Neville Goddard (July 26, 1968)
Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed. But to unravel from the truth of Scripture, the interpretations placed upon it is really quite a task, for people think in terms of the end of the world when they think of the end. That is not what Scripture teaches. When I speak tonight of the end, I mean your end, the individual’s end, in the journey, when he leaves this world of death and enters the world of Eternal Life.
Tonight I will share with you what I have experienced – what I know from experience. I am not theorizing. I am not speculating. If it is in conflict with what you’ve been taught, I will not apologize. It doesn’t really matter. If you’ve been taught to believe that there will be an end, and the whole world will blow up, then that’s your problem at the moment. That is not my vision.
My vision is that God became humanity – every child born of woman; and no one can fail, but no one. And God rises in man individually, and there are signs of the end of His journey through this world of eternal death.
The Old Testament is a prophetic blueprint of the life of Christ. When I use the word “Christ” I am not speaking of a little Christ on the outside of you. If there be any other Christ, other than that Christ who is crucified within us, who now and continues to rise in us individually, he is a false Christ. And blind teachers speak of Him as coming from without. I tell you, He comes from within. And when He arises from within, He rises as you – not something coming from without – He rises as you, and you will know that you are Christ. And Christ is God the Father.
There are signs, but it comes suddenly upon you – no shadow to let you know it’s going to happen tonight or tomorrow. No, it comes like a thief in the night. You never know. No one knows the other; no one knows the day – only the Father, the One who is rising within you. But no one knows, other than He who is rising. He erupts within you suddenly, and you are He.
Now, here we are told, in the last chapter of the book of Daniel, the voice is speaking to him, and it tells him: “If your name is written in the book, all those whose names are written in the book, they are the redeemed.” Daniel asks the question, “How long to the end of these wonders? And he answered, a time, two times, and half a time.” When he tells Daniel, Daniel says, “I heard, but I did not understand; and he said to Daniel, “Close the book and seal it until the end.”
So the book is sealed – completely sealed – until it erupts within us. Now, what on earth? He doesn’t tell him when he starts to count. It is a time, two times, and half a time. The Ancients looked upon a year as a time, and the Ancients thought a year to be 360 days. So, three times three hundred and sixty, and half of a time, which would be a hundred and eighty, comes to one thousand two hundred and sixty days. We find that in the 11th chapter of the book of Revelation. When the witness comes into the world, he will prophesy for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days (Revelation 11: 3). But it begins, as we are told in that chapter, with the birth of the Child. “And she brought forth the child, and the child was caught up to the throne of God, and she fled into the wilderness, and all things were prepared for her by God for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. The Old Testament does not tell us when the count begins, the New tells us when it begins. It begins with the birth of the Child.
Now, believe me, I am telling you what I have experienced. I had no knowledge that this thing was so literally true. I was born and raised in a Christian environment – a Protestant environment. I was taught to believe that almost two thousand years ago a unique experience took place and they tell it as secular history – that a woman called Mary, not knowing a man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and brought forth a physical child. That’s what they tell you. The child rose and became a teacher and taught in the world. That’s what I was taught, at least. And his name was Jesus. May I tell you? It is not true!
I will tell you the story as it actually takes place, as I experienced it. May I tell you that you individually, male or female, you are Mary, and birth to Christ must give if you in blessedness for now and ever more would live? (Wm. Blake) Until Christ be formed in you, well, then, you remain a man of flesh and blood, going through all the horrors of the world in this world of death.
You are to bring forth God, and that is the sign of your own birth as God, for “unless you be born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” No one can. And this birth, which I was taught as a child took place two thousand years ago – yes, it took place two thousand years ago, but not as I was taught it. I’ll tell you exactly how it takes place.
You are walking this earth as you did this day. You least expect it, because you were taught – as I was taught – it took place two thousand years ago. And you go to sleep as I did in 1959 in this city across the street at the hotel called the Sir Francis Drake. I spoke in the morning to an audience of maybe a thousand people. It was an open meeting – no charge, a voluntary effort, and a thousand came. The morning of July the 20th 1959, this is what happened.
On Sunday – this was the 19th – a friend of mine joined me for an early dinner at the hotel at 5:00 o’clock. We went upstairs and I called Beverly Hills to speak to my wife and daughter, and he was a friend of my wife and daughter; and we simply spoke. He was working at the Fairmont as a checker. He said, “I have to go early because I have to be up early to check the waiters in and the food in.” So he left early, and I retired. I must have been in bed – oh, before eleven. It was a normal day, just like today, and at four o’clock in the morning a vibration is in my head that I have never felt before – the strangest vibration. Every bone in my head is rattling, and I entertained this thought. I thought, “Well, now, this is it,” meaning – this is my exit from this world. This must be a massive hemorrhage as they describe a massive hemorrhage.
Instead of that, I found myself waking. Here I am, waking – waking, but when I completely awoke, I am in my skull, and my skull is a tomb. It is an actual tomb, and I am in my skull, and the skull is sealed. There is no opening. I am fully awake, as I have never been awake before – as though I had been sleeping for unnumbered centuries, and now for the first time in this long, long sleep, I am awake. I arose, believe it or not – I am not a little tiny thing, I am the same being that I know myself to be, and I rise, and I stand within my skull. Here is this little thing – I only wear a seven hat – so it’s not this. It’s a skull, it’s my skull, but I awaken within it. I am fully standing in my skull, and I know I am sealed in. But I also have an innate knowledge and I know that if I could push the base of my skull, something would give, and I did. I pushed it and something rolled away, leaving a little opening. And I took my head and pushed it at the opening and squeezed it through – inch by inch; and when I got this much out, I then pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull.
And here, when I got out, for a few seconds I was on the ground. Then I rose and looked back at that from which I had emerged. It was this body. It was ghastly pale, and the head was turning from side to side as one in recovery from a great ordeal. I looked at it, and here I am standing, and then the most unearthly wind – you can’t describe it, it’s a peculiar wind. You hear it, it sounds like a hurricane. It sounds like some peculiar storm. For a moment, I thought it originated to my left, so I turned from the body that was going this way – just the head – and looked over to the corner. As I did so, thinking, “Is it coming from there?” it is still in my head, but it is divided. It is here and it’s still in the corner.
I looked back – I could not have been diverted more than a few seconds – and the body is gone. It disappeared, but in its place sat my three elder brothers. My oldest brother Cecil sat where the head was. My second brother Victor sat where the right foot was. My third brother Lawrence sat where the left foot was. They do not see me. I not only see them, I can read their thoughts. Their thoughts are objective to me. They are as objective as you are. Whatever they think I can see it, I hear it and see it. But to them, I am invisible; I am not present.
My brother Lawrence was the most disturbed by this peculiar, unearthly wind. He got off the bed where the body was – but the body’s gone now, he started towards the same corner because he thought it came from there. He made not more than one or two steps when his attention is attracted by something on the floor, and looking down, he announced, “It is Neville’s baby.” My brothers Cecil and Victor said, “How can Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point. He lifts the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes from the floor and places it on the bed. I am still invisible to them and I lift that infant wrapped in swaddling clothes – lift it up in my invisible hands, far more powerful than any hand in this world, and this heavenly smile breaks upon its face as I ask it, “How is my sweetheart?” To me, it was the most glorious infant ever conceived, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” And it broke into the heavenly smile, and the whole thing dissolved.
That is the sign – the first sign. You start counting from there now. This happened on the morning of the 20th of July, 1959 when the woman in me – which is the woman in every one which is called in Scripture, “Jerusalem from above,” “Zion;” this is the Great Mother that brings forth to freedom. You start counting from that day.
I’ll give you the next event. It was the sixth day of December of the same year, 1959. This time I’m back in my home in Beverly Hills. A vibration similar to this started, but strangely enough, it is not at the base of my skull – it’s at the top of my skull. It increases in intensity, and when it reaches the apex of intensity, I felt my head explode. As it exploded, here I am, seated in a modestly furnished room, and there, leaning against the side of an open door and looking out on a pastoral scene, is my son David of Biblical fame. There is David! And there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between David and myself. It’s David, and I am his father, and he knows I am his father, and he also knows he is my son. I am looking at him, drinking him in. You’ve never seen such beauty – well, you can’t describe the beauty of David. And while I am feasting upon my son, a lad of about 12 or 13 – the whole thing dissolves.
Turn the calendar, now to the 8th day of April 1960. Again, I retire without any thought in mind that something is going to happen this night. I didn’t know what the next sign was. I knew these two had happened, but I didn’t anticipate them because I was never taught them. I didn’t see them in Scripture. I didn’t foresee it; it just happened.
On the morning of the 8th of April, a bolt of lightning – out of the blue – it struck me, and split me in two from the top of my head to the base of my spine – and here I am, parted. Two halves of the being called Neville; his whole body is parted right down the entire spine – every little thing is split in two. At the base of my spine is a body of golden liquid, living light. I contemplate it. As I contemplated it, I fused with it, and then, like a serpent of spiral light, I actually moved up my entire body right into my skull. I went up like a spiral of lightning into my skull. My head vibrated as no one could conceive. It was just simply that everything shook as I got into that head. Every bone began to rattle. That’s the 8th [of April].
Then for two years and nine months, no vision – a few, but not the important ones, then, came the morning of the 1st of January 1963 – on that morning, suddenly my head became luminous. There was no circumference; there was no limit – completely luminosity. And floating above me about twenty feet is a dove – a beautiful beige dove. But it’s floating; it is not flying. There is no motion of wings, no motion of the body – just floating as a duck would float on water. And here it is above me about twenty feet. Why I did it, I do not know, but automatically I raised my left hand and held this index finger. As I did this, the dove slowly descended upon my finger. I brought it to my face and it smothered me with kisses, all over my face, my neck, and my head.
To my left was a lady – a lady, I would say, in her thirties – I would say, dressed in the Arab costume, and she said to me, “The bird,” – she didn’t call him a dove – “The bird – they avoid man, because man gives off the most offensive odor, but it demonstrated its love for you, he penetrated the ring of offense to show his love for you.” And then he came down to demonstrate it. Here is the woman talking and this bird is still kissing me, remaining upon me; and then the whole thing comes to an end.
Now, go home and compute it. The 20th day of July 1959 to the first day of January 1963 and it comes out to one thousand two hundred and sixty days. No matter how you try it, you cannot bring it out to one thousand two hundred and sixty-one or one thousand two hundred and fifty- nine – one thousand two hundred and sixty days. And this was written in Scripture one thousand years B.C. in the book of Daniel – confirmed and told us in the 11th chapter of Revelation when you begin the count. You begin the count of the one thousand two hundred and sixty days on the day of the birth of the Child.
Now, what is the child? The child is only a symbol of your birth from above. “And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.” A sign! You didn’t bring forth a child – that – a sign, and the witnesses came to bear witness to the child. Now, Scripture does not state that they were brothers. Tradition has it that they were brothers. You will find in the Encyclopedia Biblica that the three kings were brothers, they were brothers called the king of India, king of Persia, king of Arabia. Casper, Melchion, and Belshazzar. I do not say that every one has to have three brothers in order to have them as witnesses, for I know from my own experience down south that many have had it who do not have brothers, but they have had their witnesses to the event. Only in my own case, I was sent, and therefore I had to fulfill the pattern because back thirty years before it happened, back in 1929, I was taken in spirit into the Divine Assembly.
I was first taken before one with a quill in her hand and a huge ledger – it was a woman – an angelic being. She asked me no questions. She simply looked at me. As she looked at me, she turned the ledger and with the quill in her hand, she either wrote my name in or checked it off, or she wrote something. That’s all that I could see. From there, I was taken before the Risen Lord – Infinite Love. As I stood in His Presence, He asked me the simplest question in the world: “What is the greatest thing in the world?” And I answered in the words of Paul: “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” At that moment, Infinite Love embraced me. Our bodies fused, and we became one body, one spirit. He who is united with the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. At that moment I was one with Him, then I was taken before Infinite Might – the same being, a protean being – it’s God, but God Almighty. And here, He said to me, “Time to act,” as He sent me into the world. I had no idea that it would take thirty years between that moment in July of 1929 and July 1959.
Again we are told: “And at the age of 30 he began his ministry,” and you think it’s a man. No, the one taken into the body – incorporated into the body and sent − must fulfill that pattern. He is the Pattern Man sent into the world. He tells it as it unfolds in him. Others then follow. It doesn’t have to be the identical pattern. From that pattern, you unfold. Every one unfolds. I’ve recorded it just as it happened to me.
So, I tell you, these are the signs of the end. It hasn’t a thing to do with the world coming to an end. You and I entered this world, the world of death, and God in His Infinite Might, Who became us, awakens within us, and these are the signs of our departure from this world.
For God was, in the beginning, a father. If God was a father, and God became me for the purpose of actually becoming me – giving Himself to me – well then, I must be a father! Then where is my son?
Where is my son, if I am a father? It’s David. That is what I’ve been sent to tell the whole vast world: that they have been misinformed as to the Son of God. Jesus Christ is God the Father. He’s not God the Son, he is God the Father; David is his son. David is set up in the beginning of time and actually interwoven in the skull of man. One day it explodes, and he who was interwoven in man stands before him and calls him, “father” in fulfillment of Scripture – the 89th Psalm. “I have found David, and he has cried unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the Rock of my Salvation.” In fulfillment of the second Psalm: “And I will tell of the decree of the Lord,” – this is David speaking – “He said unto me, Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.”
Now we are told in the most fantastic chapter possibly in Scripture – and this is the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes and the 11th verse is considered the most difficult for any scholar to unravel. Now listen to it carefully: “And God has put eternity into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” He has put eternity into the mind of man. Well, then, what is this that He has put into the mind of man?
The word in Hebrew is Olam. We can spell it in English: O-l-a-m. You go to these cemeteries in the Hebrew world and you’ll see “Beth-olam,” the House of Eternity – no hope of resurrection, the House of Eternity – eternal house. Some call it “the world.” The King James Version translates the word “Olam” as “the world.” The Revised Standard Version translates it as “eternity.” But here is the meaning of the word.
In the 17th chapter of the first book of Samuel, the word appears three times, verse after verse. And here comes King Saul, the choice of man. Here comes David, who is the choice of God, and David appears, and the king is enamored with the beauty and courage of this youth. So he turns to his lieutenant, Abner. He said: “Abner, whose son is that youth? And Abner replies, ‘as your soul liveth O King, I cannot tell.’ He said, ‘Inquire whose son the stripling is.’ No one knows. Now comes the stripling, youth, David, with the head of Goliath in his hands, and he stands before the king – and he turns to the youth David, and he said, “Whose son are you, young man?”
Now the words “youth,” “stripling” and “young man” are defined from the Hebrew word, “olam.” The word “Olam” means a youth, it means a stripling; it means the young man.
What did God put into the mind of man? Did He not put David? Did He not put His son? “He so loved you, He gave His only begotten son.” He put David into the mind of man, that youth; and when your journey is at an end, and you depart this world of eternal death, there’s an explosion within you and only in the end do you know what God did. He so loved you; He gave Himself! For David is His son. Now when David, God’s son, calls you “father,” then you are God! There’s nothing in this world but God – nothing but God.
So, here concealed – God put it into the mind of man, but so that man could not find out from the beginning to the end what God had done. Only at the end will he know what God has done. And, then, the brain explodes, and before him stands this heavenly, heavenly youth – David.
Now, who would tell me a man born in 1905, in this year that I am the father of one that Scripture describes as having been born and lived one thousand years B.C.? Now, isn’t that nonsense? Now, listen to the words in Scripture: “And Christ said to those who listened to him, ‘what think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?’ And they answered, ‘The son of David.’ And he said, ‘Why then, did David in the spirit…’” – listen to it carefully: “…in the spirit, call him, My Lord.” If David thus called him, “My Lord,” how can he be David’s son?
“My Lord” is the term used by every son of his father; he always referred to his father as “my Lord.” He is telling you in the same, wonderful, mysterious way who he is. He is God the Father, and His only son is David, and David called him “father.” He found him. Every one who finds David is God the Father.
I don’t care what pigment of skin you have this night – I tell you, you will find David, and he’s a blond, blue-eyed lad. The blackest man that I know in this world – and I was born and raised among Negroes – tonight is the father of David and he lives in Los Angeles, and his name is Benny Gould. He had the identical experience that I had. I said, “Benny, be honest with me. Tell me, what does he look like? Define him for me.” Benny painted the most wonderful word picture of his son David.
So I am telling you, it’s a mystery. God moved into the brain – into the skull of every man. Now you could take this skull of mine tomorrow, in the not-distant future, this little thing is going to die. It could be tonight, or come tomorrow. What does it matter when it comes? It will die. They will turn it into dust. But now, having had the last signs, I no longer am restored to life to continue this journey. I will instantly wear my body of glory – that heavenly body. Those who have not had the experience will be restored to life, in spite of the fact that their body has been reduced to dust. I can describe it, but I can’t explain the mystery.
There is no death. A man drops here. He is instantly restored in a body just like what he was before, in a world just like this – terrestrial, to continue the journey, until he reaches the Signs of the End. And he matures there as he does here. He grows old there as he does here, and he dies there as he does here, to find himself once more restored to life to continue the journey. And he continues until the Signs of the End, and when the Signs of the End come – I have just described them to you; these are the signs of the end.
No, the stars will not fall. You are told in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 13th chapter of Mark, when they asked him concerning: “What are the signs of your coming?” and he tells them: “As the lightning comes from the east and goes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man.”
Now, you read that and you think: What is this? Is it going to burn the earth up? No. That was foretold in the Old Testament, but not explained, any more than he explains it there.
The 14th chapter, the 4th verse of Zechariah: He stands upon the Mount of Olives; he’s on the Mount of Olives. It only appears twice in the Old Testament – in the 14th chapter of Zechariah and the 15th chapter of Samuel, and he tells you that the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, and the one side will move northward and the other side will move southward; and that is the coming of the Son of Man. That is the day of the Lord, when you are split right down. The whole drama takes place in us. This is the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives is split from the top to the bottom, from east to west. One moves northward and one moves southward, and then the Son of Man is raised up like the serpent in the wilderness, right into Zion – right into Heaven.
Well, who would have understood it until it happened in some one? So, he said, “Seal the book – close it up until the time of the end.” And the time for the wonders to come to an end will be one time, two times, and half a time. Add them together: one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. Who would have thought that this unfolding within a man – and this is told centuries and centuries ago – that even though we have changed the calendar – for we have a thirty-one-day month and a thirty-day month and a twenty-eight-day month and a twenty-nine-day month? But in spite of the change of the calendar, it comes at one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. And yet, the Ancients did not have this calendar. They took a year as twelve times thirty. There were thirty days to a month. So, three times three hundred and sixty days, and then a half of a year – a hundred and eighty days comes to one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.
We changed the calendar. We have January with 31; and depending upon the so-called year – every four years there is leap year, we have a 28- or 29-day month. We go back to March the 31st; then we have April 30; May 31, and so on. But in spite of the division, and the change of the calendar, mine came out in this century to one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. Put it down. Make a note of it and then go home and check it. It is the 20th day of July 1959, and it ended on the first day of January 1963. If you add it up: one thousand, two hundred and sixty days. So, He sent me into the world as the Pattern Man to unfold it and tell it, and tell every one, these are the signs of the end of your journey. When these signs appear, you’ve come to the end. Until they appear, you cannot die. The world will call you dead, but nothing dies. You are restored to life, and strangely enough, in a world terrestrial just like this, in a body that is new, but unaccountably new. If eyes were missing, or arms are missing, or feet are missing, they are not missing, they are restored and you are new – not reborn, no, not reborn – just new, about twenty years of age, and you continue the journey in a world just like this: marrying, growing older and dying, just as you do here, until the end when these signs appear.
When they appear, you are at the end. So the appearance of the signs – no matter when you drop, you are clothed then in your heavenly body. It’s a body most glorious body that one could conceive. You can’t even envision it. I can tell you what I felt like. When I clothed myself in it only for that fleeting moment in ’46, before the event, I was given the privilege of tasting of the body I would wear when this little garment falls. It’s a body of light. It’s a body that has life in itself. And strangely enough, you don’t have to ask any one how to use it. It’s innate knowledge.
I didn’t walk − I glided. I didn’t need the sun, the moon, or the stars − any natural light. It was light unto itself. It illuminated as much as I wanted of the world that I wanted to observe. You could have increased the intensity. It is power. It is simply a body that is alive in itself. You are not an automaton. You are not some body that is animated from without; you are a life-giving spirit. And as I walked by, these who were waiting for me – blind, halt, withered –
[Ed. Note: the transcription of this lecture stops here. The following ending is taken from the lecture The Cup and The Cross, delivered on June 16, 1959.]
I know they waited for me. And as I passed each was refolded and refashioned into the image of perfection. Missing eyes or limbs reappeared. All became perfection because it was so that I beheld it. Then I heard the voices say: “It is finished!” and then I became crystallized again into this opacity called Neville.
So when man is lifted up all that is unlovely is lifted up and there is nothing unlovely on that higher level. Raise it up by revision.
Now let us go into the Silence.