the law cannot fail. I have taken it from scripture and the Word of God is true, everlastingly true, and that sentence is true. So tonight, you sleep in your Imagination in your home in Long Island.

This was on Thursday. She went to bed early that night, about nine. She said to her husband and family, I do not wish to be disturbed unless there is an emergency. Do not call me for any other reason. At nine she retired and to prove she was in the home in Long Island, she thought of her home in Manhattan, and saw it across the East River in Manhattan. She got off the bed in her Imagination and walked through the door into an adjacent room that could only be entered were she in the home in Long Island. She did these many little things and gave this imaginal state all the sensory vividness and all the tones of reality that she could possibly muster. Then she slipped into the deep. In other words, if I were to define faith for you, faith is a simple surrender of self to the Spirit of God. God is your own wonderful I-am-ness, is he not? That’s my name forever. So I’m on my bed…I’ve just done things that would prove to me I am in my home in Long Island. And the reason why I’m here, my place rented, and I’m very happy about the tenant. This was on Thursday.

On Friday noon or there about, the phone rang and the agent called her, I have someone interested in your apartment, may I bring him? Certainly! A man came up, he had all the necessary references, he had all the qualifications, and he offered her a check without any argument in advance for the entire summer months. But one condition he imposed upon her: He wanted immediate occupancy that day, which is now Friday. If you could get out today, I’ll take it…but only on condition you move today. She said, This has never happened to me before, but if this is your condition I will get out. She called her husband about what happened and he said, It’s perfectly alright. Get your things together as quickly as you can. I will take off and I will come and help and we’ll move to the home in Long Island. This was on Friday. On Saturday morning at nine, Mrs. Roosevelt is on the telephone and she said, Neville, this is Mrs. Roosevelt. I said, Yes? She said, I slept in my home in Long Island last night. She expected me to be thrilled. I said I’m not surprised. If you did what I told you to do, you had to sleep there last night! Well, she was a little bit taken aback, because she thought now this is a miracle and I should rejoice. All others are miracles too, but she never called me until I put my foot down and said you’re just like the other nine that never come back and say thank you.

And so that was the story of motion towards. In what way—in your Imagination— accession to; at or in the vicinity of—at the house, in the house, right in the vicinity of the house. And she did it. To locate herself and make it seem natural she thought of her home across the river and saw it away in the distance in her Imagination, but not under her and not around her and certainly not over her. That story, as I’ve told you, I could just add all the little places to it to make it all the more beautiful as it actually happened.

So I tell you, your future is not in the stars, not in teacup leaves, not in anything outside of your own state of consciousness. Everything is here for the taking. You appropriate it, you live in it, and you conquer it in the world. Listen to these words, By faith he understands that the world was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear (Heb.11:3). Did anything appear outside of her own Imagination? What did she do with visible things? Nothing! If anyone had entered her room in Manhattan that night, they would have seen, if it was a child, their mother—if her husband entered, his wife—seemingly asleep. She was asleep to the world. She had shut out the obvious. As you’re told, When you pray, go within and close the door; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly (Mat. 6:6). What was he seeing in secret? He saw her living in her home in Long Island. He saw her happy because she had rented the New York place. It hadn’t burned down…she was happy about it. But who could have looked to that woman and seen any visible things that she used to construct this scene? So here it is, what is seen is made out of things which do not appear. Now isn’t that clear? So where is my future? It’s within me.

Religion always needs tests. Without it, all religions become distorted into creeds, into some ritual, yes, even into self-centered ___(??). So religion does not ___(??) when it appeals to personal experience despite the risk involved. And I say that advisedly, because many will come here—which will shock you—you think if they heard it on the wing and they were not exposed to it as you are—but many will come here in a meeting like this and I will say over and over always use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of others, never use it in any hateful manner. There is no other; you’re only going to hurt yourself. Always use it lovingly on behalf of others. Yet there are those who will gloat over the hurt of another, and gloat in the presence of others and tell them, I want to see him dead…and he is dying before my face…and hurt these, too, because they don’t want the speaker dead…just actually feel it… then you’re taking this fabulous law that could set you free and bind yourself all the more.

So I will say to you who has done it, you cannot cause me to depart before my time. No one multiplied by all the people of the world has the power to cause my departure one second before my time. You can’t hasten it and you can’t delay it. And it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and be cast into the sea than to dare to put your finger on one whom he has called to tell his story! If you saw tonight’s TV, here is Mike Quinn, head of the Transport Union. He incited the entire city of New York. He was brought before cameras and these are his words…there he is before the cameras and he’s saying, speaking of the judge who sent him to jail, he said, I’m waiting for the sheriff to come and he will take nine of us…and let the judge drop dead and rot in his black robes. I will not said he call back this strike. Alright, the sheriff came through the door and picked him up, put him in the wagon, and off to the city jail. He was there two hours and he came down with a heart attack. Here came the ambulance, they wrapped him up in his blankets, and rolled him out to the waiting ambulance to take him to Belvue. What he wanted for the judge arrived within two hours and happened to him. There is no other. So I tell you, use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of all because there is no other—it’s yourself pushed out. This whole vast world is yourself pushed out.

Your future is really in your hands here in the world of Caesar. But because you don’t use it lovingly…I could never tell you how long, how vast, how severe the anguish before you are brought forth from the furnaces. For you aren’t going to be brought forth from the furnaces and enter the world called the kingdom of God until you are perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. So do unto others as you would have them do unto you, that’s the eternal code. And never accept a feeling of getting even or hurting unless you want the same thing done to you.

So I tell you, the story is true. Whatever, as vast as eternity, you ask in prayer—remember what prayer is, motion towards the fulfillment of the wish fulfilled, that’s motion towards…all in your Imagination. You will receive it, that’s a promise, if you have faith. So take tonight’s definition of faith, which I’ll give you, which is a simple, simple surrender of self to the Spirit of God. You put yourself in the state and sleep, you surrender your Spirit: Into thy hands I commit my Spirit. After having occupied the state, simply relax in that state and God sees the state you’re in, and that’s like a ___(??) and the whole vast world responds to what you have done. You don’t have to ask them anything. Mrs. Roosevelt didn’t go out and come up to a person saying You’ve always over the years rented my place, what’s wrong? She didn’t complain. She simply went home, she believed what I told here, and she applied it. The very next day it’s rented and she has her check for months in advance. With that she could open her place and have a wonderful, wonderful summer.

So let no one put any wet blanket upon you by telling you that the future is already written for you and it’s in the stars. Those wonderful words of Cassius to Brutus, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. Not in the stars! Look there if you want to, but you won’t find them there at all. I’ll tell you a story concerning one who is now gone from this world. Last fall in New York City, I learned that she had just recently before my arrival made her exit. She was a teacher in a high school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She came to New York City, she was a widow, she had a widow’s pension from the railway—she could always travel on the railway without paying anything—but she wanted to live in New York City. She had a nice pension from the school and from the railway; it was adequate, not big. She wanted to do something in the City. Well, my old friend Abdullah…I took her to Abdullah…and she couldn’t quite get the feeling of what Abdullah was trying to get over, but she could believe in astrology.

Well, I think I know how to erect a chart and regress a chart, and so I taught her. I told her, it isn’t there at all, it’s all in you; but if it takes you to persuade you of something nice to tell someone, then use it. But, eventually, you’ll take it like a crutch and throw it away. Well, one day I called on her and she was in tears, actual tears. I said, Norma, what’s wrong? She said, A man came in here, very highly recommended, a good business man, successful, and I read his chart. I told him that he will send me the $100 he promised me he would. In fact, I’m so convinced that it’s true, I said to him, Don’t wait, give it to me now! He said, No, if it works today as you tell me, well, then I will send you the money. I said, well, what’s wrong with that, Norma? She said, The chart wasn’t his chart. I was sitting at the open window and the wind blew over the Ephemerides. They were bound…she had about 100 years of these all bound in one volume, and while sitting at a window she was distracted and she came back, not checking, and drew a chart from what she saw there, not knowing the wind had turned over the pages and she’s now drawing a chart of one who wasn’t born until ten years later. But she said, Neville, I drew a chart of a man who was ten years not yet in this world. And what’s wrong with that? Did you convince him? She said, I think I did, for I said in all seriousness give me the $100 now. If you’re going to send it to me after it works, give it to me now. That seemed to convince him all the more, Neville." I said, it’s done! Forget it! She still couldn’t stop her tears.

That night after dinner I called on her again. I was in her suite of rooms at this Knott (?)

Hotel, at 72nd and Broadway—it’s gone now, of the old Knott chain—when the doorbell rang, it’s a messenger from Western Union. It’s a hundred dollar check, a Western Union check. And she drew a chart of a man who wasn’t born! But she was convinced when she spoke to him—and he didn’t see her tears and our conversation didn’t hear that—so he went away convinced of the reality of her abracadabra. He’s a big business man. You see, it comes in all walks of life. They tell me that Hitler wouldn’t make a move without consulting his astrologer…so they tell me. Where did it get him? Where did it get him finally? And so all this business of something on the outside…she got that $100 and I was in her room when that Western Union boy delivered that Western Union check.

Yes, you can persuade yourself if you want these things, but don’t, don’t resort to anything but God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. If God is the only creator, he is the only receiver as well. So you think of your home right now, who’s doing it? If I said, what are you doing? I—right away you said God—I am and then you name it. Well, who’s doing it? You said, Well, I’m doing it. Well, that’s God. He is the only receiver. But if you don’t know that, you aren’t going to believe in the reality of what you’re doing. So you imagine something now, that’s God doing it, that’s God in action. So when this chap, Danny, imagined his wife’s voice saying, Danny, I’m so happy that you sold your songs and you have a 100,000-plus in income a year, it’s only just on the market this past month of December, but at least it’s in an album. How many people today who have written songs would give anything to make one record of it! And here a woman comes off the street, comes into his little church here on Wilton Place, I think it’s 801 Wilton, and likes the man’s voice, likes what he’s singing, and ___(??) so that right after the meeting she goes up and tells him what she thinks of the songs. Well, that’s just what Danny wanted, and he puts on a whole show for her; and then she said, I want to help you. So she, because she has nine gold star records, she wants to associate her name to help his name, and does it. I think it’s called My Pastor and I…I think it is. He called up and told this story to my wife.

Well, I tell you, your future is not outside your ability to imagine that you are the one that you want to be. Just imagine that you are now the one that you want to be, and forget all these things round about you. If you are faithful to it, surrendering yourself to the Spirit of God, all things being possible to God, it will come to pass in your world. Everything in your world is conditioned. The only unconditioned is God’s ultimate promise to himself which is man that in the end he will awaken and he will be Jesus Christ. You will know there is only Jesus Christ. Everyone will know he is Jesus Christ and yet no loss of identity; although a radical discontinuity of form, for your form will be the glorious risen form of the risen Christ!

Now let us go into the Silence.

*            *            *

Q: (inaudible)

A: I find that many of us try to hold a thought…just identify yourself with a state, and if you are in a state, to prove you’re in it, ___(??) take the presence of your friends, an event. If they see you as they’ve always seen you, then you haven’t changed your state. Because they can’t see you as you were if you change, so let them see the change. ___(??) Don’t carry on a conversation; just allow them to become aware of your new state. Eavesdrop as it were. Hear their conversation.

Q: In the healing miracle, Jesus says, go forth and tell the ___(??). What’s the reason for that?

A: Those who have little faith…he said, I tell you before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe. Read that in the 14th chapter of the Book of John (verse 29). I tell you before it takes place…and they didn’t understand it. I’ll tell you all these things before and when it does take place in you you’ll believe. You have the courage to know that in everyone the thing is going to happen, he tells them. I tell you that God’s plan of salvation must be experienced in everyone, therefore, in everyone individually. So I tell you before it takes place that when it does take place, you’ll believe all that I’ve told you is true.

Q: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.

A: That interpretation? Well, first of all, it’s an actual true story. You’ll find the interpretation of that in the 3rd chapter of John. He’s speaking of the Son of man. The Son of man is the Son of God; the Son of God is the resurrected one. These three are not three persons but one being, designated the Son of God through his resurrection from the dead. And what does he say of the Son of man? He’s asking the Son of man, he identifies him with the Christ, he said, What think ye of the Son of man? What will people say of the Son of man? as you read it in the 16th of Matthew. Some answered, John the Baptist, some say Elijah come again, others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets (verse 13). He doesn’t respond, he said, "Well, what do you say that I am? So he identifies himself with the Son of man. But what do you say, who do you say that I am? Then Peter answered, Thou art the Christ. He accepts that; therefore, the Son of man he calls himself and then he allows him to be called the Christ. In the 3rd of John, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man—which is I AM which is Christ—be lifted up. And that’s an actual true experience. The day will come that some bolt of lightning will split you from top to bottom. Not physically, yet to you it will appear to be a physical act; for you will see your body—but it can’t be this [pointing to body] one, and yet it is a body—split right down the entire spinal column. Every little niche split right in half to the base of your spine. And you will see at the base golden, living, liquid, light. As you look at it, you know it is yourself, and know that It is myself, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer. Then you will fuse with it, you the perceiver, and you’ll go up that spine of yours in a serpentine form just like the Seraphim right into Zion. I, if I be lifted up, I will raise all men unto me."

Q: (inaudible)

A: A negative is just as powerful, because there’s steam behind it. When Mike Quinn tonight said, Let him drop dead in his black robes and rot, he had all the feeling that that sixty-year-old body could muster. He’s been a revolutionary all his life. That’s perfectly alright. He’s done great things for the Transport Union. He’s taken them from starvation-wages up. But you must consider eight million people who live in New York City. It’s costing the city a hundred million dollars a day. Every day that the strike is on, 100 million dollars is lost to the city. He doesn’t care. There must be some way of getting together, and get the men a living wage, whatever they’re asking for. Their present request would take the fifteen cent fare and make it forty-five. Well, a round trip fare on a subway or a bus is up to ninety cents a day. He said, But the city will pay. The city can’t pay anything, you and I will pay. Every increase in taxes must be paid by us. So tonight we have a new budget—110, maybe 115 billion. We were promised only a year ago there would be no increase. It was under 100 billion. So all of sudden you get, well, what does it matter, fifteen billion more, another so-and-so billion more? And then who’s going to pay it? We have to pay it. They say Uncle Sam! He doesn’t exist. The federal government will pay it, with what? They can’t give me one penny until they first take it from me. Take it from me and then give it back to me and say it’s from Uncle Sam…can’t do it.

We go blindly on believing that the other fella’s going to do it. There must be something that is wrong. If the rate isn’t equal to the inflation, the man must get more even though we have to pay. But don’t jump from fifteen cents, thirty cents a day, up to ninety cents. Give him something…maybe up it another twenty cents, fifteen cents. But he said, no, he would not call back his strike. ___(??) dictator. And he was shocked when they said go to jail, because, in the past when Lewis defied the court order they crippled him with the first fine and the union as well. They paid it, Lewis paid it, and the union paid it, but they didn’t send him to jail. Well, tonight when this man has to go to jail with eight other officials of the union, it was an awful blow to one who was so prideful anyway as Quinn is. I’m a great admirer of the Irish. Sometimes I think we are all Irish. He came to this country as a boy, very small boy, and there’s no ___(??). He has contemplated what he thinks America expects an Irishman to sound like. Puts on this brogue that no Irishman speaks that way, carries a shillelagh. But he was cut out for the kind of a person he is. When we came here, someone said tonight that I knew him from the time he was a boy. He came in as a rebel, a raging rebel. What he was looking for ‘something to fight and Englishmen to eat.’ That was his diet. What I’m getting at, he can no more pronounce this thing of death on the judge than he ___(??).

Q: Neville, I’m puzzled over these problems of good and evil. Are not these largely human concepts? Do they have any absolute value?

A: You’re told that only two things displease God, so the Bible teaches. One is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other is the lack of faith in I AM he. These are the only two things that displease God. Unless you believe I am he, you die in your sins (John 8:24) and then the other is eating of the tree that bears good and evil. Look into the world tonight. We’re going to spend and have been spending billions in Vietnam, Southeast Asia. Everyone who is fighting against us thinks they are doing good and we are thinking we are doing good. Well now, who’s doing good? We know we’re doing good, and they know with equal strength they’re doing good. They know we’re doing evil and we know they’re doing evil. And so, when the last war came to an end I was on jury duty, and so the judge said, Don’t ___(??) today. Nothing came very early ___(??) the news early, and so at that moment every German either openly or inwardly wept. They thought they were doing the right thing and we knew we were doing the right thing…every German, every Italian, and every Japanese because they knew it was coming to an end. They knew it couldn’t be far delayed. I’m told, though I don’t know, that something like 80,000 Japanese committed suicide the day that they signed the peace treaty. 80,000 of them because they thought that their good went unnoticed. So good and evil are all relative terms. We have one wonderful code: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You can’t go wrong if that is your code. Would I want it done to me? Well then, don’t do it to the other fellow. And with that as your code you can’t go wrong.

Q: I would like to move next weekend and I’d like to know how I can ___(??).

A: You’d like to move?

Q: Yes, I have the house all picked out and everything.

A: Well, sleep in it mentally.

Q: I’ve been doing that and it seems that it’s at a standstill, but I wondered if perhaps I started packing or something it might help?

A: You don’t have to aid God.

Q: I see…

A: No, she doesn’t have to aid God. I have done these things in idle moments to find that I regretted that I had, because it works. For instance, my wife and I sent off our check to Maine in the year 1941 for a vacation. ___(??) in New York City, when it came to the hot months, people take off July and August and return after Labor Day. So we thought we’d just take our clothes and take off for the month of August and go to Maine, sent our reservations and our check. That very year…it was a cold beastly night in February, and a very small crowd came, about 150-175 and I used to get 750-1,000 people, three times a week in an old church right off Times Square. But the snow was twelve inches on the ground by 6:30 in the evening and it was still coming, so I knew they wouldn’t come out. It was the first night I brought out my book Your Faith is Your Fortune. So naturally, there were just a few people that I could expose the book to. So I went home a little bit disappointed and I slept in the assumption that I was in Barbados in that wonderful warm climate. I could hear the coconut leaves on the top of the shingled roof and smell the tropical odors. I did all the things that were natural ___(??).

Next morning when I woke there weren’t twelve inches; there were twenty inches on the ground. I was still in New York City. But the deep of my being, the soul, did not forget and when I planned a vacation in the month of August in Maine, what I had planted in the month of February was maturing. I got a cable from home saying that mother is in a terminal state and if you want to see her ___(??) come. This was on a Thursday and we ran around getting papers and sailed on Friday night without our papers. 1941submarines were sinking ships left and right, but we went on an American ship with a huge, big flag painted on it, and lights burning all through the day and night. We had escorts taking us through the night. ___(??) huge, big passenger ship and that was the last time she sailed, because we were at war two months later in December.

You see, I planned idly. I slept in Barbados because I was disappointed with the snow and to get away from it all, I actually planted the seed and it came into fruition in the month of August. My wife and I sailed the last of August and spent the month of September and got back here in October. Then Pearl Harbor came in December. You see, don’t do it idly…(tape ends).

BELIEVE IT IN

1/07/66

Tonight’s subject or title is really Believe It In. But the paper didn’t believe that I meant that and so they rearranged it, without my permission, and called it Believe In It. So when they sent the proofs back, it was so late I had no time to correct it because they had gone to press. Well, they did no more than our scholars do to the Bible. We have a passage in the Bible that woman is saved by the bearing of children (1Tim.2:15RSV). They give you a footnote that the real passage reads woman is saved by the birth of the child." It’s all the difference in the world. And through the Bible you’ll find when it does not make sense, our scholars give it sense…and it isn’t so at all. In the Book of Jeremiah, we’re told that man draws himself out of himself, and he begins the drawing when he reaches the hips. He actually comes out of himself, and then he uses his hands to draw the remaining portion. Well, the scholars could not believe that and so they say Why do I see every man with his hands on his hips just like a woman in labor? (30:6)

So I did not intend the title they gave me. The title is Believe It In. The late Robert Frost, oh, maybe two or three years before he died, some reporter from Life magazine interviewed him, and he said—and it startled the readers of Life—that our Founding Fathers did not believe in the future, they believed it in; we are always believing ahead of our evidence. He said, What evidence had I that I could write a poem? I just believed it. He said, The most creative thing in us is to believe a thing in. The Bible teaches that "all things are possible to him who believes" (Mk 9:23)—not a few, not if the wise men say that it is possible, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. If this is true, you and I should devote all of our lives, really, to the mastery of the art of believing.

How to believe when reason denies it, my senses deny it, everything denies it? Yet I am haunted with the statement of scripture, All things are possible to him who believes. So how do I do it? Fawcett said—using the word Imagination, but really you can take the word belief in the same way—he said The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which the mystic aspires, for supreme power, supreme wisdom and supreme delight lie in the far off solution of this mystery. Well, if that is true, I should devote all of my energies to the mastery of this art of believing and the art of imagining. For Imagination and believing are the stuff out of which we fashion our worlds…every one of us. There isn’t a thing in this world that comes suddenly upon us that really did not have its cause in some invisible imaginal state where we believed it. We forgot it, yes, went about our business, things are active, and suddenly it confronts us, and we don’t really recognize our own harvest. But everything comes by reason of the law, and we plant it by believing. We were told the story and we believed it. Others rejected it; we believed it.

Or we can tell ourselves a story. Let me tell you a story that I know intimately, because it’s part of my family’s world. You can’t conceive of anything poorer than to be born on a little island say like Barbados where I was born, and born with a light skin and be poor. If you were born with dark skin, you have a chance. If you were born with a white skin and you have money, tremendous chance. But to be born with white skin and poor, you’re behind the eight-ball at birth. Well, both my father and mother were born in these situations, poor and white. The highest education we had on the island would be what we could call high school, but not the standard we have today or certainly not the standard when my father went to school that we had then in this country. He went as far as he could go and he had to get a job, his first job in the city, paying five shillings a week. A shilling, call it a quarter, it was really twenty-four cents, but call it a quarter. There was no transportation and he lived ten miles in the country from the city. He had to be on the job at six in the morning and he had to walk it. It was six days a week and he walked back when the store closed at six, walked back another ten miles for his five shillings a week.

There was a huge big building judged by other standards on the main street. It was called C. F. Harrison & Company, a department store. They also had a commercial agency in the store. Some nights when he was beastly tired and to compensate he used to play the little game of believing, and to comfort himself he would believe that he owned that store. Well, he was as far from ownership as possible…well, how would I even compare it to something else…my being near the White House. That’s already been ruled out by human law, because I was born outside of continental America, so I would be as far removed, as my father, from owning this building. It occupied a whole block on the main street, a wonderful wide side street to the second street, a whole block. It was owned almost 100 years by the same family, but they lived in England; they never saw it. They hired local men and occasionally they sent a man out from England to take over management. But he played this game and it helped him, it compensated him when he was beastly tired, walking home in the belief he owned C. F. Harrison & Company.

Now, the Bible teaches that every vision has its own appointed hour, it ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late (Hab.2:3). No two seeds have the same time interval to sprout. Some will take years, some will come overnight like a mushroom, but they all come in different time periods. Well, in 1942 the War is on, a 2nd World War. My father in the meanwhile…this goes back into the 19th Century, 1894, 1895, when he was playing this little game of believing. Then he got married and raised ten children. Through hard work, he was given a junior partnership in a small little grocery venture. They carried groceries, liquor, meat, and so on. 1919, for reasons that need not be explained, for they’re still unexplained, he was eased out of his partnership. They wanted it for themselves, and five men got together and eased him out. He had no choice in the matter. He was eased out with ten children, unschooled…where to turn? No equity, really, in that little junior partnership.

It all adds up. With borrowed money he started a little grocery store, that’s all that he knew, and one of my brothers with him. In 1942, a man came by…he was standing at the front of his store looking at this big building, and this friend said, Mr. Joe, what are you doing? Oh, he said, I’m just looking over at this building. I’ve always liked it. He said, Would you like to own it? Huh! he smiled. He said, If any man who owns this building were ever to entertain the thought of selling it, he should have his head fixed. This is a gold mine. It’s owned by an Englishman who is ninety-two years old. He has two sons—one is a priest who doesn’t want any part of the commercial world, and the other has been a playboy all of his life. He has all the money in the world and would have not a thing to do with overseas properties. He has all that he needs in London plus this. This is his, too. Well, he said, I’m just asking said this man to my father. He said, Where is Vic?…Vic is my brother. Oh, he said, he’s somewhere around. I saw him here recently. He said, I want to see Vic. So when Vic came by, he said, I want to see you alone. Took him upstairs to the office and he said, Vic, read this letter. It came from the old man who owns the building, trusting me as an honored friend, a trusted friend, to sell it to some local family who has the island’s interests at heart, who has worked hard and proven by their efforts that they’re really good hard workers and a local family. Vic read the letter and he could hardly believe his eyes. In the letter he said All I want is a good value, no great profit. Value the building, take an inventory of the stock, and then that’s all that I want. But I want whoever buys it to take over the obligations of the insurance policies for my employees. He employed about, oh, maybe seventy people and all were insured against retirement.

So here was the figure when he’d taken inventory. The building is worth…and he quoted a figure. He said, Now let me call my father. Daddy read the letter and then he said, All right, let’s go straight to the bank. I’ll take it, have no money, but I’ll take it. Went to the bank and then he said to the bankers, I need so much, but I can’t tell you why. If you want to know why, I can’t tell you. Cable headquarters in Toronto, and then he made a promise, and tell them we want to borrow a certain sum of money which is in excess of our present loan, but we can’t tell them why we want it. The bank sent back, This is the most unusual request, but we’ve dealt with the Goddards now for twenty-odd years and so we will say yes to this request. Then he wrote a letter, went to the head censor, the War was on, this man’s name was Johnny Walker, a descendant of the Scotch family, he was the head censor, and he said Now Mr. Walker, I want you to read this letter and you will see in this letter that we have said nothing to in any way affect the War effort, no secrets. We are just simply accepting an offer and making an offer. The man read it, he said, Now I want you to seal it in my presence so these 275 girls and boys will not read it after you’ve sealed it. You read it and seal it, and let me see you mail it. For in those days our ships were going down left and right by the subs, so we had no assurance the letter would ever reach England; for we had no other means other than water transportation. Time went by…three months later came a cable, Accept Goddard’s offer. By then the Bank of France wrote the money, the whole thing was done, and it broke in the papers the next day. Every merchant in the island rushed in to buy a piece of it. My father said No, it’s just for the family, just the ten of us, nine brothers and a sister, and my father and mother, that’s all. In fact, mother had just gone, for she left us in 1941.

What I’m getting at is this. The old man was right, Robert Frost: "We’re always believing ahead of our evidence." In the meanwhile he worked, they all worked hard, and then came the evidence of what was no idle daydream, which he indulged in only to help him walk ten miles after being tired all day and walking home to his little hut in the country. That building today with its present rate of business, I don’t think anyone could come for it under, say, eight million dollars. I don’t think anyone…and it’s not for sale because business is too good. The very commercial agencies that we have are in themselves a fantastic business, aside from the actual business that is conducted there. First thing my brother did, he brought in an English architect, disemboweled the place and modernized it, and used every square inch that he could use as against the old concept…like the Emporium in San Francisco. Just disemboweled the center so as to give it air or to watch the people below, something, and all that space is wasted. We had something similar. He put in elevators, put in escalators, and covered the entire four floors, occupying every square foot of the space. And today, it is the most valuable piece of property…all based upon my father’s believing.

The art of believing…he used to practice this every day of his life. He would come home for breakfast. We call breakfast at home the first heavy meal around ten, ten-thirty. Early in the morning it’s really breaking the fast but you do that with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, and then you go off and return around ten, ten-thirty for a substantial meal which we call breakfast. So after this substantial meal he would sit in a chair, and with his eyes partly closed, he would see what he wanted to see. He would imagine what he wanted to imagine, and carry on mental conversations with imaginary people from premises of his fulfilled desire.

So he started from scratch, behind the eight-ball, but if all things are possible to the one who believes, well then, he’s proved it. He had not a thing in this world to support the claim that believing he had it that he would have it. And look at the things that happened in the interval. One became a priest…he wasn’t even born when my father began to do this. The old man who was then ninety-two, if you take off the almost fifty years, well then, he was in his forties, early forties. And if the one who is the priest was born, he was a young man; the other who became a businessman but really a playboy. They never saw their overseas properties; then came two world wars while this little thing is maturing and germinating. So his vision, his belief was in keeping with Habakkuk, The vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens, it will flower. If it be long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late. That’s the 2nd chapter of Habakkuk (verse 3).

So here, the whole vision is for man. You are as free as the wind if you believe these principles in scripture, not based upon anything on the outside at all, all based upon you. Can you believe? And this story is told after the disciples failed to cure a certain lad and they asked, Why did we fail? He said, Because of your unbelief, you faithless generation. How long must I be with you? And then he explained and the father said, I believe you; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24). So that’s what we’re here for, to help each other’s unbelief. You say, I have a certain goal, but so far I haven’t realized it. Well, that’s the purpose of the platform: it’s to help. What are you doing? I find the great fallacy of the whole world in this art of believing is perpetual construction and deferred occupancy. Occupancy is incubating the dream. What do I mean by occupancy? I mean thinking from instead of thinking of. I can stand here and think of for the rest of my days, think of owning that, owning this, or I can think of something I’d like to do; but until I actually occupy it, dwell in it, and look at the world from it, I haven’t incubated it, I haven’t fertilized it. I can take an egg, ___(??) egg, until that sperm enters it isn’t fertilized. How does the sperm enter the egg? It’s still a mystery to our scientists. Well, here a sperm enters the egg from the outside and yet there are no holes on the outside of that egg either before or after fertilization. How did he do it?

Well, you can do it because you are the sperm of God; you are the creative power of God. How do I do it—by Imagination. I can stand here and no power in this world can stop me from imagining that I am where I would like to be. They can’t stop me. I can stand here, you can bind me, you can do anything, but you can’t stop me from imagining that I am, say, in San Francisco. You will say what does that matter? Well, if I desire to go to San Francisco and I haven’t the time or the means, I will go to San Francisco in my Imagination, and things will reshuffle themselves to give me the time and the means. Then I’ll be compelled to move across a bridge of incidents that will lead me from here to where I am in Imagination, and I’ll go to San Francisco. I have done it time and time and time again. So when you know what you want, occupy it. Occupy any state in this world. Occupancy is fertilization, and the egg is not fertilized until you occupy it. When that sperm enters, it doesn’t break the shell. You need no door to open the door; you go in and occupy it.

Now, we are told