Free Or Slave
by Neville Goddard
Courtesy of FreeNeville.com
I ask that you share your experiences with me because they do encourage everyone. Personally I do not need encouragement, for I have experienced scripture, but everyone who has not experienced the word of God needs encouragement.
I make the statement “Imagination Creates Reality” and I mean that seriously. Imagine as if it were true. I don’t care what it is. You can imagine the most incredible thing in the world to be true and if you are faithful to that assumption and live in that state, it will come to pass. Of that I am convinced and I know from personal experience. That is why I ask you to share with me your experiences so I may share them with those who come here.
Here is one I was told only recently. The gentleman wrote: “While sitting in my office, I was bored and thought, there certainly must be a more pleasant way of earning twice what I am now making. Well, I decided right there and then that I would do it.
For a few days I imagined having that amount and then, because nothing changed in my world, I wondered if it was really possible. Immediately I stopped the thought and reenacted the scene, which implied that I was earning twice what I was earning at the moment. I didn’t specify what the job was, only the money involved.
Two weeks later a man I have known casually for three years asked me to come work for him. He had never done that before, yet now he was insistent and when he mentioned the salary it was exactly twice what I was earning. So I went to work for him.
While there I said to myself: “This thing is magic, so why should I work? Why not have an income equal to all that I need without the socalled work?” So this is what I did. I imagined going to my mailbox, opening it and taking out the usual letters, correspondence, bills and an unidentified envelope.
Arriving home I opened the envelope and found a check in the amount I thought I would need for a long, long nonworking period. Then I saw that amount added to my balance sheet from the bank. I did that every night as I went to sleep.
Two weeks later, seeing no evidence of this whatsoever, I said to myself: “Are you going mad? This thing is completely stupid.” Then he added as a little aside, “As I once thought you were.”
Well, he’s not the only one who has thought I was mad. Even the one who awoke in scripture was called mad. Read it in the 10th of John: “No one takes my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to lift it up again.” Then those who heard said, “Why do we listen to him? He has a devil and is mad.”
In New York City in 1939 there was a bookshop on 49th Street where I loved to spend my days. I had no books in print at the time but the owners had placed my picture in the window. This day, as I approached the bookstore, two ladies were looking in the window. One lady pointed to my picture and said: “Do you know who he is? He is the mad mystic of 47th Street. You should hear him. Do you know what he tells people? That their consciousness is God. He tells you that imagining creates reality. Now, isn’t that the silliest thing in the world? You must go hear him some night.”
That took place many years ago but now this gentleman questions his own sanity as he once had questioned mine. “But…” he continues, “two weeks later I kept a date I had made many months ago with a friend. While we were visiting, he told me he had just inherited a large sum of money from an unknown relative and he urged upon me the amount, to the very dollar that I had imagined, so I took it.
That summer I did all the things I have wanted to do all of my life. I went to the beach, relaxed and generally enjoyed myself. Then a man I had never seen before called and asked me to come to work for him. I told him I didn’t want to work for anyone but he was insistent, so I took some of my work and went to see him.
The man so liked my work he called his chief client and we went to see him immediately. When I walked into the client’s office I knew I had been there before. I recognized the paneled wall, the giant oak that could be seen from the window, as well as the plant in the corner of the room.
Even the man was the same as the one I had seen, not physically, but in my imagination. After accepting the job I returned home and remembered. This is the great lesson it taught me. I remembered sitting at my desk and allowing my mind to wander. I wandered into that paneled office where I looked through that window at the giant oak. I remembered seeing the man and the plant.
Having seen it in my imagination, this is my conclusion. Imagination creates reality in the most determined, definite manner man could ever imagine. Not only does the intentional imaginal act create a fact but everyone is living by this principle every moment of time whether he knows it or cares to know it.
Whether he believes it or wants to believe it, he can’t avoid the principle that imagining creates reality. It’s not only the intentional imaginal acts but every imaginal act, for I did not wander into that room intentionally.
Now, he said, I have a plant growing in my living room. It’s the most luxurious plant you could imagine; yet every nurseryman tells me the plant cannot live under these conditions. Why is it thriving? Because I went forward in my imagination and saw it thriving. Now it is taking over my living room although all the nurserymen tell me it’s impossible.
If there is evidence for a thing, what you or I think about the matter is not important. What does it matter what anyone thinks if the evidence is produced? He has the evidence and I can’t thank him enough for that letter. These are heavenly stories that I can share with you. I don’t care what a man has done, if he knows and applies this wonderful principle of God he can set himself free.
God is a forgiving being. If he held things against us who could escape? It doesn’t matter what a man has done, God is forgiving and will forgive all because God became man that man might become God.
But remember, we are always imagining and regardless of whether your imaginal act is intentional or not, all imaginal acts become facts.
Night after night when I go to bed, my imaginative eye opens and I see worlds that are entirely different from this one. And when I intensify my sight, off I go, shot like a meteor to the place I am contemplating. I step right into that world and it becomes just as real as this one.
The energy that is one’s imagination is life itself. It animates everything in the world.
My friend allowed his mind to wander and as he did he moved into a play, entered a paneled room and observed a man, a plant and the view of an oak tree from the window. Two weeks later he physically enters the room. In his letter he said, “Now I know that you are teaching the truth, for the law is the truth and I thank you for teaching me how to use it.”
I thank him as profusely, if not more so, for sharing this with me that I can tell you these wonderful stories. Now we go to another aspect of this thought of being free or a slave. We are all slaves, for everyone is born of woman, the woman called Hagar in the Bible.
My mother was born Wilhelmina but she is Hagar. My wife is Katherine Willa but she is Hagar, for she bore a child. Every womb that brings a child into this world is the Biblical Hagar. But there is another womb, called Sarah, she is from above and brings everyone into freedom.
In the book of Genesis we are told that “Abram fell into a deep sleep and while he slept a great darkness descended upon him. And the Lord said to him, ‘Your descendants shall be sojourners in a land that is not theirs. They will be slaves there for four hundred years. After that they shall come into a great inheritance.'” And when Abraham was disturbed because he didn’t have an heir the Lord said, “Your own son will be your heir.” Then Abraham laughed because he was one hundred years old and Sarah ninety and “it had ceased to be with her after the manner of women.”
Now, this same story is told in the book of Exodus, but this time it is four hundred and thirty years instead of four hundred. “The Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt after 430 years.” Hebrew is the greatest tongue in the world, not to use among people but to express the mysteries of scripture.
In the Hebrew tongue every letter has a numerical and symbolical value. Abraham was one hundred years old. That is Qoph, whose symbol is the back of the skull. And the number four hundred has the symbolical value of the sign of the cross. It’s the twentysecond, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Tav.
We are all on the cross, for the body you wear here is the cross you bear. There is no wooden cross. Forget all that nonsense. The universal Christ is crucified on your body. That is where the Messiah, which is God Himself is crucified.
I know from experience. I am not speculating. As long as you wear the flesh, you bear the cross and that is four hundred. Not four hundred years as you and I measure time but until you take off your cross for the last time. When your journey comes to its end you will receive the glory of your heavenly inheritance. This cannot be realized in you until your garment of flesh (your cross) is removed, and it conies at the end of the 400 years.
Then why the thirty? Thirty is the price paid for a slave. The unfreed person’s price was thirty shekels of silver. We are told in the book of Exodus, “If an ox” (the symbol of Christ) “should butt, gore or kill a thing, the owner of the animal must pay to the owner of the slave thirty shekels of silver.” That is the price of the unfreed person. Everyone here is worth thirty pieces of silver.
When the messenger of Christ comes into the world and so goads you (for thirty is Lamed in Hebrew, whose symbol is an oxgoad and the twelfth letter of the alphabet) to give up your traditional concepts and move from a God of tradition into the God of experience you have been butted and thirty pieces of silver are paid for your freedom.
It is said that Judas threw the thirty pieces of silver into the temple called the place of blood. Whose blood? The blood of God. That’s the price paid for the individual who is so goaded that after hearing he has to relinquish his claim to all the past that he believed in and follow a new concept, a new interpretation of God’s word.
We are told, “This is an allegory” in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Now there was no one in scripture that was more Hebraic than Paul. He confesses, “I am of the tribe of Benjamin, a son of Abraham. A Roman by citizenship but a Hebrew of Hebrews.” He persecuted those who spoke as I have this night until he had the revelation. Then he became a great teacher of this way.
You can’t put anyone in the same category with Paul. His letter to the Galatians is a biography. In it he says, “This is an allegory. Abraham had two sons, one by a slave born according to the flesh” (that’s you and I) “and one by a free woman, born according to the promise.”
Do you know what an allegory is? It’s a story told figuratively or symbolically that needs interpretation, so that the hearer (or reader) can discover the fictitious characters and learn its lesson.
Now Paul continues his allegory saying, “Hagar bears children according to the flesh and Sarah, the Jerusalem from above, is free. She is our mother.” I have experienced both births. I don’t recall my birth from my physical mother’s womb but I know she bore me into slavery.
That’s Hagar. I didn’t know who the other one was until it happened to me on the morning of July 20, 1959 when I came out of she who is from above. Right out of my own skull. I rose within myself and came out as one being born, to find the entire symbolism of scripture unfolding before me and I cast as the central being in the drama.
The three men were present, the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, everything was perfect. I came out of the woman from above from she who bears us into freedom, while the one from below bears us into slavery. And as it was in the days of old, so it is today.
But what does scripture say? “Cast out the slave and her offspring for he shall not inherit that which is born free.” Why? Because it’s a birth into an entirely different world.
Now we came back to the true Abraham. Paul tells us: “The promise was made unto Abraham and to his offspring” (singular, not plural) “which is Christ.” In the same letter Paul says, “I labor with you until Christ be formed in you.” God the Father is forming himself in you, as you and when the form is perfect you bring forth Christ as yourself and say with the knowledge of experience, “I am He.”
God laid himself down within me to sleep and as he slept he dreamed a dream. He dreamed that he is I, and when he awoke I am he. How did I know it? Through revelation. David, in the Spirit, called me Father and God said to David: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee.” When God’s only begotten son called me Father I knew who I was. There is no other way I could ever know it.
So I tell you in the hope that you will believe me and share your experiences with me.
This wonderful letter came from a lady. She said, “It is my habit to have a pad and pencil at my night table when I retire. This morning I got up, got Dusty off to school and returned to make the bed when I discovered writing on the pad. At the moment I couldn’t recall having written on it but this is what I wrote: “A voice said, ‘I moved into the womb of woman until it was time.'”
She has moved into the womb of the woman from above. May it not be too long before she is freed. She has been having some marvellous experiences but I do not know when. No one knows, not even the son, only the Father in her. The Father sleeps in all and as he brings himself out, Christ is brought into reality.
So are you free or a slave? If you know God’s law as this gentleman does, you can be as free as the wind. Just imagine a gentleman sitting at his desk contemplating doubling his income and out of nowhere a man he had seen weekly for three years, is the instrument through which this doubling occurs.
In spite of that he wants something more. He doesn’t want to work. So he keeps a date he made months before with a man who had just received an inheritance from an unknown relative who insists he share it with him. Then he urges upon him a check for the exact amount that he, over a period of two weeks, had removed from his unidentified envelope.
So he takes off and enjoys the entire summer doing nothing. Then a call comes from one he had never seen urging him to come see him and bring some of his work. The man introduces him to the man in the office that the gentleman had slipped into while sitting at his desk dreaming a dream.
I think this is fantastic. Aside from knowing this law, he is aware that not only the intentional imaginal act produces itself in an experience, but also the unintentional. Every imaginal act is producing itself into this world, whether you want to believe it or not; therefore why not become intentional about it?
Why not take the helm and turn the ship to your true destination? We are all at sea, as it were, and we are either drifting or we can take hold of that helm and go towards the port we want. It’s entirely up to us.
So I repeat, imagining creates reality. The great steps forward in this world were made by men and women who imagined as if it were. They saw the imaginative things as though they were and built their world based upon that act. When you begin to imagine that things are as you would like them to be you break the bind, for you are a bondman, a slave until you know how to imagine and live by it.
So while you are living in the world of the slave, learn God’s law, for we are enslaved for four hundred years as long as we wear the cross the Tav. Until I take this cross off, I cannot really grasp the fantastic inheritance that is mine. I have inherited that which is untarnished, that is forever, for my inheritance is God himself. Like Paul, “I should desire to be with Christ. That is better by far but for your sake, the need is far greater that I stay on in the body.”
He had inherited the entire, fabulous promise but for the sake of those he would stay on in the body and no one really knows the nature of his end. The churches have him martyred or murdered but his death is not recorded in scripture. The churches have made a mess of scripture. They now have Jesus down to 5’3″ because of some little shroud they found 1500 years after the socalled event.
It was on TV one night with an archaeologist who brought in a picture of this little thing. When you see that you can understand why scripture says: “It pleased God to keep these things from the wise and prudent and reveal them unto babes, for of such was his gracious will.” All these wise men with all this silliness. A bishop was there, he who speaks with authority in his church now has Jesus down to 5’3″ because of this stupid little shroud.
Christ never walked the earth as the world teaches. I’m speaking of a cosmic Christ, a wholly supernatural being that is buried in man. A universal God, not some little thing that came out of the womb of a woman. He is wholly supernatural, yet they are trying to make him a thing of flesh.
Paul warned the Galatians against this saying: “Why are you so foolish, having begun with the spirit are you ending with the flesh?” But they read it and don’t see it. They have ears yet they hear not. You will never know you are He until his Son appears and calls you Father. Only then will you know who you are.
Choose this night what you wish to be, free or a slave. I tell you, you can be anything you want to be. I don’t care what the world will tell you. Don’t think me mad, as the gentleman once did and the ladies in New York. I’m not mad. I see worlds that no one sees. I commune with states and their occupants.
I commune with Blake. We are separated by two hundred years but are so closely woven in the tapestry of time. I meet these characters that seemingly are so far back in the history of time, but they are not. Not to me. Night after night as I lie on my bed I am seeing what I shouldn’t see. Then I intensify a rhythm that I am feeling within me and off I go right into the scene and explore.
I see worlds just as solidly real as this one and I am teaching there. No matter where I go, I am always teaching, telling them the word of God. And they wait for me. I have crowds waiting for me. I go, teach them and then return here. No matter where I go I’m doing the work of God, for when he embraced me I was sent.
At the moment of the embrace I became one with God and can say with Paul, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus, our Lord?”. That’s the one qualification for apostleship. And what is an apostle? One who is first called, embraced and incorporated into the body of the Risen Christ and sent.
Not only sent here but “I have other sheep that are not of this fold”. The others are not necessarily in New York City or San Francisco where I will be going this coming year. No. There are worlds within worlds within worlds out there waiting for me and I go and teach. Now that may sound as though I am as mad as a hatter, but it makes no difference to me.
If this is madness, then I am all for it. But I tell you, if you will know and live by the word of God you will discover that it pays off in enormous dividends. It will never fail you. If, after you have imagined, doubt appears, throw it out. You have done it. And remember, not only all of the intentional come into being but all the unintentional acts are just as creative.
So when the unexpected little annoyances happen, they couldn’t happen by themselves. They were brought into being by an imaginal act that is now forgotten and can remain only as long as you support them by an imaginal act. And when the annoyances cease to receive your support, they vanish. Now let us go into the silence