The History of the Soul of MAN...

A 1959 Lecture by Neville, interpreted by Tim Che for today's reader

Our Discussion today is concerned only with the great secret of life. Here we are convinced that the Supreme Power that created and sustains the universe is Divine Imagining, and it does not differ from human imagination except in degree of intensity of the one who is Imagining. So,  your wonderful Imagination is God, in Man. This is what we are referring to when we say "God".

We tell you that Imagination (God in you) creates Reality, but keep in mind that at this human level on earth, it takes time, persistence and practice. If our Imaginations are awakened and we are aware of it, we must learn how to use it. We use it by creating Images. If we will persist in the image, live in it, sleep in it and breathe in it, it will crystallize into tangible form, it will become real in this world.

Night after night we explore different facets of this truly great secret, the Secret of Imagining. Tonight, we will explore the greatest book about Imagination in the world, The Bible, and we will look at it from the perspective of the mystic. So, as we turn to it, keep in mind that the Bible is addressed to the Imagination in you and not to the man of who relies on the 5 senses or the man of logic & reason who is lost in the "flood" of "facts" and cannot understand the Imagination that preceded ALL facts.  They are the ones that are referred to in the Bible as "lost" or "dead" or "sound asleep."

Interestingly, it says in the Old Testament that "Adam" fell into a profound sleep. And nowhere in the
Old Testament does it say that he ever awoke. The New Testament is the account of "Adam's" Awakening and it is  Man's Imagination that is Awakening, that is born again, that is born from within, that is raised from the dead

We will take a simple little verse and show you why it is not addressed to the natural man. As with most of the Bible, this statement would make no sense ot the man of logic and reason.

Ecclesiastes 3:15: "That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away."

The "natural man" cannot grasp this statement, because to him reality is based only on the evidence of the senses. The man of reason might be able to justify the verse's end, saying that if it has any meaning at all, then the writer must mean "recurrence". The sun comes every day and the moon completes its cycle and the seasons come and go. If we took a picture of the universe today, the scientists can compute how long it will take to return to this point in the picture. So the intellectual man could justify the verse; but that is not what is meant, for it is written for the man who's Imagination has awakened, not to the man of reason or the man of sense.

So,What is it all about? 

"That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been, and God seeks what has been driven away."

We are told that God made men and women in his own image and called them "MAN." Then we are told that this man was driven out of the garden... out of paradise. The priesthoods tell us he was driven out because of some "original sin", and that we are being punished for being "bad". But nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, let us explore this idea... I send my child to school to prepare her for living in the world, not to punish her, but to do it I must send her away to the school, I must "cast her out". In Barbados we have a good school system, though not beyond high school, and when I was a boy there I would see these children arriving from the other islands at the beginning of the school year with their new clothes and their new books. They thought it was exciting, not knowing what it was all about. But then the time came for the parents to kiss them goodbye and leave them in this strange place for the next year, and many a child cried himself to sleep not just for a night but for the whole term, such was their homesickness and loneliness. But the parents did it in love and left them there. Many sent their children on to England for still higher education at great sacrifice, and they could not afford to bring them home for vacations, so they had to wait years to see them again. But they did it in love and only love.

An infinite being of love (God) did the same thing to us. We were "dead." We were fully made and perfect but we were like the statue of Galatea... who was not "alive" and could not interact with the "living". And then to "quicken"(make alive) man and make him like God, God had to drive him out - not in space, out in mind. So God became man, the thing that was dead, and to do it he had to lower himself to this level - which in comparison to the higher states of consciousness, would be called "dead." This garment of skin you wear has been long in preparation for the Son of God. We are told: "And He clothed them in garments of skin." It is for schooling purposes.

Why are we here? To make images.

The whole universe is an image of cosmic fancy. 

We are learning, so we begin to exercise our Imaginations by creating simplest things - a job, a new home, a change in environment. We do it in the same way as our Father (God) did it, and this is a classroom so we make mistakes... but the fault is not ours for our Imaginations have not yet awakened. God created the perfect system, a school disguised as a play, called "Earth", but it existed only for its creator, God. Then God set free certain portions of it, and in doing so, he "prepared the way for his banished ones to return."

Pygmalion adoring his creation... Galatea

Pygmalion created a statue and named it, "Galatea". He fell in love with his creation, but it was frozen in the marble that it was carved out of and could not interact with the living being that created it . Pygmalion died to himself in order to make Galatea a living being. He had to "forget" he was Pygmalion if Galatea would be its own living, being. He could not be Galatea and Pygmalion at the same time. God seeks what has been driven away, so that he may say: "This, my son, who was dead [and] is alive again." You are God, and You are the Son who was driven away. So we are the one God is seeking. There is something hidden in this coat of skin that he is seeking.

We must get beyond the 5 senses so we can begin to create.  I say to everyone that we must start practicing the art of creating with our Imagination, no matter how simple or how big the thing is, no matter what it is that is desired. We create by faith, and faith is a feeling of certainty, in the thing not yet seen... not yet manifested. We create by assembling an image that implies we now have what we want in this world, and if we are faithful, by feeling the reality of our desire, we bring it to pass, and as we do it we begin to move through this maze of emotions, ideas and thoughts... preparing the way for the return of his Son and the awakening of the Imagination in Man.

"Whom God has afflicted He will comfort and call his friend."

So if you are hurt, do not believe that it was because of what you did in the past. No Karma to be worked out... Just life, reflecting back to us our present state of consciousness so that we may learn to move to more desirable states of consciousness and raise what we see as "others" to higher levels as well. We pass through these state of consciousness in this eternal play called "life on earth", that God is using to prepare us for the our return to the Brotherhood of Awakened Humanity.

You can create anything in this world if you know who you are

If you do not know who you are, there are those of us here to teach you, for we are all inter-connected. You may think you are insignificant; you may even be in jail - but even behind bars you are creating with the activities of your mind. And you need not remain in jail if you know who you are, and exercise the creative power of your Imagination.

Have you ever flown over a lake or over the ocean? A friend recently flew in from San Diego. He had been in the navy and he had always owned boats, but he had never before observed what he saw now from the air. He was on the ocean side as the plane took off from San Diego, and looking down he saw this little boat, a thirty-footer, coming in the opposite direction. He noticed the wake of this little ship and watched the wake spread out behind it, and nothing interrupted it. When his plane turned inland he was flying at three hundred miles per hour, but looking back he realized that this little boat - doing maybe thirty knots - was troubling the entire Pacific. As far as the eye could see this wake was moving and nothing could stop it and the occupant of that boat was totally unaware of what he was doing.

We are all like that. You think you can Imagine and not affect others? It is like the wake... in time it encompasses the whole world. It starts as a little "v" but it grows wider and wider. Everyone will be in some way influenced by my pattern, by my thoughts and my Imagining. If one knows what he wants for himself or for others and remains faithful to it, he does not have to ask: "Who will help me?" For every person who must play a part will play it to make possible the fulfillment of that dream.

A lady said to me the other night: "Look at my hands! A week ago they were blistered as if with acid; now there is no scar, but it took me five days of revision to bring about what you are seeing." For unnumbered days prior to this nothing happened, but five days of revision (Read, "The Pruning Shears of Revision) brought this about. She produced in her own body this change. This seems stupidity to the rational man; to the Greek it is foolishness and to the Jew a stumbling block. The man of reason cannot comprehend it; he cannot believe that one can create with their Imagination. The way is prepared for you, for there are unnumbered states of consciousness and, with our Imaginations, we can deliver others out of the unpleasant states of consciousness that they have fallen into.  As we lift them up, we are lifted up as well because you must become that which you contemplate with emotion, intention and persistence.

We are here in the great schoolroom called "Earth". We were not sent here to be punished, but to learn to become creators like our Father, God, the original Imaginer. There is no "original sin" for God made the decision to send me to "school." In fact I was "dead." I existed only for God, the creator of the perfect system, the perfect school. It was then decided to subject me to this schoolroom in the hope I would be set free to join the glorious liberty of the awakened sons of God.

Given the choice, what child would go to school? 

But loving the child, the parents subject it to that training. How many years are taken from children's

lives and given to learning? It is the same with us, only it is a vaster school. So let no one tell you that you did anything wrong in being born. These coats of skin were prepared for us, for they help MAN - the invisible reality - to become conscious. And then some certain teachers sent by God tell them of the only value in the world which is to awake. But if in the awakening you want a better home, a finer job, better health, then try to create it with your Imagination. Failure does not matter; you are learning. If you persist you will win. You create by faith. By faith the worlds were made and sustained.

"Things that are made are made from things that do not appear."

Imagine what would it be like if you were the man you want to be? Then, start seeing the world as you would like to see it.

Let me define Imagination for you. It is spiritual sensation, but the word "spiritual" is to most of us something that is not practical - the incorporeal as opposed to the corporeal. But Imagination is the power to perceive what is absent from the senses. Take a rose - there is not one here - but right now could I sense it in any way? Smell it? Touch it? I can, though it is absent from the senses. That is Imagination. If Imagination creates reality, such perception of what is absent from the senses makes it so. We have unnumbered case histories to prove it. Imagination is the power to perceive what is absent from the senses, and if you persist, you go beyond the 5 sense man and go beyond the rational, logical mind.

"The natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him."

(1Corinthians)

Let's say I am away from my home. How can I discern my home spiritually? I cannot see it with my physical eye or touch it with my physical hands, but in Imagination I can do both. Perhaps you say: "I do not have a home." Well, you do the same thing with a home you do not yet own. Do it with funds you do not now possess.

Nothing has quite the same smell as money, or the same sound. If it is money you want, use every sense to make it real. But do not say: "I perceive it because I know it is there." To exercise the Imagination you see something that is not yet there. That is how we get beyond the natural man, like the lady who in five days brought about a complete transformation in her hands.

Everyone is here for image-making and to learn lessons, and the being (God) who sent you here came with you and he has never left you. He became you and lit you with himself. As he lit Man, Man awoke through the passage prepared for him through this schoolroom called earth. And then, as he is lifted up, he is embraced and given the ring and the fatted calf.

"For this is my son who was dead and now lives again." 

The first state was "death" and then comes the quickening (making alive) of this state. He was lost and now he is found again.

"That which is already has been; that which is to be already has been, and God seeks that which was driven away."

So God drives him out by taking him out in mind. He is seeking Jacob in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, Jesus. For when he finds him, he is Jesus. As he finds him, his is the reality of being, which is Jesus. Then, he will find him in every being in the world. When this consciousness begins to awaken in you, your old form cannot contain it any more than a round peg can fit into a square hole; or, new wine can be contained in old bottles. You cannot take this new wine of truth and confine it to the old dogma - it will blow it apart. So it has to take a new form as the Spirit begins to awaken within one.

So, use your Imagination and make your image. Ask no one to help you, for like the wake of the ship it will change the whole world if it is necessary to the fulfillment of your drama.

"Everything in the Pacific had to encounter that wake; nothing could stop it."

 You are the ark of God and what you are imagining is influencing all the others who are also

imagining. So Imagination changes things. Do not base it on facts. Truth as we see it is not confined to facts but depends only upon the intensity of Imagination. Everyone can do it - but often reason will interfere.

A friend told me tonight that he desired the answer to a certain problem and it was given to him. He said: "I activated to the Imagination within me." It was a financial picture and he got the answer, but it seemed so stupid he did not apply it. Although he did share in it, it brought about everything that he desired. Reason interfered and he did not put his money into a certain venture.

Reason stands between the man of sense and the man of Imagination.

Have you read Prodigal Genius, the Life of Nikola Tesla? He said there was nothing that was not within the Imagination. He conceived of alternating current, and when Edison told him it could not be done, he said: "But I see it, and I am stopping it and starting it." And when they brought his model into the factory they did not change a bolt of it.

A friend of mine, a violinist, cut an accurate model of something he had seen in his mind. It was a collapsible box such as now used by department stores to hold dresses and such. He had it patented and sold his patent for $10,000 (a good sum back in the 1950's). Everyone in this country has used that kind of box. Harry Webb got it in a vision. The manufacturer made millions. Harry did not labor for it. He suspended  reason, and this vision came through.

Apply this principle to the little things of life and let no one tell you it is too material; the same ones will ask you for whatever it is when you discard it. You are here in this schoolroom to learn to create out of your imagination. So, Imagine and create the noblest concepts for yourself or for others and live in those concepts mentally, and in a way you do not know, you will influence the lives of everyone in the world. Everyone who will be needed to bring about your dream will be drawn into it and brought to you. Even those who seek to stack the cards against you and think they are doing so very cleverly, will find that the very thing they did will instead stack the cards against themselves.

You are influencing everyone in this world when you are Imagining. 

Who knows what being now in prison is not disturbing the whole vast world. He will never be accused, for he is in jail. They can find approximate cause, but they cannot blame him because he was in jail. Yet, he could sit behind bars and cause a wave of hate out of the depth of his own being that can disturb the whole world. That is why it is so important to Imagine wisely. There is only one being awakening and that is God, and we were put into this schoolroom in love even though many a night, like the children, we cry. Loving fathers here have sent their unwilling children to school; a loving heavenly father sent you here on earth. So, you apply your Imagination and use the greatest talent in the world... which is the Imagination.

I cannot begin to tell you the thrill that is in store for you as you begin to live by Imagination. The New Testament records the wonderful states of consciousness that one moves through when they awaken and which were prepared for the return of his banished sons. Every state of consciousness has been fixed before he put his Son into the depth, in order for him to rise to even greater heights. And as

God is the life of man, 

it is really God who is rising. So, as we deliver ourselves from states of consciousness, we, deliver others from the same state in the process. No matter what a man has done, he is only in a state of consciousness... and can be lifted out by the loving use of your Imagination.

When we begin to awaken, we will begin to comfort and heal, for whom God afflicts he did it for a sound end, and that was that he might awaken. "This is my son who was dead and now liveth." The most monstrous beast that ever walked the earth cannot be lost, for God is also present in him. If even one could be lost, then God could be lost.

You see...  he became his Son that he might awaken that Son as God.

So Imagine your dream and live in its consciousness, and it will come true. We are told that as the sower sowed, the seed fell on four kinds of soil.

1. The first is not prepared; it is the highway, and no seed took root. These are those who will not listen. 
2. Then you will find one who will may be open to this teaching, but it falls on stony ground. They get something new and find it interesting, but there is no root. Logic and Reasoning take over and they convince themselves that, "it would have happened anyway!" 
3. The third fell among the "thorns and thistles." It grows deeper than the one on the rock, but they really believe that it is only with money they can get things and so the teaching was choked by the thorns of their unbelief. 
4. Then there is the "well-prepared ground", and it roots deeply and produces abundantly. This soil has been in the process of preparation since the beginning of  time... Your time. It is ready for your education and is interwoven with the maze-like ways of your own mind.  It is here that you learn to use your Imagination to create deliberately. Here is where you walk in the feeling of your wish fulfilled and where you uplift all that you see. 

The "Well Prepared Ground" is the sum-total of all your experiences past, present and future.   It is from this palette of consciousness that you create from. Each experience is like a unique color on your palette. You would never discard any of the infinite colors on the pallet, even if there is one you don't like, because it may be necessary to create your "Mona Lisa" of tomorrow. (An Infinite Keyboard is another analogy you can read about with this link)

This is how we find  the entire Bible story is a true story as seen through the awakened eyes of those who wrote it. It is the history of the soul of man and some day you will know it is taking place in you, and then it moves rapidly and you will understand the vision you did not understand before. Then you can say: "The whole Book spoke of me!"

So, speaking of the one that God is seeking, the one who was lost... who found him? (Read "the Prodigal Son") God found him. You find the story unfolding within you. And from then on, you see the world differently, and you cannot change what you now know. Your friends will find it difficult to relate to who you have become, for they have not had the vision... the experience.  But you must go blindly on, because you have come awake and see the world anew. You see no one who is important and you do not consider the wise or the foolish to be in supreme states of consciousness. You see them all passing through states of consciousness as we are being educated, and can see them fall into unlovely states, as they move from the state of death to the divine liberty of the sons of God.

So if you get a vision, do not let reason interfere like my friend who lost $50,000 because he allowed reason to interfere and did not follow through on the answer that was given him.

Reason divides the natural man of sense from the man of Imagination. 

Blake says: "Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained, and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling. And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire."

 If you desire the recovery of a friend, do not restrain it, for then reason will restrain it. Let no one tell you he is suffering because of the past. You are called on only to forgive him. You are not the judge. Let no one tell you that your father punishes. He seems to do it is for a purpose: "I kill, I heal, I wound, I make alive," etc. Choose life, but there must be the contrary to awaken you. But we may choose from the tree of life, which is truth and error.

So deliver anyone from the state into which he has fallen. [Now] you see what the prophet meant: "That which is already has been," etc., for the schoolroom is prepared for the awakening Son of God.


Now let us go into the silence.