Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Power and the Wisdom”

30 May Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Power and the Wisdom”

Wisdom is revealed truth, which cannot be logically proven. Knowledge is science; you can prove it. You can prove the theory that you had concerning going to the moon; that can be proved. Einstein’s theories – they were theories, but in time man could devise the means to test them and either prove or disprove them. So far they’ve been proved – not completely, but they have been proved. That’s knowledge. But visions are described in Scripture as wisdom. They are revelation of divine truths. In the end, all knowledge will cease to be, but wisdom will remain – these visions that are eternal.

So Paul speaks of Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:24)

Now, what do we mean by power? Certainly, I would say, the best definition of it would be effectiveness in achieving one’s purposes. But these are the purposes of God, yet we can use power on this level to achieve a certain objective. But I am speaking, now, of the power of Christ. It’s entirely different from anything known to man, unless he has had the experience. You taste it before the end, before you awaken from this dream, you will taste of this power. And may I tell you it is startling. It’s not destructive in the sense that you blow up a city with a hydrogen bomb or many bombs. It has not a thing to do with that power.

Here is a taste of it. You come into a place just like this. When I first tasted of it many years ago, I found myself moving in time – I would say, backwards in time, judged by the costumes – judged by the clothes. I would say it was a hundred and fifty years ago in this land of ours, in the east. I would say it was in the New England states, looking at the people that I saw.

I was taken in spirit into this place. It was a wonderful restaurant of that day – 150 years ago. It was a Sunday afternoon; I could tell by the atmosphere. It was afternoon. I saw a table of four, two young men in their early 20’s; undoubtedly college students and then what would be their parents. Then came a lady – she was the waitress – bringing a tray of food to the table. She had already served the course of soup.

There was a huge, big bay window through which I could look, and through this window I could see the grass moving. The wind was blowing. It was Fall. I could see the leaves falling; they were dropping. I could see a bird in flight.

I saw other diners, and at that moment I knew that if I could arrest the activity that I felt in me, everything would stand still. I knew it! I no sooner knew it than I tried it, and I arrested not them; I arrested the activity in me – all in my head. Everything stood still. The bird flying flew not. The grass moving moved not. The leaves falling, fell not. The waitress walking walked not. The diners dining dined not. Everyone was as dead as things in the museum – as though they were made of clay. I examined them all; they were all dead. One moment before, they were all living, living beings, and everything was alive.

A bird in flight, if arrested, should fall, shouldn’t it, if gravitation is a law that is absolute. If it is arrested in flight, that thing should fall. It didn’t fall; it stood still, just as I had arrested it. Leaves I could see, but they did not fall. Everything stood still. The grass stood still. The waitress stood still. Well, that’s understandable; if you stop her, she can’t go through the floor.

And here are these diners, and one facing me – the young boy, about twenty-two years of age – he had the spoon almost to his mouth, and it was perfectly still. He could not move it. I looked at him; he looked like death itself!

Then I released that activity within me, and everything continued in its course. The bird continued in its flight. The leaves continue to fall. The waitress continued to bring the food to the table, and he brought the spoon that was here [indicating] to his mouth and completed the action. Then I knew that everything was within me; that “All that I beheld, though it appeared without, it was within – in my own wonderful human imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow. [Blake, from “Jerusalem”] It is not taking place out there at all! That’s tasting of the power.