Neville 01-07-1969
YOUR MAKER
Your maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name. By him all things are made, and although he is an
unseen activity within you, without him is not anything made that is made. I ask you, as Paul asked the
Corinthians, to examine yourselves to see if you are holding to your faith. To test yourselves. Do you not
realize that Jesus Chris is in you? – unless, of course, you fail to meet the test. I tell you: Jesus Christ is a
power within you, which you must find and test. Paul didn’t say that Jesus Christ made only the good, but
everything – be it good, bad, or indifferent. And Blake said: “I know of no other Christianity and of no other
gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination. Imagination, the real
and external world into which we will live [sic] when these vegetable, mortal bodies are no more. The
apostles knew of no other gospel.”
Now, John Mills defines causation as the assemblage of phenomena, which occurring, some other
phenomena commence to appear in the world. In other words, causation is the assemblage of an imaginal
state implying the fulfillment of desire, which feeling will activate and produce in the world. And H. G. Wells
put it this way: “Throughout the ages, life is nothing more than a continuing solution to a continuous synthetic
problem,” How many times have you said to yourself: if I only had x-number of dollars I could live
comfortably, then inflation appears and you are forced to use your creative power to construct an imaginal
solution to your new problem.
Webster defines a synthetic body as the compiling of separate elements which produce a new form. In this
world you will never find permanency, for something will penetrate the state you are now occupying and
force you to conceive a new solution. This is how it is done. Do not judge the problem – rather ask yourself
what its solution would be. Suppose you were in jail. The solution would be to be out of jail, pardoned, and
sleeping in your own home. So, while still confronted with the problem, and lying on your cot in jail, you
would close your eyes to the cell and feel you are now home, as a free man. Then fall asleep allowing the
maker of all things to create that which will be seen out of that which does not appear.
A few years ago, a lady in my San Francisco audience rose and said: “My brother is in the army. I do not
know what he did to cause his punishment, but he has been sentenced to six months of hard labor, and I want
him set free.” After establishing the fact that he would go to her apartment if he were free, I urged her to
imagine he was there now. That night, this lady imagined hearing the doorbell ring. Rushing down the stairs,
she opened the door to find her brother standing there, a free man. She rehearsed that scene over and over
again until it seemed natural to her. One week later, while sitting in her apartment, the doorbell rang. She ran
downstairs, opened the door, and embraced her brother – who told her he was honorably discharged. Who
brought the action against him, or who discharged him I do not know. I only know the brother did not run
away from the punishment, for the lady came to my meeting the next Sunday and shared her story with all
who were there. Now, if she hadn’t known this principle and put it into practice, she would have remained at
home, angry and frustrated for six months until her brother was released.
All things are made by your imagination, for without imagining, nothing is made. Imagination is not limited to
this level of consciousness. There are levels and levels of imagination, as your dreams and visions prove. This
world is sustained by Divine Imagining, which is human imagining on a higher level. Our imagination is keyed
low, but we are called upon to exercise this power, to examine ourselves to see if we are keeping our faith.
On this level, faith is not complete until, through experiment, it becomes experience. Experiment with this
statement: “Whatever you desire, believe you have received it and you will.” (Mark 11) If faith is not
complete until, through experiment it becomes experience, you must take an unseen objective and place it in
an assemblage of mental states which would imply its fulfillment. Then this desire must be activated by
entering into its center, feeling its reality, and walking in the faith that it will happen. I tell you: in a way you
could not devise, what you have assumed will come into your world.
You do not have to construct a bridge of incident to walk across; you simply move toward the fulfillment of
what you have already prepared for yourself. Then fulfill another desire the same way, and when it appears
you will know exactly what to do when confronted with any problem. You will simply turn your back upon it
by constructing an imaginal scene which would imply the fulfillment of its solution. Activate it and let it come
into being.
Unfortunately it is so easy to make the acceptance of Christianity a substitute for living by it. In New York
City alone there are more than one million people on relief, and I dare say 90 per cent of them claim to be
Christians, yet do not know the meaning of Christianity. Christ is not on the outside, but within you. And
when He appears you will be like him. That is what we are promised in the Book of John. Will you see
someone on the outside who looks like you? No! Christ is in you, and he makes all things. Test him and you
will discover he is your imagination!
When I was a boy I lived in Barbados. Unschooled, with no background whatsoever, I dreamed of coming
to America. I became so enamored with the idea, that at the age of 17 my parents put me on a boat to
America with $600 in my pocket. They thought I would come back once the money was gone, but I wanted
to live in America so badly I had to come and make it my home.
Are you willing to become enamored over a desire that much? Are you willing to fall in love with its fulfillment
that you imagine it is yours now? If so, I promise you it will outpicture itself in your world. And when it does,
you will have found Christ, for the words of scripture: “By him all things are made and without him is not
anything made that is made,” are false.
When you test your imagination you will find He who produced your desire and the Maker of all things! I
have tested him numberless times. I have taught this principle to others who have tested him and shared their
experiences with me. Now I know who Jesus Christ really is. The words, “Unless you believe that I am he,
you will die in your sins,” are not spoken on the outside, but on the inside. Now wearing a garment of flesh,
my words appear to be coming from without, and one day I will seem to die and become a historical fact.
But I am not speaking as an outer man. I am speaking as the true Jesus Christ, who comes in every individual
by unfolding his story as recorded in scripture. There is only one story, and only one being to play the part.
That being is God. It is he alone who acts and is in all things.
When the Old Testament fulfills itself in you – an individual – you will not be a spectator observing the drama,
but the central actor. And, knowing it is God alone who acts, you know you are He. And when you tell your
story, those who hear you will see the garment of flesh you wear, and think you have a devil and are
blaspheming the name of God. But, knowing your father is he who men call God – you know your father,
while men know not their God.
While wearing a garment of flesh, I know my origin and destiny, for scripture has unfolded itself in me. Many
who hear my confession are not expecting this kind of revelation, so they shut me out as one who blasphemes
God’s name. But the words of scripture are spoken from within. This statement is one you are saying to
yourself: “Unless I believe that I am he, I will die in my sins.” To sin is to miss your desire. If you do not
believe you are its creator, you are missing your mark. You must believe, to achieve! You must assume you
already are the person you want to be, in order to become it. Although your assumption is denied by reason
and your senses, if you will persist in your assumption, it will harden into fact. This is how something is made
out of that which does not appear.
Knowing what you want, assume your desire is already fulfilled by imagining a circle of friends are
congratulating you. Fall asleep knowing that those who would empathize with you have already witnessed
your good fortune. Knowing you have put the fulfillment of your desire in motion, walk confident that what
you are assuming is true. And when it happens, share your experience with others, in the hope that they will
try it and it will work for them. It does not matter to me what others think, for I have found my Father – the
one the world worships and calls God – to be my own wonderful human imagination!
People buy pictures of Jesus and hang them on the wall to bow before, yet the pictures are so unlike the artist
who painted them. When Christ appears, you will be like him. This I know from experience. When Christ
appeared in me, I was the one playing his part. Since only God acts and is in all men, God puts himself into
the central role and unfolds the eternal drama in each individual, who then knows that he is God.
Last year I gave ten lectures in San Francisco. Just before the first meeting a lady told me she thought I was
the greatest teacher of truth in the world. I thanked her and began my lecture by stating that man is all
imagination and God is man. That the eternal body of man is the imagination, and that is God Himself. Then I
told the story of a lady who found herself sitting in a chair in a very large room, when a self-propelled carriage
appeared. The door opened and I stepped out, wearing a cape and carrying a briefcase. Personifying sheer
power, I entered the room and began to proclaim the power of God. As she looked at me, she said to
herself: “That is Neville, and yet it is God.” Without giving her any sign of recognition, I finished my
proclamation, turned, and – as though by appointment – the carriage appeared, I entered it, and vanished.
I continued by telling everyone that life itself is a glorious play, which was conceived by God, directed by
God, and every part is being played by God. That this world is like a glorious poem, which exists not for
itself, but for the one who conceived it. Falling in love with the world God had conceived, He wanted all of
the characters to exist for themselves. But, finding no one to play the parts, God died to his true identity in
order to take upon himself the limitation of the characters in his play. Now playing the part of every individual,
God experiences all of the tribulations of being man, until He awakens in the character He is playing. I know I
am Neville, a character in the play, but I also know I am God. This lady, who only a few minutes before had
told me I was the greatest truth teacher in the world, was so shocked she never came back to the other
lectures. She had expected me to conform to her little concept of God and I did not. Instead, I boldly
proclaimed that we were all God, even though we are not all aware of it. Unless the story told in the gospels
concerning Jesus Christ awakens and unfolds in the individual, that individual does not know that he is the
Christ.
Paul found Christ to be his human imagination and urged everyone to test himself. Like Paul, I urge you to
test your human imagination. You do not need the money or the time to go anywhere in your imagination, yet
you can put yourself there, just as though you had made the trip. If you do, and your circumstances change so
that the money and the time appears, allowing you to go, have you not found Jesus Christ to be your
imagination? This is what scripture teaches, but man has personified the story and made Jesus Christ into a
little idol to bow before, when the true God is the human imagination. All things are made by the human
imagination. Imagine something that is not now a fact. Persist in your imaginal act, and when it becomes a
fact, you have found God. And once you have found him, never let him go!
At the end of the drama it is said that one who knew Jesus betrayed him. Now, in order to betray someone,
you must know his secret! So the one who knows the secret betrays him. That one is self! God is
self-revealed. Unless God reveals himself to you, how will you ever know him? Turning to those who did not
know him, Jesus said: “Now that you have found me, do not let me go, but let all these go.” Let every belief
of a power on the outside go, but do not let the belief in your powerful imagination go – for truth is within you.
When you find the Maker in yourself, then no matter what arguments the priesthoods may give, do not
believe them, for the Christ you seek is the human imagination.
Tomorrow you may forget and be penetrated by rumors which disturb your body and cause you to suffer.
When this happens you must reestablish your harmony by imagining things are as you desire them to be.
Living in this wonderful world, we cannot stop the penetration. To perceive another, that other must first
penetrate your brain; therefore, he is within you as well as on the outside and independent of your perception.
Cities, mountains, rivers and streams, must first penetrate your brain for you to be aware of them. At that
moment of awareness they are within you, even though they still maintain a certain independence of your
perception and are without. Treat this inner penetration seriously and you will discover all you need to do is
adjust your thinking. That you are all imagination and must be wherever you think you are. If you want to
contact a friend, simply adjust yourself to his community by making there – here, and then – now. Visit him in
his home by penetrating it within yourself. Give him your message and see his eyes light up with the pleasure
of your words.
If God is in you, is there any place where God is not? And if there is no place where imagination is not, where
would you go to be where you want to be? If everything penetrates you, then you must choose what you
want and adjust yourself into the feeling that you are already there. You will know you have arrived when you
view the world from there.
Motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. While physically sitting in a
chair you appear not to move, but because everything penetrates you, by a mental adjustment you can think
from the awareness of being the person you want to be. How will you know you have changed? By the
expression on the faces of your friends. If they now see the new you, then you have moved. So let them look
at you until their faces tell you they are seeing that which you are assuming is true.
There must always be a frame of reference from which you move. Your frame is your friends, who would
know of any change in your life. If I died, motion would be detected, as one friend would call another, who
would call another, and finally dozens of people would know that Neville had died. If, on the other hand, I
became a millionaire, that same chain reaction would occur.
After assuming you are now what you want to be, make your friends your frame of reference by hearing them
congratulate you. Feel the reality of their actions. Relax in the peace of knowing it is done. And when it
comes to pass, you have found Christ, for it is He who makes all things and without him is not a thing made
that is made. You made your life change by finding Christ to be your imagination!
I tell you: God became you, with all of your weakness and limitations, that you may become Imagination.
Becoming our imagination, God exists in us and we in him. Our eternal body is the imagination, and that is
God Himself. And God alone acts! He can act the part of the fool, or the king, the poor, or the rich man.
Every desire is a state. Move into your desire, and God will play that part – as you! If you desire riches, yet
do not know this power, you will remain poor because you are looking for a God on the outside, trying to
coerce him into giving you wealth for acquiring merit. You can spend your life acquiring merit and be so good
the world will think you are wonderful, yet remain poor. Man must seek and find his true identity within
himself, for he and he alone is the revealer and maker of everything in this world.
I have never seen Neville do anything. I was never a spectator, but the actor playing the part. Now wearing
this garment of decay, called Neville, when I tell my story people are shocked. They think I am blasphemous
by making these bold claims, yet I can no more deny my mystical experiences than I can deny the simplest
evidence of my senses. I know what I ate tonight, yet its memory is not as vivid to me as my experiences of
scripture. So I say to all: the one who makes everything is the human imagination. This may seem cruel to one
who is now experiencing pain, but it is true. I have suffered. I have known physical pain. Even though I may
say I caught the flu, I know I caught it within me. I read the paper where I learned that 50 per cent of the
people had the flu, and – becoming a statistic – I made it fifty-one. I have experienced its aches and pains,
and learned a lesson. Now I know that even though I have experienced the drama of Jesus Christ, I am still
subject to everything man is subject to. I know that I cannot point to any other cause other than my own
imagination, as cause cannot come from the outside. If I am in pain, the cause is mine. We are told in
Galatians that God – your imagination – is not mocked. That as you sow, so shall you reap. “See yonder
fields? The sesame was sesame, the corn was corn, the silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man’s fate
born.”
So I repeat: Causation is the assemblage of mental states, which occurring produces that which the
assemblage implies. Assemble a mental state which implies you are now what you want to be. Enter into that
state. Remain there until you become one with it by performing inner acts as though they were outer ones.
Continue to do so and watch, for your outer world will change as these inner acts become facts in your
world. And don’t think you will ever find a stopping place. No state you have ever created will endure
unmoved, undisturbed, forever – because every moment of time you are being penetrated. Your idea of
perfection and harmony today will be disturbed tomorrow, forcing you to use your talent to construct an
imaginal change.
Your departure from this world will be so only to those who cannot follow you into another section of the
same world. There you will continue to imagine, until the gospel story repeats itself in you. It will, for it is the
story of God awakening and being born in man. Where God is not in man as his human imagination, the story
could not be repeated. But when it erupts and Christ unfolds within the individual, he leaves a section of time
to enter an entirely new age called the kingdom of God.
You can prove you are all imagination if you believe it, for you live by your beliefs. Lip service is not enough.
Belief must become alive. Do you really believe your imagination makes all things? Then test yourself and see.
When confronted with any problem, immediately construct an imaginal solution. Enter into that image and
abide in its truth. Always remember who the maker is, for he makes things out of that which does not appear.
He is like quicksilver, but you can test him best in a daydream.
Fawcett said: “Divine imagining is like pure imagining in ourselves. It lives in the very depth of our soul
underlining all of our faculties, including perception, but streams into our surface mind least disguised in the
form of creative fantasy.” All dreams proceed from God whether they be in the day, or night. Everything is
preceded by a dream, called an imaginal act!
Take me seriously and test the maker in you. “Examine yourselves to see if you are holding to your faith. Test
yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test.” (II
Corinthians 13) I hope you will find out that you have not failed!
Now let us go into the silence.
Neville Goddard, Summa Theologica, Manly P Hall, A Course In Miracles
