An E-mail Exchange I Had With a Christian About Neville Goddard, Part II.

Jake,

I haven’t heard from you, so I figure that either somebody told you that Neville or I was the Devil, or that I said something that offended your sensibilities. Or maybe I just didn't give you all the references to Neville's comments on the New Testament that you wanted.

In any case, I once found a site that allowed the download of something like 210 of Neville's lectures all at once. It was nice, and I have added dozens since then, both written and audio. If you cut Neville, he bled New Testament. Don't let people spook you. Our education is ongoing--we graduate from level to level. You graduated from Methodism; you will graduate from Separatism, too. It will still be the same Bible, the same God, but everything will be different.

Here are some references that have pdf texts and/or audio lectures:

http://realneville.com/text_archive_pdf.htm

http://www.realneville.com/text_archive_pdf.htm

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Neville%20Goddard%22

http://the-creative-higher-intelligence.blogspot.com/2010/10/neville-goddards-audio-lectures.html

http://www.mindserpent.com/?page_id=33

My favorite lectures are God's Law and His Promise, Imagination Plus Faith, Creating with Imagination, Call Upon Self, Unless I go Away, Is Causation Imaginal?, How to Use Your Imagination, The Pruning Shears of Revision, Strong Imagination, This is Your Future, Prune the Vine, The Secret of Imagining, Believe It In. And I have his audio book, Your Faith is Your Fortune. I've got all these on my 1 gig. mp3 player.

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Dan,

Hello again,

You by no means offended me. And I haven't sought out external opinions; I am just not very good at keeping up with e-mails, lol. I am kind of stuck on the pattern of understanding the "Neville" perspective on New Testament Jesus. Did Neville not believe that we will see a return of Jesus Christ as a regenerated being? I have been somewhat of a closet scholar on en- time studies, and I have to say that John's revelation of politics and the different nations that band together and so forth don't seem metaphorical--seeing that I'm watching it all unfold on the evening news!

Other questions I have would be: if God was in everybody, what was the need to crucify His only-begotten Son? What was the need to tarry at the feast of Pentecost and to wait for the Holy Ghost? I ask these questions not in a standoffish manner but out of a personal conviction. Sorry for the delay in responding to your last e-mail. I just happen to be awake late tonight and opened my mail. Please share what you've got regarding Yashua and the New Testament.

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Jake,

No, Neville did not believe that we or anyone else in history would ever see a physically separate human Jesus Christ return from a distant somewhere else. How could we? "Behold, I am with you alway." "Do you not know that Jesus Christ is IN you (i.e., that he IS you), unless you are unregenerate."

The "coming" and "going" of God-consciousness or the Holy Spirit, which is ALWAYS here, must be in the degrees of our perception and awareness of it. The change is in our attention--in the focus of our imagination and attitude. Isn’t this what  repentance is? We had him focused out, but then we changed in attitude and allowed him to be focused in.

It isn't that Neville didn't believe in Jesus. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone who believed in him more. It is just that Jesus is not who or what we thought. Rabbi David A. Cooper, who wrote God is a Verb (I think you must have this), had a bunch of audio files on his web site. I think his heirs have commercialized it all now, but he told the story of one of the famous old rabbis who asked another, wiser rabbi when the Messiah would come. The second rabbi said, “Why don’t you go and ask him?” Later, the second rabbi found the first quite despondent and asked, “What is the matter?” “I found the Messiah and asked him when he would come. He said that he would tomorrow, but he did not come.” The second rabbi said, “This is what He said: ‘Tomorrow, if you will hear my voice.’”

If we will hear his voice. We no hear, he no come, yet he is always here. It is pretty simple, really. He doesn’t come from somewhere else; he pots himself up (turns up the volume) within our hearts. He is the spirit of God in us, the “Adam” (divine life-force) who was in Moses and is in each and every one of us. No him, no life.

The Ineffable, who is imagining us as dumb us, is yet always aware of being himself. The dumb us is him dreaming us. Neville says that when David (the sum of human experience) calls us ”Father,” we remember that we are dreaming. We become aware of being our true self, the dreamer, and memory returns.

You may be relieved to know that I do not agree with Neville 100% on Jesus never being a separate human. I wasn't there with Jacob (James, the “brother” of the Lord) and Mark, of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Ineffable actually imagined Itself to be a human man among us as the person Jesus Christ. Why couldn’t he? I have many reasons, though, to believe that He did not. One reason is that some of the Jews did understand the scriptures. They understood that they have a psychological interpretation and application. The name “James” suggests a man who understood that Jacob in scripture refers to the spiritual nature of man, just as Esau refers to the physical. It suggests also the understanding that YHWH is the PATTERN of Jesus Christ, that the Life-force of God is BECOMING manifest, and that we are a part of—are in—that pattern. “I am Jacob, the brother of that becoming.”

I mean that there were people, a lot of people, who understood that the spirit of God in us is Jesus Christ, and they called it that. And there were people, a lot of people, who interpreted the scriptures as their own illustrious history and destiny of glory for their fine people—obviously superior to all other people, because God had chosen them. These two groups did not get along (Oneness Pentecostals are only half-way there). I can’t go into all the details of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish mystics, Egyptian myths, Alexandrian philosophers, Gnostics, hierophants, Emperor Ashoka and the Therapeutae, but believe me, the place was DYNAMIC with spiritual tensions and perspectives. Personally, I believe that Mark was an Indian Therapeut who saw Jesus in the actions of the historical “James” and composed his own response to the tensions between the spiritual and literal-historical camps of Jews using the “Jesus” he saw in James as his spokesperson.

Hence, Neville says, “There is no other Jesus Christ besides the one who is in you, your own wonderful human imagination.” I don’t have a problem with that, largely because I saw my crucifixion as Jesus Christ when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. I experienced it. That crucifixion was my birth. Later, I saw Jesus being crucified for my sins. At that time he said audibly, “Come unto me.” It took me awhile to reconcile all of that, but yeah, he is my imagination, my “me.” He was me who crucified myself, therefore my sins were forgiven, and I came to the realization of his forgiveness at my repentance.

That Neville or I do not believe in the discrete manifestation of the Ineffable's Imagination as ANOTHER man does not matter. We do believe that He is manifest AS us; that the two natures become combined in each of us. "The Word is in YOUR mouth that YOU mayest do it." "I said, 'YOU are God’" (Psalm 82: 6). How can we possibly read scripture if we DENY these truths? They have to factor-in in our interpretation of the whole. When they are factored in, you have Neville.

What we imagine becomes: we create our own world. With BILLIONS of people imagining the same story over centuries of time, are you surprised that it is becoming manifest on the evening news? The newscasts are creating it as we listen and respond to them emotionally. Ironically, our responses are based upon our misreading of scripture. (We should be surprised if we ever read it right.) May the trump blow and the Lord descend with a shout. Maranatha. But I don’t think it is going to happen that way. Scratch a young convert and he will bleed Thessalonians . . . and Matthew 24, and Revelations, and the Devil’s deception of Eve in the Garden which started the whole thing. We spend DECADES trying to figure all of this stuff out.

What Devil? The story in Genesis is a parallel account of Exodus. Moses encountered the Glory of God in a meditation and repented, but found his long-founded ignorance hard to overcome. “Let my people (thoughts) go!” Adam was Moses running around wantonly in life until he recognized the tree of life/knowledge of good and evil produced Jethro, God’s abundance. “If it works, you have found Him.” Finding that God was his imagination, Moses repented. Eve was Moses seeing that the tree was good for food, and she—his desire—encountered not a Devil but same Shining One Moses encountered in Exodus, because “Eve” was Moses. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is the story of Moses discovering that God is his imagination: “LISTEN! O Israel, the pattern of God, the Most High God, that pattern includes us!”

“What I (the Ineffable in us, as us) imagine, becomes” (Exodus 3: 14, personal translation).

But for centuries the literal-historical camp has preached Adam and Eve—psychological features of ourselves—as the historical ancestors of mankind. OMG are we stupid. So Paul, yes, repented and now a Pentecostal preacher, preaches the prevailing mindset: a historical Adam and Eve, a historical Jesus, a historical return to our superior position in society. THAT is Thessalonians: a foretaste of Glory and a lot of residual ignorance. Now read Ephesians. Israel has gotten out of Egypt, and the Lord’s work is now inside. Please note the parallel between Thessalonians being a physical expectation and the physical interpretation of Adam and Eve. We develop and learn and grow over time, and leave the childish things behind.

John isn’t much different in Revelations. I love Ray Summers’ observation that John had a recurring theme: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. That is Jesus Christ who became us. What if there is war? Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. What if there is famine? Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. What if there is pestilence? Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. What if there are corrupt politicians, dictators, bondage and persecution? Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. When all these things happen, look up unto Jesus Christ who became your awareness of being, your imagination, and, getting your act together, call upon God, whom you are, and start to imagine things better.

What else has the Ineffable got to do things? It is invisible spirit stuff—mind; Power that is intelligent , but has no corporal body. It created all things, and matter exists only to facilitate Its desired experiences. Oh, wait, that is us. We are the Ineffable in matter. Hmmm. What should we do about that? Pentecost is harvest. Let’s let It harvest us, and as regenerate beings—Jesus Christ—do all his will. Sorry, I don’t have time to wait for the end times. Who cares what is on the tube? I am a Life-giving, Living Branch of Almighty God. Got to go sprout.

Dan