Response to an inquiry

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you do not mind an equally long-winded response. You have given me a lot to respond to, and I am glad to do it, but please understand that I am not minister or counselor, I am just an aircraft factory mechanic/inspector who learned how to read in seminary forty years ago, and who has done some reading since. I'll try to touch the points you've raised in order as well as I can, but please take my opinions (as well as everyone else's) with a grain of salt. E.g., if everyone is restored to living their next life as a twenty-something as Neville says, what's up with kids?

I appreciate your exuberance and eagerness to learn. That your friends and family are traditional-view Christians is great. You are in a good world for learning the scriptures as history, which is beneficial (else God wouldn't have had them written that way!). You don't mention if your exuberance is due to having received the baptism in the Holy Spirit or some other Pentecostal experience, such as a miraculous healing. That we are baptized in the Holy Spirit in churches that believe the literal-historical interpretation should tell us that God is very tolerant of that view. As Neville mentions in This is Your Future, we authored it.

We are in an odd way in that we believe the whole of scripture is literally true, but not necessarily in that historical-record way. The authors of scripture did use historical persons and events in writing the Bible, but keyed them to their spiritual insights. Not having been there (that we can recollect), none of us know which parts are historical, but we can be pretty sure every part has spiritual insight behind it. The trick, of course, is to figure out what each part is in real life "where the rubber meets the road."

Fillmore may help. I have the dictionary too, as did Neville, and occasionally I'll mine suggestions for interpretations of passages. But that is what they are, suggestions. We are all born into this ignorance and are a bit blind and confused, learning bit by bit, inching higher and higher, "line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Our Big Picture of what is going on is always in flux, always being expanded and revised. Fillmore and all that esoteric group will give you possible orientations to ponder, but revelations come through the spirit inside, usually when you are disarmed, like when you are "mindlessly" thinking while taking a shower or out for a walk (when we shut up, he can "talk"). It is kind of funny: mid-stride and all of a suddenly everything you know gets revised, like God hit an update button or something, and all you can say is, "Oh." (This is called illumination.)

Watch out for occult nut-cases and salesmen, of which there are many. It helps to have a real anchor, an "I know this is real" hard point. For me, at one time Jesus spoke audibly into my hearing nervous system, and at another I watched my shorter arm grow out. Those were real, physical displays of God's inclusive transcendent power which occurred in my personal history. I cannot possible excuse them or rationalize them away. Other "miracles" I have had could be psychological, emotional phenomena, but those two, no. Those were as real as anything else I have known. Everything else I learn has to take those two miracles into account. Almighty God having become my imagination works real well; God a kajillion miles away and running things by a non-touching remote control, not so much.

Probably the most useful tool you could possibly have would be Strong's Exhaustive Concordance with the Hebrew-Chaldee and Greek dictionaries, compact edition. There are a number of good word studies keyed to Strong's, but I got through school before they came out. I go "old school," me and the Holy Spirit. He explains things just fine. And being eternal we are not in a big rush to get it all all at once.

I think almost all people of all faiths realize that scripture is true on many levels. It is true in a historical sense and a in a personal sense, in a sociological sense and psychological, and in higher spiritual senses . . . up unto the reality of God's beingness which we are endeavoring to fathom. We don't need to tell people that we do not believe the historicity of the Bible--we don't know any better than they, anyway. But the spirit does reveal higher levels of truth, and we can tell people that we are investigating those levels, too, if they ask. Why? "Because I want to know them." Jonathan saying (in effect) to his armor bearer, "Let us go up," and the Philistines melting away from before him (1 Sam. 14) comes to mind. He didn't tell his father he was going up to battle, but his dad noticed later.

Neville-thumping goes over about as well as Bible-thumping, and anything that smacks of being spiritually different than the orthodox beliefs are usually considered Satanically inspired. I doubt .001% of Christians or Jews know that the original Bible has been altered--as documented by the Jews, or that the translation of the original texts has been guided by the philosophies and politics and, sadly, the ignorance of the translators. I spent a lot of time correcting my Bible (Bullinger's Companion Bible) according to Bullinger's appendixes 31-34. His margin notes are chock-full of corrections and clarifications, too, but be aware that he was an ultra-dispensationalist and literal-historical type.

By the way, I hope you understand that God speaks to us in illustrations. We "see" something, some relationship maybe, and "hear" what he is saying by its illustrative value. I think that is why the scriptures are all stories and symbols.

Neville was real clear about how UNclear people's ideas of "imagination" are. When we say, "God is our imagination," they hear "God is imaginARY" or "Our minds are God." That "beyond-being" thing that is God, the Ineffable, has no corporal body yet managed to "move" with what we liken to thought. That would be imagining. With absolutely nothing before him, not even the endlessness (Ein Sof), he imagined everything that could be and everything that could possibly happen to it. And he fixed a kind of end to it, I think a running end where each "end" in perfection opens to a new possibility for something else's perfection. Anyway, I think you can tell people that if God can see us and think about us, etc., then he has to have an imagination like that imagination by which we see and think about things. Our imagination is how we know that we "are" and is as much as breath to our life. Which is a good simile because God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life--life, not air--His spirit that made Adam a living being.

The non-dual concept of advaita is valuable. That is Sanskrit for "not divided": God is not one--there is a bunch of us--yet not two. When he breathes life into man, he doesn't divide from that breath. The "flip-side" of the breath, the living man, doesn't know it, but his consciousness/imagination is on its flip side that UNparted spirit of God. That UNparted spirit of God spoke to me and lengthened my arm and healed my friend and welled-up like living waters of joy and gratitude and adoration in my bowels, and then, using "my" mouth and breath, It spoke of God's glory in a language I had never learned. I almost disjointedly observed it.

Which brings me to this closure: "This kind comes forth by nothing but prayer and fasting." It occurred to me the other night--showering, of course--that fasting is not not eating, but not doing anything. Like Neville was told, "Do nothing!"  He had prayed (imagining vividly that he was home with an honorable discharge), now God would display his power by doing what man cannot do. And the solution to the problem (symbolized by an epileptic son) would come forth . . . by "nothing": "Put - your - hands - down." Don't we do this at healing services? We pray and get out of the way, and "simply receive." I guess we could say they come forth by No-thing.

HOWSOEVER, we have to pick our wars. Having very limited time to do more than to post my ruminations, I don't get to spend the time I would like in meditation and praying. I wish there was a prayer and meditation center/facility near where I live. Being young and healthy, you might consider mastering this stuff and coming up with a business plan for such a center where you live. Times for teaching, times for practice, times for group practice of focused intention.

A must-have text: God is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by the late Rabbi David A. Cooper. The point of the Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess (Gandy and Freke) is that "Christianity" is ages older than we think and the "Goddess" is the oneness of God. Sorry to be a spoiler. Fun for me was Gerald Massey's diatribes against organized Christianity. I almost bought the Desert of Amenta and Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World. The other people in Theosophy I can do without. Aryeh Kaplan has a good book on Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide (1985, Schocken Books), I think well worth the money. Your mind can get really fried trying to read the Zohar and other Jewish mystical books. Cooper is frying enough. Lastly, consider investing in Victor Alexander's translations. They are pricy in my mind, but present another view of the Bible entirely. He is literal-historical, but you have to wonder how he can be and still translate like he does. I asked him. He says he doesn't read it and question it, he just translates it. Western mistranslations bug the heck out of him. Got to love him.

Start your reading with Mark, the first writer of a Gospel. When you read up on the Therapeutae and Christian Lindtner's theory (see Vivekananda, too), you might see the plausibility of Mark having been a Buddhist missionary to the West. Seeing what the O. T. scriptures actually say and hearing all the insanity of the Pharisees, scribes etc., he invented a representative of God, Jesus Christ, to answer them. Good tactic. I think he might have modeled his invented Jesus after the true historical character Jakob, whom we call "the brother of the Lord, James," and Buddha.

 And, I had a good Father's Day. Thanks.

Dan Steele

Nothing adds value like Quality.

---

 

-----Original Message-----
From: G S
To: imagicworldview <imagicworldview@aol.com>
Sent: Sat, Jun 14, 2014 7:39 am
Subject: Thank You

Hello Daniel,

I found your blog two days ago, after searching for information on Neville 

Goddard. I want to thank you for your insights and your willingness to share 

your knowledge.

I came across Neville Goddard's lectures in February 2014, through researching 

and reading Dr Joseph Murphy's books. Neville's teachings have really helped me 

change the way I live my life. I am so hungry for God's word and want his truth 

to be revealed in me. I have recently purchased the Metaphysical Bible 

Dictionary by Charles Fillmore, which I'm hoping will help me better understand 

scripture. I'm very keen to learn, so please feel free to recommend any further 

reading.

Most of my family and friends have traditional christian views. I have shared my 

opinion about using ones imagination to see life as they wish it to be, which 

has benefited some but others need some more time. I haven't told anyone (other 

than my partner) that I share Neville's views regarding the bible not being 

historical and in fact depicting different states of consciousness etc. I think 

they would think me mad if I told them that God is their imagination; but, I 

will do. :)

I want to know the true meaning of scripture inside out and possess an 

unwavering confidence in God. Neville made the statement in his book Your Faith 

is Your Fortune; "mans faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself." 

After reading that I realised that my faith in God had been low, as I had very 

little confidence in myself. However people that meet or know me think I'm  an 

extremely confident and determined person. The truth is I had bouts of 

confidence and determination, but would convince myself that I couldn't succeed 

in a certain area because of XY and Z. However I now know that all things are 

truly possible, not just a pipe dream. All things exist in my imagination, 

therefore whatever I desire and believe to be true is in fact real, regardless 

what my senses may say. I just have to keep persevering. 

Sorry for my long winded introduction. I hope you don't mind me emailing, I just 

wanted to let you know that you're doing a fantastic job. Thank you once again.

GS:)

More on What God Said About Praying, and it wasn't "I am that I am."

Although many people base their theology on God’s saying TO Moses, “I AM THAT I AM,” I do not think God said that at all. I think those words are an undocumented alteration of the text by the Sopherim, and that the original words were the Hebrew equivalent of the Aramaic "Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh," which I loosely translate as, "By entranced imagining, I myself come into his being.”

Say what?

I believe that the Sopherim revised the scriptures to PROJECT their dualistic sense of monotheism, of which "I AM THAT I AM" is a perfect example. It is absolutely monotheistic and perfectly separate. BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY THEY UNDERSTOOD THE SCRIPTURES FROM THEIR MISREADING OF THEM.

They read the Bible, and still read it (yes, they are still with us), as a record of literal history. Their twisting of the scriptures was not an evil conspiracy, just human stupidity from that ignorance by which we all initially perceive the world—that we are the body and brain and not God’s spirit animating the body from the annexed brain.

The alternative—the ORIGINAL WORDS OF GOD IN MOSES—just wouldn’t work for them. Those words said in effect, “I have become everything, including you, and I am you becoming everything by the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, your imagination (the ancient name [nature] of God, Ashur).”

Yeah, way different.

So, in the context of Moses’ wondering about where miraculous increase, provision and abundance comes from, God in Moses, as Moses, explained the spiritual mechanics of praying—personally going into imagining what you want -- the coming of what you wanted—which is what He is doing 24/7 in eternity.

This suggests, does it not, that the Ineffable Supra-being, not having any corporal body, is imagining everything that DOES exist. I caught a line of thought somewhere, I think it was in a late Neville audio lecture, that the physical particles of the universe formed only to support the spirit experiences decreed by the imagining of the Ineffable . . . who has become us.

So, say a girl wanted to experience the sensation of swooning from a passionate kiss . . . AND SO IMAGINED THAT SWOONING-EXPERIENCE AS REAL, the kisser would manifest in the natural course of time to provide that the kiss to manifest that swooning experience. It is the experience of the spirit-being inside that “manifests in reality,” not its physical corollaries.

So it isn’t the million dollars we want to manifest, but the EXPERIENCE OF HAVING of such wealth as a million dollars by any means. “Believe ye receive the experience, and ye shall have.”

Yes, that is wishful thinking, BUT HOW FULLY CAN YOU SURRENDER TO THE DREAM WITHOUT BEING AFRAID? The Ineffable goes really, really far—my flesh feels concrete, cold and pain.


Of course, other factors related to the experience come into play. Like permanence of relationship, the circumstances and situation, intents and purposes, health, etc.

What God said about praying: God did NOT say, "I AM THAT I AM." Fix your theology, fix your philosophy, and fix your life: find salvation and healing by reading Exodus 3: 14 CORRECTLY and doing what God said to do.

I believe absolutely the eternal self-existence of Triune God and the inerrancy of the scriptures as they were written by the prophets. I have reason to believe that Moses did not say in Exodus 3: 14 that God explained his existence as "I AM THAT I AM."

I believe that the ancient Aramaic text more accurately reflects what Moses actually wrote than the current Hebrew text. The ancient Jewish sopherim had very good reason to change the text from what Moses said to what it suggests now, for they certainly could not accept its implication of God's physicality (anthropopatheia: the ascribing to God what belongs to human and rational beings, irrational creatures, or inanimate things; see Bullinger, The Companion Bible, appendixes 6 and 33). Wherever that occurred, they cut or changed it.

Even though it is not on any list of emendations by the sopherim, I believe Exodus 3: 14 originally had such a strong implication of God's physicality that the sopherim had to change it (else their theology wouldn't work; nor will western Christianity's), and that change occurred after the Aramaic text was created, leaving the Aramaic scripture the only harbinger of the original. This is one of the "bennies" of reading Victor Alexander's translation of the ancient Aramaic text (see v-a.com/bible).

I think all can agree on the eternal self-existence of the ineffable Most High God--the Source and uncaused First Cause of all implied by "I AM THAT I AM." We wouldn't bother to worship God as God otherwise. But neither his existence nor his name was what God was talking to Moses about. What God was talking to Moses about was his nature (Hebrew: shem). Shem means a thing's nature, and our theology is way off because God's nature is revealed by what he does, which was revealed in Exodus 3: 14 before it was changed. 

In Exodus 3: 14, God effectively explained praying (which is our doing what he does), and we are supposed to read the passage as such. He said in effect, "This is how we jethro (create expansion/increase)." Because this implied that he, God, had become us, it blew the sopherim's minds and they could not accept it: "No, no, no. That cannot be right. We have got to fix this."

Moses was a spiritually aware man. That is what 'Moses', "a son born," means. Being spiritually perceptive, he was fascinated by jethro. Jethro means "jutting over the brim." We call it excellence, abundance, wealth, increase, healing and prosperity. Jethro is abundant provision. It is also a miracle. The miracle part fascinated Moses.

"What is up with that?" he wondered. "In the middle of a drought, a guy plants the last of his seed in faith . . . and reaps a hundred-fold. That kind of increase is not normal . . . except when the guy does it in faith--then it seems to happen all the time." Moses perceived that the increase was providential--God directed. He surmised that where he could find jethro working was where he could find God.

But what were the mechanics of it? Where do you put in the gas and what makes it work "under the hood"? What indicates that it is working? Moses knew it had something to do with faith. Hmmm.

God wants to be known. He descended to ascend, and our ignorance is his main hold-up. Moses had followed his thoughts of jethro about as far as he humanly could and finally came to the end of his thinking. Finally, he shut up. Then God could proceed to talk about ascending (God's inclusive transcendence is a two-way street, and he wants to get us moving toward the goal).

"You want to find the power, the mechanism that will afford you a serene, prosperous, healthy, and spiritually progressive life? You want not famine and hardship but to be constantly in the heart of jethro--'the land of milk and honey'--the perfect country?" 

Then the big doctrinal bomb: "Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh," the mechanics of effective praying--how to utilize God's nature by faith: "You become what you want in mind, and by vivid, strong imagining it becomes manifest." 

'Ahiyeh': It is God's nature to increase, to expand, to become. "I come in my becoming." 

'Ashur': It is God's nature to imagine and to believe. "I create what I want in my mind. What I imagine IS real." 

'Hiyeh': It is God's nature to expand, to manifest in reality what he would have and be. "I become his becoming." 

You can take it to the bank: this is how God creates the world: he defines it, he imagines it, and he becomes it. And he has become us: the one him is in all of us. "He who imagined human imaginations has become human imaginations." You and I are the Father, Jesus Christ, the Manifestation and the Creator of the world, though in our ignorance and confusion we think we are the human flesh. All of us together are a single entity in action: YHWH (Jehovah). 

This is what theology is supposed to reflect. The awareness of being that we are inside (the "I think, therefore I am" guy) is the same God who created the world and inspired the prophets. From God's level of awareness we "flipped" to man's, which is abject ignorance (we had to forget all our past to begin the process of learning the Ineffable's rightness, freedom and independence, which is pretty much our over-all goal).

Human imaginations are the voluntarily self-ignoranced power and wisdom of God. We became this in order to enjoy the generation of ascendance we prophesied as God before we flipped into this life of death (i.e., complete forgetting). The Bible we inspired was to smarten us back up to the Law, which is the NATURE of God into whom we are ascending. 

Jesus Christ is the spirit (in us) of prophecy of that ascendance; the Holy Spirit beings the Law, God's nature, to our remembrance. That is not intellectual Bible knowledge but the ecstasy of spirit experience. Everything we prophesied will come to pass, for in the volume of our book it is written of us. It is all about the ascendance to the completed spirit-state of Man.

If Moses' "resting in the Lord" (meditation) was Noah, Ahiyeh, Ashur and hiyeh were Shem, Ham and Japheth. The "burning" bush who confronted Moses was the same Shining One who confronted Adam. To whom has the Arm of the Lord been revealed? To Moses. We are all sons born. 

The children of Israel enslaved in Egypt are our godly imaginings constrained by the stupidity of thinking that our consciousness is of the flesh: "When my thoughts towards faith consider, 'What is His nature?' what should I remind myself?"

Just as Abel and Jacob were the spiritual sides of Cain and Esau, Israel is our spiritual side, our God-ward thoughts. Egypt is the ignorance our minds are stuck in, our thinking that we are human flesh instead of God's spirit who is making the flesh to live. God will destroy this ignorance to display his Glory in us. In the Hebrew compound word 'Israel', God is the doer of the verb part of the word: man ruling. The divine in us will win out and usurp the world of flesh.

We are becoming the ascended, perfect man. It is our irrevocable destiny, for Christ is risen in the planned end, and we are Christ going to that end. 

So, Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh: become in vivid, impassioned imagining what you want to exist as . . . with the confidence that it IS. We become the experience we created manifested in the world. 

 ____________

Some of my resources: 

From Bullinger's The Companion Bible margin note on Genesis 1, verse 2, I learned that the single Hebrew word hayah was translated as is, am, was, become, come to pass, to be, etc., all of which carry the sense of become. All carry the idea of transition from one state to another. Bullinger's note on Genesis 32, verse 28, mentions God being the doer of the verb in Hebrew compound names. Strong's notes that 'name' in Hebrew means nature. The "names" are natures we shall pass through.

From Victor Alexander's Exodus: a translation from the ancient Aramaic margin note on Exodus 3: 14, I learned, well, this:

*3:14 Lit. Aramaic: (1) "Ahiyeh": "the One Who Comes in His Coming," the absolute sense of "the One Who Comes." (2) "Ashur": "the Beginning Spark that kindles the Fire" or "the Light." (3) "Hiyeh": "His Coming." (4) "Ahiyeh" and "hiyeh" are related forms of the same word. They mean more than "the Coming." They signify also the "Eternal Presence," "the Ever-Present," and the "Never Ceasing Intent of the Comer to Come." (5) In the same way, "Ashur" signifies "the Uncreated Creator who Creates Everything from Nothing." (6) Also, "Ashur" signifies: "Above-the-Flames." (See v-a.com/bible)

From Neville Goddard I learned that God is one, us and imagination. Everything Neville wrote and spoke is available free on the Internet, and hundreds of people are making a living selling his public domain materials. Protect your computer from viruses.

One of Neville's most important contributions is the idea of revision. Because our imaginations are the divine being who created us and became us, we also create our worlds. And because we are in ignorance, many of us have screwed up royally. But we can revise the past and unscrew our worlds by reliving the past in our minds and imagining it right. This is why life seems to go in cycles. What we did comes around again in the future for another go at it. We cycle through revision after revision in the course of our lives until we get it right. Neville covers this thoroughly in The Pruning Shears of Revision. (See also The Best, Most Practical of Neville's Lectures http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-best-most-practical-neville-goddard.html) 

Neville meditated as a Jew trained in mysticism. He said he would go into a sleepy, drowsy state and enjoy watching a light blue flame, like alcohol burning, which seemed to float in his closed eyes. When he achieved the sense of also floating as the divine consciousness within, he would imagine exactly the experience he would like to have as though he were actually experiencing it. The trick, he said, was to form in the imagination some scene which would imply that he had already received what he wanted, and then keep repeating that scene over and over and over "until it took on all the tones of reality." And then, if possible, he would fall asleep in that dream.

If I am right about this being the thrust of the scriptures, it seems to me that millions, even billions of people would benefit from learning this technique of mystical praying and the theology behind it.

God did NOT say, "I AM THAT I AM"! Fix your theology, fix your philosophy, fix your life, find salvation and healing and correct your life by reading Exodus 3: 14 correctly.

Superseded by http://imagicworldview.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-god-said-about-praying-god-did-not.html


God did not say to Moses, "I AM THAT I AM" (Exodus 3: 14). I believe the eternal self-existence of Triune God, but that was not what God was talking to Moses about at the time. What God did say to Moses was radically different from that, and our theology is way off.

God explained praying, and we are supposed to read the passage as such. He said in effect, "This is how we jethro (expand exponentially)."

Moses was a spiritually aware man. That is what 'Moses', a son born, means. Being spiritually perceptive, he was fascinated by jethro. Jethro means "jutting over the brim." We call it excellence, abundance, wealth, increase and prosperity. Jethro is abundant provision. It is also a miracle. The miracle part is what fascinated Moses.

"What is up with that?" he wondered. "In the middle of a famine, a guy plants the last of his seed in faith . . . and reaps a hundred-fold. That kind of increase is not normal . . . except it is when the guy does it in faith." Moses perceived that the increase was providential--God super-charged--and that where he found it working was where he would find God.

But what were the mechanics of it? Where do you put in the gas and what makes it work? What indicates that it is working? Moses knew it had something to do with faith. Hmmm.

God wants to be known; he descends to ascend. Moses had followed his thoughts of jethro about as far as he humanly could and finally came to the end of his thinking. Finally, he shut up. Then God could talk toward ascendance.

"You want to find the mechanism, the power that will afford you a pleasant life, serenity, health and healing? You want not famine and hardship but constant living in the heart of jethro, "the land of milk and honey"?

Then the big bomb: "Ahiyeh Ashur hiyeh." No, not "I AM THAT I AM," but the mechanics of effective praying--how to utilize God's nature with faith:

It is God's nature to increase, to become. That is 'Ahiyeh', "I come in my becoming."

It is God's nature to imagine and to believe. That is 'Ashur', "I create what I plan to become in my mind. I believe it. It is as real as manifest to Me."

It is God's nature to expand, to manifest actually what he would have and be. That is 'hiyeh', "I become his becoming."

You can take it to the bank: this is how God creates the world: he defines it, he imagines it, and he becomes it. He has become us. There is one him in all of us. He who imagined us has become our imaginations. You and I are the Father, Jesus Christ, the Manifestation and the Creator of the world. All of us together as a single entity in action: YHWH.

This is what theology is supposed to reflect. The awareness of being in our minds is the same God who created the world and inspired the prophets . . . "flipped" to man's level of awareness, which is abject ignorance (we had to forget all our past in the process of learning freedom and independence). Our imaginations are the "IGNORANCED" power and wisdom of God. We became us in order to enjoy the generation of ascendance we prophesied before we came to this life of death (forgetting). The Bible we inspired was to smarten us up to the Law, the NATURE of God we are ascending to. Jesus Christ is the spirit (in us) of prophecy of that ascendance; the Holy Spirit beings remembrance of the Law. Everything we prophesied will come to pass; in the volume of the book it is written of Me. And your Me. It is all about the ascendance.

If Moses' "resting in the Lord" meditation is Noah, Ahiyeh, Ashur and hiyeh are Shem, Ham and Japheth. The burning bush who confronted Moses was the same Shining One who confronted Adam. This was the mighty arm of YHWH being revealed to Moses.

The children of Israel are our thoughts. Just as Abel and Jacob were the spiritual consciousnesses of Cain and Esau, Israel is our spiritual side, our God-ward thoughts. Egypt is our ignorance, our thinking that we are the human of flesh instead of the spirit making the flesh alive to God. This ignorance is our bondage: the slavery, the darkness and our taskmaster. God will destroy this ignorance to display his Glory in us. In the word 'Israel', God is the doer of the verb part of the word: man ruling. He will win out and usurp the world of flesh.

We are becoming the ascended, perfect man. It is "a long row to hoe," but it is our irrevocable destiny, for Christ is risen in the end, and we are Christ going to that end.

So learn from what God said, "By vivid, creative imagining, my dear e'had, we become the experience we created manifesting in the world; and we will continue doing this until all are the completed, perfect man we planned, Our living image."

____________

Some of my resources:

From Bullinger's The Companion Bible margin note on Genesis 1, verse 2, I learned that the single Hebrew word hayah was translated as is, am, was, become, come to pass, to be, etc., all of which carry the sense of become. All carry the idea of transition from one state to another. Bullinger's note on Genesis 32, verse 28, mentions God being the doer of the verb in Hebrew compound names. Strong's notes that "name" in Hebrew means nature.

From Victor Alexander's Exodus: a translation from the ancient Aramaic margin note on Exodus 3: 14, I learned, well, this:

*3:14 Lit. Aramaic: (1) "Ahiyeh": "the One Who Comes in His Coming," the absolute sense of "the One Who Comes." (2) "Ashur": "the Beginning Spark that kindles the Fire" or "the Light." (3) "Hiyeh": "His Coming." (4) "Ahiyeh" and "hiyeh" are related forms of the same word. They mean more than "the Coming." They signify also the "Eternal Presence," "the Ever-Present," and the "Never Ceasing Intent of the Comer to Come." (5) In the same way, "Ashur" signifies "the Uncreated Creator who Creates Everything from Nothing." (6) Also, "Ashur" signifies: "Above-the-Flames." (See v-a.com/bible)

From Neville Goddard I learned that God is one, us and imagination. Everything Neville wrote and spoke is available free on the Internet, and hundreds of people are making a living selling his public domain materials. Protect your computer from viruses.

One of Neville's most important contributions is the idea of revision. Because our imaginations are that being who created us and became us, we create our worlds. And because we are God's power sleeping in ignorance, many of us have screwed up royally. But we can revise the past and unscrew our worlds by reliving the past in our minds and imagining it right. Neville covers this thoroughly in The Pruning Shears of Revision.

Neville was a meditator, as Jews trained in mysticism are. He said he would go into a sleepy, drowsy state of meditation and enjoy watching a light blue flame--like alcohol burning--that appeared and seemed to dance about floating in the view of his closed eyes. When he achieved the sense of also floating, he would--as that Being who had become him--imagine exactly the experience he would like to receive in reality as though he were actually experiencing it. The trick, he said, was to form some scene in mind which would imply that he had already received what he wanted, and then to keep repeating that scene of having received until it took on "all the tones of reality."

Revision like this is what God is doing in and through us. We cycle through revision after revision in the course of our lives until we get it right.

"I AM THAT I AM" = "I AM THAT MAKING YOU INTO ME"

It struck me the other day that if God is us and is creating in and through our imaginations, which he is, and is perfecting us into his holy image, and if the second I AM in the famous passage of Exodus 3: 14 really means HIS COMING (or HIS BECOMING; see v-a.com/bible comment on passage), then I AM THAT I AM can properly be translated I AM THAT MAKING YOU INTO ME.

Neville Goddard Text: How to Use Your Imagination

Neville Goddard, 1955

HOW TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION

The purpose of this record is to show you how to use your imagination to achieve your every desire. Most men are totally unaware of the creative power of imagination and invariably bow before the dictates of "facts" and accepts life on the basis of the world without. But when you discover this creative power within yourself, you will boldly assert the supremacy of imagination and put all things in subjection to it. When a man speaks of God-in-man, he is totally unaware that this power called God-in-man is man's imagination. THIS is the creative power in man. There is nothing under heaven that is not plastic as potter's clay to the touch of the shaping spirit of imagination.

Once a man said to me, "You know, Neville, I love to listen to you talk about imagination, but as I do so, I invariably touch the chair with my fingers and push my feet into the rug just to keep my sense of the reality and the profundity of things. Well, undoubtedly he is still touching the chair with his fingers and pushing his feet into the rug. Well, let me tell you of another one who didn't touch with her fingers and didn't push that foot of hers onto the board of the streetcar. It's the story of a young girl just turned seventeen. It was Christmas Eve, and she is sad of heart, for that year she had lost her father in an accident, and she is returning home to what seemed to be an empty house. She was untrained to do anything, so got herself a job as a waitress. This night it's quite late, Christmas Eve, it's raining, the car is full of laughing boys and girls home for their Christmas vacation, and she couldn't conceal the tears. Luckily for her, as I said, it was raining, so she stuck her face into the heavens to mingle her tears with rain. And then holding the rail of the streetcar, this is what she did: she said, "This is not rain, why, this is spray from the ocean; and this is not the salt of tears that I taste, for this is the salt of the sea in the wind; and this is not San Diego, this is a ship, and I am coming into the Bay of Samoa." And there she felt the reality of all that she had imagined. Then came the end of the journey and all are out.

Ten days later this girl received a letter from a firm in Chicago saying that her aunt, several years before when she sailed for Europe, deposited with them three thousand dollars with instructions that if she did not return to America, this money should be paid to her niece. They had just received information of the aunt's death and were now acting upon her instructions. One month later this girl sailed for Samoa. As she came into the bay it was late that night and there was salt of the sea in the wind. It wasn't raining, but there was spray in the air. And she actually felt what she'd felt one month before, only this time she had realized her objective.

Now, this whole record is technique. I want to show you today how to put your wonderful imagination right into the feeling of your wish fulfilled and let it remain there and fall asleep in that state. And I promise you, from my own experience, you will realize the state in which you sleep - if you could actually feel yourself right into the situation of your fulfilled desire and continue therein until you fall asleep. As you feel yourself right into it, remain in it until you give it all the tones of reality, until you give it all the sensory vividness of reality. As you do it, in that state, quietly fall into sleep. And in a way you will never know - you could never consciously devise the means that would be employed - you will find yourself moving across a series of events leading you towards the objective realization of this state.

Now, here is a practical technique: The first thing you do, you must know exactly what you want in this world. When you know exactly what you want, make as life-like a representation as possible of what you would see, and what you would touch, and what you would do were you physically present and physically moving in such a state. For example, suppose I wanted a home, but I had no money - but I still know what I want. I, without taking anything into consideration, I would make as life-like a representation of the home that I would like, with all the things in it that I would want. And then, this night, as I would go to bed, I would in a state, a drowsy, sleepy state, the state that borders upon sleep, I would imagine that I am actually in such a house, that were I to step off the bed, I would step upon the floor of that house, were I to leave this room, I would enter the room that is adjacent to my imagined room in that house. And while I am touching the furniture and feeling it to be solidly real, and while I am moving from one room to the other in my imaginary house, I would go to sound asleep in that state. And I know that in a way I could not consciously devise, I would realize my house. I have seen it work time and time again

If I wanted promotion in my business I would ask myself, "What additional responsibilities would be mine were I to be given this great promotion? What would I do? What would I say? What would I see? How would I act? And then in my imagination I would begin to see and touch and do and act as I would outwardly see and touch and act were I in that position.

If I now desired the mate of my life, were I now in search of some wonderful girl or some wonderful man, what would I actually find myself doing that would imply that I have found my state? For instance, suppose now I was a lady, one thing I would definitely do, I would wear a wedding ring. I would take my imaginary hands and I would feel the ring that I would imagine to be there. And I would keep on feeling it and feeling it until it seemed to me to be solidly real. I would give it all the sensory vividness I am capable of giving anything. And while I am feeling my imaginary ring - which implies that I am married - I would sleep. This story is told us in The Song of Songs, or A Song of Solomon. It is said, "At night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. I found him whom my soul loveth, and I would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house, right into the chamber of her that conceived me." If I would take that beautiful poem and put it into modern English, into practical language, it would be this: "While sitting in my chair I would feel myself right into the situation of my fulfilled desire, and having felt myself into that state I would not let it go. I would keep that mood alive, and in that mood I would sleep." That is taking it "right into my mother's chamber, into the chamber of her that conceived me."

You know, people are totally unaware of this fantastic power of the imagination, but when man begins to discover this power within him, he never plays the part that he formerly played. He doesn't turn back and become just a reflector of life; from here on in he is the affecter of life. The secret of it is to center your imagination in the feeling of the wish fulfilled and remain therein. For in our capacity to live IN the feeling of the wish fulfilled lies our capacity to live the more abundant life. Most of us are afraid to imagine ourselves as important and noble individuals secure in our contribution to the world just because, at the very moment that we start our assumption, reason and our senses deny the truth of our assumption. We seem to be in the grip of an unconscious urge which makes us cling desperately to the world of familiar things and resist all that threatens to tear us away from our familiar and seemingly safe moorings

Well, I appeal to you to try it. If you try it, you will discover this great wisdom of the ancients. For they told it to us in their own strange, wonderful, symbolical form. But unfortunately you and I misinterpreted their stories and took it for history, when they intended it as instruction to simply achieve our every objective. You see, imagination puts us inwardly in touch with the world of states. These states are existent, they are present now, but they are mere possibilities while we think OF them. But they become overpoweringly real when we think FROM them and dwell IN them.

You know, there is a wide difference between thinking OF what you want in this world and thinking FROM what you want. Let me tell you when I first heard of this strange and wonderful power of the imagination. It was in 1933 in New York City. An old friend of mine taught it to me. He turned to the fourteenth of John, and this is what he read: "In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." He explained to me that this central character of the Gospels was human imagination; that 'mansion' was not a place in some heavenly house, but simply my desire. If I would make a living representation of the state desired and then enter that state and abide in that state, I would realize it.

At the time I wanted to make a trip to the island of Barbados in the West Indies, but I had no money. He explained to me that if I would that night, as I slept in New York City, assume that I was sleeping in my earthly father's house in Barbados and go sound asleep in that state, that I would realize my trip. Well, I took him at his word and tried it. For one month, night after night as I fell asleep I assumed I was sleeping in my father's home in Barbados. At the end of my month an invitation from my family came inviting me to spend the winter in Barbados. I sailed for Barbados the early part of December of that year.

From then on I knew I had found this savior in myself. The old man told me that it would never fail. Even after it happened I could hardly believe that it would not have happened anyway. That's how strange this whole thing is. On reflection, it happens so naturally you begin to feel or to tell yourself, "Well, it would have happened anyway," and you quickly recover from this wonderful experience of yours.

It never failed me if I would give the mood, the imagined mood, sensory vividness. I could tell you unnumbered case histories to show you how it works, but in essence it is simple: You simply know what you want. When you know what you want, you are thinking of it. That is not enough. You must now begin to think FROM it. Well, how could I think from it? I am sitting here, and I desire to be elsewhere. How could I, while sitting here physically, put myself in imagination at a point in space removed from this room and make that real to me? Quite easily. My imagination puts me in touch inwardly with that state. I imagine that I am actually where I desire to be. How can I tell that I am there? There is one way to prove that I am there, for what a man sees when he describes his world is, as he describes it, relative to himself. So what the world looks like depends entirely upon where I stand when I make my observation. So, if as I describe my world it is related to that point in space I imagine that I am occupying, then I must be there. I am not there physically, no, but I AM there in my imagination, and my imagination is my real self! And where I go in imagination and make it real, there I shall go in the flesh, also. When in that state I fall asleep, it is done. I have never seen it fail. So this is the simple technique upon how to use your imagination to realize your every objective.

Here is a very healthy and productive exercise for the imagination, something that you should do daily: Daily relive the day as you wish you had lived it, revising the scenes to make them conform to your ideals. For instance, suppose today's mail brought disappointing news. Revise the letter. Mentally rewrite it and make it conform to the news you wish you had received. Or, suppose you didn't get the letter you wish you had received. Write yourself the letter and imagine that you received such a letter.

Let me tell you a story that took place in New York not very long ago. In my audience sat this lady who had heard me, oh, numerous times, and I was telling the story of revision - that man, not knowing the power of imagination, he goes to sleep at the end of his day, tired and exhausted, accepting as final all the events of the day. And I was trying to show that man should, at that moment before he sleeps, he should rewrite the entire day and make it conform to the day he wished he had experienced. Here is the way a lady wisely used this law of revision: It appears that two years ago she was ordered out of her daughter-in-law's home. For two years there was no correspondence. She had sent her grandson at least two dozen presents in that interval, but not one was ever acknowledged. Having heard the story of revision, this is what she did: As she retired at night, she mentally constructed two letters, one she imagined coming from her grandson, and the other from her daughter-in-law. In these letters they expressed deep affection for her and wondered why she had not called to see them.

This she did for seven consecutive nights, holding in her imaginary hand the letter she imagined she had received and reading these letters over and over until it aroused within her the satisfaction of having heard. Then she slept. On the eighth day she received a letter from her daughter-in-law. On the inside there were two letters, one from her grandson and one from the daughter-in-law. They practically duplicated the imaginary letters that this grandmother had written to herself eight days before.

This art of revision can be used in any department of your life. Take the matter of health. Suppose you were ill. Bring before your mind's eye the image of a friend. Put upon that face an expression which implies that he or she sees in you that which you want the whole world to see. Just imagine he is saying to you that he has never seen you look better, and you reply, "I have never felt better." Suppose your foot was injured. Then do this: Construct mentally a drama which implies that you are walking - that you are doing all the things that you would do if the foot was normal, and do it over and over and over until it takes on the tones of reality. Whenever you do in your imagination that which you would like to do in the outer world, that you WILL do in the outer world.

The one requisite is to arouse your attention in a way, and to such intensity, that you become wholly absorbed in the revised action. You will experience an expansion and refinement of the senses by this imaginative exercise and, eventually, achieve vision in the inner world. The abundant life promised us is ours to enjoy now, but not until we have the sense of the creator as our imagination can we experience it. Persistent imagination, centered in the feeling of the wish fulfilled, is the secret of all successful operations. This alone is the means of fulfilling the intention.

Every stage of man's progress is made by the conscious, voluntary exercise of the imagination. Then you will understand why all poets have stressed the importance of controlled, vivid imagination. Listen to this one by the great William Blake:

In your own bosom you bear your heaven and earth,
And all you behold, though it appears without,
It is within, in your imagination
Of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.

Try it, and you too will prove that your imagination is the creator.

Mental Diets text (improved version of 9/28/2012 post)

Neville Goddard, 1955

MENTAL DIETS

Talking to oneself is a habit everyone indulges in. We could no more stop talking to ourselves than we could stop eating and drinking. All that we can do is control the nature and the direction of our inner conversations. Most of us are totally unaware of the fact that our inner conversations are the causes of the circumstance of our life.

We are told that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." But do we know that man's thinking follows the tracks laid down in his own inner conversations? To turn the tracks to which he is tied in the direction in which he wants to go, he must put off his former conversation, which is called in the Bible the Old Man, and be renewed in the spirit of his mind. Speech is the image of mind; therefore, to change his mind, he must first change his speech. By 'speech' is meant those mental conversations we carry on with ourselves.

The world is a magic circle of infinite possible mental transformations. For there are an infinite number of possible mental conversations. When man discovers the creative power of inner talking, he will realize his function and his mission in life. Then he can act to a purpose. Without such knowledge, he acts unconsciously. Everything is a manifestation of the mental conversations which go on in us without our being aware of them. But as civilized beings, we must become aware of them and act with a purpose.

A man's mental conversations attracts his life. As long as there is no change in his inner talking, the personal history of the man remains the same. To attempt to change the world before we change our inner talking is to struggle against the very nature of things. Man can go 'round and around in the same circle of disappointments and misfortunes, not seeing them as caused by his own negative inner talking, but as caused by others. This may seem far-fetched, but it is a matter which lends itself to research and experiment. The formula the chemist illustrates is not more certainly provable than the formula of this science by which words are clothed in objective reality.

One day a girl told me of her difficulties in working with her employer. She was convinced that he unjustly criticized and rejected her very best efforts. Upon hearing her story, I explained that if she thought him unfair, it was a sure sign that she herself was in need of a new conversation piece. There was no doubt but that she was mentally arguing with her employer, for others only echo that which we whisper to them in secret. She confessed that she argued mentally with him all day long. When she realized what she had been doing, she agreed to change her inner conversations with her employer. She imagined that he had congratulated her on her fine work, and that she in turn had thanked him for his praise and kindness. To her great delight, she soon discovered that her own attitude was the cause of all that befell her. The behavior of her employer reversed itself. It echoed, as it had always done, her mental conversations with him.

I rarely see a person alone without wondering, "to what conversation piece is he tied? On what mysterious track is he walking?" We must begin to take life consciously. For the solution of all problems lies just in this: the Second Man, the Lord from heaven in all of us, is trying to become self-conscious in the body, that he may be about his father's business. What are his labors? To imitate his father, to become master of the Word, master of his inner talking, that he may mold this world of ours into a likeness with the Kingdom of Love.

The prophet said, "Be ye imitators of God as dear children." How would I imitate God? Well, we are told that God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen. This is the way the girl called forth praise and kindness from her employer. She carried on an imaginary conversation with her employer from the premise that he had praised her work, and he did.

Our inner conversations represent in various ways the world we live in. Our individual worlds are self-revelations of our own inner speech. We are told that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof. For by their words shall they be justified, and by their words they shall be condemned. We abandon ourselves to negative inner talking, yet expect to retain command of life. Our present mental conversations do not recede into the past as man believes. They advance into the future to confront us as wasted or invested words. "My Word," said the prophet, "shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in all the things whereto I sent it."

How would I send my Word to help a friend? I would imagine that I am hearing his voice, that he is physically present, that my hand is on him. I would then congratulate him on his good fortune, tell him that I have never seen him look better. I would listen as though I heard him; I would imagine that he is telling me he has never felt better, he has never been happier. And I would know that in this loving, knowing communion with another, a communion populous with loving thoughts and feelings, that my word was sent, and it shall not return unto me void, but it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

"Now it the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." It is only what is done now that counts, even though its effects may not be visible until tomorrow. We call not out loud, but by an inner effort of intense attention. To listen attentively, as though you heard, is to create. The events and relationships of life are your Word made visible. Most of us rob others of their willingness and their ability to be kind and generous by our fixed attitudes towards them. Our attitudes unfold within us in the form of mental conversations. Inner talking from premises of fulfilled desire is the way to consciously create circumstances.

Our inner conversations are perpetually out-pictured all around us in happenings. Therefore, what we desire to see and hear without we must see and hear within, for the whole manifested world goes to show us what use we have made of the Word. If you practice this art of controlled inner speaking, you too will know what a thrill it is to be able to say, "And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe." You will be able to consciously use your imagination to transform and channel the immense creative energies of your inner speech from the mental, emotional level to the physical level. And I do not know what limits, if any, there are to such a process.

What is your aim? Does your inner talking match it? It must, you know, if you would realize your aim. For as the prophet asked, "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" And of course the answer is, "No, they cannot." The two who must agree are your inner conversation and the state desired. That is, what you desire to see and hear without, you must see and hear within. Every stage of man's progress is made by the conscious exercise of his imagination matching his inner speech to his fulfilled desire. As we control our inner talking, matching it to our fulfilled desires, we can lay aside all other processes. Then we simply act by clear imagination and intention: we imagine the wish fulfilled and carry on mental conversations from that premise. The right inner speech is the speech that would be yours were you to realize your ideal. In other words, it is the speech of fulfilled desire.

Now you will understand how wise the ancient was when he told us in the Hermetica, "There are two gifts which God has bestowed upon man alone and on no other mortal creature. These two are Mind and Speech, and the gift of Mind and Speech is equivalent to that of immortality. If a man uses these two gifts rightly, he will differ in nothing from the Immortals. And when he quits his body, Mind and Speech will be his guides, and by them he will be brought into the troop of the gods and the souls that have attained to bliss."

With the gift of Mind and Speech you create the conditions and circumstances of life. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Word, said Hermes, is Son, and Mind is Father of the Word. They are not separate one from the other, for life is the union of Word and Mind. You and your inner talking, or Word, are one. If your mind is one with your inner conversations, then to be transformed in mind is to be transformed in conversation. It was a flash of the deepest insight that taught Paul to write, "Put off the former conversation, the Old Man which is corrupt, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Put on the New Man." "Put on the New Man," and "be renewed in the spirit of your mind," is to change your inner conversation, for speech and mind are one - a change of speech is a change of mind.

The prophet Samuel said, "The Lord spake by me, and his Word was in my tongue." If the Lord's Word was in the prophet's tongue, then the Lord's mouth that uttered the Word must be the prophet's mind, for inner conversations originate in the mind and produce little tiny speech movements in the tongue. The prophet is telling us that the mouth of God is the mind of man, that our inner conversations are the Word of God creating life about us as we create it within ourselves.

In the Bible you are told that the Word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. "See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil, blessings and cursings. Choose life." The conditions and circumstances of life are not created by some power external to yourself; they are the conditions which result from the exercise of your freedom of choice, your freedom to choose the ideas to which you will respond.

Now is the accepted time. This is the day of salvation. Whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things. For your future will be formed by the Word of God which is your present inner talking. You create your future by your inner conversations. The worlds were framed by the Word of God, that is, your inner talking.

See yonder fields?
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn was corn.
The silence and the darkness knew!
So is a man's fate born.
(The Light of Asia)

For ends run true to origins. If you would reap success, you must plant success. The idea in your mind which starts the whole process going is the idea which you accept as truth. This is a very important point to grasp, for truth depends upon the intensity of imagination, not upon "facts." When the girl imagined that her employer was unfair, his behavior confirmed her imagination. When she changed her assumption of him, his behavior reflected the change, proving that an assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact.

The mind always behaves according to the assumption with which it starts. Therefore, to experience success, we must assume that we are successful. We must live wholly on the level of the imagination itself, and it must be consciously and deliberately undertaken. It does not matter if at the present moment external facts deny the truth of your assumption, if you persist in your assumption it will become a fact. Signs follow, they do not precede.

To assume a new concept of yourself is to that extent to change your inner talking or Word of God and is, therefore, putting on the New Man. Our inner talking, though unheard by others, is more productive of future conditions than all the audible promises and threats of men. Your ideal is waiting to be incarnated, but unless you yourself offer it human parentage it is incapable of birth. You must define the person you wish to be and then assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled in faith that that assumption will find expression through you.

The true test of religion is in its use, but men have made it a thing to defend. It is to you that the words are spoken, "Blessed is she that believed, for there shall be an accomplishment of those things which were spoken unto her from the Lord." Test it. Try it. Conceive yourself to be one that you want to be and remain faithful to that conception, for life here is only a training ground for image making. Try it and see if life will not shape itself on the model of your imagination.

Everything in the world bears witness of the use or misuse of man's inner talking. Negative inner talking, particularly evil and envious inner talking, are the breeding ground of the future battlefields and penitentiaries of the world. Through habit man has developed the secret affection for these negative inner conversations. Through them he justifies failure, criticizes his neighbors, gloats over the distress of others, and in general pours out his venom on all. Such misuse of the Word perpetuates the violence of the world.

The transformation of self requires that we meditate on a given phrase, a phrase which implies that our ideal is realized, and inwardly affirm it over and over and over again until we are inwardly affected by its implication, until we are possessed by it. Hold fast to your noble inner convictions or "conversations." Nothing can take them from you but yourself. Nothing can stop them from becoming objective facts. All things are generated out of your imagination by the Word of God, which is your own inner conversation. And every imagination reaps its own Words which it has inwardly spoken.

The great secret of success is a controlled inner conversation from premises of fulfilled desire. The only price you pay for success is the giving up of your former conversation which belongs to the Old Man, the unsuccessful man. The time is ripe for many of us to take conscious charge in creating heaven on earth. To consciously and voluntarily use our imagination, to inwardly hear and only say that which is in harmony with our ideal, is actively bringing heaven to earth. Every time we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another, we are literally mediating God to that one. Always use your imagination masterfully, as a participant, not an onlooker. In using your imagination to transform energy from the mental, emotional level to physical level, extend your senses - look and imagine that you are seeing what you want to see, that you are hearing what you want to hear, and touching what you want to touch. Become intensely aware of doing so. Give your imaginary state all the tones and feeling of reality. Keep on doing so until you arouse within yourself the mood of accomplishment and the feeling of relief.

This is the active, voluntary use of the imagination as distinguished from the passive, involuntary acceptance of appearances. It is by this active, voluntary use of the imagination that the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, is awakened in man. Men call imagination a plaything, the "dream faculty." But actually it is the very gateway of reality. Imagination is the way to the state desired, it is the truth of the state desired, and the life of that state desired. Could you realize this fully, there would you know that what you do in your imagination is the only important thing. Within the circle of our imagination the whole drama of life is being enacted over and over again. Through the bold and active use of the imagination we can stretch out our hand and touch a friend ten thousand miles away and bring health and wealth to the parched lips of his being. It is the way to everything in the world. How else could we function beyond our fleshly limitations? But imagination demands of us a fuller living of our dreams in the present.

Through the portals of the present the whole of time must pass. Imagine elsewhere as here, and then as now. Try it and see. You can always tell if you have succeeded in making the future dream a present fact by observing your inner talking. If you are inwardly saying what you would audibly say were you physically present and physically moving about in that place, then you have succeeded. And you could prophesy it from these inner conversations, and from the moods which they awaken within you, what your future will be. For one power alone makes a prophet - imagination, the divine vision. All that we meet is our Word made visible. And what we do not now comprehend is related by affinity to the unrecognized forces of our own inner conversations and the moods which they arouse within us. If we do not like what is happening to us, it is a sure sign that we are in need of a change of mental diet. For man, we are told, lives not by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And having discovered the mouth of God to be the mind of man, a mind which lives on Words or inner talking, we should feed into our minds only loving, noble thoughts. For with Words or inner talking we build our world.

Let love's lordly hand raise your hunger and thirst to all that is noble and of good report, and let your mind starve e'er you raise your hand to a cup love did not fill or a bowl love did not bless. That you may never again have to say, "What have I said? What have I done, O all powerful human Word?"