Cheryl, I May Have Misread Exodus 3:14 And Have God Backwards: Neville Goddard and the Other Imagination Plus Faith
Neville Goddard lectured in numerous cities from the 1930s to the 1970s. No one had the Internet or smartphones back then. Tape recorders were "high tech." So he had to repeat himself, giving the same lecture in different places to different groups. I was listening to Neville speaking in his lecture "Imagination Plus Faith," and realized in the fourth minute that he was saying that our imagination is God OPPOSITE of the way I had understood. So I brought up the text for the lecture, "Imagination Plus Faith," and found that it was not the same lecture. The content is ALMOST the same, but in a different order and missing the explanation of the name of God that is in the audio version. Huh.
I ask you to listen to the first five minutes of the audio "Imagination Plus Faith." That fourth minute is a doozy. I have been reading Exodus 3:14's "I AM THAT I AM" as "I am that 'I am'" (i.e., your 'I am'), and something like "My becoming is Creator of your becoming." But Neville is saying here that our imagination IS the Big Guy, the Great "I AM" as people say. As he reads the Bible, it is Moses' imagination (designated here as "God") addressing him: "I (your imagination) AM THE GREAT ‘I AM.'" It is not "I - the Great I AM - (am also) YOUR 'I AM'." Get it? At least, this seems to be what Neville is saying.
His saying the same in the text version of "Imagination Plus Faith":
"So, it does not mean that because you drop in the year 1971 that you are going to find the year ’71 now. No. You could find yourself in the Year One Thousand or the Year Three Thousand, but that is irrelevant. The section of time into which you are placed is done by the depths of your own being. He knows best what you need for the work: that He has started within you, and He is slowly breaking down the wall of partition between two until they become one. He is rubbing out that wall between you and Himself; when it is completely rubbed out, you are one. It is essential that He leaves all and cleaves to his wife to become one, not two. You are His wife till the sleep of death is passed.
"So, this is God’s emanation, and then, in time, He rubs out that little division and He becomes one with you. And when He becomes one with you, He awakes, and you aren’t two – you are one. And it is all spelled out for us in Scripture, and as we go through this series, the nine that follow tonight, we will try to explain it, using the Scripture to support my experiences. It is clearly stated, but I must confess I did not see it. I did not know it. I knew nothing of the Promise, even though it is right there in the Bible, speaking of promises, until it happened right here in this City twelve years ago tomorrow, on the 20th of July, 1959. It happened right here in this City at that hotel called Sir Francis Drake."
The "depths of your own being" and the "He" here are our human imagination within us. Our awareness of being - THAT is God. And this rubbing out, breaking down the wall of partition is the Promise, the Blessed Hope of Israel. So, Cheryl, the human imagination is the operant power trying to become one with us. Good job.
posted by Daniel C. Branham-Steele at
12:17 PM
4 Comments:
Thank you Dan for the nod my way. I have spent the long weekend reading your posts. I appreciated learning a bit about your background and experiences that have led you to all of this. I was struck by your thoughts that you felt early on that God had rejected you and that is why you did not speak in tongues. I have had the opposite feeling that my lack of experience of God was my shortcomings, not His rejection of me. I have had a handful of mystical and odd experiences though I have never quite known what to make of them. In meditation I have had several experiences where people showed up unexpectedly but it was so shocking it brought me out of it and so I missed the opportunity to know what they were doing in my meditation. I have also heard the voice in my head, commanding me in a moment of despair, giving me good direction. I have a daily practice to work on deepening my spiritual relationship with Him. It is the realization that He and I are One that is perhaps causing me the most confusion. I can't seem to find Him/Me. Knowing and "Knowing" are two different things (if you know what I mean?) This is how I came to the conclusion that through using his imagination, Neville had his birth from above and saw David call him Father. After his manifestation of his trip to Barbados he understood this power of imagination and began to use it until, when he heard the name "God" or "Jesus" he thought of himself. He KNEW who he was. He is the one brave enough to come out and say I am God. Others allude to it, and hint at it, like Emmet Fox and Ernest Holmes but Neville preached it. And what an imagination he developed. I find it exhausting sometimes to use my imagination the way that Neville suggests. But I do persevere. I know that you do also. I applaud your courage too, for putting all this out here. Neville talked about how he would travel at night to go and teach others the law and the promise while sleeping in bed. He traveled the universe. He encountered many things I am sure he never shared. Sometimes I get a hint of them in his stories. I wanted to ask you if you had any recommendations for meditation techniques? Do you meditate still? Do you have any disciplines that you find useful? Right now I study the Hebrew alphabet and meditate as well as read whatever books that I am led to. Some days this journey seems monumental and I feel so small. Neville says to persevere, 70 x 7 and all that, so I will. Perhaps tonight I feel a little tired.
Thank you Dan, your blog has been part of my daily bread.
Sincerely,
Cheryl C
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ccraig, at 5:35 PM
I learned Transcendental Meditation in 1973/1974 and got into more occult meditation techniques in 1974/1975. I encountered in my last meditation a for real deceiving spirit, a demon stopped by Christ at the point of possession. Haven't been eager to get back into any form of meditation, but the event cemented my understanding that Jesus Christ is real.
You say you cannot seem to find Him/You. I know exactly what you mean. He said to me audibly in 1975, "Come unto Me." I was like, "How do I do THAT?!" Well, I am learning from you, Cheryl. You said, "It is by being Him that I become my Self." Exactamundo. He gods. As Sons, we are to god "continuously unfolding in a dance with the Divine" (Cooper, God is a Verb, pg. 232-233). By godding, imagining as God, we father Christ, His action here. Godding is the structure of God, and by godding we believe we HAVE found Him.
My only technique is to be questioning and listening. I carry pen and paper with me all the time, even handy close to the shower, because things come to mind one on top of the other and I only have a five-second memory. You have probably picked up on the fact that I consider God is a Verb by David A. Cooper to be invaluable. As is Bullinger's Companion Bible for me. It was Jesus and the New Age of Faith by Carl F. Rehnborg that gave me the vision of God being natural goodness in the universe like an electromagnetic field of consciousness. I am very excited that my sister is sending me a book I read a number of times at her house this winter, Maartin Matisse's (1936) Wanderer from Sea to Sea. He biked and walked from the Netherlands to India to find God. It is an adventure and not much spiritual guidance, but insightful like crazy for me. As a woman you might not like it. The discipline he winds up with avoids women like the plague, for they are desirable and distracting temptations (no offence meant).
You feel small? In 1975 I was living in a pickup truck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, no job or purpose in life, and in occult meditation. A bum. When Jesus interrupted my possession, I realized that He had been watching me. More than just monitoring me, He had been guiding and forming me for His purposes forever. The demon had done its job not knowing it was being used by Jesus to develop me to become able to cast my self-control/self-lordship out of myself. I would never have been able to do the repentance I did without that training in the occult. Believe me, His focus is on you, your heart, and your love. He has a great purpose for you, and He is only zero inches from you: your own, wonderful HUMAN imagination.
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Daniel C. Branham-Steele, at 2:23 AM
Hi Dan, Your response has me near tears this morning. It is a funny thing that up until a short time ago I had my copy of "God Is A Verb" on my dresser, for probably over a year and now I can't seem to find it. I am keeping track of all the books you recommend, so that I might delve deeper. I started my journey in 1992, through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know what you mean about the occult. I went down that path too, so desperate to find answers and to know God. He has been calling to me since childhood only I was in my own living hell and didn't recognize his call. I have friends who are into channeling and I worry for them. I tell them to go inward for the answers, we all have the answers within us because that is where He lives. Your experience with a demon has me even more worried, we never know who is showing up in those "voices" in our heads when we open ourselves up like that. My friend says she is channeling Metatron. Yikes! I think in the big picture Dan, it is all about the death of the old man. I must die to be reborn. What is holding me back from letting go of old beliefs and attitudes? Fear I guess. But I appreciate your encouraging words. The hard part about using books as teachers is you don't really get to have a conversation about things. But I am grateful for them. books like Neville's and others. I am grateful I found your blog. Someone in a Neville Goddard Facebook group shared one of your posts, though I don't remember which one, and I have been visiting you daily now for weeks. You really get the mind working, the wheels turning. Thank you for always taking the time to answer me. Thank you too for sharing some of your personal stories. I am very intrigued by your friend who was healed of TB in a state of reverie. My heart doesn't open that wide yet, to lose myself in Him like that, but I am working on it. I appreciate your healing stories too. This is why I asked you about your thoughts on desire. If I am not doing these things, I haven't found Him. He is close though. I feel it!
Sincerely,
Cheryl C
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ccraig, at 4:41 AM
I value these books immensely, but as many have said, there has to be an end of books. I just read it in Frank C. Laubach's Open Windows, Swinging Doors (same as Letters By A Modern Mystic from the Student Volunteer Movement, not the one from Revell). These two have the lines, "I...who am reaching out toward divine sons, I have not become satisfied yet," and "How fully can you surrender and not be afraid?" (March 9, 1930). Dr. Frank is my pastor; Neville is my mentor. Jesus and the New Age of Faith and Wanderer From Sea to Sea were extremely enlightening to me, but so have been many other books much less hard to find. My problem with books is that they so often only have one point to make. Well, no, that is not the problem. It is that they take so many words to say it, and that I am so slow to catch on. Insipid books are best read from the conclusion where the author finally reveals what he has been talking about. Enlightening books put the most important point right up front where you can't miss it. The first two pages of Your Faith is Your Fortune were so easy for me to misunderstand, seeing God outside of myself and "other," instead of here, this, me. Now to move from knowing intellectually to knowing experientially. What were we doing when we did it?
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Daniel C. Branham-Steele, at 3:22 PM
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