A Strong Imagination Begets the Event

I've night after night, or day after day through my entire, well, matured years, that a strong imagination begets the event.

Biblical faith is essentially faith in God as Savior. But this God, of whom the Bible speaks, is your own wonderful human imagination. Your own imagination is God, the immortal you. That is the divine body, Jesus. Imagination is not some vague essence that one would be led to believe. It is a person, and that person is Jesus in you. That is your own wonderful human imagination. It is this being in you that must be raised. it. He's buried it.

Now I took that theme from the current issue of Time magazine. You might have read it. It's in the current issue. The man who said it was quoting Montaigne, the great French essay who lived in the 16th century. He undoubtedly influenced the thinking of most thinkers of the world. And he quoted it in Latin when he presented a product that he had, and then translated it for them, which is, a strong imagination begets the event.

Now, So this is his story. At the age of 36, in 1946, he inherited a business from his father. He became president of the company. It made photocopies of things. It was in Rochester, New York. It's called the Halloyd Company. But in 1946, the war was over, and all the great orders that came into him, or into the company, began to be cut back. The government cut it, done practically nothing. He had to look around for something else, and someone Someone suggested that he look into a certain invention that came out in the 30s, but was never commercialized. It was offered to IBM and they turned it down. It was offered to Kodak and they turned it down. Offered to the A .B. Dick Company and they turned it down. So he took it home and looked it over. And to him he thought it had much in its favor. For the next 12 years, he simply imagined. Just imagine.

Of course, he did put money into it. His company was making money. And what they made in 12 years, he put all that they'd made in 12 years plus what he could borrow. So he invested $75 million. Half of that his company in 12 years had made, and he borrowed loans and issued stocks in order to get this thing moving.

In 1960, 12 years later, he brought out the first tangible evidence of this machine. He took no salary in that interval. He took stock in lieu of salary. He persuaded his executives to do the same thing and just take stock if they could live. Well, he and 300 -odd became multimillionaires. That thing is zero. Today, it's 1 ,700 ,000 ,000 a year. One of the giants in our country. 1 ,700 ,000 ,000 a year. Last week he died having lunch with Governor Rockefeller and his wife. And sitting at the table having lunch he simply collapsed at the age of 61. He was chairman of the board of trustees of his alma mater, the University of Rochester.

And in that capacity he persuaded the board to put 196 ,000 of their money into his stock. In less than 10 years, that $196 ,000 was worth $120 million. That's what it was worth last week. $196 ,000 became $120 million. When he died, he left his alma mater, $20 million outright. and millions more in trust. And under his lecture, if you have a copy, this week, it has imagined, imagined, imagined. When he made the first sales pitch for his machine, he quoted this Latin phrase of Montaigne, which translated simply means a strong imagination begets the event. So when I'm told to believe in God? Yes, I believe in God, but not of some vague essence.

I believe in God as a person. I am a person. I do not speak of my imagination as something on the outside that I am manipulating. That's my reality. I am all imagination. Man is all imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination and that is God himself. The divine body we call the Lord Jesus. It is buried in these garments of flesh. And the true and full awakening of the human imagination is what everyone aches for. So here my whole concept of life is based upon this concept of God not something of the outside but that which is buried within me, my own wonderful human imagination, that is God.

Now I can test. I am told to come and test him in things. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you unless of course you fail to meet the test? Test yourselves and see if you're holding to the faith. Do I really believe that Jesus Christ is in me? If I believe he's in me, then find out where he is. Don't just say he's in my skull, but in some strange way, try not only to locate him but to identify him, and so I have identified him, because by him all things are made, good, bad and indifferent. And if all things are made by him, I must watch what I am doing, to catch him, to find out who he is that makes things in my world.

I found him to be the dreamer, the dreamer in me that fashioned the dream, that the being, that God. That being in one twinkle of an eye, in the morning, brings me from a deep, deep sleep to the surface mind by building a bridge of incident in no time flat. He builds a bridge of incident through which or across which I travel to come to the surface of my being, only some majestical, magical being could do that. Who is he? He is the dreamer, the dreamer in me, the same dreamer that Dave dreamed, the same dreamer that took this man Joseph Chamberlain Wilson, and he took this little thing that was turned on by the giant IBM, turned it down, Kodak turned it down, Evie Dick turned it down, all giants, but he had faith in it, but he had faith in his own imagination.

That is the story behind the entire article as you will see it in the current issue of Time magazine. A strong imagination begets the event. So I tell you, you can start now. It's never too late to start. If you know who God is, God is your own wonderful human imagination. And you can take any goal in this world, if you are willing to be as consistent as he was. And he took no salary to give me stuff. Others would call it plain paper, meaning nothing, all right, give it to me. When you can take a hundred and ninety- six thousand dollars and in less than ten years in pieces of paper called stuff, and that piece of paper today is worth a hundred and twenty million, do you know what he left?

When he took it over the years, only in stock, and he was chairman of the board, there were 300 women all become multi- multi- millionaires who believed what he said. I ask you to simply test it, test it, to see if you're holding to the faith. If I use the word Jesus Christ, or the word God, or the word Lord, or the word Jehovah, and it conveys in any way whatsoever the sense of some existence, something outside of man, you have failed the test. You have the wrong God, you have the wrong Lord, the wrong Jesus Christ, for the Lord God Jehovah is your imagination, and that is Jesus Christ. Now who is the dreamer in the Bible?

His name is Joseph. It. Read the 37th chapter of Genesis when you go home. It's a beautiful chapter. It begins with the history of the family of Jacob. That's how it starts. And then it says, now Jacob's name is Israel for Jacob wrestled successfully with the Lord. And he changed his name from Jacob, which means a supplanter, to Israel. And the word Israel, if you break it down, ish -resh -el. It is simply the man who rules as God. Not like a God, as God, his God. That's Israel. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age. But he wasn't the last one, for Benjamin was.

He was the 11th. Benjamin was the 12th. But then he sets a son of the old age. You can see this whole picture now with Abraham and Isaac. The son of his old age, he is the promised child, has come. Now, Joseph's name was changed to that of Joshua. Moses changed his name from Joseph to Joshua. Well, Joshua is the Hebraic form of the word Jesus, and Jesus means Jehovah his salvation. That's what the root of Jesus is, which is the root of Joshua. God, hey, vav, is the root of the word. So his name really is Joshua, which is Jesus. So he changed the name to Joshua. He had a dream. And when he interpreted the dream, the brothers hated him.

Then he had a second dream, which also now included the father and mother. When the father heard of it, the father kept it to himself. Jacob kept it to himself. Because the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed before him. Which meant the parents and the brothers would all bow before him as the ruler. He would be the Lord. Then we are told in the 37th chapter of Genesis that as he approached the brothers, they said, behold this dreamer come. Here comes the dreamer. And it was Joseph. And they sold him into slavery. So you're told in the New Testament that Jesus emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a slave. That's the same story told differently.

took upon himself the form of a slave and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross. This is the cross. This is the garment of slavery. This is the garment of forgetfulness. And I actually became one who completely forgot who I am when I assumed this form of the slave. But who assumed it? The dreamer. And who is the dreamer? Joshua. And who is Joshua? Jesus. And who is Jesus? The Lord God Jehovah. That is your own wonderful human imagination. That is Jesus.

Now we are told all things are possible to do. So when Paul speaks now of things that he believes, listen to him carefully. He's writing his final letter to Timothy. And in this letter to Timothy he says, I know whom I have believed. Not what. Everyone will tell you what he believes. I believe this, that, and the other. You ask a Christian who knows anything about the Creed, he will say and repeat the Creed. The Apostles' Creed. This is what he believes. That's what Paul said. That's all theology. That's all the ceremonies of the outer world. He said, I know whom I have believed. It's a a person now. Now he turns to Timothy. He said now, follow the pattern of the true words which you have heard from me. Guard the truth which has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. He dwells within me. He is the Holy One and he is the dreamer dreaming this life of mine. He waits on me just as as in difficulty, and as with when the will in me is evil, as when it is good.

It doesn't really matter, for out of him springs forth good and evil. Listen to the words of the 45th of Isaiah.

I form the light, and I create the darkness. I make wheel, and I create woe. I am the Lord who do all these things. Yes, out of me, all things come. Good, bad, or indifferent. Whatever I imagine.

But let anyone imagine anything that's going to come out into this world rung about them and project itself on the screen of space to bear witness to his own creative power. He's creating it morning, noon, and night. So watch what you are imagining. For that is God in action, is no other God. So as you imagine, so your life is going to be.

You want to be other than what you are? You can't be, if you know who God is. Because by him all things were made. And without him was not anything made that what made.

Now here is the secret. This fabulous world of ours is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. The whole vast world is for that purpose, to appease your hunger. If you know who you are, you can view the world from any state in this world, an infinite state. And these states are purely a means to satisfy this hunger.

So if I want to be other than what I am at the moment, First of all, define what I want to be. What would I like to be in this world?

Now begin to imagine as if it were true. I know what I want to be. Well then, if I want to be it, cease wanting to be it and appropriate it. Make the feeling something that is real now. Suppose it were true. Begin now to imagine the thing as if it were true.

That is subjectively appropriating the objective hope. I hope it will be true. Well now, appropriated first subjectively, as though it is true. So I appropriated subjectively. As I appropriated subjectively, what am I appropriating? I am appropriating the objective hope.

That's what this man Wilson did. That's what he had in view. He wanted to have this thing because what he had before the war came to an end, the whole thing would fall apart. He had to find something new, a new product, and the big giants turned it down. But that didn't faze him, that they turned it down. They had all the money in the world to get behind it. But he bought the rights to it. And then for 12 years, he imagined and kept on and he never fought with it. He simply persisted in the imaginal act.

To change my world, I have to change the imaginal act. Every natural effect in this world has an imaginal act as the cause. It is not cause what things round about you. It's the unseen cause, the imaginal act that produces it. The so -called outside causes are all delusion based upon our own faulty memory. We can't remember when we imagine.

Few people can go back over 12 years and imagine and remember when he imagined that 12 years ago when others thought him stupid and wasteful. As he said in this article, it takes a youth, it takes a young man to make these, because he is naive anyway to make these decisions. If today at 61 I were asked would I do the same thing, I think I would have to be psychoanalyzed. But he was only 36 then. He called that the young man. At 61, you think I might have to be psychoanalyzed to make that decision to spend 75 million that I didn't have. For it took 12 years to make half of that for my company and I invested all of that plus what I could borrow and what I could raise by floating new stock and taking stock in lieu of salary and persuading my executives to do the same thing and 300 of them became millionaires multi -millionaires so I say to you tonight, if you have a goal I'm not here in judgment as to what your goal is you be the judge of what is is your goal.

If you have a goal, you can attain it. You can attain it by the use of your own wonderful human imagination, for that is God. There is no other God. Let the world speak of all kinds of gods from the Bible. Perfectly all right. They have them, but they do not exist. There are the little things on the wall that people make with their hands and then worship them. These concepts of God are not God. The true God, don't have a concept of him, is a person, and that person is your reality, and that reality that is immortal is your own wonderful human imagination. It cannot die. That is the immortal you.

If you should drop now, it survives. It's restored to life in a world just like this, but not yet awake. There's a vast difference between awaking from this dream and continuing the dream, and you do not end where your senses seem to pass away, as it were. So the world comes to an end when my father died, my mother died, my brother died, but they did not cease to be where my senses ceased to relish them. They will restore the life but not resurrect it. The day will come each will Will be resurrected. Which means that they will awaken. From the dream of life. For who is awakening? Imagination. It is the Lord Jesus in you. Who will awake. From this dream of life. And when he awakens. He is God himself. So. Thinking from the end.

Is the secret of it all. Always go to the end. We are always imagining. ahead of our evidence. And the most creative thing in us is to imagine and to believe a thing into existence. As we are told in the letter to the Romans, And God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen. That's the fourth chapter, the 17th verse of Romans. That is the Catholic translation. I prefer it to the Protestant translation, which is God calls a thing that does not exist, and the thing that does not exist comes into existence. Well, that's all right, but I prefer the Catholic translation.

He calls a thing that is not seen. You do not see with your mortal eye the man that you want to be. Not yet, but you will call it as though it is seen. But how would you call a thing as though it is seen? you walk in the assumption that you are that man so how will I know that I am really walking as that man well then think of friends of yours who never knew this man before and then let them see that man so when they pass you by in your mind's eye they see the man that you are assuming that you are and they will say of you I knew him when that would imply that you are not what they formerly knew I knew him when he didn't have a nigger.

I knew him when he lived on the other side of the street. I knew him when, let them say these things. All that would imply you are not that that they knew, but they know this man now. The new man. So you dare to clothe yourself with the new man. And you walk as if it were true. And that's the way to success. As Shakespeare puts it so beautifully, it has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he was he which is was wished until he was so let us become man and remain man until man becomes God. That's the story. So the gods become man male female may be them to become man, that is, male, female, and they remain in man until man awakens, man being all imagination, and then you are God.

So tonight, take the most marvelous concept you could hold of yourself or of a friend and dare to assume it not only for yourself but for the friend, and walk in that assumption as though it were true, and though at the moment your reason denies it and your senses deny it, if you persist in it, it will harden into fact. This is what the Bible teaches. But we have gone so far astray with all the theology and all the ceremonies and all the ecclesiasticism. That is not religion. That's not true religion. That's not what the Bible teaches. If you read, you read it carefully. So you take the story and it presents presents itself as history, secular history.

It's not secular history. It's the story of salvation. So I will tell you now the history, said he, the history of the family of Jacob. And then you read it. And how he loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a long and wonderful robe with sleeves. One day you will find out why the sleeves. Why that sleeve is severed, that the arm of the Lord may be revealed, which means the might and the power of God. And these things happen after you are born from above. That sleeve is torn away from your garment, and it's a beautiful color, lovely color.

So you're told of this garment, you made a multicolored garment. But the sleeve that comes off is the most beautiful baby blue when he tears it off. He who seems to be the author and he severs it and then pulls it off and your arm is there from here to there and then you know the word who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, then you see how literally true scripture is. It's not just only figurative but it is literally true. Actually, you go through that experience for your sleeve, for he made him a long robe with sleeves, you are told. And who did he clothe him?

He clothed Joseph, and Joseph's name is Joshua, and Joshua is Jesus. So whose arm has been unveiled? The Lord himself. Then you will know who you are. All these things add up to your knowledge of God, and you find God not as something external to yourself, you find him as yourself. You are the Lord. You are God. And there is nothing in the world but God. So if you take it seriously and test it, you'll prove it. Don't say no to it before you test it. And if there is evidence for a thing, it doesn't really matter how stupid it seems to be. On the surface, this little machine called Xerox seems stupid to IBM.

IBM, and all the brilliant minds that they employ, giving them fabulous salaries to bring new things into their company. And they pass their judgment that it's not good. You go to another firm with millions behind them to invest, Kodak, that's no good. And here he calls it Xerox because it's the Greek meaning dry writing. And so he named it Purposeful. At first it was called xerography, by writing, condensed it, Xerox. Now, wouldn't those who now have stock in IBM, who are the big giants in IBM, would they not like to have, say, a few thousand shares of Xerox when it was nothing? How rapidly in 12 years that thing grew from $196 ,000 that produced $120 ,000.

It doesn't make sense, does it? But they are the facts. So the facts tear you in the face. Well, here are the facts. $196 ,000 invested for his alma mater, their money. And today they have $120 million out of that $196 ,000. and he has made some multi multi millions he leaves them 20 million plus millions in trust because he wants to pay back what he felt they did for him as a graduate of the university of Rochester and he persuaded all others to do the same thing for their admirers if they had really applied this principle of imagining why I tell you God is your own wonderful the most human imagination. Others may tell you that it's something in the sky.

I turned on this evangelist the other night and it was raining. All the rain coming down on him. And he had to plug his father -in -law. Father -in -law got up and spoke in Chinese. I can't understand Chinese. Then he interpreted for us in English. Then he plugged his book. Then he tells this vast audience, 65 ,000 of them were there, plus the millions who were looking, and I was one of them. And he makes a big pitch for money. This cost an awful lot of money, he said. So let us hear from you. Well, he spent the first 15, 20 minutes on plugging for money, publicizing his father -in -law. The father -in -law takes the mic and publicizes him.

So the first 20 minutes went into self -congratulations. Then I turned the door. I couldn't wait any longer. Where's the message? What message is he going to give me concerning scripture? And I could think of nothing but that word of a George Russell, the great Irish mystic, poet, and painter. And all the priests met in Dublin one year, and he wrote his trained in America. There are a thousand priests here for some great convention. And it has started to rain, said A .E. And I do hope the good Lord shows his displeasure and grounds the baptism. Well, here the rain is coming down on him. And he is telling us how he is suffering in the rain.

All the others were on the shelter, but he's all right. But he's going to receive fortunes that night from his crusade. And that is called the work of Christ. And he's pointing on the outside to him. He's going to come from someplace on the outside. He'll wait forever and never find him until he finds him within himself. And when he finds him, it's his son who reveals him. And his son is David. When David stands before him and calls him Father, then he will know who the Lord Christ Jesus is. He will know Christ who stands before him and he will know himself as the Lord Jesus, who is the Lord God Jehovah. Only then will he know it.

but now you take it and try to feel I hope you can actually identify yourself with the dreamer can you come to some identification with this dreamer so you not speak of something on the outside creating it but your own being is creating the dream the dream of night and this is the dream of day for this is just as much a dream people ask you never what is a vision I said, this is a vision. Right now, this is a vision. Oh, no, I don't mean that. I mean when you close your eyes and you see something. I said, this is the vision. This is just as much a vision as the vision of the night to me.

My visions of the night have cubic reality, just like this, solid, real. It's all that world, it seems. Blake said to his friend who wondered, what must I do to do what you do, to see as you He said, you only have to raise imagination to the point of vision and the thing is done. But, said he, the nature of visionary fanciful or imagination is very little known. People do not know it. They can't be intense about it. And raise it to something just like this. It is just like this. This is vision. The whole vast world is vision. and you are the one creating it all. So this is the dream of life. When you're awake, and it's a dream when you are asleep.

And you call that the dream. This is just as much the dream. And if you catch yourself dreaming, your chances are you're going to wake. But if you catch yourself dreaming and decide not to wake, you can control the dream and make it come out as you want it. The same thing here. If you know this is the dream, you can change the nature of the dream. And so you can simply assume that you are what you would like to be, and that friends of yours are what you would like them to be, and walk in that assumption as though it were true. And to the degree that you are faithful to that assumption, having faith in God, who is your own wonderful human imagination, to that degree, it will externalize itself in your world.

Now that is my story to you and to everyone who will listen to me. I will not take back one word or alter one word the whole thing has been explained to me in the depths of my own being it's been revealed to me I am not speculating I am not trying to set up any workable philosophy of life I have no desire to set up a little church we have too many already all the little isms run for self -help really of the individual who runs them not for the help of those who come is just a personal little thing of those who set up the little organization. But I have no desire to set up any organization, just to tell it to you in the hope that your memory is good enough to retain it.

Now at least your memory is aided by these things here. If you've forgotten, you can always take the little thing and play it back, and then try to refresh your memory. ¶All I ask of you is: don't change it. There are those who attempt to change what I've said to to make it conform to what they think I ought to have said. No, I say exactly what happened to me. So don't try to change it. As I told a friend tonight, a lady in San Francisco, she thought I should not mention certain things. She was a strict vegetarian and a strict teetotaler. And she altered my script to say that I, say a man, should be a vegetarian and a teetotaler.

Well, I've never said that. I take my martinis every day. I don't do it six days a week and not on Sunday. I have no Sunday. Every day is my Lord's Day. So I take it on Sunday, Saturday, Monday, but every day I have a few martinis before my evening meal and a nice bottle of wine for my lunch. That and a little cheese is my lunch, but a bottle of wine. I thoroughly enjoy it. And she dares to take what I say and then rub it out and put in her own little concept and said this is what Neville teaches. So I'm asking you one thing. ¶Do not change what I am saying. If you approve or disapprove, leave it just as it is.

I am telling you who I know to be God. I tell you over and over again, God is your own wonderful human imagination. And all things are possible to God. Therefore, all things are possible to your imagination. Everything you see in this world was first only imagined. It had to be first imagined. ¶This little thing called Z -Rock, this man called Carlson invented it. No one showed any interest. And in the 1930s, he brought it out. He was a physicist and he knew it would work. But no one showed any interest, but he first had to imagine it. And then he executed it, till they would not accept it. ¶Then comes one with real imagination who is awake only 36 years old in a business that he inherited from his father and he saw the potential and he was willing to take all the earnings of 12 years plus what he could borrow in loans and what he could get in issuing new stocks and he put 75 million dollars into a project because he imagined it and believed it.

He saw the reality. ¶If I begin to imagine now and suddenly before my eyes comes the solid reality of what I'm imagining, who is going to tell me it isn't real? I can show it to someone else. But to me it's real, I saw it. Well, then I will go all out and sell everything I have to prove it to the world. ¶If I had interest in business, my father did that. Every morning after breakfast, he would sit down in what we call the Burbese chair and put his feet out on the arms of a chair. It's a chair made in the West Indies. And there he would simply, with his eyes partly shut, he would see the day as he wanted it to be.

He would carry on mental conversations with men he had to meet that day from his premises and brought them to his conclusion. And that's how he worked. And my brother Victor did the same. ¶It doesn't matter what things look like in the world. He sees it as he wants to see it. And things come up and now they've made millions. But millions in a little tiny place like Barbados. Put him here, he will be in the Z- Rock setup because he has a vivid imagination and he knows how to use it. But as Blake said, that the nature of visionary fancy or imagination is very little understood. They don't understand it. He said, everything I see in my world is vision.

The tree is vision. You think it's a solid reality? I can bring it before my mind's eye, it is just as solid as that. So I can make everything real. I know from my own experience. But I have no interest in business. I certainly could actually take a business concept and bring it to the point where I can see it to be real. But I have no desire whatsoever to go into business. So, my visions are based upon someone asking help of me, or the Bible, bringing it out from its so- called state and actually seeing it as something real into my world. And it's real. All these things are real. The Bible is reality from beginning to end, but it's all vision, from Genesis to Revelation.

The whole thing is vision. It's not any little concept that our church has told you about so I ask you to test me to put it into essence as this, believe in God, you believe in God, believe in your imagination, for that's God, so when you're told in the 14th of John, you believe in God, believe in me also, he's telling you he and the Father are one. He tells you later on in that same chapter. You see me, you see the Father. So you believe in God the Father, believe in me also. I am your imagination. Now believe in that and you can't go wrong. Believe in the reality of your imaginary life and they all become facts.

Every one of them. And I do hope you will start now if you haven't started. I ask nothing of you in the way of Caesar's will, not one penny, but I would like confirmation in the form of a letter. I love to feel that you're getting the results, but you don't have to share with me the fruit of this principle. I'm not asking you for that at all. I've never asked for it. I've been doing this since 1938, and I've never made an appeal for my platform form or in any other form to raise money. I have never. And today I would quit and go elsewhere before I would ask you for one great penny outside the price you pay when you come here.

I have to pay for this place. And so it has to be depraved, expensive. But I have never appealed to anyone for a penny. I started on the second day of February 1938, anyone who can go back sorry enough will know I have never once asked for one nickel, I either had to prove it to myself or else let it fall by the wayside and so I tell you it works, it will not fail you, but we are the offering power, it doesn't operate itself; if I know what to do, do it; if I do not do what I know I should do, that's sinning; I'm going to miss the mob if I know what is right to do and I don't do it, well then that's sin.

So let us now go into the silence and see ourselves as we would like to be seen by the whole vast world, and when we break the silence and go home tonight, walk in the assumption that we are that person now. Let us go