An E-mail Exchange I Had With a Christian About Neville Goddard, Part IIl.
Dan,
Hello. It's been a while. I hope you've been doing okay. I've listened to a few of the Neville Goddard's lectures lately and I would say that at minimum I find his lessons insightful to the world of faith. I guess my biggest concern is trying to grasp the idea that the Bible is merely a screenplay. I suppose I can see it in many of the stories of the Old Testament, however from the book of Acts forward it becomes more difficult to see. Additionally, many historians have spent lifetimes proving the genealogy and the geography depicted in our Bible.
It's good to hear from you. I hope you will give me some time in which to reply. I am not a professional counselor or life coach or minister. I want to attack some of the problems I see in your thinking. This is not to attack you, but the problems. This is merely my opinion on the ideas.
"I would say that at minimum I find (Neville's) lessons insightful to the world of faith. I guess my biggest concern is trying to grasp the idea that the Bible is merely a screenplay."
The Bible is not a screenplay; it is revelation of God. THAT is why Neville had faith in it. What it reveals is that the manifestation OF God includes everything we know. The manifestation--Christ--has also become us. Therefore, we are de facto the manifestation of God. Christ is All.
We are the ones writing the screenplay to our getting to the End.
But I get what you mean by "screenplay." It is that the stories in the Bible are not historical record of literal events. Neville's oft stressed opinion was that every word of the Bible is true. It just isn't true in that way. Even if it was, what good would that do us? Our lives are not changed by historical happenings but by their MEANING. Christ was crucified and rose from the dead? Wonderful, but so what? He crucified himself to become me. Oh. And if I, then, am Him, then I SHARE IN HIS LIFE.
I hope your becoming a Pentecostal included the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That "Howdy-do" was a foretaste of what is ours when we overcome our ignorance.
I do not think of Jesus as God's "Word" anymore. As Victor Alexander (v-a.co/bible) points out, the Greek logos, meaning, ironically does not convey the meaning of the Aramaic word milta, manifestation. Word/expression/intention/meaning goes out separate from the body. Milta, manifestation, goes out WITHOUT DIVISION. Manifestation IS the body of God; it is "concrete" appearance: the invisible becomes seen.
The "concrete" is the spirit within us. We have awareness of being--"I think, therefore I am." This is as close perhaps as we shall ever get to seeing Jesus Christ, God in Heaven. "Heaven" is our head-ball, and the spirit thinking, "I think, therefore I am," is Jesus, the manifestation. Take a good look.
"From the book of Acts forward it becomes more difficult to see. Additionally, many historians have spent lifetimes proving the genealogy and the geography depicted in our Bible."
Were that the people in the first and second centuries had the resources our scholars have now. The Steele Hypothesis is that many people before the supposed time of Christ had grasp of the true meaning of Gnosticism, which is what we are actually talking about (though without all the gobbledygook that is usually layered on over the core of Gnostic philosophy).
My impression is that the core of Gnostic philosophy is that it is our experiential knowledge of Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God in us and actually the spirit of God who IS us, being in all actuality the Ineffable who by imagining has become us, saves us.
My hypothesis is that "James the Righteous," who in Hebrew was called Jacob, "the brother of the Lord," had a Gnostic understanding of the Old Testament and of Judaism. Jacob the Righteous embodied Christ, and he had a lot to say about the enterprise the priests, Pharisees and Essene scribes had made of Judaism. He took them to task, and they killed him for it.
This Jacob was known by and much respected by an Indian Therapeute who shared Jacob's Gnostic-core philosophy. We know the Indian, a Buddhist, by the name of Mark. I believe that Mark shared James' appreciation of the Gnostic core of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and what we call today "Christianity"--for groups like the one Jacob led had withdrawn from the folds of the religious organizations and sought to live pleasingly to the God "with whom we have to do."
After Jacob was murdered by the Jews, Mark wrote James' story FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE GNOSTIC-CORE JESUS, who was the real "person" they had rejected and murdered when they rejected and murdered Jacob the Righteous, who we call James, "the brother of the Lord."
You will note that "Mark" was an Indian Buddhist missionary who had worked his way up from India through Persia and back down the fertile crescent to Palestine and probably to Alexandria in Egypt. He was probably a devout student of philosophy and found the common Gnostic core in the religions he encountered and studied. I am not making this stuff up--do your homework looking up the reforms of Emperor Ashoka of India and the mission of the Therapeutae, and also Christian Lindtner's Theory of the Buddhist source material for the Gospel of Mark. Gerald Massey wrote extensively about the influence of the Egyptian myths in the formation of what I call the Hebrew Gospel of Moses in Ancient Egypt, Light of the World.
Mark was also influenced by the Persian Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda, which posits that God is both good and evil. With his intimate knowledge of both the early history of Ashoka and the Jewish priests, Pharisees and scribes, certainly Mark could see the evil that is man's initial ignorant world view.
In telling Jacob's conflict with the literal-historical thinking Jews, Mark wove together all of the insights of wisdom he had learned from the ancients as a revelation of the Gnostic core. That is why we find his Jesus quoting the ancients at every turn and symbolic wisdom stories in every pericope.
Soon after "the Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" was published, people were polarized either for or against Christ and the Jews. Christ need never have lived as a uniquely separate man for the church of Jesus Christ to be born of him. His being Jacob and Jacob's being Him was enough. The present baptism in the Holy Spirit is fully explained by the ecstatic experience of true Gnosticism.
While first and second century Gnostics recognized that Mark's Jesus was the Inner Man and could worship him as God, which he is, the uninitiated figured that Jesus was the Jewish God become a historical man killed some years ago in Palestine and who was coming again is judgment. Paul started this way and taught this (see his epistles to the Thessalonians) and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.
Hmm. Something was screwy. "Let me look at those scriptures again. Let's see, Moses, Joshua, Promised Land, inner man. Oh, I've got it. It happens NOW and in the inner man. I've been looking at the skies. I should be looking inside. Eck. Jesus, forgive me!"
Can you give me some of the greatest realities that you have been able to imagine in as well as the time frames it took to do so.
I promote and promulgate the same Gospel Abdullah and Neville Goddard taught because it is what the Bible actually teaches. I SEE in my life and those of others that what we think and say becomes. Somewhere along the line I heard that my Father knows my needs and will take care of them. Fame and fortune have not been among them as yet. I rest assured in Jesus Christ that I am where I am supposed to be for the development I have, and as I learn more I will develop more.
I know the Law as Abdullah taught it to Neville (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L6B1eGrFvw ), that what we think and believe is what we receive, and I post its use for the sake of those who presently suffer lack because they don't know it because they were never taught it, those who do not have knowledge of nor faith in Jesus Christ as I know him. Think: the homeless. I know that the Law works--I see it in our daily, normal lives--but for myself, whenever I think that I should "prove" it by manifesting something that I want, I cannot for the life of me think of anything that I need.
You said you were watching youtube videos this winter. Did you happen to catch this one on Neale Donald Walsch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOdKB6FWl0
Manifesting for greed's sake. How repulsive. How shallow and immature. Like Walsch said, it is sandbox metaphysics. Neville turned his understanding into a ministry: "I never get tired of hearing good things for others." What if we all--everyone--always thought the best for others? World peace?
I've crammed a plethora of theologies and viewpoints inside my little melon. As I mentioned before I spent many years in the United Pentecostal church. Due to a church scandal from the pulpit my family and I decided to find a new church. This has been no easy task. After many months of visiting affiliated churches in our area we decided to follow a long life desire of moving near the beach. I had hoped there would be more churches than what there are near where we decided to live. Perhaps we bought the cart before the horse.
Sorry about your experience. Scandals, unfortunately, go with the church. Money, power and sex. How could they not? But you decided to move, and there you are. This was the normal and ordinary use of the Law. And surprise, surprise, you crammed a plethora of theologies in your head and now you live where they need a church. Hmm. Maybe there is something you can do about that. "Do you know Jesus the way I know him now? I used to think of him as someone outside and away, but now I know that he is in me, and undivided from me."
The Holy Spirit is ever with us--God's very consciousness!--and is us. He is not separate. He is not in "me," the body; he is in me, my consciousness. I learned long ago that he wanted to be the center of my world, and that if I would listen, he would teach. What you free receive, freely give.
I don't really like talking on the phone. That is where I forget what I wanted to say. Do you really want me calling you up all the time saying, "Hey, something else about . . . "?
Hello. It's been a while. I hope you've been doing okay. I've listened to a few of the Neville Goddard's lectures lately and I would say that at minimum I find his lessons insightful to the world of faith. I guess my biggest concern is trying to grasp the idea that the Bible is merely a screenplay. I suppose I can see it in many of the stories of the Old Testament, however from the book of Acts forward it becomes more difficult to see. Additionally, many historians have spent lifetimes proving the genealogy and the geography depicted in our Bible.
I have a couple of questions for you. The first, as a general question can you
give me some of the greatest realities that you have been able to imagine in as
well as the time frames it took to do so. My next question I would ask of you is
if it would be possible to schedule a phone call sometime in the near future? A
problem I have with communication via email is that a) I'm usually too tired at
the end of the day to make myself log on and type. Secondly by the time I get an
evening where I do not feel too tired to do so I've usually forgotten most
important things I had to ask.
When I originally stumbled upon your blog I was intrigued at many of your
postings. I can honestly say that I really don't have anybody who I can
communicate with regarding the concepts of Neville Goddard.
I have spent the majority of this winter watching countless YouTube videos and
reading my Bible. Most of these actions have been a major blessing, but the
blessing has not been without cost. I've crammed a plethora of theologies and
viewpoints inside my little melon. As I mentioned before I spent many years in
the United Pentecostal church. Due to a church scandal from the pulpit my family
and I decided to find a new church. This has been no easy task. After many
months of visiting affiliated churches in our area we decided to follow a long
life desire of moving near the beach. I had hoped there would be more churches
than what there are near where we decided to live. Perhaps we bought the cart
before the horse.
Nonetheless I hope I'm able to come off as a genuine individual who simply wants
to have a better understanding of these viewpoints we've discussed.
Let me know if there is a time where you would have a few minutes to speak on
the phone as I believe I could glean so much more information in a far shorter
period of time.
I look forward to hearing back from you,
Jake
______________________________________________
Jake,
"I would say that at minimum I find (Neville's) lessons insightful to the world of faith. I guess my biggest concern is trying to grasp the idea that the Bible is merely a screenplay."
The Bible is not a screenplay; it is revelation of God. THAT is why Neville had faith in it. What it reveals is that the manifestation OF God includes everything we know. The manifestation--Christ--has also become us. Therefore, we are de facto the manifestation of God. Christ is All.
We are the ones writing the screenplay to our getting to the End.
But I get what you mean by "screenplay." It is that the stories in the Bible are not historical record of literal events. Neville's oft stressed opinion was that every word of the Bible is true. It just isn't true in that way. Even if it was, what good would that do us? Our lives are not changed by historical happenings but by their MEANING. Christ was crucified and rose from the dead? Wonderful, but so what? He crucified himself to become me. Oh. And if I, then, am Him, then I SHARE IN HIS LIFE.
I hope your becoming a Pentecostal included the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That "Howdy-do" was a foretaste of what is ours when we overcome our ignorance.
I do not think of Jesus as God's "Word" anymore. As Victor Alexander (v-a.co/bible) points out, the Greek logos, meaning, ironically does not convey the meaning of the Aramaic word milta, manifestation. Word/expression/intention/meaning goes out separate from the body. Milta, manifestation, goes out WITHOUT DIVISION. Manifestation IS the body of God; it is "concrete" appearance: the invisible becomes seen.
The "concrete" is the spirit within us. We have awareness of being--"I think, therefore I am." This is as close perhaps as we shall ever get to seeing Jesus Christ, God in Heaven. "Heaven" is our head-ball, and the spirit thinking, "I think, therefore I am," is Jesus, the manifestation. Take a good look.
"From the book of Acts forward it becomes more difficult to see. Additionally, many historians have spent lifetimes proving the genealogy and the geography depicted in our Bible."
Were that the people in the first and second centuries had the resources our scholars have now. The Steele Hypothesis is that many people before the supposed time of Christ had grasp of the true meaning of Gnosticism, which is what we are actually talking about (though without all the gobbledygook that is usually layered on over the core of Gnostic philosophy).
My impression is that the core of Gnostic philosophy is that it is our experiential knowledge of Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God in us and actually the spirit of God who IS us, being in all actuality the Ineffable who by imagining has become us, saves us.
My hypothesis is that "James the Righteous," who in Hebrew was called Jacob, "the brother of the Lord," had a Gnostic understanding of the Old Testament and of Judaism. Jacob the Righteous embodied Christ, and he had a lot to say about the enterprise the priests, Pharisees and Essene scribes had made of Judaism. He took them to task, and they killed him for it.
This Jacob was known by and much respected by an Indian Therapeute who shared Jacob's Gnostic-core philosophy. We know the Indian, a Buddhist, by the name of Mark. I believe that Mark shared James' appreciation of the Gnostic core of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, and what we call today "Christianity"--for groups like the one Jacob led had withdrawn from the folds of the religious organizations and sought to live pleasingly to the God "with whom we have to do."
After Jacob was murdered by the Jews, Mark wrote James' story FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE GNOSTIC-CORE JESUS, who was the real "person" they had rejected and murdered when they rejected and murdered Jacob the Righteous, who we call James, "the brother of the Lord."
You will note that "Mark" was an Indian Buddhist missionary who had worked his way up from India through Persia and back down the fertile crescent to Palestine and probably to Alexandria in Egypt. He was probably a devout student of philosophy and found the common Gnostic core in the religions he encountered and studied. I am not making this stuff up--do your homework looking up the reforms of Emperor Ashoka of India and the mission of the Therapeutae, and also Christian Lindtner's Theory of the Buddhist source material for the Gospel of Mark. Gerald Massey wrote extensively about the influence of the Egyptian myths in the formation of what I call the Hebrew Gospel of Moses in Ancient Egypt, Light of the World.
Mark was also influenced by the Persian Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda, which posits that God is both good and evil. With his intimate knowledge of both the early history of Ashoka and the Jewish priests, Pharisees and scribes, certainly Mark could see the evil that is man's initial ignorant world view.
In telling Jacob's conflict with the literal-historical thinking Jews, Mark wove together all of the insights of wisdom he had learned from the ancients as a revelation of the Gnostic core. That is why we find his Jesus quoting the ancients at every turn and symbolic wisdom stories in every pericope.
Soon after "the Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" was published, people were polarized either for or against Christ and the Jews. Christ need never have lived as a uniquely separate man for the church of Jesus Christ to be born of him. His being Jacob and Jacob's being Him was enough. The present baptism in the Holy Spirit is fully explained by the ecstatic experience of true Gnosticism.
While first and second century Gnostics recognized that Mark's Jesus was the Inner Man and could worship him as God, which he is, the uninitiated figured that Jesus was the Jewish God become a historical man killed some years ago in Palestine and who was coming again is judgment. Paul started this way and taught this (see his epistles to the Thessalonians) and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.
Hmm. Something was screwy. "Let me look at those scriptures again. Let's see, Moses, Joshua, Promised Land, inner man. Oh, I've got it. It happens NOW and in the inner man. I've been looking at the skies. I should be looking inside. Eck. Jesus, forgive me!"
Can you give me some of the greatest realities that you have been able to imagine in as well as the time frames it took to do so.
I promote and promulgate the same Gospel Abdullah and Neville Goddard taught because it is what the Bible actually teaches. I SEE in my life and those of others that what we think and say becomes. Somewhere along the line I heard that my Father knows my needs and will take care of them. Fame and fortune have not been among them as yet. I rest assured in Jesus Christ that I am where I am supposed to be for the development I have, and as I learn more I will develop more.
I know the Law as Abdullah taught it to Neville (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L6B1eGrFvw ), that what we think and believe is what we receive, and I post its use for the sake of those who presently suffer lack because they don't know it because they were never taught it, those who do not have knowledge of nor faith in Jesus Christ as I know him. Think: the homeless. I know that the Law works--I see it in our daily, normal lives--but for myself, whenever I think that I should "prove" it by manifesting something that I want, I cannot for the life of me think of anything that I need.
You said you were watching youtube videos this winter. Did you happen to catch this one on Neale Donald Walsch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOdKB6FWl0
Manifesting for greed's sake. How repulsive. How shallow and immature. Like Walsch said, it is sandbox metaphysics. Neville turned his understanding into a ministry: "I never get tired of hearing good things for others." What if we all--everyone--always thought the best for others? World peace?
I've crammed a plethora of theologies and viewpoints inside my little melon. As I mentioned before I spent many years in the United Pentecostal church. Due to a church scandal from the pulpit my family and I decided to find a new church. This has been no easy task. After many months of visiting affiliated churches in our area we decided to follow a long life desire of moving near the beach. I had hoped there would be more churches than what there are near where we decided to live. Perhaps we bought the cart before the horse.
Sorry about your experience. Scandals, unfortunately, go with the church. Money, power and sex. How could they not? But you decided to move, and there you are. This was the normal and ordinary use of the Law. And surprise, surprise, you crammed a plethora of theologies in your head and now you live where they need a church. Hmm. Maybe there is something you can do about that. "Do you know Jesus the way I know him now? I used to think of him as someone outside and away, but now I know that he is in me, and undivided from me."
The Holy Spirit is ever with us--God's very consciousness!--and is us. He is not separate. He is not in "me," the body; he is in me, my consciousness. I learned long ago that he wanted to be the center of my world, and that if I would listen, he would teach. What you free receive, freely give.
I don't really like talking on the phone. That is where I forget what I wanted to say. Do you really want me calling you up all the time saying, "Hey, something else about . . . "?
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
2:11 AM
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