The Secret of God

Thank you very much. Tonight's subject is the secret of imagining. That is really the secret of God.

For God is man. and exist in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God himself. So when we speak of the secret of imagination, we are speaking of the secret of God.

So I will use the term tonight, or in which they are described in Scripture, The secret of imagine is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which every one should aspire.

Now these are the terms now that Paul uses in his description of Christ in his first letter to Corinthians. Supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lie in the solution of this mystery. For Paul described Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God. And the book of Proverbs describes Christ, called the Messiah there, as the delight of God. So here the supreme power is the discursion of the great mystery of imagination.

So tonight I hope I can add some light to this wonderful mystery, because if you find you will find the secret of God's creative activity. We are told of so many writers having experienced it. Take our late President Herbert Hoover. He said human history, its many forms of government, its revolution, its war, and in fact the rise and fall of nations could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the minds of men.

Now here is a man speaking from sat in our highest office in this world. If you can only control the imaginations of men, but who can control it when that is God Himself? You are free to imagine anything in this world, and no power in the world can stop it if you persist in that imaginal activity. But we are not disciplined, we are diverted. Propaganda controls the motion of our imaginal activity. To read the morning paper, to turn on the radio, to turn on TV, and you're diverted. If you could only imagine the state desire, go to the very end, and dwell in the end as though it were true, and remain faithful to the end in a way that no one knows, it would objectify itself in your world. For objective reality is solely produced through imagination. That is God himself.

So when I speak of imagining, I am speaking of the creative power of God. I am speaking of Christ. That is the creative power of God. That is the wisdom of God. that is the delight of God man not knowing that he thinks in terms of a person not knowing that he himself is a person in whom God dwells and he has to discover God within himself when he discovers God within himself he's still a person but he discovers God as his own wonderful human imagination that is God And he discovers, if he observes what he's doing, that all of his imaginal activities do eventually become objective facts. But man's memory is so faulty he can't quite relate his own imaginal activities to the harvest that he sees in this world that he's compelled to reap.

Here is a very so -called wise man, wise in the youth of the English town. His books are in all the universities of the world. I know they're in all the English libraries of the world. He's gone from this world now. I knew him quite well. He was a shared delight and a dinner companion. He changed his opinion in later years, yes, but back in the 30s when he wrote, Aims and Means, this is what he said, and this is all the substance. He said, I had motives for not wanting the world to have a mean. Consequently, I assumed that it had that. and was able, without any difficulty, to find satisfying reason for this assumption.

He assumed it had some. One night I came out of the Ebell Theater, having given my lecture there, and I looked into the hills of Hollywood. And here, the whole hill is aflame. houses how many, I think there were 40 burned that night one of the 40 was Aldous's home in it he had these priceless manuscripts he had manuscripts not published by D .H. Lawrence that were given to him by Lawrence, he had his own manuscript and a priceless library such lovely pieces of art that members of his family had done He had so many intellectual giants in his family tree, both on the male side and the female side. And he fell heir to so many lovely things, pictures of sculpture, painting, and these wonderful manuals.

Everything went right down to ash. Not one thing was saved but the suit on his back. So he had motives for not wanting the world to have a mean. and he consequently assumed that it had done. And then he had no difficulty in finding satisfying reason for this assumption. That was plenty and then seemingly forgotten but it was recorded in his book written in the 30s called Ends and Me. He went about his business changing his opinions from time to time but that had to come to fruition So be not deceived, saith Paul, for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Well, you sow with your imaginal activity. Whatever man is imagining, that is what he is sowing.

And when the time is right for its fulfilment, it comes to pass, and all that he held so so dear in the latter days of his life, turned into ash. It had no meaning. The world had no meaning. To him, they were priceless then, and he intended to give them to one of our universities here on the West Coast, either USC or UCLA. Well, that's what he chose. And then the whole thing collapsed. Paul turned to ash. Our whole vast world is what we are imagining pushed out and there's nothing but God and God is your own wonderful human imagination we are told in the book of John he was in the world and the world was made through him yet Yet the world knew him not.

He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him and who believed in his name, he gave power to become sons Sons of God. Who were born not of blood. Nor of the will of the flesh. Nor of the will of man. But of God. Not of physical birth. Not from the passions of blood and flesh. But of God. God is your own wonderful human imagination. That's where the birth takes place. From above. out of your own skull, out of your own wonderful human imagination. Now, Jeremiah, which name means Jehovah, will rise. In this passage taken from the 18 chapters of Jeremiah, you will see that the Lord God Jehovah is your own wonderful human imagination.

And the Lord said to me, and this is Jeremiah speaking in vision, and the Lord said unto me, Arise, 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 field. And the vessel made of clay was spoiled in his hand. So he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Now the word translated potter in the concord, the biblical concord is imagination. imagination to fall into a mode to make a resolution to determine. Now in the book of Isaiah the 64th: O Lord, thou art our Potter; we are the web of thy hand.

The Lord is the Potter who. I go down to the Potter, and the Potter means imagination. Where do I go to see the Father, and what he's doing? Do I not go into my imagination to see what I am doing, my resolutions, my determination, what I have decided to make of myself? Being the Lord and all things are possible to the Lord, do I have to take a come to what is around me, where I was born, my background, my social, intellectual, financial, or any other background? No, not if all things are possible to God, and God is my imagination. So I will ask myself, what am I imagining concerning myself? I'm concerning the things around about me.

If I believe for one moment you are responsible for my well -being, I transfer the power that belongs to God, which is myself, to you. If I believe for one moment that you could stop it in my progress towards the fulfillment of my desire, then I transfer it to that which is not God. For God is my own wonderful human imagination. I would go down to the potter's house and see what he'd do. I go down to the potter's house, and there he is working at his wheel, and the vessel in his hand was spoiled. The concept that I hold of myself is not that which I would like to be. It is spoiled. So I don't throw it away.

I don't commit suicide. I don't discard myself. I rework the vessel, the very vessel that I held in my hand. I rework it into an entire different form that I resolve to be. The man that I want to be, that man now I assume that I am. And so having assumed that I have it, I remain faithful to my assumption, and my assumption in a way that no one knows eventually objectifies itself and becomes an external fact in my life. And the world will say, how lucky he is. How lucky, not knowing that imagination, who is God, and faith are the stuff out of which the whole vast world is made. So in my imagination I simply assumed that I am the man that I wanted to be.

Having assumed it, I remained faithful to my assumptions, knowing that the assumptions don't fall at the moment that I made the assumptions, for it was denied by my senses, denied by reasons. But if I persist in the assumptions, it will harden into that, in a way that no one knows. I do not have to work out the means. It simply happens because the whole vast world is myself pushed out and anyone who can aid the birth of that assumption will become still to aid the birth of that assumption. I don't need to pull them one by one and say, you play this part and you play that part. They all have to play the part that they must play to bring to birth that which I have assumed that I am.

Or, for that matter, assume that another one is. If I so love another to be concerned and wish for that other something noble in this world, I do for the other what I am doing for myself, because it is myself only pushed out, that's all. For the whole vast world is within. Only the imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space. Now we are told in Scripture, So the whole vast world of good and evil exists. So I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in supreme state, but to be every one of them states into which the soul may fall in its dreams of good and evil.

So it doesn't really know what it's doing. It falls into this by reading the paper. It falls into that by turning on the radio. It falls into this by listening to something else or a rumor or a frame bringing some news. And so it is moved from one state into another state. It may be a good state or an evil state. But imagination, may I tell you, waits upon us as indifference and as twisted when the will in us is evil as when it is good. I create the good and the evil. Listen to these words taken from Deuteronomy. I, even I, am he. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal.

And there is no God beside. I know nothing. And none can deliver out of my hand. Read it in the 32nd of Deuteronomy. I think you'll find it the 39th verse. Here there's nothing but God. And God is your own wonderful human imagination. Now you're told, test me and say, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless of course you fail to meet the test. Read it in the 13th of 2nd Corinthians, the fifth verse. Jesus Christ is in you. And who is Jesus Christ? He is defined as the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's in 1 Corinthians 1, chapter 24. There you will find the power of God is imagining.

Imagination is God. God in action is Christ, and Christ is your own being imagining. So what are you imagining? It's going to come to pass. that no one tells you that it will not. It will come to pass if you persist in the imaginal act. Everything in this world is God -made visible, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. So God is man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the the imagination, and that is God himself. For in you dwells the creative power of God, which is the madness. And you can't stop it, whether you wake in this world or speak tonight, you are imagined.

The whole thing is simply all taking place within you. And the day will come that you will awake to the fact that you are God the Father. You who think so little in this world, so insignificant one day you will awake to know who you really are and you are God the Father and as God the Father you must have a son and his son is your son and his son stands before you and calls you father I will tell you now who that son is the son is David David is the Messiah Messiah. David is the Christ in one. Jesus is Jehovah. That is the Lord God Jehovah and his name forever and forever is I AM.

That is my name forever and forever. And all generations must know me by this name. He will first display himself not by that name. He will display claim self as power. El Shaddai, God Almighty. But you are not knowing as you really is until you really see him as infinite love. Infinite love, with all the horrors in the world, and he and He alone created everything, and yet He is infinite love? Yes. You'll meet him one day. You'll meet love, and love wears a human form; for God is man and man is God, so you will stand in the presence of God, and He's ∞input∞ of love, and yet by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

Because you wait on us as indifferently and as quickly when the will is evil as when it is good. He created a tree of knowledge of good and evil, so you eat of it. And whatever you eat, you become trapped. And as far as the Lord is concerned, your imagination, It's indifferent to Him whether you eat the good or the evil. For these are infinite states that you eat, and you fall into these states, and you pay the price of the state that you ate. So be careful what you are imagining. I don't care what the world will tell you that you should imagine. You can use your own discretion as to what you should imagine.

When you go into a restaurant, you don't say, Bring me some food. You say, Bring me a menu. And you select from the menu what you want. You don't go into a store and say, Bring me a soup, bring me a dress. You select from some wonderful display what you want. No matter what you buy, just erase a blade. They may have a sale on a certain blade and fight to sell you. Who does that? You say, No, I just want a certain blade. If you have it, I will buy it from you. If you don't have it, I will go elsewhere. You don't buy the most insignificant thing in this world without being selective.

You select everything in this world. I hope you do. When you picked your bride, you selected her among all the millions in the world. And when she selected her husband, she picked you among all the millions in the world. So you picked what you wanted. I hope you did. I know that's what I did the second time. I made a horrible mistake the first time. So did she in picking me. But the second time I picked it just as I wanted it, and it was perfect and it worked out beautifully. So I say to everyone, be selective in everything you do in this world, and imagine it. What would you want of life? Don't say, What is it possible for me to have?

All things are possible to God. He puts no restraint. There is no limitation on the power of imagination. Whoever believes that what he says will come to pass, it shall be done for him. That's what we are told. Therefore, when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will. There is no limitation on that power, and that power is only your own wonderful human imagination. So don't burn your house down years from now because you want the world to have no meaning. Talk that nonsense, because when he wanted it more than anything in the world, for I knew his first wife and I also knew the second wife, and the second wife got him the way those who were coming to my meetings got many of their mates.

She came to my meetings and she set her heart on all that. She told me herself and told him in my presence, That's exactly how I met you. Because I went to bed knowing after your wife died and you were now a widow, that I am going to be your wife. So she became his wife, and he simply gave up all the dark places where he lived because he was practically blind. And his first wife, to protect his eyes, had all the curtains drawn. Everything was dark. He lived on King's Road. When I first finished, I wondered, where am I? The whole thing is so dark. All the lights were dimmed, little tiny lights. When he married the second time, she moved to the top of the hills of Hollywood.

And everything was black and white, nothing but. And he loved it. But when he had everything moved in and enjoying it, the whole thing collapsed to dust. This is how the law works. It's not retribution. It's simply showing you what you've done. Everything that happens to me is happening because I did it unto myself. I don't care what it is. I cannot draw unto myself anything other than what I am imagining in my own wonderful human imagination. So do not be deceived. God is not lost. What God? My imagination. It was planted there, and he is going to bring it to fulfilment, because he is light. He is going to give life to that which I simply plant, but all in its own good time.

Be patient. The vision has its own appointed hour. It ripens. It will flower. If it be long, you wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late. That in Habakkuk. You'll find that in our wonderful book of Habakkuk. Here, it will not be late. But every little planted seed has a different interval of time between the planting and its fulfillment. So today you assume a certain state of grandeur, of lovingness, of kindness, whatever you want to be in this world. It has its own appointed hour, and then in time it will come to fruition, and you will reap it because you planted it. It's all yours. And even if you should just know this very moment from this world, you haven't left the world.

You've left this little section of time, but not the world, for you are restored to life in a body just like this, but young, unaccountably new, about twenty, to continue the journey, and all the things you planted you will be reaping. They all will come up because you planted them, and they cannot be reaped by another. You planted them and they will come, for the world is not confined to three people in one kingdom. This world of ours is complete and is vast and is big in sections of time. You leave one section and you find yourself in another. And these events will come into your world. Not a progression like drop today in 1970 to find yourself in 1970.

You could drop in 1970 and find yourself in the year 3000. Or the year 1000. Makes no difference whether you jump forward or jump back. All these things will come into your world. And you will find yourself by your home. leaving here and finding yourself in the year 3000, or leaving here and finding yourself in the year 1000. And the world continues, you continue, until he awakes within you. When he awakes within you, you are God the Father. And you know it only proves one thing, when he stands, calls you Father. For no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son. So when you hear people telling you, oh I know who Jesus is, who Christ is, which is what you do, well who are they?

Well they're one they would say. Well then who is Jesus Christ? Do you know who he is? A good Christian will tell you, well yes, I know that he is the Son of God. Then you can say to the good Christian who knows that Christ is the Son of God, then you must be God. Because only the Father knows the Son. And if you know the Son, then you must know that you are the Father. If you're nearing up, you're captive. Because of his ignorance, he doesn't know. He couldn't possibly know the Son unless he were the Father and fully conscious of being the Father. So when you know who you are, you will know who the Son is.

But they come spontaneously and automatically at the same moment in time you do not know you are God the Father until the Son stands before you and then memory returns and as memory returns there is no uncertainty as to this relationship here is my Son, I simply had amnesia. I didn't know to all these senses I had been green and I didn't know. Now here comes my Son and God awakes within you and you are God the Father. ¶While you are here in the world of Caesar not knowing who you are a law is given to you and that law is what I'm talking about tonight. How would I apply it? I must first have an objective.

To reach my objective I must know what I'm imagined. At least the end. In the words of Robert Frost, just before he made his exit from this world this is what he said: our founding fathers did not believe in the future; they believed it in. The most creative thing in man is to believe a thing in for you go to the end. Remain in the end, as though it were true. And if you remain faithful to the end, means will unfold to externalize their ends. For they did not believe in the future as we are taught in our schools to believe. That our founding fathers had an idea and they believed in the future. No, they believed it in.

They dwelt in the end and wrote their wonder and dwelt in the end. A complete break with the entire past. ¶They were not lifting anything from other parts of the world. A complete different concept of democracy. The most difficult form of government in the world. But to this day, the best. Nothing's comparable to it. But the most difficult. When everything is easy in a dictatorship, shoot him. Don't believe in him, but shoot him. Appropriate the power and then destroy all oppositions, but not in democracy. When you and I can do what I'm doing now. I have the freedom to tell you what I'm telling you. I don't want anyone to arrest me for what I'm saying.

In complete contradiction to what is being taught this day in the churches of our world. I am telling you that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And the man spoken of is you. ¶You are the Christ who exercises this power wisely or unwisely. So you are crucifying him morning, noon, and night by your misuse of this power. These are the blows that you give to Christ. Every time that you exercise your imagination unlovingly on behalf of anyone in this world you are abusing Christ or you are abusing the creative power of God and then you are free to do it, but I'm telling you to try it. You just take the most glorious concept of yourself in this world having assumed that's what I want to be as a man.

Don't ask anyone for permission, you assume that you are. Sleep in it just as though it would soon wake; in it just as though it is, and then go to work just to know it's true. You will find a whole vast world remolding itself in harmony with your assumption. When you reflect upon it, you are amazed at the bridge of interest that came into being across which you moved to fulfill that state. You have no idea how this whole thing came into being, but that wonderful unfolding picture as you reflect upon it seems so natural. It seems so natural you will say to yourself, well, it would have happened anyway. That's how natural it happened.

But it would not have happened in eternity had you not assumed the end and lived in the end just as though it were true. So the secret of imagining is to conjure in your wonderful mind's eye a screen which would imply that you are the one that you want to be. ¶Enacted in your imagination just as though it's true give it all the tones of reality give it sensory vividness as taught us in the scripture come near my son that I may see you your voice comes like Jacob but come close and Jacob comes close and he felt the hair which belonged to Esau Esau being the external world You sound like Jacob, but you feel, and you have the odor of my son Esau.

Then he pronounced a blessing upon him. I guess that he gave him the blessing to be real in this world. Then comes Esau, and discovers the deception that his subjective faith had taken the place of the objective faith. And the father said, I bless, and I cannot retake my blessing. Even though he came through deception and deceit. I can't take this. Can't take it back. So here is my Esau. My outer world is Esau. But I don't like what I'm experiencing in the outer world. But I would like to continue in the outer world with a different experience. So I close my eyes to the office. I construct a scene which would imply that it's taken this position.

It has supplanted this world. I am no longer the man that I was. I am now the man that I always wanted to be. So I bring that into my mind's eye and I reenact it in my mind's eye and give it the tones of reality and give it senselessness by putting my hand upon it and touching it. And then when I am thinking from this state now, having given it all that I can of reality, I open my eyes, it vanishes, and this returns. But I say to myself, I gave it the right of birth. I am apologizing to you, but you must vanish now. My present state that I dislike must now vanish from my world.

And the state that seemingly at the moment is unseen will come into being and take the place of the pheasant of Goodwill. So this is the story of Esau and Jacob. Jacob is the supplanter. The subjective inner state, and this is the outer state of Itho. Now here I am thinking from this room. Here is an important point in the secret of imagination. I'm always thinking from a state. If I don't like the state that I am seeing and that I am experiencing, what state would I like to be in? Assume. And see it in your mind's eyes and assume it. Now view the world from that state. It's all the difference in the world between thinking from a state and thinking of a state.

I'm always thinking from, and most of the time we're thinking of. Of is at the moment subjective. From is objective. I take the fate I am thinking of and bring it into my consciousness now and think from it. As I think from it, I am closing it in reality. I'm giving it the tolls of reality. And when I open my eyes, it vanishes just as your tolls in Genesis said he vanished a minute to every one return. And so the Father says, he deceived me, but I gave him the right of birth, and I cannot take it back. So I give that trait from which I drew the world the right of birth, and it has to come to pass.

These are the secrets of imagi nation, or the secrets of God, and the secret of God is Christ, and Christ is imagination. It's the power of God. It's the wisdom of God. But it takes a man to express the power of God because God and man are one. God and man are one. He exists in me and I exist in God. The eternal body of God is your imagination. That actually is God himself. Now you take it and try it and put it to the extreme test. Don't let anyone interfere with you. If you feel you are not at the moment strong enough to do it without discussion, be quiet. Don't talk to anyone. Just do it.

Just try it. I could tell you a number of stories of those who never discussed it with others. Not that discussion would have forwarded, but they did not feel that others would understand and think them mentally a little bit off and not wanting to feel that they were simply not within the norm of the stream of normal light, patiently held it to themselves and everything that they imagined had come to pass. But strangely enough, people not knowing the deepest secrets of Scripture, when they bring into the world all the things that they have, they forget how they brought it in and try to protect it without the same reason. They have all the things in the outer world to protect it now, when they brought the whole thing in by their own wonderful human imagination.

So they will say, I have brought in all these millions into my world, and here I have them. Then they start insuring it beyond measure, to protect it against fire, to protect it against robbery, to protect it against that. When the whole thing came in without any help from anyone in the world, it just came because night after night and day after day, They lived their life in imagination. And having lived it and brought it all to birth, now they're going to protect it with the things of Caesar. And Caesar and his whole crowd were all as mad as Hattus. Any man who, having brought it into birth, who then turns to the world of Caesar to protect it, is simply confessing he doesn't really believe in Christ.

Yet these of whom I speak, they will say, oh yes, I'm a Christian. You're a Christian, are you? Do you believe your imaginal acts are facts? Oh no, then you do not believe in Christ for he is the power of God and God is your imagination. If you do not believe in God's power, you do not believe in your own imagining and your imagining is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So you do not know Christ. You only know a false Christ. something that the ancients painted and perpetuated through the years. So they have some icon and they call that Christ. When you meet him, he is just like you. For you are he.

You are the being spoken of in Scripture as the Lord Jesus Christ. But he sees it. One day he must awake. When he awakes in you you are the God the Father for the secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems to the solution of which every one should aspire. Why? Because supreme power, supreme wisdom, supreme delight lies in the solution of this mystery. So when you actually solve this mystery thing. You have solved the secret of God's created power. You have found Christ. And you don't find him unless you solve this mystery. And then when you find him and find the power of Christ, then he unveils himself as you, because his son calls you father.

And then you know it beyond all doubt. You know who stands before you, and you know this infinite relationship between between father and son. But I haven't met anyone who wears the cloth, who will accept it. They had not been taught it. They are giving me the tradition. They are telling me what they had heard in school. So they speak from theory, and I am speaking from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not here to theorize. I am telling you what I know. Mine is an assured. I know because I have experienced it. When you go out tonight believe it is God going through the door as you go through the door: not the little garment that you wear, that's dust, a little return to dust.

I said earlier if you follow me closely: God is man, and I capitalized the word man, and exists in us, that man is the inner man that exists in this outer man. This is the ether. There is an inner man, and that inner man is called in Scripture Jacob as his first name, and his name was changed to Israel. The word Israel means the man who rules as God. Not like a God, as God. That's Israel. Then he goes through and finally comes to complete fulfillment in the one known as Christ. That is the story. The outer man will return to the dust. The inner man is immortal. And that inner man is your own wonderful human imagination.

And that is God himself. Now, when you go, trust in God. Trust in your own imagination. Imagine noble things, lovely things. I don't care what the world will tell you, what it looks like. You continue in your lovely concept of what it ought to be. But begin with self. Live in an all- wonderful, noble life. What's wrong with being well if you name it? I don't care what you want in this world, how precious it may be in the eyes of others, it's not beyond your right or beyond your ability to achieve it. If you can simply assume that you have it, well then, let it be; it will be done for you; for ways and means will unfold that you will not consciously determine; you only determine the end.

I dwell in the end. And living in the end, I create the means to the fulfillment of that end. Now let us go into the silence for a moment, and then we'll have some questions. No, are there any questions? The subject next Friday will be, he is dreaming now. Now, do we have any questions? I have ways that you know not of. My ways are past finding out. That is not exactly script implied in Scripture. No, it's not actually in Scripture; it's implied in Scripture, for when I'm told in the the 11th chapter of Ma 'a.