07 Mar Neville Goddard Lectures: The New Man (1966)
10/18/66
Tonight’s subject is “The New Man.” Christ is really the reality that is man, the God that is in man. Now, is it all being done on the other side of the veil or is there something that you and I can do on this side of that dividing wall? For we are told the wall is broken down to make of the two one new man.
Now, let me share with you a story told me recently by a very dear friend of mine, one who has had most of my experiences. He wrote me this letter just a few weeks ago. You listen to it carefully because God speaks to man through the medium of dream, and he reveals, he unveils himself through the medium of revelation. That’s how he unveils himself. Well here, is his letter. He said, “I awoke at six in the morning. It was too early to get up, so I thought I would simply remain in bed and do some purposeful imagining. As I started, this thunderous voice came from within me declaring ‘I am God. I am self-contained. I am self-sufficient’ and it kept it over and over and over. And finally I said to it, I know, I know, and I’m trying to do something about it, but you’re speaking so loudly I cannot imagine. But it persisted; it kept on repeating ‘I am God. I am self-sufficient. I am self-contained’ over and over and over. So I said, it seemed to me like ___(??), and so I thought, if you can’t prevent it, relax and enjoy it. So I simply lay there in bed and listened and enjoyed it, and fell sound asleep…this proclamation from within that ‘I am God. I am self-contained. I am self-sufficient.’”
Now listen to this other dream of his as he calls it. These are real revelations. He said, “I found myself in a desert, a vast desert of nothingness. Not a blade of grass, not a shrub, not a cactus, not a tree, but nothing…just an infinite desert, and here I am in this vast nothingness. But in my hand it seemed that I held some golf balls, and I took one and I threw it. Where a moment before there was nothing, in five seconds, not more than five seconds, boom, a beautiful home and lawn appeared in Technicolor. I threw another, and another lovely home and yard appear in Technicolor with people around it. Then I took another ball and I threw it across the way, and here this wonderful putting green appeared adjacent to this wonderful golf course. A man that I discovered to be at my side said, ‘Isn’t that terrific! You put the ball right next to the cup.’ And he answered, ‘Oh, no, no, I don’t do it that way, I put the ball down and then I put the hole next to the ball, that’s how I play the game.’
“Then I created a huge, great gate, and this friend of mine and I walked through the gate that I had created. As I went through the gate, I came upon the most miserable scene you can imagine. The most dilapidated house, completely gone, but what dilapidation! and next to it, this horrible streetcar in the last very last stages of decay. So I took a ball and I started to throw it and it wouldn’t leave my hand. I couldn’t get the ball to depart from my hand. I threw it and threw it and it just wouldn’t go. But I said to myself, well, maybe I’m not ready for it, maybe it is beyond me. I threw it and threw it…and I said no, I can’t, it’s beyond me, beyond my power to do it. Then, after a long wait, this that was the dilapidated house suddenly turned into the most modern hotel and what was a dilapidated streetcar into a streamlined bus, which quickly drove off.
“Here, I could not,” said he, “change or let go of the past. I couldn’t let go. I came upon the past. It was so easy to create out of nothing. Yes, out of nothing I could create anything. But when it comes to something I know to be a fact, I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t let go of the past. But I persisted and persisted and persisted, and persistency was rewarded. Eventually it turned into this glorious new, very modern hotel and a new streamlined bus, which drove off.”
Then he said, “I came upon a scene that resembled the Miracle Mile on Wilshire, with an island up the middle. But it was a strange setting. Here were all these kids, boys and girls…the boys in horrible messy pants and the girls in bikinis. It was so unlike what you should see on the Miracle Mile. So I thought, well, I’ll throw another ball there. So I threw another ball and suddenly they were completely transformed into the most beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen, dining al fresco, under umbrellas, waited on by the most elegantly dressed waiters. I turned to my friend and said, ‘You know, maybe I should have left them as they were.’” He’s a very humorous man, may I tell you, because his profession is really writing humorous things. So he always ends his letters to me in a very humorous vein. So he had to add that note, “Maybe I should have left them…and I awoke maybe not a moment too soon.”
Well, do you know that God speaks to man through the medium of dream? Although there were no golf courses 2,000 years ago, or, say, 4,000 years ago when the great Book of Numbers was written. The word ball appears only once in scripture. Only once would you find it in scripture, it appears in the chapter I quoted, unknowingly, last week, it’s the 22nd chapter of Isaiah. And when you read it you’ll think that God rejected a man. All of these are states of consciousness, and here is the occupant of the state. He rejects that state, not the occupant. And then he turns him into the one that he will accept, the one whose shoulder is going to be hammered in the not distant future with that peg. On him will rest the burden, the responsibility of the house of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He doesn’t reject anyone in this world, because he’s playing all the parts anyway. But we’re in states. He rejects the state, not the occupant of the state. As we are told in the 10th chapter of 1st Samuel, when the prophet Samuel speaks to Saul, and he said, “The spirit of the Lord shall come upon you… and you shall be turned into another man” (1Sam.10:6). He rejects Saul and chose David, and you think, well, a man could not fit the bill. No, the occupant of that state is God. He rejects the state, not the occupant, and turns him into another man; in other words, occupying an entirely different state. So in this 22nd of Isaiah, the only place where the word ball appears in scripture, he is experiencing that. Here came the moment of the rejection of a state, because he did succeed in transforming the past.
So what can I do on this side of the veil to break down that wall between the two? For, he breaks down the wall of partition between the two, and makes of two, one new man (Eph.2:14).. Let us listen carefully to what I can do, what you can do. And Jesus came into the world preaching the gospel of God, saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (John 4:17). Believe my testimony, for I have experienced, “For all the promises of God have found their fulfillment in me,” all of them. So believe the news that I bring you, but repent. Repent is what? The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness, and forgiveness tests man’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite.
So here, I see you dilapidated…it could be a house, it could be a streetcar, it could be anything in this world, but I see you in that form. Well, that’s the past state. That’s an old, an ancient and a fixed state. And I throw the ball. The word “throwing the ball” is simply “turning in the same circle” in scripture. It’s like a circle…you can’t seem to move out of it. It’s the past, it seems fixed forever. And so I throw it and I throw it and I can’t let it go. I’m still faced with the obvious fact before me. And finally, I do let it go, through what?—my persistency. “How long, Lord? How often must I forgive the brother who sins against me? Seventy times seven” (Mat.18:22). Do it and do it and do it until you succeed in letting it go. Let go of the past completely and see in its place that which you want to see. Do it until you can actually let go. Persist and persist and persist.
Then he tells the parables. The woman comes to the magistrate, and he doesn’t fear God and he doesn’t respect man, but he says, because of her persistency she bothers me, so I will rise and I will simply vindicate her. He didn’t want to, because he didn’t fear God and he didn’t respect man, but her annoyance by the constant coming forced him to act as she wanted (Luke 18:2). Then the man came at the wee hours of the night, at midnight, and he wanted something to feed a stranger who came suddenly. The man said from above, “It is late; my children are in bed; and I cannot come down and open the door.” But the man was insistent, and because he persisted and persisted, he came down and gave him what he wanted (Luke 11:5). And so you say, well, I can’t get out of this turmoil. I don’t care what the turmoil is, how fixed that seeming past is, you simply persist and persist and persist, and he’s got to come down and grant your request.
So you break down the wall that divides the two by your practice of repentance. Repentance is simply practicing our part on this side of the veil while the work is going on in a hidden manner on the other side of the veil. Finally the wall is made thinner and thinner, and finally we break the shell, and Christ is born. Who is he? I am he. It’s not Christ and you after you break the shell, there is only Christ. “And in that day the Lord shall be one and his name one” (Zec.14:9). Not two, only one. So he’s breaking and making it thinner and thinner and thinner. But we on this side of the veil must do our part and we practice repentance, which is changing the past. It was so easy for him to create out of nothing. Oh, a vast desert…throws the ball, poof, a wonderful beautiful Technicolor home and a lawn; another ball, another beautiful Technicolor home and a yard with people all around it. Then, another ball, and here comes this wonderful putting green adjacent to this fabulous wonderful golf course. Then he creates a gate, a huge gate, and he and his friend go through. The friend tells him of this fantastic play of his. And he corrects the friend, “I don’t do it that way. I don’t try to put it into the hole, as you thought, I actually came next to the cup. I put the ball down first and I bring the hole next to it. That’s what I do.”
Then he saw, as he went through the gate, this dilapidated, horrible pictures of the past…a home in absolute decay, beyond repair, and a streetcar, one of the ancient kind. And he thought, I’ll change it…but he couldn’t let go of the past. He tried and he tried and he tried. But he persisted, because eventually it did go out of his hand. But he waited…the strangest thing in his letter to me…he waited so long. In creating out of nothing, five seconds; in creating, now, and changing the past, revising it completely, he waited and waited. Because nothing happened, he said, well, maybe I’m not equal to it. It’s too much for me. The ball did go, but because he waited so long, he thought, well, now it isn’t going to work. And while he despaired, suddenly, the home that was so dilapidated becomes this marvelous modern hotel, and the streetcar becomes a streamlined bus, which simply took off. And then comes Wilshire Boulevard, the Miracle Mile, and instantly he transforms it. Now, the power in his hand…it didn’t wait now. This thing should not be on Wilshire Blvd., not on the Miracle Mile, bikinis and dirty trousers? And instantly a transformation into beautiful ladies and gentlemen dining al fresco under umbrellas waited on by elegant, wonderful waiters. The whole transforming was easy then, because he had succeeded in taking the most ancient things and transformed it by his persistence.
That’s what you and I are called upon to do as we read the words of the earliest gospel, which is Mark. Chronologically, it’s placed second, but the first book written of the gospels is Mark. And here we find, that after John was arrested—meaning this conscious, reasoning mind of man—after that is arrested, Jesus comes into Galilee preaching the gospel of God; saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk.1:19). Believe my testimony, for all that I tell you is but the fulfillment of scripture, all of his promises are fulfilled in me, that’s what he’s saying.
And standing before you tonight, I can say, his promises have been fulfilled in me. This normal natural man—unschooled, unlettered, unknown, un-everything by human standards that we call prominent—and everything fulfilled in me. What? Scripture, the only reality in the world, for everything else will pass away; but these words of God will never pass away. They are being fulfilled in everyone, for he’s not condemning any man. They’re only in states and we must learn to distinguish between the man, the occupant of the state, and the state that he occupies. So when he rejects man it’s not man, he rejects the state. That state cannot serve, so he rejects the state.
And then, he puts him into another state, and that state is now the next one, for he has fulfilled it by his practice. And I have known how he’s practiced repentance. Since he heard this message years ago, he has been daily practicing revision, and revision is repentance. And revision results in repeal. So I have something that is fixed and I revise it, I’ve repealed it. He repealed that picture that he saw, the dilapidated home and streetcar. Here, in him is the new annum. I know from his own story to me it’s already been born, but it goes through these stages…stage after stage after stage. And this was written to me only this past month. So here he is on that day, the 22nd chapter of Isaiah, the only place in scripture where the word ball appears. So although golf balls were not known, ball was there, turning upon itself, and seeing the same thing over and over and over…and therefore you cannot change it. It’s nothing new, you can’t change it. Then he persisted by throwing the ball, and he did change it; but he waited a long, long interval between the departure from his hand, for he threw it with his hand. The power and the wisdom of God is symbolized in the hand. You are told in this chapter it is the power of God, so he exercised that power.
You have that power. Bring before your mind’s eye any being in this world whose case at the moment seems hopeless, and revise it. Revise it and revise it and revise it until you can let go of that ball and feel satisfied in the revision. When you can feel the breath of relief because it’s done, I tell you it is done. If tomorrow will not bring the news or next week will not bring the news, wait. Wait. It is done! And then, in a way that no one on earth could devise, the way by which it will be done, it will be done. It will come, and you will see the results of what you did. This is what he did.
So I ask everyone here to practice revision. Revise the past. I don’t care what it is, revise it, and the past will conform to your dream of what it ought to have been, and suddenly it will appear before you. Then the new man stands within you: Not two, you and Christ, only Christ. So we are told, he goes through the city—this is now in Ezekiel, the 9th chapter—and he said, Everyone follow the man who is now clothed in linen, follow him carefully. He will go through the city and he will leave a mark on the forehead of men, women and children. Then he turned to others and said, Now, you follow him, and everyone who does not bear the mark, whether it be an old man, old woman, a maiden, a young boy, a child, slaughter them; and your eye must have no pity, no pity. Slaughter everyone who doesn’t bear the mark on his forehead (Ezek.9:4).
Now, in the 22nd chapter, the last chapter of Revelation, and he turns and he fulfills it. Those who have the mark come before him, and the mark upon their forehead is his own name, and the name is Jesus. Jesus means Jehovah. He only redeems himself. Well, let no one think by this strange, peculiar imagery that one is lost. Everyone, at a certain moment in time, is slaughtered because of the state he is in, whether it be old, young or infant. He played other parts, other parts, until finally he’s playing the part that is the selective part. And then the final part that he plays, the mark is on his forehead, and the name is his own name, and the name is Jesus. So in the end there is only Jesus, nothing but Jesus. There is only Jesus. All have been redeemed in the body of Jesus. There’s only one being. Infinite mercy steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus. There’s only one body, only one God, only one being. And so, when you are redeemed, you are he. There aren’t two little Christs running around, only the risen God who is Jesus Christ. And everyone is redeemed in that one body.
So I can’t thank my friend enough for this letter that he gave me a few weeks ago. I got it in the mail two or three weeks ago and I read it and I was thrilled beyond measure. I wondered, how could I use it and what night would this thing fit? It’s so all together marvelous. But it fits this night, the new man. This is the night that it really fits, where the part that you and I must play is redemption; redemption in the sense that we redeem a thing by practicing repentance. Repentance is not to feel remorseful, not to feel regretful. I don’t care what someone has done! You don’t feel remorseful because you did something; the state in which you were caused you to do it. That is not repentance. Repentance is simply practicing the art of moving into the opposite state as though it were not. That’s repentance.
So I don’t wallow in feeling sorry for myself. I don’t wallow at some weeping wall that I repent. I simply move right into a state where the thing never really happened. Because “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,” it doesn’t matter what a man has ever done in this world. The most murderous fiend is only a state. In that state he had to murder. In that state he had to steal. In that state he had to do all these things. Don’t condemn the occupant of the state, it’s the state. We condemn the occupant as though he did it. He is in a state and he entered that state unwittingly. Most of us do. So Blake said, “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them in the states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it leaves paradise following the serpent” (Vis. of Last Judg., Pp.91-92).
The two sins that man has done which God finds, as we’re told in scripture, impossible to forgive: the eating of the tree of good and evil; but the first thing is our failure to believe that I AM he. Man’s unwillingness to believe that I am he is the fundamental sin. God became man that man might become God, and his name is I AM. My unwillingness to believe that I am he who causes me to breathe, to think, to move, is the fundamental sin.
Then I go forward condemning the good and the evil as I see good and evil through life. But then comes this wonderful revelation: I know from the Lord Jesus Christ that there is nothing unclean in itself, but any man who sees anything to be unclean to him it is unclean. Not a thing is unclean in itself. But if any man sees it as unclean, well, to him who sees it it is unclean. And he lives with it in a state that allows it to be seen as unclean. And that’s life.
So let us practice on this side of the veil the one part we’re called upon to practice. He only gives us one: repent. And repentance is simply to transform completely the past, whatever that past is, unless it is lovely. Let the mind store a past worthy of recall, for eventually everything that is unlovely is going to be destroyed anyway. So if the mind does not store a past worthy of recall, then that mind seemingly vanishes, if the contents vanish. But man will not vanish, for man is God. God became man that man might become God. There is really no death in this world, not in the real sense of the word. Nothing dies, not here. We leave the stage and the actor seems to be gone, but he isn’t dead. For the supreme actor is God, playing all the parts. There’s only God playing all the parts in the world, all parts. As told us so beautifully in Job, the deceiver and the deceived are his. Oh, I deceive and I am deceived, I’m both. I play all these states.
So in the end, all I’m called upon to do is to believe the testimony of one who has experienced scripture, and then to practice constantly this wonderful art of repentance. Repent and repent and repent. As I walk the earth I see someone in need, I will not feel remorseful for him, sad for him, I’ll change it. That’s repentance. I don’t argue with him and say, “That serves you right. If you hadn’t done this you wouldn’t have had this.” I don’t condemn the man for the state into which he’s fallen unwittingly. Even if he fell into it knowingly I wouldn’t condemn him. He has to reap the results of the state into which he has gone. And so he’s only in a state, but the occupant is immortal. You can’t rub him out; that’s God.
So I don’t care what he does in the world, you can’t stop him from being; he is this immortal being. And one day he will hear the same words my friend heard, “I am God. I am self-contained. I am self-sufficient.” And the words kept repeating over and over and over. He said, “I know, I know, I’m trying to do something about it, but I can’t now imagine while I hear your words, they are so loud.” And then when he said, “It seemed to me like rape,” what a lovely expression. If you can’t prevent it, relax and enjoy it. “So I simply lay there on the bed and listened. As I listened to the same repetition, I enjoyed it and fell sound asleep listening to it.” Isn’t that a marvelous way to go to sleep, to hear the voice coming to the very surface so you can hear it? That same voice is screaming in the depth of everyone’s soul. It hasn’t stopped from the beginning of time, but the wall is too thick for man to hear it. When it gets very, very thin and just about to break through, man hears it. He heard it as the wall was breaking, making of the two one new man in the place of two, thus bringing peace.
That’s what you’re told in the 2nd chapter of Ephesians: I bring peace by bringing down the wall that separates the two. So when the wall gets very, very thin…like a house in this wonderful world of ours. Have you lived in apartments where they are so thin that if you whisper they hear you next door without being bugged? Well, suddenly, the wall gets so thin by your practice of repentance you hear God’s voice. And God is the eternal I AM in man who is proclaiming what he is. He is the everlasting, he is the eternal, he is self-sufficient, he is self-contained. “I am God,” he heard, and could not do a thing about it, because the voice wouldn’t sleep. The thing was too thin.
Now he goes out to test the power that is God. And the power is in the hand: he had to take the hand to throw a ball. And the power is called “the hand of God” in that same chapter. He’s just about to experience that which I told you about this past week, where he throws and nothing comes quickly; and then he creates a new city; a marvelous city is rising before him. And then he steps through a gate, which he created, and steps into an ancient past, and tries to change it; and thought he didn’t have the power, he wasn’t ready for it, but his persistency proved that he could change it. Eventually the ball did leave his hand and he waited and waited and waited. Even then, because he waited so long, he despaired, it’s too long…it couldn’t work. And then, suddenly, it worked. So he did not fail. After the ball leaves the hand, it has to work, when you drop that past and hold on to the vision of what you want in place of what appears to be. It doesn’t come today, next week, next month, or even this year…but it will come. And then when it appears, he sees that he has the power to completely redeem the past. We’re told in scripture God requires the past. The whole past will be redeemed as though it were not: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Is.1:18).
Now let us go into the Silence.
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Now are there any questions, please? By the way, we only have this lecture this week. There’s no other lecture this week. Next week we start on Monday, and we’ll have two, Monday and Friday. But this is the only lecture this week, as you’ll see from your little announcement. If you don’t have one, please take one when you leave. There are many of them at the desk.
Now are there any questions, please?
Q: What does it mean in the Book of John where Jesus says, “Salvation is of the Jews”?
A: Salvation is of the Jews. What does it mean in the Book of John, salvation is of the Jews? I have heard thousands of arguments concerning other religions and other things. Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. To quote Bishop Pike, that you may not like—I admire the man; I do not look upon him as an outstanding spiritual giant, but I admire the man, like his courage, like his honesty—and he said, “I am a Jew because I am a Christian. Now, I could be a Jew and not be a Christian, but I can’t be a Christian and not be a Jew.” So the whole thing comes out of Judaism. It was revealed through the prophets, and the Judeo-Christian Bible to me is the only true revelation of God’s plan of salvation. All the others are based upon secular history. We know that Mohammed was a man, this one was a man, these were men. The scripture is not secular history; it’s salvation history. There is no secular history in scripture. These characters are all eternal states through which man passes.
So salvation is of the Jew. Listen to it carefully as revealed in the Old Testament. The New Testament is only the fulfillment of the Old…it’s not something new. The New Testament is simply the fulfillment of something as old as that of the faith of Abraham. “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day” (John 8:56), “And the scripture…preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand” as you’re told in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (3:8). Beforehand he had a preview of what the fulfillment would be. But this is a state. So if you enter the state called Abraham, it’s only a state, not a person. You can’t find Abraham in any book in the world save in the Bible. He doesn’t turn up in any ancient manuscript, in any ancient records…mentioned only in the Bible. Yet he is the foundation of it all. So we all enter the state of belief in the most incredible story in the world and believing it, the dream descends upon you. Amnesia possesses us as we enter a deep and profound sleep having seen it, believing it was possible, and we dream the dream of life.
Q: How come we don’t hear anything more about the Dead Sea Scrolls?
A: Oh, yes we do. The scholars are studying the scrolls all the time. They haven’t found anything to contradict what is said in scripture. Not one thing so far has turned up in the Dead Sea Scrolls that contradicts what is said in scripture. In fact, it only authenticates, it doesn’t in any way disturb it. And what is said in the gospels is more beautifully said, may I tell you. I have the translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls at home and I have read them carefully and they’re lovely. They only confirm; they don’t disturb.
Q: Neville, it would be the walls of Jericho…now this is what you’ve been talking about tonight, this is the veil?
A: Another symbol of it ___(??) yes.
Q: Joshua being God who…
A: Joshua is another name for Jesus; the Hebraic form of the anglicized word called Jesus the same word. Joshua is Jesus as far as the word goes. Jesus is the anglicized form of the Hebraic word Joshua, and they both mean “Jehovah is salvation.” The only savior in the Bible is Jehovah. “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Is.43:3); “And besides me there is no savior” (Is.43:11), so the same word. So when Jesus is born, Jehovah has succeeded in being born in man. So man is no longer something separated from him, he’s become man completely, and man is God. God actually became man that man must become God. That is the story…but it’s not taught that way. We’re taught that the cross and all the things concerning Jesus are objective facts of history. The day will come man will discover them all to be subjective facts of experience.
I have experienced scripture from beginning to end. I am talking from experience, I am not theorizing. And I haven’t lost my identity. There’s no loss of identity in fulfilling scripture. But everything said in scripture I have fulfilled from beginning to end. So when I hear all this palaver, the arguments between bishops, one trying to unfrock the other, making him confess that he doesn’t accept the stupid things that we’re called upon to believe. You must believe in this creed and this creed and this ordinance. The most sacred ordinances and all the creeds and all the rituals they are as nothing. When I was sent to do this work, the words were “Down with the bluebloods” which means in scripture all church protocol. But all of it! Not a little piece, but all. It means nothing.
Q: What is the difference between the wall in the Song of Solomon, “I see a wall and not a door,” and these walls that we have here?
A: Well, my dear, the wall in any part of scripture, if the wall is a separating wall, as walls are, it’s the same wall. In Solomon, those wonderful eight chapters of the Song of Solomon…if you really would understand the book start with the eighth chapter and then go back. You’ll find…it’s too long a story…it would take me two nights to describe the Song of Solomon.
Q: I heard your lecture…
A: Well, then you know it.
Q: But I thought she had to be a wall and not a door.
A: Well, she is a wall. There are two women in scripture, Hagar from below, the womb of woman; and Sarah from above, which is my eternal mother. I must be born of Sarah if I would be free; I am born, when you see this garment, of Hagar from below. So Paul speaks of the two mothers in his letter to the Galatians. One brings me into slavery where I’m a slave to all the passions of my body, and one brings me into freedom. She who brings me into freedom is the New Jerusalem, which is the Sarah from above. And he tells you it’s an allegory. He makes it very, very clear, “This is an allegory.” Man reads it as secular history. (End of tape.)