Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Two Sides Of This Teaching”
24 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Two Sides Of This Teaching”
3/28/69
Tonight we’ll take the two sides of this teaching—that which is on this level and that which applies to the real purpose for being. On this level we see things happen like wars, revolutions, convulsions, and peace. No matter what happens in the world I say all things spring from other than the causes attributed to the real cause. War comes into being and we are told in the press, told on radio, told on TV, told all over the reason for the war, and that we do not really know, we cannot see the hidden cause. Yet the hidden cause is right here in the Imagination of man. So all things spring not from the ostensible causes to which they are attributed even though they seem quite adequate.
In the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which is April, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps David M. Shoup goes all out and makes this bold, bold claim. Now bear in mind his position…he was the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and he claims that there is an ambitious elite of high-ranking officers who are turning our country into a militaristic and aggressive nation. They prefer war to peace…only through war can they receive promotion and glory and all the distinctions that they want and to them serving in a peacetime Army is a dull, frustrating prospect. They plot and plan war to test their theories and their new instruments and they dream of war and it’s only war to them. He claims that is taking place in this elite, high-ranking officer corps in our country. Now, this is General David M. Shoup who is making this claim. He said, “Our civilians cannot understand it and cannot even believe that such men trained in our land to protect us would conceive of this and rush us into war for their own ambitions, glory and prestige. Nevertheless, that is taking place in our land.” You read it in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly, the April issue. There was a little summary of it in yesterday’s L. A. Times. You might have read that.
Where is this hidden state? The hidden state is in the Imagination of man. You can use it infernally, as they are, or you can use it as you should, towards the kingdom of heaven. You can sit down here and bring before your mind’s eye an individual who needs help, and represent that one to yourself as though they were all that you would like them to be and persuade yourself of the reality of that imaginal act, and then drop it, and they will conform to what you have done. Or you could take them into your mind’s eye and make a mess of them and they will conform to that. So you can use this creative power which is Christ in you infernally or in the most wonderful blessing way. It’s entirely up to you.
Well, when you hear these words coming from a man who was Commandant—you can’t go any higher in the Marine Corps—and here he was the General of all the Marines, this able body, and he tells us that today we have an ambitious elite of high-ranking officers preferring war to peace so that they may receive glory and prestige and promotion. And they plot and plan war, only war, for to them living in a peacetime state, performing their duty in peacetime is dull and frustrating and the most horrible prospect. He claims that our involvement in Vietnam is the result of their ambitions. He goes right out and states it. You and I are burdened with this enormous tax to continue this effort and here a small group is performing it.