18 Jun Neville Goddard: “Inner Talking” [Rare Lecture]

by Neville Goddard  – 4/16/65

Tonight’s subject is “Inner Talking.” And may I tell you, if you really believe it to the point that you really apply it, nothing is impossible. If you really believe it to the degree that you are moved to really try it. Costs you nothing; all it costs you is simply a little time. But you must be diligent and really watch to see what you’re doing on the inside.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians, “Put off the former conversations which are corrupt”—-he calls it “the old man”—“and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Now he tells us, “Put on the new man, which is created in righteousness” (Eph. 4:22). Righteousness is right thinking—always in the direction of your fulfilled desire, that’s right thinking. He tells us “You did not receive this that you are now doing”—speaking of the old man—“of Christ. You did not so learn Christ!” (verse 20). That’s his word. Can you conceive that you learned Christ? Yes, you learned about Christ as you do about mathematics, as you do about music, as you do about anything in this world. You have to learn about Christ. And the entire Christian world, by confining themselves to the human biography of Jesus, has robbed themselves of the knowledge of Christ. They don’t know who Christ is. Because they think if I know and believe implicitly that a man was born supernaturally, and then he lived on this earth, and then he had the most horrible death, and then he rose, if I accept that story, that is Christ. There is so much more to Christ.

So Christ, tonight, we will discuss as this inner talking. First of all he tells us, And those who reproached thee fell on me…“The reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me” (Ps. 69:9). Here is a principle. Like any principle in this world it’s impersonal. “In Christ there is no Jew, there is no Greek, there is no free, there is no slave, there is no male, there is no female; all are one in Christ” (Gal. 3:28). So, in Christ, one, no division. And everything that man has ever done to you, or you to man, fell on me. Well, who am I then?—the one on whom all of these things fall, your own wonderful human Imagination. So Blake cried out, “What have I said? What have I done? O these immortal words, these all-powerful Human Words!” So I sit, and I think no one sees me, no one hears me; I’m all alone. I can just feel sorry for myself and go to the backyard and eat worms. And so I sit down and I feel very, very sorry for myself; I carry on these inner conversations feeling horrible. And then he comes to the conclusion, “What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful Human Words!” If man would only understand that it is falling upon himself, all that he’s doing. And that being is Jesus Christ. There is nothing in this world but God, and God became man that man may become God. And in becoming man, he is one with human Imagination. That is God!

Now, I can sit quietly and carry on the most heavenly conversation, and I know it will come to pass. No power in the world will stop it if I’m faithful to it. Now, let me share with you a simple story that came in this morning’s mail (he is here tonight). He said, “I called on a customer down in the beach area, and during the conversation something came up about Imagination. I became all excited and told him what I knew of Imagination. Well, he said to me, ‘You seem so enthused, so completely carried away, would you address my club? It’s called the Unity Men’s Club.’ He said, Well, certainly! Right away he set the date. This was last month, only a month ago. My friend then went home after he heard this invitation. The man said to him, ‘We get eighteen, twenty people at a time, but what I will do is this, I will have a ladies’ night. So we’ll have a ladies’ night, and they will bring their friends. So we’ll try to get as many as possible. For it doesn’t hold too many, said he, it holds maximum sixty-five.’” So my friend simply imagined that it held almost capacity or capacity. He did it three times, said he in his letter to me…“three times I controlled my Imagination where I heard people congratulate me for what I had said. I heard them all say how they liked it, how they would apply it, and try to apply it…and all these things in my Imagination, an inner conversation with self.

“On the day that I gave my talk, there were sixty-four people present, one less than capacity. At the end of the meeting I was congratulated left and right. One lady said she represented the Norwegian Club, would I speak for her, which I accepted. That I have done; that came the early part of this month. One from the Kiwanis Club, one from another club, and many of the ladies thought I was a member of the cloth, because they said they had never heard any minister so liberal in his interpretation of scripture.” Well, he said, one thing I do know today this nail is driven in more deeply than ever before in my own inner conviction of the truth of what you talk about.

I said to him tonight as he came back to see me, take a goal this year. If you have a goal—I do not know his goal—I said, if you have a goal and it’s dollars and cents, whatever you have made this year, make it ten times, make it twenty times what you made. Now you know it’s all inner talking anyway. What does it matter what others make, what they have made? Make it! You’ll be no better off because you made it. You may be no nearer the goal of awakening as God himself, but you’re living in the world of Caesar, and you’ve discovered now how you do it. Put off the former conversations that belong to the old man for that is corrupt; and put on the new man, and he’s created in righteousness, he’s created in the right use of thinking. So if every day you catch yourself doing what you should not do, come right back. Don’t criticize yourself, don’t condemn yourself. Just simply take your wonderful Imagination bring it back to the goal, and simply carry on these inner conversations from premises of fulfilled desire. So you will not have to be stunned and say as Blake said in his 24th Plate, “What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful human words” (Jerusalem). Man has no idea what he is doing morning, noon and night with his inner conversations, and no power in the world can stop you from reaching your fulfilled desire if you are consistent with these inner conversations. That’s what you and I are moving towards.

So here, these inner conversations…take the story of my friend Freedom Barry. He told all of his friends in June what he wanted for Christmas. He’s passionately fond of music and he wanted the interpretation of Tristan and Isolde as given by Flagstad. He wanted it above all things. Christmas came. He had many records, but he didn’t have that. They all told him they had tried all over this area, but they couldn’t get it. So after Christmas was over and there was no record of Flagstad, no Tristan and Isolde, he then got into a moment of silence and carried on an inner conversation between himself and the salesman. He asked for his record and the salesman said, “Yes we have it, sir.” When the whole thing was real to him, it took on the tones of reality, all natural. Then physically he made a trip to the store and he asked for it. The man said, “We do not have it, sir.” And mentally he said to the man, “That’s not what I heard you say.” He put beyond what he heard with the outward ear what he had heard with the inward ear. That must take precedence over the outward ear; the outward ear must confirm what he heard inwardly. He said, “That’s not what I heard you say.”

As he was about to leave the store, he noticed a record, like a sleeve, these empty sleeves just advertising a record, and it was Tristan and Isolde as interpreted by Flagstad. He said to the salesman, “You shouldn’t advertise merchandise that you do not have.” The salesman said, “You’re right, sir” and reached up right there and then to take it off to find it was not an empty sleeve, it was the complete album of Tristan and Isolde. It had been there for over eight months, and in that interval dozens, maybe a hundred people who wanted that record asked for it; and thinking that to be an empty sleeve advertising the record, he said nothing about it. He was prompted to say you shouldn’t advertise merchandise you do not carry in stock, and the man agreed with him and lifted it off the top to find it was not empty—-here was Tristan and Isolde as interpreted by Flagstad. He would not take no for an answer.

In yesterday morning’s Times, L.A.Times, there was an interview with the Prime Minister of England Wilson, and the reporter asked him what was his reaction when the head of China and the head of North Vietnam said no to his request to let his Foreign Minister, who was a roving minister, Walker, visit them concerning bringing this thing in Vietnam to an end. They said no, they would not accept him. So the reporter said to the Prime Minister, “What do you say to that?” And his reply thrilled me: “You never accept no on my job.” You never accept no on my job. So you go and you ask and they say no. You don’t take no! So the salesman said no we do not have it. He didn’t take no for an answer. The hundreds who went through looking for that record couldn’t see it. If they saw it, it was only an empty sleeve. But he was prompted to say don’t advertise merchandise you don’t carry, so he naturally agreed with him and took it off to find it wasn’t empty. Here was the record waiting for him for over eight months. His friends couldn’t find it. They took the word of the salesman, “We do not have it.”

I say to you, start these inner conversations. You will notice, because we are all creatures of habit, you have a habit to overcome. In the course of a day you’ll find yourself thinking negatively a thousand times, and you will carry on arguments with a thousand people from premises of unfulfilled desire. Don’t try to justify it. The average mind, not knowing this, and knowing this story, will say, “Well, let me finish it first, let me finish my negative conversation first, and then I’ll do it. I want to tell him off.” So we bring before our mind’s eye someone and we carry on this negative conversation. We become aware of what we’re doing, but it’s so pleasant from a negative point of view we want to finish it. So we carry on the negative state and finish it before we’ll turn to the positive. Don’t waste your precious time! The minute you become aware that you’re carrying on these negative conversations, stop it, and come back without any conversation with self, no condemnation of self, no justification of what you did, don’t do it, and come back to the new man. Put off the old man which he said is corrupt, and the old man is tied to conversations. Put off the former conversations, the old man which is corrupt; put on the new man, which is created in righteousness. Well, if the old man is tied to my former conversations, the new man must be tied to my future conversations. Well, start it right now. This whole thing is all within us.

Now, Hermes, in his great Hermetica, written just about the time that our story of Christ is being gathered together—some people say it’s fifty years B.C., some claim it’s fifty years A.D.—but it’s within the same time that the great evangelists were gathering together the story of Christ, this fantastic story of the world. And he said, “There are two gifts that God has bestowed upon man alone and on no other creature, no other mortal creature.” He names the gifts as “mind and speech.” And he tells us that these gifts, mind and speech, if used rightly will make the user of this no different from the immortals; and when he quits the body, mind and speech will be his guides, and mind and speech will take him into the company of the gods and the souls that have attained to bliss. For if what my friend told me tonight in his letter and confirmed it verbally just a few minutes ago is true—and I know from my own experience it is true—-what power in this world can stop me from reaching my goal if I use rightly mind and speech? The same Hermes tells us that speech is the image of mind, and mind is the image of God. Well, if speech is the image of my mind and my mind mirrored in speech is the image of God, then I know God. I know what he’s doing within me. But who is doing it? I am doing it; therefore, he and I are one.

So he tells us, that which is manifested or that which is is manifested. That which has been or shall be is unmanifested but is not dead, for, so the eternal activity of God animates all things. So that which has been or that which shall be is not dead, it’s not now manifested. But I know now how to manifest it. It is not now manifested, but I can manifest it. For if speech mirrors my mind and my mind mirrors God and soul, which is my own Imagination (for that’s the only soul I can think of; for I have proved it by experience) it animates things that seemingly are not so. For soul, the eternal animation of God, the eternal reality of God animates all things. So I will think of you and hear you tell me the most exciting news in the world concerning yourself, sit quietly and listen just as though I heard. Well, who is listening? I am listening. Well then, I am animating what I’m hearing. If I listen as though I heard and remain faithful to what I have heard, and this principle is true, then there’s no power in the world that can stop it from coming to pass.

It doesn’t matter whether you are good in the eyes of the world or evil in the eyes of the world. This is a principle. If I’m going to confine my knowledge of Christianity simply to the biography, human biography of Jesus, I’m going to rob myself of the reality of Christ. Christ is all encompassing, he’s everything. To say I believe in Christ and then go to church on Sunday or go to church like today…millions went to church today for these three hours. What did they hear? They heard the story of Jesus, a story as recorded in the gospels. He was born in a strange way, lived a normal life, accused, well, wrongfully, and paid the extreme price, and then rose from the dead…which will take place this coming Sunday in the eyes of Christendom. But have they been told of the power of Christ? Have they been told that Christ is the creative power and wisdom of God? No they haven’t told that at all. They see a little man who sacrificed himself 2,000 years ago, a man who gave himself for us. Certainly he gave himself for me; he became me, he became you. He is buried in you right now as your own wonderful human Imagination.

I must now test it. My friend tonight having tested this, he knows tonight from experience who Christ is. For Christ does all things: “By him all things were made; without him there is nothing made that is made” (John 1:3). If he actually stood still and carried on a conversation where about eighteen people are present…but he has a lovely attendance and he’s telling them to the point where they congratulate him and they ask him to speak at other clubs, and then in one month to receive an invitation from four different clubs to speak. No one met him before, just the one person who was a customer. And here, tonight he knows exactly how he went about it. He said, “The whole thing was prompted by a thought that you expressed just about a month ago. You said to those who were present, ‘Go out and tell the story of Jesus Christ. Tell Jesus Christ as your own wonderful human Imagination and, therefore, imagining creates reality.’” Well, he said, “I went out charged with that thought. Well then, the opportunity arose in a matter of days. Called on a customer and we got talking when suddenly I used the word Imagination and he used the word Imagination, and I began to explain it to him, when the invitation came to speak to his Unity Men’s Club. Well, I didn’t plan it that way. I simply went out charged with what you said, ‘Go out and tell the story of Christ.’”

I was told to tell the story of Christ. Well, certainly, the story as recoded in the gospel, that’s true. It will all unfold in you; every bit will unfold in you. But long before the whole story, the drama unfolds in you, use the power of Christ. If you really want to transcend your present financial status, you can do it. Your status in this world, no matter what it is, you can do it. You can do it by controlling your own wonderful human Imagination as you control it in words, for we are talking animals as it were. You can’t stop talking. You get up in the morning, before you even see anyone that is conscious you’re talking to yourself, aren’t you? In your dreams you’re talking to yourself and all through the day you’re talking to yourself. And may I tell you, as one who takes this platform twice a week and who will answer letters brought in and all these things, devoting my entire life to it, in this strange and wonderful world of ours I have to arrest my inner talking every moment of time. So let that encourage you. Every moment of time I find myself, inwardly, from a letter received where there was no gratitude whatsoever—nothing but complaints, even though a dozen things worked beautifully—-and then your reaction is, So what! And you have to stop it right away. As you become aware of what you’re doing, you’ve got to stop it and get back on the beam of positive thinking. Therefore, if I, a teacher, can confess to you that every day I become aware of negative inner talking and must arrest it, then my heart goes out to everyone who is not doing the professional job of it, because what must they be doing in the course of a day!

But nothing in this world comes into being unassisted by these inner conversations. We’re told in the Book of Isaiah, “My word shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.” (55:11). Every word…so that’s positive thinking now…every word will accomplish that which I please. Not one word can return void if I do it in that manner. For you can spend…if you think in the course of a day you waste your time, spend five minutes in constructive inner conversations. It will overcome so much of the negative! Spend five minutes, sit down quietly with yourself and carry on these wonderful inner conversations from fulfilled desire. May I tell you, no power in the world can stop it from coming to fulfillment; it must accomplish that which I please. So you are being pleased with this inner mood, and you do it.

So if I take this story of the word of God…alright, the word is my inner speech. Life, said Hermes, is the union of mind and words; that is life. So I make something become alive; I call a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen. How do I call it? I call it by my inner conversations. So I sit quietly and carry on an inner conversation from premises of fulfilled desire, and all of a sudden, the unseen becomes seen. For as Hermes said, “That which is is manifest, that which has been or shall be is not manifested, but the Soul which is the eternal activity of God animates all things.” For, the Soul is my Imagination that I do know. I don’t divide them. When I speak of the Soul of man, I’m speaking of your own wonderful human Imagination, and that’s Jesus Christ, that’s the creative power of the universe. So I will take something that is not seen as though it were seen, carry on a conversation from the premise of fulfilled desire, and bring it into the world.

May I tell you, men will not even be aware of it, but everyone who has succeeded they’ve done it. There are men today so completely geared to making money that they don’t think of anything else, so all their inner conversations are from premises of successful ventures in the making of money. I’m not saying you want money, I’m not saying that you are satisfied with what you have, I’m not saying that. I am just telling the whole vast world, whatever is the thing you desire in this world there is an inner conversation that if true would imply that you’ve realized it, and you carry on these inner conversations. Let no one tell you that anyone can stop you. They can’t stop you. Someone this very night in a dungeon may be actually setting in motion tomorrow’s conflict. They carry on a conversation within themselves from some horrible premise based upon a feeling of being abused or being ill-treated or being taken advantage of. There they are and they’re carrying it and no one can stop it. They can’t stop it! But you and I knowing this let them alone, because you can’t stop them anyway, leave them and let them be exactly as they are. But you and I can start our own positive conversations and in some way modify it in our life. If we don’t live in this manner, we’re going to fall victim to what they’re doing. I tell you from my own personal experience. So these inner conversations are part of the mystery of Christ.

To go out of here tonight and say, I believe in Christ, I believe he was born as the churches teach and the gospel implies, and I believe that being a Christian, eventually because I believe in him, I’ll be saved…all that’s wonderful, perfectly marvelous…but if that’s all that I believe, I will live a horrible life here, because I don’t know the real mystery of Christ. To believe only in that human biography is not enough. Listen to these words…how true they are, how simple they are—you learn Christ—“You did not so learn Christ.” Can you imagine that? Read it in the 4th chapter, the 20th verse of the Book of Ephesians. You did not so learn Christ, for they carried on as they were. They believed the story of Christ. But that was not all. That’s all that they believe and he tells them, “You did not so learn Christ. Take off the old man. Take off the old clothing.” And now he extends it to a change of character. For these verbs “to put off” and “put on” this really means simply a change of clothing. Well, he extends it to the significance of a change of character. I change my character by changing my inner conversations. How long will it take? Wouldn’t take long…if I’m consistent, it should not take long. If I did it for a whole day…someone said if you did it for three minutes you would change your entire world, well, maybe you would. I will say if you did it for a day, become completely aware of what you’re saying inwardly and change it to conform to the wish fulfilled for a day, I do not know any power in this world that could uproot that tree from bearing exactly what you want. You couldn’t, really.

So this is the inner speech, the inner conversation that the Bible tries to tell us to put into practice. “My word shall not return unto me void, but it must accomplish that which I please.” Every word! Well, what do I please? Well, for you, I can take you in my mind’s eye and hear good words for you, just as though you were telling me what I am listening to. I listen to it as though I heard it coming from without when really I’m whispering the whole thing from within myself. If I do it and believe in the reality of it, it must produce in me a certain emotion. For, if a thought is only a thought and doesn’t produce some motor element, it doesn’t work. Now, what would be a motor element? A laugh, a tear would be a motor element; it must become emotional…as Peter, in the end, “And Peter wept.” The story that he heard he believed it, but it didn’t quite reach the point of emotion. In the end Peter wept…it became emotional within him. And so, if I could sit quietly and listen carefully, just as though I heard exactly what I want to hear and it produced in me a smile, that’s a motor element. So that an idea that is only an idea produces nothing and does nothing. It is only effective if it produces in me, the one who is listening, a motor element. So you sit down and you can’t stop it, you feel like laughing on the inside, you feel a smile coming over you because you like what you’re hearing, and it produces that motor element…and then it’s done.

So we are the one who heard the story and accepted it but didn’t put it in to practice. So we are told, “Test yourself. Do you not believe that Jesus Christ is in you?—-unless of course you fail to meet the test!” I trust you will discover we have not failed to meet the test. These are his words in the end of the 2nd chapter, or the 2nd Book of Corinthians, the 13th chapter (verse 5). We’re called upon to test ourselves and see if we are meeting the test. Well, so I sit quietly and test myself. I think of a friend, think of someone, and then listen just as though they’re present physically and tell me the most exciting news in the world until they produce in me the emotion of joy. When I feel I can laugh and rejoice with them and have the most wonderful view of them and a certain empathy on this rejoicing with them, well then, it’s done! I don’t have to really do anything beyond that if this thing is true. Well, I tell you it is true.

So I call upon everyone here this night to test it. And may I tell you, my friend who never spoke in public before, to do it and in one month he ___(??) challenge: go out and tell the whole vast world that you meet of the reality of your own wonderful human Imagination. When the man said to him, “What will you title your subject?” he said, “Inner Speech.” That was the title he gave to his talk when he spoke to this gathering of sixty-four, “Inner Speech.” Then the one who invited him to the Kiwanis Club, which he hasn’t yet faced, they requested something similar to that because that would really fire them. And what the Norwegian Club requested I don’t know, but that’s already behind him, he’s done that. But you can’t go beyond simply Christ, you can’t get outside of Christ…but Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s all that Christ is. He actually became us that we may become God. He’s sunk in us, so when you wake in the morning and you begin to imagine, that’s God in action.

And so, you carry on any conversation, good, bad or indifferent. Listen to the words, and this is the 15th chapter of Romans (verse 9). It’s a quote from the 69th Psalm, but they don’t quote it accurately, but the meaning’s there. The new translation uses a word “reproach”: “The reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me.” Well, the 69th Psalm, the 9th verse, gives the same sense, but they use the word “insult”: “The insults of those who insulted thee have fallen on me,” same thing. So if I’m reproached, it can’t fall on someone else. The one who is reproaching me, he’s exercising Christ, and when he reproaches me it’s falling on Christ, it can’t fall on another. There is only Christ in the world. So your own wonderful human Imagination in exercise, good, bad or indifferent, that’s Christ in action. So you don’t think well of me…so, those who reproach me are reproaching Christ. Are you embarrassed? I am not embarrassed, for I know it tonight more than ever before how true that statement is!

So before I became awake, long before I rose from the dead to find myself resurrected, then to find myself born from above, long before that I was still the same being who afterwards woke. When I woke, I was not other than the being who was asleep. When I was born from above, I was not other than the being who was not born from above. When I ascended as the serpent in the wilderness, I was not other than the one who had not yet ascended. When the dove descended and smothered me in affection, I was not then other than the one who had not yet been smothered with affection. So these words are true in that 15th chapter of Romans, “And the reproaches of those who reproach thee fell on me.” So he bears—like the 53rd chapter of Isaiah—he bears all the stripes of man; everything in this world that is happening to man is happening to Christ. There is only Christ. So when I use my Imagination unlovingly on behalf of another, I am actually reproaching Christ because the other, the reality of that other, is Christ. When he thinks well of me, he is exercising Christ in a real and wonderful way, in a loving way towards the Christ in me. So there’s only Christ.

So tonight, the easiest way out of the maze is to control your own wonderful inner conversations. You can start right now. But, again, let me repeat that it may comfort you, I have been teaching now since 1938, the 2nd day of February of 1938 across this country, as I am to you—small audiences, large audiences, vast audiences on radio where you could not number them where twenty-six states were tuned in, on TV where you go and maybe half a million people tune in on Sunday afternoon—and after all these years, 1938 to now, I still find myself in need of constant watchfulness. So I, a professional teaching others what to do, find myself in need every moment of time of watching what I inwardly say to bring myself back to the wish fulfilled. Then don’t condemn yourself, just don’t spend one split second in justifying failure. Come right back to what you want and not dwell on what you don’t want. Do it and finally it will become a habit; but after all these years it has not yet been so much a habit in my own life that I don’t have to constantly watch.

So everyone is watching and watching…or they should watch and watch. But again, the lovely thing is this, if I who can confess failure in my watchfulness could still be singled out to be raised from the dead, and to be numbered among the elect, to be born from above, to discover David is my son, and all the other lovely things, how infinitely merciful is God! He is not looking for that nth degree of perfection or no one would ever attain it. In fact, I am convinced that fitness is the consequence of grace and not the condition of grace. When he gave me himself, he fitted me, not because I earned it at all, so that, really, fitness for the kingdom is simply the consequence of his grace and not the condition of his grace.

Now let us go into the Silence.

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Q: “He who loves his life shall lose it; and he who hateh his life on this earth shall keep it to eternity”? (John 12:25)

A: Did you hear the question? “He who loves his life will lose it; and he who”—he didn’t say the word “hate” but is willing to sacrifice it, really—-“will keep it for life eternal.” Well, really this goes back to the mystery of God himself who is willing to leave the form of God. Being in the form of God, he didn’t think it, well, unnatural or right to claim equality with God. He was in the form of God and he emptied himself and took upon himself the slave, the form of man, and became obedient unto death, even the death of man (Phil. 2:7).

To answer that question intelligently I have to go back to the 10th of John and not quote what you have quoted, that “No man takes away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the right to lay it down and the right to take it up again.” This is not a little thing called Neville, loving life, who because he loves life will lose it. We’re speaking only of Christ here. Were he unwilling to sacrifice his divine being and limit himself to human form, God could not expand. God’s creative power is personified in scripture as Christ Jesus. If Christ Jesus, the creative power of God, was unwilling to empty himself of his divine power and limit himself to the opacity that is man, and this contraction that is man, God could not expand beyond what he was prior to the decision to expand further. So it’s not the two of us on this level; it is the creative power of God who willingly limited himself to us, and took upon himself the limitation of man which is the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity, that it may expand. For until it took this limit, it couldn’t expand, and, therefore, there would be no further growth or expansion of God and his creative power were it not that he first limited himself.

So it doesn’t refer to us on this world, trying to save our little garments for an extra few years…isn’t that at all. This is the story of the creative power of God personified as Christ Jesus; so had he not lost his life in this restriction, there could be no expansion of God into eternal life beyond what it was prior to that decision. And that being spoken of in scripture as Christ Jesus is seated right there where you are as your own wonderful human Imagination. And that took upon itself the limitation of the garment that you’re wearing, and because of that restriction it would expand beyond the wildest dream of anyone on earth. In the end we are the creative power of God altogether personified as Christ Jesus. For Christ Jesus is the personification of his creative power and we are his creative power, so all gathered together into a single being that is man, that is God. So don’t at any moment try not to someway protect the garment that you’re wearing. No, protect it…it doesn’t mean that at all…whatever is necessary to make it comfortable and to prolong its time interval here (if you can). I don’t think anyone prolongs it, personally, but if one believes they can I’m all for it.

I dined with a chap last Wednesday night, you all know him, I won’t mention his name. His mother died just a few days before her 102nd birthday. He just celebrated his 79th. He’s determined to go to 102, too. His sister, older than he is, brother older, I think, and they all are quite alive and they eat heartily, drink heartily, do all the things that people think you shouldn’t do to prolong it. He’s so convinced because his mother died at 102 that he will go to 102 that he has no restrictions to save or not to save his body. So, this “not saving my life,” I wouldn’t put it on this level. I would put it on the higher level of God completely giving up his infinite power and restricting himself to us. And in that way he saves his life, he expands it. He goes beyond what it was prior to the restriction. By dying he lives…the mystery of life through death.

Q: I was wondering if you saw the Greatest Story Ever Told, or what you thought of George Segal’s interpretation, or would you recommend seeing it?

A: Well sir, I haven’t seen it, so I can’t. I’m not qualified, I haven’t seen it. It may be an excellent interpretation, I don’t know. So I’m not qualified to pass any opinion. I haven’t seen it and neither have I read the book, The Greatest Story Ever Told by Murdock. So again, I’m not qualified. I don’t see, personally, how you can capture this greatest of stories if you’re going to tell it on this level of a physical birth, even though it was an unnatural birth, and then all the things that would follow, because that’s not the story. No one has the courage as yet to tell the story as it really takes place. If you told the story as it really took place all you would need do is take the last chapter of The Law and The Promise. That’s how it takes place. Take He Breaks the Shell, that’s how this thing takes place. But who’s going to tell it after 2,000 years of complete misrepresentation? So, I haven’t seen the picture, so I do not know and cannot say anything for or against it. I only know until the story is told in its supernatural manner, you haven’t told the story. No one…everyone here is born of a woman, conceived legitimately by some man’s siring that woman, and these garments are John the Baptist, it comes first. So, John comes into the world first, and then the one who comes after is so great that John isn’t qualified to unlatch his shoe. It comes from within; not from the womb of a woman but from the skull of man. That’s where God is buried in every child born of woman. If one had the courage to tell it! But who is going to tell it? So they take the same old prefabricated misconception of the story and tell it.

All right, I hope he makes a fortune, because he invested a fortune. A friend of mine worked on it and for his sake I hope it’s a huge success. But again, I’m not qualified to pass an opinion. The story as it’s really told, it wouldn’t take you more than a little short, short…cost no money at all. And you don’t need to take someone who had the experience and use his face, because the more impersonal the face the better. Take someone that you’d never look back at as he walks the street because you know him. Get someone that looks so much like the average person that you’d not stop to think out of that one it comes. If you take someone who looks like a Rembrandt and think that’s how he looks because he’s so majestic, that’s not it at all. Someone walking by that you would never stop for one moment to look back to look at him, and he is the one who carries the experience of the story of Christ. So take someone who would fit any face. That’s the story.

Q: Neville, when you speak of the skull of man, are you speaking of the inner man or the outer man?

A: Son of man? The skull? Well, I can only give you my own experience. I had all the sensations of my physical skull, but undoubtedly it was not. So this physical skull is only a shadow of the true skull. Because everything I experienced seemed so physical. When I was split in two it could not have been this body because this body carries no scar, physical scar from the top of my skull to the base of my spine. Yet I saw what I thought to be this body, and it was split in two and severed so that I could see about six inches parting the two sides. Yet this body carries no mark, and I did see a mark. So, it’s the inner veil that was torn in two. So, my skull…I felt the sensation in my head, this skull, yet I have no mark on the base of my skull where I came out. Well, certainly if I, contained in this skull, came out head first, there should be some kind of a mark on this. But there isn’t. Therefore, the whole thing is done within this body, a body that is the real body, and this is only the shadow of it.

Q: This evening you stressed inner talking, on other occasions you emphasized picturing with the inner eye, are both of these components necessary to…?

A: No, you can take one or the other, or take a combination. For instance, if I sit down to listen to a friend’s voice, I not only hear his voice but I see him. So that it helps if I can bring many senses to play, but any one will do it. But the more that I can bring the more real it seems to me. So I can take any of the five senses and bring them. There are certain fellows who have a certain touch. I can discriminate between the feeling in certain hands, or if I, say, the flesh of certain friends of mine who I would kiss. No two are alike, really, so you can discriminate between that sense of touch. All right, take as many as you can, but any one will do. But inner talking I find very effective. I spoke of it tonight because a friend of mine this past Sunday night at dinner asked me why don’t I speak on inner talking, and I promised him I would. And so it’s for him that I spoke tonight on inner talking. Only to have confirmation of it from another friend, not the one who heard the experience. It’s another friend altogether who asked me to speak on inner talking, and then in that interval comes a friend (who’s here tonight) who tells me his experience of inner talking. He went home and carried on these inner conversations where he is speaking to a large crowd. All things being relative, if the average crowd would be eighteen and sixty-four would come, that’s an enormous increase. So he did have sixty-four, and then to get invitations from others.

So that was inner talking. I would say to anyone, because you can’t stop talking anyway, observe carefully your inner talking. You carry on mental visions, but I mean this inner talking. You don’t think of anyone in the course of a day but you’re saying something, you’re talking to them. Inwardly, you’re saying…or if things aren’t as they should be, you’re justifying it. That in itself is the acceptance of failure by justification. And so, if one could only observe what they’re saying in the course of a day. Don’t delay one second; the minute you become aware that it’s not what it ought to be, stop it, and just put on a new record, and play the new record, and play it ___(??).

The lady here first…

Q: ___(??) I followed what you said concerning the ___(??).

A: Oh, that is the 3rd chapter of John, the 14th verse, in which he said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” That is a must; therefore, it will happen because it must happen. It’s going to happen. When it happens, it’s so unlike what one would think it should be when you read the story. The lifting up of the serpent is always identified and associated with Israel’s departure from slavery. It never occurs save in Exodus. When Israel is about to depart from slavery, then the serpent is lifted up, and all who see this brazen serpent, this fiery serpent, they are saved and cured of anything they might have had.

You are the serpent, strangely enough. You can’t stress that all the time because people get frightened. The average person in this world, maybe 99.9 percent of the world, is afraid of serpents. A snake frightens people. They are frightened by themselves, because, really, when they’re lifted up they are the serpent. It was the grand seraphim that fell, the ___(??) fiery serpent, the wisest creature that God ever created would be his own power and wisdom, personified in the 6th chapter of Isaiah as the fiery serpent. And they’re called the seraphim who surrounded the throne of God. And they brought that fiery coal to the mouth of Isaiah and sent him. He said, “Send me, Lord.” “Who shall I send?” And then came the seraphim, and ___(??) fiery serpents.

Well, I can only give you my own expression, my own sensation…when I saw the blood which is golden, molten, liquid state at the base of my spine, I knew it was myself. It came as a result of being severed, as told in the 10th chapter of Hebrews. He took it through the curtain that was torn from top to bottom; and therefore from now through eternity there’s no need for a second sacrifice. He carried his own blood. And I knew it was myself, so I fused with it. It was automatic; I didn’t do anything. I fused with it and instantly I went this way, like a serpent—a fiery being but a serpent—right up into my skull, and tried to get through here which I couldn’t. So I went right up into Zion, the house of God. I went up as a serpent; and yet I stand here before you I’m a man. So the outer garment differs from the inner garment, like a caterpillar differs from a butterfly.

And so, you will have a body so powerful, so attuned to the creative power that is God within yourself that you can’t compare that world to this world at all. This I call a world of educative darkness. So you hear a story and you must believe it based only on faith, because you can’t prove it as yet, until you test it, and you test it. So this is a world of educative darkness.

Until Tuesday…