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Seedtime and Harvest

Chapter 8

The Water And The Blood

“…Except a man be born again he cannot
see the kingdom of God.”
- John 3:3

“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
his side, and forthwith came there out blood
and water.”
– John 19:34

“This is he that came by water and
blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water
only, but by water and blood.”
– I. John 5:6

According to the gospel and the Epistle of John, not only must man be “born again” but he must be born again of water and blood. These two inward experiences are linked with two outward rites – baptism and communion. But the two outward rites – baptism to symbolize birth by water, and the wine of communion to symbolize acceptance of the blood of the Savoir, cannot produce the real birth or radical transformation of the individual, which is promised to man. The outward use of water and wine cannot bring about the desired change of mind. We must, therefore, look for the hidden meaning behind the symbols of water and blood.

The Bible uses many images to symbolize Truth, but the images used symbolize Truth on different levels of meaning. On the lowest level, the image used is stone. For example:

“… a great stone was upon
The well’s mouth. And thither
were all the flocks gathered:
and they rolled the stone from
the well’s mouth, and watered
the sheep…”
…Genesis 29:2, 3

“…They sank into the bottom
as a stone.”
…Exodus 15:5

When a stone blocks the well, it means that people have taken these great symbolical revelations of truth literally. When someone rolls the stone away, it means that an individual has discovered beneath the allegory or parable its psychological life germ, or meaning. This hidden meaning which lies behind the literal words is symbolized by water. It is this water. In the form of psychological Truth, that he then offers to humanity.

“The flock of my pasture are men.”
… Ezekiel 34:31

The literal-minded man who refuses the “cup of water” – psychological Truth – offered him, “sinks into the bottom as a stone.” He remains on the level where he sees everything in pure objectivity, without any subjective relationship he may keep all the commandments – written on stone – literally, and yet break them psychologically all day long.

He may, for example not literally steal the property of another, and yet see the other in want. To see another in want, is to rob him of his birthright as a child of God. For we are all “children of the most high.”

“And if children, then heirs;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs
with Christ…”
…Romans 8:17

To know what to do about a seeming misfortune is to have the “cup of water” – the psychological Truth – that could save the situation. But such knowledge is not enough. Man must not only “fill the water pots of stone with water” – that is, discover the psychological truth – into wine.

This he does by living a life according to the truth which he has discovered.

Only by such use of the truth can he “taste the water that was made wine…” – John 2:9

A mans birthright is to be Jesus. He is born to “save
his people from their sins”… Matthew 1 : 21.

But the salvation of a man is “not by water only, but by water and blood”.

To know what to do to save yourself or another is not enough; you must do it.

Knowledge of what to do is water; doing it is blood.

This is he that came not by water only, but by water and blood.” The whole of this mystery is in the conscious, active use of imagination to appropriate that particular state of consciousness that would save you or another from the present limitation. Outward ceremonies cannot accomplish this.

“… there shall meet you a man
bearing a pitcher of water; follow
him.
And wheresoever he shall go in,
say ye to the goodman of the
house, The Master saith, Where is the guest-chamber,
where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples?
And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared:
there make ready for us.”

Whatever you desire is already “furnished and prepared”.

Your imagination can put you in touch inwardly with that state of consciousness. If you imagine that you are already the one you want to be, you are following the “man bearing a pitcher of water”. If you remain in that state, you have entered the guest-chamber – Passover – and committed your spirit into the hands of God – your consciousness.

A man’s state of consciousness is his demand on the Infinite Store House of God, and, like the law of commerce, a demand creates a supply.

To change the supply, you change the demand – your state of consciousness.

What you desire to be, that you must feel you already are. Your state of consciousness creates the conditions of your life, rather than the conditions create your state of consciousness. To know this Truth, is to have the “water of life”.

But your savior – the solution of your problem – cannot be manifested by such knowledge only.

It can be realized only as such knowledge is applied.

Only as you assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled, and continue therein, is your side pierced; from whence cometh blood and water”. In this manner only is Jesus – the solution of your problem – realized.

“for thou must know that in the
government of the mind thou art
thine own lord and master, that
there will rise up no fire in the
circle or whole circumference of
thy body and spirit, unless thou
awakes it thyself.”

God is your consciousness.

His promises are conditional. Unless the demand – your state of consciousness – is changed, the supply – the present conditions of your life remain as they are.
“As we forgive” – as we change our mind – the law is automatic.

Your state of consciousness is the spring of action, the directing force, and that which creates the supply.

“if that nation, against whom
I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
If it do evil in my sight, that it
obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I
said I would benefit them.”
… Jeremiah 18:8, 9, 10

This statement of Jeremiah suggests that a commitment is involved if the individual or nation would realize the goal – a commitment to certain fixed attitudes of mind. The feeling of the wish fulfilled is a necessary condition in mans search for the goal.

The story I am about to tell you shows that man is what the observer has the capacity to see in him; that what he is seen to be is a direct index to the observer’s state of consciousness.

This story is, also, a challenge to us all to shed our blood” – use our imagination lovingly on behalf of another.

There is no day that passes that does not afford us the opportunity to transform a life by the shedding of our blood”.

“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”
… Hebrews 9:22

One night in New York City I was able to unveil the mystery of the “water and the blood” to a school teacher. I had quoted the above statement from Hebrews 9:22, and went on to explain that the realization that we have no hope save in ourselves is the discovery that God is within us – that this discovery causes the dark caverns of the skull to grow luminous, and we know that: “The spirit of man is the candle of the lord”… Proverbs 20:27 – and that this realization is the light to guide us safely over the earth.

“His Candle shined upon my head and by his light I walked through darkness”
… Job 29:3

However, we must not look upon this radiant light of the head as God, for man is the image of God.

“God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night;

But does a Human Form display To those who dwell in realms of
Day.”
Blake

But this must be experienced to be known. There is no other way, and no other man’s experience can be a substitute for our own.

I told the teacher that her change of attitude in regard to another would produce a corresponding change in the other; that such knowledge was the true meaning of the water mentioned in I. John 5:6, but that such knowledge alone was not enough to produce the re-birth desired; that such re-birth could only come to pass by “water and blood”, or the application of this truth.

Knowledge of what to do is the water of life, but doing it is the blood of the savior.

In other words, a little knowledge, if carried out in action is more profitable than much knowledge which we neglect to carry out in action.

As I talked, one student kept impinging upon the teachers mind. But this, thought she, would be a too difficult case on which to test the truth of what I was telling her concerning the mystery of re-birth. All knew, teachers and students alike, that this particular student was incorrigible.

The outer facts of her case were these: The teachers, including the principal and school psychiatrist, had sat in judgment on the student just a few days before. They had come to a unanimous decision that the girl, for the good of the school, must be expelled upon reaching her sixteenth birthday. She was rude, crude, unethical and used most vile language. The date for dismissal was but a month away.

As she rode home that night, the teacher kept wondering if she could really change her mind about the girls, and if so, would the student undergo a change of behavior because she herself had undergone a change of attitude?

The only way to find out would be to try. This would be quite an undertaking for it meant assuming full responsibility for the incarnation of the new values in the student. Did she dare to assume so great a power – such creative, God-like power? This meant a complete reversal of man’s normal attitude towards life from “I will love him if he first loves me”, to “He loves me, because I first loved him.” This was too much like playing God.

“We love him, because he first
Loved us.”
… I. John 4:19

But no matter how she tried to argue against it, the feeling persisted that my interpretation gave meaning to the mystery of re-birth by “water and blood.” The teacher decided to accept the challenge. And this is what she did.

She brought the child’s face before her mind’s eye and saw her smile. She listened and imagined she heard the girl say “Good morning”. This was something the student had never done since coming to that school. The teacher imagined the very best about the girl, and then listened and looked as though she heard and saw all that she would hear and see after these things should be. The teacher did this over and over again until she persuaded herself it was true, and fell asleep.

The very next morning, the student entered her classroom and smilingly said “Good morning”. The teacher was so surprised she almost did not respond, and, by her own confession, all through the day she looked for signs of the girl’s returning to her former behavior. However, the girl continued in the transformed state. By the end of the week, the change was noted by all; a second staff meeting was called and a decision of expulsion was revoked. As the child remained friendly and gracious, the teacher has had to ask herself, “Where was the bad child in the first place?”

“For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, Our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace and
Love Is man, His child and care.”
(The Divine Image) – Blake

Transformation is in principle always possible, for the transformed being lives in us, and it is only a question of becoming conscious of it.

The teacher had to experience this transformation to know the mystery of “blood and water”; there was no other way, and no mans experience could have been a substitute for her own.

“We have redemption through his blood.”
… Ephesians 1:7

Without the decision to change her mind in regard to the child, and the imaginative power to carry it out, the teacher could never have redeemed the student. None can know the redemptive power of the imagination who has not “shed his blood”, and tasted the cup of experience.

“Once read thy own breast right, And thou hast done with fears!
Man gets no other light, Search he a thousand years.”
… Matthew Arnold

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Seedtime and Harvest

Chapter 7

BE YE WISE AS SERPENTS

". . .be ye therefore wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves."
- Matthew 10:16

The serpent's ability to form its skin by ossifying a portion of itself, and its skill in shedding each skin as it outgrew it, caused man to regard this reptile as a symbol of the power of endless growth and self-reproduction. Man is told, therefore, to be "wise as the serpent" and learn how to shed his skin - his environment - which is his solidified self; man must learn how to "loose him, and let him go" . . . how to "put off the old man" . . .how to die to the old and yet know, like the serpent, that he "shall not surely die".

Man has not learned as yet that all that is outside his physical body is also a part of himself, that his world and all the conditions of his life are but the outpicturing of his state of consciousness.

When he knows this truth, he will stop the futile struggle of self-contention and, like the serpent, let the old go and grow a new environment.

"Man is immortal; therefore he must
die endlessly. For life is a creative idea;
it can only find itself in changing forms."
- Tagore

In ancient times, serpents were also associated with the guardianship of treasure or wealth. The injunction to be "wise as serpents" is the advice to man to awaken the power of his subtilized body - his imagination - that he, like the serpent, may grow and outgrow, die and yet not die, for from such deaths and resurrections alone, shedding the old and putting on the new, shall come fulfillment of his dreams and the finding of his treaures. As "the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made" - Genesis 3:1 - even so, imagination is more subtile than any creature of the heavens which the Lord God had created. Imagination is the creature that:

". . .was made subject to vanity, not willingly,
but by reason of him who hath subjected the
same in hope. . .For we are saved by hope:
but hope that is seen is not hope: for what
a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we have patience wait for it."
- Romans 8:20, 24, 25

Although the outer, or "natural", man of the senses is interlocked with his environment, the inner, or spiritual, man of imagination is not thus interlocked. If the interlocking were complete, the charge to be "wise as serpents" would be in vain. Were we completely interlocked with our environment, we could not withdraw our attention from the evidence of the senses and feel ourselves into the situation of our fulfilled desire, in hope that that unseen state would solidify as our new environment. But:

"There is a natural body, and there is
a spiritual body."
- I Corinthians 15:44

The spiritual body of imagination is not interlocked with man's environment. The spiritual body can withdraw from the outer man of sense and environment and imagine itself to be what it wants to be. And if it remains faithful to the vision, imagination will build for man a new environment in which to live. This is what is meant by the statement:

". . .I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again, and receive you unto
myself; that where I am, there ye may
be also."
- John 14:2, 3

The place that is prepared for you need not be a place in space. It can be health, wealth, companionship, anything that you desire in this world. Now, how is the place prepared?

You must first construct as life-like a representation as possible of what you would see and hear and do if you were physically present and physically moving about in that "place." Then, with your physical body immobilized, you must imagine that you are actually in that "place" and are seeing and hearing and doing all that you would see and hear and do if you were there physically. This you must do over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality. When it feels natural, the "place" has been prepared as the new environment for your outer or physical self. Now you may open your physical eyes and return to your former state. The "place" is prepared, and where you have been in imagination, there you shall be in the body also.

How this imagined state is realized physically is not the concern of you, the natural or outer man.

The spiritual body, on its return from the imagined state to its former physical state, created an invisible bridge of incident to link the two states. Although the curious feeling that you were actually there and that the state was real is gone, as soon as you open your eyes upon the old familiar environment, nevertheless, you are haunted with the sense of a double identity - with the knowledge that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." When you, the natural man, have had this experience you will go automatically across the bridge of events which leads to the physical realization of your invisibly prepared place.

This concept - that man is dual and that the inner man of imagination can dwell in future states and return to the present moment with a bridge of events to link the two - clashes violently with the widely accepted view about the human personality and the cause and nature of phenomena. Such a concept demands a revolution in current ideas about the human personality, and about space, time and matter. The concept that man, consciously or unconsciously, determines the conditions of life by imagining himself into these mental states, leads to the conclusion that this supposedly solid world is a construction of Mind - a concept which, at first, common sense rejects. However, we should remember that most of the concepts which common sense at first rejected, man was afterward forced to accept. These never-ending reversals of judgment which experience has forced upon man led Professor Whitehead to write: "Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth."

The creative power in man sleeps and needs to be awakened.

"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise
from the dead."
- Ephesians 5:14

Wake from the sleep that tells you the outer world is the cause of the conditions of your life. Rise from the dead past and create a new environment.

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?"
- I Corinthians 3:16

The Spirit of God in you is your imagination, but it sleeps and needs to be awakened, in order to lift you off the bar of the senses where you have so long lain stranded.

The boundless possibilities open to you as you become "wise as serpents" is beyond measure.

You will select the ideal conditions you want to experience and the ideal environment you want to live in. Experiencing these states in imagination until they have sensory vividness, you will externalize them as surely as the serpent now externalizes its skin.

After you have outgrown them, then, you will cast them off as easily as "the snake throws her enamell'd skin". The more abundant life - the whole purpose of Creation - cannot be saved through death and resurrection.

God desired form, so He became man: and it is not enough for us to recognize His spirit at work in creation, we must see His work in form and say that it is good, even though we outgrow the form, forever and ever.

"He leads
Through widening chambers of delight to where
Throbs rapture near an end that aye recedes,
Because His touch is Infinite and lends
A yonder to all ends."

* * * *

"And, I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me." - John 12:32

If I be lifted up from the evidence of the senses to the state of consciousness I desire to realize and remain in that state until it feels natural. I will form that state around me and all men will see it.

But how to persuade man this is true - that imaginative life is the only living; that assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled is the way to the more abundant life and not the compensation of the escapist - that is the problem.

To see as "though widening chambers of delight" what living in the realms of imagination means, to appreciate and enjoy the world, one must live imaginatively; one must dream and occupy his dream, then grow and outgrow the dream, forever and ever.

The unimaginative man, who will not lose his life on one level that he may find it on a higher level, is nothing but a Lot's wife - a pillar of self-satisfied salt. On the other hand, those who refuse form as being unspiritual and who reject incarnation as separate from God are ignorant of the great mystery: "Great is the mystery, God was manifest in the flesh."

Your life expresses one thing, and one thing only, your state of consciousness.

Everything is dependent upon that.

As you, through the medium of imagination, assume a state of consciousness, that state begins to clothe itself in form, It solidifies around you as the serpent's skin ossifies around it. But you must be faithful to the state. You must not go from state to state, but, rather, wait patiently in the one invisible state until it takes on form and becomes an objective fact.

Patience is necessary, but patience will be easy after your first success in shedding the old and growing the new, for we are able to wait according as we have been rewarded by understanding in the past.

Understanding is the secret of patience.

What natural joy and spontaneous delight lie in seeing the world - not with, but as Blake says - through the eye! Imagine that you are seeing what you want to see, and remain faithful to your vision. Your imagination will make for itself a corresponding form in which to live.

All things are made by imagination's power. Nothing begins except in the imagination of man.

"From within out" is the law of the universe.

"As within, so without." Man turns outward in his search for truth, but the essential thing is to look within.

"Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, what e'er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness .. . and to know,
Rather consist in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without."
- Browning: "Paracelsus"

I think you will be interested in an instance of how a young woman shed the skin of resentment and put on a far different kind of skin. The parents of this woman had separated when she was six years old and she had lived with her mother. She rarely saw her father. But once a year he sent her a five dollar check for Christmas. Following her marriage, he did increase the Christmas gift to ten dollars.

After one of my lectures, she was dwelling on my statement that man's suspicion of another is only a measure of his own deceitfulness, and she recognized that she had been harboring resentment towards her father for years. That night she resolved to let go her resentment and put a fond reaction in its place. In her imagination, she felt she was embracing her father in the warmest way. She did it over and over again until she caught the spirit of her imaginary act, and then she fell asleep in a very contented mood.

The following day she happened to pass through the fur department of one of our large stores in California. For some time she had been toying with the idea of having a new fur scarf, but felt she could not afford it. This time her eye was caught by a stone marten scarf, and she picked it up and tried it on. After feeling it and seeing herself in it, reluctantly she took off the scarf and returned it to the salesman, telling herself she really could not afford it. As she was leaving the department, she stopped and thought, "Neville tells we can have whatever we desire if we will only capture the feeling of already having it." In her imagination, she put the scarf back on, felt the reality of it, and went about her shopping, all the while enjoying the imagined wearing of it.

This young woman never associated these two imaginary acts. In fact, she had almost forgotten what she had done until, a few weeks later, on Mother's Day, the doorbell rang unexpectedly.

There was her father. As she embraced him, she remembered her first imaginary action. As she opened the package he had brought her - the first gift in these many years - she remembered her second imaginary action, for the box contained a beautiful stone marten scarf.

"Ye are gods; and all of you are children
of the most High."- Psalms 82:6

". . .be ye therefore wise as serpents, and
harmless as doves."
- Matthew 10:16

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Seedtime and Harvest

Chapter 6

"TIME, TIMES, AND AN HALF"

"And one said to the man clothed in linen,
which was upon the waters of the river,
How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?
And I heard the man clothed in linen, which
was upon the waters of the river, when he held
up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven,
and swear by him that liveth forever that it shall
be for a time, times, and an half."
- Daniel 12:6, 7

At one of my lectures given in Los Angeles on the subject of the hidden meaning behind the stories of the Bible, someone asked me to interpret the above quotation from the Book of Daniel. After I confessed I did not know the meaning of that particular passage, a lady in the audience said to herself, "If the mind behaves according to the assumption with which it starts, then I will find the true answer to that question and tell it to Neville." And this is what she told me.

"Last night the question was asked: 'What is the meaning of "time, times, and an half" as recorded in Daniel 12:7?' Before going to sleep last night I said to myself, 'Now there is a simple answer to this question, so I will assume that I know it and while I am sleeping my greater self will find the answer and reveal it to my lesser self in dream or vision.'"

"Around five A.M. I awakened. It was too early to rise, so remaining in bed I quickly fell into that half dreamy state between waking and sleeping, and while in that state a picture came into my mind of an old lady. She was sitting in a rocking chair and rocking back and forth, back and forth. Then a voice which sounded like your voice said to me: 'Do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality.'"

"I jumped out of bed and re-read the Twelfth Chapter of Daniel, and this is the intuitive answer I received. Taking the sixth and seventh verses, for they constituted last night's question, I felt that if the garments with which Biblical characters are clothed correspond to their level of consciousness, as you teach, then linen must represent a very high level of consciousness indeed, for the 'man clothed in linen' was standing 'upon the waters of the river' and if, as you teach, water symbolizes a high level of psychological truth, then the individual who could walk upon it must truly represent an exalted state of consciousness. I therefore felt that what he had to say must indeed be very significant. Now the question asked of him was 'How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?' And his answer was, 'A time, times, and an half.' Remembering my vision of the old lady rocking back and forth, and your voice telling me to 'do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality', and remembering that this vision and your instruction came to me in response to my assumption that I knew the answer, I intuitively felt that the question asked the 'man clothed in linen' meant how long shall it be until the wonderful dreams that I am dreaming become a reality. And his answer is, 'Do it over and over and over again until it takes on the tones of reality'. 'A time' means to perform the imaginary action which implies the fulfillment of the wish;

'Times' mean to repeat the imaginary action over and over again, and 'an half' means the moment of falling asleep while performing the imaginary action, for such a moment usually arrives before the pre-determined action is completed and, therefore, can be said to be a half, or part, of a time."

To get such inner understanding of the Scriptures by the simple assumption that she did know the answer, was a wonderful experience for this woman. However, to know the true meaning of "time, times, and an half" she must apply her understanding in her daily life. We are never at a loss in an opportunity to test this understanding, either for ourselves or for another.

A number of years ago, a widow living in the same apartment house as we, came to see me about her cat. The cat was her constant companion and dear to her heart. He was, however, eight years old, very ill and in great pain. He had not eaten for days and would not move from under her bed. Two veterinarians had seen the cat and advised the woman that the cat could not be cured, and that he should be put to sleep immediately. I suggested that that night, before retiring, she create in her imagination some action that would indicate the cat was its former healthy self. I advised her to do it over and over again until it took on the tones of reality.

This, she promised to do. However, either from lack of faith in my advice or from lack of faith in her own ability to carry out the imaginary action, she asked her niece to spend the night with her.

This request was made so that if the cat were not well by morning, the niece could take it to the veterinarian's and she, the owner, would not have to face such a dreaded task herself. That night, she settled herself in an easy chair and began to imagine the cat was romping beside her, scratching at the furniture and doing many things she would not normally have allowed. Each time she found that her mind had wandered from its pre-determined task to see a normal, healthy, frisky cat, she brought her attention back to the room and started her imaginary action over again. This she did over and over again until, finally, in a feeling of relief, she dropped off to sleep, still seated in her chair.

At about four o'clock in the morning, she was awakened by the cry of her cat. He was standing by her chair. After attracting her attention, he led her to the kitchen where he begged for food. She fixed him a little warm milk which he quickly drank, and cried for more.

That cat lived comfortably for five more years, when, without pain or illness, he died naturally in his sleep.

"How long shall it be to the end of these
wonders?. . . A time, times, and an half.
In a dream in a vision of the night, when
deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings
upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of
men, and sealeth their instructions."
- Job 33:15, 16

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Seedtime and Harvest

Chapter 3

THE GIFT OF FAITH

"And the Lord had respect unto Abel and in his offerings; But unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect." - Genesis 4:4, 5

If we search the Scriptures, we will
become aware of a far deeper
meaning in the above quotation than
that which a literal reading would give
us. The Lord is no other than your
own consciousness ". . . say unto the
children of Israel, I AM hath sent me
unto you.
. . .Exodus 3:14." "I AM" is the self-definition of the Lord.

Cain and Abel, as the grandchildren of the Lord, can be only personifications of two distinct functions of your own consciousness. The author is really concerned to show the "Two Contrary States of the Human Soul," and he has used two brothers to show these states. The two brothers represent two distinct outlooks on the world possessed by everyone. One is the limited perception of the senses, and the other is an imaginative view of the world. Cain - the first view - is a passive surrender to appearances and an acceptance of life on the basis of the world without: a view which inevitably leads to unsatisfied longing or a contentment with disillusion. Abel - the second view - is a vision of fulfilled desire, lifting man above the evidence of the senses to that state of relief where he no longer pines with desire. Ignorance of the second view is a soul on fire. Knowledge of the second view is the wing whereby it flies to the Heaven of fulfilled desire.

"Come, eat my bread and drink
of the wind that I have mingled,
forsake the foolish and live."
- Proverbs 9:56

In the epistle to the Hebrews, the
writer tells us that Abel's offering
was faith and, states the author,
"Without faith it is impossible to
please Him.”
. . .Hebrews 11:6

"Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. . . Through faith we understand
that the worlds were framed by the word
of God, so that things which are seen were
not made of things which do appear."
- Hebrews 11:1, 3

Cain offers the evidence of the senses which consciousness, the Lord, rejects, because acceptance of this gift as a mold of the future would mean the fixation and perpetuation of the present state forever. The sick would be sick, the poor would be poor, the thief would be a thief, the murderer a murderer, and so on, without hope of redemption.

The Lord, or consciousness, has no respect for such passive use of imagination - which is the gift of Cain. He delights in the gift of Abel, the active, voluntary, loving exercise of the imagination on behalf of man for himself and others.

"Let the weak man say, I am strong.:
- Joel 3:10

Let man disregard appearances and declare himself to be the man he wants to be. Let him imagine beauty where his senses reveal ashes, joy where they testify to mourning, riches where they bear witness to poverty. Only by such active, voluntary use of imagination can man be lifted up and Eden restored.

The ideal is always waiting to be incarnated, but unless we ourselves offer the ideal to the Lord, our consciousness, by assuming that we are already that which we seek to embody, it is incapable of birth. The Lord needs his daily lamb of faith to mold the world in harmony with our dreams.

"By faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain."
- Hebrews 11:4

Faith sacrifices the apparent fact for the unapparent truth. Faith holds fast to the fundamental truth that through the medium of an assumption, invisible states become visible facts.

"For what is faith unless it is to believe
what you do not see?"
- St. Augustine

Just recently, I had the opportunity to observe the wonderful results of one who had the faith to believe what she did not see.

A young woman asked me to meet her sister and her three-year-old nephew. He was a fine, healthy lad with clear blue eyes and an exceptionally fine unblemished skin. Then, she told me her story.

At birth, the boy was perfect in every way save for a large, ugly birthmark covering one side of his face. Their doctor advised them that nothing could be done for this type of scar. Visits to many specialists only confirmed his statement. Hearing the verdict, the aunt set herself the task of proving her faith - that an assumption, though denied by the evidence of the senses, if persisted in, will harden into fact.

Every time she thought of the baby, which was often, she saw, in her imagination, an eight month-old baby with a perfect face - without any trace of a scar. This was not easy, but she knew that in this case, that was the gift of Abel which pleased God. She persisted in her faith - she believed what was not there to be seen. The result was that she visited her sister on the child's eight-month birthday and found him to have a perfect, unblemished skin with no trace of a birth-mark ever having been present. "Luck! Coincidence! Shouts Cain. No. Abel knows that these are names given by those who have no faith, to the works of faith.

"We walk by faith, not by sight." - II Corinthians 5:7

When reason and the facts of life oppose the idea you desire to realize and you accept the evidence of your senses and the dictates of reason as the truth, you have brought the Lord – your consciousness - the gift of Cain. It is obvious that such offerings do not please Him.

Life on earth is a training ground for image making. If you use only the molds which your senses dictate, there will be no change in your life. You are here to live the more abundant life, so you must use the invisible molds of imagination and make results and accomplishments the crucial test of your power to create. Only as you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and continue therein are you offering the gift that pleases.

"When Abel's gift is my attire
Then I'll realize my desire."

The Prophet Malachi complains that man has robbed God:

"But ye say, Wherein have we robbed
thee? In tithes and offerings."
- Malachi 3:8

Facts based upon reason and the evidence
of the senses which oppose the idea seeking
expression, rob you of the belief in the
reality of the invisible state. But "faith is the
evidence of things not seen", and through
it "Good calleth those things which be not as though they were . . .
Romans 4:17."

Call the thing not seen; assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled.

". . .that there may be meat in mine house,
and prove me now herewith, sayeth the
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the
windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing, that there shall not be room
enough to receive it."
- Malachi 3:10

This is the story of a couple living in Sacramento, California, who refused to accept the evidence of their senses, who refused to be robbed, in spite of a seeming loss. The wife had given her husband a very valuable wristwatch. The gift doubled its value because of the sentiment he attached to it. They had a little ritual with the watch. Every night as he removed the watch he gave it to her and she put it away in a special box in the bureau. Every morning she took the watch and gave it to him to put on.

One morning the watch was missing. They both remembered playing their usual parts the night before, therefore the watch was not lost or misplaced, but stolen. Then and there, they determined not to accept the fact that it was really gone. They said to each other, "This is an opportunity to practice what we believe." They decided that, in their imagination, they would enact their customary ritual as though the watch were actually there. In his imagination, every night the husband took off the watch and gave it to his wife, while in her imagination she accepted the watch and carefully put it away. Every morning she removed the watch from its box and gave it to her husband and he, in turn, put it on. This they did faithfully for two weeks.

After their fourteen-day vigil, a man went into the one and only jewelry store in Sacramento where the watch would be recognized. As he offered a gem for appraisal, the owner of the store noticed the wristwatch he was wearing. Under the pretext of needing a closer examination of the stone, he went into an inner office and called the police. After the police arrested the man, they found in his apartment over ten thousand dollars worth of stolen jewelry. In walking "by faith, not by sight", this couple attained their desire - the watch - and also aided many others in regaining what had seemed to be lost forever.

"If one advances confidently in the
direction of his dream, and endeavors
to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with a success unexpected
in common hours." – Thoreau

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Seedtime and Harvest

Neville Goddard

THE END OF A GOLDEN STRING

"I Give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem's wall."
. . . Blake

Chapter 1

In the following essays I have tried to indicate certain ways of approach to the understanding of the Bible and the realization of your dreams.

"That ye be not slothful, but followers
of them who through faith and
patience inherit the promises."
. . . Hebrews 6:12

Many who enjoy the old familiar verses of Scripture are discouraged when they themselves try to read the Bible as they would any other book because, quite excusably, they do not understand that the Bible is written in the language of symbolism. Not knowing that all of its characters are personifications of the laws and functions of mind; that the Bible is psychology rather than history, they puzzle their brains over it for awhile and then give up. It is all too mystifying. To understand the significance of its imagery, the reader of the Bible must be imaginatively awake.

According to the Scriptures, we sleep with Adam and wake with Christ. That is, we sleep collectively and wake individually.

"And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept."
. . . Genesis 2:21

If Adam, or generic man, is in a deep sleep, then his experiences as recorded in the Scriptures must be a dream. Only he who is awake can tell his dream, and only he would understand the symbolism of dreams can interpret the dream.

"And they said one to another,
Did not our heart burn within us,
while He talked with us by the way,
and while He opened to us the
Scriptures?"
. . . Luke 24:32

The Bible is a revelation of the laws and functions of Mind expressed in the language of that twilight realm into which we go when we sleep. Because the symbolical language of this twilight realm is much the same for all men, the recent explorers of this realm - human imagination - call it the "collective unconscious."

The purpose of this book, however, is not to give you a complete definition of Biblical symbols or exhaustive interpretations of its stories.

All I hope to have done is to have indicated the way in which you are most likely to succeed in realizing your desires.

"What things soever ye desire" can be obtained only through the conscious, voluntary exercise of imagination in direct obedience to the laws of Mind.

Somewhere within this realm of imagination there is a mood, a feeling of the wish fulfilled which, if appropriated, means success to you.

This realm, this Eden - your imagination - is vaster than you know and repays exploration.

"I Give you the end of a golden string;" You must wind it into a ball.

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