All lectures Feelingfield

Feel After Him

A 47-minute talk by Neville Goddard, restored from an archived recording

Neville Goddard identifies God with the human imagination, citing Paul's address to the Athenians in Acts 17. He explains that imagining creates reality, and that one should feel after this indwelling God by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. The lecture covers the mechanics of assumption, the importance of mental diet, and the idea that all objective reality originates from what is first imagined.

Filed under Feeling, The lullaby method and The state akin to sleep.

Key passages

“The idea that I've been trying to get over since I started back in 1938 is still news. It comes as a shock to anyone who hears it.”

at 0:25

“If by God I mean the creator of the universe, the maker and the master of the whole vast universe, and I identify that creator with the human imagination, then man should be more careful as to what he is imagining.”

at 1:25

“imagination is spiritual sensation.”

at 8:53

More Neville quotes on God →

0:00 / 46:33 restored original recording

Transcript

Reading settings

Imagining Creates Reality

New ideas require many reiterations and restatements before they become part of the generally accepted currency of thought.

The idea that I've been trying to get over since I started back in 1938 is still news. It comes as a shock to anyone who hears it. And even after you've heard it for years and years and think you're living by it, I've discovered that one is not really living by it. It has not yet become a part of their thinking. and it is that imagining creates reality. I say this because I identify imagining with God in action.

To me 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.

If by God I mean the creator of the universe, the maker and the master of the whole vast universe, and I identify that creator with the human imagination, then man should be more careful as to what he is imagining. So I can give lip service to the statement, imagining creates reality. And yet if I'm observant in the course of a day, if I observe what I'm imagining, I would find unnumbered moments in my life in one 24 hours or other, the waking 18, where I am imagining things I do not wish to experience.

If I really believed that imagining creates reality, I would be more careful, more concerned about what I'm imagining. So I will give it lip service and say imagining creates reality and go blindly on imagining anything other than what I want to create, beginning with the morning paper and reacting to things that you do not know, But, whether they be true, they could be planted by some press agent, planted by some lobbyist. You do not know. And here we react as we read, and then we go through the life in just 24 hours, and find that most of the 24 hours we spend imagining what we do not wish to experience.

if men would only look upon the world as a world of appearance behind which the reality of imagining lay he would find the truth he would find God now there's a story told in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts now it's a story whether it was historically true or not it doesn't really matter is trying to push a point to the floor.

God Is Indwelling

It is said that the men of Athens spent all day in the marketplace looking for a new idea, either telling one or hearing one. Then came upon the scene one called Paul, and they wondered, what has this babbler to say? What is his new idea? and he told them the idea of Jesus and the resurrection and we are told the Epicureans and the Stoic philosophers mocked him and scoffed at him others said we will hear more about this later and he said to them and this is all ironical if you read it carefully he said, O men of Athens I see in every way you are very religious For as I pass by, I observe the objects of your worship.

Right away, that's irony. The objects of their worship. Then he said, I notice this inscription over an altar to an unknown God. What to therefore worship? Unknown, I declare to you. Then he tells them of the only God, the God that created everything, and he's not a God of far off. He is indwelling, he is within every single being in the world, the God of the universe. Not made with hands, you wouldn't find him in a temple, in a church, in a cathedral, or the little objects of your worship, that you make of man with your own hands and then worship him and call him Apollo. But here the God that I speak of is within everyone.

That's the God of whom I speak. That's the God that raises from the dead. Well, they laughed and they mocked him. Then we are told he went on from Athens to Corinth. what he performed there no one knows whether Athens ever took him up because they were the wise men they were called the very learned men of the day we have them today too they're Sukkoth but anything that is not part of their great voluminous works but I am telling you if as Paul said to the Athenians if you would only feel after him you would find him if you would feel after him you would find him find what? find the God of the universe for he gave us not the spirit of the world but the spirit of himself that spirit of himself in man is man's own wonderful human imagination when you say I am that's God the one and only God and there is no other God.

Therefore he is in every man, every woman, every child born of woman. It is the God in that being that allows that being to breathe, to live, to experience what we call life in this world. That is the immortal you. So the eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. The the one we speak of in the New Testament as Jesus. That is God. But where is he? Something on the outside? No. He is in you. When you say, I am, that's Jesus. Now, the world is taught differently. Therefore, it comes as a shock when they hear it. They don't want to hear it. They will listen if they could simply improve their life in this world, get more money, do things that they want to do, and still hold on to this little object on the outside.

So he spoke, I observe the object of your worship. Well, man does that with what they call Jesus. They take their human hands, they make a mold of something, they call it Jesus, put it on a piece of wood or put it on something else, stick it on the wall and then cross themselves for good luck. There is the object of their worship, something they made themselves. The maker is greater than the thing made. No matter how wonderful it's made, certainly the artist is greater than his work. And so we make all these things and put it on the outside and then bow before it and worship. I tell you your own wonderful human imagination is God.

Feel After Him and Find Him

That's God. ¶Now if I would only observe this and keep it in mind, I should be able to put Paul to the test. He said, feel after him, and you'll find him. Blake said, imagination is spiritual sensation. Spiritual sensation. But how would I feel after him and fight him? Well, first of all, he does all things, good, bad, or indifferent. And he waits on me just as indifferently and as swiftly when the will in me is evil as when it is good. Because he is a creative power. He kills, he makes alive. He wounds, he heals. All things are done by the one creative power. There isn't another God who is evil and one that is good, one that is altogether loving loving, and one that is altogether hating?

No, only one power, and that power is the human imagination.

So, how will I then feel after it? What would the feeling be like if it were true? What true? That I am the man that I would like to be. What would the feeling be like? Death, for all things are made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made.

Well, now, if I dare to assume that I am now the man that I want to be, and I persist in that assumption, watching my mind morning, noon, and night, so anything that I find myself dwelling upon that is in conflict with that assumption, I ignore it. I put it aside. I will be faithful to this divine vision, the vision of myself.

Assume the Feeling of the Wish Fulfilled

So, any time I catch myself daring to feel less than the thing that I'm feeling or trying to externalize in my world, I simply stop it and go back to that assumption that I am the man that I want to be. If I persist in it and it becomes a fact, then I have found him. I don't observe imagining as I do objects in space. face, I am the reality that is called imagining.

So you don't see God, because God is spirit, but you see the results of his activity in you. He is active in you as you imagine. You're completely free to imagine good, bad, or indifferent. So you simply select what you want to imagine. Would you like to be a new name agent?

Well, you say, but I don't have the background for it. I do not have any of the qualifications for it. It doesn't really matter. If imagining creates reality, you do not need the qualifications that the world thinks you need. All you need is simply to boldly assume that you are the man, the woman that you would like to be. And if it proves itself in performance, then you have found him.

So Paul said to the Athenian, feel after him and you will find him. Well, I have seen it numberless times in my 34 years of teaching. I started back in February of 1938, and here I am, this is February of 1972, and I'm yet to see it fail if we, the operant power apply to it, it doesn't apply itself. We are the operant power.

The Request Made and Heard

For in man Man is God, and God is man's own wonderful human imagination. So if I dare to assume that I am the one that I would like to be, well, that's God who is doing it.

So how will I turn then to God tonight? Say, a half dozen people asked of me tonight. Takes no time. They voiced their request. There's a statement made in the book of John. The epistle of John. If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask of him, we know that we have already obtained the request made of him.

Well, when they're talking to me, they say, I would like so and so. Instantly, it comes within the frame of my golden rule. It's something I would like myself. If I were in their present state of consciousness, I would like that. It doesn't violate my rule. It doesn't injure someone. It doesn't take from anyone.

Well, now, did I hear it? I heard it. Well, if I and my father are one, then my father heard it. I do not know the means that will be employed to bring it to pass, but I can't deny that I heard it. If I heard it, and I and my Father are one, can I not now say to my inner being, Thank you, Father? You heard it, because I heard it. For if we know that he hears all that we ask of him, then we know we have already obtained the request made of him. So as they say to me, I would like so and so for that. I heard it. I do not know, as a man called Neville, how it's going to happen.

I do not know. I am not going to suggest what they do or what they should do. I only know that I heard it, and if I heard it, my father heard it, because he and I are one. He is my own wonderful human imagination. So I could actually say within myself as though we were two. Thank you. You heard it, because I heard it. And then allow the depth of my own being to devise the means necessary to bring it to pass. And then I am not responsible from that moment on. I do not call them up and say, did it happen? I do not get in touch with them and write them and say, tell me, how are things coming?

It's not my concern. I did what was asked of me. And all that was asked of me was to hear, use my imagination lovingly on their behalf. Well, I did it. in the twinkle of an eye. You don't have to go into some sweat to do it. I don't have to go to some church and do it, go to some synagogue and do it, or some so -called holy place. Wherever I stand should be holy because the Father is within me. And where can you go to a more holy place than where God is? If I know God is my own wonderful human imagination, then where can I go that could be more holy than wherever I am?

no matter where it is so the request is made, I heard it and then having heard it I give thanks to the being within me who has the means, the wisdom and the power to externalize it knowing that the entire outside world that all objective reality is solely produced through imagining what is now proven in the world was once only imagined.

The Potter and the Vessel

Try to deny that. Try to deny it. There isn't a thing in this world that you can say that's real, that was not first only imagined. So I say to every one here, take statement. Feel after him, and you'll find him. He didn't say you may find him. Feel after him, and you'll find him. But But these ideas are so new, and yet they aren't new. They go back into the Old Testament. Here we find the word for imagination used as the word potter. Well, if you say the word potter, go down to the potter's house, and I let you hear my word. So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel, and the vessel in his hand was spoiled.

So he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. If you read it in the form of the story in which it is told in the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, you will think of a man with clay in his hands, at his wheel, pumping away, making a vessel, making some kind of a, well, could be anything, a plate. That's not it. The word potter means imagination. It's like saying to you, go into your own imagination and see what you are doing with a friend. You just heard that he was in need. Are you now going to finish that and take him now into a greater need, or are you going to rework it into another vessel, as it seemed good to you to do?

You don't go to some potter's house. Go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my word." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, working at his wheel. and the vessel in his pan was spoiled. He didn't throw it away and discard it. He reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to him to do. So a man, a train devourer, he's unemployed. All right, so he's unemployed and he doesn't have the qualifications for a better job and there is no job at the moment for what he had. So what? I will rework it. I will hear him tell me that he has the most marvelous job and he is gainfully employed.

What the job is I do not know, but I can say to myself, if I heard it, surely the depth of my own being heard it, and so I can say thank you. Having reworked him in my own mind's eye into an entirely different being, the same friend but not one unemployed, he is now gainfully employed. So feel it. If I can feel this state, I'm finding God. For God is Spirit. And may I tell you, and by Spirit I do not mean some intangible thing, it actually is the human form divine. When I speak of the human imagination, it is a form, it's a reality, it is the divine form. So So the eternal body of man is the human imagination, and that is God himself.

And there is no other God. He said, I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. I do all things, and none can deliver out of my hand. This is scripture. But man, when he hears the word God, he thinks of something out in space. Well, he doesn't quite know, but something in space. If the word God in any way conjures within you something that is other than your own wonderful human imagination, you've got the wrong God. If the word Jesus causes you to think of a man who lived 2 ,000 years ago and died 2 ,000 years ago and rose 2 ,000 years ago, you've got the wrong one. You are told Jesus is within you.

If he is within me, I should find out exactly where he is in me. And then who is he? Well, I have found him. He is my own wonderful human imagination. That's Jesus. And all that is said of him, every child born of woman is going to experience, to discover he is Jesus, and there is no other Jesus. So you're told in Scripture, in the 17th of Matthew, in the end there is Jesus only. Why? You're told now in the book of John, the epistle of John, And when he appears, we shall be like him. Because when he appears, and there's only Jesus, the life have to be like him. So within me the whole thing unfolds itself.

The Known God

And everything said of him, at least whether people believe it or not, I have experienced. And personally, I do not care whether they accept it or not, any more than Paul did. The wise men, the Epicureans and the Stoics, they scoffed at him, and they laughed at him, and mocked him. So he went on to courage. He simply did the work he came to do. So he told the story, and said, You are worshipping what? Something on the outside. side, and here you put an inscription over the altar to an unknown God. You say the unknown. What you say is unknown. I will tell you of a known God. Now take my word for it and feel after him, and you'll find him."

How would I find him? Well, tonight, if I wanted to be in New York, and I put my body down in the bed tonight, When I go to bed, I must assume that I am already in New York. Well, how would I know that I am there? If I am all imagination, I must be wherever I am in imagination. Well, if I am in imagination in New York, now think of the world. Think of California, Southern California, where you place the body. Well, do you see it on the bed as you're thinking? Well, then you're not in New York. Do you see it 3 ,000 miles away to the west of you? Well then you are in New York.

But were you in New York, you would see the body in your mind's eye 3 ,000 miles away in Los Angeles. And you'd be thinking from New York rather than thinking of New York. So the whole thing is simply finding out this fantastic power, creative power in man and how it operates. For there is no problem in the world comparable to this problem of solving the mystery of imagining. For supreme power and supreme wisdom and supreme delight is in store for the one who conquers this mystery. So whether you be in jail, all right, so you're in jail, and you dare to assume that you're free, you aren't going to break through the doors and be picked up and be sent to a longer term, you simply assume that you are free.

Who today on death row? Many of them prayed that their sons would not be put in the chamber. And they believed their prayers. And so the Supreme Court brings in a verdict, no more killing of men because they killed someone. Whether you approve or disapprove, that's not the point. All things are possible in God's will. All things. So I'm not going to pass any opinion whether this thing is right or wrong. I'm not going to be involved emotionally as to whether they did the right thing or the wrong thing. I only know from personal experience, if I had a son there, I want him free. If he were there, he's not there. But if he was there, I want him free.

regardless of what he did as one who loves his son I'd want him free but I am not going to pass any opinion or any judgment concerning the Supreme Court's decision the thing is all things are possible you tell me what you want and if it comes within the framework of what I call the golden rule which is simply doing unto others as you would have another do unto you if it fits that frame Well, then you are on the right course. Well, then you can't do it physically, no. You don't have the power or the wisdom to do it. But there is something in you which is your essential being. It can do it.

It knows exactly how to do it. Can you trust him? Can you trust this being within you to have heard what you heard? I heard it on this level, the request made. and if I heard it on this level, certainly, the depth of my own being heard it, and on that depth he has ways and means I do not have on this level. Therefore, I'm not concerned as to how it's going to work. I only know it will work. By simply assuming that I am already the one I want to be, and if I dare to assume it and remain faithful to it, then it becomes a fact. So imagine it. Plus this kind of faith, faith in God.

And God is your own wonderful human imagination. So faith in God is the way to success. You imagine it as though it were true, and then you walk your way not knowing how it's going to become true. But it will become true. I invite you to test it, just try it cost you nothing and if I take from you your God as Paul took from the Athenians their gods, then it's a blessing if you can lose your God, it's a good thing because the real God you can't lose and you can never lose being you can never lose the sense of I am you can lose everything else but you can never cease to be aware that you are That's God.

And so if I can't take that from you, well then I can't take the real God from you. If I can take any other thing from you, and you worship it, you have the false God. And I did you a service in taking anything but the reality, because I can't take the reality from you. So all outer services and ceremonies, they mean nothing. Nothing. Go about your father's business, which is yourself, doing noble things in this world, imagining the best, and it will come to pass. That's why I say, if it seems that I reiterate and restate night after night after night, it's essential. Because if you are perfectly honest with yourself this day, and you observe what you are imagining in the course of one day, you'd be ashamed of what you imagine.

Observation and Pruning

And yet you are imagining things you do not want to happen. And yet you will give lip service to the statement, imagining creates reality. And then one moment later, a friend of mine up in San Francisco, she was the friend of a mutual friend, and they didn't get on very well, only at moments. woman. One night, riding with her, we went down, oh, maybe 75 miles down the peninsula for a dinner, lovely dinner, and all the way back, this very, very heavy fog, you could hardly see a few yards before you. And she was talking of this friend of mine, who she claimed to be a friend of hers. And she would rant against this woman, so and so and so, I wouldn't even print it, you couldn't print it, it burned the page.

And then at the end of her statement she would say, God bless her soul. She kept up the entire 75 miles blasting this woman and then she would qualify the whole thing and it's all forgiven, God bless her soul. So she is still here, the other one has gone from this little section of time, and she's still playing the same part, using her imagination in every way she doesn't want in this world, and things went from bad to worse in her world. ¶And they're still that way. And she can't for one moment believe she's the cause of the phenomena of her life. Oh, no. She can't for one moment. And yet I had one long 75 -mile drive, brother, where it would take a whole lifetime to reap that harvest.

But she said, in that long drive from dinner, back home. ¶so man has a very weak memory and he doesn't remember when he did these things but there's a depth in man who does not forget we are warned in Galatians be not deceived, God is not mocked: as a man sows so shall he reap. Then we are told by the poet: you see yonder field, the sesame was sesame and the corn was corn. ¶The darkness under silence, you and so is a man's fate born. So you don't recognize your own harvest, but it couldn't make a mistake. Everything is after the identical seed. You plant a seed. What seed was it? Why you've forgotten what it was?

¶Well, wait till the tree comes up, you'll know. Because it can't be other than what was planted. ¶planted. If I plant an oak, well then the oak is going to spring up into the oak tree. I plant that sort of an acorn, that's going to be the oak tree. But if I plant something else, well then wait. If I have forgotten what I planted, wait, the harvest will show me. And man denies his own harvest. ¶So I'm telling you that your own wonderful human Human imagination is God. It's the God of Scripture, the only God. Whether in the Old Testament you call him the Lord, or call him Jehovah, or call him God, or in the New Testament you call him Jesus, it's the same thing.

This is the creative power in man, and that creative power in man is man's own wonderful human imagination. ¶Why repeat unnumbered stories that I've told you in the past? I could start with new ones, but what? You know the technique. And the technique is simple. If all things are created out of man's human imagination, well then, let him start imagining what he wants to be. And if he does, success will follow him. But in the meanwhile, try to prune the plant. ¶Because when you hear for the first time that your imagination is gone, it's an awful shock. ¶because as the poet said: behold this vine I have found it a wild tree whose wanton strength has fallen into irregular twigs, but I have pruned the plant and then it grew tempered in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted as you see into these clean poor clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it.

¶So when you first find that the vine spoken of in the Bible, I am the vine of eternity, I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser, and you discover what that vine is: my imagination. Well, then the whole thing went into leaves, useless leaves and branches. It was not producing grapes. Then I start to prune the tree by observing what I'm imagining in the course of 24 hours. ¶It becomes a habit. ¶it. Then the next day, I do a little bit better. The third day, better still. By the end of a week, I am in the habit now of watching what I'm imagining. And don't wait. Instantly prove it. Stop it.

Stop imagining. Don't indulge yourself. I have heard people say to me, but just one more second. It's such a pleasant thing to tell you more. And so in his mind's eye, he's telling off someone, all in his imagination, knowing he's going to reap the fruit of it. Now, if you know that, you aren't going to simply spend an extra five seconds of precious time in finishing that emotion, stop that emotion, and get on a new trend. And then you prune the plant. And finally that plant's going to reward you with clean, full clusters because you wisely wounded it. And then you keep that buying going and the buying will pay enormous dividends. I know from experience.

Habit and Character

When you go to bed at night, let your last thought be something noble, something wonderful. You are now, or those you love are now, what you would like to be, and drop off into the deep in that state, and make it a habit. As we are told, you plant a seed, and then the seed becomes an act, and the act becomes a habit, and the habit becomes a character. So if I seem to repeat myself, it's because I have to. Because if anyone here tonight could honestly tell me that in the course of 24 hours they have observed what they were imagining and had not a thing to find fault with, well, I would like to hear that.

And I will not call you a liar because I'm not here to judge. But it would be a marvelous thing if you could tell me that. But I know that all of us are victims of habit, and we get into the habit of this internal conversation that are not pleasant, and we think that no one observes, no one sees. So as we are told in the book of Ezekiel, he said, Son of man, go down and see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing. So I went down to the house to observe the elders of the house of Israel. And there they were, each in his own room, carving on the wall.

What wall? The wall of your own interior, the wall of this tower. And they're making abominable things, and they say, whether no one sees us, the Lord has forgotten us. They thought because they did it in the silence that no one knows, when the only reality is their own wonderful human imagination. And that is fully aware of what man is doing, and rewards man, good, bad, or indifferent, with his imaginal act. No one can tell me that you could not tonight start to become, if you want to be prosperous — that's a relative term — what you mean by prosperous could not be what another means by it, but what you understand for yourself. What would it feel like if it were true?

Just what would it feel like? And then go about your business feeling as though it is true. ¶Instead of spending your precious time reading about Howard Hughes. Who cares? I asked a friend of mine who asked me if I'm following the story. I said, you know, he doesn't know me. And I don't know him. And I'm quite sure that if I met him, he would not really buy me a sandwich. So what am I concerned about? He doesn't pay my rent. He doesn't buy my clothes. He doesn't contribute to my way of living and I'm supposed to be concerned about what he's doing he doesn't interest me none whatsoever so I must spend my precious time reading about Howard Hughes my heart almost goes out to the man Irving who wrote the thing because the so -called wise editors of life and the wise ones of the other ones got taken and they're so wise taken for a half million dollars And so I'm not saying that I would want to duplicate it in my life, but it almost serves them right to pull that upon the people and throw it.

Who cares about Hughes really? What is his contribution to life? So he is made too brilliant. So what? Hasn't bought you a dinner? Hasn't done anything for you. And so what is your concern? You take the story of Scripture, see it as it really was intended in the beginning to be seen, that your own wonderful human imagination is the God spoken of in Scripture. And by him all things were made, and without him was not anything made that is made. Start right in this room. You're wearing clothes. You're sitting on chairs. You're in a house. Everything here was first only imagined. The clothes you're wearing, the chairs on which you are seated, the building that now houses you, everything here was first only imagined.

And then it became an objective fact. So objective reality is solely produced through imagining. Now you want to objectify something entirely different from what you have thought of. Well now, change the imaginal act. To attempt to change circumstances before I change the imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of things. I can't do it, because my imaginal activity is producing the objective realities. And I can't change that objective fact until I change what is causing it. And the cause is an unseen imaginal activity. As we are told, he brings things that are not seen and calls them as though they were seen and they become seen. Things that are now seen were made out of things that do not appear.

That's what we are told in the book of Hebrews. What you now see, it was made out of things that do not appear. Well, if that is a fact, and Scripture has had it now for centuries and centuries as aspect, well then, put it to the test. Challenge, yes, challenge the Scripture. As you're taught in Scripture to challenge it. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Examine yourself and see whether you're holding to the faith. Well, test him. Test him and see. If he is in me and he does all things, I'm going to test him. Well, I've tested him over and over and over and found him faithful. I dared at moments in my life to assume that I had what reason told me I did not, and my senses denied it, but I dared to assume that I had it.

And it happened. It came out of the nowhere. It happened. So I taught that principle to others, they applied it, and it happened. But strangely enough, after someone becomes a little bit better off than they were, world, they reflect upon it, and because it always happens in a perfectly normal, natural manner, they say, oh, well, it would have happened anyway. And then they go from the sleep again. You can get someone, a sedative, and you try to awaken them, and for a moment they're alert, seemingly alert. And while you're talking to them, it's from the sleep again. That's humanity. They are dreaming this dream of life, and they see the root of what they've imagined and deny that their imagination produced it.

So they go sound asleep again, back upon the negative state. But I'm asking you who come here and persist in coming to observe what you are doing in the course of 24 hours. You're not alert 24 hours, but take, say, 16 hours. If you give eight hours to sleep, it will take 16 hours. And try to observe what you are imagining. And if, perchance, you catch yourself imagining what you do not wish to experience, stop it. Stop it right there, and then, and don't give it an extra second. It may be you're in the midst of an emotion, and you'd like to complete the emotion, and tell him off completely. Don't. Stop it. Break it.

That causes a sort of a mental well, a mental abortion, a mental miscarriage if you break it without exploding the emotion. So feel after him and you'll find him. That's what he told the Athenian. But he pointed out all the objects of their worship, and every object he pointed out was something they themselves had made with their hands, and then worshipped it. I can see it now. When I was a young man in the dancing world. It was a young girl, a pretty young girl. And she had a little figurine of what she called the Holy Mother. And before she took the stage, she would kiss it. The whole thing was just simply brilliant rage from her kisses.

And she really thought that gave her success. She kissed it and smuggled the kisses, and on the stage she would go. And that was her little object of her worship. She thought that really was the Holy Mother. And may I tell you, without any criticism of the thing, most of these things are made by people who call themselves artists and are so far removed from any concept of being an artist. They're monstrous things, made by the millions, not by good artists at all. But she had her little one, and sitting on top of the stage at our little dresser. And she would smother it with kisses and then dashed on the stage and she danced.

I went to a party once. These boys, one was a priest or was going to be a priest, and he quit to join the war. The other, they were all ready to do the army. One came out dead. One came out with one foot missing above the knee and an arm. And this one who was the priest, or was to be the priest, he came up with something else. He didn't go back into the priesthood. But they all wore their Saint Christopher medals when we dived into the pool at their home. And they attributed their recovery, or their so -called coming out of the army, to Saint Christopher. That was before Saint Christopher was demoted.

He's now demoted. The Pope just said there was no such a thing as Saint Christopher. Now before that, they attributed the entire thing to them. One with a foot missing, arm missing, one deaf, and one with TB, and that is Saint Christopher. He didn't do a good job. But they were completely, I said to my wife, I said, darling, suppose they know what I teach. Suppose they have heard what I do. Would they have me here? Oh, she has certainly to have you here because as far as they're concerned, you aren't saved, you couldn't be saved: you are a Protestant, so how could you be saved? They loved my father dearly, said my wife, loved him more than they loved their own people, but he couldn't be saved because he was a Protestant, therefore it doesn't really matter what you do, so don't be concerned if they knew that you were teaching, they wouldn't even pass an opinion because it doesn't matter.

Only what they have been taught to believe is true. And that's the only truth. Therefore, enjoy the day. So I did. I enjoyed the day and observed all this nonsense. So I'm telling you, your own wonderful human imagination is God. There is no other God. If you think there's another God, then you've got two gods. And you start with two, you're going to have four. And four is going to give you eight. and age 16, and then you have millions of gods. There's only one God. Here, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And that God is I AM. That's his name forever and forever and forever. And when you say I AM, you're actually announcing the fact that you are imagining.

That is imagination. That's God. And it's the human imagination and it is the eternal but of the Savior. And the only Savior is the Lord God. I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. And besides me there is no Savior. So the Jesus of the new is the Lord God of the old. And where is he? In in man. He gave us not the spirit of this world, he gave us the spirit of himself. And that spirit of himself is in man as man's own wonderful human imagination. Now let us go into the silent. Thank you. Thank you.