Feeling is the Secret: AWAKENED IMAGINATION

AWAKENED

IMAGINATION

The Power which makes the

achievement of aims . . . the

attainment of desires . . .

inevitable.

THE

NEVILLE

CONTENTS

AWAKENED IMAGINATION

1. WHO IS YOUR IMAGINATION?

2. SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

3. HIGHWAYS OF THE INNER WORLD

4. THE PRUNING SHEARS OF REVISION

5. THE COIN OF HEAVEN

6. IT IS WITHIN

7. CREATION IS FINISHED

8. THE APPLE OF GOD'S EYE

THE SEARCH

AWAKENED

IMAGINATION

"Imagination, the real and eternal world

of which this Vegetable Universe is but a

faint shadow. What is the life of Man but

Art and Science?"

William Blake, ferusalem

"Imagination is more important than

knowledge. "

Albert Einstein, On Science

Chapter One

WHO IS YOUR IMAGINATION?

I rest not from my great task

To open the Eternal Worlds, to open

the immortal Eyes

Of Man inwards into the Worlds of

Thought: into Eternity

Ever expanding in the Bosom of

God, the Human Imagination.

Blake , Jerusalem 5:18-20

CERTAIN WORDS in the course of long use gather

so many strange connotations that they almost

cease to mean anything at all. Such a word is

imagination. This word is made to serve all man-

ner of ideas, some of them directly opposed to one

another. Fancy, thought, hallucination, suspicion:

indeed, so wide is its use and so varied its meanings,

the word imagination has no status nor fixed sig-

nificance. For example, we ask a man to "use his

imagination," meaning that his present outlook is

too restricted and therefore not equal to the task.

Awakened Imagination

In the next breath we tell him that his ideas are

"pure imagination," thereby implying that his ideas

are unsound. We speak of a jealous or suspicious

person as a "victim of his own imagination," mean-

mg that his thoughts are untrue. A minute later we

pay a man the highest tribute by describing him as

a "man of imagination." Thus the word imagina-

tion has no definite meaning. Even the dictionary

gives us no help. It defines imagination as (1) the

picturing power or act of the mind, the construc-

tive or creative principle; (2) a phantasm; (3) an

irrational notion or behef ; (4) planning, plotting or

scheming as involving mental construction.

I identify the central figure of the Gospels with

human imagination, the power which makes the

forgiveness of sins, the achievement of our goals,

inevitable.

All things were made by him; and without

him was not anything made that was

made.

John 1:3

There is only one thing in the world. Imagina-

tion, and all our deformations of it.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man

of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

Isaiah 53:3

Who Is Your Imagination? 3

Imagination is the very gateway of reality.

"Man," said Blake, "is either the ark of God or a

phantom of the earth and of the water." "Natur-

ally he is only a natural organ subject to Sense."

"The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination:

that is God himself. The Divine Body, y^"*: Jesus:

we are his Members."

I know of no greater and truer definition of the

Imagination than that of Blake. By imagination we

have the power to be anything we desire to be.

Through imagination we disarm and transform the

violence of the world. Our most intimate as well as

our most casual relationships become imaginative

as we awaken to "the mystery hid from the ages,"

that Christ in us is our imagination. We then real-

ize that only as we live by imagination can we truly

be said to live at all.

I want this book to be the simplest, clearest,

frankest work I have the power to make it, that I

may encourage you to function imaginatively, that

you may open your "Immortal Eyes inwards into

the Worlds of Thought," where you behold every

desire of your heart as ripe grain "white already to

harvest."

I am come that they might have life, and

that they might have it more abundantly.

John 10:10

Awakened Imagination

The abundant life that Christ promised us is ours

to experience now, but not until we have the sense

of Christ as our imagination can we experience it.

The mystery hid from the ages. . . . Christ

in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:26, 27

is your imagination. This is the mystery which I am

ever striving to realize more keenly myself and to

urge upon others.

Imagination is our redeemer, "the Lord from

Heaven" born of man but not begotten of man.

Every man is Mary and birth to Christ must give.

If the story of the immaculate conception* and

birth of Christ appears irrational to man, it is only

because it is misread as biography, history, and cos-

mology, and the modern explorers of the imagina-

tion do not help by calling It the unconscious or

subconscious mind. Imagination's birth and growth

is the gradual transition from a God of tradition to

a God of experience. If the birth of Christ in man

seems slow, it is only because man is unwilling to let

go the comfortable but false anchorage of tra-

dition.

* Neville uses this term in reference to what is traditionally

called the Virgin Birth. --£(i.

Who Is Your Imagination? 5

When imagination is discovered as the first prin-

ciple of religion, the stone of literal understanding

will have felt the rod of Moses and, like the rock of

Zin, issue forth the water of psychological meaning

to quench the thirst of humanity; and all who

take the proffered cup and live a life according

to this truth will transform the water of psycholog-

ical meaning into the wine of forgiveness. Then,

like the good Samaritan, they will pour it on the

wounds of all.

The Son of God is not to be found in history nor

in any external form. He can only be found as the

imagination of him in whom His presence becomes

manifest.

O would thy heart but be a manger for

His birth! God would once more become

a child on earth.

Man is the garden in which this only-begotten

Son of God sleeps. He awakens this Son by lifting

his imagination up to heaven and clothing men in

godlike stature. We must go on imagining better

than the best we know.

Man in the moment of his awakening to the

imaginative life must meet the test of Sonship.

"Father, reveal Thy Son in me"

and

Awakened Imagination

'It pleased God to reveal His

Son in me."

Galatians 1:15,

The supreme test of Sonship is the forgiveness of

sin. The test that your imagination is Christ Jesus,

the Son of God, is your ability to forgive sin. Sin

means missing one's mark in life, falling short of

one's ideal, failing to achieve one's aim. Forgiveness

means identification of man with his ideal or aim

in life. This is the work of awakened imagination,

the supreme work, for it tests man's ability to enter

into and partake of the nature of his opposite.

Let the weak man say, I am strong.

Joel 3:10

Reasonably this is impossible. Only awakened

imagination can enter into and partake of the

nature of its opposite.

This conception of Christ Jesus as human imagi-

nation raises these fundamental questions: Is

imagination a power sufficient, not merely to ena-

ble me to assume that I am strong, but is it also of

itself capable of executing the idea? Suppose that

I desire to be in some other place or situation.

Could I, by imagining myself into such a state and

place, bring about their physical realization? Sup-

Who Is Your Imagination?

pose I could not afford the journey and suppose my

present social and financial status oppose the idea

that I want to realize. Would imagination be suffi-

cient of itself to incarnate these desires? Does imagi-

nation comprehend reason? By reason I mean

deductions from the observations of the senses.

Does it recognize the external world of facts? In the

practical way of everyday life is imagination a com-

plete guide to behaviour? Suppose I am capable of

acting with continuous imagination, that is, sup-

pose I am capable of sustaining the feeling of my

wish fulfilled, will my assumption harden into fact?

And, if it does harden into fact, shall I on reflec-

tion find that my actions through the period of

incubation have been reasonable? Is my imagina-

tion a power sufficient, not merely to assume the

feeling of the wish fulfilled, but is it also of itself

capable of incarnating the idea? After assuming

that I am already what I want to be, must I con-

tinually guide myself by reasonable ideas and

actions in order to bring about the fulfillment of

my assumption?

Experience has convinced me that an assump-

tion, though false, if persisted in will harden into

fact, that continuous imagination is sufficient for

all things, and all my reasonable plans and actions

will never make up for my lack of continuous imag-

ination.

Awakened Imagination

Is it not true that the teachings of the Gospels

can only be received in terms of faith and that the

Son of God is constantly looking for signs of faith

in people that is, faith in their own imagination?

Is not the promise

Believe that ye receive and ye shall re-

ceive.

Mark 11:24

the same as "Imagine that you are and you shall

be"? Was it not an imaginary state in which Moses

Endured, as seeing him who is invisible?

Hebrews 11:27

Was it not by the power of his own imagination

that he endured?

Truth depends upon the intensity of the imagi-

nation, not upon external facts. Facts are the fruit

bearing witness of the use or misuse of the imagi-

nation. Man becomes what he imagines. He has a

self-determined history. Imagination is the way, the

truth, the life revealed. We cannot get hold of truth

with the logical mind. Where the natural man of

sense sees a bud, imagination sees a rose full-blown.

Truth cannot be encompassed by facts. As we

awaken to the imaginative life, we discover that to

Who Is Your Imagination? 9

imagine a thing is so makes it so, that a true judg-

ment need not conform to the external reality to

which it relates.

The imaginative man does not deny the reality

of the sensuous outer world of Becoming, but he

knows that it is the inner world of continuous

Imagination that is the force by which the sensuous

outer world of Becoming is brought to pass. He sees

the outer world and all its happenings as projec-

tions of the inner world of Imagination. To him

everything is a manifestation of the mental activity

which goes on in man's imagination without the

sensuous reasonable man being aware of it. But he

realizes that every man must become conscious of

this inner activity and see the relationship between

the inner causal world of imagination and the sen-

suous outer world of effects.

It is a marvelous thing to find that you can

imagine yourself into the state of your fulfilled

desire and escape from the jails which ignorance

built.

The Real Man is a Magnificent Imagination.

It is this self ihdiX. must be awakened.

Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from

the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Ephesians 5:14

Awakened Imagination

The moment man discovers that his imagination is

Christ, he accompHshes acts which on this level can

only be called miraculous. But until man has the

sense of Christ as his imagination

You did not choose me, I have chosen you.

John 15:16

he will see everything in pure objectivity without

any subjective relationship. Not realizing that all

that he encounters is part of himself, he rebels at

the thought that he has chosen the conditions of his

life, that they are related by affinity to his own

mental activity. Man must firmly come to believe

that reality lies within him and not without.

Although others have bodies, a hfe of their own,

their reality is rooted in you, ends in you, as yours

ends in God.

Chapter Two

SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

The first power that meets us at the

threshold of the soul's domain is the power

of imagination.

Dr. Franz Hartmann

I WAS FIRST made conscious of the power, nature,

and redemptive function of imagination

through the teachings of my friend Abdullah; and

through subsequent experiences I learned that Jesus

was a symbol of the coming of imagination to man,

that the test of His birth in man was the individual's

ability to forgive sin; that is, his ability to identify

himself or another with his aim in life.

Without the identification of man with his aim,

the forgiveness of sin is an impossibility, and only

the Son of God can forgive sin. Therefore man's

ability to identify himself with his aim, though rea-

son and his senses deny it, is proof of the birth of

Christ in him. To passively surrender to appear-

Awakened Imagination

ances and bow before the evidence of facts is to

confess that Christ is not yet born in you.

Although this teaching shocked and repelled me

at first — for I was a convinced and earnest Chris-

tian, and did not then know that Christianity could

not be inherited by the mere accident of birth but

must be consciously adopted as a way of life — it

stole later on, through visions, mystical revelations,

and practical experiences, into my understanding

and found its interpretation in a deeper mood. But

I must confess that it is a trying time when those

things are shaken which one has always taken for

granted.

Seest thou these great buildings? There

shall not be left one stone upon another

that shall not be thrown down.

Mark 13:2

Not one stone of literal understanding will be left

after one drinks the water of psychological mean-

ing. All that has been built up by natural religion

is cast into the flames of mental fire. Yet, what bet-

ter way is there to understand Christ Jesus than to

identify the central character of the Gospels with

human imagination — knowing that every time you

exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of

another you are literally mediating God to man

Sealed Instructions

and thereby feeding and clothing Christ Jesus, and

that whenever you imagine evil against another you

are literally beating and crucifying Christ Jesus — ?

Every imagination of man is either the cup of cold

water or the sponge of vinegar to the parched lips

of Christ.

Let none of you imagine evil in your

hearts against his neighbor

warned the prophet Zechariah. When man heeds

this advice, he will awake from the imposed sleep

of Adam into the full consciousness of the Son of

God. He is in the world, and the world is made

by him, and the world knows him not: Human

Imagination.

I asked myself many times, "If my imagination

is Christ Jesus and all things are possible to Christ

Jesus, are all things possible to me?"

Through experience I have come to know that

when I identify myself with my aim in life, then

Christ is awake in me.

Christ is sufficient for all things.

I lay down my life that I might take it

again. No man taketh it from me, but I

lay it down of myself.

John 10:17, 18

Awakened Imagination

Sealed Instructions

What a comfort it is to know that all that I

experience is the result of my own standard of

beliefs; that I am the center of my own web of cir-

cumstances and that as I change, so must my outer

world!

The world presents different appearances ac-

cording as our states of consciousness differ. What

we see when we are identified with a state cannot

be seen when we are no longer fused with it. By

state is meant all that man believes and consents to

as true. No idea presented to the mind can realize

itself unless the mind accepts it. It depends on the

acceptance, the state with which we are identified,

how things present themselves. In the fusion of

imagination and states is to be found the shaping

of the world as it seems. The world is a revelation

of the states with which imagination is fused. It is

the state from which we think that determines the

objective world in which we live. The rich man, the

poor man, the good man, the thief are what they

are by virtue of the states from which they view the

world. On the distinction between these states

depends the distinction between the worlds of these

men. Individually so different is this same world.

It is not the actions and behaviour of the good man

that should be matched but his point of view.

Outer reforms are useless if the inner state is not

changed. Success is gained not by imitating the

)

outer actions of the successful but by right inner

actions and inner talking.

If we detach ourselves from a state, and we may

at any moment, the conditions and circumstances

to which that union gave being vanish.

It was in the fall of 1933 in New York City that

I approached Abdullah with a problem. He asked

me one simple question, "What do you want?" I

told him that I would like to spend the winter in

Barbados, but that I was broke. I literally did not

have a nickel.

"If you will imagine yourself to be in Barbados,"

said he, "thinking and viewing the world from that

state of consciousness instead of thinking of Bar-

bados, you will spend the winter there. You must

not concern yourself with the ways and means of

getting there, for the state of consciousness of

already being in Barbados, if occupied by your

imagination, will devise the means best suited to

realize itself."

Man lives by committing himself to invisible

states, by fusing his imagination with what he

knows to be other than himself, and in this union

he experiences the results of that fusion. No one

can lose what he has save by detachment from the

state where the things experienced have their nat-

ural life.

"You must imagine yourself right into the state

Awakened Imagination

of your fulfilled desire," Abdullah told me, "and

fall asleep viewing the world from Barbados."

The world which we describe from observation

must be as we describe it relative to ourselves. Our

imagination connects us with the state desired. But

we must use imagination masterfully, not as an

onlooker thinking of the end, but as a partaker

thinking/rom the end. We must actually be there

in imagination. If we do this, our subjective ex-

perience will be realized objectively.

"This is not mere fancy," said he, "but a truth

you can prove by experience."

His appeal to enter into the wish fulfilled was the

secret of thinking from the end. Every state is

already there as "mere possibility" as long as you

think o/it, but is overpoweringly real when you

think /rom it. Thinking from the end is the way of

Christ.

I began right there and then fixing my thoughts

beyond the limits of sense, beyond that aspect to

which my present state gave being, towards the

feeling of already being in Barbados and viewing

the world /rom that standpoint.

He emphasized the importance of the state/rom

which man views the world as he falls asleep. All

prophets claim that the voice of God is chiefly

heard by man in dreams.

Sealed Instructions

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when

deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumber-

ings upon the bed; then he openeth the

ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.

Job 33:15, 16

That night and for several nights thereafter I fell

asleep in the assumption that I was in my father's

house in Barbados. Within a month I received a

letter from my brother saying that he had a strong

desire to have the family together at Christmas and

asking me to use the enclosed steamship ticket for

Barbados. I sailed two days after I received my

brother's letter and spent a wonderful winter in

Barbados.

This experience has convinced me that man can

be anything he pleases if he will make the concep-

tion habitual and think /rom the end. It has also

shown me that I can no longer excuse myself by

placing the blame on the world of external things

— that my good and my evil have no dependency

except from myself that it depends on the state

from which I view the world how things present

themselves.

Man, who is free in his choice, acts from concep-

tions which he freely, though not always wisely,

chooses. All conceivable states are awaiting our

Awakened Imagination

choice and occupancy, but no amount of ration-

alizing will of itself yield us the state of conscious-

ness which is the only thing worth having.

The imaginative image is the only thing to seek.

The ultimate purpose of imagination is to create

in us "the spirit of Jesus," which is continual for-

giveness of sin, continual identification of man with

his ideal. Only by identifying ourselves with our

aim can we forgive ourselves for having missed it.

All else is labor in vain. On this path, to whatever

place or state we convey our imagination, to that

place or state we will gravitate physically also.

In my Father's house are many mansions;

if it were not so, I would have told you. 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

By sleeping in my father's house in my imagination

as though I slept there in the flesh, I fused my

imagination with that state and was compelled to

experience that state in the flesh also.

So vivid was this state to me, I could have been

seen in my father's house had any sensitive entered

Sealed Instructions

the room where in imagination I was sleeping. A

man can be seen where in imagination he is, for a

man must be where his imagination is, for his

imagination is himself. This I know from experi-

ence, for I have been seen by a few to whom I

desired to be seen, when physically I was hundreds

of miles away.

I, by the intensity of my imagination and feeling,

imagining and feeling myself to be in Barbados

instead of merely thinking of Barbados, had

spanned the vast Atlantic to influence my brother

into desiring my presence to complete the family

circle at Christmas. Thinking/rom the end, from

the feeling of my wish fulfilled, was the source of

everything that happened as outer cause, such as

my brother's impulse to send me a steamship ticket;

and it was also the cause of everything that ap-

peared as results.

In Ideas of Good and Evil, W. B. Yeats, having

described a few experiences similar to this experi-

ence of mine, writes:

If all who have described events like this

have not dreamed, we should rewrite our

histories, for all men, certainly all imagi-

native men, must be forever casting forth

enchantments, glamour, illusions; and all

Awakened Imagination

men, especially tranquil men who have no

powerful egotistic life, must be continually

passing under their power.

Determined imagination, thinking/rom the end,

is the beginning of all miracles.

I would like to give you an immense belief in

miracles, but a miracle is only the name given by

those who have no knowledge of the power and

function of imagination to the works of imagina-

tion. Imagining oneself into the feeling of the wish

fulfilled is the means by which a new state is

entered. This gives the state the quahty of is-ness.

Hermes tells us:

That which is, is manifested; that which

has been or shall be, is unmanifested, but

not dead; for Soul, the eternal activity of

God, animates all things.

The future must become the present in the imag-

ination of the one who would wisely and consciously

create circumstances. We must translate vision into

Being, thinking o/ into thinking/rom. Imagination

must center itself in some state and view the world

from that state. Thinking/rom the end is an in-

tense perception of the world of fulfilled desire.

Thinking/rom the state desired is creative living.

Sealed Instructions

Ignorance of this ability to think /rom the end is

bondage. It is the root of all bondage with which

man is bound. To passively surrender to the evi-

dence of the senses underestimates the capacities of

the Inner Self. Once man accepts thinking/rom the

end as a creative principle in which he can cooper-

ate, then he is redeemed from the absurdity of ever

attempting to achieve his objective by merely think-

ing of it.

Construct all ends according to the pattern of

fulfilled desire.

The whole of life is just the appeasement of hun-

ger, and the infinite states of consciousness from

which a man can view the world are purely a means

of satisfying that hunger. The principle upon which

each state is organized is some form of hunger to lift

the passion for self-gratification to ever higher and

higher levels of experience. Desire is the mainspring

of the mental machinery. It is a blessed thing. It is

a right and natural craving which has a state of

consciousness as its right and natural satisfaction.

But one thing I do, forgetting the things

which are behind, and stretching forward

to the things which are before, I press on

toward the goal.

Philippians 3:13, 14

Awakened Imagination

Sealed Instructions

It is necessary to have an aim in life. Without an

aim we drift. "What wantest thou of me?" is the

impUed question asked most often by the central

figure of the Gospels. In defining your aim, you

must want it.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Psalms 42:1

It is lack of this passionate direction to life that

makes man fail of accomplishment.

The spanning of the bridge between desire —

thinking o/— and satisfaction — thinking /rom — is

all-important. We must move mentally from think-

ing of the end to thinking/rom the end. This, rea-

son could never do. By its nature it is restricted to

the evidence of the senses; but imagination, having

no such limitation, can. Desire exists to be gratified

in the activity of imagination. Through imagina-

tion man escapes from the limitation of the senses

and the bondage of reason.

There is no stopping the man who can think

from the end. Nothing can stop him. He creates the

means and grows his way out of limitation into ever

greater and greater mansions of the Lord. It does

not matter what he has been or what he is. All that

matters is "what does he want?" He knows that the

world is a manifestation of the mental activity

which goes on within himself, so he strives to deter-

mine and control the ends from which he thinks. In

his imagination he dwells in the end, confident that

he shall dwell there in the flesh also. He puts his

whole trust in the feeling of the wish fulfilled and

lives by committing himself to that state, for the art

of fortune is to tempt him so to do. Like the man

at the pool of Bethesda, he is ready for the moving

of the waters of imagination. Knowing that every

desire is ripe grain to him who knows how to think

from the end, he is indifferent to mere reasonable

probability and confident that through continuous

imagination his assumptions will harden into fact.

But how to persuade men everywhere that think-

ing/rom the end is the only living, how to foster it

in every activity of man, how to reveal it as the

plenitude of life and not the compensation of the

disappointed: that is the problem.

Life is a controllable thing. You can experience

what you please once you realize that you are His

Son, and that you are what you are by virtue of the

state of consciousness from which you think and

view the world.

Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I

have is thine.

Luke 15:31

Chapter Three

HIGHWAYS OF THE INNER WORLD

And the children struggled within her

. . . and the Lord said unto her, two

nations are in thy womb, and two manner

of people shall be separated from thy

bowels; and the one people shall be

stronger than the other people; and the

elder shall serve the younger.

Genesis 25:22-23

DUALITY IS an inherent condition of life. Every-

thing that exists is double. Man is a dual crea-

ture with contrary principles embedded in his

nature. They war within him and present attitudes

to life which are antagonistic. This conflict is the

eternal enterprise, the war in heaven, the never-

ending struggle of the younger or inner man of

imagination to assert His supremacy over the elder

or outer man of sense.

26 Awakened Imagination

The first shall be last and the last shall be

first. , ,^ „/^

Matthew 19:30

He it is, who coming after me is preferred

^^^°^^"^" John 1:27

The second man is the Lord from heaven.

1 Cor. 15:47

Man begins to awake to the imaginative life the

moment he feels the presence of another being in

himself.

In your limbs lie nations twain, rival races

from their birth; one the mastery shall

gain, the younger o'er the elder reign.

There are two distinct centers of thought or out-

looks on the world possessed by every man. The

Bible speaks of these two outlooks as natural and

spiritual.

The natural man receiveth not the things

of the spirit of God: for they are foolish-

ness unto him: neither can he know them,

because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2:14

Highways of the Inner World

Man's inner body is as real in the world of sub-

jective experience as his outer physical body is real

in the world of external realities, but the inner body

expresses a more fundamental part of reality. This

existing inner body of man must be consciously

exercised and directed. The inner world of thought

and feeling to which the inner body is attuned has

its real structure and exists in its own higher space.

There are two kinds of movement, one that is

according to the inner body and another that is

according to the outer body. The movement which

is according to the inner body is causal, but the

outer movement is under compulsion. The inner

movement determines the outer which is joined to

it, bringing into the outer a movement that is simi-

lar to the actions of the inner body. Inner move-

ment is the force by which all events are brought to

pass. Outer movement is subject to the compulsion

applied to it by the movement of the inner body.

Whenever the actions of the inner body match

the actions which the outer must take to appease

desire, that desire will be realized.

Construct mentally a drama which implies that

your desire is realized and make it one which

involves movement of self. Immobilize your outer

physical self. Act precisely as though you were

going to take a nap, and start the predetermined

action in imagination. A vivid representation of the

Awakened Imagination

Highways of the Inner World

action is the beginning of that action. Then, as you

are falUng asleep, consciously imagine yourself into

the scene. The length of the sleep is not important,

a short nap is sufficient, but carrying the action

into sleep thickens fancy into fact.

At first your thoughts may be like rambling

sheep that have no shepherd. Don't despair. Should

your attention stray seventy times seven, bring it

back seventy times seven to its predetermined

course until from sheer exhaustion it follows the

appointed path. The inner journey must never be

without direction. When you take to the inner

road, it is to do what you did mentally before you

started. You go for the prize you have already seen

and accepted.

In The Road to Xanadu Professor John Living-

ston Lowes says:

But I have long had the feeling, which this

study had matured to a conviction, that

Fancy and Imagination are not two pow-

ers at all, but one. The valid distinction

which exists between them lies, not in the

materials with which they operate, but

in the degree of intensity of the operant

power itself. Working at high tension, the

imaginative energy assimilates and trans-

mutes; keyed low, the same energy aggre-

gates and yokes together those images

which at its highest pitch, it merges in-

dissolubly into one.

Fancy assembles, imagination fuses.

Here is a practical application of this theory. A

year ago a blind girl living in the city of San Fran-

cisco found herself confronted with a transporta-

tion problem. A rerouting of buses forced her to

make three transfers between her home and her

office. This lengthened her trip from fifteen

minutes to two hours and fifteen minutes. She

thought seriously about this problem and came to

the decision that a car was the solution. She knew

that she could not drive a car but felt that she could

be driven in one. Putting this theory to the test that

"whenever the actions of the inner self correspond

to the actions which the outer, physical self must

take to appease desire, that desire will be realized,"

she said to herself, "I will sit here and imagine that

I am being driven to my office."

Sitting in her living room, she began to imagine

herself seated in a car. She felt the rhythm of the

motor. She imagined that she smelled the odor of

gasoline, felt the motion of the car, touched the

sleeve of the driver and felt that the driver was a

man. She felt the car stop, and turning to her com-

panion, said, "Thank you very much, sir." To

Awakened Imagination

which he rephed, "The pleasure is all mine." Then

she stepped from the car and heard the door snap

shut as she closed it.

She told me that she centered her imagination on

being in a car and although blind viewed the city

from her imaginary ride. She did not think of the

ride. She thought from the ride and all that it

implied. This controlled and subjectively directed

purposive ride raised her imagination to its full

potency. She kept her purpose ever before her,

knowing there was cohesion in purposive inner

movement. In these mental journeys an emotional

continuity must be sustained — the emotion of ful-

filled desire. Expectancy and desire were so in-

tensely joined that they passed at once from a

mental state into a physical act.

The inner self moves along the predetermined

course best when the emotions collaborate. The

inner self must be fired, and it is best fired by the

thought of great deeds and personal gain. We must

take pleasure in our actions.

On two successive days the blind girl took her

imaginary ride, giving it all the joy and sensory

vividness of reality. A few hours after her second

imaginary ride, a friend told her of a story in the

evening paper. It was a story of a man who was

interested in the blind. The blind girl phoned him

and stated her problem. The very next day, on his

Highways of the Inner World

way home, he stopped in at a bar and while there

had the urge to tell the story of the blind girl to his

friend the proprietor. A total stranger, on hearing

the story, volunteered to drive the blind girl home

every day. The man who told the story then said,

"If you will take her home, I will take her to work."

This was over a year ago, and since that day this

blind girl has been driven to and from her office by

these two gentlemen. Now, instead of spending two

hours and fifteen minutes on three buses, she is at

her office in less than fifteen minutes. And on that

first ride to her office she turned to her good

Samaritan and said, "Thank you very much, sir";

and he replied, "The pleasure is all mine."

Thus, the objects of her imagination were to her

the realities of which the physical manifestation was

only the witness. The determinative animating

principle was the imaginative ride. Her triumph

could be a surprise only to those who did not know

of her inner ride. She mentally viewed the world

from this imaginative ride with such a clearness of

vision that every aspect of the city attained identity.

These inner movements not only produce cor-

responding outer movements: this is the law which

operates beneath all physical appearances. He who

practices these exercises of bilocation will develop

unusual powers of concentration and quiescence

and will inevitably achieve waking consciousness on

Awakened Imagination

the inner and dimensionally larger world. Actualiz-

ing strongly, she fulfilled her desire, for, viewing

the city from the feeling of her wish fulfilled, she

matched the state desired and granted that to her-

self which sleeping men ask of God.

To reahze your desire, an action must start in

your imagination, apart from the evidence of the

senses, involving movement of self and implymg

fulfillment of your desire. Whenever it is the action

which the outer self takes to appease desire, that

desire will be reahzed.

The movement of every visible object is caused

not by things outside the body but by things within

it which operate from within outward. The journey

is in yourself. You travel along the highways of the

inner world. Without inner movement it is impos-

sible to bring forth anything. Inner action is in-

troverted sensation. If you will construct mentally

a drama which implies that you have realized your

objective, then close your eyes and drop your

thoughts inward, centering your imagination all

the while in the predetermined action and partake

in that action, you will become a self-determined

being.

Inner action orders all things according to the

nature of itself. Try it and see whether a desirable

ideal once formulated is possible, for only by this

Highways of the Inner World

process of experiment can you realize your poten-

tialities. It is thus that this creative principle is

being realized. So the clue to purposive living is to

center your imagination in the action and feeling

of fulfilled desire with such awareness, such sensi-

tiveness, that you initiate and experience move-

ment upon the inner world.

Ideas only act if they are felt, if they awaken

inner movement. Inner movement is conditioned

by self-motivation, outer movement by compulsion.

Wherever the sole of your foot shall tread,

the same give I unto you.

Joshua 1:3

and remember

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is

mighty.

Zephaniah 3:17

Chapter Four

THE PRUNING SHEARS OF REVISION

The second man is the Lord from heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:47

Never will he say caterpillars. He'll say,

"There's a lot of butterflies as — is —

to — be on our cabbages, Prue." He won't

say, "It's winter." He'll say, "Summer's

sleeping." And there's no bud little

enough nor sad-coloured enough for

Kester not to callen it the beginnings of

the blow.

Mary Webb, Precious Bane

THE VERY first act of correction or cure is always

"revise." One must start with oneself. It is one's

attitude that must be changed.

What we are, that only can we see.

Emerson

Awakened Imagination

It is a most healthy and productive exercise to

daily relive the day as you wish you had lived it,

revising the scenes to make them conform to your

ideals. For instance, suppose today's mail brought

disappointing news. Revise the letter. Mentally

rewrite it and make it conform to the news you wish

you had received. Then, in imagination, read the

revised letter over and over again. This is the

essence of revision, and revision results in repeal.

The one requisite is to arouse your attention in

a way and to such intensity that you become wholly

absorbed in the revised action. You will experience

an expansion and refinement of the senses by this

imaginative exercise and eventually achieve vision.

But always remember that the ultimate purpose of

this exercise is to create in you "the Spirit of Jesus,"

which is continual forgiveness of sin.

Revision is of greatest importance when the

motive is to change oneself, when there is a sincere

desire to be something different, when the longing

is to awaken the ideal active spirit of forgiveness.

Without imagination man remains a being of sin.

Man either goes forward to imagination or remains

imprisoned in his senses. To go forward to imagi-

nation is to forgive. Forgiveness is the life of the

imagination. The art of living it the art of forgiv-

ing. Forgiveness is, in fact, experiencing in imagi-

nation the revised version of the day, experiencing

(

The Pruning Shears of Revision

in imagination what you wish you had experienced

in the flesh. Every time one really forgives — that is,

every time one relives the event as it should have

been lived — one is born again.

"Father forgive them" is not the plea that comes

once a year but the opportunity that comes every

day. The idea of forgiving is a daily possibility, and,

if it is sincerely done, it will lift man to higher and

higher levels of being. He will experience a daily

Easter, and Easter is the idea of rising transformed.

And that should be almost a continuous process.

Freedom and forgiveness are indissolubly linked.

Not to forgive is to be at war with ourselves, for we

are freed according to our capacity to forgive.

Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.

Luke 6:37

Forgive, not merely from a sense of duty or ser-

vice; forgive because you want to.

Thy ways are ways of pleasantness and all

thy paths are peace.

Proverbs 3:17

You must take pleasure in revision. You can for-

give others effectively only when you have a sincere

desire to identify them with their ideal. Duty has no

Awakened Imagination

momentum. Forgiveness is a matter of deliberately

withdrawing attention from the unrevised day and f

giving it full strength, and joyously, to the revised

day. If a man begins to revise even a little of the

vexations and troubles of the day, then he begins

to work practically on himself. Every revision is a

victory over himself and therefore a victory over his

enemy.

A man's foes are those of his own house-

hold.

Matthew 10:36

and his household is his state of mind. He changes

his future as he revises his day. m

When a man practices the art of forgiveness, of

revision, however factual the scene on which sight

then rests, he revises it with his imagination and

gazes on one never before witnessed. The mag-

nitude of the change which any act of revision

involves makes such change appear wholly improb- 1

able to the realist — the unimaginative man; but the

radical changes in the fortunes of the Prodigal were

all produced by a "change of heart."

The battle man fights is fought out in his own

imagination. The man who does not revise the day

has lost the vision of that life, into the likeness of

which it is the true labour of the "Spirit of Jesus" to

transform this life.

The Pruning Shears of Revision 39

All things whatsoever ye would that men

should do to you, even so do ye to them:

for this is the law.

Matthew 7:12

Here is the way an artist friend forgave herself

and was set free from pain, annoyance, and

unfriendliness. Knowing that nothing but forget-

fulness and forgiveness will bring us to new values,

she cast herself upon her imagination and escaped

from the prison of her senses. She writes:

"Thursday I taught all day in the art school.

Only one small thing marred the day. Coming into

my afternoon classroom I discovered the janitor

had left all the chairs on top of the desks after

cleaning the floor. As I lifted a chair down it

slipped from my grasp and struck me a sharp blow

on the instep of my right foot. I immediately exa-

mined my thoughts and found that I had criticized

the man for not doing his job properly. Since he

had lost his helper I realized he probably felt he

had done more than enough and it was an un-

wanted gift that had bounced and hit me on the

foot. Looking down at my foot I saw both my skin

and nylons were intact so forgot the whole thing.

"That night, after I had been working intensely

for about three hours on a drawing, I decided to

make myself a cup of coffee. To my utter amaze-

ment I couldn't manage my right foot at all and it

Awakened Imagination

was giving out great bumps of pain. I hopped over

to a chair and took off my sHpper to look at it. The

entire foot was a strange purpHsh pink, swollen out i

of shape and red hot. I tried walking on it and

found that it just flapped. I had no control over it

whatsoever. It looked like one of two things: either

I had cracked a bone when I dropped the chair on

it or something could be dislocated. ^

" 'No use speculating what it is. Better get rid of

it right away.' So I became quiet, all ready to melt

myself into light. To my complete bewilderment

my imagination refused to cooperate. It just said

'No.' This sort of thing often happens when I am

painting. I just started to argue 'Why not?' It just

kept saying 'No.' Finally I gave up and said 'You

know I am in pain. I am trying hard not to be

frightened, but you are the boss. What do you want

to do?' The answer: 'Go to bed and review the day's

events.' So I said 'AH right. But let me tell you if my

foot isn't perfect by tomorrow morning you have

only yourself to blame.' |

"After arranging the bed clothes so they didn't

touch my foot I started to review the day. It was

slow going as I had difficulty keeping my attention

away from my foot. I went through the whole day,

saw nothing to add to the chair incident. But when

I reached the early evening I found myself coming

face to face with a man who for the past year has

The Pruning Shears of Revision

made a point of not speaking. The first time this

happened I thought he had grown deaf. I had

known him since school days, but we had never

done more than say 'hello' and comment on the

weather. Mutual friends assured me I had done

nothing, that he had said he never liked me and

finally decided it was not worthwhile speaking. I

had said 'Hi!' He hadn't answered. I found that I

thought 'Poor guy — what a horrid state to be in. I

shall do something about this ridiculous state of

affairs.' So, in my imagination, I stopped right

there and re-did the scene. I said 'Hi!' He answered

'Hi!' and smiled. I now thought 'Good old Ed.' I ran

the scene over a couple of times and went on to the

next incident and finished up the day.

" 'Now what — do we do my foot or the concert?'

I had been melting and wrapping up a wonderful

present of courage and success for a friend who was

to make her debut the following day and I had

been looking forward to giving it to her tonight. My

imagination sounded a httle bit solemn as it said

'Let us do the concert. It will be more fun.' 'But

first couldn't we just take my perfectly good imagi-

nation foot out of this physical one before we start?'

I pleaded. 'By all means.'

"That done, I had a lovely time at the concert

and my friend got a tremendous ovation.

"By now I was very, very sleepy and fell asleep

Awakened Imagination

doing my project. The next morning, as I was put-

ting on my slipper, I suddenly had a quick memory

picture of withdrawing a discolored and swollen

foot from the same slipper. I took my foot out and

looked at it. It was perfectly normal in every

respect. There was a tiny pink spot on the instep

where I remembered I had hit it with the chair.

'What a vivid dream that was!' I thought and

dressed. While waiting for my coffee I wandered

over to my drafting table and saw that all my

brushes were lying helter-skelter and unwashed.

'Whatever possessed you to leave your brushes like

that?' 'Don't you remember? It was because of your

foot.' So it hadn't been a dream after all but a

beautiful healing."

She had won by the art of revision what she

would never have won by force.

In Heaven the only Art of Living Is For-

getting & Forgiving Especially to the

Female.

Blake

We should take our life, not as it appears to be,

but from the vision of this artist, from the vision of

the world made perfect that is buried under all

minds — buried and waiting for us to revise the day.

The Pruning Shears of Revision 43

We are led to believe a lie when we see

with, not through the eye.

Blake

A revision of the day, and what she held to be so

stubbornly real was no longer so to her and, like a

dream, had quietly faded away.

You can revise the day to please yourself and by

experiencing in imagination the revised speech and

actions not only modify the trend of your life story

but turn all its discords into harmonies. The one

who discovers the secret of revision cannot do other-

wise than let himself be guided by love. Your effec-

tiveness will increase with practice. Revision is the

way by which right can find its appropriate might.

"Resist not evil," for all passionate conflicts result

in an interchange of characteristics.

To him that knoweth to do good, and

doeth it not, to him it is sin.

James 4:17

To know the truth you must live the truth, and

to live the truth your inner actions must match the

actions of your fulfilled desire. Expectancy and

desire must become one. Your outer world is only

actualized inner movement. Through ignorance of

Awakened Imagination

the law of revision those who take to warfare are

perpetuaUy defeated.

Only concepts that idealize depict the truth.

Your ideal of man is his truest self. It is because

I firmly beheve that whatever is most profoundly

imaginative is, in reality, most directly practical

that I ask you to live imaginatively and to think

into, and to personally appropriate, the transcen-

dent saying "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Don't blame; only resolve. It is not man and the

earth at their loveliest, but you practicing the art

of revision make paradise. The evidence of this

truth can lie only in your own experience of it. Try

revising the day. It is to the pruning shears of revi-

sion that we owe our prime fruit.

Chapter Five

THE COIN OF HEAVEN

"Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so,

make it so?" And the prophet replied "All

poets believe that it does. And in ages of

imagination this firm persuasion removed

mountains: but many are not capable of

a firm persuasion of anything."

Blake, Marriage of

Heaven and Hell

Let every man be fully persuaded in his

own mind.

Romans 14:5

PERSUASION IS an inner effort of intense atten-

tion. To listen attentively as though you heard

is to evoke, to activate. By listening, you can hear

what you want to hear and persuade those beyond

the range of the outer ear. Speak it inwardly in your

imagination only. Make your inner conversation

Awakened Imagination

match your fulfilled desire. What you desire to hear

without, you must hear within. Embrace the with-

out within and become one who hears only that

which implies the fulfillment of his desire, and all

the external happenings in the world will become

a bridge leading to the objective realization of your

desire.

Your inner speech is perpetually written all

around you in happenings. Learn to relate these

happenings to your inner speech and you will

become self-taught. By inner speech is meant those

mental conversations which you carry on with your-

self. They may be inaudible when you are awake

because of the noise and distractions of the outer

world of becoming, but they are quite audible in

deep meditation and dream. But whether they be

audible or inaudible, you are their author and

fashion your world in their likeness.

There is a God in heaven [and heaven is

within you] that revealeth secrets, and

maketh known to the king Nebuchadnez-

zar what shall be in the latter days. Thy

dream, and the visions of thy head upon

thy bed, are these.

Daniel 2:28

Inner speech from premises of fulfilled desire is the

way to create an intelligible world for yourself.

The Coin of Heaven

Observe your inner speech for it is the cause of

future action. Inner speech reveals the state of

consciousness from which you view the world. Make

your inner speech match your fulfilled desire, for

your inner speech is manifested all around you in

happenings.

If any man offend not in word, the same

is a perfect man and able also to bridle the

whole body. Behold, we put bits in the

horses' mouths, that they may obey us;

and we turn about their whole body.

Behold also the ships, which though they

be so great, and are driven by fierce

winds, yet are they turned about with a

very small helm, whithersoever the gover-

nor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little

member, and boasteth great things.

Behold, how great a matter a little fire

kindleth!

James 3:2 5

The whole manifested world goes to show us what

use we have made of the Word — Inner Speech. An

uncritical observation of our inner talking will re-

veal to us the ideas from which we view the world.

Inner talking mirrors our imagination, and our

imagination mirrors the state with which it is fused.

If the state with which we are fused is the cause of

Awakened Imagination

the phenomenon of our Ufe, then we are reheved of

the burden of wondering what to do, for we have

no alternative but to identify ourselves with our

aim; and inasmuch as the state with which we are

identified mirrors itself in our inner speech, then to

change the state with which we are fused, we must

first change our inner talking. It is our inner con-

versations which make tomorrow's facts.

Put off the former conversation, the old

man, which is corrupt . . . and be renewed

in the spirit of your mind . . . put on

the new man, which is created in righ-

teousness.

Ephesians 4:22-24

Our minds, like our stomachs, are whet-

ted by change of food.

Qjuintillian

Stop all of the old mechanical negative inner

talking and start a new positive and constructive

inner speech from premises of fulfilled desire. Inner

talking is the beginning, the sowing of the seeds of

future action. To determine the action, you must

consciously initiate and control your inner talking.

Construct a sentence which implies the fulfillment

of your aim, such as "I have a large, steady, de-

pendable income, consistent with integrity and mu-

The Coin of Heaven

tual benefit," or "I am happily married," "I am

wanted," "I am contributing to the good of the

world," and repeat such a sentence over and over

until you are inwardly affected by it. Our inner

speech represents in various ways the world we live

in.

In the beginning was the Word.

John 1:1

That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder

fields! The sesamum was sesamum, the

corn was corn. The Silence and the Dark-

ness knew! So is a man's fate born.

The Light of Asm

Ends run true to origins.

Those that go searching for love only

make manifest their own lovelessness. And

the loveless never find love, only the lov-

ing find love, and they never have to seek

for it.

D. H. Lawrence

Man attracts what he is. The art of life is to sustain

the feeling of the wish fulfilled and let things come

to you, not to go after them or think they flee away.

Observe your inner talking and remember your

Awakened Imagination

aim. Do they match? Does your inner talking

match what you would say audibly had you

achieved your goal? The individual's inner speech

and actions attract the conditions of his life.

Through uncritical self-observation of your inner

talking you find where you are in the inner world,

and where you are in the inner world is what you

are in the outer world. You put on the new man

whenever ideals and inner speech match. In this

way alone can the new man be born.

Inner talking matures in the dark. From the dark

it issues into the light. The right inner speech is the

speech that would be yours were you to realize your

ideal. In other words, it is the speech of fulfilled

desire.

"I am that."

There are two gifts which God has be-

stowed upon man alone, and on no other

mortal creature. These two are mind and

speech; and the gift of mind and speech

is equivalent to that of immortality. If a

man uses these two gifts rightly, he will

differ in nothing from the immortals . . .

and when he quits the body, mind and

speech will be his guides, and by them

he will be brought into the troop of the

The Coin of Heaven

gods and the souls that have attained to

bliss.

Hermetica, Walter Scott's translation

The circumstances and conditions of life are

outpictured inner talking, solidified sound. Inner

speech calls events into existence. In every event is

the creative sound that is its life and being. All that

a man believes and consents to as true reveals itself

in his inner speech. It is his Word, his life.

Try to notice what you are saying in yourself at

this moment, to what thoughts and feelings you are

consenting. They will be perfectly woven into your

tapestry of life. To change your life you must

change your inner talking, for "life," said Hermes,

"is the union of Word and Mind." When imagina-

tion matches your inner speech to fulfilled desire,

there will then be a straight path in yourself from

within out, and the without will instantly reflect the

within for you, and you will know reality is only

actualized inner talking.

Receive with meekness the inborn Word

which is able to save your souls.

James 1:21

Every stage of man's progress is made by the con-

scious exercise of his imagination matching his

Awakened Imagination

inner speech to his fulfilled desire. Because man

does not perfectly match them the results are un-

certain, while they might be perfectly certain. Per-

sistent assumption of the wish fulfilled is the means

of fulfilling the intention. As we control our inner

talking, matching it to our fulfilled desires, we can

lay aside all other processes. Then we simply act by

clear imagination and intention. We imagine the

wish fulfilled and carry on mental conversations

from that premise.

Through controlled inner talking from premises

of fulfilled desire, seeming miracles are performed.

The future becomes the present and reveals itself

in our inner speech. To be held by the inner speech

of fulfilled desire is to be safely anchored in life.

Our lives may seem to be broken by events, but they

are never broken so long as we retain the inner

speech of fulfilled desire. All happiness depends on

the active voluntary use of imagination to construct

and inwardly affirm that we are what we want to

be. We match ourselves to our ideals by constantly

remembering our aim and identifying ourselves

with it. We fuse with our aims by frequently

occupying the feeling of our wish fulfilled. It is the

frequency, the habitual occupancy, that is the

secret of success. The oftener we do it, the more

natural it is. Fancy assembles. Continuous imagi-

nation fuses.

It is possible to resolve every situation by the

The Coin of Heaven

proper use of imagination. Our task is to get the

right sentence, the one which implies that our

desire is realized, and fire the imagination with it.

All this is intimately connected with the mystery of

"the still small voice."

Inner talking reveals the activities of imagina-

tion, activities which are the causes of the circum-

stances of life. As a rule, man is totally unaware of

his inner talking and therefore sees himself not as

the cause but the victim of circumstance. To con-

sciously create circumstance, man must consciously

direct his inner speech, matching "the still small

voice" to his fulfilled desires.

He calls things not seen as though they

were.

Romans 4:17

Right inner speech is essential. It is the greatest of

the arts. It is the way out of limitation into free-

dom. Ignorance of this art has made the world a

battlefield and penitentiary where blood and sweat

alone are expected, when it should be a place of

marvelling and wondering. Right inner talking is

the first step to becoming what you want to be.

Speech is an image of mind, and mind is

an image of God.

Hermetica, Scott translation

%k^

Awakened Imagination

On the morning of April 12, 1953, my wife was

awakened by the sound of a great voice of authority

speaking within her and saying, "You must stop

spending your thoughts, time, and money. Every-

thing in life must be an investment."

To spend is to waste, to squander, to lay out

without return. To invest is to lay out for a purpose

from which a profit is expected. This revelation of

my wife is about the importance of the moment. It

is about the transformation of the moment. What

we desire does not lie in the future but in ourselves

at this very moment. At any moment in our lives we

are faced with an infinite choice: "what we are and

what we want to be." And what we want to be is

already existent, but to realize it we must match

our inner speech and actions to it.

If two of you shall agree on earth as touch-

ing anything that they shall ask, it shall be

done for them of my Father which is in

heaven.

Matthew 18:19

It is only what is done now that counts. The present

moment does not recede into the past. It advances

into the future to confront us, spent or invested.

Thought is the coin of heaven. Money is its earthly

symbol. Every moment must be invested, and our

The Coin of Heaven

inner talking reveals whether we are spending or

investing. Be more interested in what you are

inwardly "saying now" than what you have "said"

by choosing wisely what you think and what you

feel now.

Any time we feel misunderstood, misused,

neglected, suspicious, afraid, we are spending our

thoughts and wasting our time. Whenever we

assume the feeling of being what we want to be, we

are investing. We cannot abandon the moment to

negative inner talking and expect to retain com-

mand of life. Before us go the results of all that

seemingly is behind. Not gone is the last moment

— but oncoming.

My word shall not return unto me void,

but it shall accomplish that which I

please, and it shall prosper in the thing

whereto I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11

The circumstances of life are the muffled utter-

ances of the inner talking that made them — the

word made visible.

"The Word," said Hermes, "is Son, and

the Mind is Father of the Word. They are

56 Awakened Imagination

not separate one from the other; for life is

the union of Word and Mind."

He willed us forth from Himself by the

Word of truth.

James 1:18

Let us

be imitators of God as dear children

Ephesians 5:1

and use our inner speech wisely to mould an outer

world in harmony with our ideal.

The Lord spake by me, and his Word was

in my tongue.

2 Samuel 23:2

The mouth of God is the mind of man. Feed God

only the best.

Whatsoever things are of good report . . .

think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

The present moment is always precisely right for an

investment, to inwardly speak the right word.

The Coin of Heaven

The word is very near to you, in your

mouth, and in your heart, that you may

do it. See, I have set before you this day

life and good, death and evil, blessings

and cursings. Choose life.

Deuteronomy 30:14, 15, 19

You choose life and good and blessings by being

that which you choose. Like is known to like alone.

Make your inner speech bless and give good

reports. Man's ignorance of the future is the result

of his ignorance of his inner talking. His inner talk-

ing mirrors his imagination, and his imagination is

a government in which the opposition never comes

into power.

If the reader ask, "What if the inner speech

remains subjective and is unable to find an object

for its love?" the answer is: it will not remain sub-

jective, for the very simple reason that inner speech

is always objectifying itself. What frustrates and

festers and becomes the disease that afflicts human-

ity is man's ignorance of the art of matching inner

words to fulfilled desire. Inner speech mirrors

imagination, and imagination is Christ.

Alter your inner speech, and your perceptual

world changes. Whenever inner speech and desire

are in conflict, inner speech invariably wins.

Because inner speech objectifies itself, it is easy to

Awakened Imagination

see that if it matches desire, desire will be objec-

tively realized. Were this not so, I would say with

Blake

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than

nurse unacted desires.

But I know from experience

The tongue . . . setteth on fire the course

of nature.

James 3:6

Chapter Six

IT IS WITHIN

. . . Rivers, Mountains, Cities, Villages,

All are Human, & when you enter into

their Bosoms you walk

In Heavens & Earths, as in your own

Bosom you bear your Heaven

And Earth & all you behold; tho' it

appears Without, it is Within,

In your Imagination, of which this World

of Mortality is but a Shadow.

Blake, Jerusalem

THE INNER world was as real to Blake as the

outer land of waking life. He looked upon his

dreams and visions as the realities of the forms of

nature. Blake reduced everything to the bedrock of

his own consciousness.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

Luke 17:21

Awakened Imagination

The Real Man, the Imaginative Man, has in-

vested the outer world with all of its properties.

The apparent reality of the outer world which is so

hard to dissolve is only proof of the absolute real-

ity of the inner world of his own imagination.

No man can come to me, except the

Father which hath sent me draw him: . . .

I and my Father are one.

John 6:44; 10:30

The world which is described from observation

is a manifestation of the mental activity of the

observer. When man discovers that his world is his

own mental activity made visible, that no man can

come unto him except he draws him, and that

there is no one to change but himself, his own

imaginative self, his first impulse is to reshape the

world in the image of his ideal. But his ideal is not

so easily incarnated. In that moment when he

ceases to conform to external discipline, he must

impose upon himself a far more rigorous discipline,

the self-discipline upon which the realization of his

ideal depends.

Imagination is not entirely untrammelled and

free to move at will without any rules to constrain

it. In fact, the contrary is true. Imagination travels

according to habit. Imagination has choice, but it

It Is Within

chooses according to habit. Awake or asleep, man's

imagination is constrained to follow certain definite

patterns. It is this benumbing influence of habit

that man must change; if he does not, his dreams

will fade under the paralysis of custom.

Imagination, which is Christ in man, is not sub-

ject to the necessity to produce only that which is

perfect and good. It exercises its absolute freedom

from necessity by endowing the outer physical self

with free will to choose to follow good or evil, order

or disorder.

Choose this day whom ye will serve.

Joshua 24:15

But after the choice is made and accepted so that

it forms the individual's habitual consciousness,

then imagination manifests its infinite power and

wisdom by moulding the outer sensuous world of

becoming in the image of the habitual inner speech

and actions of the individual.

To realize his ideal, man must first change the

pattern which his imagination has followed.

Habitual thought is indicative of character. The

way to change the outer world is to make the inner

speech and action match the outer speech and

action of fulfilled desire.

Our ideals are waiting to be incarnated, but

Awakened Imagination

unless we ourselves match our inner speech and

action to the speech and action of fulfilled desire,

they are incapable of birth. Inner speech and ac-

tion are the channels of God's action. He cannot

respond to our prayer unless these paths are of-

fered. The outer behaviour of man is mechanical.

It is subject to the compulsion applied to it by the

behaviour of the inner self, and old habits of the

inner self hang on till replaced by new ones. It is a

peculiar property of the second or inner man that

he gives to the outer self something similar to his

own reality of being. Any change in the behaviour

of the inner self will result in corresponding outer

changes.

The mystic calls a change of consciousness

"death." By death he means, not the destruction of

imagination and the state with which it was fused,

but the dissolution of their union. Fusion is union

rather than oneness. Thus the conditions to which

that union gave being vanish. "I die daily," said

Paul to the Corinthians. Blake said to his friend

Crabbe Robinson:

There is nothing like death. Death is the

best thing that can happen in life; but

most people die so late and take such an

unmerciful time in dying. God knows,

It Is Within 63

their neighbors never see them rise from

the dead.

To the outer man of sense, who knows nothing of

the inner man of Being, this is sheer nonsense. But

Blake made the above quite clear when he wrote in

the year before he died:

William Blake — one who is very much

delighted with being in good company.

Born 28 November 1757 in London and

has died several times since.

When man has the sense of Christ as his imagi-

nation, he sees why Christ must die and rise again

from the dead to save man — why he must detach

his imagination from his present state and match

it to a higher concept of himself if he would rise

above his present limitations and thereby save

himself.

Here is a lovely story of a mystical death which

was witnessed by a "neighbor." "Last week," writes

the one "who rose from the dead," "a friend offered

me her home in the mountains for the Christmas

holidays as she thought she might go east. She said

that she would let me know this week. We had a

very pleasant conversation and I mentioned you

Awakened Imagination

and your teaching in connection with a discussion

of Dunne's 'Experiment With Time' which she had

been reading.

"Her letter arrived Monday. As I picked it up I

had a sudden sense of depression. However, when

I read it she said I could have the house and told

me where to get the keys. Instead of being cheer-

ful I grew still more depressed, so much so I

decided there must have been something between

the lines which I was getting untuitively. I unfolded

the letter and read the first page through and as I

turned to the second page, I noticed she had writ-

ten a postscript on the back of the first sheet. It

consisted of an extremely blunt and heavy-handed

description of an unlovely trait in my character

which I had struggled for years to overcome, and

for the past two years I thought I had succeeded.

Yet here it was again, described with clinical ex-

actitude.

"I was stunned and desolated. I thought to

myself, 'What is this letter trying to tell me? In the

first place she invited me to use her house as I have

been seeing myself in some lovely home during the

hoUdays. In the second place, nothing comes to me

except I draw it. And thirdly I have been hearing

nothing but good news. So the obvious conclusion

is that something in me corresponds to this letter

and no matter what it looks like it is good news.'

It Is Within

"I reread the letter and as I did so I asked, 'What

is there here for me to see?' And then I saw. It

started out 'After our conversation of last week I

feel I can tell you . . .' and the rest of the page was

as studded with 'weres' and 'wases' as currants in a

seed cake. A great feeling of elation swept over me.

It was all in the past. The thing I had labored so

long to correct was done. I suddenly realized that

my friend was a witness to my resurrection. I

whirled around the studio chanting 'It's all in the

past! It is done. Thank you, it is done!' I gathered

all my gratitude up in a big ball of light and shot

it straight to you and if you saw a flash of lightning

Monday evening shortly after six your time, that

was it.

"Now, instead of writing a polite letter because

it is the correct thing to do, I can write giving sin-

cere thanks for her frankness and thanking her for

the loan of her house. Thank you so much for your

teaching which has made my beloved imagination

truly my Saviour."

And now, if any man shall say unto her

Lo, here is Christ, or there,

she will believe it not, for she knows that the King-

dom of God is within her and that she herself must

assume full responsibility for the incarnation of her

Awakened Imagination

ideal and that nothing but death and resurrection

will bring her to it. She has found her Saviour, her

beloved Imagination, forever expanding in the

bosom of God.

There is only one reality, and that is Christ —

Human Imagination, the inheritance and final

achievement of the whole of Humanity

That we . . . speaking the truth in love,

may grow up into him in all things, which

is the head, even Christ.

Ephesians 4:14, 15

Chapter Seven

CREATION IS FINISHED

I am the beginning and the end, there is

nothing to come that has not been, and is.

Ecclesiastes 3:15 ERV

BLAKE SAW all possible human situations as

"already-made" states. He saw every aspect,

every plot and drama as already worked out as

"mere possibilities" as long as we are not in them,

but as overpowering realities when we are in them.

He described these states as "Sculptures of Los's

Halls."

Distinguish therefore states from Indi-

viduals in those States. States change but

Individual Identities never change nor

cease. . . . The Imagination is not a State.

Said Blake,

68 Awakened Imagination

It is the Human Existence itself. Affection

or Love becomes a State when divided

from imagination.

Just how important this is to remember is almost

impossible to say, but the moment the individual

realizes this for the first time is the most momentous

in his life, and to be encouraged to feel this is the

highest form of encouragement it is possible to give.

This truth is common to all men, but the con-

sciousness of it — and much more, the self -con-

sciousness of it — is another matter.

The day I realized this great truth — that every-

thing in my world is a manifestation of the mental

activity which goes on within me, and that the con-

ditions and circumstances of my life only reflect the

state of consciousness with which I am fused — is the

most momentous in my life. But the experience

that brought me to this certainty is so remote from

ordinary existence I have long hesitated to tell it,

for my reason refused to admit the conclusions to

which the experience impelled me. Nevertheless,

this experience revealed to me that I am supreme

within the circle of my own state of consciousness

and that it is the state with which I am identified

that determines what I experience. Therefore it

should be shared with all, for to know this is to

Creation Is Finished

become free from the world's greatest tyranny, the

belief in a second cause.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they

shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

Blessed are they whose imagination has been so

purged of the beliefs in second causes they know

that imagination is all, and all is imagination.

One day I quietly slipped from my apartment in

New York City into some remote yesteryear's coun-

tryside. As I entered the dining room of a large inn,

I became fully conscious. I knew that my physical

body was immobilized on my bed back in New

York City. Yet here I was as awake and as conscious

as I have ever been. I intuitively knew that if I could

stop the activity of my mind, everything before me

would freeze. No sooner was the thought born than

the urge to try it possessed me. I felt my head

tighten, then thicken to a stillness. My attention

concentrated into a crystal-clear focus, and the

waitress walking, walked not. And I looked through

the window and the leaves falling, fell not. And the

family of four eating, ate not. And they lifting the

food, lifted it not. Then my attention relaxed, the

tightness eased, and of a sudden all moved onward

Awakened Imagination

in their course. The leaves fell, the waitress walked,

and the family ate. Then I understood Blake's

vision of the "Sculptures of Los's Halls."

I sent you to reap that whereon ye be-

stowed no labor.

John 4:38

Creation is finished.

I am the beginning and the end, there is

nothing to come that has not been, and is.

Ecclesiastes 3:15, ERV

The world of creation is finished and its original is

within us. We saw it before we set forth, and have

since been trying to remember it and to activate

sections of it. There are infinite views of it. Our task

is to get the right view and by determined direction

of our attention make it pass in procession before

the inner eye. If we assemble the right sequence

and experience it in imagination until it has the

tone of reality, then we consciously create circum-

stances. This inner procession is the activity of

imagination that must be consciously directed. We,

by a series of mental transformations, become

aware of increasing portions of that which already

is, and by matching our own mental activity to that

Creation Is Finished

portion of creation which we desire to experience,

we activate it, resurrect it, and give it life.

This experience of mine not only shows the world

as a manifestation of the mental activity of the

individual observer, but it also reveals our course

of time as jumps of attention between eternal

moments. An infinite abyss separates any two

moments of ours. We, by the movements of our

attention, give life to the "Sculptures of Los's

Halls."

Think of the world as containing an infinite

number of states of consciousness from which it

could be viewed. Think of these states as rooms or

mansions in the House of God, and like the rooms

of any house they are fixed relative to one another.

But think of yourself, the Real Self, the Imagina-

tive You, as the living, moving occupant of God's

House. Each room contains some of Los's Sculp-

tures, with infinite plots and dramas and situations

already worked out but not activated. They are

activated as soon as Human Imagination enters

and fuses with them. Each represents certain mem-

tal and emotional activities. To enter a state, man

must consent to the ideas and feelings which it

represents. These states represent an infinite num-

ber of possible mental transformations which man

can experience. To move into another state or

mansion necessitates a change of beliefs. All that

Awakened Imagination

you could ever desire is already present and only

waits to be matched by your beliefs. But it must be

matched, for that is the necessary condition by

which alone it can be activated and objectified.

Matching the beliefs of a state is the seeking that

finds, the knocking to which it is opened, the ask-

ing that receives. Go in and possess the land.

The moment man matches the beliefs of any

state he fuses with it, and this union results in the

activation and projection of its plots, plans,

dramas, and situations. It becomes the individ-

ual's home from which he views the world. It is

his workshop, and, if he is observant, he will see

outer reality shaping itself upon the model of his

imagination.

It is for this purpose of training us in image-

making that we were made subject to the limita-

tions of the senses and clothed in bodies of flesh. It

is the awakening of the imagination, the returning

of His Son, that our Father waits for.

The creature was made subject to vanity

not willingly but by reason of Him who

subjected it.

Romans 8:20

But the victory of the Son, the return of the prod-

igal, assures us that

Creation Is Finished 73

the creature shall be delivered from the

bondage of corruption into the glorious

liberty of the Sons of God.

Romans 8:21

We were subjected to this biological experience

because no one can know of imagination who has

not been subjected to the vanities and limitations

of the flesh, who has not taken his share of Sonship

and gone prodigal, who has not experimented and

tasted this cup of experience; and confusion will

continue until man awakes and a fundamentally

imaginative view of life has been reestablished and

acknowledged as basic.

I should preach . . . the unsearchable

riches of Christ and make all men see

what is the fellowship of the mystery,

which from the beginning of the world has

been hid in God, who created all things by

Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 3:8, 9

Bear in mind that Christ in you is your imagi-

nation.

As the appearance of our world is determined by

the particular state with which we are fused, so may

we determine our fate as individuals by fusing our

•

Awakened Imagination

imaginations with ideals we seek to realize. On the

distinction between our states of consciousness

depends the distinction between the circumstances

and conditions of our lives. Man, who is free in his

choice of state, often cries out to be saved from the

state of his choice.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of

your king which ye shall have chosen you;

and the Lord will not hear you in that

day. Nevertheless the people refused to

obey the voice of Samuel; and they said,

Nay; but we will have a king over us.

1 Samuel 8:18, 19

Choose wisely the state that you will serve. All states

are lifeless until imagination fuses with them.

All things when they are admitted are

made manifest by the light: for everything

that is made manifest is light.

Ephesians 5:13

and

Ye are the light of the world,

Matthew 5:14

Creation Is Finished

by which those ideas to which you have consented

are made manifest.

Hold fast to your ideal. Nothing can take it from

you but your imagination. Don't think of your

ideal, think from it. It is only the ideals from which

you think that are ever realized.

Man lives not by bread alone, but by every

word that proceeds out of the mouth of

God.

Matthew 4:4

and "the mouth of God" is the mind of man.

Become a drinker and an eater of the ideals you

wish to realize. Have a set, definite aim or your

mind will wander, and wandering it eats every

negative suggestion. If you live right mentally,

everything else will be right. By a change of men-

tal diet you can alter the course of observed events.

But unless there is a change of mental diet, your

personal history remains the same. You illuminate

or darken your life by the ideas to which you con-

sent. Nothing is more important to you than the

ideas on which you feed. And you feed on the ideas

from which you think. If you find the world

unchanged, it is a sure sign that you are wanting in

fidelity to the new mental diet, which you neglect

Awakened Imagination

in order to condemn your environment. You are in

need of a new and sustained attitude. You can be

anything you please if you will make the conception

habitual, for any idea which excludes all others

from the field of attention discharges in action.

The ideas and moods to which you constantly

return define the state with which you are fused.

Therefore train yourself to occupy more frequently

the feeling of your wish fulfilled. This is creative

magic. It is the way to work toward fusion with the

desired state.

If you would assume the feeling of your wish ful-

filled more frequently, you would be master of your

fate, but unfortunately you shut out your assump-

tion for all but the occasional hour. Practice mak-

ing real to yourself the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

After you have assumed the feeling of the wish ful-

filled, do not close the experience as you would a

book, but carry it around like a fragrant odor.

Instead of being completely forgotten, let it remain

in the atmosphere communicating its influence

automatically to your actions and reactions. A

mood, often repeated, gains a momentum that is

hard to break or check. So be careful of the feelings

you entertain. Habitual moods reveal the state with

which you are fused.

It is always possible to pass from thinking o/the

end you desire to realize, to thinking/rom the end.

Creation Is Finished

But the crucial matter is thinkingyVom the end, for

thinking/rom means unification or fusion with the

idea: whereas in thinking of the end there is always

subject and object — the thinking individual and

the thing thought. You must imagine yourself into

the state of your wish fulfilled, in your love for that

state, and in so doing live and think from it and no

more of it. You pass from thinking of to thinking

from by centering your imagination in the feeling

of the wish fulfilled.

Chapter Eight

THE APPLE OF GOD'S EYE

What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son is

He?

Matthew 22:42

WHEN THIS question is asked of you, let your

answer be, "Christ is my imagination," and,

though I

See not yet all things put under him,

Hebrews 2:8

yet I know that I am Mary from whom sooner or

later He shall be born, and eventually

Do all things through Christ.

The birth of Christ is the awakening of the inner

or Second man. It is becoming conscious of the

'11^

Awakened Imagination

mental activity within oneself, which activity con-

tinues whether we are conscious of it or not.

The birth of Christ does not bring any person

from a distance, or make anything to be that was

not there before. It is the unveiling of the Son of

God in man. The Lord "cometh in clouds" is the

prophet's description of the pulsating rings of

golden liquid light on the head of him in whom He

awakes. The coming is from within and not from

without, as Christ is m us.

This great mystery

God was manifest in the flesh

begins with Advent, and it is appropriate that the

cleansing of the Temple,

The Apple of God's Eye

speech and inner actions, in confidence that by the

conscious use of "the power that worketh in us,"

Christ will awake in you; if you believe it, trust it,

act upon it; Christ will awake in you. This is

Advent.

Great is the mystery, God was manifest in

the flesh.

1 Timothy 3:16

From Advent on.

He that toucheth you toucheth the apple

of God's eye.

Zechariah 2:8

Which temple ye are,

1 Corinthians 3:17

stands in the forefront of the Christian mysteries.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

Luke 17:21

Advent is unveiling the mystery of your being. If

you will practice the art of revision by a life lived

according to the wise, imaginative use of your inner

THE

THE SEARCH

To Victoria

the fulfillment of a dream

ONCE IN an idle interval at sea, I meditated on

"the perfect state," and wondered what I

would be, were I of too pure eyes to behold iniq-

uity, if to me all things were pure and were I

without condemnation. As I became lost in this

fiery brooding, I found myself lifted above the dark

environment of the senses. So intense was the feel-

ing, I felt myself a being of fire dwelling in a body

of air. Voices as from a heavenly chorus, with the

exaltation of those who had been conquerors in a

conflict with death, were singing "He is risen He

is risen," and intuitively I knew they meant me.

Then I seemed to be walking in the night. I soon

came upon a scene that might have been the

ancient Pool of Bethesda, for in this place lay a

great multitude of impotent folk — blind, halt,

withered — waiting not for the moving of the water

as of tradition, but waiting for me. As I came near,

without thought or effort on my part they were.

The Search

one after the other, molded as by the Magician of

the Beautiful. Eyes, hands, feet — all missing mem-

bers— were drawn from some invisible reservoir and

molded in harmony with that perfection which I

felt springing within me. When all were made per-

fect, the chorus exulted "It is finished." Then the

scene dissolved and I awoke.

I know this vision was the result of my intense

meditation upon the idea of perfection, for my

meditations invariably bring about union with the

state contemplated. I had been so completely ab-

sorbed within the idea that for a while I had

become what I contemplated, and the high pur-

pose with which I had for that moment identified

myself drew the companionship of high things and

fashioned the vision in harmony with my inner

nature. The ideal with which we are united works

by association of ideas to awaken a thousand moods

to create a drama in keeping with the central idea.

I first discovered this close relationship of moods

to vision when I was aged about seven. I became

aware of a mysterious life quickening within me like

a stormy ocean of frightening might. I always knew

when I would be united with this hidden identity,

for my senses were expectant on the nights of these

visitations and I knew beyond all doubt that before

morning I would be alone with immensity. I so

dreaded these visitations that I would lie awake

The Search

until my eyes from sheer exhaustion closed. As my

eyes closed in sleep, I was no longer solitary but

smitten through and through with another being,

and yet I knew it to be myself. It seemed older than

life, yet nearer to me than my boyhood. If I tell

what I discovered on these nights, I do so not to

impose my ideas on others but that I may give hope

to those who seek the law of life.

I discovered that my expectant mood worked as

a magnet to unite me with this Greater Me, while

my fears made It appear as a stormy sea. As a boy,

I conceived of this mysterious self as might, and in

my union with It I felt its majesty as a stormy sea

which drenched me, then rolled and tossed me as

a helpless wave.

As a man I conceived of It as love and myself the

son of It, and in my union with It, now, what a love

enfolds me! It is a mirror to all. Whatever we con-

ceive It as being, that It is to us. I believe It to be

the center through which all the threads of the

universe are drawn; therefore I have altered my

values and changed my ideas so that they now

depend upon and are in harmony with this sole

cause of all that is. It is to me that changeless real-

ity which fashions circumstances in harmony with

our concepts of ourselves.

My mystical experiences have convinced me that

there is no way to bring about the outer perfection

The Search

we seek other than by the transformation of our-

selves. As soon as we succeed in transforming our-

selves, the world will melt magically before our eyes

and reshape itself in harmony with that which our

transformation affirms.

Two other visions I will tell because they bear out

the truth of my assertion that we, by intensity of

love and hate, become what we contemplate.

Once, with closed eyes made radiant from

brooding, I meditated on the eternal question,

"Who Am I?" and felt myself gradually dissolve

into a shoreless sea of vibrant light, imagination

passing beyond all fear of death. In this state noth-

ing existed but myself, a boundless ocean of liquid

light. Never have I felt more intimate with Being.

How long this experience lasted I do not know, but

my return to earth was accompanied by a distinct

feeling of crystallizing again into human shape.

At another time, I lay on my bed and with my

eyes shut as in sleep I brooded on the mystery of

Buddha. In a little while the dark caverns of my

brain began to grow luminous. I seemed to be sur-

rounded by luminous clouds which emanated from

my head as fiery, pulsating rings. I saw nothing but

these luminous rings for a time. Then there ap-

peared before my eyes a rock of quartz crystal.

While I gazed upon it, the crystal broke into pieces

The Search

which invisible hands quickly shaped into the liv-

ing Buddha. As I looked on this meditative figure,

I saw that it was myself. I was the living Buddha

whom I contemplated. A light like the sun glowed

from this living image of myself with increasing

intensity until it exploded. Then the light gradu-

ally faded and once more I was back within the

blackness of my room.

Out of what sphere or treasury of design came

this being mightier than human, his garments, the

crystal, the light? If I saw, heard, and moved in a

world of real beings when I seemed to myself to be

walking in the night, when the lame, the halt, the

blind were transformed in harmony with my inner

nature, then I am justified in assuming that I have

a more subtile body than the physical, a body that

can be detached from the physical and used in

other spheres; for to see, to hear, to move are func-

tions of an organism however ethereal. If I brood

over the alternative that my psychic experiences

were self-begotten fantasy, no less am I moved to

wonder at this mightier self who flashes on my

mind a drama as real as those I experience when I

am fully awake.

On these fiery meditations I have entered again

and again, and I know beyond all doubt that both

assumptions are true. Housed within this form of

The Search

earth is a body attuned to a world of light, and I

have, by intense meditation, lifted it as with a mag-

net through the skull of this dark house of flesh.

The first time I awoke the fires within me I thought

my head would explode. There was intense vibra-

tion at the base of my skull, then sudden oblivion

of all. Then I found myself clothed in a garment of

light and attached by a silvery elastic cord to the

slumbering body on the bed. So exalted were my

feelings, I felt related to the stars. In this garment

I roamed spheres more familiar than earth, but

found that, as on earth, conditions were molded in

harmony with my nature. "Self-begotten fantasy,"

I hear you say. No more so than the things of earth.

I am an immortal being conceiving myself as man

and forming worlds in the likeness and image of my

concept of self.

What we imagine, that we are. By our imagina-

tion we have created this dream of life, and by our

imagination we will re-enter that eternal world of

light, becoming that which we were before we

imagined the world. In the divine economy noth-

ing is lost. We cannot lose anything save by descent

from the sphere where the thing has its natural life.

There is no transforming power in death and,

whether we are here or there, we fashion the world

that surrounds us by the intensity of our imagina-

tion and feeling, and we illuminate or darken our

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lives by the concepts we hold of ourselves. Nothing

is more important to us than our conception of our-

selves, and especially is this true of our concept of

the deep, hidden One within us.

Those that help or hinder us, whether they know

it or not, are the servants of that law which shapes

outward circumstances in harmony with our inner

nature. It is our conception of ourselves which frees

or constrains us, though it may use material agen-

cies to achieve its purpose.

Because life molds the outer world to reflect the

inner arrangement of our minds, there is no way of

bringing about the outer perfection we seek other

than by the transformation of ourselves. No help

Cometh from without; the hills to which we lift our

eyes are those of an inner range. It is thus to our

own consciousness that we must turn as to the only

reality, the only foundation on which all phenom-

ena can be explained. We can rely absolutely on

the justice of this law to give us only that which is

of the nature of ourselves.

To attempt to change the world before we

change our concept of ourselves is to struggle

against the nature of things. There can be no outer

change until there is first an inner change. As

within, so without. I am not advocating philosophi-

cal indifference when I suggest that we should

imagine ourselves as already that which we want to

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be, living in a mental atmosphere of greatness,

rather than using physical means and arguments to

bring about the desired change. Everything we do,

unaccompanied by a change of consciousness, is

but futile readjustment of surfaces. However we toil

or struggle, we can receive no more than our sub-

conscious assumptions affirm. To protest against

anything which happens to us is to protest against

the law of our being and our rulership over our own

destiny.

The circumstances of my life are too closely

related to my conception of myself not to have been

launched by my own spirit from some magical

storehouse of my being. If there is pain to me in

these happenings, I should look within myself for

the cause, for I am moved here and there and

made to live in a world in harmony with my con-

cept of myself.

Intense meditation brings about a union with the

state contemplated, and during this union we see

visions, have experiences, and behave in keeping

with our change of consciousness. This shows us

that a transformation of consciousness will result in

a change of environment and behavior. However,

our ordinary alterations of consciousness, as we pass

from one state to another, are not transformations,

because each of them is so rapidly succeeded by

another in the reverse direction; but whenever one

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state grows so stable as to definitely expel its rivals,

then that central habitual state defines the charac-

ter and is a true transformation. To say that we are

transformed means that ideas previously peripheral

in our consciousness now take a central place and

form the habitual center of our energy.

All wars prove that violent emotions are ex-

tremely potent in precipitating mental rearrange-

ments. Every great conflict has been followed by an

era of materialism and greed in which the ideals

for which the conflict ostensibly was waged are

submerged. This is inevitable because war evokes

hate, which impels a descent in consciousness from

the plane of the ideal to the level where the con-

flict is waged. If we would become as emotionally

aroused over our ideals as we become over our dis-

likes, we would ascend to the plane of our ideals as

easily as we now descend to the level of our hates.

Love and hate have a magical transforming

power, and we grow through their exercise into the

likeness of what we contemplate. By intensity of

hatred we create in ourselves the character we

imagine in our enemies. Qualities die for want of

attention, so the unlovely states might best be

rubbed out by imagining "beauty for ashes and joy

for mourning" rather than by direct attacks on the

state from which we would be free. "Whatsoever

things are lovely and of good report, think on these

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things," for we become that with which we are en

rapport.

There is nothing to change but our concept of

self. Humanity is a single being in spite of its many

forms and faces, and there is in it only such seem-

ing separation as we find in our own being when we

are dreaming. The pictures and circumstances we

see in dreams are creations of our own imagination

and have no existence save in ourselves. The same

is true of the pictures and circumstances we see in

this dream of life. They reveal our concepts of our-

selves. As soon as we succeed in transforming self,

our world will dissolve and reshape itself in har-

mony with that which our change affirms.

The universe which we study with such care is a

dream, and we the dreamers of the dream, eternal

dreamers dreaming noneternal dreams. One day,

like Nebuchadnezzar we shall awaken from the

dream, from the nightmare in which we fought

with demons, to find that we really never left our

eternal home; that we were never born and have

never died save in our dream.

Feeling is the Secret

AWAKENED IMAGINATION

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